fifteen

Myungsoo is fifteen when he kisses a boy for the first time. It’s also his first kiss with anyone, so he’s not sure exactly what he’s supposed to do with his hands or his tongue – he stands with his hands held by his side awkwardly and tries to make it up as he goes, internally raising an eyebrow at what a wet affair kissing is turning out to be. They’re standing in a stall of a stuffy fourth-floor school bathroom, the result of weeks of hints and endless texting back and forth; it’s utterly forbidden, exciting yet strange, and Myungsoo isn’t entirely sure what this boy is to him beyond the overwhelming infatuation.

The boy tells him it’s wrong, what they’re doing, but doesn’t stop kissing him, and Myungsoo doesn’t know what to think.

*

The boy writes him fawning letters and notes riddled with i love yous, enjoying the attention for the close relationship he has with his handsome senior. Myungsoo is popular in school and kids know his name – he’s honest with himself, so he knows what he likes and he knows he likes the younger boy; yet it doesn’t stop the inevitable gossip from being embarrassing. He has a thousand questions – he is secretly with a boy, not a girl; a boy who moves a little too softly, voice a little too high-pitched. Is this why he likes him? Because he reminds Myungsoo of a girl?

An ex-classmate of his wonders what’s really going on, and if it’s due to Myungsoo getting more popular that he’s doing this because he likes the attention; dancing delicately around actually saying anything. Myungsoo doesn’t see what popularity has to do with it, but his cheeks burn as he reads the blog entry he supposes he wasn’t meant to see. She writes about her surprise at the rumours, how she can’t understand why, and Myungsoo isn’t sure he can understand it himself. Was it really so terrible? They weren’t hurting anybody.

One day when Myungsoo’s parents are not home and they’re lying in his bed, Myungsoo moves the boy’s hand down between his legs, embarrassed at his own arousal. The boy tells him it’s wrong again, and Myungsoo comes to the realization that the boy is more confused than he is.

Myungsoo is a romantic, so he doesn’t see the breakup coming three months later. When he looks back on their texts while the hurt takes its time to dull, he realizes they were all empty, superficial words without any sincere depth. He wonders what this says about him, and why he feels so discarded.

What was the point of a relationship no one could ever know about?

**

sixteen

He’s been close friends with Sungyeol for a year, for the simple reason that they have to take the same bus home from school after their drama club meetings three times a week and there is little else to entertain them on the hour-long ride back to where they both lived. Sungyeol had surprised him a lot – seemingly so intimidating in their first meeting, too unapproachable because of his larger-than-life personality; he’d turned out to be also understanding and somewhat of a hopeless dork after Myungsoo had finally decided to sit next to him on the bus one day. Myungsoo mulled over this endlessly; someone he’d thought was too unpredictable for him was really just an ordinary person underneath it all.

Sungyeol patiently listened to Myungsoo complain and rant about the boy breaking up with him after a measly three months, and then told him that was what he got for impulsively diving into things without thinking about them first. Myungsoo had shut up, stung, because that hadn’t been the case at all. Had it? There had been feelings –

Sungyeol had laughed at this. “It was just a crush,” he’d said. Myungsoo likes the way Sungyeol laughs, so he’d thought about what Sungyeol said instead of brushing it aside had it been any other person. He thinks Sungyeol may somehow know him better than anyone else in school, even his best friends.

Another year passes and it’s been a long time since he’s thought about the boy.

They spend afternoons rambling where the wind blows them, spending their last thousand-won notes on bowls of hot noodles and street food. They sit in parks or walk aimlessly around the streets of Myeongdong, just talking – there is always so much to talk about that the background to their conversations doesn’t matter, and they never run out of things to say. Myungsoo gets roles in drama productions he knows Sungyeol wants, and so starts to secretly persuade their drama teacher to consider Sungyeol more. Sungyeol’s joy at finally getting a leading role overshadows the little twinge Myungsoo feels at the knowledge that it would originally have gone to him; but he realizes with no little surprise at himself that as long as Sungyeol’s happy, so is he.

Myungsoo wonders when exactly it was that he fell in love with Sungyeol, but it’s useless to try to pinpoint the exact moment between endless conversations and watching Sungyeol do impromptu model catwalks on the subway, twin ice creams and the pretense of doing math homework. He just wakes up one day and the strange feeling that steals over him when he looks at Sungyeol smiling as they meet before first period is like a bucket of cold water to the face. He doesn’t tell anyone.

He realizes that this is wholly different from what he’d felt with the boy, recalling something he’d read in a translated classic book of literature; how mistaking infatuation for love was like calling out to a stranger you think is someone you know, and when you finally do find your friend in the crowd their intimately familiar features make you wonder how you could have made the initial mistake at all – Myungsoo goes to school for Sungyeol, goes to drama club for Sungyeol, waits after school to go home with Sungyeol, and the tunnel vision he’s developing is scaring him so much he tries for some distance. He doesn’t text Sungyeol after he leaves him in the bus, Sungyeol’s own stop still ten minutes away; he forces himself to leave after school ends without waiting for Sungyeol to finish with his remedial; he tries to hang out with other drama club members at meetings; because of the simple fact that Sungyeol is straight and being able to continue to be with him as normal is far more important than anything selfish Myungsoo may have wanted for himself.

All it takes is one characteristically blunt question from Sungyeol if he’s done something wrong, and the wrench in Myungsoo’s chest dissolves his resolve. Myungsoo smiles, shaking his head no, and they go out for a movie that afternoon, Sungyeol skipping his extra class for Myungsoo. The sight of Sungyeol running out the school gate to meet him, shirt untucked and bag slipping off a shoulder as he laughingly grabs Myungsoo’s arm to pull him along, desperate to be gone before the teacher realizes he’s slipped out and anyone catches him makes Myungsoo feel like his heart is bursting within his chest.

