There’s a dull tapping nose beating on Jongdae’s brain. He groans, rolls over, rolls over again, and groans. It sounds awfully like someone knocking on his basement door, consistent, loud, annoying.

“Time to wake up!” comes a frighteningly cheerful shout.

Despite being loud of enough to wake the dead, Jongdae’s mom does not stop knocking. She continues at it for another thirty seconds. Jongdae ignores her. She’ll come again every five minutes until he actually wakes up. It’s a weekday morning ritual and Jongdae’s learned to live with it. He’s twenty-eight and has successfully managed to score a job working from home with no solid work hours and all the time in the world to complete his tasks. Still his mother thinks he needs to be up at the crack of dawn to sit down to a wholesome breakfast of oatmeal, sausage, and eggs. Truth be told, Jongdae likes breakfast. He likes getting up and pulling on his floor length fluffy robe, pouring a mug of the blackest coffee his dad can make, and trudging on over to the best food on the planet, possibly the whole of the universe. He’s twenty-eight and still generally thinks his mom and dad are great. He just needs half an hour every day in which to wake up and remember this.

For the last decade and a half he’s been living in his parents’ basement, gloomingly renovated with blackout curtains on each of the four tiny windows that peer out at the world just above ground. He hasn’t drawn them back in at least five years, and that’s the way he likes it. He’s not a goth. He just likes things to be a little — or a lot — dark. Sunlight hurts his eyes. It burns his skin. Actually it probably doesn’t but that’s the worldview he’s going with and no one can tell him differently. He goes out only when he absolutely has to, like his annual trip to the doctor who reassures him, yes, he’s got severe allergies to just about every kind of pollen and mold there is; no, they won’t kill him, but Jongdae interprets the story differently anyways. More recurringly though, he has to visit his home office to check in with the bosses. Or run to the grocery store when it’s a mom-emergency. Grocery stores are the worst. If he can get away with doing things completely online or by phone, Jongdae will do it. But for those occasions when he absolutely has to leave, he doses up on the highest amount of allergy meds he’s allowed and just, toughs it out. Story of his life, literally.

Right on time, five minutes later, his mom knocks on his door again.

“I’m up! I’m up!” he calls back. He’s not up. But after a few more grumbling minutes he does manage to drag himself out of his bedroom door and up the stairs. Black hair falling before his face, he misses the cat snoozing on the third step and trips. Jongdae howls, the cat merely glances at him and rearranges her tail.

Sunlight assaults his eyes. The aroma of black coffee helps.

“Good morning, son,” says his father. He’s sitting at the breakfast table reading the news on a five year old recycled smart phone, one of Jongdae’s discarded devices. The man has to squint to read the letters and he frequently hits the wrong button, but avidly he goes on and about into the twenty first century.

From somewhere outside the windows there comes a crashing sound in the neighbor’s yard. Jongdae jolts and his mother looks alarmed. His dad ignores it all and says, “Neighbors been moving furniture in all morning. Honey, I think that son of theirs is back. You remember him? Chanyeol? I think he’s around Jongdae’s age.” He takes a sip of his coffee while Jongdae pours his first cup. Then he continues, “didn’t you go to high school together?”

Jongdae shrugs. “Probably. I don’t remember.”

High school was a blur. It was also ten years ago. What almost-thirty something actually remembers everyone he went to high school with? Besides, most of what Jongdae remembers was the veritable hell of allergy season (for him, yearlong), and being typecast as the guy who sneezed on everybody.

“Chanyeol. Park Chanyeol,” his dad repeats, like saying the name will jog his memory. “Wasn’t he on the golf team? I think I remember Mr. Park saying he was trying to go pro. Hmm, wonder how that went.”

Jongdae doesn’t care. Jongdae just wants to suction up his daily dose of Caffeine Round 1 and retreat back into his basement. Golf sounds just terrible. It involves doing stuff, and being upright, and walking around on trim green grass which requires sunlight to live. He shudders at the mere thought of golf, thoughts of the dreaded Masters Tournament his dad tries to make him watch every year with its shining sun beams and pastel paisley pants.

Park Chanyeol, huh? Maybe he remembers him. He gets a vision of a tall, cheerful young boy with a giant smile and gangly limbs. An outdoorsy type. How revolting.

One week later, Jongdae emerges from the dark to a dining room streaming with sunlight, the typical breakfast and coffee smells, mom, dad, everything typical and —

“Oh, Jongdae! Good morning, have you met Chanyeol yet?”

Jongdae freezes. His robe only halfway tied around his waist. He’s wearing day old boxers, and he’s not explicitly going to to check but he thinksthey’re his rattiest yet.

