Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Now Playing: Nerves by DPR Ian (2:16)

(March)

Jaehyun’s room was a mish-mash of scattered clothes, neatly folded school work, a shelf with books sorted in alphabetical order, a box full of snacks shoved under his desk, and white walls with polaroids, street posters, and other methods to cover up the places where the paint peeled off. It embarrassed him, but at least his room wasn’t as bad as the rest of the apartment. Stuck on his bedroom door was a little white board on which he counted down the days until he could move out for college. 

163 days.

Despite the madness that reigned in the apartment, Jacob never seemed to mind it. Nor did he question the noticeable absence of an adult. He accepted Jaehyun any way he came, whether that was rude or too honest or messy or undesirable. Jacob accepted him without pushing. Sometimes Jaehyun wished Jacob would pressure the truth out of him, demand an answer, show an active interest… But Jacob never did. His easy going and kind personality might have looked like a blessing at first, but Jaehyun hated it. It made Jacob seem aloof and uncaring—detached. 

The two boys sat on Jaehyun’s unmade bed, their beat down laptops on their laps with a new Apex match slowly loading. It was well past midnight, but that was the blessing of having absent parents: Jaehyun had no curfew. Decorating the bedsheets was an assortment of candy wrappers, chip crumbs, and two wrinkled McDonald’s bags. The sense of responsibility and cleanliness had abandoned them, which he knew they would regret later on, but Jaehyun was highly invested in the argument unfolding between them. 

“Jaehyun, I’ll say this as kindly as I can, but the fact that you eat warm cucumber is the most fucked up thing someone has ever told me,” Jacob said. “Like, what’s wrong with you? Do you need help?”

Completely ignoring the insults, Jaehyun said, “Jacob, you literally like pineapples on pizza.”

“Those are a delight!”

Jaehyun hummed, noncommittally. 

“Warm cucumbers just are—” Jacob yelped when Jaehyun softly pinched his elbow. “Hey!”

Jaehyun half-turned his face, looking at Jacob from his periphery. “Hey, yourself.”

Jacob clicked his tongue in feign annoyance.

Their banter was interrupted as the loading screen finished and they were spun into the game. Jaehyun immediately launched them into the air, the usual destination they landed at to gear up was close by.

“Everyone is going to land there,” Jacob protested.

“Just punch around and hope for the best.”

“That never works.”

“Follow my lead,” Jaehyun told him.

Jacob hummed, mockingly. “Yeah, sure. That always goes so well.”

Jaehyun shot him a glare, clicking his left mouse frantically as they fought with four different squads. As expected they died fairly quickly, getting eliminated immediately. Jacob turned to look at Jaehyun, the ‘I told you so’ written all across his face. Jaehyun wanted to strangle him.

“Stop.”

“I didn’t even say anything,” Jacob said, but he was grinning. The mischievous twinkle in his eyes was one Jaehyun could get used to. He hated to admit it, but perhaps he liked being teased by Jacob.

“Okay, but you’re looking all smug—Stop that.”

“Why? Too proud to admit you were wrong?”

Jaehyun wasn’t going to dignify Jacob with an answer, wrinkling his nose.

Changing the topic completely, he inquired, “By the way, did you hear that Lee Dongmin found his soulmate? He met her while checking out some college programs in Seoul. I heard she’s from Anyang.”

“No. I had no idea he met his soulmate. We aren’t as close anymore since he left the team,” Jacob admitted. “What was it like—the meeting? Do you know?”

Jaehyun shrugged. He wasn’t particularly close to Dongmin either. “Probably something cheesy. Magnetic. You know how they describe it in the books: the whole world stops, distant chimes play—” He was interrupted by Jacob’s laughter. “What?” he wondered, amused.

“What kind of books have you been reading? That sounds horrible!”

“Does it?”

“Isn’t it more subtle? They take away your breath, fireworks explode—”

“You’re telling me I have to carry around fireworks for the foreseeable event of meeting my soulmate? That’s engaging.”

Jacob shoved him. “Noo. Similar to butterflies in your stomach, but instead it’s fireworks in—” He gestured around vaguely, unsure how to end his poetic bullshit. 

Jaehyun watched him expectantly, his eyebrows raised in a teasing manner. “Go on.”

“Ugh, shut up, Bambi.”

“Don’t call me that!” Jaehyun protested, a rush of warmth shooting through his face. He hated the nickname and the way it was impossible to stop himself from blushing. “I hate it.”

Jacob’s expression was playful, mischievous. It was a version of him that bloomed the more someone got to know him. One that Jaehyun liked to take credit for, having pushed Jacob out of his comfort zone too many times to count, bothered by the way Jacob tried so hard to be palatable. 

“Oh, but it suits you so well,” Jacob said in a sing-song voice. 

The late hours and the beer can they had shared were definitely affecting Jacob, his personality livelier than usual. It was a nice change of pace, Jaehyun thought, but it concerned him just as much; the unpredictability that came with it drove him crazy. 

“It does not,” Jaehyun insisted, readjusting the laptop as the loading screen was coming to an end and soon they would be spun into another match of madness.

“It does!” Jacob leaned forward, propped up on one hand while the other reached out, pinching the top of Jaehyun’s ear. Jaehyun flinched in response, surprised by the sudden touch and proximity, and looked up at Jacob in astonishment, their faces close. “With those ears, and your eyes—Yeah, when they get all wide like that.”

Jaehyun blinked, trying to calm himself down—and definitely stop himself from looking like a deer caught in headlights. “Jacob,” he tried, warningly, but he didn’t know what he wanted to say.

Jacob pouted. “What?”

“I don’t look like Bambi,” he said, pointedly. But his heart was beating like crazy, his face felt warm, his hands were shaking slightly… He couldn’t find any reason to complain about having Jacob this close to him.

“You do,” Jacob insisted, sitting back down. His shoulder brushed Jaehyun’s, and even if it was a great hindrance while playing Apex, Jaehyun didn’t move away. 

They spent another hour on Apex, trying to get in the top three but failing miserably. It was nearing 2AM, the engine of a late airplane filtering through the half-opened window. In their distraction, Jaehyun hadn’t noticed that it had gotten very cold, soft snowflakes falling from the sky.

“Shit!” He jumped out of bed, closing the window. He shivered, seeing the white landscape outside. “You’re in luck, it’s snowing.”

“No way!” Jacob followed him, standing by the window. He stood on his tiptoes, leaning over Jaehyun’s desk to watch the snow fall. “We’re so building a snowman tomorrow.”

Jaehyun scrunched up his nose, not particularly thrilled by the prospect. “Sure,” he agreed anyway. 

Jacob turned around, a pleased smile tucked away on his face. Jaehyun wondered when it had become second nature to agree with whatever Jacob suggested. 

They spent some more time playing Apex, their competitive nature making it hard to give up, but by the time 3AM rolled around, they decided it was enough. Jaehyun’s heart burned a little when they got ready for bed, the two of them cramped in the too small bathroom, sharing a silly smile through the mirror as they brushed their teeth. 

Before they fell asleep, Jaehyun dared to ask his friend something that had been dancing around in his mind for weeks. “Do you really not care about your soulmate anymore?”

Jacob shifted, turning so that he could face Jaehyun. His dark hair spilled over his eyes, before Jaehyun could think about it twice he reached out and brushed it aside.

“Thanks,” Jacob mumbled. “And, I guess? It’s not that I don’t care, but that deeply rooted desire for a grand love story isn’t there anymore.” Jaehyun wished he could see the exact expression in Jacob’s eyes, but it was too dark. “For years I held my parents’s soulmate story as this perfect ideal, as the only ideal…” Jacob continued, sleepily. “I can’t wait to graduate and move out. Leave it all behind, you know?”

“Do you really think it will be easier if you are away from here?”

“Yes,” Jacob replied, decidedly. “It has to. Seoul is bigger, more anonymous. There’s a hundred stories like ours. It won’t matter that—It just won’t matter.”

Jaehyun studied Jacob’s face, bathed in nightly shades of gray, blue, and black. In the two years Jaehyun had known Jacob, he had seen him grow less and less preoccupied with his soulmate-mark, detaching himself from it and its meaning. Jaehyun was a little jealous, he couldn’t let go of the ideal that he would have—that he had—someone devoted to him, who loved him no matter what. It was everything he wanted. 

“What if you find your soulmate in Seoul?” Jaehyun prodded.

Jacob’s face scrunched up. “Well… Then I just meet them, I guess.”

“I don’t understand how you can be so nonchalant about it,” Jaehyun commented, his body tensing unconsciously. “I can’t wait to find my soulmate. I need to know I am loved, I need that stability. I need to know they got my back. Because I’m all in for the person I like, you know? It’s all or nothing for me. So, to know that, no matter what, the sentiment is returned… It’s nice. I want that.”

“That sounds suffocating,” Jacob muttered, perplexed. “Sorry. It’s just—It’s not for me.”

Immediately, Jaehyun felt embarrassed. He shouldn’t have revealed that. It was so comfortable to trust Jacob with his thoughts that he easily forgot how different they were, especially when it came to love and the ideal they held onto. It was complicated to deal with someone whose perception was so incompatible with his own.

“I think I’m relieved I might never really find my soulmate,” Jacob admitted in a whisper. “It gives me a certain freedom.”

“Really?” Jaehyun tried to sound unaffected, but his heart was beating with pain. 

The realization hit him hard, everything quietening down as he assimilated the fact that he liked Jacob. That, over the past two years, he had apparently developed some stupid crush on him. Jacob, of all people. Not only was Jacob the first person Jaehyun could call a friend, but he’d just admitted not even caring about his soulmate-mark; finding Jaehyun’s idea of love suffocating. 

It didn’t present a coherent narrative; how could he crush on Jacob? They weren’t soulmates. Oh, but the more his brain analyzed it at light’s speed—his twisted little mind overplaying scenario after scenario—it made so much sense that he liked Jacob. 

Jaehyun was screwed. He shut his eyes, scared that it was written all over his face for Jacob to see.

“Yeah, I think I might try dating around,” Jacob continued, unaware of Jaehyun’s inner sufferings. “It sounds like fun. Plus, I heard that’s what college is all about.”

Jaehyun hummed. “Yeah, fun.”

Jacob softly nudged him with his leg, starting to sense that Jaehyun’s mood had changed. “I’ll help you find your soulmate so you have your perfect love story.”

Unable to stop himself, Jaehyun laughed—a breathy sound dripping with disdain. He closed his eyes. “Thanks, I appreciate that,” he lied.

He was screwed.

Now Playing: Bambi by Baekhyun (2:19)

(August)

The quiet summer was driving Jacob mad. 

Everyone was busy: Younghoon spent most of his time at the entertainment company in the hopes that they saw his potential and gave him an actual gig; Chanhee was working two jobs that summer since he had finally applied to college for that fall and the materials weren’t cheap; and Jaehyun was interning at JTBC, coming back at around six in the afternoon every day. Jacob had a job himself, but it wasn’t too time consuming, leaving him with a vast afternoon and no motivation to fill it. His volleyball team was on a break due to some drama that had happened before the summer had started, and he didn’t feel particularly inspired to pick up his guitar and compose a song. He’d gone home for a week before his parents, his childhood bedroom, and his hometown had driven him away with restlessness. 

The past two summers had been a lot more eventful: 2017 had been a lazy affair in Busan; 2018 had been an intoxicating affair between bedsheets.

Resigned to accept yet another day of senseless gaming, Jacob peeled himself off his bed, shuffling through the small dorm room to his computer. He searched in Jaehyun and his shared snack cabinet for something to nibble on while he defeated prepubescent kids in Apex. 

