contest entry #8 [3]

Title: Sway (3/3)
Pairing: Han Geng/Amber (f(x)), Heechul/Eunhyuk, Heechul/Hankyung
Rating: R
Summary: Collisions, and the vehicles that carry them there.

He enlisted to the army willing to be changed. People say that a man isn’t a man until he’s served his two years, and he was ready to become one.

He’s done a handstand in the snow for fifteen minutes. His hands froze. He couldn’t feel them, so that was fine.

He’s loaded a gun in five seconds.

He’s subsisted on corn for a week. By the seventh day his shit was yellow and piecey, just missing the stalks.

At night some of them would pass out before their heads hit the pillows, but sleep came to Heechul grudgingly. At least he wasn’t an insomniac like Jungsu. Jungsu stayed awake for hours, and Heechul felt, through the thin film of slumber, his tossing and turning through the night. Jungsu would say, “Hey, are you still awake?” and Heechul would grunt, “Sure,” and let his eyelids burn open again. Sometimes they talked until light crept into the room, slanted through the partitioned windows. Its shadow on the blankets took the form of asymmetrical crosses. Jungsu talked about girls, the ones he wanted to marry and the ones he wanted plainly, to hold and press his face into their breasts. His breath hung coarsely over the wool blanket. “Momma’s boy,” Heechul said. Jungsu’s laugh cut through the dark. It didn’t matter how tired he was. His laugh was always the same. It bordered on maniacal, misplaced in an otherwise calm and grounded personality. But Jungsu wasn’t the enigma.

He didn’t have much time or energy to think. His body did everything for him. He felt his muscles growing, like trees extending their roots. His arms pulled taut when he did the morning stretches, careful to keep his back straight. They made him run laps up and down the mountain last time. He maintained a respectful and blank expression. This way they couldn’t beat the Kim Heechul out of him. He buried himself deep inside. A time capsule to recover after the two years went by.

He wouldn’t grow hard, he told himself. He didn’t want to be like the splintered veterans, long-winded about their traumatizing stories of “what really happened back then” at every family gathering, who went on for hours once they had some soju in them. The uncles you nodded politely at and then avoided for the rest of the night. He was here to serve his country, and to learn. He met all types of other men, and it was a bit like looking through a peephole into the wider world. People he’d never have talked to otherwise. People he’d laughed at in high school. Some of them could’ve been replacements for those he already knew. The Hyukjaes, the Donghaes. Not exactly, because something was always off, but they’d pick up their chopsticks, quirk their mouths, whatever it was, and it would all be so startlingly familiar and warm. The illusion passed quickly. In those moments he knew how badly he missed them.

Jungsu kept a journal that he wrote in every day. The others made fun of him for it, jostling his shoulders, calling it a diary. Jungsu grinned and kept writing. His handwriting was long and leaned to the left; his vocabulary, rudimentary. He wrote about the weather and what he ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Some days he wrote by himself and others he asked Heechul for help. They came up with stories together. “You got a blister today,” Heechul reminded him. “Oh, right.” Jungsu drew cartoons in the margin. His art was better than the words surrounding them. Kim Heechul, my former classmate and now fellow soldier. Cartoon-Heechul had large sparkling eyes and an embarrassing patch of stubble. “You didn’t have to draw that in,” Heechul complained. “Then shave,” Jungsu said. Heechul didn’t want to shave. He was going through a phase.

By Christmas he had a legitimate beard. They asked him to play Santa Claus for the regiment and he put on the suit and filled it up with half-empty bags of rice. He went from door to door dealing spoonfuls to his comrades. They held out their hands like it was gold. The Sergeant caught him and made him spin somersaults in the snow. But he was laughing when he announced the punishment. He gave Heechul farmer’s gloves, the ones red at the palms. After the twentieth, he said, “Alright, Santa,” and slapped him on the back. Heechul was out of breath. His eyelashes dangled heavy with icicles. But he had been giddy then, falling into the act.

In the last months before he was released, he bought a notebook and started writing his own journal. Bits and pieces before going to bed. Found a stone in my soup today. Almost broke a tooth. Eternal beauty a thing of the past. He hadn’t done this since elementary school, before video games, computers, and distracting friendships.



***


The kettle’s whistling on the stove. “Hyukjae,” Heechul calls, tucking in the tail of his tie. He glances at his reflection over the dresser. There’s something like alfalfa popping out the back of his head.

“Hyukjae,” he yells this time.

“Yeah?” Hyukjae’s voice is dim. Probably in the bathroom right now.

“Water.”

“Washing my hands--hold on.”

The whistling dies down to a bubble. Heechul notices his tie is crooked, and it takes two deep breaths to calm down. Everything is irritating today. He got out of bed to pee this morning and nearly stepped on Hyukjae’s face, pillow-smashed and unrecognizable. He had to step around him with the balance he lacked at that hour and then later, when he reached for the soap he noticed it wasn’t the perfumed one he liked. Right. They’d used it up a while ago. This one doesn’t have a smell. It’s probably one of those antibacterial soaps that are really good for you or something. But Heechul likes nice smells.

And then at breakfast he burnt his porridge and Hyukjae had forgotten to buy milk the day before so they drank orange juice instead. Except it was the pulpy kind and he’d let it sit for too long while he watched the morning news so all the pulp gathered at the bottom and he just got a bunch of shit in his throat. He made a choking sound and then Hyukjae laughed at him, although he immediately looked apologetic afterwards, because, without really meaning to, Heechul must have glowered.

His job interview at the restaurant is in half an hour, and it only takes about ten minutes by foot to get there, but he still hasn’t washed his face or remembered how to tie a tie. It’s not like he really needs the money but he needs something to do. “You know we’ll support you in any shape or form,” his mother had said over the phone. But her tone was delicate. She doesn’t know, but she thinks she does. He lets her think it’s about the accident.

