How long should summer last? A lifetime, in my memories.

Changmin is twenty when he meets him, prancing through the golden wheat fields with a smile as bright as the sun shining high above. He wears a large-brimmed hat, tugging off the dirt-stained gloves on his hands and his skin is a gorgeous sun-kissed bronze, ending abruptly at the cut of his t-shirt. His name is Jung Yunho, and he is the son of the farmer that hosts Changmin’s summer stay.

“Yeah, so thar’s the winter wheat.” Yunho points, sweeping his arm in a wide arc, and pushes back his hair. Glittering drops of sweat fall into the dirt, and Changmin can’t look away. “It’s almost time come to harvest. Wanna tag along when we do? Make y’wish ya never been born.”

He speaks with a drawl, a lazy slur of vowels, though the softness of his voice rounds the edges of the rough Gwangju accent. When he turns, their eyes meet, dark gold and melted chocolate, and Changmin panics, dropping his gaze to the ground instead. “Whatcha here for, friend? Not many people come ’ere for fun, and ‘specially no one takes the bus. Ya backside must hurt.”

Yunho’s eyes are bright and curious, friendly, pretty, and heat crawls up Changmin’s face and neck. “I-I’m on summer study,” he mumbles, staring a hole through the heavy beige cargo pants hanging on Yunho’s hips. “My professor said I should come to the countryside to, like, gain experience. For my writing.”

“You write?” Changmin finally finds the courage to look into Yunho’s face again. Hair falls messily into his eyes, and his cheeks are flushed pink with heat and excitement as he grabs Changmin’s suitcase. “Tha’s so cool, dude! What university d’ya go to?”

Yunho never went to college, graduated from a small trade school, though his grades could have taken him to Yonsei, where his sister currently is. A stab of pity shoots through Changmin as he recounts his two years at Seoul University, the cherry blossoms lining the walk to the library, the marvellous steel-and-glass architecture. Yunho’s eyes are as wide as dinner plates, sunshine reflecting in the depths of clear wonder, and Changmin’s heart trembles a bit. He turns his gaze to the dusty road and bites his lip, willing the tides of his emotions to ebb and fall.

“Tha’s so cool!” Yunho keeps repeating, shaking his head. “Wow, Changmin, ya must be such a good student!”

“Haha, I guess.” He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that his GPA is only 3.32, a long shot from being a good student. “Your turn, tell me about your life.”

Yunho turns out to be two years older than Changmin. He launches right into talking about wheat, because that’s mostly what his family makes money off of, and how there are different types of wheat and different times to plant and harvest it and how it’s actually really easy to grow but harvesting takes up a lot of time and then they need to plant other crops after that, which is why it’s not uncommon for kids of wheat families to miss school during September and October, though technology has made it much easier for older farmers to handle, and Changmin comes away knowing more than he ever needed to know about wheat.

Farmer Jung greets them at the door of the house, arms crossed. He’s shorter than his son but buffer, tanner, and much less smiley. Changmin has half a mind to hide behind Yunho when the boy bounds up to his father, shaking his arm like an overexcited child. “Da, Da, Changmin’s a writer!” he exclaims, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “He goes to Seoul University an’ he’s here for a summer t’gain ‘spurience!”

“I know.” Farmer Jung’s voice is rough with age and toil, but his eyes are kind as he steps forward to shake Changmin’s hand. “Welcome to the outskirts of Gwangju, son. We’re glad to have you.”

“No, thank you,” Changmin replies automatically. “I-I hope it’s not too much trouble for you.”

The old man chuckles and beckons him in. “Naw, we haven’t had so much excitement in a long while, not since Jihye went off to college.” His standard accent is excellent; Changmin wonders briefly about his past. “You’ll be sleeping in her room. Yunho, show ‘im.”

“Yer suitcase’s a’ready in ‘ere!” Even Yunho’s noticed that his enunciation has gotten progressively worse. “Oops, guess I got carried away, sorry.”

Farmer Jung rolls his eyes. “His ma’s gone to the city for errands, won’t be back ‘til after dinner. Y’all boys have fun in the meantime. And don’t let Yun get you in trouble.”

