Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

⁂ NOW ⁂

June 2012

Jeonghan isn’t sure how to spin this one. Usually he can take even the most inconvenient situation and chew his way to the center to find something sweet, but this is bitter all the way through.

Not the hospital. The hospital is whatever.

Being here is nothing new and Jeonghan knows the drill by now—flirt with the nurses enough to make eomma less worried, drink lots of water, sit up sometimes, bring a book. It’s routine in a way that shouldn’t be.

His body hurts, yes, and he’s tired, yes, and he’s miserable, yes. Sure. Maybe he fainted, a little. He doesn’t have any choice but to laugh about it.

It’s a special little vacation, is what he tells himself. A chance to get different bedsores or to stare up at a different ceiling. This time he’s not even in a fun ward so there’s no hospital drama or anything. Isolation is… isolating.

No, Jeonghan isn’t worried about being back in the hospital again. They’ll take his blood and tell him the same thing they’re always telling him, except they’ll say everything to his mom even though he’s in the room, and they’ll forget to tell him what medication they’re giving him and it’ll make him feel unimportant and small, just like everything else does about being sick. Capital S, Sick.

The most important rule of hospital visits is: pretend to be asleep when appa comes. Jeonghan’s father only comes for the serious stuff, the conversations with the doctor they’re still pretending Jeonghan doesn’t overhear.

If he’s asleep, if he’s lucky, they’ll talk in the room.

“His white blood cell count is still dangerously high,” Dr. Kim Yeongsoo murmurs over the beeping of the heart monitor and the slow, settled breathing Jeonghan is putting on. “Hopefully, with Suneung behind him—”

“Ah,” Jeonghan’s mom whispers, “He didn’t... He has to take it again.”

Jeonghan hears his heart monitor speed up. Fuck.

“Hani,” His mother says, leaning forward to brush a hand over his forehead, “You awake?”

Jeonghan inhales the clean scent of his mother’s perfume and shakes his head no.

There’s an ugly feeling that stays with him, born of untouched wooden spoons and sandals, of a reality where his mother feels like she’s allowed to be disappointed in him. Where he can’t swallow pills and he only gets sick around Chuseok.

He takes 50,000 won from her wallet when she leaves, because he knows she won’t say anything.

“Okay, Jeonghan,” a trilling, saccharine voice calls out from his doorway. “Mom gone? We just need to take a little blood.”

He sits up a little in bed to see Hyerim, who he’s decided is his least favorite nurse on the floor. She gives him a tight smile and drops the blood drawing supplies on the blanket covering his legs.

“She’s getting dinner,” Jeonghan replies sweetly. “Back soon.”

“Sure. Palm up,” she says, pulling some gloves out from the box next to his bed. Jeonghan holds out one of his arms, already studying for what vein he thinks she might use. Another form of useless hospital entertainment—pretending he can do their job just as well because of personal experience. He spots an especially blue vein right on the outer folds of his elbow and smiles ruefully at it. Say your prayers, little one.

Hyerim’s hands are fucking cold and way too tight against his skin as she pushes the needle in without warning him.

This is why she’s his least favorite. Jeonghan winces; she missed, again, and he can already feel the bruise making its way to the surface of his skin.

“Oopsie,” Hyerim says, sliding the needle in and out looking for the vein, setting his skin on fire. It hurts so fucking badly that Jeonghan has to bite his lip to keep from screaming, but he knows better than to move or force her off of him. Just get it over with and don’t move.

Don’t move.

Hyerim finally finds blood and jostles his arm again to fill the vials. He hisses sharply and Hyerim gives him a comforting pat on his arm that just makes everything worse. He feels like he’s going to cry—fuck, why is he going to cry?

He watches his blood spray into the vial and thinks deliriously, No, come back, I need you in here. Hyerim finishes up and pulls the needle out easily, completely oblivious to the way Jeonghan is on the verge of tears.

“So easy, like always,” Hyerim says, giving him another smile. She means it as a compliment, Jeonghan knows that, he knows she’s just trying to be nice but her words set something on fire inside of him and she needs to leave now, before something comes out of him he can’t afford to lose.

Hyerim leaves, Jeonghan’s blood in her hands, and Jeonghan feels another part of himself get further and further away and the separation anxiety hits him like a truck. He might stop breathing—is he breathing right now? What’s happening? He looks desperately around the room. It’s the same grey walls and curtains and ugly wooden chairs but everything looks like it wants something from him.

He rips the cotton pad off his arm and looks at the tiny orange stain from the needle, ignoring the way the adhesive tears red lines into his arm.

He wants to leave—he imagines it in his head over the desperate pounding of his own pulse in his ears, reminding him how much blood he has left to give. What if he walked out the door? Would they stop him? What if he jumped out the window? What floor is he on?

Jeonghan decides it—he’s going to stand up. He’s going to stand up and walk out and go home. He’s going to eat a whole fucking pizza and swim in the stream and get a sunburn. He’s going to go.

He stands up and suddenly he can’t see anything for a second, two seconds, three.

Jeonghan collapses back into the bed.

“Fuck,” he hisses. He’s not going to cry, he’s not. He won’t. He can’t.

He lets out a shuddering breath and curls in on himself, feeling his knees bite into each other painfully. It hurts just to lie down, hurts to stand up, hurts to get better. His doctor had warned his parents it was going to get worse before he got better; that healing and hurting are usually synonymous. It was a hard pill for his parents to swallow, watching him suffer for his health, but it feels like nothing compared to right now, where Jeonghan is living it inside his body.

He tastes salt as his face screws up pathetically, but he doesn’t care. He’s thinking about pizza, about a huge pie with corn and cheese and pepperoni and he sobs, his stomach empty and hostile.

The tears don’t even come easy—he feels like he has to squeeze them out like he’s throwing them up.

It’ll feel better coming up. That’s what his mom usually says while she pats his back on the bathroom floor. It’ll feel better coming up.

It doesn’t feel better, but it doesn’t feel worse, either. Jeonghan cries until his mom comes back from dinner, embarrassed the whole time that she might find him asleep on a tear-soaked pillow. If she does, she doesn’t mention it. She probably thinks he’s owed a couple of tears anyway and Jeonghan allows himself the self-pity of agreeing. He does deserve these tears.

⟳⟳⟳

November 2010

He’s 17 and something is wrong with him and no one at school believes him. He can barely wake up for school in the morning, has red welts on his palms from falling asleep in academy and a mountain of homework piling up every night.

One night, he goes to the CU around the corner from his house and walks out with a couple bottles of soju without paying. No one stops him and he even gives the auntie working the counter a smile. She’s always wearing a full face of dramatic make-up and clothes that are better suited to a night out than a night stocking shelves. But tonight she seems distracted and without thinking much about it, Jeonghan uses that to his advantage, swiping a couple green glass bottles that clink in his school bag on the way out.

It’s the kind of activity you do with friends, Jeonghan remembers thinking. Getting drunk in a park on a bench in front of some plastic monstrosity meant for kids to fall off. He considered calling up Younghoon or Sanghun, but they’re still poking him in the ribs all the time and it hurts and Jeonghan doesn’t know how to tell them it hurts, so he doesn’t.

He sits inside of a slide and chugs all three bottles, the taste sweet and sharp in his mouth, and heads down to the stream near the park. There’s no one there, not even a gaggle of pigeons.

His phone buzzes in his pocket. He flips it open to see a text from his dad.

Jeonghan’s steps aren’t steady, and with soju in his bloodstream they become wobblier and wobblier, until he’s swaying in and out of the bike lane on the side of the stream. There’s a soft noise, like a frog jumping into the water, and Jeonghan turns his head to see the faint outline of a crane standing in the shallow water of the river.

He crouches unsteadily in the long grass lining the stream to roll up his pants past swollen knees and pry off his shoes. The crane is looking at him warily, but it stands its ground. Good. It owns this part of the stream, not Jeonghan. He just wants to feel the water.

The first touch of the stream against his feet makes him gasp and pitch to the side. It’s freezing, so cold that he can barely feel the rough outline of the rocks against his feet.

The crane unfolds its wings and ruffles its feathers.

“Hi,” Jeonghan whispers to the bird. “Hi, hi, hi.”

He takes another step out into the stream, feeling the water rush over his calves from a thousand meters away.

The water feels good as it rushes over his aching ankles and toes. It’s frigid and distantly he can feel himself shiver but it feels more and more like his feet are dissolving into the water until the ache is gone, finally gone. He takes another step forward, passing the crane in pursuit of that nothing feeling, that relief.

The water soaks the rolled hem of his school pants, plastering the fabric to his thighs and still he wades, looking down at the dark of the water and imagining his pain leaching out of every terrible joint in his knees, swirling downstream like an oil spill. It feels like nothing at all.

The current of the stream is strong as it batters against his thighs, but he can’t feel anything. He can’t feel anything.

He sinks down to his knees and lets the stream soak through his shirt, up to his chest. It’s horrible for a second, the pain of the cold water so complete and violent that he can’t catch a breath.

Then it fades, and his ribs stop hurting, and his elbows and his fingers and his back and his neck and he’s wet and soaking and shivering and he can’t feel anything at all.

⁂ NOW ⁂

Jeonghan is discharged happily from the hospital three days later with the same advice he always gets: don’t stress yourself out and keep out of trouble.

His mother is waiting at the car with a worried expression on her face that seems baked in. It’s been there since he was 15, probably, tied up and tangled in the wrinkles around her eyes. He wonders what she looks like when he’s not around.

“Did you pay my bail?” He asks his mother. She gives him a small, wavy smile.

“You’re going to be mad at me,” she says. She looks scared.

Jeonghan grins and opens the car door. “Why?”

“Your father and I—” she sighs and then makes for the driver’s seat before continuing. “Your father and I spoke to Doctor Kim and he says—well, honey, are you sure you want to re-sit for the test so soon? We told you, we’re just proud of you for even taking it—”

“Eomma,” Jeonghan interrupts, “I already signed up. You paid the fees.”

His mother looks at him, searching his face, and then starts the car. The engine turns over quietly and they pass over several speed bumps that rattle Jeonghan’s bones before she speaks again.

“It’s just—the doctor said, you know, that you’re too stressed out, and so we thought that maybe you needed a break, some time away from the city.”

She doesn’t look at him when she says it, two hands gripping the steering wheel tight as she makes a U-turn into the oncoming lane. Jeonghan frowns.

“Are you sending me somewhere? I told you, it’s fine, Minji even said she would tutor me again—” They stop short at a red light.

“I already called your aunt,” Jeonghan’s mother says quietly, like it hurts her even to do this. “We figured if you have to retake it and study all over again, go somewhere out of the city to do it. Relax. Some fresh air can’t hurt. You know Doctor Kim said your latest neutrophil count—”

“It’s always low,” Jeonghan grumbles, crossing his arms. “No matter what.”

“Baby. Please? If it doesn’t help, you can come back. But why don’t we try?”

Jeonghan looks at her. She’s so small that she has to move the car seat all the way forward to reach the pedals. Was she always this small? Did he get bigger without noticing? Without her noticing?

He sighs. “Okay, eomma.”

⟳⟳⟳

May 2011

“So, your name?”

Jeonghan stares at his fingers. His nails keep splitting and his nutritionist says it’s something to do with his magnesium levels or whatever. He feels like he can see his heartbeat pulse under each nail, making his fingers twitch involuntarily.

“Yoon Jeonghan.”

“Okay, haksaeng,” the security officer says. “Do you have a number I can call for you?”

“No,” Jeonghan mumbles, still looking at his hands.

The security officer sighs and leans back against the desk. “If you can’t give me a number, I have to call the police.”