Ten minutes later he turns the doorknob to the front door before remembering, “Shit, my phone.” Hyukjae stands up abruptly to look around the room. “You seen it?”

“It started beeping halfway through the night so I plugged it into the charger,” Hyukjae scratches the back of his head. “Check your bedroom?”

That’s when he gets it. The thing that doesn’t feel right.

“My bedroom?” Heechul repeats.

“Yeah—“

“No,” Heechul says. “I mean. My bedroom? The one whose floor you’ve been sleeping on for three months?”

“Yeah,” Hyukjae says, confused. “The outlet by the door.”

Heechul is careful about the words he chooses to say next. “Listen. This morning I almost stepped on you.”

Hyukjae looks at him blankly. “Was I drooling again?”

“Well, yeah, but,” Heechul waves his hand. “Then I went into the bathroom and—my hands don’t smell like flowers right now. Also, did you rearrange my hair products?”

“You left everything out last night, so I just put them back!”

“In alphabetical order?” Heechul gapes. But this isn’t what he wanted to say. “That’s not what I wanted to say.”

Hyukjae’s hand stops in midair. He is holding a spoon.

Heechul continues. “I don’t even recognize this place anymore. Your underwear mixed in with mine in the laundry basket. Waking up some mornings and finding Heebum on your face. It makes me think, that should be me he’s suffocating, but it isn’t.”

“Yesterday I choked on a hairball,” Hyukjae nods somberly.

Heechul tries not to think about the imagery there, because then he might snort, and snorting will undermine the gravity of what he wants to say. Which he still hasn’t said. Because he doesn’t really—he hasn’t been in this situation in a while, and it feels awfully foreign and new. New isn’t bad.

Maybe he’s scared. But he doesn’t get scared.

“Hyung, do you want me to leave?” Hyukjae says suddenly. “Just say it. I’ve been thinking about it, too, lately, that this is kind of wei—“

“No,” Heechul interrupts. “I meant, it’s ours. That’s what I wanted to say, okay? It’s ours now.” He avoids looking at Hyukjae’s shell-shocked expression, like a gigantic extinct bird just hit him in the face.

“Everything,” he adds in case there is any confusion.

“Oh,” Hyukjae says with the same face.

“What? Stop looking at me like that. I have to go now. You just made me late for my first interview in three years. Kung Pao chicken is going to be very upset.”

“Wait,” Hyukjae says, grinning now. “You’ve got an alfalfa back there.”

He makes his way around the table. When he reaches Heechul, they look at each other like it’s the first time. Heechul wonders if there’s some rule against this, this unspoken staring contest, because it’s making his palms clammy. But then Hyukjae spits on his hand and smoothes the piece of hair sticking up in the back of his head.

“That’s gross,” Heechul makes a face. He opens the door before adding, “Thanks.”


***


“Hyung, you want half of this sandwich?” Donghae asks.

“No. Why?”

“You look sick. Your face—“

“Me? No way. I’m perfection always. Worry about yourself, okay?”

Donghae leans closer, frowning. He wants to play it off like he’s not really concerned, because he knows that being too serious will only make Heechul less willing to listen—but unfortunately for him, Heechul knows all this, too. He can read Donghae like a lunch menu.

“I wouldn’t have noticed, but Hyukjae brought up how you’d been skipping meals, and—“

“Hyukjae?” Heechul repeats. The kid doesn’t even look at him. They joke around sometimes, eyes darting everywhere but at each other. Heechul’s never been as uncomfortable around another human being as with Lee Hyukjae.

“Yeah.” Donghae seems vaguely aware of the fact that he just said something he maybe shouldn’t have. “Is there something wrong with Hankyung-hyung?”

“Nope.” He isn’t going to tell him.

“What are we talking about?” Hyukjae joins them on the roof. He’s swinging a plastic bag branded with the logo of the college convenience store. He glances at the open space next to Heechul on the bench and then slides onto the floor next to Donghae.

“Gimme your pudding,” Heechul says, holding out his hand. “You bought some, right?”

Hyukjae freezes, staring at him. “Um, yeah.”

“Give it to me. I could eat a horse right now.”

Hyukjae stares up at him with his mouth open, maybe a little pissed off, but then it registers. When he hands the small cup to Heechul a moment later, he looks mildly relieved.

Heechul smokes behind the courtyard later, thinking of Hyukjae’s mouth pressed into a wobbly line, not thinking of Hankyung and how he stays quiet after they do what they do.


***


“So tell me the truth. Is that when it started?”

“No,” Hyukjae says. His ears are red, so that was probably half a lie.

“Then when?” Heechul presses, dangling his legs over the couch. “When did you realize how irresistible I was?”

Hyukjae cracks up at that one. His eyes go wide and his mouth goes long and it’s like American football on his face. “Irresistible? Then how did I resist for so long?”

“I have no idea,” Heechul says, eyes bright.

Hyukjae laughs again and then clears his throat. He opens his mouth. Closes it. “This is so awkward for me.”

“It’s not awkward for me at all,” Heechul swings his legs some more.

“What about you then? When did you—ah—realize you . . . um,” he looks at Heechul. “Do I have to say it?”

“To be honest, I don’t think I’ve realized it yet.”

Hyukjae opens his mouth. He places a hand over the general vicinity of his heart. “I’m deeply hurt, hyung.”

“Fine. Last weekend, when you turned the cold water knob instead of the hot water and shrieked in the shower. That’s when I thought, hey.”

“‘Hey’?”

“Hey, this kid might be good for something after all. You’ve got an awesome sense of comic timing.”

Hyukjae covers his mouth with his hand when he laughs sometimes. And sometimes he covers his face. Heechul doesn’t know what to make of it, but he wants to pry his hands away. They’re not really there yet; they still have this instinctive desire to hide.

“You can’t bring yourself to say it, hyung. I see how it is. You don’t really—about me—like that.”

“About you? Like what?”

“You know, that.”

