Chapter Text
Minho had a fifty-fifty chance.
If he guessed the coin flip correctly, he’d get off scot-free. Otherwise he’d suffer a cruel and unusual punishment at the whim of his two friends.
Seungmin twirled the 500 won coin across his knuckles, then buried it in his fist as if to wield its power.
“You should have just agreed to pay for lunch,” Changbin said to Minho.
Seungmin pointedly raised a brow. “Have you ever known Minho hyung to be a graceful loser?”
“The bet was rigged as hell,” Minho protested. “You know I suck at fighting games! Of course I was gonna get the lowest score.” He punctuated his statement by grabbing the mallet of a nearby Whack-A-Mole game and bopping Changbin’s head with it. It was no more than a light tap, but Changbin dramatically collapsed to the floor anyway, crying bloody murder.
“So what’s your call?” Seungmin asked, balancing the coin on his forefinger and thumb.
Minho held up crossed fingers. “Tails.”
“Alright. One, two, three—”
Seungmin flipped the coin in the air, and as soon as it landed in his palm, he slapped it onto the back of his other hand without revealing it.
Minho eyed his two friends warily. “Wait, what’s the punishment if I guess wrong?”
“You have to ask someone out on a date in front of us,” Changbin said.
“Here? At the arcade?!”
Changbin’s cheeky smile answered the question for him.
Minho winced and looked around; the place was mostly full of high school and college-aged males who oozed a try-hard vibe with their overly gelled hairstyles and baggy jeans. Not exactly Minho’s type.
After scanning around some more, his gaze landed on a boy playing Street Fighter across the room. He looked to be in his late teens, with bangs that grazed the top of his cheeks, and he donned a plaid shirt underneath his winter jacket. Minho could only see his profile from where he stood, but it was a nice enough face considering the harsh lighting of the gaming screen.
But Minho couldn’t stomach to potentially creep anyone out by asking them out point blank, no matter how benign his intentions.
“Forget it,” Minho said, wrinkling his nose in defeat and turning back to his two friends. “I’ll just pay for our lunch.”
“And tomorrow’s lunch,” Changbin added, “as penalty for chickening out of the coin toss that you suggested.”
Minho made a face at him. He really needed new friends. “Fine.”
Seungmin shrugged and finally removed his hand to reveal the coin: it had landed on tails.
Minho walked out of the noodle shop with a heavier stomach and a significantly lighter wallet thanks to his two so-called friends. They loitered in front of King’s Arcade and half-heartedly bickered amongst themselves until Changbin and Seungmin said their goodbyes, while Minho opted to stick around and squeeze in some practice at Soulcalibur, the current bane of his existence.
Passing under a blinking neon sign, he reentered the dark hall of the arcade and obtained more tokens from the exchange machine, dumping the coins into his pocket. He then noticed that the plaid shirt-donning boy from earlier was still playing Street Fighter, though this time a larger man loomed next to him. They seemed to be arguing over something; the man’s body language was becoming more agitated as he gestured aggressively into the other’s space.
Minho inched closer to the scene until he could make out their words.
“Give me back my money,” the man said.
“No,” plaid shirt boy said, “I won fair and square.”
“There’s no fucking way some runt like you could beat me three times in a row unless you’re cheating.”
“What? We’re playing on the same machine, how could I cheat?”
The other man—who looked to be in his mid-twenties at least—straightened his shoulders and stepped into the boy’s space in a stance to intimidate. “You disrespecting your elder?”
Plaid shirt boy stood his ground and kept his eyes forward on the game screen, but his white-knuckled grip on the joystick belied his stoicism.
“Are you deaf on top of stupid?” The man-bully jabbed a finger to the boy’s temple, his tone loud and heated. But the latter remained planted in place.
Minho couldn’t disagree that boy was being colossally stupid by challenging someone twice his size and who harbored an unhealthy amount of misplaced anger. As if to prove his point, the bully shoved the boy and sent him stumbling backward. Minho’s stomach dropped, his limbs tingling with a cold dread.
“Idiot,” Minho muttered to himself. “He’s gonna get his head bashed in.”
Like cornered prey with no sense of self-preservation, the boy rose to his feet and clenched fists, though the tremble in his stance was obvious.
“I said, are you deaf—” The bully stalked closer, and when no answer was given, he raised his fist to strike the boy and—
“Hyung-nim!”
Before Minho could prepare himself for action, his body had already stepped in between the larger man and the would-be victim while barely avoiding getting decked himself. The bully’s face contorted in deeper annoyance at Minho.
“The fuck you want?”
Minho gulped audibly. Keep cool, keep calm, keep breathing.
“Hyung-nim, I deeply apologize on behalf of my friend,” Minho said with a bow. “He’s had a rough day and isn’t in his right mind.” He glanced at plaid shirt boy with a stiff smile, hoping his look of just-play-along-for-the-love-of-god was sufficiently communicated. The boy’s brow furrowed in confusion but thankfully, he kept quiet.
Minho turned to the other man again. “If you tell me how much you’re owed, I’ll reimburse you myself.”
The charged fist that had been hanging in the air (and much too close to Minho’s own face) finally unclenched and was lowered.
“Keep your dirty fucking money,” the man spat. He then air-jabbed his finger in the other boy’s direction. “And you—next time you step up to me, I won’t let your little friend come to the rescue.”
“Thanks for your understanding,” Minho said with a final bow.
“Fuck off.”
Minho didn’t exhale until the bully had snaked his way through the crowd and disappeared to the other end of the arcade hall.
“What the hell was that for?” the boy said from behind. Minho turned around and was met with a mildly irritated face rather than the tearful gratitude he’d expected (naturally).
“You’re welcome,” Minho deadpanned. “I only saved your skin.”
“Well, I didn’t ask for your help.”
Minho snorted in disbelief. No good deed goes unpunished indeed. “I’m beginning to see why you got on that guy’s nerves so quick.”
The boy’s eyes flashed with hurt as he fisted the hem of his plaid shirt, prompting an awkward silence to follow.
Minho inwardly cringed at his own ill-timed comment. He rubbed the back of his neck and scanned through the bustling crowd for an exit until something that felt suspiciously like guilt twisted in his gut.
Shit. Today was his day to be a Good Samaritan, apparently.
“Hey,” he sighed, nodding toward the Street Fighter game, “think you can handle me in a match?”
The boy looked askance at him, though the wariness subsided when the corner of Minho’s mouth quirked in appeasement.
“I’m all out of tokens,” the boy said while patting his pockets.
Minho reached into his own pocket and showed off a pile of arcade coins in the palm of his hand. “Lucky for you, I have extra.”
Following a beat of reticence, the boy picked one off and inserted it into the machine slot. Minho did the same, and the game transitioned to the character selection screen.
The match seemed to have ended as soon as it had begun, with the boy claiming victory in two straight rounds, launching lightning-quick combo attacks to which Minho had no defense. So Minho inserted another token. Then another. Before he knew it, he was staring dumbfounded at Chun Li celebrating her victory dance over Akuma’s beaten body for the umpteenth time.
“You’re bleeding me dry,” Minho said as he inserted yet another coin.
“You can give up, you know. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Not until I win a match.”
“Good luck with that. I won’t go easy on you.”
“Good, I’m not looking for a pity win.”
Minho jogged in place while shaking off the tension in his hands, a sight that the boy clearly found amusing.
“You’re weird,” he chuckled.
Minho clicked his tongue. “Is that supposed to be an insult? ’Cause if it is, you failed.”
“Not as much as you fail at Street Fighter.”
Minho’s mouth twitched into a smile at the jab, a betrayal of his put-on apathy. “If you’re gonna dis me, at least tell me your name first.”
“Han Jisung,” the boy said with a new ease, and radiant colors from the screen lit up his face at the revelation. His tongue peeked out of his mouth in an apparent habit of concentration as he readied himself for the next match.
Minho’s grip on his joystick was nowhere near confident. “I’m Lee Minho.”
Several more rounds of defeat and a sufficiently battered ego later, Minho dug into his jean pocket for the last remaining token. “One final match?”
“Someone’s a glutton for punishment,” Jisung said with a grin that was proper smug and eyes twinkling behind too-long bangs.
Cockiness suited him well, Minho decided. If the certainty of the sentiment surprised him, any chance to dwell on it was buried by the chime commencing the fight.
“How old are you?” Minho asked after he was soundly pummeled by Jisung’s in-game character for the last time. He was now relegated to spectating as Jisung, being the victor, continued to play against the game’s A.I.
“Eighteen.”
