Did Yunhyeong want to go to the party? Absolutely not, but he had been invited by one of his closer friends and it wasn’t as if he could bail last minute. Besides, Junhoe’s house wasn’t too far away and he was the only one with a pool in his backyard.

 

 

It was the middle of summer break and where he lived and the nights would stretch on forever, only broken occasionally by the burning midday sun and even hotter humid evenings. The pavement would give off that mirage- esque illusion off in the distance when Yunhyeong walked on the sidewalk to the convenience store, making him imagine the rubber on his shoes sticking to the concrete walkway. Not to mention, the only common denominator among all the houses in the area would be their skyrocketing electricity bills. He couldn’t count how many times he had gone to the thermostat and cranked the knob all the way down.

 

For Yunhyeong, he wondered if it was possible for someone to melt to death. 

 

He watched the houses pass as he was being driven to Junhoe’s home, the faces of the buildings sagging down like unhappy faces in the setting sun.

 

“Do you have everything you need?” His mother fanned herself with her hand as the car air conditioning blasted through the interior.

 

“Yeah, I should be fine.” Yunhyeong adjusted in the seat. He could feel his shirt sticking to the leather seat and it made him cringe.

 

“Alright, just call if you need something.” The car pulled into a cul de sac with a screech of the brakes. It seemed like everything was screaming in discomfort from the heat, and Yunhyeong felt the exact same way.

 

He watched his mother drive away as he walked up to the front door and knocked on the glass. There was a figure on the opposite side who glanced in his direction and disappeared only for another figure to come over and open the door. 

 

“Yun! What’s up? Come in quick, before all the cool air escapes.” Bobby, only wearing slightly damp swim trunks ushered Yunhyeong in and shut the door with a loud thud. Yunhyeong noticed the glowing redness on Bobby’s shoulders from not applying enough sunscreen and a light dotting of freckles across his face forming from the exposure as he lead him into the living room filled with a few guys.

 

He could hear a handful of more voices resounding from the backyard, but he focused on the people lounging on the couch in front of him. Junhoe got up and patted Yunhyeong on his back as Chanwoo diverted his attention from the television screen to exclaim a hello.

 

It was as if they hadn’t seen each other in years, when in reality, it had only been a few days since they had hung out together. But then again, time worked differently during summer.

“God, it’s like it’s getting hotter every day, I swear.” Chanwoo lounged back, drinking out of a frosty can.

 

“For real, I hate this goddamn heat.” Junhoe tried to cool himself down by billowing his shirt, but the action seemed to be fruitless. 

 

Yunhyeong looked out the glass sliding doors to the backyard and saw more people playing in the pool, laughing and yelling as they dunked one another into the water. It made Yunhyeong painfully aware of how uncomfortable his clothes felt, sticking to him like a second skin.

 

“Hey,” Bobby noticed the way Yunhyeong had been looking out the window, “wanna go for a swim?” 

 

“Why do you think I came here?” They all laughed at the honesty.

 

Junhoe’s house was at the very edge of the neighborhood, bordered only by one other house and a large, wooded park on the other side of the backyard. It was one of the nicer homes in the area, but Junhoe loved having his friends come over and hang out, so he invited them often on the regular. Only this time, he had the house to himself for the week, which meant doing whatever the hell he wanted to do and this meant unironically inviting his friends over again. His pool sat in the middle of the backyard, glimmering brightly as water splashed everywhere and on everything.

 

Bobby jumped straight into the pool as Chanwoo, Junhoe, and Yunhyeong began to undress under the patio cover.

 

“Junhoe,” Yunhyeong said as he peeled his shirt of his torso, “who’s that?”

 

Yunhyeong nodded his chin over to one of the guys swimming in the water who he had never seen before. He seemed to be talking to Hanbin excitedly as Bobby yelled at Jinhwan to get on his shoulders for a game of chicken.

 

“Oh, him?” Junhoe cracked open a bottle of sunscreen and began to apply it to his shoulders and chest. “He’s from next door.”

 

Yunhyeong cringed as Junhoe hollered right beside him.

 

“Donghyuk! Say hi to my friend!”

 

The person in question turned his head towards Yunhyeong and waved as Hanbin stood up with him sitting on his shoulders. Yunhyeong watched as Donghyuk struggled to keep balance as Bobby came charging over with Jinhwan clutching on for dear life.

 

“He’s really nice. Right, Chanwoo?” Junhoe turned and rubbed some sunscreen on Yunhyeong’s back in large movements of his hands. “I think you guys would get along well!”

 

Chanwoo fiddled with his swim trunk laces.

 

“Talked to him earlier too and he’s chill.” Chanwoo reared up and splashed into the pool, spraying water everywhere.

 

Yunhyeong watched as Donghyuk shoved Jinhwan with a solid push into the water below, making Bobby’s knees buckle and fall. He heard Hanbin and Donghyuk cheer as they were both submerged.

 

Without thinking too much, Junhoe and Yunhyeong took a few steps back under the shade and ran at the pool, clutching their legs into their chest as they cannon-balled into the water. It would be hours until they would get out of the water, skin sunburned and freckled from all the exposure, but it wouldn’t be something to worry about until the following day. The santa ana winds blew through the trees and instantly dried their skin as they stretched out under the setting sun, Yunhyeong sitting off to the side with a damp towel laying across his head.

