Wonshik was 16 and Taekwoon was 19 when they first got drunk.

It was New Year’s Eve, and Taekwoon was lying in his bed, switching from one channel to the other on TV. He was alone in the house; his parents had gone over to Wonshik’s, and Wonshik was at a party he had tried to convince Taekwoon about attending. He had promised Taekwoon he would spend the night with him, but he just had to show up a little, “you know, it’s a question of prestige”.

It was at half past 11 that Taekwoon heard the loud knocking on the front door. He unlocked it, letting in a very woozy Wonshik who grinned at him with a bottle in one of his hands, kicked his shoes off, and hurried into Taekwoon’s bedroom, snuggling into the bed sheets. Taekwoon followed him and sat down at the edge of his bed.

“Drink,” Wonshik slurred, reaching out the bottle to Taekwoon.

Taekwoon took it and eyed it suspiciously, reading the word ‘vodka’ at least five times. He checked the alcohol by volume percentage (40%) as if he knew what he would have to expect, and he thought about the few cans of beer he had consumed in his 19 years of life. He didn’t like them; their taste was bad, he certainly could have got used to it if he wanted, but somehow it never occurred to him that the taste of beer would be something people would want to get used to.

“I’ll tell you something funny if you drink it up to this point,” Wonshik said, pointing at the bottle, a few inches under the liquid’s surface.

“I’m not going to drink that much.”

“Whatever, just drink a little.”

Taekwoon took a deep breath and unscrewed the cap, smelling the drink first. It smelled awful; like his mother’s nail polish removers, and he felt his stomach do weird things, but before he could have thought it twice, he took a sip.

It burnt his throat and wanted to come out the way it went in, but Wonshik was laughing at him, so Taekwoon kept it down.

“It’ll get better after a few sips,” Wonshik said.

“I don’t want to drink this.”

“You’ll miss out on so much.”

Taekwoon looked down at the bottle again, trying not to inhale the wicked vapour before drinking some more. His eyes were teary and it felt like his entire gullet was going to turn into ashes, but he kept drinking until he felt hot and bold–like he could have done anything in the world.

He didn’t have big ambitions at that moment, though; he put the bottle on the nightstand and lay down next to Wonshik, blinking with half-lidded eyes as he tried to focus.

“So what do you want to tell me?” he asked, tongue clumsy and heavy in his mouth.

“I lost my ity.”

It took Taekwoon some moments to digest the information, but when he finally did, he blurted out: “What? But you… don’t have a girlfriend.”

Wonshik laughed; his voice was deep and husky, and for a strange reason, instead of feeling embarrassed for being laughed at, Taekwoon felt good: Wonshik’s laughter meant he was happy and that was all that mattered to Taekwoon.

“You can have with people even if you don’t engage in a relationship with them, you know?” Wonshik smirked at Taekwoon. “Or am I just breaking it to you? Is that why you’re still a at this age?”

Taekwoon grunted in reply, turning away from Wonshik, but a second later he felt a leg draping over his own, and a warm body pressed up against his back, hot breath tickling his ear.

“I don’t mind that it didn’t happen with someone I loved, though,” Wonshik murmured and Taekwoon would have liked to roll his eyes, but they were closed. “I mean, it happened pretty fast, and I was probably horrible, and she was older too, so it must’ve been bad.”

“I don’t care about the details,” Taekwoon grumbled.

Wonshik lifted his head and rested it on Taekwoon’s shoulder, a hand coming up to Taekwoon’s arm, and caressing it almost comfortingly, like a parent would caress their child.

“It’s actually very cute that you can only imagine losing your ity to someone you love,” Wonshik said, and Taekwoon could hear him grinning. “I might have drunk too much, but you know what? If I were a , I’d like to lose my ity to you. And, well, if you were a girl. Or something.”

Wonshik lay back on the pillow, his hand sliding off Taekwoon’s arm, but his leg stayed on Taekwoon’s. Taekwoon opened his eyes, the room rotating around him, and he silently panicked over the lingering feeling in his chest that Wonshik’s words caused, and the fact that he was imagining his best friend standing in front of him while in reality, he was already snoring loudly behind his back.

Taekwoon fell asleep a few minutes later, the alcohol having proved much more powerful than the disturbing thoughts that would have kept him awake.