“So you’re entering uni in March?”
“Yep,” Jisung said with nil enthusiasm, his tongue peeking out farther as he aggressively tapped the buttons.
Minho studied the younger’s features that seemed to be a contradiction of roundness and sharp lines. “How come I haven’t seen you in high school? We would have overlapped a year before I graduated.”
Jisung glanced back, “You went to Yushin High?”
“Ah—no, I was at Jeongdong.”
It figured he’d be from across town; had they attended the same school, Minho was fairly sure he would’ve remembered that face.
After watching Jisung reach the final boss level, it looked as though his winning streak wouldn’t end anytime soon, so Minho silently bid farewell and headed toward the exit. Emerging from the dark and dingy arcade hall and its cacophony of sound effects, he shielded his eyes from the too-bright afternoon sun.
A glance at his pager showed no new messages from his parents, which meant he had another hour to kill before needing to head home, so he hopped onto a nearby sidewalk railing and fished out a pack of smokes. He slipped a cigarette between his lips and patted down his pockets, furrowing his brow in annoyance as he fumbled in search of the lighter.
“Take this instead,” a voice broke up his thoughts. He looked up and recognized the owner of said voice, Han Jisung, who was standing before him and offering up a lollipop of all things.
“Will that light this?” Minho mumbled around his cigarette.
Jisung pushed back his floppy bangs from his forehead. “No, but it won’t fuck up your lungs either, so I’d say it’s the better option.”
Minho paused to notice that Jisung’s hair was distractingly shiny under sunlight. “Did you come out here to lecture me?”
“As the elder one, you’re not setting a very good example of a healthy lifestyle.”
Jisung hopped up next to Minho on the railing and held up the lollipop once more. Minho made a last-ditch effort to retrieve his lighter from his pockets, and when he came up empty-handed, he pocketed the smokes and plucked the offering from Jisung’s grasp. He unwrapped it with a sigh.
“Thanks,” he said around a mouthful of lollipop. The predictable too-sugary taste was chased by a pinch of tartness. Blueberry?
They sat on the railing for a good minute without exchanging a word, and Minho wondered why the silence didn’t feel as foreign as it should have. When the heel of Minho’s sneaker tapped rhythmically against the metal bars, Jisung gripped his hands on the railing and did the same.
Minho pulled out the lollipop when roughly half had dissolved. He inspected its bright blue hue—too artificial even for sugar candy—and waved it in the other’s direction as he spoke. “How did you get so good at Street Fighter?”
Jisung shrugged. “I practice a lot.”
“I mean... shouldn’t you be doing sports instead, or whatever? Since you’re such a health expert and all.”
Jisung locked eyes with Minho for a moment before his gaze dropped to his mouth. “You assume that I have friends to play sports with,” he said with a mirthless chuckle.
Oh. The confession surprised Minho (in fact, Jisung had the sort of boyish good looks that Minho would’ve guessed put him in the popular tier at school), but he hummed and nodded anyway. He hardly knew the kid and was in no position to judge. His mouth found the lollipop again, and he bit down on the remnant with a satisfying crunch.
“Me too,” Jisung said with a smile that was not entirely mirthless.
“What?”
Jisung’s eyes fell to Minho’s mouth again, and Minho barely avoided choking on a broken candy shard.
“I also lick the lollipop till it’s half gone then bite into it. And sometimes... sometimes I don’t even lick it once. I go straight for the kill.”
“You heathen,” Minho chuckled.
Jisung snorted, keeping his eyes trained on Minho’s mouth. Heat coated the tips of Minho’s ears despite the chilled air.
“Do I have something on my face?” his said, tone rising a degree in mild frustration.
“Sorry,” Jisung glanced away sheepishly, “it’s just that your lips are all blue now.”
Minho unconsciously licked his lips. “So it wasn’t enough that you wiped the floor with me in Street Fighter—now I look like I sucked Doraemon’s ass.”
Jisung leaned forward and laughed, the sound ringing bright and clear. One hundred percent mirth, Minho judged. He hopped off the railing and tossed the lollipop stick into a nearby trash can.
“You’re leaving?” Jisung said, suddenly quieter. His shoulders stiffened in a less confident posture than before.
Minho jammed his hands in his coat pockets, one hand fidgeting with the cigarette pack, the other smoothing the candy wrapper that he’d forgotten to throw away. The sunlight that reflected off Jisung’s hair was near blinding, but it was the sad glint of his doe eyes that made Minho look away.
“You think you can teach me some Street Fighter tips?” Minho said, burying his hands deeper in his pockets. “So that, y’know, I can suck less.”
Just like that, the uncertainty lifted from Jisung’s face. “If you want.”
“Okay. You gonna be here next week?”
Jisung nodded. “I’m here on Sunday afternoons.”
“Okay.” Minho slowly turned on his heel, took two steps, then turned back around. “I’ll see you next Sunday at one.”
Jisung bit his lower lip as if attempting to hide the smile that was very obviously forming. “Actually, can you come at noon? You can buy me lunch in exchange for me teaching you.”
Audacious words for someone who was supposedly friendless.
“As long as it’s under 10,000 won,” Minho said before walking away.
* * *
“Try again,” Jisung practically shouted to be heard over the din of chatter and pew pew noises coming from a nearby space shooter. “Right, down, down-right, then press any punch button.”
It had only been a few minutes into his “tutoring” session the following Sunday at King’s Arcade, but Minho was starting to regret keeping his word, his palms already turning damp with sweat trying to keep up with Jisung’s instructions. He wiped his hands on his jeans and glanced sideways at Jisung, hoping the younger hadn’t noticed.
Jisung leaned across without warning, nearly knocking his forehead on Minho’s chin, and he placed his hands over both of Minho’s to show him the maneuvers. “If your opponent comes at you from the air, you can knock them back with a well-timed shoryuken—like this—or push forward—like this—for a high parry. If you really wanna mess them up, I recommend messatsu gou-shoryu which is like a triple shoryuken, but you can do that move only when your super meter starts flashing.”
“Sure,” Minho said, as if what Jisung had just mimed made a lick of sense. If he’d learned anything so far, it was that Jisung’s hands were slightly bigger than his own.
Jisung moved onto the next lesson in which he explained the art of jump attacks, when a male voice barked out from behind.
“You two lovebirds done yet?”
Jisung’s hands immediately fell away, and he took a large step back, his face frozen with a certain dread. Picking up on this, Minho stepped in front of Jisung to block him from the sudden aggressor—whom he recognized as the bully from last week.
Minho reached back and loosely grabbed Jisung by the wrist, and he led him to the relatively quieter section of the arcade where the crowd was playing air hockey and mini hoops.
“You good?” Minho asked, tilting his head so that he could examine Jisung’s face turned downward.
“Yeah.”
Minho gently squeezed his wrist before letting go. “Wanna play air hockey? I’m already good at that, so no need to tutor me.”
A small smile flitted across Jisung’s mouth as he nodded. They walked toward an empty table and Minho inserted the tokens into the slot.
“Watch and learn from the master,” Minho said, pushing the puck toward Jisung’s end with his circular mallet, but he’d barely uttered his words when the puck zoomed straight back into his own goal slot. That earned a giggle from both boys.
It turned out that Minho was not in fact an air hockey master, but he got his revenge by squarely beating Jisung in hoops, so they declared a truce. Minho bought overpriced pizza slices from the snack kiosk and watched in amusement as Jisung’s chipmunk cheeks grew bigger with each bite.
The male bully had hogged up an entire corner of the arcade with his buddies, polluting the air with their loud-mouthed heckling. Jisung shot an uncomfortable glance at them.
“I think I’m done for the day,” he said, buttoning up his parka to the chin. Minho raised the hood of his own jacket and they walked out into the bright winter afternoon.
Free from the oppressive din of explosions and guns sounds and testosterone-fueled trash-talk, Minho fished out a cigarette from his pocket along with a lighter (which he’d made sure not to forget this time). As he raised the flame to his face, Jisung walked backward on the sidewalk till there was a good five meters distance between them.
“What gives?” Minho said with a slight scowl. He flicked off the lighter, stick unlit.
“Finish your cancer stick first, then we’ll talk.”
The patronizing tone made Minho regret having given the younger his time of day at all. And yet—
A grunt escaped his lips when he put the cigarette away.
“Happy now?”
Jisung nodded with a satisfied smile. Approaching Minho again, he dug into his pocket and held out several wrapped candies in his palm.