That evening the first winter winds begin to blow, and Myungsoo shivers. The innocent way Sungyeol pulls him close to rub Myungsoo’s arms warm stays with him as Myungsoo steps into his house an hour later, lying easily to his father that he’s been studying late in school.

His phone buzzes as he’s curled up in bed in the dark, waiting for sleep to take him.

gdnight myungie~

Myungsoo hugs the phone to his chest.

*

Myungsoo thinks he can keep it up forever, pretending to everyone what he feels for Sungyeol is nothing out of the ordinary while storing away every smile and minute alone together, but his younger brother is listening to an English song that has lyrics Google translates into you can’t lose what you never had. He stares at the wall, soul itching. The sight of Sungyeol is beginning to physically hurt.

Sungyeol sits quietly next to him on the floor of the drama room, watching their teacher guide another member in his reading, but Myungsoo is so hyper-aware of Sungyeol’s presence that he imagines he can feel the warmth emanating from Sungyeol’s thigh settled near his and he remembers absolutely nothing from drama club that day.

It builds from week to week, and one unremarkable afternoon after the last day of the school year he finds himself typing a message into his phone that leave his hands shaking.

i don’t expect anything from you, and i know you don’t feel the same. i just need to tell you and get this off my chest once and for all so i don’t have to hide it any more. i like you. i hope we can still be friends.

He rewords it time and time again, always coming up short, always thinking it sounds a bit too pathetic, a bit too brusque, a bit too needy – he forces himself to stop overthinking it and presses ‘send’. He flops on his back to try to even his breathing, relieved to find a corner of his chest beginning to ease. Sungyeol will understand, won’t he? Because he is Sungyeol, and because they are friends – and things will go back to normal without Myungsoo feeling his secret is slowly suffocating him, and in time he’ll get over Sungyeol, and then everything will be fine. This is a lie, though, because he knows how selfish he is being. He has no right to do this to Sungyeol – he knows he is important to Sungyeol, but what if Sungyeol feels things will be too awkward to just carry on as if nothing had happened? He’ll be depriving Sungyeol of a friend on top of everything else.

He waits on tenterhooks for a reply, pretending he isn’t.

When it finally comes hours later, he can feel Sungyeol’s slight furrow of the brow as he stares down at his phone, typing the message. The first text is brief, and Myungsoo swallows, it being everything he was expecting.

I’m not gay. I like girls. And I’ve kind of known how you feel for some time now.

Myungsoo quickly messages back, feeling strangely calm.

i know you’re not into guys. i’m sorry i had to tell you, but it was getting a bit too much for me. I don’t expect you to do anything about this. thanks for not freaking out.

So lately, the reason you’ve been so weird around me is this?

yeah. but i’m ok now that i’ve gotten it off my chest. i’m really sorry if it makes you uncomfortable.

Myungsoo began to relax, feeling like the way Sungyeol was replying him was more or less close to the way they talked normally. He hadn’t freaked or ignored Myungsoo, which was what Myungsoo had been fearing the most.

I’m quite sure I like girls. But I know I’d be happy with you.

Myungsoo stares, unbidden chills of adrenaline starting to spike down his spine. What is Sungyeol saying? Before he can even begin to fathom a reply, his phone buzzes again.

I can’t promise you anything, but I’m not dumb. I do know we’re not *just* friends.

what exactly are you saying, yeol? Myungsoo types quickly, not daring to hope.

I think I want to try this with you. But nobody can know. You know what’s my family’s like.

Myungsoo is motionless for a long time with absolutely no idea what to reply, stupidly huge grin on his face.

you mean you like me too?

Why do you think I spend so much time with you, idiot?

*

Life is beautiful.

The first time they hold hands, it’s late in the afternoon on a park bench. The mere touch of Sungyeol’s fingers sliding through his is enough to send breathless arousal shooting through him, Myungsoo incredulous at how such a small thing could evoke such a strong physical reaction. They don’t let go even when their palms begin to sweat, hiding their hands between them half-covered by Sungyeol’s bag in case anyone walks past. They sit for hours, evening falling dark around them but not motivation enough to chase them home.

Myungsoo lies and lies – drama club, extra classes – his parents accepting his reasons for coming home late almost every day too easily.

The first time they kiss it’s in Sungyeol’s room, with his entire family at home. They know it’s stupid and dangerous, but Myungsoo cannot be close to Sungyeol without touching him and they pretend reading one of Myungsoo’s manhwas together is the only reason why they need to lie down on their fronts with arms and feet touching, faces inches apart. Sungyeol turns to Myungsoo and his nose bumps Myungsoo’s flushed cheek – they freeze, Myungsoo’s heart pounding within him. It takes only a tiny movement of Myungsoo’s head to brush Sungyeol’s lips with his own and once they start they can’t stop.

It takes them a few tries to coordinate angles and noses, to get used to the taste of each other’s mouths and the feel of their bodies pressed together as Myungsoo rolls on top of Sungyeol, quickened breaths loud in their ears.

Sungyeol’s father opens the bedroom door and they shoot upright and apart, Myungsoo’s heart dropping into his stomach in the panic that engulfs him. What had Mr Lee seen?

But Sungyeol’s father is facing out into the corridor even though his hand is on the doorknob, speaking to Sungyeol’s brother before turning into the room to ask the two of them if they want something to drink. Myungsoo just shakes his head, not trusting himself to speak.