Jeonghan’s gaze jerks up to the man’s tired face. He fishes his phone out of his pocket and reads off his mother’s number.

She’s there in less than an hour, wrapped tight in a tan wool coat with her hair floating over the collar. Jeonghan can’t look at her, not without feeling something well up in his throat, sick and hot and tight. He zones out entirely while the security officer explains to his mother that he was caught stealing a book on horticulture.

He bows low to the security officer and trails behind his mother out of the back office, through the store and up the escalator to the parking garage. They don’t say anything.

They climb into the car and his mother puts the keys in the ignition and doesn’t start it.

She takes a deep breath and then asks mournfully, “Are you thinking about hurting yourself, Jeonghan-ah?”

He looks into her eyes finally. They’re not shaped like his at all, sharp at the corners where his are round, pupils overtaking the white as she waits for his answer.

The answer is of course not, isn’t it? He can say it. Of course not, never. No. He can shake his head and deny this for her.

He wants her to just get mad at him for doing something insanely stupid. Wants him to tug on his ear until it turns red and then force him to apologize to the store manager or something.

He doesn’t get that, though. Instead he gets this.

Is he thinking about hurting himself?

⁂ NOW ⁂

The farm is only a few kilometers from where Jeonghan was born, nestled in between a golf course and up the hill from a gas station where a few lazy old dogs traipse around looking for food.

He hasn’t slept on a yo since he was little and he’s going to sleep like shit, he just knows it. Still, when his aunt stands outside the sliding little door to his room, he throws on a smile.

“Hi, auntie,” he says in a singsong voice. “Come in.”

She comes in backwards with a huge pile of blankets and drops them onto his yo, her old white dog following at her heels. She’s got on the requisite purple vest that seems to magically spawn in a woman’s closet when they turn 50. Her hair is dyed brown at the roots and permed up to her chin.

“It’s already hot,” she says in lieu of greeting. “Your mother told me you have to limit your sun exposure, so I better not catch you near any doors. Okay? Nothing but resting, you poor thing.”

Jeonghan feels his smile harden. “It’s okay if it’s a little. I can help with some stuff.”

He’s not even done talking before his aunt is shaking her head. “No. Your job right now is to stay healthy and study hard, okay? If I see you lifting anything I’ll give you a smack.”

“Auntie,” Jeonghan gasps, fake aghast. “Threatening a young child like myself, I can’t believe it.”

She makes a funny face at him and says, “You need a shave, little one.”

Jeonghan cups his jaw and feels a patch of stubble around his chin and grimaces.

His aunt squats next to the yo and starts arranging the layers of blankets. “So, your mother told me you’re on a very strict diet…”

His aunt’s friends arrive and distract her enough that Jeonghan is able to slip out to the 7/11 a kilometer away. She’s right, it is getting hot. He can feel the sun beating at the back of his neck as he walks down the road.

“Are you gonna pay for that?”

Jeonghan startles and looks over his shoulder to see a student a few years younger than him glowering at him, uniform shirt buttoned to the top button and tie in a neat knot. Jeonghan transforms his expression into something he knows looks cool and coy and says, “Why do you think I have my hand in my pocket?”

He fishes out a couple bills and holds them up between his fingers, talking over the heartbeat in his throat.

The kid looks at him with a sour expression and points at his shorts pocket. “You left the cheese in there.”

“Ah, so I did,” Jeonghan says, and pulls the cheese stick out of his pocket as well. “Thanks. I don’t want to steal on accident!”

The kid’s tongue juts out from the side of his cheek and he says, “Sure.” He crosses his arms and stands there expectantly, leaving a small gap between the shelves for Jeonghan to squeeze through and up to the counter, where he empties the cheese sticks out of his pockets with shaking fingers and throws 5,000 won on the counter. He can feel the kid’s eyes boring holes into his back until his shoulders hunch over.

“Don’t let me see that again,” the kid says as Jeonghan is leaving.

The way he’s all puffed up with his chest out makes Jeonghan snort. “Okay. I won’t... let you see.”

Jeonghan turns back to the road but the kid grabs him by the shoulder, right where he’s tender under his collarbones. The shock of pain makes him yelp without thinking, and he turns around with a glower to find the kid steaming.

“I’m serious. My brother runs this neighborhood. My cousin owns this store. You steal from him, you steal from us, got it?”

Jeonghan has to literally stifle a laugh at this point, so amused is he by this 15 year old with the moral compass of a mafia don. Jeonghan pulls one of the cheese sticks out of his pocket and holds it out to the kid with a sweet smile. “On the house,” Jeonghan says.

The kid looks at him, stunned, and takes the cheese stick with a tentative hand.

Jeonghan just gives him another tight-lipped smile and heads back to the farm, his fingers tracing over the hard leather edge of the kid’s wallet in his pocket.

⟳⟳⟳

August 2011

He’s sitting in a hard chair outside the head teacher’s office when Mingyu walks in and slumps down next to him, her huge feet kicking out into the hall.

“Again, oppa? Don’t your parents have money?” She asks Jeonghan, fixing her bangs absentmindedly.

Jeonghan hums. “Skirt too short?” he asks.

She lets out a grunt and crosses her arms. “That bitch Juhee-ssaem got the ruler out.”

He laughs at her. “Can you get it altered?” Jeonghan asks. Mingyu only hisses out of the side of her curled mouth and pulls out her phone. The charms attached to the bottom jingle and clap together aggressively. She starts texting someone faster than Jeonghan has ever seen anyone text.

“Fuck,” Mingyu groans. “My mom is mad.”

Jeonghan smiles ruefully. Mingyu is in his sister’s grade but they’ve been meeting like this since middle school when Mingyu shot up to 180 centimeters in a summer. She’s fucking annoying and pushy and talks too much but she doesn’t seem to mind that Jeonghan is never at school and she’s decent company, honestly. Sort of.

“We should go to the PC bang after detention,” Mingyu says, not looking at Jeonghan. “I want rabokki.”

Jeonghan thinks of the appointment he has later with a new gastroenterologist. “Not today. Some other time.”

Mingyu shuts her phone with a clatter and slides it into the waistband of her skirt, showing off a strip of smooth, tan skin that Jeonghan knows she wants him to notice.

The door opens and the head teacher pokes her head out. “Yoon Jeonghan?”

He gets up as fast as he can and waves goodbye to Mingyu. The head teacher, an older woman with red dyed hair and eyeliner smudged onto her bottom lashes, motions for him to sit down across from her desk.

“Well—Where’s your mother? Isn’t she coming?” she asks, frowning down at her agenda like she wrote something wrong.

Oops. He forgot to tell her.

Jeonghan leans forward and gives her a reassuring smile. “She said I’m old enough to speak on my own, songsaenim. There shouldn’t be too many changes made to my accommodations from last year, right?”

The head teacher shuffles some papers around until she finds a thick folder that he knows is his school record. She pulls out a piece of paper and adjusts her glasses. “It would be better for—well, see, we’re unable to offer classroom support at your level. We—the school believes it’s in your best interest to pursue homeschooling at this time. Of course, we can work with you as you adjust to—”

“Okay,” Jeonghan says. He doesn’t know why he agrees so easily. It just feels like less work to let her control the conversation.

She pauses and looks up at him, then continues like she didn’t even hear him agree. “Of course, we’ll need your parents' permission, but this is—Listen. Last semester, your attendance was 45 days out of 110. There’s simply not enough ‘catching up’ that you can possibly do. And of course, there are accommodations, but we have to ensure that things are fair for all students.”

Jeonghan just smiles, counting in his head how many times she’s going to say “of course” before she crumbles into ash.

She continues, “We can’t have one student who is able to turn in work late and make up exams when other students are not able to, special circumstances or not. We’ve had—well, of course, that isn’t your problem, but—parents... have called. Anyway, we think it would be best for you and for us if you were able to…”

By this point Jeonghan has totally tuned her out, staring at a plant behind her with a ribbon on it that says “Teacher of the Year 2010” in fat Hangul lettering. He wouldn’t have voted for her if he was there. Well. He probably wasn’t there.

Twenty minutes later he opens the door to find Mingyu with her legs crossed politely, skirt rolled up until it shows the top of her smooth thigh and a flash of blue panties underneath. He snorts at her and leaves.

⁂ NOW ⁂

Him and his aunt settle into a weird routine where his aunt pretends she’s leaving him alone. Jeonghan is used to it, the facade of independence she’s trying to give him while also making sure he doesn’t die on her watch. The funny thing is, he does actually start to feel better within a day or two. Unlike his mother, his aunt is busy with her own life and doesn’t seem willing to compromise that; every day is a new market that she’ll visit in her little truck, bushels of summer vegetables bouncing in the back cab and the dog in the passenger seat. When she’s home, she’s out in the field most of the day with some other women, hands in the dirt until the sun goes behind the hills up on the ridge of the farm.

It’s a different kind of alone that Jeonghan gets to have here. As long as he eats what he’s supposed to and does his treatments and takes his pills, he’s sort of left to his own devices all day.

It reminds him of the beginning of his homeschool stint, before his mom quit her job to make sure he wasn’t going to fall and hit his head in the bathroom. Jeonghan remembers how everyone would leave the house before he woke up, and so the second he opened his eyes there was a smile on his face because of the pure silence of the apartment.

He could do anything on those days, as long as he got his work done. At first, it was pure fucking bliss; he would lie in bed until 11 or 12, and then get up and laze around the house in his boxers, flipping through the channels or playing Maplestory or something.

A month in, his doctor said he needed a more aggressive antibiotic and prescribed these little red pills. Those pills became the bane of his existence; he saw them come up more often than not, fully undigested and angry in the bowl of the toilet. When he passed out on the floor of the bathroom, his mom quit that day.

It wasn’t just nausea, Jeonghan remembers. A few weeks into the aggressive treatment, Jeonghan woke up one morning and just… couldn’t see. It wasn’t pitch black, or white, or anything like that. It was like he was seeing quadruple, everything amplified in his eyes. It gave him a headache to look at the screens.

They switched doctors after that. Aggressive or not, even his parents could see it was killing him. Jeonghan felt hopeful, then, that maybe things would get better.

Thankfully his medication now is pretty light, just an IV infusion in the morning every day. When his aunt saw the setup his mother hauled into his room and the printed directions she gave her, she looked directly at Jeonghan and said, “Well, he probably knows how this works better than I do.”

He does. He can run the line and flush his IV with saline even when he’s half asleep. It sucks but it’s better than the little red pills he could barely keep down.

There’s a mirror inside the door of the white laminate wardrobe in the corner of his room and it feels like it’s haunting him. Jeonghan makes a point of avoiding reflective surfaces just in case he looks old or dead or something.

But today, he’s bored, so he lets himself look.

The first thing he notices is the color of his skin—it’s almost green in the diffused glow of the frosted windows. He searches his face for—something. Growing up his grandmother always called him pretty and beautiful and he loved it, preened under the harsh way she said it, like no one could ever disagree.

Is he still beautiful now? He can’t tell. His jawline is sharper but he knows that’s because he’s not eating enough. His eyes look almost glassy, and the right one can’t open as much as the left. His lips are dry and pale, the skin raising up in little flakes. His hair is grown out to his chin, the ends still blond from when Mingyu bleached it on his birthday.

And then he stops looking up, because he doesn’t want to think about her.

He’s wearing some stretched out old t-shirt and he can see his ribs where they start directly under his collarbones, his chest bony and still hairless. He presses his fingers into the ridges and it’s so tender it makes him hiss.