“You’re like my grandmother,” Minho quipped mildly. “Always carrying around candy to feed her grandchildren with.” He plucked one from the pile anyway, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. The classic burst of strawberry greeted his tongue. Not that he’d admit it to Jisung, but sucking on overly-sweet confection did ease his craving for a nicotine hit.
He hopped on the same railing as before and bounced his heels off the bars.
“What flavor did you get?” Jisung asked as he climbed on next to him.
Mischief tugged the corner of Minho’s lips as he turned to Jisung. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?” He helpfully stuck out the candy between his teeth.
Jisung swatted at him with a noise of disgust, though his cheeks began to color rapidly. He reached into his jacket pocket again and pulled out a discman connected to a pair of tangled earphones.
When Jisung struggled to untangle the mess of wires, Minho swiped it from his grasp.
“Slow down and follow the thread,” Minho said softly, turning over the candy in his mouth in concentration. Jisung bent his head toward him to observe his fingers in action.
A moment later, having pulled the wires apart, Minho stuffed one earbud into his right ear and handed Jisung the left bud.
A dulcet male voice sang over a guitar-laced ballad when Jisung pressed play.
🎵 I won’t change anything, everything will remain as it was
So that if ever you return, nothing would be unfamiliar
Minho raised a brow at the music choice. “Yoon Jong Shin? No offense or anything, but you look more like an idol fanboy.”
“I can’t like both?”
🎵 Wherever, whenever, I would like it if you looked for me
I hope to never change, no matter what
“Good music is good music,” Jisung continued, twirling the earphone wire around his finger. “My dream is to write and produce songs for all kinds of genres one day.”
🎵 No one will try to stop me because they know I can’t forget
I’ll just live my life waiting, like I’m living in a dream
“Cool,” Minho said. He noticed an H.O.T sticker on the discman along with the initials HJS scratched next to it. “Ever think of becoming an idol too?”
“Hell no,” Jisung said. He cleared his throat and casually moved his hand to cover up the sticker. Minho smiled in amusement.
🎵 If you happen to meet another, please never let me know
I’m afraid that my pitiful self would wish you happiness
* * *
It was another Sunday afternoon, and Minho met Jisung for the third consecutive week. They ordered themselves stir-fried udon at the noodle shop next to the arcade.
Several weeks of winter break remained before Minho would enter his third year of uni, but he had little time to rest as he spent most of his days working at his parents’ health food store, leaving him a precious few hours on Sundays to empty his brain.
And that’s exactly what Minho felt when he was with Jisung: empty-headed, in the sense that he could dump any topic of conversation at him and the younger would receive him as naturally as breathing.
(Minho wasn’t sure how such an easy rapport had formed in such a short time, but he kept the thought at an arm’s length so as to not overcomplicate matters.)
Jisung confessed that he had wished to pursue music seriously, but his parents had convinced him to choose Computer Science for its stable career prospects. He quickly moved on from the subject and was more spirited to talk about his favorite manga series.
“What do you think of Y2K?” Jisung said, switching gears again.
“What about it?” Minho said with a mouthful of noodles.
“Do you think all that crazy stuff will happen? Like all of the world’s computers crashing and unleashing the apocalypse?”
The so-called Millennium bug had been a hot topic for the latter half of the decade, with the speculation that as soon as the year turned 2000, computer systems would convert it to 1900 and potentially ignite global mayhem. Fears only compounded once the new year had been ushered in. Which meant the world had less than a year to prevent a literal doomsday.
“If it happens, it happens,” Minho said matter-of-factly despite the heavy implications. He didn’t like to fret over what-ifs and preferred to focus on fixing things within his control. Like what he was doing now: reaching across the table with a napkin to wipe off noodle sauce from Jisung’s chin.
Jisung’s cheeks colored at the gesture, and he moved on to babble about how he looked forward to the next installment of One Piece.
* * *
“How does it feel to be freed from the shackles of high school education?” Minho asked on the Sunday after Jisung’s graduation.
Jisung squinted at the sky and shrugged. “Feels like I’m trading it in for the shackles of tertiary education.”
Minho huffed air through his nose. “Smartass.”
It was unusually warm for a day in February. Both Minho and Jisung had shed their parkas, and they sat on the railing as their conversation somehow morphed from angsting about the future to a Spam vs. tuna debate as the superior ingredient in kimchi stew.
“Are you kidding? Spam all the way,” Jisung argued. “Tuna makes the stew smell fishy.”
Minho scoffed. “Tuna enhances the flavor of the soup.”
“Whatever, you could get the same taste from a mackerel.”
“What an awful, terrible, incorrect opinion and I hope college education will knock some sense into you.” Minho grimaced and rummaged through his pocket. “I need a smoke in the meantime.”
Jisung leaned away with a scowl, then relaxed when he realized what Minho had actually pulled out.
“I brought my own supply this time,” Minho said, flashing a hard candy between his thumb and forefinger before popping it in his mouth. He savored the warm pineapple taste on his tongue and hummed in approval.
Jisung tapped his shoe against Minho’s. “What flavor is it?”
Minho stuck out the candy between his lips and arched a brow, once again offering Jisung to taste for himself. Jisung stilled in hesitation and fixed his gaze on the candy as if he were actually contemplating the mouth-to-mouth transfer. His eyes met Minho’s with a silent question.
“Do I have something on my face?” Minho said, sensing warmth tingling down his spine.
The younger boy snapped out of his trance and chuckled half-heartedly. “Yeah—ugliness.”
“Just for that, I’m not giving you a piece.”
Jisung jutted out his bottom lip and presented his hand to Minho, palm side up. “Sharing is caring.”
“Not with a brat like you.”
Minho dropped a piece of candy onto Jisung’s palm anyway. The gold foil scintillated under the sun as Jisung fidgeted with the ends of the wrapper.
After a couple of hours spent inside the arcade, Minho dragged Jisung to a local flower shop two blocks down. Minho surveyed the various floral arrangements with his hands linked behind his back.
“Buying flowers for your girlfriend?” Jisung asked as he followed the older around like a confused puppy.
Rather than answering, Minho picked out a vibrant bouquet of roses, lilies, and carnations. After he paid, he held out the flowers to Jisung.
“Happy graduation.”
With a soft gasp, Jisung gently cradled the arrangement in his hands, his eyes lingering long over each flower. He leaned his face into the bouquet to take in its scent and resurfaced with a heart-shaped grin.
“You assume that I have friends to play sports with.”
No matter how many times Minho replayed those words in his head, he couldn’t make sense of them. Befriending Jisung had been like second nature to him. He couldn’t fathom how someone who laughed like Jisung, who had a keen sense of humor, who listened with a tender heart, could have wandered the corridors of his school with no one to walk beside him.
The afternoon was slipping toward evening, and the two boys arrived at Minho’s bus stop.
“Jisung-ah,” Minho began carefully, “when you said you didn’t have friends... is it true?”
Jisung shrugged and raised the flower bouquet to his nose again, taking his time to breathe it in. “There were kids who were nice to me in school, but it’s not like we shared our lunches or whatever. Most of the people I hung out with were hyungs outside my school who weren’t the best influence. I wouldn’t have exactly called them friends, either.”
Minho suspected there was a complicated history behind that, but he didn’t push the issue further.
Later that week, he asked Changbin and Seungmin for a favor in exchange for the promise of free food.
* * *
The following Sunday, Minho arrived at the arcade with Seo Changbin and Kim Seungmin in tow. The former was Minho’s friend since high school, a short-statured 19 year-old with a jawline that could cut glass and a deceptively soft heart beneath his intimidating veneer. The latter was a dongsaeng, same aged as Jisung, whom he’d befriended through Changbin. Excelling in academics as well as sports, he was by far the most sensible one of the group, though he was not above lowering his IQ to play with the older boys.
Jisung greeted the two boys with a cautious bow and uncertainty flickering in his eyes.
The four boys made the rounds at King’s Arcade and shuffled from game to game. Jisung sat out most of them and hovered on the edge of their conversations, uncharacteristically muted in his demeanor. Minho resisted the temptation to baby him, figuring that Jisung would warm up to the others in time.
Seungmin and Changbin had become hooked on a military-style shooting game—though with their nonstop bickering, they shot their mouths off more than actual bullets.
“Stop hogging all the kills!” Changbin barked as he peered down the scope of the toy rifle. “Clearly you’re abusing your skills as a baseball pitcher.”
Seungmin snorted, not easing up on his shooting at all. “Maybe if you were taller you’d suck less at aiming.”
Minho turned around to share a giggle with Jisung at that, but he was met with empty space where Jisung had been standing less than a minute ago. He excused himself and scanned the crowds, but the younger was nowhere to be found.
