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Ten wakes to warmth of sunlight on his face and the sound of waves in the distance.
He screws his eyes shut, not used to being exposed to so much brightness just after waking up. There’s a sudden sound, and it takes him a second to recognise the noise of a window being closed. The waves become almost indiscernible.
“Morning sleepy head.” When he looks up Johnny smiles at him from where he stands by the window, one hand still resting against the frame.
The dancer groans, mumbling out his own ‘good morning’ before turning around in bed and burying his face in the pillow next to him. It smells like Johnny. Comforting. Maybe his boyfriend will take pity on him and let him sleep a little longer. He’d need to put the blinds down first though. It’s so bright.
“Sorry for waking you up.” He feels a dip in the bed as said boyfriend sits down beside him. “I was too hot and thought opening the window might help air out the room. Didn’t realise the noise would wake you up.”
Ten rolls back onto his side, clutching the pillow to his chest as he glares up at the other through his lashes. “It wasn’t the noise as much as the horrible sunlight. Who the hell wants to see the sun in the early hours of the morning?”
“What do you…? Lots of people do! They literally organize hiking trips to go watch the sunrise and stuff.”
“Well those people are crazy. It’s too early for this.”
“It’s almost midday!”
Ten grins as he watches his boyfriend’s grow expression increasingly more exasperated. He’s so much fun to tease. Ten’s always considered that to be one of the things that makes their relationship work best; the fact that they both love winding each other up. That, and so many other things. A sudden wave of fondness washes over him as he watches Johnny fumble to justify why it’s good to get lots of sun — something about vitamins; he’s not really listening.
Whatever it is that the American’s saying, he’s probably right. He usually is. Not that Ten would ever admit it, lest he risk inflating his already oversized ego.
Sometimes Ten thinks that it’s okay, his ego being the way it is, because surely anyone who looks like that deserves to think highly of themselves. Right now, as he watches the way his boyfriend’s eyes turn honey coloured in the light, is one of those times. Johnny’s sporting the most ridiculous bedhead and it should look terrible, it should, but it just makes his hair look extra fluffy. He’s got this mark on his cheek from having slept on it that kind of looks like a wrinkle, but that Ten just finds absurdly endearing. And he’s surely blabbering now, going on and on and on about the sun, and it should be really annoying, but it just draws Ten’s attention down to his plush, kissable lips…
Ten wants to kiss him, so he does.
He pulls him down by the collar of his nightshirt, the elder only just managing to catch himself in time to narrowly avoid crushing him. The kiss itself lasts but a few seconds, and it’s far from the best they’ve ever shared (Ten’s pretty sure he’s got terrible morning breath), but when Johnny pulls away he’s got this dumb grin on his face that makes him look so kind and warm, and Ten feels himself melt. It’s a bit like everything else to do with Johnny: not objectively flawless, but perfect in Ten’s eyes.
“What was that for?”
“Nothing; I just think you’re pretty.” The dancer smiles back, reaching between them to playfully push at the other’s shoulders. “And heavy. Get off so I can go take a shower.”
Johnny huffs, yet complies anyway. He stays sat at the end of the bed, brow furrowed, as Ten looks for a towel. He often looks like this; thoughtful, worried. Like his body is here, but his mind has wandered somewhere else, somewhere far away. It’s a place Ten can’t quite seem to get to, no matter how hard he tries.
“Do want to join me?” He finds himself saying, just because he’s not really sure what else to say to break the other out of his stupor.
Johnny looks up and blinks several times like he’s just woken up. “Huh?”
“Do you want to join me in the shower?” Ten rolls his eyes.
“In the shower?”
“Yes John, I’m asking you whether you want to fuck in the shower, get your act together.” He bites back a laugh as he watches Johnny’s face turn bright red.
“Oh, uh- I was going to go buy us breakfast. ” The elder looks up at him sheepishly. That dumbass grin of his is back. “Maybe next time?”
“Fine.” Ten can’t help the pout that forms in his lips. “But this better be some damn good breakfast.”
Johnny laughs, a deep but mostly silent chuckle that makes his shoulders shake, and gets up to press a light peck on his cheek. “Only the best for you.”
God, he’s so cheesy.