Heechul grins. “I have no idea what you’re talking about unless you tell me.”

“You know I’m not good with words. I’m not writing the next great Korean novel.”

“I need some inspiration for that, and you’re the only person who lives with me.”

“Get new friends.” Hyukjae kicks his side of the couch.

A lifetime ago, Heechul would’ve left the room. He would’ve thought Hyukjae was terribly ordinary. Nothing special in that face or body or brain. He was like every other Korean, except with the uncanny knack for falling over whenever he laughed really hard. The kind of person whose laughter shook his shoulders. Heechul wouldn’t have tolerated this kind of familiar wink-nudge humor at his expense.

A lifetime later, though, he wants to lace their fingers together when Hyukjae starts fidgeting. He thinks about the slope of his jawline, the way it curves against his lips when he leans over to kiss him in bed.

“But I only want you,” Heechul says seriously. Well, for a moment. Then they look away, because it’s still a little uncomfortable, to be that earnest. They are better when they don’t talk about these things. These things should only be felt, anyway, not spoken.



***


“Are you awake?”

Heechul rolls over. Now he is.

“At first I hated you. Not hated, but I knew you didn’t like me. So I didn’t like you back.”

Hyukjae breathes a puff of warm wind on Heechul’s cheek.

“I didn’t like you, but I always noticed you. Your moods—I mean, those are kind of hard to miss.”

He’s grinning. Heechul can feel it in the dark.

“And I wondered, why did I notice you if I hated you? And what was that—weird sensation—whenever you were with Hankyung-hyung—I mean, back then it wasn’t like now. I accepted that you were, the two of you were really close. Not accepted. It was a given. Everyone thought of you two as . . . inseparable.”

Hyukjae turns to the other side, away from Heechul, thinking. His voice is further away when he continues.

“I think I felt… I never felt good enough. Like you were this faraway star or something . . . wow, this sounds really stupid. I mean, you could call it denial. I liked you for years. I just, you never, I never had the chance.”

There is a familiar knot in Heechul’s throat. It comes and goes. These days it’s mostly away, on vacation.

He presses a kiss into Hyukjae’s hair. The guy is sweating. “You moron,” Heechul says, and the words shake like bones. “Go to sleep.”


***


“How you doin’, hyung?” Donghae’s accent is back.

“Fine,” Heechul says. “When are you coming back home?”

“That depends on how much you miss me.” Something whines in the background. “Oh, Jess says hi.”

Heechul twirls the charm on his cell phone strap. “Tell her I asked if she’s pregnant yet.”

A loud static sound muffles against the speaker. Donghae coughs, further from the receiver now. “Hyung!”

“I want to be an uncle. Imagine the things I could teach your children.”

Donghae is quiet, imagining. His voice goes low. “I’ve been trying to talk to her about it, but she’s working, too, and I don’t know. . . . she doesn’t seem to like kids that much.” I adore kids, Heechul hears Jessica protest in the background.

“You two make me sick. Go back to your fiancé. Why did you even call?”

“Aw, don’t be like that,” Donghae laughs. “Put Hyukjae on the phone?”

“He’s not—wait, how do you even—“

“He writes me daily reports. Heechul-hyung hugged me for two seconds today. My fingers tingled, and then we parted. It’s nice that he keeps me updated, but I throw up a little afterwards. Even Sica says I’ve been losing weight.”

Heechul is too stunned to talk, but he really shouldn’t be. Hyukjae has always told Donghae everything.

“How long have you known?” Heechul asks.

“Since forever. I was sorta jealous for a while, too. Not like that! But you know. Boys are stupid.” They really are, Jessica adds, probably leaning into the receiver because her voice is louder now. C’mon baby, Donghae says, probably pulling her in against the inside of his arm. Heechul closes his eyes.

“You’re such a gossip,” Heechul says. “I can’t believe you never told me.”

Donghae sounds a little sad when he says, “I would’ve, but it wasn’t for me to tell.”


***


He’s smoking a cigarette in the kitchen overlooking the back alley behind the apartment building. If he looks up, there are skyscrapers in the distance, punctured by yellow pinpricks of light and strung together under the darkening skyline. A storm is coming, he muses, but the honest-to-God truth is he has no idea how to read a fucking cloud. It’s just, you know, idle thinking. The cigarette burns low. He puts it out on the floor of the sink and then sticks it in the plastic bag hanging from the handle of one of the cabinets that Hyukjae has reserved for garbage. He doesn’t toss it out the window, and he thinks he deserves a gold medal for that.

Earlier Hyukjae took a shower and walked out in a shirt that wasn’t his. Heechul said “Hey” like he was complaining but he was really admiring how something that belonged to him looking on somebody else. Hyukjae stopped in the middle of the living room like he’d done something wrong. Heechul stood up and said, “Let me dry your hair.”

His fingers brushed over Hyukjae’s ear, and he felt a shudder through his jaw. “Sorry,” Hyukjae said, “It’s a sensitive spot.” Heechul pulled the towel and Hyukjae leaned into the kiss.

Hyukjae wasn’t moving, and Heechul wondered if he was afraid. It encouraged him to know he wasn’t the only one. Hyukjae had just brushed his teeth. The taste of fluoride filled the corners of his mouth. Heechul pulled away to breathe and their foreheads knocked.

“Sorry.”

“No,” Heechul said, and pressed their lips together again.

Hyukjae’s shoulders tensed and relaxed. He moved his hand around Heechul’s neck, pressing at the back. He radiated fear, but Heechul sensed desire buried in the restraint. He closed his eyes like hailing a white flag. Suggestions of surrender.

It drove Heechul insane. Hyukjae’s hand lingered at the back of his neck and then trailed down to slide under his shirt.

Hyukjae kept his head lowered as he fumbled with Heechul’s shirt. “Take yours off,” Heechul said. It sounded like a butterfly got caught in his throat. “Or I’ll do it for you.” Hyukjae slowly raised his arms. Heechul kissed the left one, fingertip to shoulder, licking over the soft hairs, before pulling the t-shirt over his head.