The object of his search came into view when he stepped outside. Jisung was sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the railing, hugging his knees to his chest.
“Not having fun?” Minho settled down beside him on the cold pavement.
Jisung offered a wry smile, his bangs fluttering over his eyes and his face more sunken than usual. He looked achingly young in that moment.
“Sorry. I just... suck at being around people.”
Minho tickled the bend of Jisung’s knee. “You don’t suck at being around me.”
“Yeah, well? It’s different with you, hyung.” Jisung picked at the jean fabric where Minho’s fingers had touched. “You don’t judge me like others do.”
“So what if people judge you? You can judge them right back.”
“I guess I’d rather not deal with any of that stuff.”
Minho reached over to gently lift Jisung’s fidgeting hand from his knee. “You’re gonna poke a hole if you keep doing that.” Without meaning to, his thumb stroked the inside of Jisung’s wrist before he let go.
Befuddled by his own action, Minho crossed his arms to his chest and changed the subject. “Hey, have I mentioned that Changbin’s studying music?”
“Really?” Jisung faintly perked up. “Does he play an instrument?”
“Actually, he wants to produce music like you do. Like professionally.”
The usual spark returned to Jisung’s demeanor for the first time that day. “For real?”
Minho nodded. “That’s why I wanted you guys to meet. I think you’d have a lot in common.”
“Lee Minho!” a voice called out. Speak of the devil. Minho looked up and saw Changbin and Seungmin approaching, the older of the two wagging an accusatory finger. “You practically beg us to come here only to ditch us like this?”
“And where’s that free food you promised us?” Seungmin joined in, patting his stomach.
Minho rose to his feet and dusted off his jeans, then pulled Jisung to his feet by the hand. Their fingers interlaced for a split second before separating.
“Both of you take a chill pill,” Minho quipped. “There’s a good sundubu place a few blocks down.”
The four boys grumbled amicably amongst each other as they headed down the street (though Jisung mostly listened in amusement). They made an impromptu stop at a music shop, where Changbin and Jisung oohed and aahed over the various instruments. With a satisfied heart, Minho watched the two make small talk over their musical knowledge. Seungmin put on a mini concert as he played Kim Gun Mo’s “Beautiful Goodbye” on a Casio keyboard (because of course he’d be proficient at piano too), and Jisung leaned warmly into Minho’s side as the notes filled the room.
* * *
“You should come over to my place some time,” Minho suggested one spring afternoon over a game of air hockey. “Shit!” he hissed when Jisung scored another goal. He retrieved the puck and shoved it with a loud clack.
Jisung deftly fielded the puck that had ricocheted toward him. “I doubt my aunt and uncle would be cool with that.”
“Aunt and uncle?”
Jisung cursed under his breath when Minho scored a goal of his own. “My parents recently relocated to Malaysia for their business, with my older brother, so now I live with my relatives and commute from their house.”
Minho nodded in acknowledgment. “Are they strict?”
“They’re nice folks, but they’re kind of stressed over me being in college. Always looking over my shoulder, you know? Especially since my parents have expectations of me.” Jisung punctuated with an emphatic strike of the puck. “It’s a miracle that I graduated high school to be honest, so now I’m pretty much confined to the house and the library.”
“But you’re allowed at the arcade every weekend, no?”
Jisung shrugged, his demeanor sullen. “Only until this month.” He scored another goal, winning the game 7-5. The look on his face was anything but victorious.
Time for a positive distraction, then. Minho cocked his head and waved Jisung over to the Street Fighter game from which the earlier crowd had finally dispersed.
“What if you came over to study?” Minho said, inserting tokens into the machine.
Jisung snorted. “As if my aunt and uncle would believe that.”
As they commenced the brawl on screen, something gnawed at Minho at the idea of not seeing Jisung on Sundays anymore. It was difficult to deny that they’d forged a special bond in the short three months they’d gotten to know each other.
Minho tossed out another suggestion amidst the chaotic sounds of punches and kicks. “What if I tutored you, then?”
“On what?”
“Whatever you need help with.” Minho bit his lip in concentration as he parried Jisung’s attacks. “I don’t know much about comp sci but I can help you with basic course studi—holyshitIwon?!” He stared with mouth agape at his fighter doing a victory pose over Jisung’s prone—and very much defeated—character on screen.
“You did it,” Jisung said with a proud grin. “The student has become the master.”
Caught up in the adrenaline rush of victory, Minho lifted Jisung in his arms and spun him around. The younger boy shrieked and laughed into his ear.
“Hyung, you’re embarrassing,” Jisung said when he was lowered back down, though his smile hadn’t faded at all.
“Come over today?” Minho blurted out, a little breathless. His arms remained loosely circled around Jisung’s tiny waist. “I mean, for tutoring, if you’re allowed.”
The lights from a nearby game illuminated Jisung in a flood of changing colors, matching the fireworks going off in Minho’s own chest. (It’s just the high of victory, was his hasty reasoning.)
Jisung’s hands clasped over Minho’s shoulders as if he’d wanted to pull him in a hug before thinking better of it. “Okay,” he said with a faint smile. “Let me call home first. Can I borrow change for the payphone?”
An hour later, Jisung was sitting next to Minho on their way to the older boy’s home, their knees knocking and the backs of their hands brushing with each sway of the bus.
Feeling his chest swell with affection, Minho briefly linked their pinkies together. Jisung turned to look out the window, his bashful smile visible in the glass reflection.
“So what are you supposed to tutor me in?” Jisung said. He sat cross-legged on Minho’s bed while hugging a Badtz-Maru plush to his stomach.
He and Minho had spent the past hour playing with Minho’s cat, Soonie, instead of whatever studying they needed to do.
Minho was slumped in his desk chair with Soonie curled in his lap. “I don’t know. English maybe?” He picked up his cat and dangled him in the air like he was christening baby Simba. Soonie wriggled free from his grasp and leapt away with an indignant meow.
“Are you good at it?” Jisung asked.
“Not really. But I guess we can go over the workbooks together?”
“If you say so.”
Minho dragged in an extra chair for Jisung to sit in at the desk, and he cracked open his Advanced English Grammar book, his mood a million miles from studious. Jisung slid his chair closer to follow Minho reading aloud the rules of the past perfect tense. The younger’s brow creased adorably in concentration.
By the third page of examples, it was clear that both boys had reached their limit for dry grammar rules.
“I am bored,” Jisung whined in English. “I was bored. I will be bored. I had been bored.”
Minho’s eyes watered after the massive yawn he’d just unleashed. “Me too.”
A knock from the door sent the boys sitting bolt upright in their chairs. The kind visage of Minho’s mother appeared in the doorway; she’d brought a plateful of sliced Asian pears.
“It’s nice to see you boys studying so well,” she said, placing the fruit on the desk.
Minho flashed her a thumbs-up.
Before closing the door behind her, she turned around and added, “Minho-yah, I’m going to the store to help out your father. There’s fresh yaksik in the kitchen if you boys are hungry later.”
“Okay. Thanks, mom,” Minho said with the modest smile of a Good Son (a look he’d practiced years to perfect, effective in fending off his parents’ prodding).
With the whole apartment to themselves now and free from parental scrutiny, it didn’t take Minho long to ditch the workbook and replace it with another reading material that was more up their alley.
“You have the whole series?” Jisung’s eyes sparkled in awe at the collection of Slam Dunk comics lining Minho’s bookshelf. “I’ve always wanted to read it.”
“Now you can.” Minho pulled out the first volume and tossed it to Jisung. “Feel free to read on the bed.”
Jisung plopped onto the bed with his back against the wall, and he tucked the Badtz-Maru plush under one arm while holding the book in the other. He looked at Minho expectantly and patted the empty space beside him.
Minho didn’t stand a chance against those doe eyes that seemed to cut right to his soul. He joined Jisung on the bed and eyed the book’s opening scene which he knew by heart, but when Jisung scooted closer to give Minho a better reading view, the words and art jumped off the page with a new meaning.
* * *
So far Minho’s third year of business studies rolled by uneventfully. He considered himself lucky; granted, it would have been ideal to live out his college life on campus, but commuting from home made the most logical and financial sense. His parents had let him take the reins of his academic life as he had long promised to eventually take over the family store. His peers might have called it settling for less, but to Minho, it was the path that made most sense.
Facing less academic pressure also meant that he had more time to see his friends; and most importantly, Jisung. Minho’s parents applauded their son for taking such a nice boy under his wings and shared the sentiment with Jisung’s aunt and uncle, thus allowing them to meet twice a week for tutoring on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons.