“Aw, Da, I wouldn’t!”

Jihye must be Yunho’s sister, younger than him judging by the high school diploma hanging on the wall. She’s Changmin’s age, he notices, though more mathematically-inclined, if the trophies lining her shelves are any indication. The bedsheets are sky blue with little white rabbits, the blanket fuzzy with a large rose, the kind he would find at his grandmother’s house. It brings a smile to his face as he runs his fingertips over the soft synthetic fur. The family seems nice enough, and he’s sure he’ll have plenty to write about come fall semester.

The door clangs open, and he jumps, turning. Yunho stands in the doorway, face scrubbed red, a towel hanging around his neck. Water drips onto his t-shirt, plastering the fabric to his skin, and a blush rises on Changmin’s cheeks before he even registers what’s happening.

“Sorry,” the boy says, and it’s now that Changmin realizes that his hair’s wet too, frizzled and sticking every which way like he just dried it. “It’s not much, but Jihye took care of her things, at least. You get the desk that doesn’t squeak.”

The left side of his mouth tilts up a bit, and his voice has deepened by at least half an octave. Changmin stands with his mouth open, gaping, not knowing what to do, and finally blurts out, “Your Seoul accent’s not bad.”

Yunho starts, and for a terrifying second, Changmin thinks he’s said the wrong thing. He opens his mouth to apologize, but Yunho breaks out into laughter, doubling over in mirth, and Changmin feels the tension in his shoulders melt away.

“Aw, you’re funny, Changmin!” he gasps, wiping at his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, it’s decent, we used to live in Seoul for a while.” He looks at him, eyes soft, leaning against the doorframe. His abs are visible through the thin white fabric, and Changmin swallows, somehow flustered under his gaze. “We still have some time before dinner, should explore. Where d’ya wanna go?”

The country accent’s back, and Changmin blinks, following him out of the room. “Um,” he says, stopping short of stepping into the bathroom with him. “Where do you want to go? Or, like, where do you think is… worth… going…” 

His voice trails off as Yunho lifts his face, meets his gaze in the mirror, water running down his skin in rivulets. “Oh?” He pats himself dry, eyes distant as he thinks. “Hm, what ‘bout the fields? City boy like you, ain’t never seen such crops before, have ya?”

It takes Changmin a while to emerge from the sudden and odd warmth of Yunho calling him ‘city boy’. “No, I’d love to see them.” His face radiates heat; he must look steamed. Yunho turns, pauses, laughs and grabs another towel, running it under the tap, squeezing it out, and hands it to him.

“Fer the heat.”

The problem isn’t the heat, but Changmin takes it anyway, looking into Jung Yunho’s curved eyes with a smile of his own. No, not the heat, not at all.

---

He reminds him of a fox, dashing through the waist-high wheat without a seeming care in the world. The golden stalks wave gently in the wind, parting for him like the Red Sea, and Changmin follows in his path, though more carefully. Despite Yunho barging into the field, he hadn’t broken off any heads of wheat, and Changmin bends down, inhales the clean but dusty scent of ripe grain, touches the bumpy kernels and thin bristles. He’d wanted to go into agriculture at some point, a silly middle school fantasy, but…

“Changmin!” Yunho’s miles away, no more than a smudge on the horizon, a blur of a waving arm. “Changmin, come ‘ere!”

He picks his way through the wheat, taking care not to damage the crops, and hides a smile in the dip of his head. His grandparents used to farm, and what few memories he has of them always includes running through the pastures, pretending like he and his sisters owned the farm and animals. It was a much simpler time then, one where he didn’t have so much weight on his shoulders and worries in his heart, and he craves the rush of joy he once felt when the wind rushes past and lifts his hair and clothes.

Closer now, Yunho whoops, raising his arms above his head, throwing back his head to let the sunshine fall upon his face, and Changmin’s breath catches. Illuminated by the afternoon sun, he looks like a god, an angel, an ethereal otherworldly being bathed in golden sunlight, ruler of the wheat. His heart stirs, and he clutches his chest; the thought is so ridiculous but also somehow so fitting that his eyes sting.