Hyukjae was darker, not sun-kissed but with a glow of health. His chest broadened under the span of Heechul’s palm. Heechul was already hard under his sweatpants. Hyukjae said, “Hyung,” with a gasp and grimace, but his eyes were still closed, and Heechul thought he could probably fuck him into the couch right now if Hyukjae let him. Rationally he knew he wouldn’t.

They took turns jerking each other off. “Just touching,” Heechul said during, and Hyukjae made the most uncomfortable face like he was about to laugh except he ended up coming instead. All over Heechul’s hand and his sleeve, and Heechul brought his thumb to his lips and licked, just to let him know it wasn’t a big deal. Hyukjae said, embarrassed, exhausted and naked over the couch, “You don’t have to,” and Heechul said, “Yeah, I know, but.” He didn’t want to make Hyukjae do anything, so he just stroked himself leisurely, but Hyukjae said, “No, let me,” and put his hand over Heechul’s. They stopped talking.

It was dark when Hyukjae put his shirt back on. Heechul heard him dress and then walk over to the bathroom. The door cast a slant of shadow over the floor before it closed. Hyukjae spent half an hour inside. Heechul let his head fall against the arm of the couch and then he slept. The breeze from the window raised the hair below his navel, above the waistband of his boxers. He slept until he heard Hyukjae open the bathroom door, and then he pulled over his shirt. Hyukjae smiled at him, glowing from his second shower, and Heechul asked lightly, “Is it normal to be bathing that often?”

“I didn’t want to dirty your bed.”

“You don’t smell that bad,” Heechul said, and palmed the curve of Hyukjae’s ass just to hear him yelp.

He jerked off again later, under the shower spray, thinking about how the night could’ve ended. The bathroom smelled like Hyukjae and their new scentless soap. It smelled like Hyukjae doing what Heechul was doing now.

“Fucking,” he starts, itching for another cigarette. But Hyukjae doesn’t like the odor lingering in the air. Heechul doesn’t want to go back to bed yet because he’s afraid of what it’ll make him want to do. They can’t, not yet. He doesn’t even know if the boy’s been with someone—like him. He doesn’t know when he can ask, either.

So he pulls a pen from the dispenser on the kitchen table and starts writing. A crack of thunder shakes the building. So he was right. His hand moves across the notepad they use for shopping lists with a speed that takes him by surprise. He writes the things he wants to do to the boy lying in his bed, how he wants to do them, and the way the boy will react—arching up, as he slides in—and then he crosses everything out and crumples the piece of paper.

It sits in the plastic bag next to the cigarette stub. But the next night he writes again, and the night after.


***


The first one is bald. Well, sort of. Tufts of hair on the side like rosebushes flanking a driveway. Paraplegic. From the waist down. Bitter? Likes his morning coffee that way. But no, not bitter otherwise. Or maybe so at first, but changes. Yes, because development is necessary. Psychological evolution.

“What’s his favorite color?” Hyukjae asks, sprawled on his belly on the bed. “Does he have a pet?”

“Gold,” Heechul says without thinking. “A gold . . . fish.”

“What was his accident?”

A window cleaner who plummeted in a scaffolding collapse. The SK Building. Twenty-third floor. A number that doesn’t divide doesn’t go anywhere.

“What happens to him?”

Heechul stops his pen. He hasn’t thought that far.

“He falls for this girl. She’s . . . younger. Wears her hair in a thick braid, like a librarian.”

“What was her accident?”

“Hit-and-run,” Heechul says. “The car was white.”


***


Once Hyukjae takes him to that same beach from all those years ago, and in an instant he feels the old pain in his leg, sharp and pure like a good memory, and then it dissipates just as easily. Hyukjae spreads a blanket over the sand, and Heechul leans against the umbrella wondering why he’s been brought here, because Hyukjae’s intention isn’t to wound. Sunlight is plentiful and there are children today, couples walking with arms around each other like laces crisscrossing, and Heechul sits under the wide shade of their Wonderbread umbrella and squints into the sky pondering how it ever got to be that blue while he wasn’t looking. Hyukjae convinces him to play tag like the immature child he is, and Heechul can’t even explain how pointless the game of tag is with just two people, because you’re forever running or chasing, and Heechul’s not too good at either, but there’s a thin pearl of spit shining from Hyukjae’s gums when he smiles like he’s expecting the answer to be yes, so Heechul goes with it.

Enough running and the land spreads wider and people grow fewer and now they’re running hand-in-hand, Hyukjae a few paces ahead, and Heechul is laughing breathlessly, salt heaving in his throat. “Stop, stop,” he says, when Hyukjae turns to look back and releases his hand, and asks,

“When’s the last time you closed your eyes and stretched your arms out like this?

“When’s the last time you ran against the wind with your arms like this, with your eyes closed? When’s the last time, hyung?

“I want to be that for you,” Hyukjae says, “or at least. I want you to be like that again.”


***


One of the last times:

They visit the park. It’s almost Christmas, and Heechul wears a pair of sky blue mittens with marshmallows knitted into the back. This way they can’t hold hands, and if they can’t then he won’t want to. The snow burns a crisp white under their shoes. “Two hours,” Heechul estimates, “before it all turns brown.”

Hankyung’s hands weigh down in his pockets. His fingers are crooked and blue because bum gloves do nothing to ward against frostbite even if they look cool. “Why do you gotta be like that.” He nudges Heechul with a padded elbow. Heechul goes “oof” and grins like it really hurts.

On the park bench it’s okay to huddle close because winter breeds in people the need to rub shoulders and touch thighs, anything to steal some warmth. Pigeons sit on the telephone wires, and every breath Hankyung emits looks like a wispy cloud. Heechul raises a finger to pop it but it disperses anticlimactically. “It’s not ‘bang!’ but a quiet ‘ . . .oh,’” Heechul says. He thinks he might be laughing if he could feel his teeth.