About an hour later he got too distracted, and it wasn’t as much fun without Jaehyun and Younghoon. He shut off his computer, walking back to his bed to check on his phone. The many notifications on the screen alarmed him, as he scrolled through them he called the person they belonged to.

A second later and Younghoon’s reproachful voice filled the afternoon, “Jacob Bae, you fucking—”

“What’s up?”

“What’s up?! What’s up!”

Jacob sat on his bed, already dreading whatever had Younghoon in such a frenzy. “I was gaming and didn’t have my phone on me. What’s going on?”

Without beating around the bush, Younghoon asked, “When were you going to tell me that Jaehyun and you are a thing?!” 

Fuck.

Jacob sighed, letting his head hit his bed’s headrest. He stared at the summer sky unraveling outside. He had thought, when he’d seen the ten missed calls on his phone, that something serious had occurred, but he should have suspected it wasn’t an emergency that had Younghoon sent him strings of emojis and unfinished sentences. Jacob should have known their secret wouldn’t last forever.

“How do you even know?”

“Jaehyun accidentally mentioned it, then he dipped and hung up. The fucker.”

Jacob stayed quiet, pressing his lips together. He bit on the bottom one, thinking about how best he could talk himself out of this one. From outside people cheered; it had to be the football team showing off in the hopes they could recruit freshmen. 

“We aren’t a thing,” he corrected. It felt pertinent to make that correction because they weren’t dating, they weren’t in love, they weren’t soulmates. 

Younghoon clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Okay, whatever you are then, when did it start? And why wasn’t I informed?” He rambled on, moving through hurt, confusion, curiosity quicker than Jacob could register. “Wait, wait, wait!” Younghoon gasped, talking himself breathless. “Did this start on my birthday? You two were weirdly close on the dance floor.”

Younghoon’s birthday had been a little over a week ago; they had celebrated in Rush Hour as was tradition. Jacob and Jaehyun had gotten a little more drunk than either of them could handle, and they had sneaked off to make out before Jaehyun had gotten sick. Jacob, who had a considerably higher alcohol tolerance, had managed to bring them back to their friends. Chanhee had called them a taxi, letting them crash at his apartment, where his flatmate had terrorized them a little. Changmin took great pleasure in putting deep fear in the hearts of others, but especially Jaehyun—they didn’t exactly get along well.

When Jacob’s silence became too long, Younghoon sighed. “Wow, great answer!”

“Shut up.”

“What I’m getting here is that it started before my birthday… Which—rude! How could you not tell me?!”

“We decided to keep it a secret,” Jacob confessed. There was no point in denying it. “It would just be messy to have it known, especially because we aren’t soulmates and it will eventually end, so—”

“‘We decided’,” Younghoon repeated, his tone a little reproachful. “Or you decided?”

Jacob frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, any time you’ve had some resemblance to a relationship, you have tried to keep it as casual as possible—sort of a placeholder,” Younghoon explained. “You’ve had so many almost-relationships you never told me about until they were over because you didn’t believe they would work out—or didn’t want them to work out. It’s what you do, Jacob: you keep relationships a secret because it takes off the weight of commitment.”

Jacob squinted his eyes, tempted to hang up. “I don’t have commitment issues,” he stated, petulantly.

“Maybe not with commitment, but you don’t like it when things get too intense, too close, too consuming…”

Jacob pursed his lips. “I’ll have you know that I’m not amused by this talk.”

“Not all talks have to be amusing, Jacob,” Younghoon said, but his tone was light enough that if Jacob was truly uncomfortable they could talk about something different. “So for how long have you two been hooking up?”

A cloud passed over the sun, immediately darkening the room, and for a moment everything shifted, upside down. The answer got stuck on the tip of Jacob’s tongue because he knew Younghoon would have about a million opinions in regards, not holding back. Jacob knew how condemning and revealing the answer would be, and it terrified him to actually say it out loud. 

“Jacob?” Younghoon sounded worried now. 

“Since March of last year,” he finally answered, cringing.

Apprehension rose in Jacob as his friend stayed uncharacteristically quiet.

“That’s over a year,” Younghoon pointed out. “That’s longer than any other relationship you two have had.”

“Yeah,” Jacob said, small, scared, detached. Clearing his throat, he added, “I can’t believe you’ve just eliminated yourself from my life.”

Younghoon exhaled through his nose, the sound an unpleasant one through the phone. “Sure,” he said. “Dodge the topic.”

Jacob glared at the dark ceiling. “Hm, the hang up button looks very tempting.”

Ignoring Jacob’s empty threat, Younghoon let out a very heartfelt, “Fuck.”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s not. It really isn’t.”

“Really, Jacob?” The disapproving tilt of Younghoon’s eyebrows and the judgmental look in his eyes were loud enough for Jacob to sense them through the line. “If it isn’t a big deal, why was it a secret then?”

“It’s not—We—” Jacob stuttered, unable to find his footing back.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“That’s already a question.”

“Don’t try to be smart right now,” Younghoon chastised him.

Younghoon’s persistence and curiosity pressed against Jacob’s skin, caging him. A headache knocked against his temples, he let his eyes fall shut briefly, the pain expanding in the darkness.

“What do you want to know?”

“Since you two aren’t soulmates, how do you expect this to end? Your past involvements with people—none of which were your soulmate—didn’t exactly end well. What if it ruins your friendship? What if—”

“Don’t say that,” Jacob protested. “Don’t be all reasonable. We’re just having fun.”

“But it’s Jaehyun we’re talking about,” Younghoon insisted. 

Jacob’s skin prickled uncomfortably. He watched the clouds roll away, giving way to a stupidly blue sky. The brightness did nothing to ease the headache. He squinted his eyes, wanting to hang up on Younghoon and crawl under his blanket. He didn’t want to be forced to look at what Jaehyun and him were doing, to analyze it from an outside perspective and see what they were trying to ignore.

Trying to sound lighthearted, Jacob inquired, “What? Is he not good enough?”

“He isn’t exactly your typical guy for casual hookups. You know how intense he is about this whole soulmate ordeal, about relationships…” 

(The ‘about you’ hung heavily in the air.)

Jacob clicked his tongue, annoyed. “We’re adults. We know what we’re doing. If it becomes too much we will just stop. Don’t worry, we won’t let it jeopardize our friendship. You won’t have to choose—”

“That’s not why I’m saying this.” Younghoon sighed, his annoyance as bristling as Jacob’s. “I’m worried about you two!”

“Well, don’t be,” Jacob said, sharply.

There was a short silence, tense and uncomfortable. Then Younghoon sighed. “Okay. Fine. I won’t keep pestering you.”

“I—” Jacob thought of a pleasant way to deal with their altercation, to ease Younghoon’s worries and get him off his back, but he struggled to find his words. His mind was stuck on Younghoon’s insistence that it had to be a complicated affair because it was them—because it was Jaehyun. Jacob was good at casual relationships; Jaehyun had had his own share of casual hookups throughout college… They knew what they were doing. “I appreciate your worries, but it’s nothing serious. I promise you.”

Younghoon hummed, accepting Jacob’s closure. And usually it would have been enough, ceasing their diverging opinions, but this time a heavy tension lingered, palpable even through the phone. 

Jacob swallowed. 

“If it does become something serious, you can trust me with it,” Younghoon said in a small voice.

“It won’t,” Jacob immediately said, his tone snappish. “Sorry. Thank you. I-I know I can trust you with things.” Before Younghoon could say anything, Jacob searched his brain to find a diversion. “Have you eaten? I could bring you takeout.”

Younghoon was quiet for a moment, his need to keep talking about Jaehyun and Jacob’s friends-with-benefits affair was almost unbearable. His heavy silence strangled Jacob. There was nothing more to say about it. 

“Yeah, okay, I’m hungry,” Younghoon muttered, yawning. “I haven’t really been able to eat much for the past couple of days,” he admitted.

Jacob clicked his tongue. “You idiot. I’m bringing your favorite. Should I bring Chanhee?”

“No,” Younghoon said, too quickly. “He’ll only worry about me. He has more important things to worry about.”

Jacob frowned, not liking his friend’s implications. “You’re his soulmate—”

“Yes. But we are individual people. I don’t know everything about him, as he doesn’t know everything about me. We have to be able to be our own people first,” Younghoon ranted, his thoughts scattered and confusing.

Tentatively, Jacob asked, “Did something happen?”

After a brief silence, Younghoon let out a sigh. “Things just aren’t going well. With me clinging onto my dream selfishly…”

“You’re not selfish,” Jacob said immediately.

“I am,” Younghoon said, but he didn’t sound particularly sad about it, stating it like it was a fact, nothing more and nothing less. “I’m putting a lot on the line for this. I’m not even sure I like it anymore—acting.”

Jacob’s heart sank. He scrambled out of his bed, searching for wearable clothes. “Younghoonie.”

“It’s—I’m fine,” Younghoon insisted, but his voice was tight.

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Jacob promised, stumbling out of the dorm room. “We’ll talk, yes?”

Younghoon sniffled, mumbling a barely intelligible, “Yes, okay.”

Now Playing: Lover, You Should've Come Over by Jeff Buckley (2:20)

(October)

Propelled by his good mood, Jacob walked into Jaehyun’s room foregoing his usual gentle knock. Not that it mattered much, they lived very comfortably with one another, rarely needing privacy from each other.

Jacob’s mood dropped as he spotted Jaehyun sitting on his bed, cross-legged, his expression empty. He looked spooked. It was the version of Jaehyun that Jacob understood the least, that blank gaze impermeable. What was he thinking about that he had to hide so carefully? Absentmindedly, underneath the long sleeve of his hoodie, Jaehyun was tracing the skin of his wrist, the one bearing the soulmate-mark.

“Jaehyun-ah?” Jacob inquired, softly, when Jaehyun didn’t seem to have noticed his rather noticeable arrival.

Jaehyun blinked, at once shedding that wall. He looked up at Jacob; that spooked look remained, like he couldn’t quite believe Jacob was standing there. It was bizarre. It scared Jacob. Suddenly, he felt like he was on the brink of losing Jaehyun.

Tentatively, Jacob sat on the edge of the bed.

“Ah, Jacob,” Jaehyun muttered. 

“Everything okay? You look preoccupied.” 

Jacob reached out his hand without thinking, wanting to take Jaehyun’s hand to comfort him. He stopped himself, just a few centimeters between their hands. He shouldn’t. He clenched his jaw, pushing past his doubts, and took Jaehyun’s hand into his. Jaehyun watched him attentively. Caressing Jaehyun’s knuckles with his thumb, Jacob let their tangled hands rest in his lap. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jacob further inquired when Jaehyun didn’t react.

Sighing heavily, Jaehyun shook his head. “No. It doesn’t—It doesn’t matter. Just a-a strange lunch experience,” he said, but his voice was tight, off. He felt so, so far away from Jacob.

(He was losing him. No—Had he already lost him?)

“Are you sure?”

Jaehyun held his gaze. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m—I’m fine, Jacob, really.” He untangled their hands, the sleeve of his hoodie riding up, smooth skin peeking out. He was quick to pull it down. “How was your day? You seem cheerful.”

“I met someone,” Jacob muttered, the ‘they might be my soulmate’ evident in his voice. “His name is Kevin.”

Jaehyun stared at him, unblinking. “That’s—That’s great, Jacob.”

Guilt wrapped itself around Jacob’s neck. He shouldn’t feel guilty. They weren’t soulmates, their college affair was behind them. If Kevin was Jacob’s soulmate, he had every right to be ecstatic and joyful. Yet, Jacob’s heart burned at the sight of Jaehyun, looking small and dejected, something so obviously bothering him. Something he wasn’t sharing with Jacob, the distance between them growing. 