“Come on, ya haven’t even seen the best part yet!” Yunho rushes forward, grabs his wrist, and Changmin blinks away the tears as they charge through the field, marking a path through the rustling gold. The sky is a pale blue, no clouds in sight, and he doesn’t know when he starts to laugh, only that he does, skin burning where Yunho’s fingers touch, and runs with him to the end of the field, to the top of a hill, collapsing finally in the softness of the summer grass.

It’s cool underneath his fingers as he climbs to his feet, looks out at the entire village laid out before them. Yunho looks at him, eyes soft, and Changmin can’t look away, mesmerized by the sparkles of light dancing in his eyes. “What do you think?” he asks in the standard accent. “Pretty?”

His heart skips a beat. “Yeah,” he breathes out, drowning in Jung Yunho’s eyes. “Beautiful.”

Yunho laughs, ducks his head, and suddenly, he seems like a teenager, apple red dusting the deep bronze of his cheeks. “Yeah, I bet.” He reverts back to satoori, sitting down, plucking a few blades of grass to tear apart. “Thought you’d like it. Was the same fer me. We came back when I was twelve and man, the fields, when the wind blows through an’ they wave like the ocean.” He shakes his head with a grin. “That’s when I knew I could never leave.”

Without even realizing, Changmin’s knelt down next to him and put a hand on his cheek. His palm is cool from the ground, and the startled light in Yunho’s eyes is worth the potential embarrassment. “You’re pretty,” he blurts out, and Yunho stops trying to pull away. Instead, there’s a certain deer-in-the-headlights panic that he recognizes. “You’re pretty, Yunho. Hyung. You’re really, really pretty.”

The pounding of his heartbeat drowns out all other thoughts, but Changmin holds his gaze until Yunho looks away, flaming red snaking down to his neck. “Changdol-ah,” he says quietly. Changmin starts, pulling his hand away, but Yunho grabs it again, presses it to his chest. “You’re prettier.”

---

Harvesting season starts around the beginning of June. Yunho is pulled away to help with the hard labor, which leaves Changmin either hanging around the house working on the inklings of an idea, or sitting on top of the hill overlooking the village trying to spot Yunho within the crowd. It’s not hard, not really, not when he knows which plot of land belongs to the Jungs. It brings a smile to his face, whenever the little figure of Yunho stops to take a break, shaking his hair or taking a drink of water.

Modern combine harvesters have taken the majority of the load off of the farmers, but someone has to clean up the leftover straw. That’s Yunho’s job, it looks like, driving the baler. He can’t tell what it does other than spit out rolls of hay, though he wishes he could see for himself. Changmin is stuck in another one of these daydreaming spells when Mrs. Jung calls him out on it.

“Ya want some experience?” She jerks her head towards the door. “Go get it, boy. Oh, and ‘member not to wear shorts.”

So it’s with a light heart and no guilt at all that Changmin flounces into the field to find Yunho. The sweet smell of freshly-cut wheat stalks hits him like a wave of nostalgia, dusty but crisp, intoxicating, and his heart thuds painfully in his chest as Yunho’s eyes light up upon spotting him. He tumbles out of the baler, nearly falls, and meets him halfway.

“Whatcha doin’, Changdol?” he exclaims happily, taking the dry towel that Changmin offers. “Here fer the full farming ‘xperience?”

Farmer Jung regards him with plain doubt, but the other farmers gathered around only laugh. “City boy wants a taste of adventure,” they joke, but their eyes are kind as they ruffle his hair. “Let ‘im at it, Jung, yer son’ll keep things straight.”

When the old man finally gives a curt nod, eyes following their casually twined fingers, Yunho cheers and shoves Changmin into the cramped baler, enthusiastically explaining the mechanics behind the machine. Between the accent and the speed of his words, Changmin can hardly understand, but it’s enough to just watch him talk, eyes flashing with joy, lips curving up at the ends, hair flopping limply onto his forehead. Unable to help himself, Changmin reaches up to push a lock behind his ears, and Yunho looks up, meets his gaze, smiles, and for a moment, nothing else in the world matters.

