I haven’t seen you in ages
Sometimes I find myself
Wondering where you are
For me, you’ll always be 18
And beautiful
And dancing away with my heart

Jongin tries to block out the music seeping through the bus’s speaker system. He’s exhausted and wishes he could get from work to the grocery store in peace without being subjected to sappy songs about past love. He’s not here to feel – he just wants to get something simple to eat and knows there’s nothing in the pantry of his tiny, studio apartment with bare furnishings and still unpacked moving boxes. It’s been a typical day at his monotonous job, which is to say that it felt longer than the actual 8 hours he spent scouring the budget lines in preparation for the company’s next audit. Meaningless numbers in meaningless spreadsheets, all for a meaningless company that does nothing but move rich people’s money around to make them more money. Man, Jongin hates accounting.

Absentmindedly, he loosens his tie and undoes his dress shirt’s top button in reaction to the suffocating heat in the summer air. The MTA bus lurches to a stop in front of the grocery a few miles from his new place. He just moved out to Queens after growing disgusted with Manhattan and the inability to even breathe without being in someone else’s space. He scrambles off the bus, almost getting hit by the door on his way out, and drags himself through the store entrance. He heads straight to the boxed meals, aka the bachelor food aisle, and snags a handful of sad looking macaroni and cheese options that are pathetically dressed up as ‘healthy’ due to a minute sprinkling of ‘real broccoli bits’ mixed in with the artificial, powdered cheese. Whatever – it’ll do.

Because he’s feeling particularly depressed today, he decides to treat himself to a bag of mini-marshmallows. Pure sugar to drown his sorrows sounds more appealing than alcohol (and significantly more so when considering how little is currently sitting in his bank account after the move). As he wanders into the baking aisle to find the promising little white puffs, he notices a man inspecting the options for whole wheat flour and stops to stare at his beautiful side profile.

The strong, dark eyebrows. The gentle slope of his nose. The pristine, pale skin. The full lips that are softly murmuring as the man thinks aloud to himself.