He leaves soon after, realizing how close they’d come to ing everything up. That’s the first and last time he goes to Sungyeol’s place. His own house is safer, with only his father and Moonsoo to worry about – his father works predictable hours, and his younger brother is almost always at a friend’s.

That is the summer Sungyeol teaches Myungsoo how to kiss properly as they keep an eye on the clock because Myungsoo’s father will be home at five thirty and Sungyeol needs to be gone by five; always watching the clock. They steal moments when they can, fevered kisses in empty public bathrooms and sly slides of hands into clothes in the back row of the movies. 

Moonsoo finds out about them when he barges into Myungsoo’s unlocked room one day to find Sungyeol tugging Myungsoo’s shirt over his head, pants already ed and guilty look on his face. Myungsoo alternately threatens and pleads with his brother, who is too shocked to do anything but agree to keep quiet, and for the next few days Sungyeol agrees not to come round and Myungsoo barely dares to breathe around his father. Moonsoo doesn’t tell, but he starts to avoid Myungsoo as well. Myungsoo accepts it and the accompanying hurt as a necessary compromise.

**

seventeen

There are times Myungsoo just watches Sungyeol sleep, smoothing a thumb over his cheek lightly as his heart swells within him. He knows he’s still very young, but this is the truest thing he has ever felt, and he isn’t afraid to call it love. What makes it worse is that Sungyeol loves him back, sometimes with an angry desperation that unsettles Myungsoo. They both know they’re working with an invisible deadline, though that does nothing to dull the pure happiness they feel just being with each other (Myungsoo wonders how something so complicated can spring from something so simple). Myungsoo tries not to think of the inevitable, and they are as careful as they can be. Sungyeol teases Myungsoo that it’s just the thrill of puppy love, and by next month they’ll be bored with each other. Next month comes, and the month after, and the month after, and Myungsoo still can’t get enough. He wonders at himself, knowing that if his life were a television drama he’d change the channel at the sheer sappy melodrama of it.

Myungsoo’s birthday rolls around, and his phone buzzes at midnight to inform him that Sungyeol is waiting for him underneath his apartment block with a small cake and candles. His heart jumps at the gesture though Myungsoo knows he’s pushing it by sneaking out, but Moonsoo is sleeping soundly and the door to his father’s room is closed. The fear of getting caught outweighs the unquestionable need to see Sungyeol, and if anything happens he’ll just find an excuse to give. He’s gotten good at lying, these days.

They take the lift up to the roof, the both of them wrapped in warm sweaters, and they find a spot out of the wind to light the candles.

“Happy birthday,” Sungyeol murmurs, kissing Myungsoo by the yellow light of the tiny flickering flames. Myungsoo thinks his birthday wish is obvious enough, eyelashes fluttering downwards as Sungyeol presses his lips into Myungsoo’s cheek, then his forehead, then the other cheek.

They sit together for an hour eating cake and talking in whispers, Myungsoo knowing he should go but unable to tear himself away. They linger by the door opening out to the roof, on the stairs, at the lifts, and finally Sungyeol catches him by the hand as Myungsoo walks out at his floor.

The lift pings softly as the doors close without Sungyeol in it, Myungsoo giving him a fond smile.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he whispers, laughing because he thinks it’s because Sungyeol can’t bear to go home.

Sungyeol rummages in a pocket for a minute and comes up with something glinting gold in his hand. It’s a thin twisty foil band, the kind they use to secure packets of bread in fancy bakeries – Myungsoo can’t really see in the moonlight, but he can feel Sungyeol blushing furiously as he twists it around the ring finger of Myungsoo’s left hand.

“Happy birthday.” He says again, letting Myungsoo’s hand fall and running back to the lift that’s been waiting for him.

Myungsoo doesn’t say anything for a long time. He keeps the golden foil ring in his wallet.

**

eighteen

Myungsoo is eighteen when Sungyeol comes to his house in the middle of the night, bottom lip split badly and side of his face swelling into a bruise. He’s trying very hard not to cry, and his shoulders shake with the ragged breaths he is taking in.

Myungsoo’s father answers the door and wakes Myungsoo up, then disappears into the kitchen for the medical supplies, asking no questions. Myungsoo feels more thankful for his father then than he ever has in his life.

Sungyeol’s father found a letter Myungsoo had written Sungyeol, not hidden as well as Sungyeol had thought. There really isn’t much else to say, Myungsoo thinks.

His father cleans Sungyeol up, giving him an icepack for his face and tells Myungsoo to give him a new shirt, his own stained with flecks of dark blood. Sungyeol sits quietly in Myungsoo’s room, fingers twisting in his lap, but at least he’s stopped shaking.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he starts, speaking carefully so as not to aggravate his torn lip. Myungsoo shakes his head – it’s already done. He knows his father will want answers later, but as long as Moonsoo doesn’t say anything they’re fine.

“Are you going to get into trouble for leaving home?” Myungsoo asks, feeling curious at how numb he feels inside.

Sungyeol shrugs, a tiny move of his shoulder that is more fragile than he realizes. Myungsoo reaches out and gently touches the cheek that hadn’t been hit.

“He says I can’t see you anymore,” Sungyeol tells Myungsoo, and it is then that he begins to cry.

*

They try, they really do.

Myungsoo’s phone bill drops to half what it used to be, and suddenly he has so much free time he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He comes home straight after school, doesn’t go out anymore – gives his leftover allowance to Moonsoo who regards him suspiciously. He doesn’t go for drama club meetings any more. Moonsoo begins to talk to him again.