His knees are swollen and sharp at the same time, keeping him up at night unless he puts a towel in between them. His ankles, too, are red and swollen at the joints. A voice like his mother’s tells him if he took his arnica more often or drank green tea, that might not be a problem. The voice tells him nicely, gently, but it still makes him feel nauseous.

He’s okay; he’ll ignore it. He’s fine.

⟳⟳⟳

September 2011

“Let’s play a game,” Jeonghan says, collapsing onto the bench next to the basketball court. Mingyu slides both their bags off her shoulders and sits next to him.

“What game?” Mingyu says, hunching over until she’s about even with Jeonghan.

He’s out of breath from the walk but he says, “Rock paper scissors. If I win, you go to the GS25 and get me apple juice.”

Mingyu snorts and fixes him with a look. “What do I get if I beat oppa?”

The alarm on his phone goes off. “How about a kiss?” Jeonghan puckers his lips and closes his eyes.

Mingyu wrinkles her nose at him. “You can just ask me to do something for you, Jeonghan-oppa. You don’t have to make it a game.”

Jeonghan smiles at her and ignores how that makes him feel. “Rock… paper…”

He wins. He gives her cash to get him a drink and lies back on the bench. It’s early enough in the fall that the bugs are still out, swarming over him in little clouds.

He’s not really sure if they like each other or even like each other. But all of Jeonghan’s other friends are too busy with school and sports and academy to really hang out. If he’s not with people, he has to think about things and he has too much time to himself already, so he comes when Mingyu calls.

He puts a hand up over his face and watches the blood drain from it until it looks like a claw. Mingyu has other friends, surely. Jeonghan doesn’t know why she’s hanging out with him so much. Especially when they’re just fighting half the time.

The sun is about to set by the time Mingyu comes back with juice and, to his surprise, a steaming cup of ramyeon and two triangle kimbap. She even cracked an egg into the broth.

A voice low and slow enough to be his mother’s reminds him the nutritionist told him no refined wheat or high sodium and that the last time he ate spicy ramyeon he threw up and it burned his mouth and nose.

He ignores it in favor of the smile Mingyu gives him when she sits back on the bench, so proud of herself for fooling Jeonghan into accepting her kindness. She hands him the juice and watches with interest as he pulls his pill box out of his backpack and dumps the contents of the ‘evening’ slot into his palm.

“Heol.” Mingyu mutters, frowning. “How many is that?”

Jeonghan holds out a palm and says, “Do you wanna count?”

Mingyu reaches a pink nail out to poke at the pile in his palm. He feels weirdly thrilled about it. No one at school really even believes him, but here Mingyu is, looking at the living proof in his hands.

“...Three, six, seven, eight,” she mutters under her breath, blinking her bangs out of her eyes. “Nine.”

That sounds about right. Jeonghan tries to open the bottle of juice with his occupied hands and it slips through his fingers. He keeps trying, even as one of his smaller supplements drops onto the bench.

“Oppa,” Mingyu says, holding out a hand, “Lemme do it.”

Jeonghan grimaces. “No,” he says, curling over the bottle and guarding it with his life. Mingyu’s sharp long fingers grab the bottom of the bottle and she makes a judgy little noise from her mouth.

“Just let me, come on,” she says, and manages to wrest the bottle from his grip and crack it open no problem. She passes it back to him with a smile and a flip of her hair. His hand hurts.

Jeonghan coos, “Aigoo, so strong, Mingyu-yah,” and chucks all the pills into his mouth with a big gulp of juice so he doesn’t gag.

“Heol,” Mingyu repeats. “All at once?”

Jeonghan feels his ears heat up, but there’s a shameful little ember of pride in his stomach. He’s good at being sick. He’s good at taking his medicine and resting and even injecting himself if he has to. So Mingyu noticing makes him feel good. He sticks out his tongue and opens his mouth wide at her and garbles, “All gone.”

She snorts at him and sticks her finger in his mouth, as far back as it’ll go, until he bites down.

He thinks about the taste of her skin the whole bus ride home.

⁂ NOW ⁂

Seungcheol has been driving since he was 16. He likes it, even when the Bongo stalls out or can’t make it up one of the steep hills near his house. It’s why his neighbors always end up calling him with random little favors to ask.

He’s Choi Seungcheol up the road, Choi Seungcheol down the street, Choi Seungcheol across the stream. He’s not Choi Seungcheol with the dad in prison or Choi Seungcheol with the younger half-brother and a consistently empty house. He’s reliable, helpful.

When his mom used to go to church, briefly, right after his dad was arrested, she would take him with her and even though she hated it, he loved it. He liked the singing and how everyone would wave at him and smile and how whatever the pastor said always seemed final and important and special.

He can only remember a little bit of what the pastor said, but when he died a few years ago Seungcheol typed up his favorite quote on a school computer and folded the printout into his wallet.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

Seungcheol doesn’t know if he really believes in the devil. It’s easier to see a little bit of devil in everyone than to imagine one entity holding all the evil in the universe. Seungcheol wants to be good, badly, but he’s 19 and he’s tired.

So he keeps his hands busy, even if he stopped believing in God when he was 10.

And then Chan gets into an academy in Daechi and Seungcheol is alone in the house all the time like before Chan was born.

So here’s the fun thing Seungcheol is doing today: some fucking idiot stole his brother’s wallet and Chan is having a panic attack about it even though he probably only has 10,000 won in there and a Pokémon card.

Anyway. The Bongo groans as Seungcheol coaxes it up another hill and around a corner until he’s parked outside Jung Seunghyo’s little farm. Chan was sure that the thief went back up this hill, but Jung Seunghyo lives alone save for her cute old dogs and cute old friends. Seungcheol usually brings her lumber. She definitely lives alone.

Still, Chan is sort of hysterical and it’s honestly not a big deal. Seungcheol can make some repairs to Lee Soohyeong’s shed on his way back, maybe. Make the trip count, because he’s sure this is a dead end.

Seunghyo’s big dogs, Hana and Duri, greet him at the pebbled walkway to Seunghyo’s house. Seungcheol leans down with a little squeal and lets the dogs lick the sweat off his face, grinning like an idiot.

There’s a crunching of rocks in front of him and when he looks up, he sees someone he’s never seen before.

It’s a guy around his age, maybe, but he looks a lot older because of his hair, which is blond at the ends and grown out to about his chin. He’s wrapped in a flannel like it’s not almost 40 degrees out, but above the stretched-out neck of his t-shirt, the guy’s collar bones jut out through sallow skin.

His face, though, is special. Pale lips curled up in a smirk and bright eyes sunk deep into his skull. He looks like someone who sleeps in fits or would get knocked over by a harsh gust of wind.

If Seungcheol was looking to get to know him, he might spend more time focused on the gentle slope of his nose or the knobby knuckles of each finger, but this is the exact guy Chan was describing, down to the pudding hair.

“Hi,” the guy says with a wave.

Seungcheol stands up with a grunt and tries to puff his chest out as much as possible. They’re about the same height but the other guy is so slouched in on himself that Seungcheol feels taller, which is all that’s important anyway.

“You met my brother the other day,” Seungcheol says, trying to keep himself from sounding accusatory. “At the 7/11.”

The guy smiles at him and says, “So you’re the one who ‘runs this neighborhood.’”

Seungcheol cringes inwardly. Fuck, Chan is so obsessed with saying that. “Uh. I help out, yeah,” Seungcheol says.

“I’m sure you do,” the guy says with a little chuckle. “I’ll try to be helpful in return.”

The back of Seungcheol’s neck starts to burn. “Aren’t you going to like... ask me why I’m here?”

The guy rakes a hand through his hair like a total asshole and says, “You don’t seem like you want to play.” Then he turns around and says, “Follow me,” before trudging back into the house.

Seungcheol does follow him, reluctantly, up the few front steps and into the foyer. The guy kicks his shoes off onto the vinyl flooring and says, “I’m Jeonghan, by the way.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol says.

“And you’re Lee…”

“Choi.”

“...Lee Choi?”

Seungcheol sighs and says, “Choi Seungcheol. He’s—we’re half brothers.”

Jeonghan nods and leaves it at that, which is weirdly relieving for Seungcheol. But then Jeonghan walks away for a second and comes back holding Chan’s Doraemon wallet in his claws and Seungcheol remembers he’s supposed to be mad.

He snatches the wallet out of Jeonghan’s hands and scowls, “I should have called the cops.”

Jeonghan tilts his head and says, “Why didn’t you?”

Seungcheol grits his teeth and says, “Because Chan doesn’t even have a bank card. Plus there’s no… whatever. I should have. I still could.”

Jeonghan hums and crosses his arms. “Well, I didn’t take anything.”

“Just his wallet,” Seungcheol says.

Jeonghan smiles, his eyes sparkling. “Yeah.”

Seungcheol feels himself smile back. “Yeah.”

They stare at each other for a second, two seconds, and then Seungcheol becomes horrifically aware of the fact that he’s waiting for Jeonghan to leave even though it’s his house. Then, worse, he realizes he doesn’t really feel like leaving. Fuck. He’s supposed to be mad.

This guy stole his brother’s wallet. He should be angry. He should be… he doesn’t know. He hasn’t gotten into a fight since he was 15 and Jeonghan looks frail and breakable. Should he shout at him? He doesn’t want to.

Seungcheol takes a deep inhale through his nose and says, “Don’t… do this again.”

“Steal your brother’s wallet?” Jeonghan asks.

“Steal. Here.”

Jeonghan puts on a look of offense and says, “Are you saying I make a habit of this?”

Seungcheol levels him with a blank stare. “Am I?”

Jeonghan grins at him but it looks hollow. “So, you do run this neighborhood.” He holds his hand out for Seungcheol to shake. Who the fuck shakes hands? What a weird kid.

Seungcheol looks down at his hand, confused and frustrated and a little flustered. “Aren’t you sorry? Aren’t you going to apologize?”

Jeonghan starts as if he totally forgot and then bows his head, hand still outstretched. “Sorry.”

Seungcheol stares down at the soft curve of Jeonghan’s neck and blushes again. He feels like dying. This isn’t how he expected this to go at all and it’s making him all sweaty and nauseous.

He takes Jeonghan’s bony hand and can feel his stomach clench.

This is really bad.

⟳⟳⟳

October 2011

“Stop spreading your legs so much,” Mingyu hisses at him. She’s sort of crushed into the window seat of the bus with a grumpy look on her face.

Jeonghan coos pitifully at her and crosses his leg so his knee is directly in her lap. She scoffs at him and digs a finger into the back of his knee until it hurts.

He settles back into his seat and Mingyu spreads her legs almost as much as he had, her knees touching the seat in front of her.

“How is this fair?” Jeonghan hisses at her as her thigh rubs up against his with every bounce of the bus.

Mingyu shoots him a look and says primly, “I’m taller than you.”

“You only admit that when it’s convenient for you,” Jeonghan grumbles, crossing his arms over his bag in his lap. “If I call you bigfoot you’ll still cry.”

Her face turns sulky and she turns away from him to look out the window for a second, shifting away from him as much as she can in her seat.

She gets like this a lot, mad at Jeonghan for keeping the conversation going or something. It’s like she thinks she can say whatever she wants to him, but he can’t throw it back at her without her getting pissed. He just lets her be mad. He doesn’t pretend he knows why she’s like this, just like how he doesn’t even know why he’s always saying shit like this to her. Instead, he thinks about how she just got her braces off but she still has a lisp and it’s really nice of him that he’s not mentioning that to her in retaliation.

A few minutes later she turns back to him and says, “You know, I could make fun of you for a lot of things, but I don’t.”

Jeonghan tilts his head at her. “Okay?” He says.

She huffs at him. “I mean, I’m trying to be nice, so stop being mean.”