“Uhm. Hi?” He pulls his robe more deftly about his body, a frozen smile plastered in place while he side-eyes his mom silently asking her ‘what the hell?’  

‘Sorry Jongdae’ her grin seems genuinely to say. “Chanyeol and I met this morning in the front rose garden while I was pulling weeds. He offered to help and then cut his finger on a thorn. I bandaged it up and then your dad asked him to breakfast and…” she trails off hopelessly, “didn’t you guys go to school together?”

Chanyeol smiles. His right thumb is covered in a hot pink band-aid. He’s wearing neon yellow board shorts and a striped polo. Across the table from him, Jongdae’s dad puts down his ancient smart phone, squinting all the way to the table, then he too looks up and smiles like this is a totally normal occurrence.

“I’m Chanyeol,” says Chanyeol smoothly. “And yeah, I guess I kind of remember you…?” he adds, not so smoothly.

The memory bank Jongdae had conjured of him last week was pretty near correct. Tall, though not as gangly; giant smile and a lot of teeth. Suntanned skin and a few freckles around his nose. Overall, gorgeously athletic and handsome to boot.

Jongdae doesn’t like him.

Something his mom said, however, suddenly registers. The front… garden? Jongdae doesn’t know what’s in the front garden. He never goes out that way, he always comes in the back where there are no trees and no bushes and no flowers and not even any grass because that’s the safest entryway from his car to the back door with the least amount of allergens. His mom when she goes outside meticulously leaves her apron and gloves and hat outside, then washes her skin thoroughly before coming inside. Chanyeol, likely did not.

Jongdae sneezes. He sprays his own arm and half the floor, and something in Chanyeol’s face squishes up like he’s remembering something.

“Oh, yeah. I do know you now.”

And Jongdae just glares.

Two hours later Chanyeol is still over at their house, chatting up Jongdae’s dad while Jongdae sulks from his basement hole. He can hear the guy’s deep boisterous laughter as he laughs at something his dad said. The original joke is lost, Jongdae doesn’t even care what it was. Probably about golf anyway. He’s annoyed because it’s actually his day off and normally he’d be online right now skyping with two semi-strangers across the country named Minseok and Baekhyun, but apparently the duo are busy this morning because they went outside to play frisbee or drink coffee or something equally lame, Jongdae doesn’t actually know. He met them five years ago on a fanboard for an international idol group and somehow they just clicked. Doesn’t matter that he’s never met them in real life; doesn’t matter that the group they stanned disbanded three years later. They’re best friends for life! Except when, you know, the two of them are probably dating, and Jongdae can’t meet a single hot guy from outside whom he doesn’t immediately sneeze on. It’s not exactly a y way to greet people. Not that he’s worrying about not appearing y in front ofPark Chanyeol , the neighbor’s kid.

His mom sneaks down at some point with a tray of cut up fruit and a snack pack of Cheezits.

“Jongdae?”

She squints, probably unable to see anything but the dim screen of his dying laptop.

“Yeah, mom?”

She sighs. “Oh good, there you are.”

Jongdae chuckles. “Where else would I be?”

“I mean that I always trip on something down here because you’re always hiding in the corner where I can’t see you.”

“Just follow the sound of my voice,” he says, still laughing. He gets up to meet her halfway. “What’s up anyways?”

He can see her expression already. It’s that sad, pitiful look she gets when she’s really feeling blue about Jongdae’s life.

“Honey, Jongdae, why don’t you put on some clothes and come back upstairs? I explained to Chanyeol about your allergy stuff. He won’t get offended if you sneeze a couple times. I just want you to have friends ,” she finishes, adding extra emphasis at the end.

Jongdae frowns. He doesn’t want to, they’ve got nothing in common, it’s not important anyways because Jongdae doesn’t need friends .

One glance over to his laptop where there’s still no message coming in from either Baekhyun or Minseok has him sighing.

“Okay, mom. Okay.”

Over the next week or two, Jongdae tries; he really does try. At least a couple times a week, usually in the evening after Chanyeol gets off work, and sometimes in the morning, Park Chanyeol can be found in Jongdae’s parents’ dining room, making himself cozy, talking about everything from golf, to the news, to the kinds of shows his parents watch on TV and Jongdae pretends he doesn’t know a thing about (actually, he watches hours of TV with them, he just doesn’t want to give Chanyeol the satisfaction of knowing that Jongdae really approves of his tastes and opinions).

Okay, so perhaps he isn’t trying, but he does at least sit in the same room as Chanyeol for a part of the time he’s over. Sometimes he even responds to questions with more than a two word answer.