The first time he sees Sungyeol after that night is by chance in a school corridor – Myungsoo notes that Sungyeol’s tie is undone as usual, he’s laughing with his classmates, his fringe is slightly sweaty, his lip is half-healed, and he’s got his hands in his pants pockets, and when he sees Myungsoo walk past he stops talking. Myungsoo doesn’t know what to do so he settles for a quick glance and what he thinks could pass for a smile before he walks quickly back to his own classroom. He doesn’t look back.

Sungyeol comes by when the period is done to drag Myungsoo out of class before the teacher comes in, and they find themselves in the same fourth-floor bathroom Myungsoo had his first kiss in three years ago.

They kiss desperately, Myungsoo digging fingers into Sungyeol’s arms and pressing as close as he could in order to have as much of Sungyeol as he was being allowed to at the moment. Myungsoo tries to be careful of Sungyeol’s lip but Sungyeol doesn’t care, his eyes screwed painfully shut when they finally separate for air.

Myungsoo leans into Sungyeol, just breathing him in.

“I can’t,” Sungyeol says, and Myungsoo isn’t sure what he means.

“I’m not going to college when we graduate,” Sungyeol whispers, and Myungsoo looks up. “I’m going to get a job and move out. And then we – we could-”

Myungsoo shakes his head. “He’s still your father.” Sungyeol returns his gaze silently.

Myungsoo reaches in his back pocket for his wallet and takes out something golden, taking Sungyeol’s left hand in his and slipping the foil ring onto his ring finger.

“Okay?”

Sungyeol purses his lips and nods.

*

nineteen

It turns out to be Myungsoo who doesn’t go to college, Sungyeol enrolling in Hongik University in the fall after their final exam results are out. Myungsoo is immensely proud of him, and Sungyeol is over the moon.

“Dorm rooms, Myungsoo,” he says excitedly into the phone.

“It’s not like I can move in with you,” Myungsoo replies, rolling his eyes.

“Have you decided what you’re going to do?” Sungyeol asks. “Go make use of that handsome face and find a sugar mummy to look after you and buy us an apartment. She can have me too, if she wants. Two for the price of one.”

Myungsoo wants to laugh at this, Sungyeol’s Sungyeolness. “I’ll go get a job, what else?”

“Good. Save up so we can rent a place.”

Myungsoo is quiet for a while, never knowing what to say to Sungyeol’s insistence about moving in together. When it comes down to it he knows it is a choice between him and Sungyeol’s family, and he’ll never force Sungyeol to make that decision. Can he give up Moonsoo and his father for Sungyeol? Would they make him choose?

He gets a job in a small café making the coffee, and it’s close enough to Hongdae that Sungyeol can come visit him on his afternoons off. The owner loves him, an old grandmotherly type that makes him take home the unsold pastries and closes an eye to him giving Sungyeol free Americanos. It’s hard work, and the customers aren’t always nice; he has to clean and make the coffee and take orders, and sometimes he wonders what Sungyeol is doing, in a world Myungsoo doesn’t belong in.

“How long have you known your… friend?” the owner asks Myungsoo one day, and the slight emphasis on the word friend brings back the familiar panic. Myungsoo answers too quickly, knowing everything is clear as day on his face and that if Mrs Sung was only guessing before, she knows for sure now. Myungsoo swallows, trying to smile, and she tells Myungsoo that Sungyeol seems like a nice person before leaving to clear a used table. Myungsoo goes into the kitchen to hide his flaming cheeks. What was he supposed to take from that?

The first time they go all the way it’s in Sungyeol’s tiny dorm room, on his sheets smelling like too much detergent. They’ve done research on the internet about how to do it, Myungsoo making a face at the thought of what goes where and how to prepare for it so it doesn’t hurt too badly. They can’t decide who will top first so they play scissors paper stone for it, and Sungyeol wins – Sungyeol tells him they don’t have to do it, noting his uncertainty, but Myungsoo shakes his head. It’s still strangely , the thought of letting Sungyeol have every part of him.

“Does this mean we’ve been s all this time?” Myungsoo wonders, wondering why there is so much fuss about who bottoms and who tops and how gay is not fully unless someone takes it up the ; Sungyeol shrugs, not one to care about such things.

“Think of it as just something else we haven’t done yet.”

“Do you still want to a woman, someday?” Myungsoo asks suddenly, causing Sungyeol to look up from where he’s unbuckling his belt.

“You would ask me something like that now,” Sungyeol rolls his eyes, pushing his pants down over his hips and crawling onto the bed. Myungsoo embraces Sungyeol as they lie down together, the satisfying feel of skin on skin no longer new as Sungyeol cradles Myungsoo’s face in his hands.

“I don’t want to anybody else, okay?”

“No, I mean… do you still like girls?”

Sungyeol stills, his fingers playing with Myungsoo’s hair. “Possibly. I mean, I still look at pretty girls and stuff, but… it’s just you, isn’t it? You’ve ruined me. Womankind weeps.”

Myungsoo looks back at Sungyeol smiling knowingly at him, trying to stop his own answering smile from jumping to his lips. They are both still so young, with years and years of life to go; the possibility of still being together in five years, or ten, seem remote. All Myungsoo wishes for is for their relationship to have a natural ending, should it be fated to end; not stopped prematurely because of the world intervening.

It hurts like a , Myungsoo’s face scrunched up and sweat dripping down his forehead from the overwhelmingly strange feeling, Sungyeol’s soft words in his ear and calming of his hands on his back notwithstanding. Sungyeol doesn’t have to try to come fast to save Myungsoo the discomfort, though, Myungsoo’s tight heat wringing his release from him so embarrassingly fast he can’t speak for a minute of two. He pulls out, Myungsoo collapsing on the bed and trying to breathe evenly.