Shockingly, Minho did manage to teach Jisung some subjects (the fate of their friendship hinged on this small detail, after all) but as soon as he sensed that Jisung was bored with their lesson, they dove straight into his comic book collection.
“Hyung,” Jisung piped up one evening when it was just the two of them in Minho’s apartment. Soonie was curled up on a textbook on the desk with his fur glowing a warm, pleasant orange under the desk lamp.
Minho had barely caught Jisung calling his name; he’d been distracted by the gripping action sequence from the manhwa he was reading.
“Hm?”
“Why do you smoke?”
Minho lifted his head to him. “Why do you ask?”
Jisung propped up his head on an elbow on the desk and scratched Soonie’s ears with his free hand. “I dunno. I kind of wish you would quit.”
Minho sighed, “I know.” He closed his book and leaned back in his chair, raising his arms over his head to stretch his cramped back. “But it’s not like I do it every day—only when I’m extra stressed.”
“That’s the problem! You’re always stressed these days.”
“Am not.”
“Then why do you smell like smoke whenever I see you?”
Feeling like he’d been pinned like some helpless moth, Minho had no good answer for that. He was saved when the clock revealed it was time for Jisung to go home.
Minho stood up first and grabbed his zip up hoodie. “C’mon, you’ll miss your bus.”
The two boys stepped into the mild spring night, and they arrived at the bus stop in time to catch the pair of headlights approaching.
As the bus door hissed open, Jisung turned around to face Minho, urgency shining in his eyes. He awkwardly clutched onto the straps of his backpack.
“Hyung... I—I wanna say sorry in advance,” he stammered.
“For what?”
“Just know that I did it because I care about you.”
Minho cocked his head, feeling lost. “Jisung-ah, what the heck are you talking about.”
The smile that Jisung gave matched his apologetic tone. “Good night, hyung.”
Minho stood on the sidewalk until the bus vanished down the road. He always stayed behind like this, to make sure that the younger was safe till the very last second he was in view, but tonight Minho was rooted to the ground by confusion more than anything.
In an unconscious urge he reached into his hoodie pocket for his cigarettes, but his hand found mostly empty space. He scowled, more than certain that he had put them in his pocket earlier that very day.
Then his fingers brushed against something hard, something that crinkled in a suspiciously familiar manner.
He huffed a resigned laugh when his hand emerged with half a dozen wrapped candies.
* * *
“Swel-ter-ing,” Jisung read aloud from the English vocabulary book. “Adjective. Means oppressively hot.”
Minho groaned dramatically. He’d been lying on the bed with his legs thrown over Jisung’s lap. “You mean like right now? Actually, is there a stronger word than that? Cause that’s what it fucking feels like.”
“Hell?”
“Yeah, that’s more like it.”
The air was thick with humidity and made breathing an act of labor. Though he’d stripped down to just shorts and a cutoff shirt, Minho desperately wanted to rid himself of any layer that touched his skin. He plucked at his shirt and fanned himself rapidly.
“Jisung-ah, you should escape this hellhole and go home. Our a/c won’t be fixed for a while.”
“I’m good,” Jisung said, moving to lie down next to Minho on the bed. Jisung’s bangs were plastered to his forehead, and when he pushed them back, his hair was sculpted in place by his sweat.
Minho found that cute, if a little gross. But mostly cute. Because just about everything Han Jisung did reeked of goddamn cuteness.
Despite the heat wave that threatened to melt him to the bone, Minho appreciated the summer—more specifically, this summer break that gave him more time to be with Jisung when he wasn’t tied up with helping out at the store. And it wasn’t as though he didn’t have other friends to hang with, but most of his peers had disappeared into internships (Changbin), or were perpetually busy with sports engagements (Seungmin).
Jisung rolled over on his back and opened up a volume of Slam Dunk.
“That again?” Minho said. He flipped over onto his stomach to let his back cool off. “Aren’t you sick of reading it by now?”
“Whatever,” Jisung grumbled. “It’s a good series.”
Minho poked Jisung’s plush cheek with a finger. “Are you sure you read it for the plot,” he teased, waggling a brow, “or to drool over the characters? I’ve seen the way you stare at Rukawa.”
The pregnant pause that followed told Minho everything he needed to know. Jisung brought the book closer to his face to hide the desperate flush that was now creeping up.
“So it’s true!” Minho cackled.
“Shut up,” Jisung said. He placed the book on his chest and turned to face Minho directly. A determination sparked in his eyes despite the fierce blush coloring his cheeks. “Fine. I admit it, okay? I think Rukawa is beautiful. Sue me for having taste.”
A heavy exhalation through his nose, then he resumed his reading.
The air between them tapered to silence again, charged with a different energy this time. Something tightened in Minho’s stomach over Jisung’s blurted confession. It wasn’t that he objected to Jisung finding another guy attractive; in fact, they’d both fawned over other men before in not so subtle ways. But this was the first time Jisung had described anyone as beautiful.
A voice in the back of his head heckled him with an ugly word: jealousy.
Over a fictional character? Fucking ridiculous. He dismissed the notion and buried it with the usual light-hearted banter.
“Sakuragi is hotter,” Minho said to be contrarian.
“Sorry for your blindness,” Jisung retorted, his mouth twitching in a faint smirk.
Minho inched toward Jisung until their shoulders were pressed together, and he angled his head closer for a better view of the comic till he could feel Jisung’s hair tickle his cheek. Their bodily positions weren’t very conducive to cooling off, but he wasn’t sure if it was the sweltering heat that made his skin tingle hotly all over.
His fingers twitched in a craving for a smoke, but keeping in mind whose company he was in, he reached into his pocket for his preferred craving suppressant.
“Shiny,” Jisung commented at the foil-wrapped confection in Minho’s hand.
“By the way, you owe me like 100,000 won for stealing all my cigarettes.”
“Hey, not true!” Jisung protested. “I always replace them with candy, so we’re even.”
The truth was that Minho didn’t mind—and in a twisted way, even looked forward to—Jisung swiping his cigarettes when the older boy wasn’t looking. Jisung’s intentions were pure, plus Minho couldn’t deny the spark of bliss whenever his hand bumped into sugary confection in his pocket.
Minho took his time to unwrap the candy since it had turned sticky from incubating in his pocket. He dropped the candy in his mouth and lazily held it between his lips, pushing the lump in and out with his tongue. A pleasant fruity flavor filled his senses.
Jisung had held the book open to the same page for a while now, and when Minho turned to question him, he was immediately pinned under Jisung’s gaze that had shifted into something new—glinting with a hunger for something that Minho couldn’t name.
The sight made Minho’s heart jump.
A faint hitch a breath, then Jisung’s eyes fell to Minho’s mouth. “What flavor is it?”
“Find out for yourself,” Minho uttered the familiar challenge, pushing out the candy halfway through his lips. Despite the hammering in his chest, Minho steeled his expression to give away nothing but the usual teasing. He knew Jisung would never take the bait. This was their warped little game of chicken that they’d been playing for months.
And yet he found himself being proven wrong as the very thought crossed his mind.
“Okay,” Jisung whispered, his voice a rasp.
He lifted his head from the pillow and inched closer, stopping when he was a mere breath from Minho’s face. From this close up, Jisung glowed with the lightest sheen of sweat.
(Minho was fairly certain his own sweaty display was less elegant.)
When Minho didn’t flinch or turn away, Jisung leaned in to close the last bit of distance, his eyes lowered to reveal a fanning of pretty lashes. His lips grazed Minho’s as he gingerly grasped the candy between his teeth; a small noise of frustration left him when it didn’t budge. Jisung stilled for a moment as if to adjust his strategy, then flicked his tongue against Minho’s teeth to finally dislodge the sugary lump, sucking lightly to secure it between his own lips.
His mouth curled in a triumphant smile around the candy he had successfully extracted—the candy that glistened with their shared spit. Minho didn’t know what to make of that.
He swallowed thickly.
“Apple,” Jisung said breezily. The confection clacked lightly against his teeth as he spoke. “Do I get a prize for guessing right?”
“Yeah, I have your prize right here.”
Pushing past any tripped-up feelings, Minho pulled Jisung in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles on his head.
“Agh!” Jisung laughed while swatting him away and smoothing down his own hair. “Rukawa would never be this mean.”
Minho stuck out his tongue. “If you like him so much, why don’t you marry him?”
“Ew?? I’m gonna pretend you didn’t use that corny ass line on me.”
“Whatever. I’m prettier than Rukawa anyway.”
