He has never thought much about people being gay; always figured that it was something as normal as it is for people to be straight. After all, love is love, and Howon’s never been one to judge, even if society and his father expect him to.  Still, because it’s not something that really affects his life – he likes girls, always have, since he was young – it’s something he doesn’t really think about. That is, until he meets him.

∞

“You’ve been staring at him for the last few minutes, you know,” Sungjong mumbles over his coffee, and Howon snaps his head back to look at his friend sitting more primly than is needed in a university café. He doesn’t say anything to Sungjong though, just gives him a look.

“Way to be obvious,” Sungjong rolls his eyes, but Howon gives him another bored glare, daring him to say something more. Anyone else would have left it at that, but this is Sungjong, his childhood friend who has known him for way too long, and much too well, and all Sungjong does is sigh exaggeratedly.

“You know you have a mouth right? And you can talk. So you can, you know, actually reply me instead of giving me killer stares. Which don’t work, by the way, because I know you are all bark and no bite.”

Howon gives him another glare – so yes, he has a habit of narrowing his eyes at people more than necessary but so what? – though this time he actually does say something.

“Tell me about him again.”

This time it’s Sungjong giving him the killer stare, but Howon shrugs it off. He knows Sungjong is just concerned. If it was him faced with a best friend who has a slight obsession with a certain man playing soccer in the field this café overlooks, he would be much less patient about it than Sungjong is being.

“Hyung,” Sungjong says – and that should raise an alarm, because Sungjong insists on calling him Howon whenever he can, reserving hyung only for when he feels respectful, or when he’s being serious, no guesses which it is right now – “I told you what I know about fifty times already.”

Howon hears the exasperated tone in Sungjong’s voice, so he chooses not to correct him that it’s only about twenty times instead of fifty. (Such exaggeration, that boy.) What he says is instead, “Humor me.”

So Sungjong rolls his eyes with as much drama as he can manage (which is a lot, if you ask Howon), and tells Howon about how he met Nam Woohyun for the fifty-first (twenty-first) time.

If someone asks Howon now, what he truly thinks of Nam Woohyun, he’ll say that Nam Woohyun is an enigma. But of course Howon is Howon, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever say this out loud to anyone, except maybe Sungjong, if his friend is determined enough to wrestle the words out of Howon.

But if someone had asked him the same question a month ago, the answer would have been very different.

The thing is, Howon never used to think that of Nam Woohyun. Or more precisely, he never thought much about Nam Woohyun, if at all. Just a month ago, the only knowledge Howon has about Woohyun is this: he knows Woohyun exists in the same way he registers that air exists – it’s there, he doesn’t think about it because there’s no reason to.

(Actually, on second thought, he probably thinks about air more than he thinks about Woohyun, because Howon pushes himself to his limits when he dances too often, and he’s always grateful for the gulps of air filling his lungs once his feet stop, so there’s that.)

Sure, he knows that Woohyun is the soccer captain, charming, good-looking, friendly and popular with girls. Even if Howon’s not the type to judge, it’s easy to think that he knows what kind of person Woohyun is with the kind of picture others paint of him. He doesn’t judge the guy – doesn’t know enough to anyway – but Howon thinks this is the kind of person he won’t be mentioned in the same sentence as, which is to say he won’t be associated with Woohyun, and that’s all he needs to know about him. It’s not that Howon thinks he’s beneath the guy; it’s just kind of the way things are. Their social circles don’t overlap, there’s no need for them to associate with each other, and it’s nothing particularly about him or Woohyun.

But after Sungjong meets Woohyun – and boy, had that been one hilarious experience – Howon finds himself getting tangled in the invisible lines of Woohyun’s world. He’s not even sure how it happens, but it does, and before he knows it, Howon’s seeing Woohyun everywhere – on his way to lecture, passing by the field on his way to grab a coffee, and once, downtown at the place he usually gets his clothes.

What’s more surprising than seeing Woohyun everywhere he turns, however, is the realization Howon comes to that he’s observing Woohyun every time he thinks the other isn’t looking – casually tracing the worn patches on Woohyun’s faded jacket with his eyes as the guy walks past him down the corridor, watching Woohyun dribble a ball lazily on the wet grass, and later, counting how many times Woohyun has picked up and put down yet another jacket from the clothes rack in a shop.

He’s not sure why he’s doing this, but one thing Howon discovers after weeks of observing Woohyun is this: Woohyun’s always sneaking glances at the popular campus couple when he thinks no one is looking.

Eunji and Inguk are ever so oblivious to Woohyun’s stolen glances – perhaps the same way Woohyun is oblivious to Howon’s – but as both Eunji’s and Inguk’s friend, Howon feels some sense of (perhaps misplaced) responsibility to do something about the matter. And that’s why, two hours after he hears Sungjong’s newly spiced up rendition of how he met Woohyun – two minutes after Woohyun’s soccer practice finally ends – Howon thinks it’s time to talk to the guy.

Sungjong’s story of how he meets Woohyun goes something like this (or at least, this is how the first version – the non-spiced up, non-exaggerated, not-peppered with embellished details version – had gone):

Sungjong was walking up to Sunggyu’s dorm room, ready to knock on Sunggyu’s door. He was only there because Howon had asked him to help return a CD he borrowed from Sunggyu (some male idol group because Howon wanted to try a dance cover, no other reason). At this point in the telling of the story, Sungjong will give Howon a sharp glare, as if to say, this is all your fault, but Howon sits through all twenty-one variations of the retelling with just a slightly quirked eyebrow, knowing Sungjong would continue if he doesn’t interrupt.

And continue Sungjong does, describing how he had been about to knock on Sunggyu’s door when he hears noises inside the room. The first was a low, breathy “eunggg”, followed by a long groan, then shortly after, a short gasp. Sungjong had been about to chalk it up to nothing – as much nothing as one would find in university dorms, at least – ready to run back down the stairs and ask Howon to return the CD himself on another day, when he bumped into Sunggyu. Sunggyu had given him a questioning look, and Sungjong could only stand where he was, still outside the door of Sunggyu’s dorm. He had been about to explain himself, why he was there, when suddenly from behind the door, he heard –

“Harder… there…”

“…here?”

“Mhmm, ahh… yeah…yes…”

In all his retelling of the story, Sungjong never mentions how he was flustered or how his ears must have turned red when he heard that, but Howon knows for a fact that that’s what would have happened, if the dust of pink on Sungjong’s cheeks whenever he reaches this part of the tale is any indication. Either way, Sungjong quickly explains that he was shocked (mortified really, if you ask Howon) to hear that, and had been about to quickly hand the CD over to Sunggyu when the other told him to come into his dorm first.

Sungjong’s reaction had been to say, “Uh, that’s fine, hyung, I’m just here to help Howon return the CD he borrowed from you” but Sunggyu seemed unaware of Sungjong’s reluctance to step into his dorm, proceeding to throw his room door wide open.

Dorm rooms in general are pretty small, and once the door was ajar, everything in the room can be clearly seen from the entrance, which was why Sungjong had probably covered his eyes the moment the door had opened. (No, Sungjong hadn’t told Howon that, but Howon can easily guess.) Still, whatever Sungjong did, he eventually caught sight of the two guys on the bed, one topless, lying face down on the mattress, and the other still fully dressed, sitting on the first guy’s thighs with his legs bracketing the other (“Straddling him, you mean,” Howon had clarified the first time and gotten a kick on his shin for it, so he doesn’t ever