“Am I mean?” Jeonghan asks. He doesn’t think so. Mingyu scoffs again and crosses one long leg over the other, effectively turning her back to him.

They stay like this until they’re almost to their stop, Mingyu staring out the window and flicking her hair over her shoulder every once in a while. Sometimes her hair hits him in the face and it pisses him off more than it should, mostly because he knows she’s doing it to piss him off and it’s working.

They stand up from their seats and make their way to the doors of the bus when the bus driver, obviously intent on killing everyone, makes a howlingly short stop that throws Jeonghan right into Mingyu, knocking them together so hard Jeonghan can feel a muscle in his leg pull painfully tight.

He gasps and loses his footing, tipping dangerously, but then he feels a warm arm wrap around his waist.

“Are you okay?” Mingyu asks, her arm like a vice around his ribs. She’s holding him so tight it hurts and with the other hand she flips open her phone to take a picture of the bus driver’s credentials. “He almost killed us,” she says as an explanation.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan breathes, his ribs screaming at him. “Yeah, let’s go.”

For some reason Mingyu is bothering him more than usual today; there’s this weird, sycophantic way she’s smiling at him, like she knows that he’s not doing okay. It's not quite pity; Jeonghan wouldn’t hang out with her if he thought it was pity. It’s more like… a knowing look. Like she can see through him. And yeah, maybe he’s having a little bit more trouble keeping stride with her as they walk down the green brick sidewalk to the playground by her apartment. Maybe he is finding alternate routes that don’t take them up any stairs, but usually he thinks he’s pretty good at hiding when his breath runs ragged.

Mingyu is talking about something and Jeonghan is trying his best to listen while also fighting with his lungs to keep his breathing steady.

Mingyu continues, “She told me that she would have to talk to—Oppa, are you okay?”

Jeonghan nods, keeping his breathing light and shallow and shooting her a smile. In truth, it’s a little uncomfortable trying to keep up with her, but he can handle it. They’re almost to the park and he can sit down when they get there. “It’s—yeah, I’m fine,” he huffs.

Mingyu stops and grabs his arm near his wrist and looks him dead in the eye. “Oppa, tell the truth.”

“Ah, really, we’re only—”

Mingyu drops her school bag to the sidewalk and tugs Jeonghan forward by the sleeve. Jeonghan goes with trepidation, not sure what she’s doing.

“Let me help, here,” she says, and then in a flash she’s crouching in front of him and pulling him onto her back like a little monkey.

Jeonghan freezes, unable to move. Moving will probably make it worse, throw them off balance and then he could fall. So he just shuts down while they sway unsteadily together, until Mingyu puts an arm under his leg and hoists him up higher on her hips. He feels her long nails grip onto the muscle above his knee and it hurts, the muscles as sore as they always are.

It’s fucking humiliating, is what it is. Jeonghan feels the blush burning his ears up and says, “Hey, stop—”

“I got you, oppa,” Mingyu says, huffing and puffing as she squats to grab her bag off the ground and juggle them both in her arms. “Dummy, just ask for help if you need it.”

Jeonghan scowls privately to himself. This isn’t what he wanted, not at all. But then again… he did need help, didn’t he? He was too proud to ask her to slow down, and so this is what he gets instead. A girl two years younger than him carrying him in public.

Stopping it sounds harder than going with it. It’s easier to wait it out, to be fine.

“I’m not too heavy?” Jeonghan asks.

Mingyu shifts him higher up and snorts. “No, you’re like a little bird.”

Jeonghan doesn’t know what to say to that, which is weird. Usually he has something to say back to her, but he’s so off-kilter from the way she swept him up easily that he has nothing to add to the conversation right now. He listens to her ramble on as they walk, much slower, to the park.

He wants to get down. He doesn’t know how to ask for that, either.

⁂ NOW ⁂

Hour three.

All the words on the page are starting to mix together. Jeonghan feels like he’s read the same sentence at least three times.

“Odysseus is a clear example of a hero’s journey,” he sounds out in halting English. “Hero’s journey. Aish, what’s that?”

He flips back through the workbook until he hits the glossary. “A life-changing mission that leaves a hero changed when he returns. Eh?”

There is, mercifully, a knock at the door. Jeonghan tucks his highlighter behind his ear and gets to his feet, knees popping. Through the window at the top of the door, he can only see the sunny front walk of the house and the pine tree with the bird’s nest that always wakes him up.

He opens the door fully expecting some misguided delivery man but he finds a clearly misguided Choi Seungcheol instead, in basketball shorts and work boots with a weirdly blank expression on his wide, soft face.

“Hi,” Jeonghan breathes out. He has absolutely no fucking clue why Seungcheol is here. “My aunt is out back, if you—”

“Ah. Oh. No, I was—” Seungcheol interrupts. “Sorry. I was uh. Bringing wood.”

“Oh, sure. Where is it?” Jeonghan says, peeking around Seungcheol’s broad body to look at his little blue truck. Hana is sitting in the back like she’s trying to go home with Seungcheol, but there’s no wood. Well. That solves one mystery.

Seungcheol looks back at the truck too, and then back at Jeonghan with a pleading look in his eyes. It’s sort of funny and Jeonghan is bored so he shields the sun from his eyes and says, “You wanna come in?”

Seungcheol just stares at him. Jeonghan holds back a laugh and continues, “I have to study, though, so it’s cool if not. I can’t really go in the sun right now, so.”

Seungcheol shakes his head and says, “What are you, a vampire?”

Jeonghan snorts. “I’ll faint if I’m in the sun too long,” he deadpans. It’s worth it for the way the expression slides off of Seungcheol’s face.

“Ah,” Seungcheol says. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound surprised or even all that sorry. It sounds more like forgot Jeonghan’s name or something, the way he apologizes. He doesn’t ask anything else and for some reason, it feels like Jeonghan has a warm bubble bouncing around his stomach. Seungcheol doesn’t really seem like someone he would be friends with; he seems sweet and sort of stupid.

”You coming?” Jeonghan asks.

Seungcheol’s brow furrows a little bit like he’s pretending to consider it before saying, “Sure, yeah. Just... for a second.”

But then he bounds across the doorstep like a happy dog, kicking off his shoes and settling on the floor next to the mound of pillows Jeonghan is using to support himself against the couch. He peeks at the books and pens strewn across the table. “Suneung?” he asks.

“Yup,” Jeonghan says, flipping back to the page he was on. “I just have to finish this section for today.”

They sit there for a few minutes while Jeonghan highlights his literature workbook, tongue poking out of his teeth. It’s weirdly nice even though Seungcheol is just sitting there not saying anything.

“But didn’t the test for this year just happen?” Seungcheol asks.

Jeonghan lets out a little sigh. “Yeah. I failed!” He makes a little sound like a bomb exploding.

“Ah,” Seungcheol says, and then he lets out a deep breath through his lips. “I feel like I’m asking all the wrong things. Ha.”

“It’s okay,” Jeonghan says, and then for some reason he offers the truth before Seungcheol even asks. “I fell asleep. No one woke me up.”

Seungcheol sits up quickly on his hands and says, “No one woke you up? That’s like... super fucked.”

Jeonghan swallows and then says, “Nah. It was because I didn’t sleep the night before.”

“Still, though,” Seungcheol says, frowning so hard his thick lashes almost touch his eyebrows. “It’s not your fault. That’s really fucked up that you failed just for that.”

“I probably would have failed anyway,” Jeonghan says.

It’s not true. He was studying like crazy and scored high on every practice test he took. He wasn’t worried. That’s why he fell asleep, maybe. If he had just been anxious, if he had just cared a little more, maybe that would have kept him awake.

“Fuck that,” Seungcheol groans. He settles back onto the rug, but the disturbed wrinkle of his brow stays put. “I didn’t even take it, so. You at least got in the room,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

Jeonghan goes back to his workbook, feeling the back of his neck prickle like someone keeps looking at him. He steals a glance at Seungcheol, who is picking his lip absentmindedly and staring at the wall with an angry look on his face. Jeonghan can’t take it, having him there while he’s trying to learn about old dead Greek men.

“We should get drunk,” Jeonghan says abruptly.

Seungcheol looks at him, his face folding all weird, and grins. “We should.”

Seungcheol left briefly to grab some soju and beer and Jeonghan wasn’t sure he would come back. It felt so impermanent, whatever half-baked reason Seungcheol had of being there in the first place. But no, Seungcheol crunched back up the walkway only twenty minutes later with a bag bulging full of drinks.

The sun is low enough that they can sit in the back garden on the dark-stained old pavilion. Seungcheol puts the bag down and flops onto the wood like he tripped, before rolling onto his back and lacing his fingers over his stomach.

“I love shit like this,” Seungcheol says with a grin, looking up at Jeonghan.

A bottle or two of peach soju later, Jeonghan is lying next to Seungcheol, listening to him whine about… something.

“—And it’s not like I even wanted to do it in the first place but now, now, I can’t even—I’m so bored, it’s like he doesn’t even—”

“Who?” Jeonghan rasps. He wants to turn his head and look at Seungcheol but he doesn’t think he can move.

Seungcheol slaps the wood of the pavilion with his palm and pouts, “My fucking brother, fuck.”

Jeonghan makes a disgusted little noise and sticks his tongue out at the thought of Seungcheol’s uptight little brother. Seungcheol lets out a belly laugh from deep inside him.

“Yeah, he—he sucks. But he’s mine. You know?” Seungcheol sighs. “He’s just—an asshole, ‘cause he’s fifteen and—oh, my god—” Seungcheol interrupts himself with another laugh that turns into a high wheeze. He rolls onto his side and grabs Jeonghan’s arm and laughs right in his face and then says, “He keeps saying he has a girlfriend but she—she goes to another school. Like, that’s the worst lie I’ve ever—Imagine—”

Seungcheol collapses into giggles so close to Jeonghan that they bounce around and do double time in his ears.

No, it’s that Jeonghan is laughing too, laughing so hard that he can feel his spine grinding into the wood below him as he shakes with it. It hurts and he loves it.

And then, just as quickly as the laughter came, Jeonghan is angry that something as normal as drinking with a friend is so new to him.

Angry that everything is out of his control, from the way he lives to the way he eats and the way that other people have chosen to keep him alive to make themselves feel good. He’s sure any sign of good news, any decent blood work result he gets out of this “vacation” will be used to line his doctor’s ego. No one cares that they take his blood to feel better about themselves.

He tries to be really gracious about it; tries to be really good.

He’s tired of everything but he’s most tired of this—the idea that he has to be thankful that he’s not dead. That now his life means more because of how much money his parents have spent to keep him functioning. And that’s just it, too. How do you ever repay someone for that? By going to college and getting a good job and making a lot of money and then one day when his parents are old and sick he’ll be doing the same things for them, helping them walk and reminding them to take their medication. That’s repayment. Taking it back from them.

Jeonghan’s so stuck in his head that Seungcheol has to say his name a few times before he realizes he’s still there.

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol says, shaking him gently. It’s a nice, warm night. Jeonghan wants to stop being angry, so he does. It goes away easily, like it was hard for him to keep the feelings there in the first place. He doesn’t know where it goes and he doesn’t want to chase it.

“Yeah?” Jeonghan asks, turning to look at Seungcheol’s face. It’s a good face, he thinks. He wants to touch it. It might be soft. It might not be. He’s curious.

Seungcheol just looks at him blankly, like he forgot whatever he was going to say. That’s okay; Jeonghan is sort of past talking now, too busy thinking about his fingerprints on Seungcheol’s skin.

Jeonghan reaches out a finger and pokes Seungcheol’s cheek, right under one of his eyes.