“Hm?” This time Hankyung exhales white tracks from his nostrils.

Heechul twirls a finger around them. “This. They don’t pop when I—” He makes a poking motion. “See?”

Hankyung’s mind is dull, but Heechul can see him chasing the train down, the wheels turning with his own brand of desperation. “Huh.”

“Aish, never mind.”

“No, no, I get it.”

“Don’t overexert yourself.”

“It fades away. Like the ending to some Western movies.” Hankyung creases his brow, but he is pleased with himself. “I’m right, right?”

“Something like that,” Heechul says, drifting away as he watches the frozen lake.

“I know you, Heechul.” Hankyung is smiling. Heechul can tell without looking. He is nuzzling Hankyung’s shoulder, but the jacket collar, connected to the big hood, intercepts, which is all the better because they aren’t supposed to touch in public, even if no one is looking. But someone could always be looking. It doesn’t hurt to be careful.

“You think so?” Heechul squints, going for a comical effect. He turns into a caricature for this man.

“I’ve got a good idea, yeah,” Hankyung says, lifting his chin.

“What am I thinking right now?”

Hankyung mulls it over. His face is pink and pensive.

“You’re . . . cold.”

If this were a cartoon, Heechul would fall off the bench.

“You’re a jackass, you know that? Certified and everything,” Heechul raises his voice, making a big show. “Like a lifeguard. Only, you’d watch the little girls flail in the water and chuckle to yoursel—”

Hankyung puts an arm around him and says “Hush” the way you’d chastise a disobedient puppy. Heechul squirms for a good five seconds and then falls limp inside the warmth. This is good. This is a way they can be close and not conspicuous.

They’ve grown coy over the years.

A jogging path stretches out in front of the lake. A woman in a sleek jumpsuit floats by with her huskies, one galloping on each side of her, big and forbidding. She has her hair pulled back into a taut ponytail and kept in place with a navy terrycloth headband. “She’s actually sweating,” Heechul marvels, and Hankyung squeezes his hand through the mitten. He’s not thinking anymore.

When they get up to hit the market or someplace warm, Hankyung’s knuckles are white and brittle. He stuffs his hand in Heechul’s coat pocket and tickles him through the down lining. Heechul complains that the feathers are poking into his skin, and Hankyung apologizes even though Heechul was joking. They walk until the first red light emerging from the park and then Hankyung’s hand disappears back into his own pocket, and they are just best friends again.

There’s an old lady in front of them with a cane who keeps an impressively brisk pace for her age, and Heechul’s just about to whisper something into Hankyung’s ear while they follow behind leisurely, when he notices the old man beside her, the matching canes, black with a gold finish, and the fact that they walk apart but together. Her hair is cut neatly just above the neck and a brimming corrugated silver under the pink beret, something he’s seen in 1920s movies. When he and Hankyung walk past the elderly couple he catches a glimpse of her face, pale and loose-fleshed, riddled with the lines of her past. She smiles thin-lipped at her companion, betraying no other sign that they are walking in unison. He quells the urge to speak to her and ask—

“That’s great, isn’t it?” Hankyung says after they’ve found shelter in a Starbucks. He peels off the gloves and sets them on the table by his cinnamon latte. “The old couple, I mean.”

“I want to be like that when I get old,” Heechul says, carefully omitting the “us.”


***


The tea is getting cold.

“I hear that you’re a writer now. It’s good, that you get to do what you’ve always wanted.”

“I hear you’re an entertainment mogul. Want to make me famous?”

“You’re already famous, last time I checked the paper.”

And then there is nothing to say.

“How’ve—“

“How’re—“

“You go first.”

“I’m alright.”

“Doing some soul-searching out here?” Hankyung smiles. “I mean, that’s what the interviews make it sound like. They love you.”

“Oh yeah? I kept my promise, didn’t I?”

In the back of the store, where they’re making the drinks, a blender rages while Heechul waits for Hankyung to remember. Someone slaps change onto the counter. A girl hugs her boyfriend’s arm and points at something on the menu.

“When China rules the world, I want to be sitting on top—something like that, right?”

“You bet.”

“Think this is the top now? It doesn’t get any better than this?”

Heechul takes out his lighter. “Can we smoke here?”

“Sure, yeah, go ahead. You can smoke anywhere in this country.”

But will the conversation last longer than the cigarette? He puts it back in his pocket. “I shouldn’t. I quit.”

Hankyung laughs at the obvious lie. “Don’t hold back.”

“Nah.” He fixes the lining of his blazer. “But yeah. It doesn’t get any better than this.”

“That’s good. I’m happy for you.”

“How about you?” Heechul clears his throat, takes a sip of his tea.

“Still hustlin’.”

It’s a word Heechul taught him many, many years ago. No one says it anymore, especially not today’s youth, but it’s crushing and familiar.

Hankyung doesn’t remember, most likely. He lets it slip like he’s said it for years, even in his absence.

Because once you release something into the world, it’s no longer only yours. No. It’s not yours at all.

Heechul puts his cup down.

“Exploiting those kids? Make sure they’ve got health insurance at the very least, alright? Pay for their hospital visits.”

“I’m taking care of them. Of course. I remember being that age.”

“Do you?” Heechul cocks his head.

He doesn’t mean for every word to be a loaded gun, but shooting bullets comes naturally to him.

“Yeah,” Hankyung says, his mouth turning up. “I do.”

“Are you thinking of expanding into Korea?”

“Not at the moment. China’s big enough. We can—we can go far.”

“The future and all that.”

Hankyung laughs. “Your words, not mine.”