↣♥↢
By the time Ten comes out of the shower Johnny has come back, and has sat himself down at the small table in the corner of their room. It’s not really a dining table, much more a decorative coffee table at best, but they’ve maneuvered the armchairs around so they can use it for mealtimes. On it, there’s a single croissant sticking out of a paper bag, the crumbs all around it - and on the side of Johnny’s face - suggesting that there had once been a second croissant, now probably lost in the depths of Johnny’s stomach.
He looks up when the dancer steps into the room, offering him a small smile before turning his attention back to the map and travel guides he has sprawled out in front of him. None of the guides seem to be local.
Ten pulls on some boxers and a t-shirt then sits down opposite. He grabs hold of the bag and starts stuffing the remaining croissant into his mouth. It’s warm, freshly baked, and the insides of it melt in his mouth like butter.
“What are you doing?” He asks, even though he already knows. There’s still some food left in his mouth when he talks, and Johnny throws him a disapproving glance in protest of his table manners.
“I was just thinking about where we could go next.” Johnny explains. He has one of those disposable coffee cups in his hand that Ten’s only just noticed, and as he talks he takes small sips through the straw. “It’s probably about time we move on to somewhere new, right?”
Ten hums noncommittally.
Truth is, he doesn’t really want to ‘move on’, as Johnny puts it. As he always puts it. Ten never wants to move on, but he always does. He never complains too much about it either, partially because he’s afraid of what might happen if they don’t; that the ‘bad people’ might find them. That something bad might happen to Johnny.
Ten really wants to stay, but he doesn’t want to stay enough to risk Johnny’s safety, and he trusts the elder’s judgement. If he says it’s time to go he’s probably right.
They’ve been doing this for about two months now, this ‘roadtrip’. Running away. It had started at home, in Seoul, all the way down to Busan. Since then they’ve moved several times, only staying in each place for a week and a half at most. Not long enough to be detected, and not long enough to settle down properly either.
At first it had been fun, and exciting. Ten hadn’t seen much of Korea outside of Seoul, and the idea of exploring it with his relatively-new boyfriend had sounded like a dream come true. But now it was starting to become wearing. The constant change of scenery meant that he could never really adjust to their new surroundings, and whenever he finally started to get used to a place they’d vacate, once again leaving him feeling disoriented and restless. He was even starting to miss his old lifestyle, which is something that he never thought he would do. Life back in Seoul had felt unbearably miserable, brightened only by Johnny’s existence and the odd good outing with his friends. But he did miss those friends, for all their faults. Hell, he was even starting to miss some of his annoying classmates and the very worst of his professors. The fact he couldn’t contact a single one of them only made it worse.
Sometimes Ten catches himself thinking that he would like to go home. When he does it’s always followed by a deepset feeling of guilt. This is what he chose, this lifestyle, and it was a decision he made despite being aware of all that it entailed. He doesn’t get to back out now.
He’d known what he was losing, and he’d still chosen Johnny.
He’s torn out of his spiralling thoughts when a leaflet is unceremoniously pushed in front of his face. It advertises a small rural town down east, boasting of it’s beautiful woodlands and the fact that one of the largest butterfly parks in Korea was just thirty-five minutes away on the train. The photos look nice, but the graphics design on the cover ruins the whole thing. Who still uses 3d lettering for titles in this day and age? Some of the smaller font look suspiciously like Comic Sans.
“We could go here.” Johnny suggests, pulling the leaflet back only to push it into Ten’s hands.
Ten eyes the inside of the brochure with distrust. He isn’t sure he wants to go to a town whose graphic design team are this bad. “Hmm I don’t know… It doesn’t really seem like our kind of place.”
“Do you have any ideas?” The question is asked not unkindly, but with genuine curiosity. Johnny always asks for Ten’s input on these things, even though he never has much to say on the matter. Still, it’s the gesture that counts. And anyway, this time is different. This time Ten doesn’t just have an idea, no. Ten has a Plan.
“I do actually!” He says excitedly, getting a raised eyebrow in response. “Wait, give me a sec, I picked up a pamphlet about it.”
He rushes to his feet and starts rummaging through his rucksack. It only takes him a few seconds to remember that he didn’t put it in there, but in his belt bag. With a victorious cry he pulls the crumpled piece of paper from the bottom of the back pocket and brings it back to the table where Johnny waits expectantly.