That earned a chuckle from Jisung, though he neither confirmed nor denied Minho’s statement. He opened up the comic book to where he’d left off.
“Lemme see,” Minho said, pulling the corner of the book, suddenly feeling petulant for his attention.
Jisung easily obliged by turning his body toward Minho and moving the book closer to the older boy’s side.
It made no sense for two people to be lying this close to each other in the middle of a heat wave, but Minho didn’t protest when Jisung swung a leg over and tangled their limbs.
“Tell me if I’m going too fast,” Jisung whispered as he turned another page.
Heat rose in Minho’s cheeks before he registered that Jisung was talking about the book.
With his senses clouded by the scent of apple flavored candy, Minho’s vision lingered on the same scene of Sakuragi making a jump shot. He couldn’t help but feel that he’d lost the plot.
* * *
The heat wave passed, but Minho’s apartment remained a veritable kiln. Heat wave or not, summer days without a working air conditioner turned any living space into a sauna. Minho felt sanest at night when the heat and humidity weren’t as stifling.
Minho and Jisung had arrived at the bus stop shelter earlier than usual to escape the unbearable stuffiness of the older boy’s home. They sat lengthwise on the bench with Jisung’s discman in between them and a crescent moon above, and they shared the same pair of earphones. The bright and happy chords of Cool’s “Woman on the Beach” entertained their ears.
“I wanna visit the beach,” Minho said as he handed the earbud back to Jisung.
“I thought you couldn’t swim?”
“I can’t. But I mean that I wanna visit at night, when no one else is around. Not to swim but just to see how it looks. I’ve never seen the sea at night.” He absently scratched his ear lobe. “Which is dumb now that I think of it, since I have a fear of water.”
“Is that why you don’t shower?”
Jisung laughed, raising his arms to defend himself from the inevitable attack.
“Shut it, you dweeb,” Minho chortled and gave Jisung’s shoulder a playful shove. “For clarification, large bodies of water freak me out. It’s a legit phobia!”
“I think I get it though. It’s like... sometimes you wanna experience something terrifying but... riveting? Inspiring?”
Something sank in Minho’s chest as he watched Jisung and reflected on all that he’d come to adore about the younger. His endearing fashion sense, for one; right now he wore an Akira graphic t-shirt over loose-fitting shorts, and his feet were clad in Air Jordans that were at least two sizes too big. The night winds caused his shirt to billow around his small frame, making him look even smaller, more vulnerable.
Jisung tapped his lower lip in thought. “Terrifying but...”
“Beautiful,” Minho finished for him.
Jisung paused, his expression unreadable in the dark.
“Yeah,” he finally agreed.
* * *
Minho knew he was probably staring at Jisung as if he had grown another head, but he couldn’t help repeating what Jisung had just said.
“You flunked your first semester?!”
Jisung shielded his eyes from the dazzling sun and took another bite of his bungeo-ppang. He hoisted himself onto their usual sidewalk railing. “Are you really surprised? It’s not like we got much studying done together.”
“Yeah, but—” Minho scratched the back of his head and sighed, leaning against the railing instead of hopping onto it. “I thought you’d at least pass your classes!” He stared down at his own half-eaten bungeo-ppang and felt his appetite being eclipsed by guilt. “Sorry for being such a shitty hyung.”
Jisung scowled in disapproval. “You’re not.”
“I should have pressured you to study harder.”
“Psh. Then I would have stopped hanging out with you.”
“And maybe that’s for the better. I’m obviously a terrible influence on the youths.” Minho took a joyless bite of the fish-shaped bread.
“It’s not you, hyung,” Jisung assured in exasperation. “Comp sci just isn’t my jam.”
“So what will you do now? Enlist?”
Jisung snorted. “I wish. My uncle said I’ll be privately tutored for a while at my parents’ wishes. Then I guess I’ll transfer to another school and try not to flunk out of that one too.”
Not wishing to overstep boundaries or potentially pick at old scars, Minho prodded him gently with the obvious question. “What about pursuing music?”
The smile that Jisung put on didn’t reach his eyes.
“Maybe. I might audition to become an idol. It’ll be nice to have an army of devoted fangirls at my behest. What do you think?”
“Don’t leave out your fan boys,” Minho said, nudging him with an elbow. “You know I’d be president of your fan club.”
Jisung laughed and bounced his heels off the metal bars. “Thanks, hyung. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
* * *
“Happy birthday!”
Distracted from the shooting game, Minho removed his finger from the trigger and lowered the plastic handgun into the machine holster. Jisung had fished out something from his backpack.
Minho blinked several times at the gift-wrapped lump of package that was placed in his hands. It weighed heavy in his palms, and he could hear the jangling of what sounded like jostling coins.
He threw a confused look at Jisung and said, “My birthday isn’t for another three weeks.”
“I know, dummy. But I’ll be in Malaysia by then, remember?”
Minho did remember, but it wasn’t a detail he liked to dwell on ever since Jisung had told him of his travel plans last week. He was to leave for Malaysia after this weekend to visit his parents and older brother, and would be back at some nebulous point in time at the end of the year.
The screen of the shooting game annoyingly flashed “GAME OVER!”
The air inside the arcade was suddenly stifling, so Minho suggested taking a breather outside.
“Go on, open it,” Jisung said as soon as they stepped in the autumn air.
Minho gave the package a slight shake that elicited a chorus of jangling metal. “Are you donating your piggy bank to me?”
Jisung rolled his eyes as Minho proceeded to rip away the layers of gift wrap until a singular jar was revealed. More specifically, it was the jar of citron tea—yujacha—that Minho had given to Jisung months ago when the younger had caught a cold. The label was covered up with colorful doodles of Soonie and Minho’s original character Jureumi, all crudely drawn but imbued with heart. Instead of yuja marmalade, a pile of arcade coins was packed inside the jar.
“Whoa,” Minho said, speechless at first, until delighted laughter bubbled from his chest.
“Something to keep you busy while I’m gone,” Jisung said.
Minho tried not to focus on the way his heart sank at those last three words. Clutching the precious jar to his chest, he couldn’t help but feel that his own birthday gift to Jisung last month—a poster of Slam Dunk—paled pitifully in comparison. The gift he himself received was equal parts ridiculous and thoughtful, much like Han Jisung himself.
Minho brushed his knuckles to Jisung’s cheek that had turned rosy. “Thank you. I’ll be a pro at Street Fighter by the time you come back.”
* * *
Minho wondered if Jisung hadn’t carried with him some sort of time-warping gravitational force, because without him around, time had slowed to an inexplicable crawl. Nonetheless, Minho powered through the fall semester while the rest of the world buzzed in nervous anticipation of Y2K; he kept his head down and focused on finishing up his paper on business analytics as winter break approached.
The media frenzy over Y2K reached a crescendo on New Year’s Eve. While his parents were glued to the TV watching newscasters describe (often in gruesome detail) the chaos that could unfold should computers fail worldwide, Minho tried his best to ignore the hysteria by drowning himself in the latest volume of Hikaru no Go.
It was too bad that Jisung wasn’t here to read this with him, Minho thought distractedly. He would’ve loved it.
Tink.
He dropped the book to his chest and lifted his head at the noise.
Another tink from the window, louder this time.
His first thought was that of a bird flying into his window, but in the dead of winter? Not likely.
Which led his imagination to more sinister possibilities. He’d seen enough teen horror flicks to know the consequences of letting one’s guard down, and being located a mere two floors up, his apartment would’ve been easy for any masked antagonist to break into.
He drew a deep breath to temper his imagination, and he pushed himself out of bed to slowly reach for the baseball bat leaning in the corner against the bookshelf.
Tink!
With his muscles tensed for action and a hand firmly gripped around the bat, he peeked through the window blinds.
There was nothing but black.
A scowl settled on his face as he opened the blinds and squinted at the darkness outside—until he caught a pair of waving arms below. He quickly discerned that the arms were attached to a very familiar boy.
“The hell...?” Minho whispered to himself. He set down the bat to raise open the window, and was greeted with a gust of icy air.
“Hyung! It’s me!” Jisung whisper-shouted from below.
Minho blinked hard to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. His mouth curved in an eager grin once he confirmed that it was indeed his friend, in the flesh, after nearly three months of absence.
“You’re back?!” Minho said, leaning farther out of the window in excitement.
Jisung bounced on the balls of his feet and frantically waved at him to come down.