Sungyeol drops tiny kisses all over his face and shoulders in apology, tilting his chin up to kiss his mouth and wipe away the perspiration gathered above his top lip.

“You can top from now on, okay?”

“You mean we’re doing this again?” Myungsoo cracks open one eye to glare at Sungyeol, and subsequently noting with interest Sungyeol’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes, his breath still coming in short pants.

“Oh, trust me,” Sungyeol laughed before moving down Myungsoo’s body, hands already sliding between Myungsoo’s legs. “You’re going to want to.”

*

Myungsoo gets promoted to assistant manager, and Sung sajangnim asks if his Hongik university friend can help to design a new shopfront for the café. Myungsoo wonders when he told his boss that Sungyeol was majoring in interior design, and tries to be as professional as possible when Sungyeol comes over to measure the place; he stands an arm’s length from Sungyeol at all times, and only sneaks looks at Sungyeol’s serious working-mode face when he’s sure no one else is looking. He bustles around serving and making coffee, feeling slightly jealous at the show Sungyeol’s giving everyone through the full front windows as he balances easily on a ladder, long, long legs in tight jeans stretching on endlessly.

Sungyeol gets paid rather well for his trouble, and the next time they both have an afternoon off Sungyeol insists on bringing Myungsoo somewhere, leaving out the whats and the where exactlys. They take a bus downtown and stop in front of a slightly rundown apartment block, Sungyeol excitedly dragging Myungsoo up five flights of stairs.

He unlocks the door to an empty apartment, bare tiled floor and stains along the walls where furniture had been previously. There is a small living room and one bedroom only, a short corridor leading to the bathroom which will need quite a lot of scrubbing to be considered even halfway to ‘clean’. The kitchen is more or less a strip of differently-coloured tiles. Sungyeol turns round to Myungsoo, face hopeful.

“What do you think? I put a deposit down on it with the money your boss paid me. It’s small, but with some nice furniture we could – Myungsoo?”

Myungsoo’s heart is pounding, and for the first time he registers no small amount of annoyance at Sungyeol. How could he assume Myungsoo was ready to move in with him like this? What about Sungyeol’s own parents? Myungsoo knows very well that he’s selfish, that if he’s truly honest with himself he will have to admit that he doesn’t want to rock the boat, even for Sungyeol. He thought they’d be able to carry on like they’d been doing, Sungyeol at a safe enough distance at university and with his dorm room as a neutral zone where no parents could catch them –

Sungyeol’s face has dropped. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first, Myungsoo, but I thought-”

“Did you really? Did you think?” it comes out harsher than he intends it, and Sungyeol winces.

“We can just say we’re roommates,” Sungyeol tries, and Myungsoo wants to laugh.

“And pretend to your father that I’m not the one he beat you up over? There’s only one bedroom, Yeol. You already have a dorm room, so why would you need an apartment?”

“I thought this was what you wanted,” Sungyeol mutters.

Myungsoo doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to tell Sungyeol that he’s hung all his hopes on Sungyeol yet never thought they could have a future. Living together, with their families knowing and happy about it? Growing old together?

The wait at the bus stop is tense, and Myungsoo utters a quick goodbye to Sungyeol before boarding his bus. His mind whirls furiously as the bus rumbles through the streets, thinking of Sungyeol’s carefully blank face as he’d locked the door again and pocketed the key, Myungsoo walking close beside him down the stairs to show him he wasn’t really angry, didn’t want to fight.

What was the point of staying together if Myungsoo didn’t believe they had any kind of future? Myungsoo didn’t want to face this question, because the logical answer would be that there was no point. If they couldn’t live together, couldn’t get married, couldn’t have children, couldn’t introduce each other to their parents, it seemed like the best thing to do was to break up now and move on as quickly as possible. Wasn’t it?

we should break up he types into his phone, and then erases the words, horrified at himself.

*

“If we broke up it wouldn’t be too bad, wouldn’t it? Because we’d still be friends,” Sungyeol asks him lightly, some days later, and Myungsoo’s gut twists at the words so horribly that he can’t believe he’d thought of ending things with Sungyeol.

“Do you want to break up?” he replies, voice cracking a little because if Sungyeol says yes this time, something tells him that it would be for good.

“You don’t seem to want…” Sungyeol trails off, trying to look interested in his magazine. “I don’t want to keep you from living the life you should be. You should find a girlfriend and make your father happy-”

Myungsoo’s head snaps up, eyes narrowing. “What?”

“Things would be easier,” Sungyeol continues in that infuriatingly calm voice. “You wouldn’t have to sneak around anymore. You could bring her home to meet Moonsoo.”

Myungsoo thinks at the back of his mind that he deserves this, but would never have expected Sungyeol to be this passive aggressive.

“I don’t want anybody else,” he says, trying not to get upset. “I’m just not ready to move in with you.”

“Will you ever be?” Sungyeol asks quietly, more to himself than anything. Myungsoo takes a deep breath in frustration.

“You’re telling me you’re willing to tell your father everything, are you? Tell Daeyeol that you’re living with another man? That you sleep in the same bed and-” Myungsoo stops, choking.

“If I had to,” Sungyeol says.

“He already beat you up once over this, Sungyeol!” Myungsoo finds himself shouting, Sungyeol’s grimace making him lower his voice. “Do you honestly think I want to see that happen to you again? I’m not asking you to choose between them and me. I don’t want you to choose!”

“So you’re asking me to give you up?”