“So, your mom says you don’t really like to leave the house much because of your allergies. I was wondering, is it really bad if you went outside for like… two seconds, and came over to mine?”

Jongdae stares at him. It’s been two weeks they ‘met’. He hasn’t given Chanyeol a single ounce of encouragement that they might be friends.

“Why would I do that?”

Chanyeol shrugs, not sheepish in the least. Meanwhile Jongdae’s mom swats him on the ear for being rude.

“Just thought maybe a change of scenery would be nice.”

Jongdae looks at him, then he looks out the window. To be honest, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his house, nothing wrong with his basement. He kind of wonders though what that tree in the front yard looks like from a different angle, say from Chanyeol’s living room window.

“You don’t have any pets, right?” he asks.

“No pets.” Chanyeol smiles.

As expected, Jongdae doesn’t like Chanyeol’s house. There are curtains on every window, and they’re open. There are also half a dozen framed pictures of a much younger Chanyeol with just as many different pets.

“Is that a ferret?”

Chanyeol nods and hums, lips pressed together tight as he leads Jongdae down a long hallway which is at least slightly darker than the front of the house.

“You had a lot of dogs,” Jongdae remarks curiously.

“I did once. Then I found out I was kind of allergic to them.”

“Allergic.”

“Yup. Not as bad as you of course, but enough to make me slightly miserable.”

“Huh.”

Chanyeol’s room looks like a high schooler’s room. Not much has changed apparently in the years since he graduated. Band posters line one wall above a double bed with a soft, black comforter. Some of them are falling off. Jongdae moseys over to a bookshelf filled with old video games and school-approved literature. Near the bottom is a stack of graphic novels Jongdae expects he will have to peruse later. For now he sits gingerly on spinning chair next to Chanyeol’s old desk and stares at the four or so moving boxes lining another wall under the window.

“How long are you moving in for?” he asks.

“Would it be too lame for someone my age to say, indefinitely?”

Jongdae makes a face. “Seeing as how I haven’t ever moved out, no comment.”

Chanyeol laughs. It’s a warm, low voiced chuckle which makes Jongdae somewhat uncomfortable when he realizes, he kind of likes it. “My apologies,” says Chanyeol with a grin. “Anyways, this is home.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s cozy.”

Twirling a little on the chair, Jongdae smirks and sinks back into the cushion. It reclines just the tiniest bit. Sweet stuff honestly.

“Gee, I feel like we should bro hug or something for being this old and still living with our parents.”

Chanyeol says nothing to that, but he does smile. There’s something reserved about it though. Jongdae wishes he wasn’t curious.

“What have you been doing anyways for the last oh… ten years? My dad said you golfed or?”

The other nods quickly. “Yeah, I did a little of that. Went to college on a golfing scholarship. Played a little tennis too. Injured my knee though so there went my dreams of going pro.”

“Oh.” Well now Jongdae feels like an for mentioning it, which is just superb. His face falls and he spins a few more times to hide the sting of embarrassment. He thinks he’s doing an okay job except the next time he’s facing Chanyeol the other says, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not sure I ever really wanted to go pro. It was just an idea I had and you know how lots of people always tell you to just ‘go for your dream! Yada yada and crap’ when you don’t even know if it’s really your dream and…”

He stops abruptly. Jongdae’s jaw is hanging open. To be honest he wasn’t really expecting this kind of heart to heart. It’s adorable, almost. Kinda. The inflection in Chanyeol’s voice betrayed a level of friendship they didn’t actually have.

Jongdae laughs, just once.

Something flickers across Chanyeol’s face, like he’s just realized he’s said so much.

“That’s cool, man. Hey, do any of those game consoles still work? They look a little rusty.”

They’re not in fact rusty, but Jongdae still sneezes half a dozen times at the amount of dust Chanyeol disturbs pulling them out. Somehow with half an hour they’ve picked out an old classic and are sitting shoulder to shoulder on the floor in front of Chanyeol’s bed with cords all over the floor plugged into an old monitor and laughing like they’ve always known each other.

“Just so you know,” says Chanyeol one evening.

“Know what?” Jongdae munches on a carrot stick, courtesy of Chanyeol’s mom who’s been delivering fresh vegetables to Chanyeol’s room every time he comes over to hang out.

Chanyeol barely puts down the controller and doesn’t look directly at Jongdae.

“I came home because I needed a place to live after I broke up with my boyfriend.”

The crunch of the carrot in Jongdae’s mouth resounds throughout the otherwise silent room. Chanyeol flinches; Jongdae freezes. Achingly slow, he proceeds with the next bite.