It is painful, to sit and share a pot of tea in a quaint Beijing café that looks plucked from a postcard off the streets of Hongdae, and talk civilly like two men who have settled a war, when the war was never fought, never declared, there’d been no casualties, only one lone misfired cannon, the ring in their ears as it popped, but no one felt the burn, nothing set aflame, nothing as the land shifted beneath them and evolved into a body of water and the water transformed into time and time took them and shook them and set them upright again. Heechul’s knees are still wobbly. He’s not an actor. He wasn’t made for this. He’s never been good at this. Give him sulking, fistfights, teeth-gritting, cursing, sitting in front of the computer for hours on end until his ass is numb and his stomach can’t remember the last time it held food because hunger comes in waves and eventually dissipates and even his body knows to stop expecting something that won’t come. Give him the cold living room floor that slowly warms against his back as he lies there and Heebum trailing over the concourse of his ribcage tenderly like he knows; give him the pen he holds and the things he remembers when he holds it and the things he struggles to not talk about despite how they permeate every waking moment of his every day, from the mundane sleepy morning haze of mussed hair and turning to the pillow left of his to remember, this is not who I wanted, to falling asleep in messed up sheets ashamed and at the same time angry because he deserves this much, right? Another person to want him, because once is hardly enough even if once was the best, because once has forsaken you, and you can’t forget even if you’ve forgiven. And he’s not sure he’s done that, either.

Give him Hyukjae’s sympathy and compassion, which is okay for once, because although it is pity, it is pity dressed in love, and he can do with love, he was born to do it.

He was not born to do this. Hankyung knows that.

Knew.

Heechul stands up. “It was great seeing you.”





________________________________________

IV. I BELIEVE THAT WE ARE LUCKY, WE ARE GOLDEN, WE HAVE STOLEN


Amber’s in the bathroom. For someone who looks haphazardly put together every morning she always takes painfully long in the bathroom. It’s worrying sometimes. Once they sent Fei Fei after her and apparently she was all, “What?” Just washing her hands. Chillin’.

Henry would go check, but he’s not exactly welcome there. Although there was that one time a girl went down on him in the ladies’ room, but that was back in college. They were playing Lady Gaga out of a jukebox, like old meets new, and the girl—busty, brunette, sorority chick with an Asian fetish that he figured he’d exploit while he was wasted because he’d never have the guts to sober—pulled him into the bathroom and pinned him against the wall while he sipped Bud Lite off her tongue. The next morning he woke up on someone else’s living room floor, naked. Of course. That’s how it happens in movies, too. Someone’s always naked. Then he bought two Red Bulls and went to study econometrics in the library.

He wonders if Amber’s naked right now. Maybe she’s doing the boss there. But no, Han Geng’s spinning in his big cushy swivel chair in the office.

The phone’s ringing off the hook today. Meng Jia looks pissed, because she’s got her own work to do. Contracts and shit. “You answer,” she tells Henry when he points out that someone’s dialing in again.

“But—“ he says, but the phone’s already pressed against his ear. “Hello?”

“Herro?” It’s a dude.

“Hello?” Henry says again, because he can’t remember the set phrases Amber’s got memorized.

“Herro, uh,” some confusing stuff he can’t catch, “rooking for hang on?”

“Um,” Henry says, sweating already. The little things still get to him. “Can you speak in English?”

There’s a pause on the other end before the guy breaks out into, “Yeah, man! I love China! Alright! Okay?”

“Haha,” Henry says, just as something gets flicked into his eye. Water. Amber’s back.

She doesn’t look happy. “Gimme that.”

She takes the phone without waiting, so what was the point in asking for it anyway?

“Hi! You have reached HG Entertainment’s Hotline. My name is Amber Liu; how may I—” She stops, confusion creasing her forehead.

“The dude speaks gibberish,” Henry explains but then, miraculously, Amber starts doing it, too. Amber knows how to speak gibberish.

This is probably why they hired her.

“Blahblahblah Hankyung? Blahblahblah—oh you’re—“

The last part is in English so Henry catches it. It’s this thing they both do when they’re flustered about something. Bits and phrases come out in their mother tongue. “Oh shit” or “oops.” Stupid things like that.

Henry laughs when he hears it, and he looks over at Amber to see if she’s embarrassed, but she isn’t laughing. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she’d just been informed of a death in the family or something. Her face is that intense.

He doesn’t really know what’s going on, but he thinks it might be a good time to return to his desk.


***


Amber writes the post-it in painstakingly clear hand. The pen is digging against the bump on her middle finger just under her nail. Six o’clock appointment on Thursday. And then the three characters that have been engraved in her mind since that night.

She’d tried to surprise him. “Hey! Your old friend is in town,” she’d shouted kind of excitedly. Threw the paper at him, even. “He’s apparently a bigshot writer now.”

“Hm?” Han Geng briefly tore his eyes from the television to look at her. “Oh, him? We’re not really friends anymore.”

“Oh-kay,” she said. “You’re seriously not going to try and contact him? I thought you were bffs back then.”

Han Geng pulled her onto the couch beside him. She snuggled against his shoulder, smelling in the scent of after-work sweat and, just him. She liked it. Likes. She likes it a lot.

“Amber,” he said seriously. “No one says bffs anymore.”

She threw one of the pillows at him, and he ducked.

The next morning, though. She was feeling good until she saw yesterday’s paper under a traveller’s guide on the coffee table. It was still open to the page it’d been on when she threw it at him.

There was something like a smudge on the headline. She leaned in to look, eyes still foggy. But there it was, odd. “Jin Xi Che” circled carefully in pencil, and then erased.

Meeting with your old bff. Wear something nice, and don’t be late. Think of the airfare from Korea.

She slaps the post-it on his desk while he’s gone for the afternoon meeting. Her hand stings from the wood for moments afterwards.


***

So they’re still at that restaurant, and the waiter is taking forever with their food, just like he took forever to seat them. Service is sucky here, as always, so Krystal’s glad she’s only here for spring break. In reality, she’s only here to see one person.