Ah. Soft.

“Oh, eomma wants me to ask you a couple things, since you won’t text her back,” Jeongyeon says. The serious adult voice she puts on is still cute to Jeonghan even though she’s old now. It’s a bald imitation of their mother when she’s on the phone with insurance.

“Okay~” Jeonghan says in a baby voice. He can hear Jeongyeon let out a smile through the phone. He rolls over onto his back, phone still stuck to his ear, and picks at his scalp with his free hand. A flake comes off under his nail and he cringes. Ew.

“She said—hold on, I have a list,” Jeongyeon shuffles around for a second and then says, “Is the van-co-my—my—”

“Vancomycin,” Jeonghan supplies.

“Yeah, that. Is it hurting your stomach?” Jeongyeon asks.

“Tell her no,” Jeonghan replies, stretching a leg out in front of him with a creak.

Jeongyeon hums. “But is it?”

“No,” Jeonghan says. “But it’s not your—don’t you have studying to do? Or something?”

“Oppa,” Jeongyeon whines. “Just do it fast and then we can talk normally, okay?”

Jeonghan sighs and adjusts the pillow under his head. “Fine~ My stomach is good. I’m tracking my symptoms and staying out of the sun. Nothing feels worse. Auntie only buys food I can eat. I’m not running out of anything yet, but I might need more tramadol in a few weeks.”

Jeongyeon is silent for a second.

“Was that all of them?” Jeonghan asks.

Jeongyeon mumbles like she’s counting and then says, “Uh-huh—Oh. Did you make any friends?”

Jeonghan smiles. “Is this you asking, or eomma?”

“Me,” Jeongyeon says.

She’s always so concerned with stuff like that. Jeonghan knows she just wants him to be happy and normal or something and every time she reminds him it makes his heart squeeze.

“I did make a friend,” Jeonghan says. “He’s my age.”

“What’s he like?” Jeongyeon asks. Jeonghan imagines her lying on her stomach on her bed, one of her stuffed animals under her chin.

“He’s—he’s like, a handyman or something.” Jeonghan settles on.

“Booo,” Jeongyeon says, “I don’t care about his job. What’s he like? What do you do together?”

“He’s sort of a baby, like you,” Jeonghan teases. “Always whining about something.”

“Oppa,” Jeongyeon whines.

“But he’s cool. We just chill.” Jeonghan smiles thinking about it.

“Good.” Then Jeongyeon gasps and says, “Oppa, I totally forgot to tell you about Kim Mingyu’s new boyfriend. He’s older than you.”

“Who’s that?” Jeonghan feigns ignorance even though Mingyu and Jeongyeon are in the same grade.

Jeongyeon makes a fart noise with her mouth and says, “What, do you still hate her?”

“I don’t hate—”

“Anyway, her boyfriend is like 21. Isn’t that weird?”

“I guess,” Jeonghan says.

Jeongyeon sighs into the phone. “No, you’re supposed to—this is talking shit, oppa, it’s supposed to make you feel better. Say something mean about her, it’ll feel good.”

Jeonghan laughs. “I don’t want to be mean.”

“Come on,” Jeongyeon prods.

“No~” Jeonghan coos.

Jeongyeon sniffs judgmentally. “Boring, oppa. Anyway, she’s bragging about it all over school, like. Showing off pictures of him and the gifts he gives her. It’s weird, like. He has a job and stuff. Like, he’s a real adult. Seriously. And we’re 17.”

Jeonghan’s throat feels dry. It feels weird, hearing about Mingyu through his sister like Mingyu doesn’t—didn’t matter to him as much as she did. Jeonghan supposes he never really told anyone how much Mingyu’s friendship meant to him. He never told anyone how much it hurt when it ended. Who would he talk to about that kind of stuff besides her?

“Wow... Crazy.” Jeonghan says, “Hey, Yeoni, I gotta take a nap or I’m gonna pass out on the phone. Text me if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Jeongyeon says. “You too. Text me, too.”

“Byebye,” Jeonghan says. He shuts the phone and lays it on his stomach, feeling the weight of it as his belly rises and falls.

He’s worried about her, is the thing. Mingyu was—is—a little boy crazy. He wants her to be okay, even though he wishes he could hate her like Jeongyeon wants him to. Mingyu is just easy to like, and she loves so easily, and Jeonghan can’t hate her for that. He can hate her for other things, but not that.

⟳⟳⟳

November 2011

From: kmingoo

+01047691787

Text: oppa can i come over

From: hani oppa

+01012011877

Text: ㅋㅋㅋ all of a sudden?

From: kmingoo

+01047691787

Text: pls

From: hani oppa

+01012011877

Text: ㅋㅋㅋ no

From: kmingoo

+01047691787

Text: pls oppa srsly

From: hani oppa

+01012011877

Text: ok

His apartment buzzer goes off as soon as he sends the message. He laughs; she must have been outside waiting for him to say yes.

“Yah, Kim Mingyu,” Jeonghan says, pulling open the door. Whatever teasing he had planned, he swallows when he sees the state of Mingyu.

The first thing he notices is how fucked-up her hair looks, usually long and straight and shiny. The second thing is the scuff on her knee visible and bleeding through her tights. “Did you run here?” he asks.

They end up in the bathroom, Jeonghan crouched on the floor while Mingyu rolls down her tights and settles shakily on the toilet, one foot hovering between Jeonghan’s spread knees.

“He said he doesn’t wanna be seen with me because I’m taller than him,” she whines. Jeonghan pats her knee with an alcohol wipe and she hisses and then sniffles. “He said it’s um. Embarrassing.”

“Who?” Jeonghan asks, blotting away the blood from her frayed skin gently.

Mingyu makes a sulky noise above him. “My boyfriend.”

Jeonghan pauses and says, without thinking, “You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend.”

His palm feels hot against the skin of her calf and he doesn’t feel like he can look at her like this.

“Well, yeah,” Mingyu says, defensive. “‘Cause he didn’t wanna tell anyone. So.”

“Why not?” Jeonghan says. “My dongsaeng is so pretty.” He’s cooing at her like it’ll make her feel better, like it’s not up to him whether or not it’s true instead of something he’s thought about saying to her before.

She kicks him in the knee and smiles ruefully. He knows how much she loves compliments, so he’ll give them easily since she’s sad.

“Seriously, why didn’t you tell me?” Jeonghan presses. “Afraid I’d be jealous?”

Mingyu groans and slumps forward. “Oppa,” she pouts, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair like she’s petting him. “He told me not to.”

Jeonghan laughs, his heart doing double time. “He told you? You don’t do what I tell you to do,” he teases.

“You’re not my boyfriend,” Mingyu shoots back. She pulls back and crosses her arms.

It’s quiet for a second while Jeonghan gently spreads some antibacterial cream on her wound. He wants to ask her who she’s dating. He wants to know if she’s happy. Questions like that would only make Mingyu mad, though. She likes being taken care of but sometimes, no matter what Jeonghan says, it feels like a judgment to her.

Maybe it’s because he’s older, or a boy, or just that she’s sensitive, but sometimes it feels like Jeonghan can never say the right thing to make her feel better. But he’ll always say it anyway.

“Who is this guy? He sounds like a worm.” Jeonghan finally asks. “You’re too good for him, even if you’re mean.”

Mingyu kicks him again, her face sort of shiny and weird looking because of all the crying, but she’s still pretty enough to make Jeonghan’s ears burn.

Then she leans close, really close, until she’s hunched over on the toilet and her breath is in his face and all he can see is the gap between her eyebrows and that’s the last thing he sees before she leans in further to press their lips together.

Jeonghan’s stomach lurches painfully, all his organs migrating north. He gasps and Mingyu fits her tongue into the space between his teeth, filling his mouth. He’s never kissed anyone before and clearly Mingyu has.

It makes him feel sick and worried in the pit of his stomach, and he knows it’s not true but it feels like her lips are moving too fast, like he’s still in slow motion just watching it happen to him and that makes him feel worse.

She puts a possessive hand on Jeonghan’s chest and it breaks him, how her fingers fumble against the zipper of his hoodie. Letting Mingyu kiss him feels like letting her win, which is a fucked up way to see anyone at all, but Jeonghan doesn’t have it in him to lose any more of their games, not when it counts like this, not when it tastes so bitter in his mouth.

Jeonghan inhales sharply and wraps a hand around the nape of her neck, pulling them apart. “You have a boyfriend.”

Without opening her eyes, Mingyu pushes back into his orbit and breathes out, “So?”

“Mingyu-yah,” Jeonghan murmurs. “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?

Mingyu pulls back as if Jeonghan’s hand still isn’t around her neck and says, “Are you saying no?”

Jeonghan lets go of her neck, feeling unsteady, and rests his hands on his knees. “Do you like me or something?” The words feel just as ugly coming up as her spit felt going down.

Mingyu slumps back against the toilet, her feet still in between his legs. Her face turns red as she struggles to find the right words. “No.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

“Because,” Mingyu says. “Just because.”

He can tell she’s lying. “...Okay?”

“Don’t tease me,” Mingyu says.

“I’m not teasing!” Jeonghan says. Even as he says it he knows it’s wrong. “But if you’re kissing me, what would he think?”

“That I’m a whore, I guess? Is that what you’re saying?” Mingyu says, her voice rising in pitch. She looks angry now, her whole little face puffy.

“No?” Jeonghan’s palms slip a little against the material of his pants.

“Well—Why do you keep bringing him up, anyway?” Mingyu says. “You sound jealous, oppa.”

Jeonghan gapes. “I just don’t think you should be kissing people when you have a boyfriend. That’s all.”

Mingyu stands up until she’s towering over him. “You haven’t gotten your dick wet, so you don’t get to tell me shit about my relationship.”

“You’re getting so worked up over this,” Jeonghan says, ignoring the cold sweat on the back of his neck. “It’s not that serious, is it?”

“Fuck you,” Mingyu spits back. “Seriously. Go fuck yourself.”

She storms out of the bathroom and he can hear her putting on her shoes in the entryway.

He sits on the bathroom floor until his ass goes numb, long after the lock jingled and Mingyu left. He sits there until his mom comes in and says, “Was that Mingyu—Oh, Hani, are you feeling nauseous? Are you going to throw up?”

He does feel nauseous but he shakes his head no; he’s not going to throw up over Kim Mingyu.

⁂ NOW? ⁂

Jeonghan is lying on his stomach in his bed when a hand trails down the center of his spine and a voice says, “Oppa, are you there?”

His body moves like syrup as he looks over his shoulder to see Mingyu knelt next to him, her hair trailing onto the backs of his thighs. She rubs her fingers into his spine and says, “Does that feel good?”

Another hand touches his back, broad and dry and warm, and Jeonghan swivels to find Seungcheol on his other side. “Do you feel good?” Seungcheol asks, thumb digging into the notches in his spine.

He does feel good; light, weightless. Anchored down only by Mingyu and Seungcheol’s hands all over his bare skin.

There’s a feeling of hair tickling his back as Mingyu leans over to kiss his hip, mouthing along the ridge of his back. At the same time, Seungcheol’s hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, pushing him into his pillow.

“Good?” Seungcheol asks. Jeonghan can’t see anything, can’t feel anything but the soft wetness of Mingyu’s lips against his skin.

“Don’t move, oppa,” Mingyu says into his skin. He can feel the ridge of her teeth catch against him. “Let us do it.”

Seungcheol’s other hand trails down to the waistband of his sweatpants. It all feels weird, thick and sweet and fast and slow at the same time.

“How do you feel?” Seungcheol asks, rubbing the muscles in his neck.

Jeonghan can’t say anything, actually. He tries to say something, anything, but his voice catches in his throat.