Sungyeol’s voice hangs in the air, Myungsoo not knowing what to say. He finally drops his gaze to the floor until he senses Sungyeol beside him, tentative fingers curling into his own.

“I can’t leave you,” Sungyeol murmurs into his neck, resting his head on Myungsoo’s shoulder. “I’ve tried. I can’t do it. Am I being selfish?”

Myungsoo closes his eyes and presses his nose into Sungyeol’s hair, doubting he’ll ever know the answer and hating how unfair it is that they have to ask that question of themselves at all.

*

Sungyeol tells his mother first, then his little brother. He writes his father a long letter, and waits fearfully because his mother warns him not to come home just yet. Daeyeol remembers Myungsoo from that one time he’d been to Sungyeol’s house, three years ago – he’s weirded out, but he loves his big brother fiercely, and his mother tries to keep the peace. Two out of three isn’t too bad, Myungsoo thinks, feeling like he’s watching a trainwreck.

He sits down to dinner with his father and Moonsoo, easy chatter flowing over the steaming bowls and tinkle of chopsticks against ceramic. Things are normal and calm, and just as they ever were – and with just one sentence Myungsoo could shatter all of it to an unpredictable conclusion. But Sungyeol’s told him once that they can’t hide forever, though Myungsoo hates the truth of it. They’ve both made their decisions and he can’t renegade on his now that Sungyeol’s already gone so far.

So he does what Sungyeol did – he writes a letter to Moonsoo and his father, cursing his own cowardice, and goes to hide out at Sungyeol’s dorm, wondering if he’ll have a home to go back to.

He gets a call from Moonsoo the next day. “Appa wants you to come home,” his brother says, voice stilted.

“Why?” Myungsoo asks, dread settling in.

“He wants to talk to you.” The line goes dead, and Myungsoo almost feels sorry for Moonsoo. He looks up to find Sungyeol watching him.

So Myungsoo goes home that night, and he isn’t sure if he’s in for a fight or stony silence because his father has never been the most demonstrative of men. He’s learnt to recognize the small ways his father shows his love, in clumsily-made kimbap to bring to school for lunch, in being absolutely strict with them when it comes to misbehaviour; he doesn’t know if he’s about to lose all of that.

He takes off his shoes at the door and pads in silently in socked feet. Moonsoo looks up from where he’s watching television, and quickly gets up to get their father without a word, disappearing into his room soon after. Myungsoo sits down at the dining table and waits, legs folded underneath him, trepidation gripping his insides.

His father comes out of his bedroom and Myungsoo doesn’t dare lift his head.

“You came,” his father says, and Myungsoo doesn’t know what else he is supposed to have done. He bows briefly, keeping his eyes downcast, and hears rather than sees his father hesitating before sitting down opposite him.

“So. How long has this thing been going on?”

“Three years,” It comes out a whisper, and Myungsoo clears his throat and repeats it louder. “Three years.”

“Three years?” The disbelief is strong in his father’s voice. Myungsoo keeps quiet, unsure what he should reply to this.

“This boy. He’s the same one who came to the house some years ago in the middle of the night? The one you said had had a fight with his father?”

Myungsoo nods, not trusting himself to speak.

“Did his father beat him because he found out about you?”

Another nod.

“Why are you doing this?”

Myungsoo’s hands have gone cold. “I’m not – I’m not doing this to hurt you-”

“You’ve been lying to me for the past three years, Myungsoo.” Tears form unbidden in Myungsoo’s eyes, and he’s not sure why he’s crying except for the huge burden of guilt he begins to feel.

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Of course you meant to, or you wouldn’t have done it. Is this boy more important than your own family?”

Myungsoo bites his lip and tries not to sob, tears falling salty into the corner of his mouth with the regret of ever telling his father because of the sheer awfulness of everything right now.

“You are both – important – to me,” he manages, dashing away the tears on his cheeks. “Appa, please, I love-” Myungsoo stopped at a look from his father.

“Does the boy’s parents know?”

Myungsoo nods, letting his father talk over him.

“And?”

“His father won’t let him go back home,” Myungsoo says numbly, watching a tear fall onto his pants and dot it dark. All because of him.

“Hmm.” There is something in his father’s tone that makes Myungsoo look up, blinking away the tears in his eyes in fear. His father wouldn’t – would he?

Myungsoo thinks of Moonsoo, who used to come running into his bedroom at night when it was raining and the thunder scared him too much to sleep; of the bedroom he’s had since they moved here after the divorce; of hearing his father snoring in the morning when Myungsoo gets up to make the coffee before going to school, and realizes with a start that he’s about to lose all of it.

“What will the family say,” his father sighs, and the tired lines on his face cause fresh pain to bloom in Myungsoo’s chest.

“I’m so sorry, appa,” Myungsoo chokes out, fingernails digging into his palms. “But-”

“We won’t tell those who don’t need to know. But you need to talk to Moonsoo about this and make things right with him. And give me time to accept it.”

Myungsoo hears his father through the slamming of his heart, but he can’t quite believe it. His father is getting to his feet slowly, his knees always giving him trouble.

“And I want to meet this… Sungyeol. A proper introduction this time.” 

Myungsoo finds himself on his feet before he knows it, hugging his father fiercely before he could go back into his bedroom. The relief that surges through him is almost palpable, his legs trembling with post-adrenaline.

“Thank you, appa,” he says over and over into his father’s thin shirt, new tears falling at the feel of his father’s hands soothing his back. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re my oldest son,” his father’s voice sounds, Myungsoo hearing it through his chest; that’s all the explanation he offers, but Myungsoo understands. Moonsoo will take more work, but at the moment Myungsoo feels like he can do anything.