“Are you telling me in the interest of full disclosure?” he asks, trying hard as hell not to make it sound like this is a big deal.

“Uhm.” Chanyeol shrugs, awkwardly. “I guess.”

“Okay.”

He eats another carrot before adding, “Is the prelude to something cheesy like, you used to like me in high school or — ”

Quickly Chanyeol says, “Oh. No, nothing like that.”

Jongdae pouts. “Oh. Well, I would have said it was flattering if you had, but… I remember myself in high school and let’s just say puberty didn’t hit me well for many, many years. So I’d have had to second guess your taste if you’d said yes.”

Chanyeol chuckles. The weirdness seems to clear. Chanyeol picks up a carrot and now there are two people munching and snapping on the weird orange vegetable which Jongdae has to admit he kind of likes.

Before picking up the controller to resume their game, Jongdae says, “Do you want to talk about it though?’

“About what?”

“Your breakup?”

“Nah, man. I’m good.”

“Cool.”

It’s safe to say that within a couple months, Jongdae is thoroughly used to his brightly dressed, former athlete, golf-loving neighbor. Though there are some days he wishes this were not so. For instance, one Saturday morning when there comes a dull tapping noise beating on Jongdae’s brain well before he wants there to be.

“Jongdae? Are you awake?”

For one half a second he hears his mom’s voice before realizing, it’s not actually her.

“No?” he answers back, rolling further into his bed and pulling the comforter up over his head. There are slivers of light shining through a part in the curtains high up on his basement wall, courtesy of Chanyeol probably who every time he comes over seems determined to open them. Jongdae is forever howling at him to pull the curtains closed again, but even when Chanyeol complies he can’t seem to do a good job of it.

There’s no reply from outside his door. Jongdae lies extra still just to hear if there will be one.

Chanyeol chuckles, deep and low, and Jongdae’s whole body kind of cringes in on itself. He’d like to say it’s because he’s about to be cruelly woken to face the day. Who needs to face the honesty that it’s probably more likely because Jongdae is so used to that sound he wants to hear it all day long.

The beating continues momentarily on the door. “Well since you aren’t awake, I guess I’ll need to wake you up. Your mom made French toast and it’s very nearly gone.”

In a heartbeat Jongdae is out of the covers and tripping over the side of the bed. “Park Chanyeol don’t you dare eat my French toast!” he screeches. Unfortunately, his feet tangle with something on the ground — his pants actually — and he hits it with a dull thud. “Ow.”

The door immediately opens. “Jongdae?” comes Chanyeol’s worried voice.

“M’okay. I’m okay.”

Something tall and strong looms over his prone body, one thickly muscled arm pulling him to his feet in the least romantic way possible. Jongdae squawks to feel himself dangled, shoves off the assisting arm when he’s on his feet, looks at Chanyeol and…. Sneezes.

Instantly Chanyeol’s face falls. “Ahhhh, I’m sorry! I was outside doing stuff this morning and I promised your mom not to actually come into your room until I’d had a shower and…”

Jongdae sneezes again and shoves him out of his room. He only realizes afterwards that he’d been stone cold the whole time. Nice of Chanyeol not to mention that fact. He thinks. Needless to say, when Jongdae reemerges to salvage his breakfast and Chanyeol is nowhere to be found; and so he traipses over to Chanyeol’s home to find his friend coming out of the shower with just a towel wrapped around his waist, Jongdae doesn’t flush at all. Not at all, because after all showering is just a normal thing, right? And glimpses of a or half- male is just life.

About three months later, that’s when it begins to change.

“Hey, Jongdae, I’ve got an old friend coming into town this afternoon.”

Jongdae barely opens his eyes. He’s been snoozing on his bed off and on throughout the day while Chanyeol plays solo on the floor. Chanyeol puts down his cell phone and resumes his game, waiting for Jongdae to say something.

“Okay?”

They don’t speak for another five minutes until Chanyeol says, “Kim Joonmyun, do you know him? He also went to high school with me, with us, I guess.”

Jongdae’s eyes blast open with a bang. Kim Joonmyun?! The angel of the high school choir?! “Uhh, I know him.” Which is absolute , because Jongdae more than just knows him. He had a goddamn crush on the guy for years. Joonmyun with his square face and eye smiles and yeah, a voice worthy of the heavens. “What about him?”

Chanyeol shrugs. “Just curious if you minded him coming over. I’ll tell him to shower and everything and not take a nature walk before he comes over… If that’s alright with you.”

Another long silence stretches between them before Jongdae says, “Yeah, I guess that’s alright.”

He remembers hazily half-confessing to the guy once. The memory of it sends a jolt of pain down Jongdae’s forehead which lodges between his eyes.