Jacob was gripped by the overwhelming fear of losing Jaehyun. It propelled him to do something foolish. Without thinking—or perhaps thinking too much—Jacob leaned over, annihilating distance—he didn’t want it to exist anymore; it has no space in our relationship, he thought, fervently—and captured Jaehyun’s mouth with his. The kiss was chaste, barely a grace of their lips before Jaehyun pulled back, hastily, the back of his head hitting the wall.

“Ow, fuck.”

“Are you okay—?”

Jaehyun covered his lips with the back of his hand, the sleeve of his hoodie riding low, the skin of his wrist looking reddened, like a wound. “What the hell, Jacob?” 

Jacob swallowed, his heart racing. “I-I don’t know why I did that.”

“Don’t kiss me again,” Jaehyun asked of him. “We said we would stop. Don’t make it harder than it is.”

“I’m sorry. I just—“ Shame swallowed him. “I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jaehyun muttered, tone softer than before. “Stop apologizing. You’re making it awkward.”

Jacob huffed out a laugh and shoved Jaehyun’s shoulder. They were okay—trying to be okay. Forcefully ignoring all that was causing them pain and discomfort, that threatened to break their long friendship. And Jacob much rather chose this—awkwardness, prickling skin, uncharted territory—than not having Jaehyun at all.

Now Playing: Nerves by DPR Ian (2:16)

(August)

The world came crashing down on Younghoon’s nineteenth birthday. Well, Jaehyun’s world did.

There wasn’t much space to protest since his feelings were insignificant in this scenario: they weren’t soulmates. Jaehyun had hoped that his crush on Jacob would have evaporated by now, but startlingly it had only gotten worse. From an inconspicuous flutter in his chest to something blazing, possessive, passionate. Since the fatal discovery in March, Jaehyun had done a marvelous job at keeping these feelings hidden, only letting them dance on his skin when he was alone, in the dark shelter of his room.

He had considered telling Younghoon about his crush, but a foreboding feeling kept him from doing so. Jacob and Jaehyun weren’t soulmates, those growing feelings of attraction and adoration weren’t supposed to exist, telling someone about them would turn them into a tangible thing. Jaehyun wasn’t so sure he wanted that, could afford that. Feelings for someone who wasn’t a soulmate were scorned, even as harmless as a teenage crush.

(Though, no matter how he tried to convince himself it was just a crush, Jaehyun could feel them ricochet in his heart: those damning feelings.)

Younghoon’s birthday party was a larger gathering, serving as a get-together before they all parted ways for college. All of their classmates were present, Jacob’s volleyball team mingled around, Younghoon’s theatre club showed up… Everyone was there. The usually large house looked small; Jaehyun wondered how the hell Younghoon’s parents had accepted this amount of kids to hang out in their garden and living room. 

It was overwhelming.

Jaehyun entered the house cautiously, sticking to the wall as he inched towards the kitchen to get himself a drink. Jacob had immediately mingled with the crowd, recognizing his teammates, who insisted he should join them for some intricate card game.

It wasn’t like Jaehyun was necessarily bad with bigger crowds, he was confident enough to entertain people and come across as interesting, but those scenarios always lacked a certain depth for him. Jacob moved easily through crowds, talking with people without minding that the next day he wouldn’t remember them, that nothing would ever come from those conversations. Jaehyun had unlearned that ease the past years. Ever since he’d started to hang out with Jacob—and Younghoon in extension—his need to claim all attention in a room had died down. 

He didn’t need to impress anyone, didn’t need anyone’s attention anymore. He got more than enough from Jacob. 

Well, lately it wasn’t enough. Jaehyun wanted a lot more. But it was out of question, so he learned to live with them—his jealousy and possessiveness. There was a comfort to them, in a world that made his feelings utterly invisible, his petty actions whenever Jacob got a little too close to someone else and that crushing fear of losing him, were proof that what Jaehyun was feeling was real. 

He wasn’t a liar. He wasn’t making things up.

With Jacob gone to mingle and Younghoon being a host, Jaehyun was left to his own devices. He ended up haunting the living room couch, entertaining himself with all those that didn’t quite fit him. A group of rejects. It wasn’t half bad: exchanging ghost stories, talking about expectations for college, passing around a bottle of some strong mix…  Naturally, when the bottle emptied, someone suggested they play spin the middle, mixed with truth or dare. After very hesitant nods of agreement, the party rejects got into the least interesting spin the bottle Jaehyun had ever witnessed. He participated, very half-heartedly answering his truths.

Where was Jacob? Why was he gone for so long?

Thankfully, Jaehyun didn’t have to wait for long. Half an hour later Jacob found him, grinning from ear to ear. His blonde hair was wildly tousled, definitely not the combed style he’d aimed for hours ago when they’d gotten ready in Jaehyun’s home. 

Jacob plopped down next to Jaehyun, studying the group of rejects curiously—two of them were currently caught in a staring contest. Jaehyun noticed that Jacob smelled of some perfume, not something familiar. 

There was something wildly different about Jacob, his dazed expression unusual but not unfamiliar—unfamiliar on Jacob, but Jaehyun knew where that blissfulness came from.

His heart dropped.

Before he could stop himself, he peeked down at Jacob’s neck, indeed finding a little hickey disappearing into the collar of his t-shirt, almost imperceptible. But Jaehyun had found it. He glanced up, meeting Jacob’s eyes, whose grin had dimmed down, clearly noticing the way Jaehyun was searching for the clues.

The silence between them was unbearable. Jaehyun didn’t know what to say, how to casually bring it up, and Jacob seemed to hesitate just as much.

“Um, Jaehyun-ssi, it’s your turn,” Yuchan spoke, handing him the bottle.

Jaehyun cleared his throat. The tension lingered between Jacob and him, the rejects seemed to notice it, shifting uncomfortably.

“I think I’m going to go out for a while, clear my head,” Jaehyun said, giving the bottle to the kid to his left. “Whatever you guys mixed together is hitting me hard,” he tried to joke before he stumbled his way to the garden.

He found a wooden bench in the far end of the garden, bathed in darkness. Clearly none of the partygoers were meant to come to this part of the garden, flower pots, gardening tools, bags of soil standing around. Nonetheless, Jaehyun crossed the distance, sitting down. The bench was uncomfortable and way too low, but Jaehyun couldn’t care less.

Someone had come stumbling behind him, and it didn’t take a genius to know it was Jacob.

“Jaehyun?”

“Hey,” he called out. He had considered not answering, letting Jacob maneuver the darkness alone, but his resolve never was strong when it came to Jacob. “Jacob.”

“There you are.” Carefully, Jacob sat down next to him, but he must’ve tripped, half-crashing into Jaehyun. “Whoops.” He giggled, clearly a lot more drunk than Jaehyun had thought.

“Jesus, you’re wasted.”

“Noo,” Jacob whined. “I’m just a little tipsy. I’m a fun time.”

Jaehyun grimaced. 

Jacob giggled out of nowhere, slapping Jaehyun’s shoulder. “Wait, say that again!”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

“But why?”

Jacob pouted. “Just say it again, you’ll see.”

Sighing, as if it required a lot of effort, Jaehyun said, “Jesus, you’re wasted.”

“I’m Jacob,” he said, grinning. He face was close to Jaehyun’s, trying to gauge his reaction. The twinkle in his eyes was visible despite the darkness. “Aw, come on, it’s funny.”

“No.” Jaehyun shook his head. But his lips twitched, endeared by Jacob’s shenanigans. And fond of Jacob’s joy. It was difficult not to end up smiling like a massive idiot. “Your jokes are terrible.”

“Did you have a good time?” Jacob asked, changing the subject completely. He was good at that.

Jaehyun shrugged. “Eh. Could’ve been better. Younghoon and you abandoned me.”

“I didn’t abandon you!” Jacob said, but upon Jaehyun’s expression he faltered. “Well… But I had a good reason.”

Swallowing the burning jealousy that threatened to overspill, Jaehyun wondered, “Oh, yeah? What reason?”

He still could smell that stranger’s perfume, hear that dazedness in Jacob’s voice.

Jacob wasn’t his. They weren’t soulmates. Someone knew Jacob in a way Jaehyun didn’t. He wasn’t the one to know Jacob the most anymore.

“Well,” Jacob started, sounding shy. He giggled, burying his face in Jaehyun’s shoulder. “I slept with Lee Jangjun.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Jaehyun replied, a little more snappish than he intended. Jacob tensed, but he didn’t lean away. “How was it?”

For some reason Jacob hesitated with his answer. “It was… nice. Would do it again.”

“With Lee Jangjun?”

Jacob snorted, detaching himself from Jaehyun’s shoulder. “No! No way.” Jaehyun raised his eyebrows, inquiringly. “He was good, but I’m sure there’s better.”

“I haven’t even kissed anyone,” Jaehyun muttered. He didn’t really mean to say it, but the thought often crossed his mind, pretty much ever since learning what kissing was. “I’m lame.”

“You’re not.” 

“Easy for you to say. In no time you’ll leave me behind—”

“I wouldn’t,” Jacob interrupted him. His voice was oddly stern for the playful situation. “I could never leave you behind.”

Jaehyun relaxed, not having realized how tense his body had been. His heart tripped, leaving behind a clumsy self-awareness: their shoulders and thighs were touching, their faces only inches apart… 

“I just… I worry that I won’t be any good at it,” Jaehyun said, hoping to distract from Jacob’s sincere words. 

“Wait, you’re nervous you’ll be a bad kisser?” Jacob inquired, giggling into Jaehyun’s shoulder before he even got a chance to answer. Leaning back, Jacob stared at him earnestly, his eyes dropping to laze over Jaehyun’s lips. “No need to be. I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”

Jaehyun shivered. His heart was racing. This was the kind of scene two people kissed, especially in those teenage rom-coms Younghoon made them watch—tipsy at a party, faces close, lingering gazes. And Jaehyun was more than ready to discover what Jacob’s mouth tasted like; to quench that curiosity that was always simmering beneath his skin when he was with Jacob; to chase his selfish desires. But Jacob pulled away, completely, stumbling to his feet.

“I’m going to get another cup,” he slurred.

Jaehyun caught his wrist—the one with his soulmate-mark—and gently pulled Jacob down, making him sit next to him. 

“You’re going to be sick if you do.”

Jacob crossed his arms in front of his chest, disgruntled. “I’m not a baby, I know what I’m doing.”

“I never said you were a baby,” Jaehyun argued. 

Jacob huffed, blowing some of his blonde hair out of his face. It had grown considerably in the past months, hanging over his eyebrows. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, petulantly.

“I’m fine,” Jacob insisted.

“Are you?” Jaehyun inquired, meant to be a casual question, but leaving space for Jacob to rant if he wanted to.

Jacob swallowed, nervously playing with his fingers. “We’re told that we’ll find our soulmate and that love is grand and beautiful. That,” he waved his hand in the air, “sex is this intense experience that’ll change our lives. Whatever. But I don’t—I didn’t feel anything, Jaehyun.” His voice was shaking, cracking at the end of the sentence. “I feel so empty.”

Now Playing: Leave Your Lover by Echos (2:21)

(June)

Jacob stared at the unfinished lines on Kevin’s wrist with a sickening fascination. He had never met someone whose soulmate had died before their seventeenth birthday, it didn’t happen often. 

Kevin had a strange smile on his face as he watched Jacob study his mark. It wasn’t unfriendly, but it lacked Kevin’s usual warmth and playfulness. “I’m pretty much doomed for a life of loneliness,” he said, his tone light and uncaring, but Jacob knew.

Uncomfortably, Jacob opened the buttons at his sleeve, rolling up the cloth to reveal his own soulmate-mark. It wasn’t as tragic as Kevin’s, but they were sort of stuck in the same boat: doomed to a soulmateless life. Jacob knew his fate wasn’t comparable to Kevin’s; Kevin didn’t have a soulmate anymore, Jacob had one that he might never be able to find. It wasn’t the same but it was close enough.