“Alright, fine,” Minho laughed, realizing the bizarre scenario he was in. The previously imagined slasher flick had turned into an ’80s teen romcom. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
He picked up a sweatshirt to throw on, but nixed it in favor of his favorite crew neck sweater and pair of fitted jeans. (Just because Jisung was his friend didn’t mean Minho could present himself like a slob.) He slipped into his parka and hurried down the flights of stairs.
He’d taken two steps outside before he was stopped by two arms enveloping him in a bear hug.
“Hyung, hyung, hyung,” Jisung said into the crook of his neck, swaying their bodies side to side as they clung to each other.
“What, what, what.”
After some more babbled exchanges, Minho stepped back, still holding onto Jisung’s arms. The younger was thoroughly dressed for the wintry weather in a puffer jacket and adorable knitted hat with flaps over the ears, and a heavily stuffed backpack was slung over his shoulders.
Minho’s chest twinged at the sight. He’d missed this so much. He’d missed Jisung.
He spoke as he gently pulled the earflap of Jisung’s hat. “Long time no see. Are your aunt and uncle okay with you being here?”
“It’s Y2K eve,” Jisung dodged the question, releasing clouds of breath in the air. “It could be the last night of our lives as we know it.”
“You think something bad will happen?”
Jisung’s eyes shined with more curiosity than fear. “I don’t know. But we have just a few hours before we find out, right?” He reached down to take Minho’s hand and began to lead them down the darkened street.
“Jisung-ah?”
“I have a surprise for you, hyung.”
“Where are we going?”
A squeeze to Minho’s hand. “You’ll see.”
The words only made Minho’s heart gallop faster in anticipation.
Minho followed Jisung onto a bus, and when he’d calmed down enough from having been whisked away out of the blue, he asked how the other had been doing. Jisung spoke of the time spent with his older brother (whom it was clear Jisung was extremely fond of) and the Malaysian foods he fell in love with, though avoiding mentioning his parents. Knowing how strict they were, Minho figured it was fair.
A bus transfer later, they stepped into a less familiar part of town. They cut through several blocks until the outline of a rectangular and minimalist style building came into view. It was separated from the other residential parts of the neighborhood.
“Isn’t that the recreation center?” Minho said.
Jisung nodded. The building was shrouded in darkness save for a few outdoor lights spaced out on the walls.
“Is that where we’re headed?”
Another nod.
“Don’t tell me we’re gonna break in,” Minho said, a hint of a nervous wobble in his voice. “I’d rather not spend my New Year’s eve in a jail cell.”
Instead of answering, Jisung led them through the parking lot and toward the back entrance. Minho shot a cursory peek through the windows as he passed by, but he could only see pitch black beyond the warped reflection of his moving figure.
They stopped when they reached a metal door. Jisung pulled out a key from his pocket and unlocked the door with a click that echoed too loudly in the still night air. Trepidation snowballed in Minho’s gut.
“What the hell? Where did you get that?” Minho said through his teeth. He half-expected to be interrupted by police sirens at any moment now.
“A hyung I know owed me a favor,” Jisung vaguely offered. He raised his index finger to his lips in a gesture of silence, flicked on a mini flashlight, and motioned Minho to follow inside.
Minho took a deep breath and walked in.
Guided by the small cone of light, they navigated through empty hallways of foreboding dark, keeping their footsteps light.
They walked through what appeared to be a changing room with rows of lockers. Finally Jisung stopped when they reached wooden double doors, which he unlocked with another key. He pushed through the doors with a whispered “ta-da.”
The faint scent of chlorine hit Minho’s nose before he recognized the dull glimmer of still water before him.
Confusion weighed down his tongue, so Minho watched Jisung set his backpack on the tiled floor and begin to pull out its contents. He unfurled a beach towel by the pool’s edge and placed a handful of small seashells around it.
Minho blinked down at the crouched boy. “Care to explain what’s going on?”
“You said you wanted to see the ocean at night, right?” Jisung tossed a crab plush at Minho to catch, but it ricocheted out of Minho’s grasp and landed on the towel. “Since I can’t take us to an actual beach, I figured this would be the next best thing.”
He tilted his head up at the older with a fond gaze. Honeyed warmth filled Minho to the core. It took several moments to find his voice again.
“I... you didn’t have to do this,” Minho said. He was nonetheless touched by the gesture and hoped the softness in his tone conveyed it. “You should’ve done something that you wanna do.”
“I am.” Jisung rummaged through the bag again and tossed him a piece of fabric: a pair of dark blue swimming trunks. “You can wear this, hyung.”
Minho squinted, holding it up gingerly between his forefinger and thumb. “Is this yours? How do I know you haven’t peed in it before?”
“It’s clean, you dork,” Jisung said with an eye roll. “And I barely wore it once since it’s too big on me.”
“Are you saying I have a fat ass?”
“Maybe.”
Sputtering a laugh, Jisung shot up and retreated farther along the pool to escape retaliation.
The hall was cavernous and pitch-dark save for the moonlight spilling in through the row of long windows. Jisung quietly shed his layers of winter clothing at the far corner of the swimming pool. Not wishing to invade his privacy, Minho turned away and stripped off his own jacket and toed off his sneakers and socks, though going no further than that.
The sound of water splashing cut through the silence. Minho turned around to see Jisung surfacing with a brisk head shake, his thick hair flattened wetly over his face. He pushed the strands back from his eyes and leisurely paddled toward the other end of the pool.
“Hyung-ah, get in the water! The temperature is perfect for swimming!”
Minho sat on the beach towel and tossed the crab plush between his hands. “Nah, I’m good.”
“Party pooper.”
After swimming two laps, Jisung emerged from the pool and padded across the tiled floor, leaving a trail of dripping water behind. The red hue of his swim trunks matched the menace twinkling in his eyes as he approached the older boy.
“Don’t—!” Minho tried to shield himself with his arms, but it was too late. A vigorous head shake sent a hail of droplets splashing onto his once perfectly dry sweater and jeans. He made a motion to fling one of the seashells at Jisung, then absently pocketed it seeing that the younger had already escaped into the pool. Jisung’s mirthful laughter echoed throughout the hall.
Minho sat back on his hands and observed Jisung drift through the water in lazy backstrokes, the moonlight highlighting the topography of lithe muscle and the ripples of water with each smooth motion.
Minho’s stomach felt a rippling of its own from hunger. He rummaged through Jisung’s backpack in hopes to find a snack stowed away, but he found Jisung’s trusty discman instead.
The H.O.T sticker had mostly peeled away and clung to the CD player like a vestige of teenage obsession. He then noticed that another set of initials had been carved next to the HJS on the discman: LMH.
Tracing the letters with his finger, he couldn’t resist the smile that tugged the corners of his mouth.
He put on Jisung’s earphones and pressed play.
The piano ballad that came on wasn’t familiar; its lyrics spoke of a weary snail heading toward the ocean at the world’s end, with only the memory of waves to guide it.
He lay down on his back on the towel, closed his eyes, and played the track on loop.
“Hyung?”
Minho slowly blinked once, twice, and opened his bleary eyes. Had he fallen asleep?
“It’s almost midnight.”
Jisung was crouched beside him, his wet hair adorably mussed.
“Oh shit,” Minho mumbled as he sat up and pulled out the earphones. The clock that hung on the near wall told him there was 15 minutes left before the new year.
“Come in the water with me,” Jisung said, lightly grasping Minho by the arm. “Pleeeeease.”
“You know I can’t swim.”
“You don’t have to. We can chill in the shallow end.”
The pout on Jisung’s face pushed out his cheeks adorably. Minho’s hand moved to caress the younger’s face, but he diverted the motion to push himself up off the floor while grabbing the spare swim trunks.
“Fine,” Minho yielded, feeling his face flush a little. “Now go away so I can change.”
Jisung gasped in faux offense. “I’m an honorable man!” He slapped his hands over his eyes and turned on his heel.
Not entirely trusting the honor system, Minho headed toward the darker corner beyond the moonlight’s reach, and he stripped off his clothes in record time and hopped into the swim trunks, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste. The air that hit his skin was cooler than expected. He hugged his own torso to quell the goosebumps and tentatively shuffled toward the shallow end of the pool.
“Cannonball!” Jisung yelled as he launched into the air, tucked his knees to his chest and dive bombed into the water. When he resurfaced, he waded toward Minho who had barely dipped a foot in.
“You’re cute when you’re scared,” Jisung teased.
Minho shot him a glare. “Shut up, Han Jisung.”
With slow, deliberate breaths he waded farther into the pool till the water hit his navel. His stomach dropped when his balance wobbled slightly, and his hand flailed out to grab the edge of the pool.
