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Han Jisung is a reasonable person. He pays his taxes on time, he responds to his messages within the day, and when he says he’s going to « just grab a drink », he means it.
It is therefore entirely reasonable to state that what follows is not his fault.
Han knows Minho’s laugh by heart.
It’s something he has never consciously thought about, there was never any reason for it to be a subject of reflection, but if someone had asked him on any given Tuesday, he could have answered with unsettling precision. There’s the small exhale, slightly condescending but affectionate, the one that comes out when Han makes an obvious mistake and Minho finds it endearing rather than irritating. There’s the short laugh, almost dry, of someone who’s been caught off guard despite themselves. There’s the social laugh, polished, kept at a controlled volume, distributed in company with the parsimony of a man who knows exactly what his reactions are worth.
And then there’s the real one.
Han has heard it maybe five times in two years of living together. Maybe six. Minho’s real laugh is a rare and slightly spectacular thing: it scrunches his eyes until they’re almost completely closed, takes over his entire face, transforms it into something different, something less controlled, something closer to the real Minho he usually keeps hidden beneath several layers of sovereign calm. Han has heard Minho’s real laugh during a stupid movie on a November evening, during an anecdote from their friend Changbin that had gone very badly for the latter, two or three times in circumstances he can’t precisely recall.
What he knows with certainty, and without ever having needed to put it into words: he has never provoked it himself. Not once.
That’s not something that bothered him. There’s no reason it should have bothered him. People have different registers of laughter depending on who they’re with, that’s perfectly normal, Han himself laughs differently with Changbin than with his mother, it’s not a ranking, it’s not a hierarchy.
It takes someone else to make him understand that. That someone else is Changbin, on a Thursday evening, three weeks before the bar.
They’re on the apartment couch, Changbin and him, watching a show nobody consciously chose and nobody is really watching. Minho is in his room. Han can hear him walking occasionally, one step, two steps, the chair creaking. Changbin has his feet on the coffee table, which Minho strictly forbids, and he’s eating chips with the tranquil enthusiasm of someone who knows he won’t be there for the cleanup.
« He’s quiet tonight », says Changbin.
« He’s working on something. A project or whatever. »
« You know what it is? »
Han nods vaguely. In reality, he doesn’t know exactly. He knows Minho had two calls this week, that he spent Tuesday on his laptop, that he ate standing over the sink on Wednesday because he didn’t have time to sit down. He knows all of this without having asked.
« You two seem very close », says Changbin.
« We’re roommates. »
« Yeah but you’re really close. »
Han doesn’t know what that means and decides it means nothing at all. He takes some chips. The show continues. Changbin looks like he’s waiting for something, which is one of his most annoying habits. Changbin often waits for things others haven’t understood yet.
« What do you mean by that? », Jisung asks.
« Nothing », says Changbin, with the exact intonation of someone who knows precisely what he means.
He eats another chip. Crunches into it serenely. Han searches for a response that would close the subject cleanly but can’t find one, which is rare enough to be mildly irritating.
« He’s attentive with everyone », Han says finally. « It’s his thing. »
« Mmh. »
« Mmh what? »
« Nothing. »
Han decides not to push it. That’s exactly what Changbin wants and Han refuses to give him that satisfaction. There’s nothing to push anyway. He says nothing more. Minho’s room is silent now.
The problem with Minho, if there is one, and Han isn’t certain there is, is that he’s difficult to ignore.
It’s not a matter of physical presence, though Minho takes up space with an economy of movement that says more than constant agitation would. It’s not a matter of personality either: Minho speaks little, observes a lot, gives his opinion when he deems it useful and not otherwise. He’s an ideal roommate, in theory. Clean, discreet, reliable, he buys milk before Han notices they’ve run out, he turns off the lights Han leaves on without comment.
The problem, if there is a problem, is that he’s attentive.
It’s the Tuesday when Han turned in a catastrophic project and Minho, without being told anything, ordered food and set the containers on the table with surgical precision, Han’s dish in the right spot, chopsticks already out, and didn’t ask how it had gone because he knew Han didn’t want to talk about it. It’s the Thursday when Han was humming something under his breath while doing the dishes and Minho, from the hallway, said « you’re off at the second verse » without any meanness, just as information, and Han had replayed the verse in his head and Minho was right. It’s the Saturday morning when Han had fallen asleep on the couch because he’d forgotten to go to bed, and woke up with a blanket someone had laid over him.