“Ah.” Kevin nodded. He ran his fingers over the mark. “That must have been a stressful seventeenth birthday.”

“Yeah. I knew it would be my name ever since I was, like, fifteen,” Jacob explained. “I went through a lot of self-hatred those years until I met—” He hesitated, swallowing down the name that had wanted to spill from his lips. “I grew used to it. For years I was terrified whenever someone said my name, then I just stopped caring.”

Kevin hummed. “It’s fascinating. The more you grow up and begin to meet people with odd soulmate-marks, you understand that there’s a million fates out there. Not everyone has an easy, clear cut soulmate-mark, and not everyone that has a soulmate-mark finds their soulmate,” he rambled, still tracing Jacob’s mark. “I once knew a guy—when I worked at Burger King—who had two soulmate-marks. He met both of them and didn’t really know what to do.”

Jacob stared at the ceiling. He thought back to a snowy day in the middle of December, a week before Christmas. Jacob remembered Juyeon’s words—maybe because Juyeon wasn’t one to open up to half strangers, maybe because his words left a permanent imprint on Jacob. Juyeon had revealed to him that his own soulmate fell in love with someone else and that he didn’t want to inflict that kind of pain on Jacob. 

“I once knew a guy whose soulmate fell in love with someone else,” Jacob said, keeping the conversation going. “I’ve met so many people with bruised soulmate-marks. It helped me heal my own bitterness. I don’t think I care anymore. I just want—someone.”

Kevin’s fingers stopped caressing his wrist. “I mean that’s what it is about, isn’t it? The soulmate-mark is for you to find your someone.”

Jacob sighed. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“It’s okay, I get it,” Kevin whispered. “You’re talking about the simple notion of having someone, not necessarily a soulmate, just—someone to make life less lonely. Someone you decide to make it work with.”

“Yeah.” Jacob closed his eyes. “Someone that is enough. It doesn’t have to be fireworks, the earth and cosmos don’t have to shift—”

Kevin laughed. “Is that what you thought meeting your soulmate would be like?”

Jacob opened his eyes, glaring at him. “What? Is that not what happens? It always looked like that from where I was standing.”

“To me it just looked like two strangers meeting, relieved that they won’t have to deal with loneliness.”

Jacob hummed, absentmindedly. It was inevitable that his indulgent mind tripped over to a particular thought. The one about Jaehyun and how they weren’t soulmates and how Jacob hadn’t felt lonely either. But that wasn’t how it should be, Jacob shouldn’t have felt complete with Jaehyun, with someone who wasn’t his soulmate.

“So, do you want to give it a try?” Kevin suggested, snapping Jacob out of his reverie. 

Kevin wasn’t looking at him, distractedly tracing the lines of one of his tattoos, as if he was redoing it.

“Give what a try?” 

Kevin glanced up, lips pressed together. “I don’t know. Us? Dating?”

Jacob stilled, his chest heavy. He swallowed. “I-I don’t know, Kevin,” he muttered, a strange guilt consuming him. He looked away, his eyes searching around Kevin’s room. “I’m not good with relationships.” An acidic laugh pushed against his throat. “I don’t think I’m really made for them.” 

Kevin kept his gaze on Jacob. He reached out his hand, cupping Jacob’s face. It was gentle, but sure. There was reassurance in Kevin’s gaze, mixed with a hint of amusement.

“Relax,” Kevin said. “I was just suggesting the idea of us dating around, nothing committed or final. Jeez.” 

Jacob clicked his tongue. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not. You’re panicking about some uncertain future, ten steps ahead of where we are.”

Jacob licked his lip, considering Kevin’s words. It did sound nice, and he liked Kevin. It’d been a while since he had met someone with whom he had fun so effortlessly, who understood him and all the things he struggled to say, who gave him space and didn’t seem keen on pressuring him… He definitely could picture it: uncomplicated, fun, bonding over music and art.

Familiar guilt visited Jacob. It burned his skin until he could peek beneath it and see what he’d been hiding so desperately all this time. A particularly dirty spot in his room that he only saw if he drew the curtains aside, but he had grown used to keeping them shut through day and night; though, sometimes, it made him stop and he attentively observed it out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t tell if it had changed or not, for that he would have to directly look at it and he refused. 

Jacob refused.

Words got stuck in his throat because as much as he wanted to leave all that had happened with Jaehyun in the past, he remembered the first time they had kissed, the first time they had hooked up without any excuses of slight intoxication, those blissful months they had explicitly slept with each other, the resemblance of a relationship simmering beneath the surface of their conversations… But neither had ever addressed it, and they had stopped, letting it fade into a strange, youthful college affair.

“Jacob?” Kevin tilted his head. “You good? You look spooked… I didn’t mean to pressure you.”

“It’s—” Jacob swallowed. “I was thinking about my last, uh, relationship-not-relationship.”

“Oh…” Kevin sat up, pulling the blanket with him. He stared at Jacob. He wasn’t mad or disappointed, rather intrigued. “Tell me about it, if you want to.”

Absentmindedly, Jacob pulled at a loose thread, immediately stopping once he realized what he was doing. “I don’t know. Are you sure?” 

“Yeah. I don’t mind.”

Jacob bit his fingernail. “Naturally, it didn’t work out. Not that we ever expected it to work out,” he added, hastily. He felt it was important to clarify that. “It kind of happened by accident… And then we just, I don’t know, we just kept going because—” He trailed off, swallowing. “Because it was easy, uncomplicated.” He frowned. If it truly had ever been easy and uncomplicated, they wouldn’t have stopped.

Kevin was looking at him, curiously. “Can I ask who it was?”

Jacob wavered. What did it matter if he told Kevin the truth? It was long over. But somehow it felt so incredibly intimate to reveal who it was, like it would shed light on a side of Jacob that he didn’t want anyone to perceive. 

With difficulty, he muttered, “Um, it was Jaehyun. Lee Jaehyun, my flatmate. You’ve met him before.”

Kevin became eerily still. His voice was thin when he finally spoke, “I see.”

Jacob was scared to look up. He shouldn’t have talked about this.

“It’s all in the past,” he promised. He felt like he would suffocate if he didn’t clarify that. “We never really—We were just friends fooling around.”

When Jacob did finally meet Kevin’s gaze it was gut wrenching. He didn’t look away, scared it would betray him, but steadily staring into Kevin’s scrutinizing eyes didn’t ease his anxious mind either.

Kevin hummed, his eyes falling on Jacob’s wrist, where his soulmate-mark was. “I heard that’s what college is for, to fool around.”

Jacob’s chest eased a little, but he could tell Kevin wasn’t being as honest with his reaction. 

“Yeah, it is.”

Silence befell them. It wasn’t tense, but they definitely weren’t bathed in comfort either. A heaviness hung in the air, caused by Jacob’s admission; was it the fact that it’d been Jaehyun? Or was the fact that Jacob had a record of not letting relationships become too deep?

“Hyung.” Kevin sighed. “We can leave this just here, you know? We can be co-workers or friends. I wouldn’t mind. I mean, you’re really nice and,” he gestured at Jacob’s naked torso, “you know, but I get it if you don’t really commit to relationships. Like, I get it. They haven’t been my thing either.”

“I’m open to try—something, I guess. I like you, Kevin,” Jacob said, honestly. 

“But?” Kevin inquired when Jacob didn’t continue.

But Jacob lived with Jaehyun, and forgetting what his lips felt like against his own wasn’t easy. Even if he really wanted to move on.

“But I just—I don’t know. If you’re really okay with nothing official,” Jacob replied, “then, I guess, let’s give it a try.” 

Despite that he sounded hesitant—the implications of no strings attached and no expectations of commitment were heavy—Kevin gave a nod.

(Jacob got home around midnight, tiptoeing around the scattered shoes by their entrance, hoping Jaehyun would be asleep already. The apartment was bathed in darkness except for a dim light in the kitchen, which wasn’t unusual, Jaehyun often left the light above the stove on when he knew Jacob would return home late. When Jacob walked into the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks: Jaehyun was awake, dressed in washed out sweatpants and a too small t-shirt, the dim light made shadows dance dramatically across his face; he was eating a piece of leftover pizza, glancing up in surprise when he noticed Jacob.

“Oh, Jacob. I wasn’t sure if you’d sleep over at—” Jaehyun coughed, his eyes passing over Jacob’s neck. “If you’d sleep over at your friend’s place,” he continued, averting his gaze. He scratched the back of his neck.

Self-consciously, Jacob raised his hand to his neck.

“Jaehyun, I—” He wanted to justify himself, but that was ridiculous. There was no reason for him to do that, Jaehyun and him were just friends. He shook his head. “I’m going to bed. Good night. Don’t stay up too late.”

“Yeah, good night,” Jaehyun muttered, keeping his head lowered; his hair fell over his eyelids, Jacob wanted to reach out and push it back. 

He wanted to reach out and unmake everything, hating the way Jaehyun looked so small in their kitchen.)

(December)

From the small kitchen radio Christmas songs played, the audio was a little clogged since it was an outdated model. Enveloped by domesticity and comfort, Jacob rinsed the plates and bowls before placing them in the dishwasher. Chanhee and Kevin were cleaning the dinner table, Jaehyun was setting up the music system, and Younghoon and Juyeon were getting drinks and snacks from the convenience store around the corner. The moment familiar tunes reached Jacob from the living room, he turned the radio off. He caught his reflection in the kitchen window, a storm of white snow was swirling outside. He noticed someone coming into the kitchen.

“Jacob,” Jaehyun greeted him. “Hope you have room for more.” He deposited two dirty bowls in the sink, water splashing up to hit Jacob’s sweater.

“Ugh, Jaehyun-ah!” Jacob protested, trying to shove Jaehyun away by bumping his hip into Jaehyun’s.

Jaehyun grinned, offering the most insincere, “Whoops.”

Jacob scrunched up his face, glaring at Jaehyun, but it was all in playful nature, at least up to the point where Jacob’s brain kindly reminded him of the dinner. Jealousy tugged on the corners of his mouth, and he pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek. It was an instinctive reaction whenever Juyeon was brought up—or, in this case, Juyeon dating Jaehyun. 

Or whatever the hell they’re doing, Jacob thought, bitterly. Not that he could complain, he was in a relationship with Kevin, it wasn’t his business if Jaehyun dated, if he decided to date his ex-lover, giving Juyeon a second chance. 

Jaehyun settled himself comfortably next to the fridge, one of the last beer cans in his hand, and watched Jacob carefully, having noticed the shift in his demeanor.

“What’s gotten you so pissed?”

“Nothing,” Jacob answered immediately.

Jaehyun took a sip. He seemed to consider the pros and cons of further probing Jacob—once it wouldn’t have been something to consider, he would’ve just done it. The whole night had been a bitter reminder of how drastically their dynamics had shifted after they had graduated college. It hadn’t bothered Jacob so much in a long time.

“Is it because—” Jaehyun started, but stopped himself. When Jacob glanced at him, Jaehyun looked awkward, playing with the can’s lid as his eyes were fixed on the kitchen floor. “I told you I’m seeing someone.”

Jacob tried not to scoff indignantly. “Yeah, you did. You didn’t mention it was Juyeon.”

“Why does that matter? Just like Kevin and you, we aren’t soulmates. We’re just—trying something out…” he trailed off, still holding himself awkwardly. “I haven’t actually… Unlike you, I haven’t actually experimented with relationships that much. I thought to give it a try.”

