Now, Jaehwan is generally a bubbly guy, at least in his very, very small circle of friends. This, however, is an unfamiliar place, a new club in town, and Hakyeon is tugging him along by the wrist, pulling him through the mass of people talking and drinking by the outdoor dance floor.

“Hakyeon, I’m too sober for this!” Jaehwan yells above the pounding music. “I’ve only had one beer!”

“I know!” Hakyeon shouts and makes a U-turn for the counter. “I’m going to get you something!”

“Okay, but— Hakyeon!” Jaehwan yanks Hakyeon back and Hakyeon stops in front of him. “I’m going to wait for you there.” He points at a nearby bench.

Hakyeon nods and in the next moment, he disappears between the tens or hundreds of bodies, the sight of which already makes Jaehwan feel dizzy.

He starts walking towards the bench, but then someone grabs his arm a little roughly, pulling him to the side.

“Jaehwan-ah!”

There are now arms around him and he is pulled into a tight hug, the familiar scent of a musky perfume mixing with the pungent smell of whiskey reaching his nose. When the man lets go of him, Jaehwan is greeted by small teeth in a similarly small, smiling mouth, the sleepy eyes just above the big nose crinkling at the sides.

“Wonshik,” Jaehwan says and forces a smile back.

“How are you?” Wonshik asks, winding an arm around Jaehwan’s shoulders to tuck him into his side. “It’s been ages! Are you alone? Would you like to drink something?”

That’s Wonshik for you, Wonshik at his happiest. The boy is full of love and affection, quite stiflingly so, and he likes to show it whenever he drinks himself brave enough. Even now, he looks at Jaehwan with sparkling eyes and Jaehwan feels uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze, a memory of Wonshik looking at him like this and telling him, ‘I love you, please, let me love you, Jaehwan, I would give you everything’ flashing through his mind.

“Sorry, I’m just too happy to see you around,” Wonshik laughs, rubbing Jaehwan’s shoulder with his thumb as he looks up at the guys standing around them. “I don’t think you guys have met before. This is Sungwoon, Jongin, and Sanghyuk. Guys, this is Jaehwan.”

Jaehwan tries not to grimace as Sungwoon says hi and Jongin waves at him, Sanghyuk, the tallest (and youngest-looking—is he even allowed in this club?) smiling welcomingly.

“So, what would you like to drink?” Wonshik asks, his tongue moving a bit slowly.

“I’m, uh,” Jaehwan mumbles and wiggles out from under Wonshik’s arm. “Hakyeon’s bringing me something, so I… I told him I’d be waiting for him there, so… see you around!”

And before Wonshik could make him stay, he makes a beeline for the bench, hiding behind the people and trying to be as small as he can when he sits down, fishing his phone out of his pocket just to look busy, so no one will pester him.

But obviously—it is obvious, because it happens to Jaehwan way too often—, tipsy people don’t understand this form of metacommunication, so when someone asks, ‘May I?’ as their hovers above the other end of the bench, Jaehwan only heaves a frustrated sigh.

“Um, I know you don’t owe me an answer, but…” Jaehwan looks up at the guy sitting next to him, his eyes settling on the face of one of Wonshik’s friends’, Sanghyuk’s. “Are you possibly upset because of Wonshik?”

It takes him some time to process the question and the light coming from his phone screen dims while Jaehwan thinks.

“No,” he says. “I’m really waiting for Hakyeon to bring me my drink.”

“Hakyeon, you say?” Sanghyuk asks and fidgets on the bench as if he wants to scoot closer (probably to hear Jaehwan better over the music), but can’t decide whether that would be appropriate. “Are we talking about Cha Hakyeon? Average height, tanned skin, about 27 years old?”

“Yeah,” Jaehwan replies, furrowing his brow. “Do you know him?”

“Ah,” Sanghyuk says and turns the beer bottle around in his grip. “He used to date my sister.”

“Oh,” Jaehwan answers and looks down at his feet drawing circles into the dirt.

“I think you might have to buy your own drink though.”

When Jaehwan glances up, Sanghyuk is looking into the general direction of the counter, in front of which Hakyeon now crosses arms with a girl, both of them downing their shots at the same time. When they put the shot glasses back on the counter, Hakyeon reaches out almost tentatively, tucking a lock of hair behind the girl’s ear, at which she smiles shyly. Jaehwan snorts at the scene.

“You can have this one, if you’d like,” Sanghyuk says and Jaehwan turns to him, seeing the almost full bottle of beer in Sanghyuk’s hand held out to him. He blinks back up at Sanghyuk, and the boy, as if receiving some kind of revelation from the heavens, nods to himself and takes a tissue out of his jeans’ pocket to wipe the mouth of the bottle. “No bacteria, I promise.”

He’s grinning and he looks like a kitten mixed with a bear cub, the corners of his lips curving upwards and his fleshy nose flattening out in the middle of his face. Jaehwan really can’t say no to cute things.

He takes the bottle and drinks a sip, a smile slowly making its way on his face until he’s beaming at the bottle in his hands.

“Thanks,” he says, and he sees from the corner of his eye how Sanghyuk’s eyes crinkle even more.

Jaehwan puts the beer bottle between the two off them on the bench and offers it to Sanghyuk, the two of them sharing it in the end, Sanghyuk talking about how he knows Wonshik from the university they both attend.

“And how do you know him?” Sanghyuk asks, drinking from the beer afterwards.

Jaehwan takes the bottle from Sanghyuk and gulps down half of what’s left in it at once.

How did he and Wonshik meet? It’s not a very exciting story, but a rather painful one still, as he and Wonshik first ran into each other at a different club, intoxicated and disgustingly gone, ending up making out in a toilet stall after only a few minutes of dancing. Wonshik then slept at Jaehwan’s and Jaehwan woke up sated the next morning (well, okay, noon), only to find Wonshik staring at him in the filtered sunlight. He put a hand on Jaehwan’s cheek gently, caressing it with his thumb.

“You’re beautiful,” he said and that made Jaehwan blush. “Say, would you go on a date with me?”

Jaehwan said he’d need to think and Wonshik left it at that at the time, but he kept texting Jaehwan and they kept running into each other at the club, always ending up in bed together until Wonshik knew exactly where to caress him and how to hold him for Jaehwan to feel true bliss. And Wonshik kept asking him out, too, until he was kneeling in front of Jaehwan with tears in his eyes and couldn’t understand that Jaehwan didn’t feel anything—he was empty.

“We met somewhere in town,” Jaehwan replies to Sanghyuk’s question now and hands the bottle over to him.

There’s silence between them for a few moments, but then Sanghyuk starts talking about the music surrounding them; he asks Jaehwan about his favourite band and asks him to type their name into the notes on his phone so he can listen to them at home. He asks a lot of questions and Jaehwan finds it easy to converse with him—to just answer him without having to rack his brains to come up with topics or to find an excuse to leave. Sanghyuk eventually slides closer to him on the bench and Jaehwan catches it from the corner of his eye that Sanghyuk rubs his palm against his thigh, probably to wipe off the sweat.

Jaehwan leaves the club a little after 2 a.m., leaving Hakyeon behind to snog with that girl under a tree, and he’s still half sober.

There is a strange feeling in his stomach though, one that reaches his chest and he puts a hand just a little left of his sternum to try and soothe the ache that makes him smile to himself in the taxi, because it hurts, but it’s good. And it’s scary.