It’s also the way Minho looks at Han when Han talks about something that excites him: not with condescension, not with impatience, just a quiet attention, the kind of attention that makes you feel like what you’re saying matters. Han had told Changbin once that Minho was a good audience. Changbin had reacted in a way that was difficult to classify.
These things have no particular significance. People do things for their roommates, it’s a normal mechanism of cohabitation, it has nothing to do with anything. Han Jisung is a reasonable person and he does not turn a blanket on a couch into a prose poem.
He keeps not thinking about it. He’s very good at not thinking about it.
Two weeks before the bar, there’s the candle evening.
That’s an internal designation, Han has never said it out loud. What happened: power cut, seven pm on a Friday, the whole building plunged into darkness, and Minho who found candles in a cupboard with the composure of someone who anticipates this kind of situation. They settled in the living room, just like that, because there was nothing else to do. The candlelight on Minho’s face did something strange, something slightly unreal, and Han had looked away.
They’d talked for two hours. Not about important things, no grand revelations: nonsense, anecdotes, opinions on completely minor subjects. Whether escalators that aren’t working are just normal stairs or a category of their own. Whether people who order their steak well-done deserve empathy. Whether February is a month or just a calendrical error.
Minho had laughed twice. Not the real one, but something close.
Han had noted that, mentally, without asking himself why he was noting it. He had also noted, just as unconsciously, that Minho in the dark was slightly different from Minho under the hallway fluorescents. Less armored, maybe. Or simply more visible, because there was nothing else to look at. They’d stayed close on the couch because the candles gave off little light.
Once, Minho had turned his head to say something and they’d found themselves at a distance Han had found very close, and Minho had said what he had to say without pausing, as though the distance were normal, which it was, completely normal, and Han had answered normally too.
He’d just taken half a second too long.
The power came back at nine. They blew out the candles. Minho went to bed. Han stayed in the living room for another ten minutes staring at the smoking wicks and wondering vaguely why he had the feeling something had ended.
He concluded it was tiredness. He didn’t dig any further. He’s reasonable.
Five days before the bar, Changbin sends him a message at eleven at night.
The message says: « hypothetical question. » Which means the question isn’t hypothetical at all.
Han replies « go ahead » with the resignation of someone who knows Changbin will ask it anyway.
« if minho started seeing someone. how would you react »
Han stares at the screen. He has the immediate reaction of someone being asked something perfectly innocuous: nothing, no reaction, just the normal processing of normal information. He types « I’d be fine, good for him » and sends it.
Thirty seconds of silence.
« you answered too fast »
« no »
« yes »
« Changbin it’s almost midnight »
« that’s not a reason »
Han puts down his phone. Picks it up again. The question still echoes, not because it affects him but because Changbin has the gift of phrasing things in a way that makes them heavier than they are. It’s a particular skill and Han hates it.
He types: « why are you asking me this? »
Changbin takes a long time to respond. Then: « just wondering. good night »
Han turns off the light. He thinks about the question for longer than he should. Then he decides it’s because he’s tired and that questions from Changbin naturally take up more space than they deserve.
If Minho started seeing someone.
Han pictures the scene: a stranger, woman or man, a new presence in the apartment, shifted routines, different mornings. He pictures having to make conversation, having to share the space, having to accept that Minho would look at someone else with that quiet attention he reserves for things that matter to him.
He decides this projection is perfectly normal and that it tells him nothing about himself.
He’d be fine. Good for him.
Anyway. Back to the present:
The bar is the kind of place that fancies itself a wine cellar without the budget or the selection for it. The background music is too soft to identify, just present enough to cover the conversations at neighboring tables. Han orders a beer, settles onto a stool, and sets about doing exactly what he planned: thinking about nothing. Especially not his overdue project. Especially not the fact that he told his boss it would be ready by Friday. Especially not the fact that this Friday is eight hours away.
He drinks. He stares vaguely at the bottles lined up behind the bar. He thinks about other things: insignificant, benign things, the metro ride over, a show he stopped watching mid-season for no particular reason. His brain starts to relax, like a muscle held too long under tension.
That’s when he hears the laugh.
Han doesn’t turn his head right away. His brain first registers the sound as abstract data: someone is laughing, it’s a bar, people laugh in bars, nothing more normal than that. Then something in the data doesn’t add up. Something in the frequency, in the texture, in the way the sound rises before breaking slightly at the end.
He turns his head.