Jaehyun’s gaze was sincere when it met Jacob’s, like he truly meant his words, but Jacob could detect a bit of a challenge in them. He wondered if after all this time Jaehyun was still challenging him in the same way he had when they first had started to hook up. The implication that one of the only relationships Jaehyun had had during their college days was the one with Jacob hurt. It was a depressing thought, especially since they had never disclosed their affair. 

“Should be fun then.”

Angrily, Jacob finished rinsing the two last bowls, placing them in the dishwasher so he could turn it on. He stood over the sink, frustrated because now there was no distraction—just them in the kitchen.

Kevin’s voice was drowned out by some unfamiliar song that Chanhee quietly hummed to. Younghoon and Juyeon were still gone. Jacob turned around, his back digging into the sink, but he didn’t want to move. Jaehyun was closer than he’d thought, still leaning against the counter, his legs crossed in front of him. He was a perfect image of nonchalance, but the intensity of his gaze was familiar to Jacob, and he knew there was something unraveling.

Jacob glanced out of the kitchen, into the living room. He caught a glimpse of Kevin showing Chanhee something on his phone, both of them enraptured. Then he glanced at the clock: Younghoon and Juyeon had only been gone for ten minutes, it would take about another half an hour before they were back. Part of him was questioning his actions; why was he so intently checking on the positions of the others? What was he doing that was wrong? He was just talking with Jaehyun, his friend, his flatmate. But Jacob was growing past fooling himself and turning harsh realities into delusions.

He knew what the jealousy he’d felt when Jaehyun had arrived with Juyeon meant; he knew that Jaehyun’s subtle challenge provided ground for old habits; he knew exactly what kind of excuses his brain came up with whenever he was slightly tipsy and horny and Jaehyun was right there. 

“Oh, it’s been plenty of fun,” Jaehyun remarked, sarcastically. He set the can aside, resting the palms of his hands on the counter. His eyes were still on Jacob, unwavering. Now he was doing it on purpose, having noticed Jacob’s own dubious actions. They kept letting it unravel.

Twenty-five minutes. Kevin and Chanhee were now browsing Chanhee’s wide collection of DVD’s and Blu-ray’s—which mostly consisted of documentaries about physics, some queer indie movies shoved in between.

Jacob licked his lips. “Really? I don’t remember you ever bringing him around,” he said, stepping away from the kitchen sink.

Jaehyun shrugged, but he was entranced by Jacob, waiting for his next move. “I tend to invite him over when you’re not around. I know you don’t particularly like him.”

Jacob squinted his eyes. “I don’t dislike him,” he defended himself. 

“But you don’t like him either.”

Jacob stood in front of Jaehyun now, their gazes entangled. They had often played this ridiculous game back in college, waiting to see who would cave first even if they both knew what exactly they wanted—that they wanted the same thing. 

“I suppose not,” Jacob agreed, his eyelids half-closed as he assessed his next move. Slowly, he reached forward to grab the can, pretending that the way his body brushed up against Jaehyun’s was purely accidental. Of course they both knew it wasn’t, but it was a game, and games were all about pretending, about lying, about breaking rules, boundaries, limits. “You don’t seem to like Kevin much either.”

Jaehyun’s breath fanned over Jacob’s face, the perfume he liked to wear nowadays—different from that of his college days—momentarily made Jacob dizzy. It would be so easy to just give in and stand on his tiptoes, holding Jaehyun’s cheek and angling it so that Jacob could kiss him—and satiate his constant restlessness that only found quietude in Jaehyun’s arms. It would be so easy. Jacob leaned back, his heart beating like crazy. He was glad to see that Jaehyun’s eyes were solely trained on him, his whole being was completely dependent on Jacob. 

Jaehyun swallowed, his hands gripping the edge of the counter tightly. “We should join the others,” he said, but he didn’t move away. His eyes flitted around Jacob’s face frantically, as if he was trying to memorize all of it before reality put distance between them again. 

“Why?”

“Jacob,” Jaehyun said in warning.

Jacob was winning. “What, Bambi?”

The nickname struck a nerve: Jaehyun’s eyes widened fractionally in that way that made him look like a deer caught in headlights. Jacob almost missed the warm flutter in his chest. Jaehyun always tried to deny it vehemently, but he was quite endearing, maybe even cute.

“Don’t call me that,” Jaehyun insisted, but it wasn’t out of embarrassment. His voice was laced with pain. “That’s not fair.” It almost sounded like a plea. 

Jacob pressed his tongue against the back of his teeth, holding back from saying something that could ruin everything. This wasn’t a moment for talking. If they kept dancing around one another much longer they would miss their window, and Jacob was filled with that familiar insatiable want. 

“Why not?”

Jaehyun’s knuckles turned white. Jacob wished they were holding his waist, leaving bruises. 

“You know why.” 

The nickname brought a familiarity and adoration into the game that they had both decided to abandon the moment they had put a stop to their friends-with-benefits arrangement. Jacob knew exactly why it wasn’t fair, but it was the only way he could get an immediate reaction out of Jaehyun. It was the only way for him to win.

It was ridiculous how instinctively his hands found Jaehyun’s shoulders, wrapping themselves around the back of his neck to pull their bodies together. 

“Tell me.” He wasn’t overly focused on what he was saying anymore, but the rational part of his mind burned to hear a certain confession from Jaehyun, and it was that demanding side of himself that scared Jacob. Could he really handle those words if Jaehyun said them? What use did they have in their current state? 

The wrecked sound that fell from Jaehyun’s lips finally tipped the glass over, “Please.” His eyelids fluttered close as one of Jacob’s hands found the back of his head, running it through Jaehyun’s hair. 

Jacob had missed this kind of proximity and intimacy with him. 

Pushing himself off the kitchen counter, Jaehyun let his hands find Jacob’s waist, digging his fingers into the shirt’s material. He pressed his temple against Jacob’s, his shallow breaths fanned over the side of Jacob’s face, all the way down to his partly exposed collarbones. It sent a shiver through his body that had his eyelashes flutter close. Jacob sighed, melting into Jaehyun’s embrace, a language of deep desperation written all across him. 

Jaehyun’s lips brushed the shell of his ear. “I miss you.” Jacob wasn’t sure if they were spoken words or just an echo of his own thoughts. 

The playfulness had vanished. There was no more teasing and dancing around each other, Jaehyun had snapped, admitting to his yearning, and Jacob didn’t see a point in keeping up the teasing. He wanted this just as badly. He turned his face with the intention to kiss Jaehyun, but Jaehyun had other plans. He pushed Jacob until they tumbled into the pantry’s doorframe, his hands traveled up Jacob’s body in exploratory need before he let them fall back to Jacob’s waist.

“Jaehyun,” Jacob whined. Once he had his mind set on something he wasn’t the most patient person.

Jaehyun dipped his face, his lips dragging over Jacob’s jawline, his breath hot and electrifying. Burning pain rose on Jacob’s skin. His one hand tightened in Jaehyun’s hair, the other grabbed a fistful of the front of Jaehyun’s shirt as he let every subtle and minimal touch drive him crazy. He knew Jaehyun liked to savor each moment, taking his time before he finally jumped over the edge. It was the kind of self-discipline Jacob lacked.

“Jacob,” he sighed, and finally kissed him.

The drag of his lips was slow, hot, demanding. Jaehyun had never been a delicate kisser, pushing his entire self into it—like everything else he did, he kissed with bruising honesty, not ashamed to hide his intensity and true feelings. Jaehyun’s hands had always been careful. They found Jacob’s face, holding it gently as he deepened the kiss. Jacob’s body was shaking, breathlessness making him dizzy. He’d missed being kissed like that.

Angling his face to the other side, Jaehyun pulled Jacob closer, kissing him fervently. His tongue licked into Jacob’s mouth, at first a soft pressure on his lips, then a persistent caress over his tongue, undoing him so easily.

Kissing Jaehyun was as intoxicating as Jacob remembered it to be and, at the same time, the experience was completely new. It left Jacob breathless and with a want for more. It was unfair how effortlessly he fell back into this dynamic. 

It was unfair to Kevin.

Jacob grabbed Jaehyun’s collar, pulling him further into the pantry, careful to not topple over any of the stacked ramyeon and spam. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best place to hide away, but bad ideas deserved bad hideouts. They weren’t drunk enough to lose all inhibitions and forget where they were; to forget why exactly it was so bad that they were kissing. But it was an easy excuse to lean on. 

With more roughness than intended, Jaehyun pushed Jacob against the shelf in the back of the pantry. There was a hunger to the way he kissed that made Jacob’s heart burn. It reminded him of the first time they had kissed without the excuse of alcohol turning their affair into something ambiguous. When Jacob had admitted to wanting Jaehyun without the pretense of inebriety, Jaehyun had kissed him, touched him with an inexorable want.

Now that they were kissing again, Jacob thought about the last time they had kissed. It had been some time before graduating from college, drunk and with excuses piling up on their tongues because they had stopped their whole friends-with-benefits arrangement months before, considering themselves too old for something so juvenile (and of course it hadn’t stopped them from wanting each other). 

The same excuses ran between them now. 

“We really shouldn’t,” Jaehyun whispered, sounding wrecked, but his hands were steadily on Jacob’s waist, holding him in a way that made Jacob’s heart ache. Jaehyun’s fingertips spoke the language of fear of letting go. “It’s not fair to—them.”

Jacob’s head hit the wall as he glared up at Jaehyun. “If we shouldn’t, then stop kissing me.”

Jaehyun hesitated. His eyes searched Jacob’s, trying to decipher if Jacob was really telling him to stop. Jaehyun’s face was close enough that his exhales fanned over Jacob’s cheeks and lips, driving him crazy with want. Now that they had started this, he dreaded its inevitable end. 

“I will stop,” Jaehyun muttered, but he was leaning closer. He closed his eyes again, his forehead resting against Jacob’s. “If that’s what you want.”

Holding back from cursing, Jacob took in a sharp breath. He hated when Jaehyun did this, placing the final piece into Jacob’s insubstantial care, but he knew why Jaehyun did this. He needed the reassurance that he wasn’t putting himself in a situation of hurt; he needed Jacob to confirm that they both wanted this as hopelessly. Throughout the years, Jacob had learned that Jaehyun was someone that lived his needs passionately, but he was incredibly careful. 

Jacob pushed his body off the wall, into Jaehyun’s. He grabbed the back of Jaehyun’s head, holding him still as he kissed him with the desperation of the past years—the hesitation, the confusion, the unspoken words that had pushed them together and pulled them apart for years. Jaehyun sighed into the kiss as if he had been dying to have Jacob like this again, and his desire was quick to light Jacob’s body. 

Forgetfulness was bliss, and for a brief moment they were back in college, exploring each other intimately for the first time, no distance between then and now, no separation between their bodies. Just for the duration of a breath, Jacob forgot he was twenty-four, trying to grow up.

Reality wrapped itself around Jacob’s neck like a snake, tightening until he couldn’t breathe. He pushed Jaehyun away, inwardly cursing himself. This had been an awful mistake. He was a terrible human being. How could he face Kevin after this?

Jaehyun was looking at him, confused. Reality took its time reaching him, or possibly he didn’t care about reality. Jaehyun had never been scared to be flawed in the face of reality, letting a silent judgment pass through him as he stood loyal to himself and his principles. 

“I—” The words got stuck in Jacob’s throat, his voice wrecked. “I’m going to leave.” He brushed past Jaehyun, his body feeling too hot, and went to exit the pantry, hoping their absence hadn’t been noticed. Jaehyun reached out, but Jacob shook his head. “Don’t,” he warned. “We shouldn’t have kissed. I… I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”

Jaehyun’s expression turned carefully blank. He laughed, a brief and cruel sounding exhale. “Really? I thought you wanted this?”