About that person. Amber looks the same but not. More grownup? She’s accessorizing. Are those bangles around her wrist? But that’s not it either. Krystal’s trying to figure out what’s different, and all the while Amber’s going on about that new dude in her life, and that’s when she remembers.

Back when she was in junior high, and Amber was entering high school, Amber suddenly turned cool. She went through this phase where she’d watch anything and everything American, really passé shows from the nineties, like she was possessed. Like her spirit could be found inside the monitor, spinning in little bytes in an avi file. Like it could be torrented and distributed online for free across miles and miles of wires.

And God, her music.

“I hate this song,” Krystal said when Amber sang along to that one Limp Bizkit single for the four thousandth time.

“Oh, go back to your Korean shit,” Amber said, bopping her head angrily.

That pissed Krystal off, because she didn’t like having those two words in the same sentence. “So now everything Korean is shit? Bitch.”

Krystal never cursed before. Cursing was for boys who played too much Pokémon on the school bus.

“What? That’s not what I said—” Amber started, but Krystal pushed her hand aside.

“Go back to your own country then. No one likes you here anyway.”

She wasn’t one to get emotional, but this was Amber. As if dealing with her insufferable sister, currently “studying abroad” (traipsing/sleeping her way through) Europe with her newly dyed “chocolate brown” hair, wasn’t enough. She didn’t need her best friend to get on her case, too.

Being thirteen was fucking hard. Again, the expletive was Amber’s fault.

“Krystal,” Amber said, touching her shoulder, and instantly she already wanted to forgive her. “I’m sorry.”

When Krystal was ten, Jessica was the one who told her to just be quiet and eventually you’ll get what you want. But then Jess kissed the boy next door first, and Krystal was the one left in the dust when they rode off on his scooter together to get popsicles from the grocery down the street. As if it was even that far.

Still, Krystal stayed quiet.

Amber’s fingers pressed lightly on the bone, and then they fell away. Krystal turned to look at her.

“I guess I’m just kind of homesick,” Amber admitted. “Trying to catch up on all the shit I missed while I was here.”

“Fred Durst is fucking ancient,” Krystal had said.

“Well,” Krystal says now, tapping her plate. “You’ve always had a thing for older men.”


***


Jungsu’s on his cig break, even though he hasn’t touched tobacco since the army days. Even then, they hadn’t been allowed to smoke; he’d just bum them off the sergeants who liked him. There were a lot of those. He was good at making friends.

Speaking of. “Hey, what time is it in Beijing right now?”

Youngwoon flicks some ash on the ground. He’s the one who smokes. “Hell if I know.”

“Don’t get your suit dirty,” Jungsu reminds him.

“Hey, who got you this job in the first place?” Youngwoon growls all friendly-like. His teeth are adorable when he grins like that.

“I’m grateful everyday, sunbaenim,” Jungsu grins. No, Leeteuk. That’s his new name.

They’re quite the pair, Leeteuk and Kangin. The consensus for most pervy older women seems to be that two hosts are better than one. Leeteuk is awfully good with pervy older women, though. He could’ve done it alone, but the customers like their bickering. They make them drink more, then do funny girlish things together. The tables are always full, littered with wine bottles.

Youngwoon drops the cigarette and grinds it under his boot. Flashy leather with jangles and complicated lacing. His hair’s something unspeakable right now, straight out of a Japanese cartoon. He looks fucking fantastic.

“Break over, dongsaeng.” Youngwoon slaps a hand over his back. Jungsu watches a plane leave a white trail across the sky before following him back into the bar.


***


It takes twenty steps and turning around a corner for his legs to give in. Forty for him to stop and realize he needs a wall to lean against. He tumbles against the store window of a women’s clothing store. Someone screams from the inside. His head hits the glass too soon. His heart pulses in his ears before he lets himself fall.


***


“When are you planning on going home?” he asks, arm still hooked in Hankyung’s.

“I don’t know,” Hankyung says, and then smiles belatedly. “Not right now.”

“You sure? ‘Cause no one wants you to stay.”

“Oh, in that case--”

“Bye!”

“Hey, can I take your artsy-fartsy Galliano tee with me?”

“Buy your own. . . . No, on second thought, take it.”

“Why the change of heart?”

Heechul plants a juicy kiss on his cheek. “Gives you a reason to come back.”


***


Victoria’s trying her best not to yell. It takes every ounce of strength in her to hold back--and she’s strong enough, contrary to popular belief--but she does it because it’s Amber. Because Amber’s delicate, even if she doesn’t realize it herself.

“Chase after him,” she says, and it’s as much of a command as she can manage. “I know you want to.If you don’t, I swear I will. I’ll--” she whips out her cellphone, but Amber thrashes her arm out and yells, “No.”

“Why?” Victoria pleads. “He’s--a good guy. Do you know how rare that is? Don’t let this slip.” Like I did.

“Vic,” Amber says suddenly, places a hand on her arm. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Amber knows. She’s always known.

“This isn’t about me,” Victoria says.

“I know,” Amber says quietly. She taps her fingers once, twice against the table. “I just don’t want something that isn’t mine, you know?”


***


“Come with me,” Heechul says. “I’ll get sooo bored by myself.”

“I’ll take pictures of Baengshin and Heebum and send them to you,” Hyukjae turns around to dangle soapy hands in front of his face.

“C’mooon.” Heechul wraps his arms around him, tickling his navel.

But Hyukjae will bear it. “Who’s going to take care of them? Who’s going to water the plants? What if someone breaks into this place? What if--” Heechul interrupts him at this point, which is all the better because he was running out of scenarios.

“My mom can take care of them. The plants can die. If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. There’s nothing in here worth stealing. Stop coming up with excuses.”

Heechul is beginning to sound cross. This is good.

“I hate China. After Donghae went he wouldn’t stop talking about it for a month. He’d go up to random people on the street he thought were Chinese and start conversations with them. Sometimes they were Korean, Japanese, he didn’t care. I was so embarrassed. I swore never to walk down the street with him again.”