*

Sungyeol’s father refuses to pay his university fees anymore, so after a tense interview with the school’s finance counselor about a loan thankfully approved Sungyeol has to take on two jobs in order to save up for school together with the money his mother secretly sends him. Myungsoo gives him as much bread and pastries as the café can spare, Sungyeol grumbling that he’s going to grow fat because of eating so much carbohydrate-laden food but taking them anyway. He gives private tuition to middle-school kids on weekend evenings and works at a restaurant every day after classes end, so that Myungsoo hardly even sees him anymore. Myungsoo realizes Sungyeol will have to give up his dorm room, and that is when Myungsoo says goodbye to the majority of his paycheck for the foreseeable future.

When Myungsoo asks what kind of furniture Sungyeol would like in his own apartment, Sungyeol thinks Myungsoo is asking hypothetically and amiably goes along with it.

“Dark wood chairs and tables, and a huge bed we can roll around in all day. A beautiful kitchen you will cook in, because you know I can’t. I’ll buy you pretty pots and pans. Owl-patterned bedspreads and curtains.”

“I don’t think dark wood would go with the colour of the tiles in your flat, though. Light beige-y wood, maybe. Though I think a mattress, running water and a stove is good enough for the moment. I’ll help you get some other stuff next month when I get paid.” Myungsoo answers mildly, waiting for Sungyeol to catch on.

“What?” Sungyeol asks blankly.

Myungsoo presses the apartment key into Sungyeol’s palm, internally shaking his head at the begging he’d had to do to get the owner to rent the apartment to him and not this other lady who was going to pay the deposit that very day. He’d asked the owner to be sure, and she’d said that Sungyeol had returned the key and gotten back his deposit the very same day he’d shown Myungsoo the flat. Myungsoo had smiled wryly at this, remembering Sungyeol radiating disappointment in the middle of the empty hall.

Sungyeol stares dumbly at the key, slowly realizing it’s the very same one from mere weeks ago.

“I’ve already paid the rent for the next three months, so don’t expect a Christmas or birthday present,” Myungsoo jokes. “And we’ll be eating ramyun on every date for the next few years.”

It’s touch and go for a few minutes as Sungyeol’s pride fights a battle obvious on his face with his practicality, brow furrowed.

“You can’t-” he tries, then stops. “I can’t believe you just did this.”

Myungsoo merely shrugs at him. “You can pay me back when you’re able,” he says, because that’s the only way Sungyeol would ever accept a gift like this. Sungyeol nods quickly in agreement but still can’t look Myungsoo fully in the eye.

“Your father will kill you if he finds out.” Myungsoo doesn’t dispute the truth of this.

“When do you want to move in?”

*

twenty

“Myungsoo, no!” Sungyeol wails, the little black kitty in Myungsoo’s arms casting him a baleful look as Myungsoo walks into the apartment. “You said you’d get rid of the other two a month ago and now you’re bringing in another one?”

“But I can’t bring him home, Moonsoo hates cats,” Myungsoo protests, letting the kitten down onto the floor while Sungyeol runs to shoo it into the kitchen.

“I hate cats, you stupid!” Sungyeol wants to yell, but the look on Myungsoo’s face as the kitten greets Dishcloth and Snuffy (Ugh 1 and Ugh 2 to Sungyeol, both of which should have been given away a month ago) makes him lower his voice grudgingly. “Myungsoo, this is getting ridiculous. I have three cats in my house now. I want zero cats.”

“But they’re so cute,” Myungsoo says, smiling till his eyes disappeared into halfmoons, but Sungyeol is having none of it.

“They are not cute. They are destroying my life! I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and there’s a cat on the toiletseat. I try to make ramyun and there’s cat hair in the pot. If I go to sleep and forget to close the bedroom door when I wake up there’s a cat on me.”

“That just means they like you,” Myungsoo says, purring to Dishcloth, which purrs back.

“I don’t like them!” Sungyeol grabs Myungsoo and shakes him to emphasize his point. “I am not a cat person!”

Myungsoo brings back three more before the month is out (Ughs 4, 5, and 6 a.k.a. Hampots, Flower and Taegukgi). Sungyeol seriously considers breaking up with him, and as a result Hampots and Snuffy are given away in a hurry.

*

Sungyeol meets him one evening after work in a foul mood, and even though Myungsoo’s gotten used to his terrible temper by now he still flinches at the sound of Sungyeol banging his bag down onto the table between them.

“ing !” Myungsoo waits patiently for Sungyeol to tell him exactly which he’s referring to while he contentedly takes in the view of Sungyeol in a collared shirt, first two buttons undone to afford the lucky viewer flashes of pale skin and delicate collarbones.

“I quit. I couldn’t take it any more working for that bastard.”

Myungsoo sits up at this. “But you need the money-”

“I’ll get another job,” Sungyeol says dismissively. “It’s either that or one day ending up in jail for homicide. Or bastardcide. That should be a real word.”

“What did he do to you this time?” Myungsoo sighed, familiar with Sungyeol’s now ex-boss’ antics but not impressed with Sungyeol’s impulsiveness. Apparently this time he’d sided with a customer against Sungyeol who’d served her what she claimed wasn’t what she’d ordered (“It bloody well was! It’s not my fault if she changed her damn mind after ordering!”) and had given him a tonguelashing in front of everybody. Sungyeol had thrown his nametag in his boss’ face and stormed out.