Jacob frowned. “I don’t…” He trailed off, squinting his eyes. He didn’t really owe Jaehyun an explanation. It was obviously a mistake, both of them had partners. “I’m drunk. I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, watching how the words hurt Jaehyun with twisted relief. “I think I’m going to stay at Kevin’s for a couple of days.”

“Sure. Do that.” Jaehyun picked up a spam container, reading the label intently. “I’m spending the holidays with Juyeon anyway. We’re visiting his parents.”

Jacob stared at him in disbelief. Jaehyun glanced at him, trying to challenge him, but Jacob wasn’t going to indulge him. However, he did understand that Jaehyun had brought Juyeon to hurt him.

Without sparing another word, Jacob walked out of the kitchen. A small part of him wanted Jaehyun to stop him and kiss him again; wanted to come up with a lame excuse for them to go back to their shared apartment. He swallowed, dissipating those thoughts. He was dating Kevin; Jaehyun was clearly going serious with Juyeon. Their days together were long in the past, it was time for both of them to accept that and move forward as friends.

Now Playing: Halo by Beyoncé (2:22)

(January)

“Jacob, are you going grocery shopping after work or should I go?” Jaehyun asked as he moved around their small kitchenette, preparing his hasty breakfast. Despite waking up on time, Jaehyun always managed to get stuck in a rush, having to inhale his breakfast and taking brisk showers. This version of Jaehyun carried the phantom of his teenage self: still struggling to properly take care of himself, but it wasn’t so much of a desolate sight. He didn’t need Jacob to take care of him anymore. “I finish at five, but Myungho asked me to review some documents.”

Jacob hummed, distracted. It was a week into the full year, but the kiss they had shared kept eating away at him, making him overly anxious. They were trying so very hard to be normal around each other, to pretend nothing had happened, to cling onto a casualness that had never really existed for them. 

Unable to stop himself, Jacob brought it up, “Jaehyun, we need to address what happened at the Christmas party. You—We can’t keep avoiding this. We’re both seeing people and we should face what we did. You know, be adults and all that.” 

Jaehyun looked up from his bowl of cereals. He had picked up the habit of eating cereals as breakfast from Jacob ever since they had moved in together. He didn’t seem too surprised by the suddenness with which Jacob had brought up their conundrum.

“Alright.” Jaehyun tilted his head, carefully studying Jacob’s face. “What do you want me to say?”

“Don’t make this complicated,” Jacob warned, not liking the aloofness in Jaehyun’s tone.

“I’m not,” Jaehyun insisted. “I just don’t know what you expect me to say—that I regret it? I don’t. That it was a mistake? It wasn’t—not for me.”

Jacob clenched his jaw, frustrations rising in him. How could Jaehyun admit this so unashamedly? Jacob couldn’t decide in what way he regretted it. He had missed having Jaehyun in that intimate way, their playful and intense dynamics, that rush his whole body fell under… But he had to face reality. They weren’t soulmates—and they hadn’t managed to grow larger than their egos to make it work either.

“I want us to be able to be friends,” Jacob said, standing his ground. “It’s important to me. I don’t want to lose you,” he admitted, honestly. “You’re important to me, Jaehyun. You’re the most important person in my life, I don’t—I can’t lose you. So please let’s be friends.”

That blank look was back on Jaehyun’s face, but for the first time Jacob could see past it. There was a minuscule yet intense display of emotions hushing through Jaehyun’s eyes, and he wondered how many times he’d missed it in the past. He was holding back, Jacob could tell. Jaehyun could bring everything to fall. He could say he didn’t want them to be friends, he could kiss Jacob again and break all his precautions.

Instead, Jaehyun echoed, “Friends?”

“Yes.” Jacob nodded. “Let’s try to be friends. Without any of that tension.”

Jaehyun licked his lips, holding Jacob’s gaze. “Try to be friends? Okay.” 

“Really? You’re okay with it?”

Jaehyun’s eyes flickered to his soggy cereals, he stirred the milk with his spoon. “Yeah, I’m okay with it.”

Jacob wanted to protest, to say that he knew Jaehyun was lying, but he let it go, trying to be satisfied that there was an attempt somewhere. 

“Thank you for agreeing to it.”

Jaehyun half-smiled, a crooked one. “Losing you is about the last thing I want. If being your friend is what will keep you in my life, I’ll take it.”

Jacob clicked his tongue. He should let it go—let it go. But it was wrong. It wasn’t what he’d wanted, forcing Jaehyun to agree to it out of some twisted obligation and putting himself second. “Don’t be a self-sacrificing fool and tell me—”

“It’s okay. Let’s be friends,” Jaehyun interrupted him, forcefully. “I’ll adjust. It might take me a while before it becomes casual, but I’m really okay with it.”

Jacob sighed. “Okay.” He returned to his own bowl of soggy cereal, his appetite gone. “Okay.”

Jaehyun stood up, rather abruptly. He placed his bowl and coffee mug in the dishwasher, trudging off to his room to get ready for the day. He still struggled with his job at JTBC, hating every second of it, but he remained stubborn. Jacob hated to see him like that, but he kept it to himself. It really wasn’t the best moment to openly show his concerns for Jaehyun. They had to find a new territory in which they could function as friends, possibly leaving many of their old habits and dynamics behind. As much as it worried and scared him, Jacob knew it was for the best, growing up and moving forward.

Now Playing: Nerves by DPR Ian (2:16)

(September)

Considering everything, Jaehyun was immensely glad that the night was coming to an end. He wouldn’t even care if Jacob threw up on his clothes, in fact, he would welcome it. Anything to distract him from the fiery jealousy and hurt that simmered just below his skin. The whole night had been an expected disappointment, but Jaehyun had harbored hope that perhaps it wouldn’t be so terrible. He had thought that perhaps his dooming feelings had been a strange lapse and they’d be gone by now. New beginnings and all that as he entered college for a new chapter in his life. But Jaehyun had never been good at guessing and hoping. Jacob had gotten increasingly drunk throughout the night, flirting with some old classmates, making out with a stranger neither of them knew, and absolutely ruining Jaehyun’s night. 

Brightly flickering jealousy had become the very proof that Jaehyun’s feelings hadn’t disappeared, they had grown. 

“Jaehyun. I’m not… I’m not the best Rainbow Road driver,” Jacob announced, miserably. “I lied to you.”

Jaehyun hummed, pretending to be deep in thought. “Jacob, I admit I’m hurt—”

Jacob’s eyes widened, tears welling up in them. “No, no, no. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry—”

“I’m kidding,” Jaehyun quickly cut him off, endeared by his friend’s drunken dramatics. “I’m not hurt that you lied about being the best Rainbow Road driver.”

Jacob stared at him, unwavering. “You’re not hurt that I lied?”

The question was strange, a seriousness to it that deeply unsettled Jaehyun. It implied Jacob had lied to him about something. Then again this could just be some inebriated nonsense; Jaehyun shouldn’t pry, it wasn’t fair on his friend.

“Let’s get you home,” he said instead, trying to drag Jacob with him, but his friend had a different plan. He anchored himself to the ground, sitting crookedly on the curb. 

Jaehyun sighed. “What is it, Jacob?”

“Say—” He burped, catching himself off guard. “Say you forgive me,” he carried on as if nothing had happened.

The unsettlement moved deeper into Jaehyun. “What are you talking about?” He managed to peel Jacob off the ground, setting him to walk toward the park that expanded around their dormitory building.

“I haven’t been very honest with you lately,” Jacob admitted, pouting.

“Oh, so you did lose my pencil case?”

“Noo,” Jacob whined, tripping over his feet. Jaehyun reached out to grab Jacob’s shoulders to prevent him from falling over.

“Whoa, there! Be careful.”

Vehemently, Jacob shook his head. “No, I never saw your pencil case.”

“That’s okay, I got a new one.”

“Jaehyun?”

“Yeah?”

They were still standing closely together, the late summer unpredictability brought a soft drizzle. Within seconds Jacob’s blonde hair clung to his sun kissed skin, droplets sliding down the sides of his face. Jaehyun held onto him, no will in him to let Jacob go. It didn’t matter if they got drenched, they were almost home.

“Bambi?”

Jaehyun glared at their sneakers. “I don’t like that nickname.”

Jacob pouted. “I like calling you Bambi.”

“Of course you do,” Jaehyun muttered, rolling his eyes. 

Petrichor raised into the night’s sky, surrounding them. But beneath everything, Jaehyun caught the subtle scent of Jacob’s shampoo—something sweet and citric. It brought him back to the summer, when they had spent most of their time together, and Jaehyun had experienced a loss of some kind. He had bathed in secret joy whenever he woke up with soft hair tickling his face, the scent of orange everywhere. Jacob had become such an irrefutable part of Jaehyun’s life that he had forgotten they weren’t each other’s. Jaehyun wasn’t one to delude himself: he kept sharply reminding himself that reality was harsh. But somehow Jacob’s presence had crept under his skin, taking possession of him in a way that was terrifying—revelatory. 

All his delusions broke apart the night of Younghoon’s nineteenth birthday. It had been a month since then, but it still made him bitter and jealous.

“Bambi, won’t you ask me what’s wrong?”

Jaehyun sighed, pretending to be exasperated. “What’s wrong, Jacob?”

“I thought about you,” Jacob confessed, his face slowly tinging in pink. He stared at Jaehyun expectantly, but Jaehyun had no idea what the hell Jacob was talking about.

“You thought about me? When?”

Jacob slapped Jaehyun’s shoulder, almost breaking their closeness. “Don’t tease me!”

“I’m not, I—”

“I hate you,” Jacob muttered, still pouting. Before Jaehyun could protest, Jacob added, “I want to kiss you.”

Jaehyun knew he should step back, put distance between them. He knew that Jacob was drunk and had pretty much tried to kiss anyone that had crossed his path that night. He knew that this was a very bad idea. But after a night of being consumed by jealousy and wondering what the hell he lacked—why the hell hadn’t Jacob hooked up with him during Younghoon’s birthday?—Jaehyun wanted to cling onto the littlest hope Jacob threw in his direction.

“Then do it.”

Jacob studied his face, his eyes falling onto Jaehyun’s lips. He seemed to consider it. “Not funny. We’re friends.”

“You’ve kissed Younghoon before.”

Jacob giggled. “That was so bad.”

A twisted thought crossed Jaehyun’s mind. It was the most unfair thing he could do, and it would probably haunt him forever—or at least until he found his soulmate and fell out of love with Jacob. (The notion that he would eventually fall out of love with Jacob wasn’t as relieving as it should’ve been.) 

He would regret saying this, he would regret never saying it.

He held onto Jacob, his lips brushing the shell of Jacob’s ear, who shivered. “Jacob,” he said. “I—”

“Yes?”

“What would you say if I told you I’m in love with you?”

With a wit that was unusual for a drunk person, Jacob said, “I don’t know. You’d have to tell me first to find out.”

Jaehyun’s heart was racing. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but he thought that Jacob was holding onto him tighter. He was terrified as much as he was thrilled. 

“I’m in love with you.” 

It came out as a mere whisper, getting thinner with each word. Despite his principle of honesty, this was extremely risky and he regretted it the moment the words were free. He screwed his eyes shut, holding onto Jacob’s coat lapels. Shit. He really hoped Jacob would be too drunk to remember this conversation the following morning; he really hoped to hear the same words from Jacob’s mouth—

“Liar,” Jacob said. It wasn’t at all the response Jaehyun had expected. “You only avoid eye contact when you lie.”

Jacob swayed, but didn’t separate himself from Jaehyun. Wind howled past them, but the world seemed eerily quiet to Jaehyun. He was frozen on the spot, unable to find his words. The cold drizzle helped him ground himself.

Jacob swayed, staring at Jaehyun. “Why do you look like that?”