Minho. Two tables away. Sitting across from someone whose back Han can only see: tall, long hair, black dress shirt, which is either a fashion mistake or a statement of intent in a bar like this. Minho’s eyes are completely scrunched. His whole face has changed. He’s still laughing, quieter now, and he presses a flat hand on the table as if to steady himself, and Han recognizes the gesture because he’s seen it very rarely and it has lodged itself in his memory without asking permission.
His brain registers the information: Minho doesn’t laugh like that when I talk.
Han sets down his glass.
He stays still for thirty seconds. He should look away. He should order another beer or find something interesting in the patterns on the bar or simply exist in his corner without turning his roommate’s night out into an event. These thirty seconds would be better spent thinking about his Friday project.
He crosses the bar.
What follows is, in retrospect, a series of decisions a wiser man would not have made. He places his hand on the back of Minho’s chair. He says « Hey » with the confidence of someone who has absolutely no plan B.
Minho looks up. So does the stranger.
Han has met attractive people in his life. He’s not naive. But there’s ordinary attractive: acceptable symmetry, adequate grooming; and then there’s this: a beauty that’s almost offensive, as if this man had never had to make the slightest effort to exist. Impeccable long hair, high cheekbones, full lips, black shirt slightly unbuttoned with the calculated carelessness of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.
He smiles politely at Han. « Nice to meet you ».
His voice is calm. Very calm. The kind of calm that makes others feel too loud just for breathing.
Minho makes introductions: « Jisung, this is Hyunjin, a friend from university, do you want to sit down? » and Han says no too quickly, because part of him has already understood what he’s seeing and that part would rather not have it confirmed. Unfortunately, his brain keeps running, assembles the pieces: small table, two glasses, atmosphere, smile, and his mouth, entirely independent of the rest, asks:
« Is this a date? »
The silence that follows has a particular texture.
Minho looks at him the way you look at someone you care about deeply but who has just done something catastrophic. Hyunjin, for his part, observes him with a completely serene curiosity, and says:
« I’d say I’m exploring the idea. »
Han takes three seconds to respond. Three seconds during which his brain spins in neutral like an engine without fuel.
« Exploring… like uncharted territory? »
That’s not what he meant to say. He doesn’t know exactly what he meant to say. Hyunjin seems to find this interesting rather than insulting, which is either perfect politeness or something considerably worse.
« And you? » he says. « Are you exploring the idea too? »
Han stares at him. Minho says a silent prayer to some deity. And Han, who finds the question completely absurd, says:
« He’s my roommate. »
He points at Minho. As if that were the only obvious answer.
Hyunjin nods with the slowness of someone who is not at all convinced. Han hates that. He drains his glass, says « happy exploring » in a perfectly neutral voice, and retreats with the dignity of a man who knows how to recognize defeat.
Two streets away, Han Jisung is talking to himself on the sidewalk.
That’s not unusual. Except that normally he talks to himself to find solutions. Here, he’s talking to himself to demolish arguments nobody has made to him.
« Minho can date whoever he wants. It’s none of your business. You’re his roommate. »
A passerby looks at him. Han ignores them.
A roommate who ruins his dates.
He stops in front of his building. His brain, which has no consideration for him whatsoever, replays the scene on a loop: Minho’s real laugh, Hyunjin’s calm voice, the very precise idea that those two people are still back there, in that bar he liked fine twenty minutes ago and doesn’t like at all anymore. He climbs the stairs. Each step comes with a slightly useless thought.
They’ve known each other since university.
He stops halfway up.
I’ve known him for a long time too.
He starts walking again. It’s not the same thing and he knows it.
In the apartment, he throws his hoodie on the couch. He picks up his phone, puts it down, picks it up again: a reflex gesture, pointless, the screen is dark. Obviously. He drops onto the couch and stares at the ceiling with the focus of someone trying not to think, which is, as always, the least effective method for not thinking.
If he’s actually seeing him…
He lets the sentence hang. Thinks about it seriously. Then:
« …I’m going to have to be mature about it. »
He frowns.
« That sucks. »
The last image that comes back to him, before he closes his eyes, is Minho laughing: that real laugh, eyes scrunched, his whole face in it; and that Hyunjin across from him, as still as a surface of dormant water.
Han sighs.
« …ok. Maybe I’m a little jealous. »
He lets the word exist for a few seconds. Then, because he is a reasonable person:
« That doesn’t change anything at all. »
He turns off the light. His project is still overdue. He chooses not to think about that either.