Myungsoo tells Mrs Sung the whole thing the next day while Sungyeol is at school, and she laughs. She always loves hearing stories about Sungyeol being ridiculous because he somehow reminds her of her own son, now in the army. Myungsoo feels sorry for her son’s army unit, but doesn’t tell her this.

“Why don’t you ask him to work here?” she asks, and Myungsoo’s jaw drops.

“…Here?”

“Why not? He’s got restaurant experience. And he’s already eating half the things I bake,” she says slyly. Myungsoo blushes.

“We’ve only got another part-timer at the moment, and she’s going to start school in the fall. Ask him to come round tomorrow, or later if he can.”

“Really?” Myungsoo asks again, huge smile bursting onto his face. Before he can stop himself, he catches Mrs Sung up in a quick bearhug and she laughs at him, petting his hair. He doesn’t trust himself to be able to say everything he means, and so he settles for pouring all his thanks into the hug; she smiles at him affectionately when he releases her, and he just hopes she understands.

Sungyeol rushes in three hours later and Mrs Sung is treated to her second bearhug of the day, Myungsoo protesting loudly for Sungyeol to put her down.

*

“Don’t forget I’m the assistant manager, Sungyeol, so you’re going to have to listen to me when I tell you to do things,” Myungsoo tells him the day he starts work.

“Okay, sir,” Sungyeol grins wickedly, giving Myungsoo a look he knows very well and lingering just a little too long on the ‘sir’. “What would you like me to… do… first?”

Myungsoo frowns, alarmed. This might not have been the best idea, a thought which he has repeatedly throughout the day every time Sungyeol surreptitiously pinched his as he found a reason to make his way past Myungsoo.

*

They share a bottle of wine on the last day of the year, sitting on a rug on the floor that had been the first thing Sungyeol bought for the house – now more cat hair than anything else. Myungsoo resolves to buy Sungyeol a vacuum in penitence.

“My mother and Daeyeol are good,” Sungyeol smiles, pointing out to Myungsoo the containers of food they’d brought over earlier in the day. “Dae’s going to be a senior in high school soon, and my father is still being an obstinate if you’re wondering.”

Myungsoo smiles back, wondering how is it that Sungyeol can still be so relentlessly optimistic and irrepressible when his father hasn’t acknowledged him in a year. Myungsoo’s not stupid enough to believe that it doesn’t sting Sungyeol to know his father considers his choices to be so disgusting that he cannot live with seeing his face; but Sungyeol has taken it in his stride and hasn’t let it get him too down. Myungsoo thinks, not for the first time, that Sungyeol is a lot stronger than he seems.

Taegukgi climbs onto Myungsoo and Sungyeol makes a face at the cat. “Who’d have known you’d turn into a cat lady,” he says, shooing the cat away when it tries to rub its head on his thigh.

“Well, neither one of us can have babies, so…” Myungsoo picks Taegukgi up for a cuddle as Sungyeol makes another face, softening as he processes Myungsoo’s words. Sungyeol knows this is a sensitive issue that Myungsoo has tried to gloss over, and he doesn’t pursue the subject, silently adding it to the list of things they’ve had to sacrifice. Sungyeol wonders how they will deal with this in the future, Myungsoo wanting children, and decides that they will cross that bridge when they come to it because right now Myungsoo is warm against his side from the wine and right now things are going well, even though his apartment is crawling with blasted cats.

It’s eight minutes to midnight, and Sungyeol clutches something in his cardigan pocket to make sure it’s still there. They kiss when the clock turns twelve, Sungyeol snorting a little into Myungsoo’s mouth at the sentimentality of it but obediently stopping once Myungsoo sends him a hurt look. “It’s to set the tone for next year,” Myungsoo nags, and Sungyeol kisses him again and again in apology.

“When are you moving in?” Sungyeol asks, poking Myungsoo in the side. He doesn’t really expect an answer, because Myungsoo only ever says ‘we’ll see’ every time Sungyeol asks him this.

“I’ve been thinking…” Myungsoo trails off, and Sungyeol sits up in surprised anticipation. “I’ll have to talk to my father first, though.”

“Talk! Talk! By all means!” Sungyeol excitedly plays drums on Myungsoo’s thigh with his palms, disturbing Taegukgi who’d gone to sleep. “I’ve been waiting forever for this!”

“I talk in my sleep,” Myungsoo warns.

“Anything is fine as long as you don’t bring home more cats.”

“But I’ve been aiming for ten,” Myungsoo complains, and Sungyeol’s eyebrows shoot into his fringe in real horror.

“Over my dead body, Kim Myungsoo!”

Myungsoo mock-pouts, pretending to cover Taegukgi’s ears. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“I’d like to hurt you, stupid.”

Myungsoo takes a swig from the bottle. “I’m not even living here yet and already I’m being threatened with bodily violence. I might just change my mind.”

Sungyeol takes out the foil ring from his pocket and shoves it onto Myungsoo’s ring finger a little more roughly than he was originally intending. “Happy new year, you idiot. And I mean it, no more cats.”

Myungsoo smiles lovingly at the familiar circle of golden foil, putting the bottle down behind him. “You kept it all this time?”

“I thought about getting you a real one,” Sungyeol says, a little embarrassed, “but I’m quite fond of this one here.”

“So am I,” Myungsoo says before leaning over to kiss Sungyeol. He thinks no other ring could probably symbolize their lives better than this one – not a real ring by any official definitions but containing all the significance and substance a true wedding ring should.

“You’re thinking sappy thoughts, aren’t you?” Sungyeol mumbles against his lips, and Myungsoo nods.

“Extremely sappy,” he replies, thumb rubbing slowly over the foil ring worth more to him than anything made out of real gold or silver.

**