“You’ve never even been there, how can you hate it?”

“Watch me,” Hyukjae grins.

Heechul releases his arms. “Whatever.”

“I’m not going. You’re going on your own. Enjoy your trip, hyung!” He calls after Heechul’s retreating figure. The bedroom door slams, but Hyukjae knows he isn’t really angry.

There is a knot in his throat after he speaks. Heechul leaves in a month. If he looks at it positively, it’s a test of sorts. Will he come back? Am I worth coming back for? Like Heechul said, if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. The knot, though, it tells him other things. Like, this is the last month; treasure it well.

And you’re going to miss him a whole ridiculous lot.

And be good;

Let him go.


***


When he comes to, Hankyung is breathing hard, arms limp over his knees. One hand pulls behind to rub at his back. “Why do you walk so fast,” he pants, laughing.

“I was running away from you,” Heechul says. He’s still leaning against the glass window, but a bump is forming where his head hit.

This doesn’t make sense.

“I’m old now. I can’t catch up to you like before,” Hankyung says, taking a seat beside him on the sidewalk. “Just so you know, these jeans were four thousand yuan.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure I’ll always be older,” Heechul says. “And when did you ever have to catch up to me?”

“Always,” Hankyung says.

“You gotta be kidding me. So that’s why you set sail for home without telling me? Without a note, an email? Even a fucking Post-It, I would’ve taken that. Because you had to win for once, right?” Heechul laughs. “That’s it, isn’t it? I can’t believe I wondered for three years--”

“That’s not it.”

Heechul knows it’s all over if he looks, so he doesn’t. So he keeps going.

“You know, at first I thought you’d come back. I told myself I’d never say this when--if I saw you, because I know how pathetic this sounds, but Hankyung. I waited. I thought, oh, maybe--” his voice breaks, and he wipes snot away with the sleeve of his blazer.

“Heechul,” Hankyung begins quietly. “I never--”

“But you did. And that’s why we’re here.”

“Don’t cry.”

“You think I want to?” That just makes it worse. “I hate looking this stupid, in front of you of all people.”

Hankyung touches his hand. It feels the same as always. It’s funny, how the body remembers instinctively what the mind tries and tries to forget.

“I’m sorry,” Hankyung says. “But I waited, too.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not. Does this look like a lying face to you? Look at me.”

Hankyung’s changed. The lines by his eyes run deeper now. Heechul wonders what’s happened, what his life has been like, what he’s been eating, how he goes through his everyday.

“You aren’t the only one who hurt.”


***


“I didn’t plan it. And I know you didn’t, either. We just happened, one day. I was looking at you, and I felt it. We collided, and it felt right. Don’t snort. Hear me out first.

“You were wearing the pink sweater, you know that one. I thought before, I’d die first and you’d come visit my grave in it. I didn’t picture you in black or white, just that sweater. I know how stupid this sounds now, but that was my favorite thing of yours.

“Taking it off was another favorite thing.

“I shouldn’t have said that.

“You were watching something on TV, a game show, and you laughed with your mouth open, and you held my hand on the sofa without thinking, like it came intuitively to you by now. I drifted in and out of sleep—it’d been a busy day at the restaurant, my feet felt like lead, I hadn’t danced for a week. You pressed my hand during the funny bits, and I could count your teeth from where I was sitting. I kissed you and unbuttoned the first button on your sweater, and then we made love.

“When I came to, I realized I was having a panic attack. To this day I’m not sure what it was. I woke up and it was like, you were sleeping next to me, facing the other way. I wanted to reach over and stroke your hair, but I stopped myself. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. The immensity of the situation—what we were doing—it all weighed down on me suddenly.

“I was in Korea.

“I was working at a shit restaurant.

“I wasn’t really dancing anymore.

“I was in bed with a man.

“I mean, I loved you.

“But there were things, you know? I guess not. I didn’t—I should’ve—ah, well.

“It was reassessing. When my breathing returned to normal, that’s what I started doing. Reassessing. The future. Where I was headed. Where we were, too.

“Because, you know, that was home territory for you. Always will be. Just like this is for me. Don’t you feel a little uncomfortable here? Like this will never be it. Like you can try and try but people will always cock their head at your accent, always laugh at you behind your back if they’re kind. If not, then. That’s not an excuse. I’m just saying. Remembering, too.

“I’ve thought about it a lot. At first I didn’t think at all. But I’ve thought about it since reading that article in the paper—you coming, Heechul coming, it all came back in pounding waves and I tried to hold them off, barricade them away, but, you know, it’s not easy when it’s—you.

“The next morning, after you left for work, I went through my closet and took things randomly off the shelves. I don’t know what I packed. I remember thinking, I had to leave. Because if I didn’t then, I wouldn’t. A part of me knew that. Because I would get stuck, and I’d be happy for it, but I’d be miserable later. I would be bitter, and I didn’t want you to see me like that.

“That’s an excuse, too.

“I wasn’t thinking anything. I had to leave.

“I kept my cell phone. It wasn’t a model that worked in China, but I kept it on. To tell the time, and just.

“I don’t think I was that hard to find, Heechul.”


***


“You were scared,” Heechul says finally.

“Yeah,” Hankyung says.

“You thought I didn’t care enough. You thought I wouldn’t come after you.”

“But I waited.”

“I didn’t come after you,” Heechul says.

“I stopped waiting after a while. A couple of months.”

“You left. You were scared. It wasn’t because—because I wasn’t worth it.”

“You are always worth it.”

Heechul takes a moment to let the words sink in. He pulls Hankyung toward him but stops before they touch. He wants, needs to keep the distance. They brush noses, accidentally. They shouldn’t be doing this on the street.

“Look at me, Hankyung,” he says.

Hankyung looks.

Heechul hopes he’s able to see what he should.

“I’m here now,” Heechul says.