Their knees are touching.

   It's a given that Kyungsoo accompanies Jongin to his house after school to study, this interspersed with TV, video games, and talk. Sometimes Jongin goes to his house, but that's less likely; there are fewer people in Kyungsoo’s house, and they prefer being the calm in a storm, well-developed, deprecating one-liners thrown in amongst the chaos. If they go to Kyungsoo’s house they’ll either crazily, stupidly giggle into the silence or let the silence drape itself over them, leaning against each other, back to back. Their friendship isn’t overt, or obviously important, but it is steady. They understand the most basic mechanisms of how the other works, well enough that to annoy the other would be a deliberate action, but not well enough that they cannot pleasantly surprise the other. Their friendship is a purer, lovely one.

   But lately-

   Lately their relationship is manifesting in new behaviors. There has been moments when Kyungsoo is unsure of Jongin's thoughts. He doesn't know if he has interpreted Jongin's long looks, his pink mouth open in a way that feels redolent, suggestive, correctly. Kyungsoo doesn't know what to think. Nowadays Jongin brushing his hand down Kyungsoo's arm, coupled with his hot breath on his neck confuses a flushed Kyungsoo, whereas before the same action, more compact, would have been comforting. The other day when they wrestled in Kyungsoo's bedroom, it didn't feel playful and childlike, but thickly evocative. And today, in Jongin's room, when they should be studying-

   Their knees are touching.

   On Jongin's bed, facing each other, the fading afternoon sun highlighting Jongin's face in stripes because of the cheap blinds, so close that their knees touch. It's a dance of calculated missteps, of fingers lingering in certain positions, near certain locations, nonchalantly, so that their hands might brush on the way from duvet to knee to calf. They had been talking about anatomy, how muscles pull and extend, how skin moves over veins and how blood speeds in response to certain chemicals.

   "Seratonin, oxytocin, dopamine: the chemicals of love and attraction," their psychology teacher, a young woman named Lee Minyoung, had told them in class that day. "You should all know by now that balance, homeostasis, is the key to an organism's survival. This is evident regarding these chemicals. Too little serotonin and dopamine causes clinical depression and anxiety. Too much causes schizophrenia.” She paused, as if considering whether she should continue. “The strange thing is, when you're in love, your body reacts in the same way it does recreational drugs, such as heroin, or , and levels of these chemicals often surge and ebb rapidly.” With a hand raised to her chin, her voice turned thoughtful, “Why would your body purposefully upset homeostasis so drastically? What biological advantage does it pose? This is something scientists still have no answer for, although there are theories abound.” A student laughs at their teacher’s little recess, and it snaps Lee back to attentive instruction. “But today we won't be analyzing the philosophical aspect of love, but rather the scientific. Please flip to page 286..."

   The rest of the lecture was vocabulary terms, but teacher-nim’s introduction to their current unit was what had interested Kyungsoo. He didn't think he had even been in love, and he wondered what it felt like to have your brain fire off excessive amounts of chemicals, enough that it felt like being high. He wonders if Jongin has ever been in love, or if he's ever done drugs.

   "Have you ever been kissed?" Jongin asks lightly, but his dark eyes are inquiring.

   They're close. Jongin should know that if he were ever kissed, he would have told him. Kyungsoo shakes his head no. "Have you?"

   Jongin nods his head, but his eyes don't leave Kyungsoo's face. "Yeah."

   A pause. Kyungsoo's pointer finger straightens a wrinkle in Jongin's navy blue bedspread. "Was it good?"

   Jongin just tosses his shoulders, a noncommittal answer.

   "Would you like to be kissed?"

   Kyungsoo doesn't know how to answer this. Would he like to be kissed? Yes. Does he want Jongin to kiss him? He isn't sure.     

   Jongin is attractive. Kyungsoo knows this objectively, evident in how classmates preen for him, nervously smile and lean in close. He knows this by the confessions and love letters Jongin received during their school career. But he also knows this subjectively, in the way the last gasping rays of the day's sunlight reach for his golden skin, his dark, happy eyes, his skinny eyebrows, his lithe body, his pink mouth- it's no wonder he's been kissed. They're seventeen. Jongin is charming, and sweet despite his arousing smirk, his lazily provocative body movements. It's no wonder.

   "Kyungsoo..."

   "Yes?” He looks up, meeting Jongin’s gaze, after he realizes he hasn’t responded to the question.

   He finds he doesn't have to, because Jongin leans forward, a hand resting lightly on Kyungsoo's shoulder, the other against the patch of covers behind Kyungsoo’s back, and presses his mouth against Kyungsoo's. The kiss is only slightly unexpected, and Kyungsoo doesn't move except to open his mouth a little wider. The boys’ breath mingles, hot, and Kyungsoo registers that Jongin tastes like sugar and dough and meat. He pulls away, slightly, because he didn't realize how intimate a kiss would be (is his breath awful?). It was really only a press of lips, but already Kyungsoo is breathing harder, his eyes wide, heart pumping like he's run a mile. He wants more. He wants to try again.

   He's glad Jongin reads his eagerness in the way Kyungsoo leans towards him again, glad that he doesn't pull away.

   One of Jongin's fingers is lightly a small line up and down Kyungsoo's neck, and he lets out a small, exalted sound when Jongin slips his tongue into Kyungsoo's mouth, the tip brushing the back of his teeth, touching Kyungsoo's lower lip when he pulls away.

   Kyungsoo thinks about serotonin and dopamine when he looks at Jongin, whose cheeks are pink, whose dark eyes seem to long for something. Kyungsoo has never done drugs, but he wonders if they come close to this feeling, blood pounding, body warm and stomach in delightfully painful knots.

