CHAPTER 18

I just smile at him. In the moonlight, everything looks different. Softer, more beautiful. Things glow. But Cho Kyuhyun does not need the light of the moon to prove he is better. He would be breathtaking in a new moon and at high noon, too. He is moonproof.

“Hey - he says - Your gay lessons are officially over. Look at you…your hair is better, your clothes are perfect, even your skin is better. You’re so different already.”

“How’d I do, overall?”

“I’d give you an A plus, but then again I might be biased.”

I laugh and rub his chin.

“But the most important thing, the most important lesson you’ve learned about being gay - he says - is to just be kind and love everyone and spread goodwill around. Gays are on the bottom of society around here, so we’re in no position to judge. We have to accept everyone as they are, and take them as they come to us, and that’s how you’ve become. You are so tolerant it hurts.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me, Kyu.”

“So what now?” - he asks.

“I just…”

“You just what?”

I just stare at him again, processing my wonderful thoughts. Before our fight, I’d felt this moment creeping up on me in little beautiful moments, the point where I would overflow for him and just unleash my feelings. I liked him too much, I liked the way he walked and laughed and touched my shoulder when he passed me in a hallway, and I couldn’t contain it anymore.

“You live in my heaven - I say. I think of how dull my life was before him, and how alive and sublime it feels now, like a kite in the sky on a Sunday evening. And here in a cemetery, this kid feels like the afterlife - My heaven is anywhere you are. Anywhere we are, together. And I think if I met you ten years from now, it would still be you. It would be you all over again. Just with less angst this time…”

“Oh, Siwon - He pulls me even closer, and I smell his sweet breath. And love spreads through me then, populates me like oak roots. How was it that only a few months ago I was afraid of even his touch? - Let me live there all the time, then.”

“You mean…be together? I want to - I take a breath, hoping my mouth doesn’t smell like alcohol. I want this moment to ring with all the honesty inside myself - You know I used to think I was shocked by you, and by what happened, but looking back, I shouldn’t have been surprised at all.”

“Why?”

“Because sometimes I think we were meant for this. My life only clicked into place when you came into it. Maybe I was always waiting for you. Maybe my whole life, I was waiting for you to happen. For twenty-something years I could’ve been waiting for you to walk onto that bus.”

“Twenty-something? - he asks quietly, and it sounds like he’s trying not to cry - Don’t you know how old you are, silly?”

“Maybe I did three vodkas ago. Not anymore.”

“Well you’re beautiful, regardless of your age.”

My eyes travel down his body to his shoes, then the ground...

Kyuhyun takes a breath.

“Speaking of that, look.” - He pulls up his sleeve and shows me something I’ve never noticed, a new tattoo near his wrist of a tiny playing card.

“Whoa. That’s new? Because of…me?”

He nods, smiling.

“I got it when I was unsure if we would work out.”

“Why?”

He glances off into the night.

“To remember who we were at that very moment in time. Just in case those people changed forever.”

I pull him closer and kiss him, lost in his touch.

“Can we be together now? - he asks - For real, this time?”

“Like…publicly?”

He just stares at me.

“I don’t know. That’s so complicated…”

He looks away and grimaces.

“What do you think about me? - I ask - You’re so…opaque.”

He sighs and looks up at a street light over the path.

“How do I say this…”

“Just try.”

“Okay. Every time I see you it’s like…the first time. I would honestly live my life a hundred times again if it meant getting to relive the past few months. You make my heart…not so much sing as riot.”

“You changed my life, Kyu - I respond - All I know is I can’t go back to how things were. My life was on snooze before you. I can’t, and I won’t.”

“I love you, Siwon.”

I pause.

“…You do?”

“I do. I did. I have. I probably always will.”

“Why?”

He looks down at me.

“I don’t know how to answer that…I grew up going to church sometimes, and did God ever say why he loved humans? Did he ever give them reasons why he loved them? No, he just loved them. Unconditionally - He closes his eyes for a moment and takes a breath - But still. You are kind and gentle and accepting, and you’ve never once judged anyone or anything at all. I probably loved you the first time I met you, even when I thought you were straight and knew you would probably never love me back. But even without the promise of that, I still loved you anyway. Unconditionally. What love could be more real than that?”

I just breathe.

“And I’m so scared - he says - Losing you would just…end me, and yet you came to me so easily. What if you change your mind and go away again just as casually? What if you go back to Liu?”

I shake my head and grip him tighter.

“That won’t happen. You’re in my skin now.”

I pull Kyu to me and kiss him until my vision blurs. So many of us get it all wrong, so many of us love all the wrong people at all the wrong times, while some of us love the right people at the wrong times. Some of us just run from love altogether. Lord knows I’ve fled some good people who only wanted to treat me well, and walked away from some situations that could’ve made me truly happy. But I am somewhat okay with my journey now, because all of the running and the mistakes and all of the love sent into the wrong places, all of it led me to him. He is just so right, and I feel it in the smallest of my bones.

Soon Crystal decides it’s time to go, and Kyu asks her to get an Uber to drop us off at my house. By the time we stumble through my door, we are undressing each other. I him wildly against the headboard, against my ottoman, against my bathroom wall, on my bedroom floor. We cannot get enough of each other and I love it. I love him. I want the rest of my life to contain him in it, no matter where the rest of the dominoes may fall…

And fall, they will.

The next morning is rough. It’s a hangover for the record books, but after I vomit in the shower I start to feel a tad bit better. We are groggily trying to make coffee when I unplug my phone and clutch my head.

“Oh, .”

“What?”

“Last night. Did I post any Snapchat stories of us?”

“I don’t remember. Who cares?”

I open the app, and the dread slams into me like a stomach flu, I posted photo after photo of us posing together, sometimes even videos of us dancing while sneaking a kiss back and forth. Bile rises into my throat.

“What is it?” - he asks.

“Nothing” - I say, but I can’t hide the anxiety on my face. I can’t believe I’ve been so reckless, especially after the past week or so. I delete the posts as quickly as I can, but I can already see they’ve been viewed by dozens of people.

“I think we look cute - Kyuhyun says, looking on his own phone - And hey, stop deleting them! I looked hot in that one on the steps. Why is this bad? Are you really still this scared?”

“It’s not bad, that’s not the point. It’s just…”

“What?”

My temper flies away from me.

“Yes, I like you a lot, but nobody knows about this yet! How is it fair to tell them in a Snapchat story?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Whatever, you’re being a total queen right now. Nobody cares. Calm down.”

“Easy for you to say, your friends are the most carefree people ever. Mine are…well, you know. And the thing with The Monster, I just don’t know …”

He sets down his phone.

“Oh. What happened to