They spend the rest of the afternoon driving crookedly around the field, arms and fingers tangled, and though the air is hot and sticky, Yunho presses a soft kiss to his collarbone, and it’s all Changmin can do to not let go of the steering wheel and grab his face. As if he knows, Yunho chuckles, guiding them back onto the path. “Cain’t let yer mind slip,” he murmurs with a bite of his lip, and Changmin swallows the lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” he says shakily. “Can’t get distracted, can I?”

In the end, Farmer Jung sends him back before the sun sets. “Loads to do, son, even without you holding us back.” His words hold no real bite, though they are sharp and a bit cold, and Yunho waves him off cheerily. Changmin stumbles back towards the village, unable to hide the brightest of all grins, and once he’s out of earshot of the farmers, actually stops to giggle. He feels like a child again, a lovestruck little girl got together with her crush, and is sure that his ears must be bright red.

It takes him a while to calm down, but nothing can be done about the glow of happiness around him. He’s sure Mrs. Jung notices, but judging by the smirk on her face as she waves him off to the shower, she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, it almost seems like she knows the reason why, and the full realization of the fact, coupled with her husband’s uncharacteristic sharpness, doesn’t hit Changmin until much later, when he’s helping her wash the dishes.

Yunho and his father won’t be home until late, so if he wants to bring up the topic, now’s the time to do so. Changmin clears his throat, the noise audible above the sound of running water, and Mrs. Jung casts a glances at him. “Yes, hun? What is it?”

Whatever words he might have prepared die away in his throat, and he blurts out, “Is Yunho single?”

The stark honesty of his words sends the lady into a coughing fit, and Changmin panics a little, hastily drying his hands to thump her on the back. She waves him off, and he realizes that she’s laughing, almost breathless with amusement.

“Yer in love with him,” she says. It was not a question. Changmin hesitates, then nods. He could lie, but he’s sure that she would know.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, rinsing off a blue-tinged ceramic plate. “Yeah, I am.” A myriad of words rise and become stuck in his chest. “I wasn’t sure how you would, you know, if you’d be okay with it, two guys in love.”

A lump rises in his throat, he’s not sure if he wants to know, but Mrs. Jung only smiles, patting his cheek with a soapy hand. “Sweetheart,” she says gently, looking him in the eyes. “If I had a problem with it, don’t you think I’d’ve brought it up a’ready?”

The dam breaks, and all his emotions rush through with the tears. “I wasn’t sure.” His voice hitches, hiccups, and he squeezes his eyes shut. She pulls him into a hug, but the words won’t stop. “I hoped you’d understand, but a lot of older people, traditional people, a lot of them don’t like it and I don’t know what I would do if I outed myself and everyone hated me--”

She shushes him with soft sounds. “It’s okay, hun. It’s okay.”

He knows it’s not - she hasn’t mentioned anything about her husband - but he lets his head drop, breathes in the smell of sunshine and laundry detergent, and pretends that it is.

It’s not until later, close to midnight, after the men have returned home, that she finds him in his room, writing. “He’s in love with you too, that much is obvious.” Her voice is soft, and Changmin doesn’t need to ask who. “His da’s not on board, but I just want him to be happy.”

A scratchy feeling rises in the back of his throat, and tears well unbidden in his eyes. He puts his hands up, tries to hide it, but she’s seen. A light towel drapes itself around his shoulders, and the door clicks shut. Changmin puts his head down on the desk and tries not to make any sounds, but when Yunho pushes open the door ten minutes later, he finds him still trembling with the effort, eyes rimmed red and puffy.

He doesn’t speak, only wraps an arm around him and presses his lips to his hair. They stay like that for a while, one sitting and one standing. Then Changmin reaches up, entwines their fingers, and Yunho leans down, tilts his face towards him, meets his lips halfway and looks at him with such love that he wants to melt away into the ground, slip into the cracks of earth and bloom with the colors of the wheat, green and gold and beautiful. Like love, like him.

Like he knows it can’t last but has to try anyway.

---

After wheat, the Jungs grow corn. “It’s faster than soybeans,” Yunho explains, tearing at a stalk of grass with his teeth. They lie in the shade of a big oak tree, looking up at the sky through the gaps in the leaves. Sunlight and shadows dance on Yunho’s face, and he turns to grin at him. “I didn’t like the soybeans.”