“You’ll let us do anything, won’t you?” Mingyu says, her voice echoing in his ears.

No, Jeonghan thinks. His body nods, trapping him.

Mingyu and Seungcheol push his pants off and flip him onto his back effortlessly. Jeonghan goes with their hands, looking down his body at their faces, the way their lips are both swollen to the same shade of red.

The room melts around him as Mingyu and Seungcheol put their hands back on him, rubbing and pulling his skin, dipping into the ridges between his ribs and up to his chest. Everywhere they touch feels like water, hot and wet and bone-deep.

“Happy?” Mingyu asks, her hair tickling his belly as she crawls back down the bed to scratch at his thighs.

He’s smiling so big it hurts and it doesn’t feel like his but he can’t stop.

Seungcheol’s hand reaches down to his cock, which is straining up onto his stomach. He doesn’t even remember getting hard, but the feeling of Seungcheol’s fingers teasing him lightly makes his back arch.

Jeonghan is still smiling, his mouth stretched wide around his teeth. He wants to stop, to say something, but he can only lie there as Mingyu bites at the sharp jut of his hip bone.

Seungcheol stretches out next to him, and whispers in his ear, “Feeling good?”

Jeonghan turns his head slowly, too slow, to look at him. Seungcheol’s deep eyes bore into his and Jeonghan tries his best to show what he’s feeling.

Seungcheol frowns. “No?” he murmurs. “No, baby?”

No, no, no, no—

Seungcheol’s hand stalls on Jeonghan’s cock and he looks from Jeonghan’s face, still stretched in a smile, to Mingyu. Jeonghan desperately tries to force any expression out of his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Seungcheol says, threading his fingers into Jeonghan’s hair and pulling his face into the crook of his neck. Jeonghan can’t breathe, his mouth and nose full of Seungcheol’s skin. “It’s okay, I’ll just be you. Here, switch with me.”

What?

And then Jeonghan is looking down at his own body from Seungcheol’s eyes, watching as Mingyu’s hands wrap around his cock, as his body shudders under both of them. He looks into his own eyes and can see the fear in them.

“Sorry, sorry,” Jeonghan says to Seungcheol. To himself. “Just a little longer, hold on.”

He runs a hand through his own hair as they both watch Mingyu at the end of the bed. Jeonghan can feel his heartbeat in his neck, in his ears, in Seungcheol’s body, in his own. He can’t look away, captivated by the sight of himself.

Seungcheol looks up at him again with Jeonghan’s eyes and his smile fades and Jeonghan leans down and kisses himself, his pulse rocketing around their bodies like little explosions and it hurts and it’s good and

Jeonghan wakes up.

He’s covered in sweat, breathing heavy, all the blankets kicked off of him.

“Fuck,” he hisses.

Seungcheol isn’t gay. He knows this because he watched the Starships music video and got a boner because of Nicki Minaj. He has a poster of her on his wall and even though he’s sort of desensitized to it he can still look at her ass and admire it, for sure.

He’s just sort of doing this thing again where he has too much time to himself and questions keep coming up while he’s weeding someone’s garden or repairing the roof on Kang Minho’s chicken coop.

Secretly, deep down, way underneath the layer of dirt and motor oil covering his skin, he’s scared of chickens. Their eyes… they don’t look right to him. They always look hungry. There has to be something worth distracting himself with as he avoids the steely gaze of Minho’s chickens.

So Seungcheol thinks about girls. He had a girlfriend when he was still in school. Seolha was nice; she liked to hold hands and she was short and laughed really loud. She really only wore gym shorts, slides, and Seungcheol’s sweatshirts. Rarely any makeup, but she didn’t need it, Seungcheol always thought.

He liked her a lot, liked how she was strong because of soccer academy and how she could drive his truck better than he could. So yeah. He’s not gay, because he had a girlfriend and he liked her.

Although maybe he didn’t like her enough, because Seolha broke it off with him after their second year of high school ended. They hadn’t actually seen each other in weeks because she had soccer and cram school and math academy and he had Chan. Her text wasn’t really surprising, because he had been feeling it too. He agreed with her, asked if they could be friends. She said yes.

But, yeah. A whole relationship, with a girl. And a Nicki Minaj poster on his wall.

And yet, Yoon Jeonghan is literally the only thing on his mind, day in and day out. Seungcheol wants to know him, in a weird way. He wants to hear Jeonghan’s opinion on everything; he has to restrain himself from texting him all the time, asking about stupid shit like songs on the radio and the weather. He wants to be the only person Jeonghan talks to, ever. He wants to help Jeonghan bleach his hair and take him to visit his family.

Seungcheol isn’t stupid enough to think that’s how a normal friendship works. But admitting the alternative isn’t easy. Maybe someday it will be.

He wants to ask Jeonghan about this, too. Wants to know what he thinks, whether or not he thinks it’s normal. He feels like Jeonghan might know what to say to make this easier to understand.

Seungcheol and Jeonghan text the same, Jeonghan realizes. Lots of kaomojis and aegyo. It’s such a funny contrast because Seungcheol looks like he could rip a log in half with his bare hands or wrestle a tiger. Well, maybe Jeonghan is exaggerating a little bit because he’s made of coffee stir sticks, but whatever. The point is that Seungcheol and him get along.

So when Seungcheol sends him a text that says, “seungcheollie is sick (╥_╥) bring him samgyetang pweaseeeeee (ﾉω･､)” Jeonghan kicks off his blankets and asks his aunt for a ride to Seungcheol’s house.

“Eh? Choi Seungcheol?” his aunt grunts, looking at him from where she’s prepping some radish for kimchi on the floor. “Well, you’re grown up. You can just take the truck. He’s only around the corner.”

“I don’t have my license, auntie,” Jeonghan reminds her lightly. Too lazy to take the test.

She points her knife at him and says, “No one cares about things like that out here, Hani. You can just take it. Kim Byeongsoo buys my peppers anyway, he won’t pull you over. Just be careful.”

So Jeonghan… takes the truck. He can’t drive even a little bit but he’s watched enough people do it, right? Right? He can do this. He takes a deep breath and grips the steering wheel until his knuckles turn white. He can do this.

He turns the key and the rumbling of the engine turning over makes him grin. Yeah, he can do this.

Jeonghan drives to Seungcheol’s house at a roaring 30 kilometers per hour and he still almost steers the truck into the ditch on the side of the road a couple times. It’s so terrifying he keeps screaming a little, but it’s also the most fun he’s had since… Well, since the last time he saw Choi Seungcheol, when they baked cookies without a legible recipe and then fed them to the dogs.

Seungcheol’s house is small and close to the road, a low brick building with another couple sheds behind it. There’s a ton of stuff in the front yard, buckets and basins and various tools. It looks like a home made for function rather than a cozy place to live.

Jeonghan parks as gently as he can and raps on the door.

There’s a pathetic warbling moan from somewhere in the bowels of the house. “Door’s unlocked.”

The house is well-lit in the afternoon light and sort of hot and stuffy with trapped sunlight. Jeonghan immediately breaks into a sweat again when he kicks off his shoes into a puddle of sunlight speckled with dust motes. It smells like a mixture of grilled meat and something else sort of musty.

There’s lots of pictures on the wall of Seungcheol as a kid: Seungcheol being bit on the chubby cheek by a strong-looking man, Seungcheol in a taekwondo uniform with a frown on his sullen little face. Then, further down the wall, Seungcheol holding a little bundle and a tiny hand gripping his finger. Seungcheol and Chan and a fluffy white dog with huge brown stains under its eyes. Chan smiling toothlessly in a school photo.

The pictures stop around the time Seungcheol’s face starts to harden, whether from hormones or from something else. He smiles still, but the smiles seem more forced than before. Chan seems to smile bigger as if to compensate.

Jeonghan feels sort of weird looking at the pictures; they’re laid out almost too plainly, telling a story he isn’t sure Seungcheol wants him to know yet. Still, the feeling of knowing something about Seungcheol thrills him. He files it away for later—not to use, but just worth knowing.

Seungcheol calls out from his room, “Quick, kill me, ah—”

Jeonghan laughs and pushes open the door. Seungcheol is cocooned in blankets, his face red and sweaty and almost entirely pout.

“It’s hot in here,” Jeonghan says as way of greeting, setting the tupperware full of soup on the floor and sinking to the floor. “Aren’t you hot?”

Seungcheol flops sideways in his little blanket cage, letting out a huge, wet sniff that makes Jeonghan’s skin crawl. “I’m dying.”

“So I don’t have to kill you, then?” Jeonghan says.

Seungcheol just whines. He’s cute.

“You’re cute,” Jeonghan says.

Seungcheol just mumbles something and makes grabby hands for the soup.

“It’s cold,” Jeonghan says. “Do you want me to heat it up?”

“Uh-huh,” Seungcheol nods, his eyes barely open. He looks like a baby about to cry. Jeonghan’s heart clenches uncomfortably.

So he takes the soup into the kitchen, where there’s little notes stuck all over the fridge.

“At Doyeob’s. Be back tomorrow! Love you.”

“If you need me, call Doyeob’s cell. Love you.”

“Doyeob’s until Sunday. Xo.”

“Text if you need me home.”

There’s pots hanging above the window along a pipe. Jeonghan takes one down and realizes he has to manually light the stove. He’s never done that before.

He scrapes around in the drawers until he finds a box of matches and with very little screaming manages to light the stove and heat up the soup.

He pours the broth into a bowl and brings it back to Seungcheol. He feels weirdly proud of himself for being able to figure everything out on his own today, from the truck to the stove to Seungcheol’s childhood trauma.

“Okay, soup time~” Jeonghan sings as he pushes back into Seungcheol’s room.

“Yay,” Seungcheol says weakly. He pushes off the blankets, baring his whole torso.

Jeonghan lets out a little laugh because the butterflies in his stomach are threatening to escape. Seungcheol’s hunched in on himself but he still looks broad and soft and it’s weird.

It shouldn’t be weird. What does it mean if it’s weird?

Seungcheol slurps down the soup and makes all these weird noises and Jeonghan makes fun of him for them. It’s like something out of someone else's life for a second. Jeonghan taking care of him, Seungcheol wheezing when Jeonghan says something funny. It doesn’t feel like forgetting, or a distraction. It feels like… something you do for someone else naturally.

“Let’s play Fifa,” Seungcheol huffs out, putting the soup bowl down with a clang. He turns to Jeonghan and smiles. “Thanks for the soup.”

“Sure,” Jeonghan says.

“And thanks for coming when I called,” Seungcheol continues, ducking his head bashfully.

Jeonghan lies back on the floor. “Don’t get used to it,” he says, but his voice comes out really warm.

Seungcheol shuffles around looking for the second controller for his Playstation and then lets out a huge, wet sneeze. “Hey,” Seungcheol pauses. “Is it… okay for you to be around sick people?”

It’s the closest they’ve ever gotten to addressing it. Sure, sometimes when Seungcheol comes over Jeonghan has to leave for a second to take some pills and he’s sure Seungcheol has seen the IV pole in his room, but Seungcheol hasn’t asked anything.

Jeonghan is dying for him to ask something. He smiles.

“It’s fine,” he says. “It’s okay.”

Seungcheol just hums and makes a few more clattering noises.

Jeonghan’s insides boil with how much he wants to just say everything out loud. Seungcheol’s not asking and it’s not like Jeonghan can just tell him.

He comes at it sideways, per usual. “Aren’t you… don’t you wanna know?”

Seungcheol shuffles over and sits next to his head. His knee is really close to Jeonghan. “I mean, sure. But it’s rude to ask.”