Jaehyun swallowed, pulling himself out of his stupor. “I look like what?” he inquired, his tone sharp.

Undeterred, Jacob continued, “Like you’re about to cry?”

Jaehyun couldn’t help himself, he laughed, doubling over. His chest burned bright with pain, as if a dozen little needles were hoping to escape, puncturing his lungs at once. He clutched his knees tightly, hoping to snap out of his misery.

“I’m not about to cry,” he muttered, straightening up. “That’s because of the rain.”

Jacob frowned. “Are you sure? I think I have a napkin, in case you need it.”

“I’m not about to cry, Jacob,” Jaehyun said, decidedly. He stepped away. What a godawful night. “Let’s just get to the dorms.”

Jacob hummed in agreement, trailing after Jaehyun.

(Mercy was real, Jaehyun learned the following morning. Jacob woke up with a hangover, claiming he didn’t remember much from the previous night, especially not how he’d ended up in Jaehyun and Mingyu’s dorm room, tightly holding onto Jaehyun in his sleep, as Mingyu claimed, gagging.)

Now Playing: Halo by Beyoncé (2:22)

(February)

Guilt wrecked Jacob.

He had always struggled with maneuvering certain emotions and feelings, deeming them as negative and unpleasant. Who wants to deal with jealousy, guilt, shame? Jacob had been raised to be good, to be pleasant, palatable. He had failed his parents’ efforts cosmically. Jacob had never been good, he didn’t even know what it meant anymore. Jacob got easily jealous, he could be petty and childish, he made mistakes upon mistakes… 

Jacob had hurt Kevin, who didn’t know it yet. He had considered confessing to it right after the Christmas party, but he hadn’t been able to. He had barely registered what he had done, confused and hurt and desperate. Then he’d tried to ignore it and live with it. Accept his mistake as a drunken lapse that he hadn’t had control over, trying to free himself of guilt. But that path was only worsening the situation, putting him on edge. 

Kevin deserved to know the truth.

(And it hadn’t really been a drunken mistake that he hadn’t had control over. Jacob couldn’t keep fooling himself.)

They had spent the weekend together since their work had been quite consuming the past two weeks, giving them no time to spend with each other.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” Jacob started, anxiety washing over him.

Kevin glanced up from his iPad, his Apple pen suspended in the air. He always was scarily perceptive, immediately catching onto Jacob’s discomfort.

“Is everything okay, hyung?” he asked, worried.

“I…” The guilt was suffocating, but Jacob knew that truth was liberating, even if painful, even if at the cost of a very good friendship. “I kissed Jaehyun—during the Christmas party last year.”

Kevin put down the pen, locking his iPad. He faced Jacob properly, a scarily blank expression replacing his worry. He took a few seconds to assimilate Jacob’s words.

“You kissed Jaehyun while we were together?” he finally asked. The words were spoken slowly and carefully, laced with a barely contained hurt. Disbelief began to color his face. “I—I should have known.”

Outside, Jacob observed a plane crossing the blue sky. It was staggering and unfitting for the sun to be shining so brightly, birds chirping in the park just around the corner from Kevin’s flat. 

“Kevin, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t fucking apologize right now,” Kevin cut him off. “Don’t say you’re sorry when you so clearly—” He broke off, sighing heavily as tears slid down his cheeks. He looked miserable. “Fuck!”

It was rare to see him curse, but Jacob supposed that given the situation, it was an appropriate response. 

“I should have known,” Kevin muttered again. “I should have known the way he looks at you is no coincidence.”

“What?”

A sense of deja-vu trickled through Jacob’s mind. He thought back to his conversation with Juyeon on the dorms’ rooftop. It made his skin prickle uncomfortably. All these implications that Jaehyun and him were something, that there was more to their relationship than met the eye—Jacob hated how easily the delusions came to him. Jacob hated himself for even considering the idea that perhaps Kevin and Juyeon had been right.

Kevin gave him a look, annoyed. “Don’t play dumb. Like… This already is painful enough for me, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, hyung.”

Jacob kept his face perfectly blank, fighting the fear that threatened to contort it. “I—“ But he had no words. Nothing would undo that he’d hurt Kevin. And he knew that, when he’d kissed Jaehyun, he hadn’t cared about it—that it might hurt Kevin and Juyeon.

“Good thing we never actually dated,” Kevin said, abrasive. “Because I could’ve loved you, Jacob. I really could’ve… But you’re so—fucking detached, it’s difficult to trust you, to know you.”

The words stung. Detached. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called that.

“I guess Lee Jaehyun is the only exception, huh?”

“N-No,” Jacob tried, frowning. He no longer had control over his emotions, they broke out all over his body, contorting his face. “No, I—Jaehyun and I aren’t—We’re not like that.” 

The words choked him, and he felt like he’d been slapped, his ears ringing, his cheeks stinging. Vulnerability was enveloping Jacob uncomfortably until he couldn’t breathe anymore. He sat down, curling up on himself. Shame broke out when Kevin approached him, worriedly, and put a soothing hand on Jacob’s shoulder.

“Damn it, Jacob,” Kevin muttered. “Just tell him. Please tell him, you’re not just hurting yourself with this. Don’t lead other people on when you’re so clearly in love with Jaehyun.” The words caused a new wave of tears to slide down Jacob’s cheeks; air scarcely in his lungs. He let Kevin continue. “I shouldn’t have suggested this when I realized you weren’t going to move on from him.”

(It was late when Jacob reached Jongno district. His body ached from the exertion earlier, the low temperatures and howling wind were just another uncomfortable layer to his already terrible day. He shouldn’t have agreed to help Byungchan and Dawon move, but it had been a nice distraction from the very fresh break up. (And because he hadn’t dared to go home right after breaking up with Kevin; home where Jaehyun was.) After hauling about thirty boxes into his co-workers’ new apartment, Dawon had insisted they invite Jacob out to some grilled pork and drinks. The drinking had helped for as long as he’d been in their company, but now, as his feet took him to the apartment complex, the events were heavy on his consciousness.

Jaehyun would notice his off mood immediately, if he was still awake—he probably was, playing Apex with Younghoon. And he would ask questions, demand the truth out of Jacob because he didn’t believe in hiding it. As predicted, when Jacob unlocked their apartment door, Jaehyun was seated on their couch, controller in hand, playing Apex with strangers rather than Younghoon. 

“Jacob, you’re back!” Jaehyun half-turned, still very much concentrated on the game and not noticing Jacob’s pain.

“Jaehyun—“ Jacob’s greeting got stuck in his throat. It was just his name, but it caused a wave of pain to climb up his throat. He swallowed down the sob, he couldn’t cry, not here, not now, not in front of Jaehyun. What would he even tell him?

Jaehyun dropped the controller unceremoniously on the couch and stood up, within seconds his character was killed on screen.

“Jacob? What happened?”

Jacob shook his head, unable to speak. Tears rolled down his cheeks. Jaehyun took him into his arms, hoping to comfort. The gesture tore at Jacob’s heart, his hands found the fabric of Jaehyun’s shirt, clinging onto it as he buried his head in his friend’s neck. Jacob wanted nothing more than to hide himself away, especially hide himself from Jaehyun. All those years, all those careful barriers, all those attempts at detaching himself—and where had all that effort led him?

Jacob was in love with Jaehyun. They weren’t soulmates, and he was consumed by a painful, slow kind of yearning that he would never quite be able to satiate.)

Now Playing: Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys (2:18)

(May)

Jacob leaned forward, expecting the familiarity of kissing Jaehyun to settle in, but it was nothing like their previous kisses. The sun broke through their window, warmly gracing Jacob’s face as his mouth found Jaehyun’s, a sudden shyness in the kiss that made Jacob’s face burn in embarrassment. Jaehyun was struck for about two-seconds, then he kissed Jacob back, an underlying hunger and deliberation in the way his lips moved that had never been there before. Their previous kisses had always been overcome by want and not much finesse, inebriated and sloppy. 

It was a Sunday afternoon. Jaehyun had come to watch their volleyball team play against a rivaling university. He’d cheered Jacob on, Younghoon and Chanhee by his side. It’d been much like in high school. The only change had been Jacob’s elation when his team had won and he’d been overcome with the overwhelming desire to kiss Jaehyun, to share his exhilaration with him. The desire had made Jacob reel back, struck with confusion. Why the hell did Jacob feel the need to kiss Jaehyun? They weren’t drunk, he wasn’t horny. There was no excuse for what he wanted. No one knew that they were secretly hooking up, and no one should know. They weren’t soulmates and it was inappropriate of them to even have allowed this kind of closeness.

When they had returned to their dorm room, there had been a moment of sizzling tension, neither of them speaking, then they had moved at the same time, their lips crashing together.

Jaehyun kissed him with a yearning and need that shocked Jacob. He had never been kissed like that, never been desired like that. Jaehyun’s hands were quick to settle on Jacob’s waist, his fingers slipping underneath Jacob’s t-shirt, running up his torso. His hands weren’t cold or rough, his touch was delicate, but Jacob trembled, barely exhaling, overwhelmed. He wanted more of that, of being regarded with so much intention—of being desired by Jaehyun. He never wanted to stop kissing him, touching him. His hands shook as they settled on Jaehyun’s arms, running up his biceps, moving them around Jaehyun’s neck, pulling him closer. 

It was consuming. 

Rather sensibly, Jaehyun interrupted the kiss, leaning back fractionally. “If we do this,” he started, his voice raspy. He cleared his throat, trying again, “If we do this we should talk about it. What exactly we’re doing.”

Jacob wanted to protest. Jaehyun and his incessant need to talk about things. It wasn’t really Jacob’s thing, who moved on instinct, impatient and calculated, never needing words. But Jaehyun craved words; he acknowledged actions, but for him everything came down to words—promises, loyalty, honesty.

Ignoring Jaehyun’s attempt at communication, Jacob pressed himself against Jaehyun, kissing him harder. Jaehyun had to understand this, even if it wasn’t words, he had to understand how badly Jacob wanted this—wanted him. He had to understand that this wasn’t just some fling for Jacob, something trivial that he’d forget about years down the road. Damn it, this was Lee Jaehyun, someone Jacob had no words to describe. Only in the wake, when the world was tinged a mellow blue, Jacob could admit that to himself: the meaning behind every shared moment with Jaehyun. Something that, if he indulged it too much, became a cruel reminder and Jacob preferred not to deal with such despair. They weren’t soulmates so it shouldn’t hold too much meaning, too much devotion.

There was a smile shaping Jaehyun’s lips, and he indulged Jacob’s need, kissing him cruelly slowly until he leaned away again, this time taking a whole step back. Jacob shivered at the sudden loss.

“I want us to talk about this,” Jaehyun insisted. “I-I don’t want to do this if… If it’s going to be uncomfortable tomorrow morning.”

“We’ve done this so many times before,” Jacob protested.

“Never like this, and you know that,” Jaehyun said, studying Jacob’s face.

Jacob clicked his tongue. Jaehyun was right of course, but Jacob had hoped they could’ve fooled one another a little longer.

“Fine.” Jacob ran a hand through his hair and sat on his bed. “Let’s talk.”

Jaehyun sat on his own bed, a distance between them that was probably smart. His gaze fell on Jacob, intense. “Jacob, I—“

“No strings attached, no expectations, no complications,” Jacob rushed out.

Jaehyun blinked. It was hard to tell if he was surprised, disappointed, or even angry. He was hiding his emotions well. A sigh fell from his mouth, it could’ve been one of relief or pain, Jacob couldn’t tell.

“No complications,” Jaehyun echoed, a little hollowly.

Jacob nodded. “No complications.”