Jongin halts his steps, freezing in place as he absorbs the sight. It can’t be…

And then, the man turns his eyes to Jongin, the roundest orbs colored a dazzling mix of cinnamon stirred in with dark coffee, and Jongin’s breath hitches. It is him. It’s Kyungsoo.

~~~~~Flashback~~~~~

It was the tail end of his junior year of high school. Jongin had just finished getting out of yet another one month relationship with some forgettable girl. His good looks and affable nature meant every female within two grade levels of him whispered as he walked the halls. He was accustomed to the attention, although uncomfortable with the reputation he had unfairly gathered. Not once had he pursued a girl; they just flocked to him. When approached, he usually agreed to date them. He tried, he did, but no one ever held his interest for long. After a few dates, he would break it off. Despite being a perfect gentleman, after close to a dozen such encounters, he had been branded a playboy. Just as well: he decided he’d had enough of dating since each insipid girl seemed just as unenticing as the last.

Prom was fast-approaching, but under the circumstances, he considered not going at all. His friends, however, seemed to think this was unacceptable and wound up getting him to agree to go with them together in a group rather than as true couples. His best friend, Kyungsoo, had been asked several weeks back by their buddy Amber, who conveniently had a new friend Krystal who just moved into town and needed an informal date as well. With a little prodding from his favorite hyung, Jongin found himself in the middle of the local formalwear shop getting measured for a tux.

“It’ll be fun, Jongin. It’s not every day we get our parents’ blessings to actually spend a little money on a nice dinner and such.” Kyungsoo smiled up at him while the tailor wrapped the tape measure around Jongin’s neck to ensure the right collar size for his shirt.

“True.” Money was always tight in their lower middle class families in rural Kentucky. “But in exchange, we have to look like stiff penguins for 4 hours,” Jongin whined. Kyungsoo chuckled in response. Jongin loved how his hyung’s laugh always came out in a low rumble that was just loud enough for him to hear, like a whisper carried on a warm summer breeze.

The other shop worker interrupted them by summoning Kyungsoo into a dressing room to try on a tux that ought to fit him. Jongin suddenly felt cold and uncomfortable up on the pedestal in the main room, being examined from head to toe by the tailor and his cheap paper measuring tape, without his best friend’s reassuring smile at his side.

“Well, young man, I think we’re going to have to ship something in for you. Your arms are a tad too long for any of the jackets we have in stock. We’ll call you when it comes in, okay?” the tailor explained.

He nodded in acknowledgement of his lean, lanky frame as Kyungsoo emerged from the dressing room decked out in a classic black and white tuxedo.

“What do you think?” the older boy asked shyly, putting his arms out to the side with a little flap. Not unlike a penguin, actually.

Jongin grinned broadly and suppressed a giggle. His best friend looked adorable. “You look great, Soo.”

“Yeah?” the shorter male asked with a blush, and Jongin felt that odd twinge in his chest, one he only ever noticed when Kyungsoo was looking at him like that, face full of hope and eager adoration that left Jongin feeling confused. They had been best friends for years already, so he couldn’t understand why Kyungsoo had these moments of vulnerability… like he was seeking some kind of approval that he had yet to really get from Jongin.

Prom night arrived, and they had a blast over dinner at the one expensive, yet not that nice, restaurant in town. (It’s hard to be picky when your small town only had a handful of restaurants that weren’t fast food chains.) While some fancier high schools closer to Louisville had their proms at swanky hotels, their simple prom was a smaller affair held in their school’s gym. The PTA did their best to dress it up though, with gaudy paper streamers and homemade crafts hanging from the ceilings. It was a celestial theme that year, with moons and stars and way too much glitter.

A local band played songs that were mostly 10 years old, but none of them cared. Jongin could tell some enterprising student had successfully spiked the “space punch” somehow without drawing the attention of the teacher chaperones (or perhaps they knew but couldn’t find it in themselves to care). After a few cups of the bubbly punch, everyone was loose enough to dance so Jongin wasn’t alone cutting a rug for once. Even Kyungsoo had gotten bold and done a pretty good Michael Jackson number when the band had struck up “Billy Jean.” Jongin had cheered the loudest, laughing as the older boy had accepted a hat thrown into the dance circle out of nowhere and incorporated it into his impromptu routine. Halfway through the song, Kyungsoo grabbed the taller boy by his suit lapels and dragged him into the spotlight. “Where you belong,” he had whispered with a gummy, heart-shaped smile that blinded Jongin for a minute. (Or maybe it was just the spotlight in his eyes.) Kyungsoo placed the hat on the younger’s head fondly before stepping back into the gathered crowd to watch Jongin work his magic. And so he danced, feeling his best friend’s gaze on him even through the energy of the other spectators, who seemed so far away compared to the petite boy with those big, beautiful eyes.

A few hours later, the punch had long since run out and the night was winding down. Amber and Krystal were on one of those long trips to the bathroom that girls tend to take. Jongin and Kyungsoo waited for them out in the hallway, noise of the gym seeping out in the corridor in a muffled haze, allowing them to still talk with ease over the volume of the music.

“Laaaasssst dance, it’s the last dance already, ladies and gents!” the band leader announced. “Seniors, grab that special someone, because it’s all coming to a close.”

Leaning against the wall and staring at the floor, Jongin felt Kyungsoo give a light kick to his left shoe. When he met the older’s gaze, he saw something… different. A slightly nervous flicker in Kyungsoo’s eyes that disappeared as he his bottom lip once before looking resolute in some internal decision he had just made.

“What do you say, Jongin? Would you dance with me?”

The taller boy scoffed a little, before he realized it wasn’t a joke. He tilted his head in light confusion. “Us? But it’s a slow song,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the music emanating out of the gym door cracked open behind them.

“Yeah, I know. But it’s my very last high school dance,” Kyungsoo said with an uncharacteristic heaviness to his words, his face determined and eyes unblinking as they bored into his. Jongin felt his heart rate shoot up, and he was sure his discomfort was showing. He swallowed, hard, as he debated whether or not to accept.

“Look, I’ll be the girl if that’s what you’re worried about,” Kyungsoo said with a roll of his eyes, seemingly trying to lighten the atmosphere. And it worked. Jongin laughed and ended up nodding in agreement.

Kyungsoo reached up first, loosely settling his hands around the taller boy’s neck as Jongin looped his arms around the shorter boy’s slender waist. His fingers initially trembled, but gradually eased into Kyungsoo’s back, somehow comforted by the sure grip of the elder’s hands on his neck. As they swayed there in the hallway, Jongin thought it was a little awkward and yet… not. He could smell the familiar scent of Kyungsoo’s cologne, feel how warm the boy was in his arms, and all the wonderful memories he had of them over the years flooded his mind. Stargazing while lying beside the creek in the woods. Curling up together on the couch to watch movies. Discussing baseball lazily on the front porch swing. Although slow dancing together was new, it wasn’t unlike all those other familiar experiences: as always, Jongin was struck by how comfortable he was with the elder, how uniquely peaceful it felt just to be around him.

Kyungsoo tilted his chin up to rest on Jongin’s shoulder, bringing his mouth closer to the taller boy’s ear as if to disclose a secret meant only for him. “I’m going to miss this in a few months. When I’m off to college, you know.”

Kyungsoo’s breath tickled the small hairs along Jongin’s neck and sent shivers down his spine. He gulped before replying, “You’ll still come back home for breaks, though. We’ll still be friends, right, Soo?”

The older boy didn’t respond. They swayed and swayed, Kyungsoo leaving his chin there on Jongin’s shoulder even though he didn’t seem to have anything else to say. The contact didn’t bother Jongin; he relished that weight on his shoulder for some