He’d usually be helping his father, but today, Yunho plopped himself down beside Changmin, laid his head in his lap, and stayed. He set aside his notebook, ignored the character developments that need to happen still, and ran his fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. Then he drew him, painstakingly, since he’s not an artist, line by line, by , ran light fingertips across his face, his jaw, and didn’t move his legs even though they fell asleep ages ago.

Yunho sits up abruptly now. His fingers are mere centimeters away, so close that he can feel the heat. If he reached out a little more, he’d be able to touch him. So he does, gives into the want that day by day carves a bigger hole in his heart, and hooks his fingers around his. Yunho responds in kind, a flush rising on his cheeks. “Wanna go somewhere secret?”

Changmin grins, pushing himself up. “Do you even need to ask?”

His laughter rings across the fields, bright and clear as the day itself, and the feeling of Jung Yunho’s hand in his will never really go away, the heat that burns an imprint into his palm, the way he turns their hands over to press a kiss to the inside of his wrist, the way he looks at him with all the intensity and genuinity of someone who knows the ending but doesn’t want to believe it. It’s these moments, the small things, the details that makes him fall more and more in love with Jung Yunho.

It’s the details that will make it harder to let go.

They reach the riverbank hand-in-hand, panting, palms slick with sweat but breathless and laughing. “This isn’t a secret,” Changmin manages to gasp out. “It’s just the river.”

“Naw, the secret’s here.” Yunho tugs him to a small alcove, a space made by the small overhang of rock that juts out from above. “Close your eyes.”

He does, not knowing what to expect, but when Yunho’s lips touch his, soft and sweet at first, he slips his arms around his waist, revelling in the breathy little laugh the movement elicits. He pushes him against the hardened dirt, deepens the kiss, and it becomes sloppy, rushed, desperate. His lips almost bruise, and when Changmin finally pulls away to breathe, Yunho’s eyes are pained, teary, knowing. 

Desperate.

He makes the first move this time, lunging, and their mouths connect with such force that it draws blood, canines breaking skin. Someone hisses - he doesn’t know who, it could be either - hands roam up and down, get rid of the shirt, he breathes, not here, we’ll get dirty. Whispers, choked moans, washed away in the rushing water of the river, and after they’ve tired themselves out, Changmin sits, puts his head on Yunho’s shoulder, and watches the sun set behind the trees.

“Can’t you stay?” Yunho whispers, voice trembling with tears unshed, and Changmin turns, presses his face into unyielding bone. “I want you to stay.”

“Run away with me,” he whispers back. “Come back to Seoul, marry me. Or wait, wait until I’ve graduated and we can go overseas. They’ll let us get married overseas.”

But Yunho won’t, he knows him too well, cares too much about his family to do such a thing. He can’t stand to think of it, Yunho marrying someone else, a nice girl to cook and do the laundry for him, to run her fingers through his hair and have a child with him, someone for him to settle down and start a family with. It sends a piercing pain shooting through his heart, and he buries his face in his chest, unwilling to think of it any more.

He holds him through the sunset, until the stars come out and twinkle in the velvet night. The elder Jungs will be wondering where they are, he knows, but for now he’s content, sitting on the riverbank and counting the stars, arms and legs tangled in the sticky heat. Yunho frees his right arm, points at the sky and says, “Look, Cassiopeia, the big W.”

A little ways away, Changmin spots Orion’s belt, the pale blue Sirius below it, and sits listening to Yunho’s lilting accent describe the stories of the stars and constellations, the western tales and the eastern myths merging in a clash of culture and pride. He could fall asleep like this, can imagine many more nights like this, wants it with such a fierce pain that he can’t help the tears from sliding down his face.

Stay with me, he begs in his mind, clutching Yunho’s hand like a lifeline in tumbling waters. Don’t let this end so quickly yet. Let me be in love with you for just a little while longer. Don’t let these nights become just a memory, a fleeting dream. Please, let me love you just a bit more.

It’s not the last time. One more, one last time.