“Full disclosure though,” he says, “since you… you know, you told me everything and .”

Chanyeol puts down the game controller and cranes his head around. Those stupid puppy dog eyes meet Jongdae’s. He averts his gaze and looks somewhere at the wall on the other side of the room. He gulps; doesn’t manage to say anything.

“What’s up?” asks Chanyeol.

“Kim Joonmyun,” says Jongdae, and talking feels like he’s got a giant golf ball lodged halfway down his throat that he barely continues..

“Yeah?” says Chanyeol into the void.

“I used to like him.”

Tentatively he meets Chanyeol’s gaze. Bland confusion meets him back, then a dawn of recognition, understanding, and dare Jongdae imagine it… does Chanyeol actually look upset?

“Do you uhm… still like him?”

Jongdae shrugs and shakes his head. “That was over ten years ago. Why would I?”

“So, if you see him again you won’t like…I don’t know, feel something again?”

“Why? Would it matter if I did?” He only says it because Jongdae is a little and he’s really curious if that blasé expression on Chanyeol’s face is masking anything else.

Quite petulantly Chanyeol replies, “No?” and looks away.

Jongdae takes pity on him. “I wouldn’t though.”

“Wouldn’t what.”

“Like him again. That ship has sailed.”

Still not looking at him, Chanyeol says, “How can you be sure though?”

Jongdae sits up on the bed and dangles his feet off the side. Something about the proximity to Chanyeol’s body causes the other man to startle. Jongdae watches as his shoulders tighten up. He pokes him between the shoulder blades for good measure, then drops onto the floor beside him.

It occurs to Jongdae that now they’re both out. Maybe he mentioned it in passing before, maybe he didn’t. Jongdae is really good at bullting a lot of situations and making them seem not important at the moment. But he doesn’t think he’s ever dropped even the tiniest hint that he’s gay, and has been just relatively all his life. At least there have been no hints Chanyeol might have picked up.

, just two months ago he was convinced they’d never even become friends. Let alone did he think he’d actually come to like the guy.

Speaking of that.

“Maybe I found a new ship.”

The tenseness of Chanyeol’s isn’t going away. Jongdae ignores it. He picks up Chanyeol’s controller and promptly starts playing where Chanyeol left off. Mildly, slowly, he starts to notice the tendrils of a smile developing on the other man’s face.

Kim Joonmyun looks exactly like Jongdae remembered him, just ten years older and possibly more handsome. Who cares though. He enters Jongdae’s basement to the riotous sounds of Chanyeol playing Wii golf while Jongdae screams from the floor because  everything . Not even in a video game version of the sport is Jongdae ever going to be an almost pro.

“I hate this. I hate you,” he’s crying out loud when Joonmyun’s eyes acclimate to the room. “Oh. He’s here.”

“Hi, Joonmyun. Grab a controller from Jongdae, he’s given up on life.”

Jongdae snickers cruelly and kicks Chanyeol in the shin. It doesn’t appear to faze him one little jot. He sits up and turns his attention to the new guest. Joonmyun’s eyes are as round as golf balls as he takes in the state of the basement room, Chanyeol, Jongdae on the floor. Jongdae is acutely aware of the moment recognition sinks in.

“Uhm. Hi,” says Jongdae. “You probably don’t remember me.”

Joonmyun clears his throat and tentatively walks a few steps closer. “I… think I do though?’

“!” Chanyeol yells. He’s just missed a shot by one inch on the screen. He turns and stares down his friend, who’d flinched at the noise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to you. Or maybe I did. Hey don’t mind Jongdae, he’s told me everything. He forgives you for turning him down and destroying his life in one cruel blow ten years ago.”

Jongdae sighs deeply.

Joonmyun looks shocked. “I… I did what?”

Chanyeol continues. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you broke his heart. If you hadn’t, Jongdae wouldn’t be my boyfriend right now so —”

Jongdae sighs again. “Excuse, when did I agree to be your boyfriend?”

“About five hours ago. Didn’t you know that? This is a date.”

“It’s not a da—fine, whatever you say.”

Belatedly he notices Joonmyun carrying something which looks awfully like a plate of cookies. Incriminated, Joonmyun blushes. “I didn’t make them, I swear! Your… your mom met me at the door and went on this long rant about being so glad her recluse of a son had so many good friends now and… and… she… I didn’t know what to do so I took the cookies—wait, you’re dating Chanyeol?!”

Chanyeol grins. Jongdae shrugs. “Apparently. Hey, bring the cookies down. Are they chocolate chip? My mom makes the best chocolate chip.”