 

Summer was nothing without swimming, at least, that’s what Yunhyeong thought. It was a symbiotic existence and it gave years to his life.

 

A hand reached out in front of his face, an ice-cold hard lemonade in its grip. Yunhyeong looked up to see Donghyuk smiling down at him.

 

“Here, take it.”

 

Yunhyeong grabbed it gingerly and drank the contents as Donghyuk sat down next to him and toweled his hair, muttering a soft apology as he accidentally splattered water onto Yunhyeong’s lap.

 

“So, you’re the next door neighbor?” Yunhyeong asked, setting aside the already half-empty bottle.

 

“Yep!” Donghyuk removed the towel with a sharp tug, making his blond hair stick out in all directions. “Moved here a while back, uh…”

 

“Yunhyeong, my name is Yunhyeong.” Donghyuk sheepishly looked down in apology. They chuckled awkwardly as Yunhyeong stuck his hand out as a greeting.

 

“Nice to meet you, Donghyuk.”

 

“Same here, Yunhyeong.”

 

The conversation began to flow smoothly as they went from one topic to the next, laughing loudly at one another’s jokes and prodding each other with their elbows at off-handed quips or jibes. By the time they had moved their conversation inside, the rest of the guys had shifted the dining table into a large mass of cheap alcohol bottles and cans.

 

“What’s all this then?” Donghyuk asked, immediately grabbing a can of something off at the corner and cracking it open.

 

“It’s our stash for the night! Junhoe said we have to finish it before his family comes back home or else he’s ed.” Jinhwan plopped down onto a dining chair and downed the rest of his drink. It was illegal for all of them to be drinking, but it didn’t make them want to stop. If anything, they felt a budding competition to see how many bottles they could finish by the end of the night, tallying off the finished drinks on their arms with a permanent marker.

 

Yunhyeong placed his empty glass bottle down with a light thud. Looking at Donghyuk, he took hold of the same drink he had opened early and popped the top open with a flick of the finger. 

 

They stared at each other, squared off against the rest of the room, and tapped their cans together in sort of a mock cheer and began to drink thoughtlessly.

 

___

 

“This was a bad idea why did we decide to do this in the first place?” Donghyuk stood close behind Yunhyeong as they walked along the empty sidewalk to the corner store a few kilometers away. The weather was still warm and the residual heat from the pavement softened the soles of their shoes as they trudged closer and closer to the store. The houses seemed to regain some of their posture, but in the purple haze of the evening, they looked dream-like and in a daze, Yunhyeong thought.

 

“We were picked to go get snacks.” Yunhyeong said as they stopped at an near-empty stoplight, waiting impatiently as a single car grumbled as it turned the corner away from the main road. “And none of us have cars.”

 

A bead of sweat rolled down Donghyuk’s neck and down past the collar of his shirt, which Yunhyeong caught out of the corner of his eye. The weather was unforgiving, but thankfully it was a valid excuse for his reddening cheeks.

 

They dragged their feet as they drew closer to the convenience store, a fluorescent oasis in the middle of a barren desert, still tipsy if not drunk from all the drinks they had just had. 

 

The small bell above the door chimed excitedly as they entered the blinding establishment and quickly grabbed the snacks they had been quested to retrieve. They didn’t even bother to look at the night-shift cashier in the eyes as they bought their selection and retreated the way they came, the bell saying goodbye to them more cordially than the cashier could even bother to do. But it was only once they were outside, walking alongside each other when Yunhyeong felt Donghyuk pass something in front of his eyes.

 

A decent-sized bottle of vodka sat in his hand, no larger than his face.

 

“Here, I slipped it into my pocket when that man wasn’t looking.” Donghyuk winked at Yunhyeong as he passed it over. 

 

Summer was magical, but summer nights bled into one another like dreams; when Yunhyeong would look back on this time, he would only remember how pretty Donghyuk looked in the glow of the old street lamps and the way his own fingers looked clasped in Donghyuk’s slender hands. But right now, they shared secret laughs they would never share with the other guys as they walked the same route back to the house, taking occasional swigs from the glass bottle when the streets were empty and silent. 

 

Yunhyeong felt Donghyuk lean into him as they rounded the final street down towards the cul de sac.

 

“Hey, you okay?” Yunhyeong playfully asked, letting his arm wrap around Donghyuk’s waist as support.

 

They both swayed as they came to stop under the streetlight beside Junhoe’s house, resting against the lamp post. Yunhyeong watched Donghyuk take a breath as his head fell back, a small smile on his face.

 

“You’re so pretty.” Donghyuk grabbed Yunhyeong’s face in a swift motion and kissed him under the hazy orange glow of the lamp light. He felt Donghyuk’s soft lips against his own as they kissed drunkenly, letting their black plastic bags filled with their snacks drop to the ground in a crunch of vinyl.

 

They broke apart as if nothing had happened and grabbed their belongings off the floor quickly, taking larger steps towards the only house that still had its lights on.

 

The door opened before they had the chance to knock, Hanbin standing in the doorway like a concerned parent.

 

“You guys took too long!” He snatched the bags out of their hands and walked in without looking back, completely overlooking how Yunhyeong and Donghyuk had been holding hands without a  second thought.