Jeonghan laughs. “No, it’s not.”

“Really?” Seungcheol asks, leaning over Jeonghan’s face and making his voice all high.

Jeonghan lifts up his chin and says, “I don’t mind.”

“You seem like you really want me to ask,” Seungcheol teases. “What if I’m fine not knowing? What then?”

Jeonghan giggles. He can feel his face turn red as Seungcheol continues ribbing him. He hits Seungcheol on the arm and says, “Okay, it’s a secret now. I’m not telling you.”

Seungcheol hits him back lightly on the shoulder and says, “Whatever you want.”

“I want to beat you at video games,” Jeonghan says. “Wait, no. I want to tell you. Ask me something.”

“We can make it fair, you can ask me anything,” Seungcheol says. He flops back down on the floor next to Jeonghan so they’re both belly-up. Exposed.

“Okay.” Jeonghan smiles. “You first.”

“When’s your birthday?” Seungcheol asks. Jeonghan can hear the grin in his voice.

“October. You?”

“August. I’m older.” Seungcheol says. “Call me hyung or I’ll hit you.”

“Hyung~”

Seungcheol’s body cringes. “Ew. Don’t do that again. Your turn.”

“Did the dog in the picture die?” Jeonghan asks.

Seungcheol sighs. “No, she lives with my mom.”

“You don’t?” Jeonghan asks. As soon as he says it he feels weird for asking. “Ah. Sorry.”

“It’s cool. Um. I guess technically we do, but. Yeah.”

“Sorry,” Jeonghan says again.

Seungcheol waves a hand. “It’s ok. Now I can ask something good. Uh. Are you going to get better, or…?”

Jeonghan laughs, glad the focus is back on him. “I hope so!”

Seungcheol pokes his stomach. “That’s not an answer.”

“Don’t ask stupid questions if you don’t want stupid answers,” Jeonghan teases.

“I didn’t—”

“It’s my turn,” Jeonghan interrupts. “Have you ever cried in school?”

Seungcheol turns his head. “Uh. No. I haven’t cried since I was like… ten.”

“Do it, right now,” Jeonghan says. He sits up on his hands. “Cry, do it.”

Seungcheol’s thick dark brows knit together and his pupils expand until his eyes look almost entirely black. His bottom lip juts out and starts to wobble and he makes a little whimpering noise. He looks like a cartoon. He looks really cute again.

They’re caught in this weird tableau when the front door knocks open and there’s the thump of shoes in the foyer.

“Hyung,” a voice calls. “How are you feeling?”

Seungcheol’s fake crying face turns to one of real concern. “He’s not supposed to be back—Chan-ah, don’t you have academy?”

“Hyung is sick, so I skipped,” Chan says. The footsteps get closer.

Jeonghan’s not sure how he feels about facing Lee Chan again. It’ll probably be funny as long as Chan doesn’t try to beat him up.

“It smells good, did you cook?” Chan says as he pushes open Seungcheol’s door. A look of horror dawns on his speckled little face. Yeah, this will be fun, Jeonghan decides.

“Hi,” Jeonghan says.

Chan opens his mouth wide like he’s about to shout something, and then looks over at Seungcheol. His face takes on an air of extreme offence as he tries to communicate silently with his brother. Seungcheol just lies back down on the floor.

“Is this a fucking joke?” Chan finally says, gaze alternating between Jeonghan and Seungcheol. It takes everything in Jeonghan not to laugh at his outrage. “The guy—hyung, he stole my fucking wallet!”

“I know,” Seungcheol says. His voice is full like he’s also trying to hold back laughter. “I’m giving him a stern talking to about thievery.”

Jeonghan bites his lip and nods enthusiastically, trying to look remorseful but probably landing around constipated. “He’s been really harsh. I feel like I’m finally understanding why what I did was wrong.” He has to squeeze his fingers tight enough to dent his palm with his nails to keep from laughing out loud.

Seungcheol starts to vibrate next to him as Chan says, “You should—hyung, you told me you took care of it!”

“I did, I am! I—I got your wallet back, right? Give me a little credit,” Seungcheol whines defensively.

Chan’s little hands form into fists at his side as he says, “This is bullshit! You’re supposed to be my brother!”

This is quickly taking a turn for the worst, Jeonghan realizes. He turns to Seungcheol and says, “Hey, it’s okay, I can go. Seriously.”

Seungcheol shoots him an offended look and says, “No, you don’t have to go. He’s overreacting.”

“I’m not overreacting!” Chan whines. He sounds just like Seungcheol.

“You are,” Seungcheol says. “Leave him alone.”

“He stole—”

“And I told you I would handle it,” Seungcheol says firmly. “And I did. What did you want me to do, beat him up? Call the cops?”

Chan crosses his arms and glares at Jeonghan. “A little loyalty—”

“Oh, save it. Stop sending me to do shit for you if you’re going to be this ungrateful when I do it,” Seungcheol huffs out, standing up to tower over Chan. “I got you your wallet back, and now I’m going to hang out with my friend. Who is here taking care of me while I’m dying, by the way. So like. I think he deserves a little forgiveness from you.”

Chan scowls. “He deserves a fist in his mouth.”

“Stop.”

Chan gapes at him for a second, and then shakes his head and snarls, “Fine. I’m going out.”

Seungcheol’s face twists from anger to concern and then it smooths out unnaturally. “Fine. Have fun. Say hi to your girlfriend for me.”

Chan flips Seungcheol off with his little hands and turns on his heel.

“And take an umbrella!” Seungcheol shouts after him.

There’s a clatter of shoes and then a door slamming. Seungcheol collapses back onto the floor and groans. “God, he sucks.”

Jeonghan feels weirdly warm, like he caught Seungcheol’s cold. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to—”

Seungcheol pats him on the arm awkwardly. “It’s fine. That’s like... pretty normal. For us.”

Jeonghan feels his ears burn. “Still, I don’t want to like. Make things worse.”

“You’re not,” Seungcheol says. He picks his head up and looks at Jeonghan, face flushed from shouting. “You’re not making anything worse.”

⟳⟳⟳

December 2011

Jeonghan is getting very, very good at Maplestory. So good, honestly, that it’s sort of boring to play now. It’s not even hard anymore. He spends most days pretending to be a girl player and asking other people for gifts and cash.

His homeschool curriculum is a joke, but studying for suneung is the bane of his existence just like any other 19 year old. His tutor is nice, and good at her job, but it’s still somehow both boring and stressful no matter what. He tries not to think of what the point is of everything he’s doing right now—not for any morbid reason, but just because.

His character, a cute girl with pink hair and cat ears, falls off the map again. “Fuck,” Jeonghan hisses.

Having a line is definitely easier than the pills with every meal, but two infusions a day means Jeonghan is literally attached to his house by an IV. Any time he even goes to put real pants on his mother worries.

“Where are you going? Do you remember you have to be back by six? The tutor is coming before your night infusion, and you know it’s harder to focus after, so don’t—”

Jeonghan slides his feet into some sneakers and plugs in his headphones. He shoots a thumbs up at his mother and slips out the door.

It’s getting colder, the chill running straight through him without proper padding. The playground in the courtyard of his apartment complex is empty, all the kids at school or hagwon still.

He hasn’t seen Mingyu in almost a month.

She’s busy, apparently, with other friends and academy and her boyfriend. Jeonghan didn’t realize how lonely it would be without her around, even if her presence was always sort of a rough edge for him to grind up against. They worked, somehow. And now, apparently, they don’t.

He has too much pride to call her.

Besides, he’s going on a walk! It’s good for his health! He’s getting fresh air before his tutor comes over. He’s doing good.

He walks to the end of his block before he feels a little lightheaded. Usually he’d stop here but he doesn’t, feet crunching against the brick on autopilot. He makes it to the bus stop outside his complex and sits heavily on the bench.

A yellow shuttle full of academy students pulls into the parking lot next to him and drops off several girls, some of whom he sort of recognizes from school.

They’ve all got matching backpacks and linked arms and Jeonghan feels weirdly old looking at them even though they’re probably no more than a few years younger than him.

One of the girls, a small one with a round face, spots him huddled up on the bench like a sea-battered old fisherman and tugs on her friend’s sleeve, whispering something into her ear.

The girls veer of course and, horrifyingly, make their way towards Jeonghan. His eyes widen as they pull up in front of him like they’re selling something.

“Yoon Jeonghan?” the shorter girl asks.

He throws a smile onto his face, feeling it stretch his dry lips, and nods.

The taller girl says, “You’re friends with Kim Mingyu, right?” It comes out like an accusation.

Jeonghan’s leg starts to jiggle without his permission. “Sure, yeah,” he says. “Why?”

The short girl rummages in her pocket and then pulls out a little coin and hands it to him. “Mingyu told us you’re not doing well. Here.”

What the fuck? Jeonghan thinks. He takes the coin without thinking as the taller one says, “Get well soon, oppa. My whole church is praying for you.”

Something in him must be wired wrong for him to smile at what is obviously pity and Catholic guilt, but he still has a horrible habit of trying to smooth out the edges so he gives them a nod and runs his finger over the ridges of the coin until they walk away.

Back inside, he looks up the coin on his computer. St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

He goes to bed and dreams about baptizing Kim Mingyu.

⁂ NOW ⁂

Seungcheol calls him at eight in the morning, long before the cicadas would usually wake him up with their screaming or his aunt’s friends crunching into the back garden.

It wakes Jeonghan with a start and he fumbles miserably for his phone amid the sheets as it buzzes.

“What,” Jeonghan grones into the receiver.

“It’s cloudy out,” Seungcheol says brightly. He sounds like he’s already been up for a few hours.

Jeonghan’s eyes are so heavy they keep shutting on him as he says, “Okay?”

“Let’s go outside,” Seungcheol’s voice buzzes in his ear. “Down to the stream.”

Jeonghan rubs one of his eyes. He’ll never get back to sleep now that he’s up. Annoying.

“Stream’s all dirty,” Jeonghan sighs, tilting his neck just to feel it crack.

He can hear Seungcheol pout through the phone. Good. That’s what he gets for waking him up. “But we can see the salmon spawn,” Seungcheol laments. “I’ll pick you up.”

“Eh,” Jeonghan grunts, picking gunk out of his eye. “You would do that anyway.”

“I’ll buy us breakfast,” Seungcheol says.

This gets Jeonghan’s attention. “From where?”

Seungcheol chuckles at him and says, “Where do you think? 7/11.”

“Jeonghan wants coffee,” Jeonghan says, laying the aegyo on thick.

“You can’t have coffee.”

“Who said?”

“You, literally two days ago. You said you get all shaky and weird.”

“So mean,” Jeonghan sighs. “Okay. Gimme fifteen minutes.”

Seungcheol whoops.

“What are you wearing?” Seungcheol asks from the cab of the truck. He’s got on some old t-shirt that he cut the sleeves off of and probably cargo shorts. He looks stupid and nothing really fits him right, but he has color high on his cheeks and a smile that crinkles his face.

Jeonghan is wearing a rash guard under a t-shirt, a huge visor, sunglasses, long shorts and leggings underneath. He also brought an umbrella. He looks ridiculous but Seungcheol can’t know he thinks that.

“No sun,” Jeonghan reminds him.

Seungcheol’s smile doesn’t fade. “Ah, Dracula~”

“Frankenstein,” Jeonghan coos back.

That wipes the shit-eating grin off Seungcheol’s face. “Okay, in, before the sun comes out,” Seungcheol says, slapping the side of the truck with one palm. He eyes Jeonghan as he slides into the passenger seat. “You got sunscreen?”

“Nope,” Jeonghan says. “Let’s go.”