   "Was it good?" Jongin is really attractive, Kyungsoo thinks again. Throughout their entire friendship, he has known this, but never has it been so obvious as it is now. Jongin is too beautiful in the light of the setting sun, the approaching darkness, with his slightly furrowed brows, with his unique nose (which has recently been smushed against Kyungsoo's larger one) and mouth still slightly agape. Kyungsoo reaches a hand out to touch his cheek, to trace his jawline, and presses a kiss at the corner of his mouth, just below his bottom lip. He's not brave enough to kiss his mouth directly yet. He kisses Jongin's chin instead, wanting him to understand that...that he liked it.

   "Kyungsoo." Jongin takes Kyungsoo's chin in his hand, tilting his face so that Kyungsoo is forced to look him in the eyes. "Is it okay that I- that I kissed you?" The way he stutters shyly makes Kyungsoo's heart soar, and he realizes that maybe Jongin is just as nervous as he is. So he nods, and haltingly informs him, "I don't know how to touch you." Even as he says this, he runs a hand down Jongin's chest, and slides his fingers beneath the lapel of Jongin's school uniform. Then he looks at Jongin's neck, and instead curls his pointer and middle finger inside the collar of Jongin's white dress shirt, kissing the bit of skin that's revealed. "I don't know how to make you feel good."

   Because he has pressed his fingers against Jongin's throat, he can feel the vibration of his vocal cords when he laughs. Because their heads are so near, he shivers when Jongin breathes against his ear, "you're touching me just fine."

***

   Kyungsoo doesn't look at Jongin when he rises from the bed (the bed) a half hour later to grab his schoolbag. He looks out onto the street outside Jongin's window and thinks,"I just kissed my best friend and liked it. A boy." The knowledge is contained within this room, and within his own minds. Fallen beneath the horizon, the sun is gone and the sky is a saturated blue, tinged with oncoming night. His parents will wonder why he isn't home yet. He plans on leaving without looking at Jongin's face, but halts when he feels fingers, light on his wrist. It's only a touch of skin. Foolishly, he looks at Jongin, who is still on the bed, peering up at him, seemingly about to say something, looking so cute with his shy, earnest face and kiss swollen lips that Kyungsoo feels he has no choice but to lean down and kiss him. It's only a hard press, quick, because Kyungsoo knows how easily he gives in to Jongin. Whipping away, he hightails it out of his friends house, sorry that he hadn't kissed Jongin gently, politely bidding Mrs. Kim goodbye, but unable to look her in the eyes. I kissed your son.

   On the subway ride home, Kyungsoo considers the day’s last rush of people- has that women in a prim black dress skirt kissed her best friend? Has she held her hand and felt her chest sink, grow wider? Does that man with white square glasses know what it’s like to make out with men, how flat their chests are, how big his own feels? Kyungsoo is still too high off Jongin's touch to sift through his emotions, but he isn't ashamed. He doesn't want to not kiss Jongin, or take back those thirty minutes.

   When the man with the square white glasses feels Kyungsoo's gaze upon him and looks up, Kyungsoo focuses on his own fingers, fidgeting in his lap. This really isn't the place to think of such things.

   The idea that maybe Kyungsoo girls weren't the only ones who could arouse him has been teasing the edges of his conscious mind for some time now, and he should probably be worried, because homouality is not socially acceptable in South Korea at present, but right now the emotion Jongin has imbued him with consumes too much of his mind for conservative culture and politics to have any say. them.

   When he gets home he briefly greets his family before escaping to his bedroom, where he promptly throws his school bag aside, and flops onto his bed, sighing. He lies on his stomach, head facing to the left, and relives the intimate moments he shared with his friend. Remembering Jongin's warm, wet mouth, his kind hands, his large hands, Kyungsoo grins madly and buries his face in his pillow, muffling the embarrassed but delighted groan he releases. He should begin the homework they should have finished instead of making out. The next morning he’ll have a massive headache from staying up so late, but, hopefully, he’ll see Jongin again (Hopefully, as if they don't spend a third of their day together nearly everyday). With a sigh, Kyungsoo picks up his pencil and writes.

***

   (In the milky dark space between two am and the rest of the day, Kyungsoo thinks he'd like to kiss Jongin again, and make him feel as good as Kyungsoo did when Jongin kissed him.)

***

   The next morning Kyungsoo sits with his group of friends at their regular circular table before school, beneath a large, flourishing tree, like they do everyday in spring and fall, weather permitting. The boys joke around with and tease one another, a few hastily completing unfinished homework from the night before, some playing games halfheartedly on their phones. Comfortable and familiar was this routine.

   Jongin arrives almost last, as per usual, wiping sleep from his eyes. Sliding into his normal seat between Kyungsoo and Sehun, he greets everyone, and Kyungsoo ignores the anxiety and longing that swells within him when Jongin smiles at him, hair sweetly rumpled.

   The group continues to chatter, and Kyungsoo, only half invested in the virtual boxing match between Baekhyun and Chanyeol, feels a finger poke his knee.

   It’s Jongin. He leans close to Kyungsoo (who notices that, crap, Jongin smells really good, like good enough for Kyungsoo to want to unseemingly rub his face into Jongin's shirt) and asks, voice deep and clandestine, "want to come to my house after school?" Kyungsoo only nods, and finally lets his thigh, which had been tense, maintaining a careful centimeter of space between them, rest against Jongin's under the table. He put his hands on top of the table lest they resort to some indecently affectionate touching.

To my house after school