Jaehyun pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, then swiped it over the front of his upper row of teeth. It was the only indication that he was processing Jacob’s words, the only show that he allowed. Jacob thought that maybe it was a gesture of annoyance. But Jaehyun’s expression remained impenetrable; there was no way to tell what was going through his mind.

“Alright,” Jaehyun agreed to eventually. He laughed, which threw Jacob off. “Fuck. Alright. Fuck it. Yeah. I don’t care.”

Jacob frowned. Jaehyun’s answer twisted his stomach into a knot. It felt detached in some way. “Are you sure?”

Jaehyun laughed some more, wiping away tears that had sprung from his eyes. “Yeah. I’m sure, Jacob.”

“You don’t seem sure.”

“Don’t try to guess how I’m feeling,” Jaehyun hissed, his laughter vanishing quickly, all that was left of it were his watery eyes. “I’m fine doing this no strings attached, no complications. We’re friends who sometimes sleep together. It’s not a big deal.”

Jacob hands were shaking, something he only noticed when he settled them on Jaehyun’s shoulders and pushed him onto Jacob’s bed. He straddled Jaehyun’s lap. For some reason every movement felt enhanced, as if the sun filtering through the window wanted to uncover some glaring truth Jacob was ignoring. His heart was high in his throat when he buried his hands in Jaehyun’s hair and kissed him, languidly. 

“Okay. No complications,” Jacob muttered into Jaehyun’s mouth, clinging onto the statement even though it felt empty the more they kissed, touched, felt.

Now Playing: Halo by Beyoncé (2:22)

(June)

The routine of life had engulfed Jacob. He worked, he met with his friends at 50 Spades every other day, he partied at Rush Hour on weekends, he met his volleyball team every second Thursday, he played video games with Jaehyun almost every evening…Not a lot had changed since February, which should’ve scared Jacob because he thought he’d fall into some kind of depression after breaking things off with Kevin, after being accused of loving Jaehyun in the way only soulmates could… But Jacob had mastered the art of carrying on with life as if nothing had perturbed it.

At first Jacob and Kevin had avoided each other, but then, on Jacob’s twenty-fifth birthday, they had talked. It had been long and filled with uncomfortable silences, but afterwards they had hugged and decided to try being friends. It had been a few weeks since then and Jacob was starting to feel comfortable with sending Kevin casual memes and daily life stories, while Kevin invited Jacob to lunch during work. They were finding a new way to exist, testing out new boundaries.

When Jacob told Jaehyun about it, his friend had seemed uninterested by the news, something dark crossing his expression. Jacob hated it, that there had been this undeniable distance growing between them, even after Jacob confessed to Jaehyun that he’d broken off things with Kevin. Jaehyun’s reaction hadn’t been one Jacob had expected, something tired pulling at the corners of his eyes, his lips twitching with held-back words.

Jacob had expected things to get better. He’d expected something akin their kiss during Christmas to happen. But it was his own damn fault that nothing was happening. Jacob was a coward, refusing to admit what he felt for Jaehyun, refusing to believe it could be enough, refusing to get hurt by Jaehyun if Jaehyun ever found his soulmate… So, instead, Jacob put a wall between himself and the rest of the world.

Detached. 

But all pretenses he’d put up throughout his life were crumbling. He was reaching a breaking point. What did it all matter if he was living with Jaehyun, torturing himself, when all he wanted to do was to reach out and meet Jaehyun halfway? Somewhere between being soulmates and strangers, some place that could allow them to be content even if they weren’t destined to be.

Jacob was losing his mind, slowly.

Everything became a tenfold worse when Jaehyun started to go on blind dates, orchestrated by a friend of his, in the hopes of finding someone. He hadn’t even said, ‘in the hopes of finding his soulmate’. No. Just someone. Someone who wasn’t Jacob, because apparently Jacob wasn’t enough of a someone for Jaehyun. 

The jealousy was choking Jacob—pain, insecurity, anger. The emotions bubbled up his throat like a slow volcano, and Jacob became worryingly aware that one day, sooner or later, it would spill. The thought terrified him deeply; he’d never been good at dealing with those emotions.

The day it escalated was a Friday, the last day of June. Jacob had gotten the day off, using it to catch up on some very needed sleep and, once he’d woken up and cooked himself a hefty breakfast, giving the kitchen an intense cleaning session. He thought that Jaehyun wouldn’t be back until much later, having gone to meet someone after work. It came as a surprise when the familiar sound of a key turning in a lock sounded through the otherwise silent apartment.

“Hey, Jacob,” Jaehyun called into the apartment, kicking off his shoes by the entrance.

“Oh, Jaehyun? You’re back early,” Jacob commented through gritted teeth. He wiped the kitchen counter angrily, counting to ten, twenty, thirty. But the anger wasn’t simmering. “I thought you’d stay longer at… What was it again?” He feigned ignorance, though it was easy to tell he was faking.

“Blind date,” Jaehyun answered, tiredly. He sat on their living room couch, an empty look on his face. It was clear he sensed Jacob’s anger, wanting to diminish it by acting as blank as possible. He yawned. “Yeah… It didn’t go well.” 

Jacob scoffed, but didn’t say anything.

“What?” Jaehyun asked, snappish. He turned to look at Jacob, frowning. “What, Jacob?”

“So, so, you’re—“ Jacob gestured around wildly, his hand almost knocking into the wall. He kind of wished it, the pain would’ve been better than the emotions spilling over the dam he had so carefully crafted over the years. His emotions were a wave he could not control. “You’re going on blind dates now? That’s your thing now? What about your soulmate? Isn’t it time you-you—“

“My soulmate?” Jaehyun laughed, cruelly. “Since when do you care about that? What about you and your soulmate, Jacob? You’re bouncing from one partner to another, breaking hearts…”

“Don’t fucking shame me for—“

“I’m not,” Jaehyun spat, standing up to stand right in front of Jacob. “I’m not shaming you. It’s just not fair that you get angry at me for trying to get out there after-after you fucking broke things off with me, after you dated Kevin… Fuck!” He ran his hands through his hair, his emotions spilling out of his eyes. Jaehyun looked pained. “You don’t get to be jealous or possessive now. That’s not fucking fair.”

Jacob swallowed. His eyes burned with tears. Jaehyun was right, it wasn’t fair of him. Especially after he’d desperately pushed Jaehyun away, putting a clear distance between them. Always searching for someone to fill that longing that had only stopped when he’d been with Jaehyun.

“Fuck you,” Jacob hissed. “What about your possessiveness over the years, huh? Was that fair?”

Jaehyun’s jaw clicked shut. There was something visibly broken in his expression. “What about it? Did it suffocate you? Did I suffocate you?” He huffed, his lips pulled into an empty smile. “Don’t worry, Jacob, I’ve been letting you go. Soon you won’t have to deal with me anymore.” He raised his hands in a sarcastic praise-the-lord gesture. “You’re free!”

Jacob’s next words were stuck in his throat, pain crawling around like a manic beast. Did I suffocate you? The question stung, and Jacob remembered them as teenagers in Jaehyun’s bedroom, talking about soulmates and love. Too young to understand any of it.

“Fuck,” Jacob muttered, hoarsely, and crouched. He buried his head in his hands, tears welling up in his eyes. They fell freely. It was horrible to break down in front of Jaehyun like this, shame and guilt wrecked Jacob. “Fuck, fuck. Jaehyun, I-I’m sorry.”

The apology caught them both off guard. A tense silence spread out through the room, growing large and heavy. Jacob stayed in his crouched position, curled up on himself as tears rolled down his cheeks. Jaehyun stayed where he was, frozen, half in their kitchen, half in their living room; his erratic breathing was calming down.

It felt like hours had passed when Jaehyun finally crouched in front of Jacob. He put a hesitant hand on Jacob’s shoulder blades, drawing circles.

“Jacob,” Jaehyun said, softly. “I have been crazy about you for a long time. You have no idea what you do to me. The moment I realized that I loved—” He choked on the weight of the word. “That I loved you, I knew I was doomed. There’s nothing better than to be in love with you, no one better than you to break my heart. That’s what I thought.”

Jacob was caught up in between cringing, a playful comment waiting at the tip of his tongue, and continuing to cry. How could Jaehyun say these things to him? How could he mean them? Jacob had been awful—scared and detached. He’d tried so hard not to fall in love, playing a constant game of push-and-pull. Because they weren’t soulmates. 

How could Jaehyun love him?

They weren’t soulmates.

Jacob stayed in his position, hiding his face from Jaehyun. The tears were slowing.

“When we started to hook up, I was ecstatic. I was so ready for you to break my heart any day, but you didn’t. You didn’t and I… I don’t have words to tell you how I felt back then.”

“But I did. I did hurt you, Jaehyun,” Jacob insisted, sniffling. He still didn’t look up. “We eventually stopped hooking up. I was with Kevin, you were with Juyeon…”

“And you kissed me during the Christmas party. You kissed me like you hadn’t been kissed in forever,” Jaehyun pointed out.

Jacob uncurled. Jaehyun’s hand fell from his shoulder. “I shouldn’t have. It was unfair to Kevin,” Jacob said, swallowing. He remembered Kevin’s hurt look, haunting. “It was unfair to Juyeon,” he added because as jealous as Juyeon being with Jaehyun had made him, he recognized Juyeon as his own person, one that knew the pain of not having a soulmate all too well. Juyeon was just another person who had suffered in this game of push-and-pull between Jacob and Jaehyun.

“I never thought of it as a mistake. It…” Jaehyun licked his lips, as if in a daze. “That kiss gave me so much hope.”

Jacob’s cheeks burned. Jaehyun’s honesty was disarming, stripping him—them—naked. All of their pretenses falling away.

“How can you say these things?” Jacob demanded. Guilt still wrecked him. “How can you feel so comfortable that we hurt Kevin and Juyeon?”

Jaehyun’s face darkened. “I never hurt Juyeon-ah. We used each other. He knew how I felt about you,” he revealed. “And…” Jaehyun stilled, his face unreadable. His eyes flickered down to his soulmate-mark. “And I don’t care who I’ve hurt. I want to be with you, Jacob, soulmates or not. I don’t care. I don’t fucking care anymore.”

“Jaehyun,” Jacob whispered, disarmed. He wished he could add something more, an argument or disagreement about this, but his mouth was dry. “Jaehyun,” he said again, voice gentle and pained, the name becoming that something more. 

Just a name. It had always just been their names, but from the moment they had gotten their soulmate-marks, their names had gained meaning. There had always been something grounding in saying Jaehyun’s name; in having Jaehyun say Jacob’s name. Their names always more than just a call for one another, they were a deep wound, a disappointment, a mutual reassurance.

“Jacob,” Jaehyun whispered, just as gentle. He reached out his hands until he was cupping Jacob’s face, his thumbs running over his tear-stained cheeks. Jacob hadn’t even realized that he was crying again. “Jacob. I love you.”

Jacob closed his eyes, feeling tears well up, but he concentrated on Jaehyun’s soft hands on his face, on the scent of Jaehyun’s perfume engulfing him, on the slightly erratic breathing that fanned of Jacob’s face… All there was, was Jaehyun.

“Please, kiss me,” Jacob demanded, exhausted. 

Jaehyun obliged. The kiss tasted salty, a little wrong, but mostly it was relief that coursed through Jacob. Jaehyun’s mouth was hot as he murmured Jacob’s name over and over again, laced with praise and love. Jacob arched into Jaehyun—his touch, his lips, his words—and professed the same kind of devotion from his own lips. For so long he had fought his feelings for Jaehyun, and now he was yielding to them, fully, searing, consuming. He’d fought himself, and now he was accepting that it’d been inevitable for some time.

Jacob didn’t know who his soulmate was—if it was Jaehyun or not—and maybe he’d never know, but it didn’t matter anymore. The way Jaehyun said his name was enough.