The drive is long, but there’s a lot to see on the way. Jeonghan loves long car rides, mostly because he can play little games with the scenery. He imagines someone is running alongside the car, jumping on the rails and swinging from the trees to keep up with them. He imagines he’s 24 years old and in the car off to a day at the beach. He imagines he’s old and this is one of the last things he’ll see.

It’s a pretty drive, honestly. Jeonghan wishes he brought a camera to capture the hazy skies thick with lush, blustering gray clouds and the trees bent a little with the early morning wind. They go over hills and under a bridge and pass by farm after farm, all with little people dotting the greenery like flowers. They drive past rice paddies and tall orchards and fields hosting cattle resting in the breeze.

It would be nice to live like this forever, Jeonghan thinks. For a second he doesn’t want anything else at all; just an early morning drive with Seungcheol beside him.

Even the sun poking out from the clouds doesn’t make Jeonghan anxious—it’s weird but he’s feeling good in a way he hasn’t felt in long enough for it to feel new.

They hit a pothole that jolts Jeonghan out of his head and back into the cab of the truck, where Seungcheol is humming quietly along to something on the radio. He turns to look at Jeonghan and grins, the smile showing off his gums and little teeth. Jeonghan feels his stomach turn over inside of him.

“Almost there,” Seungcheol says, turning back to look at the road. It gives Jeonghan the opportunity to examine Seungcheol. He’s not pretty like Jeonghan is, but he’s still beautiful, dark hair a little too long and curling at his little red ears and his sharp jaw. Jeonghan grimaces.

He doesn’t want to think about it but he thinks of it anyway—Mingyu’s voice echoing in his ears. “You’ll let us do anything, won’t you?”

It’s not even really her, it’s just his subconscious thinking this, but the words came out of her soft mouth all the same, the only mouth he’s ever kissed.

And then, like following a train from one station to the next, Jeonghan thinks about kissing Seungcheol for real, and he expects it to hurt, because isn’t that why he hasn’t thought of it yet? He touches the thought and prepares to recoil, but it’s nice and warm when he imagines it, Seungcheol’s hands shaking on his waist and the gentle way he looks at him. It’s good, without trying.

Jeonghan has missed that. Maybe he never had it.

“What if I pushed you in?” Jeonghan asks through a mouthful of rice. The sun, filtered through tree leaves, makes little shapes on his bare feet. He tucks them under his knees and stuffs another bite into his mouth.

“Yah, don’t you dare.” Seungcheol warns, half-laughing on his knees peering into the stream.

Jeonghan swallows and says, “Do you do this every year? Look for salmon, or whatever.”

Seungcheol leans back on his heels and wipes his hands on his shorts. “I mean, I guess? It’s not like, a tradition or anything. I just think it’s cool.”

Jeonghan nods. “Seen any yet?”

Seungcheol pouts a little. “No…” He scuttles over until he’s back on the picnic mat next to Jeonghan, moving like a monkey on all fours. Jeonghan smiles at him. “What?” Seungcheol says, scooting over until they’re close enough to touch.

“Nothing,” Jeonghan says. “This is just something old people do.”

Seungcheol huffs. “Don’t you want to be old?”

Jeonghan gives it some thought. Seungcheol has that effect on him sometimes, rattling him a little bit. “I mean… wouldn’t it be sort of shitty? Like you can barely walk, and your bones are all brittle, so.”

Seungcheol leans back on his hands and looks resolutely at the sky while Jeonghan processes what he said. The cicadas laugh at him.

“Doesn’t sound that bad to me,” Seungcheol finally says lightly. “When we’re old, will you still drink with me?”

Jeonghan wants to say yes, I want to make memories with you, I want to be old and red and sitting in a restaurant with you, drunk off my ass, fighting about something stupid. I want to see how the sun paints lines on your face and how long your ears will get.

“Someone has to,” Jeonghan says.

Seungcheol turns his pretty face to scoff at him and it makes Jeonghan’s heart flop over and die in his chest. Is a crush supposed to feel like dying? Is it supposed to feel this easy?

There’s a splashing noise from the stream.

Seungcheol slaps him on the arm excitedly, then pets his arm in apology before scuttling back over to the edge of the water.

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol says, “Come look.”

Jeonghan gets unsteadily to his feet and swats Seungcheol’s ass as he comes to stand next to him on the bank. Seungcheol squawks and then points.

Sure enough, Jeonghan can see several ruddy salmon fighting against the current. They bob and weave like boxers against the current, swaying in and out of the center of the water, up against the banks close to them.

Jeonghan doesn’t even care that it’s sunny; he crouches down next to Seungcheol to watch in awe as the huge fish push and push forward. They cheer them on, crying out when the current sweeps the salmon back.

“I always sort of want to help them,” Seungcheol says. “But they don’t want my help.”

Jeonghan nods, looking down at one of the smaller fish having a harder time against the flow. “They know how to do it better than we do,” Jeonghan says. He turns to look at Seungcheol.

They’re really close, Jeonghan realizes. He can see the stubble on Seungcheol’s face. Before he can scare himself off, Jeonghan looks up into Seungcheol’s eyes. Seungcheol is looking back at him, the ghost of a smile still on his face. Without meaning to, Jeonghan’s eyes flick down to Seungcheol’s mouth.

Seungcheol sucks in a sharp breath and says, “You wanna go?”

Jeonghan blinks, hard, and pushes a breath out of his chest. “Yeah, sure,” he says, turning around to hide the flush on his cheeks and grabbing the mat.

Seungcheol gathers their food quickly, dropping a wrapper and cursing, before standing way straighter than normal and heading back up the bank without sparing Jeonghan a glance. All Jeonghan can see as Seungcheol walks away is the red glow of his ears.

As they drive back into town, Jeonghan’s phone picks up service again and lets him know by buzzing, buzzing, buzzing until it’s so annoying it pulls Jeonghan’s head out of the clouds.

“Yah, what—” Jeonghan flips his phone open.

4 missed calls from kmingoo

From: kmingoo

+01047691787

Text: oppa pick up pls

Text: please oppa

Text: yoon jeonghan

Text: please

“Fuck,” Jeonghan breathes out. Fuck, fuck, fuck. His fingers shake as they redial her number.

“What’s—” Seungcheol says. Jeonghan looks at him and shakes his head.

Mingyu’s annoying ringback tone plays, 2NE1’s I Am The Best. She still hasn’t changed it. She probably forgot she has it.

I’ll chase you all away

Even if I’m running

“Pick up, dummy,” Jeonghan says quietly. He picks at his lip anxiously, waiting for her voicemail.

It’s love at first sight

I’m hot hot hot—

“Hello? Oppa?” Mingyu’s voice rings through the speaker.

Her voice makes Jeonghan feel sick, nauseous, but he pushes the bile down and says, “Are you okay?”

There’s a sniffle, and then a sob, and then Mingyu moans, “I—I really fucked up, oppa. I really... I need help.”

Jeonghan’s heart drops. “Okay, what can oppa do?”

Mingyu continues crying on the line. “I’m in—I need a ride, I need a ride home. I don’t have any money, I—he was supposed to take me back but—oppa, can you come get me? I’m sorry. I—”

“Where are you?” Jeonghan asks.

Mingyu just cries harder, and Jeonghan listens anxiously until she’s done. She’s never done something like this before.

Finally, she gives out a huge sniff and a shuddering sigh. “Jeju,” Mingyu says.

⟳⟳⟳

December 2011

The cold seeps into Jeonghan’s bones while he waits for Mingyu to come out the doors of her academy. He keeps seeing her when she’s not there, all long-legged and tan and broad even wrapped up in end-of-fall sweaters.

He has some flimsy excuse up his sleeve if she asks why he’s there—a book she left at his house a few months ago. Three Paper Swans. It sits next to him while he picks violently at the dry skin on his lip.

Caught in a streetlight, Mingyu walks out alone, hair pushed back by her headphones and chin buried in a scarf. She’s tinted orange and Jeonghan sees red.

He pushes to his feet gingerly and intercepts her path with a call of “Yah! Kim Mingyu!”

Mingyu probably can’t hear him with the headphones on, but she sees him anyway and stops like she’s seen a ghost. Well. Jeonghan probably does look sort of ghostly right now, his roots grown out and his cheekbones sharp in support of the gaunt, dark skin under his eyes.

“Oppa,” Mingyu says, pushing her headphones off and stepping sideways, almost like a cagey jungle cat. She gives him a smile that stops at her teeth. “Hi. What are you—what’s up?”

Feeling awkward, Jeonghan holds out the book. It was a stupid idea, he realizes, to even bring it, but there’s no way in hell he’s taking it home with him.

“You left this when we were studying last month,” Jeonghan rasps out, his throat suddenly dry. “I didn’t know if you needed it.”

Mingyu just looks at his outstretched hand. “Oh. Um. Okay, thank you.”

She reaches out gingerly for the book, keeping her distance from him, but her fingers brush against his as she grabs the book. She jerks her hand back, and then looks at Jeonghan with a twisted expression on her face.

“You could have called,” Mingyu says ruefully. “I would have come to pick it up, if it was bothering you that much.”

Jeonghan swallows hard. “I did call. You were too busy.”

Mingyu crosses her arms over her chest and says, “I was. I am. Are you mad at me or something? ‘Cause I really don’t have time to—”

“Why are you telling people about me?” Jeonghan asks, all subtlety lost. “About—about—I haven’t heard from you in weeks—” He can’t seem to force the rest out of him.

“What do you mean, telling people about you?” Mingyu asks, taking a step forward. “You’re my… my—why wouldn’t I?”

Jeonghan lets out a clipped laugh and says, “All your classmates think I’m dying.”

There’s a pause for a second. Mingyu kicks the toe of her shoe into the concrete and then mumbles, “Aren’t you? Sort of?”

Bile rises in the back of his throat but he forces it down with another laugh and says, “If you’re so worried, why wouldn’t you just call me and ask?”

Mingyu looks up at him and her eyes are wet. It should make Jeonghan feel bad but he doesn’t feel anything right now besides a pathetic, rotten feeling deep in his chest.

Mingyu lets out a shuddering noise and says, “I just—it’s hard to see you like this, oppa. All cancer-y.”

“Ah,” Jeonghan breathes out.

Mingyu continues, “You—I’m sorry, it’s too much.”

“Too much,” Jeonghan repeats back, deadpan. He feels sour.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu says again, like it matters.

She shuffles uncomfortably in front of him, like she’s thinking of something to say that doesn’t make things worse. For a second Jeonghan wants to give her the relief of knowing she’s already said the worst thing possible. There’s nothing worse she can say. He thinks about shouting at her. He thinks about crying.

“Just—I have to go,” Jeonghan finally says softly. It feels like the words are coming from someone else's mouth. “I’m cold.” He nods, a sharp jerk of his head that hurts his neck a little bit. It’s final: nails in a coffin, ashes in the ocean, changing the lock on his door.

Mingyu just nods back, chin tucked into her scarf. “I’m sorry.”

“Sure,” Jeonghan says, and then he turns on his heel and crosses back to where his mom is parked.

Mingyu says something behind him as he leaves but he pretends he doesn’t hear it. He can’t concentrate on anything but the blood rushing in his ears and the way his stomach boils over.

The car is blessedly warm and dark when he gingerly slides into the front seat.

“Did you give it to her?” his mom asks.

“Yeah, she got it.” Jeonghan fumbles the seatbelt and then, fuck it, leaves it off his shoulders. His mother doesn’t say anything, just pats the gearshift like it’s his arm and then puts the car in drive.

Mingyu’s voice rattles in his ears. “Your lip is bleeding, oppa.”