Jisung extended his hand to him over the water. “Just a bit more, hyung.”
Releasing a deep exhale, Minho inched ahead once more, the water now rising to his chest. Mild panic rushed through his system at the dense pressure around his lungs—the sensation he most dreaded—tricking him to thinking he was suffocating. With eyes squeezed tightly shut, he braced himself for retreat, though his feet moved no quicker than as if they were fighting quicksand.
A warm hand caught his own. Jisung’s voice was gentle but sure.
“Don’t worry hyung, I got you.”
“I swear to god if I drown—”
“I promise to say only glowing things at your funeral.”
Minho pried an eye open. “Brat.”
Jisung’s hands found Minho’s waist to steady him. “Think you can handle going deeper?”
“No!” Minho’s eyes snapped wide open and his hands flew up to clutch Jisung’s shoulders. “Just... stay here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Jisung then glanced up at the clock. “Five minutes till doomsday.” A rueful smile punctuated his words.
“Don’t say that.”
“Would Y2K really be so bad?”
Minho raised a brow. “What do you mean?”
“The world would stop in its tracks, right?” Jisung’s eyes gleamed in half uncertainty, half wonder. “Trains would stop running, planes would be grounded, no cars in the streets. We’d all stop running away from each other. All the world’s cities would go dark and we could finally see the stars in the sky.”
“You make the apocalypse sound romantic.”
“Or maybe... maybe I don’t want this moment to end. Maybe I just want to stay like this with you, hyung.”
“In a crappy public swimming pool?” Minho jested, though his own heart pounded in his chest with such force he could feel it in his toes.
Jisung took a step closer, gently stirring the water around him. The air between them was charged. Goosebumps resurfaced on Minho’s skin.
Words failed Minho in the face of such vulnerability, so he let his actions do the talking. The hands that gripped Jisung’s shoulders slid back until his fingers were interlaced behind the younger’s neck, and he tilted his head and leaned forward, slow enough to give the other time to turn away. He stopped when his breath ghosted Jisung’s lips.
He wasn’t sure who closed that last bit of distance, but it was a trivial detail in the scheme of things. Jisung’s lips were soft and assured against his own. It wasn’t Minho’s first kiss, though he thought it could be his most memorable; one that tasted of chlorine and moonlight.
A generous splash of water hit Minho’s face as soon as their bodies separated. Before either could take another breath, the two were embroiled in a fierce water fight. Minho’s water slapping technique lacked finesse, but in the end his brute force sent Jisung swimming away crying foul.
Having inhaled enough chlorinated water to last him for a while, Minho climbed out of the pool and picked up one of the body towels that Jisung had brought. After completing a few more laps, Jisung followed suit. They dried themselves off in silence and changed back into their clothes on opposite ends of the pool.
“I love you, hyung.”
It was almost as though Jisung pushed out the words as an afterthought. Minho had zipped up his jacket and was folding up the beach towel when the words were uttered from close behind, and he spun around where he stood.
Jisung had changed back into a simple plaid shirt and distressed jeans, and was hugging his jacket to his chest. He looked up with the faintest glimmer of hope in his eyes.
Minho stood anchored to the moment with his mouth slightly agape. Those three words hadn’t crossed his mind—at least not in any concrete way—nor had he practiced a pithy response to such a declaration.
He answered in the only way that made sense to him in that moment: by holding Jisung’s jacket open for him and helping the younger bundle up, though his hands trembled slightly from the weight of the confession. He wrapped Jisung’s scarf snugly around his neck and warned him not to linger outside too long with his hair in its damp state. It was easy to avert Jisung’s searching gaze in the shadowed corner of the pool hall in which they stood.
But Minho also knew that Jisung deserved a proper answer, so he made a silent promise to untangle his own feelings and figure out how those three words fit between then.
The two boys packed up their things and covered up their tracks, making their exit back into the brisk coldness of night without further fuss.
“Hey,” Minho said as they walked away from the building, “since it’s winter break again, wanna hang at the arcade for old time’s sake? I’m free on Tuesday.”
Jisung gently bumped his shoulder to Minho’s. “Those were the best times.”
Minho hummed in agreement, then looked all around him. It was well past midnight—nothing had changed. No sirens, no blackouts, no crowd hysterically crying in the streets. Lights glowed warmly from nearby houses. The streetlights cast their lights dutifully without interruption.
The same thought seemed to be running through Jisung’s mind at that moment. He swiveled his head this way and that as if searching for anything out of place. He was answered with the mundane and distant barking of a dog, and the few cars that passed them by traveled at a perfectly normal speed.
Perhaps it was too soon to tell, but for all the hysteria that had surrounded Y2K, the new millennium was off to a rather anticlimactic start. Minho looked forward to going home and celebrating by hugging his cat.
He offered to walk Jisung to his bus stop, but the other declined since their respective stops lay in opposite directions.
“Alright,” Minho said, poking a gloved finger to Jisung’s cheek. “See you Tuesday at noon?”
“Get home safe,” Jisung said as he gave a parting wave, his eyes turning into shimmering crescents.
* * *
Minho glanced at his pager for the umpteenth time on Tuesday afternoon.
He had opted to kill time playing Street Fighter while waiting for Jisung to arrive, and accidentally fell into a winning streak which kept him busy for a while. Though it was just his luck to put on his best performance when Jisung wasn’t around to witness it.
“Whoa, you’re good,” a teenage girl with heavy bangs remarked over his shoulder.
Unable to shake the jittery feeling in his stomach, he yielded his spot to the girl.
“Have fun,” he said, dropping a game token in her hand.
He pushed out of the stuffy arcade and leaned against the wall near the entrance, keeping an eye out for any signs of the younger boy.
Another half hour passed of watching strangers walk in and out of the arcade. He bought tteokbokki on a stick to quell the hunger that had risen from the prolonged wait. Something was off. Jisung was never this late, and if he couldn’t make it, he’d always made sure to page him with a heads-up.
Maybe he got sick, Minho thought as he tossed the wooden skewer into the trash. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Jisung had caught a nasty cold that night after swimming and failing to dry off properly. Minho pondered dropping off some citron tea for him just in case.
He stopped by his parents’ shop to pick up a jarful of yujacha and dialed Jisung’s home number from the backroom.
“Hello?” a woman’s gentle voice answered. Jisung’s aunt, he presumed.
“Mrs. Han?” he spoke into the phone. “This is Lee Minho.”
“Ah, Minho, it’s been awhile. How can I help?”
“Sorry for the disturbance, but is Jisung there?”
A brief pause. “Jisung isn’t here.”
“Oh, I see,” Minho said, looping a finger around the phone cord. “When would be a good time to call back?”
A heavier silence crackled over the line before she continued. “Minho-yah, you don’t know?”
A faint unease settled in his gut; he sat up straighter in his chair. “About what?”
“He’s gone to America. He’ll be living with his relatives there from now on.”
Minho rapidly blinked a few times, unable to process what he had just heard. “Wait, I don’t underst—living in America? As in permanently?”
“I’m afraid so.”
His grip on the phone tightened and his face had gone rigid in rapidly growing confusion. “Sorry, but I still don’t... this is all so sudden. When did he...?”
“He left the day before yesterday.”
“But I just saw him over the weekend—”
The sigh that the older woman let out was drenched in sympathy. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way. I thought Jisungie would’ve told you of all people. His family had been planning his move ever since he was pulled from school.”
The phone receiver felt too heavy to hold in his hand. None of this made any goddamn sense. It seemed a mere blink ago that he’d seen a very real Jisung wave at him under a very real new year’s sky, and his chest seized up with a cold dissonance; to think that while he was asleep in the comfort of his own bed, Jisung had already been lost to him by an unknowable distance.
Why hadn’t Jisung told him?
Even worse—what if Jisung had told him in his own way and Minho had been too foolish to grasp it? His mind stumbled through the night at the swimming pool, desperate for any clues to make sense of this.
Suddenly, Minho recalled the younger boy’s words with aching clarity.
“...Trains would stop running, planes would be grounded... Maybe I just want to stay like this with you, hyung.”
His vision began to blur with wetness, but he kept his voice steady over the line. “Is there an address or number I can reach him at?”
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to share. His education is top priority now, and his parents instructed that he cut all ties here... I’m sure you understand.”
“Oh... I... yes. I understand.”
He thanked the older woman with words that were empty and polite, and she promised to pass along his well wishes to Jisung before ending the call.
He stared blankly at the jar of yujacha that he had so easily imagined he could place in Jisung’s own hands.
Minho didn’t understand at all.