“I want to go here!” He proclaims, thrusting the pamphlet into the elder’s hands. Johnny looks it up and down, his gaze taking on the same skeptical quality that Ten’s does when presented with a new location to visit. “They have a fireworks ceremony a couple of days from now and I really, really, really, really” He emphasizes the last ‘really’ to make sure he gets the point across. “Want us to go.”
“But Ten, this is back towards the coast… We just came from there.” Trust Johnny to find a problem with his perfect plan.
“But John” He mimics, grabbing hold of the pamphlet so he can hold it up in front of him. “There are fireworks! Pretty explosions! And a fair! And we could go see them together, I’ve always wanted to go watch fireworks on a date!”
Johnny stares at him, still looking doubtful. “You really want to go to this?”
“I dooo!” Ten does his best puppy eyes. If the way Johnny’s expression crumbles is any indication, then it works. “Please, please, please.”
“Fine!” He holds up his hands in defeat. “I’ll have to do a bit more research, but once we’ve figured out where to stay, we can go. Today or tomorrow maybe?”
“Okay!”
Despite Johnny’s assurances, they don’t manage to go ‘today’, or ‘tomorrow’ for that matter.
No, they leave it so late that by the time they climb onto the train to take them south, each carrying their own rucksacks and about five other bags they’ve acquired during the rest of the trip, Ten is panicking. He sits in the aisle seat, bouncing his leg up and down nervously and chewing the inside of his cheek. Realistically, there is absolutely no problem with leaving at the time they have, the journey only takes a few hours and they have until nightfall to get there and still see the fireworks, but that’s not what his brain is telling him.
In Ten’s head this is a disaster, because what if the train breaks down, or what if the station where they need to get off is closed for some reason and they just fly past it, or what if they miss their stop and have to try to get another train back in the opposite direction, only to discover that there are no trains heading that way today because of railworks or something like that or… It’s all made worse by the fact that Johnny seems entirely calm throughout this whole ordeal, seeming to find Ten’s anguish amusing, if a bit concerning. But Johnny doesn’t understand, of course he doesn't because he doesn’t know about Ten’s Plan.
The plan has to turn out perfectly. Johnny always does so many things for him, always initiates everything. This time it’s Ten’s turn. He gets to say it first, or, at least, that’s what he’s hoping. And what better place for a romantic gesture than on a beach with fireworks going off in the background, right?
It’ll be fine, Johnny tells him for the gazillionth time. Ten just hopes he’s right.
↢♥↣
The beach is already packed by the time they get there, even though it’s autumn and barely five in the afternoon and the display doesn’t start for another three hours. It seems like Ten wasn’t the only one who had the bright idea of turning up a few hours early to get a good spot. In fact, if the deck chairs, empty food cans and the odd tent are anything to go by, some people have been here since the early hours of the morning.
The two of them trudge through the sand, each carrying a plastic bag with their provisions for the evening: mostly food, but also sweaters for when it gets cold and towels to sit on that they had ‘borrowed’ from their last hotel. The towels seem to miraculously already have sand all over them, so it’s unlikely the hotel wants them back anyway.
There are a lot of families here, Ten thinks. Every once in a while they have to stop or move out of the way to avoid bumping into one of the hundreds of children who are madly running around, apparently without supervision. Of course there are also couples and big groups of college friends drinking beer and all that jazz, however the proportion of parents with small children is unlike anything he’s ever seen. Well, not never, but certainly not since he was a child himself. It makes him feel strangely nostalgic, a feeling that only increases when he realises that lots of the people here are tourists. They have seen this many tourists in one place since they left home.
Not home, he corrects himself, just Seoul.
Ten tries to stop thinking about it, and hopes and prays that he doesn’t hear any kids speaking Thai or he might just start crying.
He wanders over to where Johnny has unceremoniously dumped his own bag on the floor, the contents of it spilling out onto the sand. The smile that the elder offers him when Ten hands him a towel instantly makes him feel better.
Places like this would have made the dancer feel nervous, once upon a time. Large crowds meant there was a bigger risk that someone would do something that would trigger his anxiety, and that would always bring him to worry about having an episode and ruining the night for everyone. Or, even worse, getting lost in the masses and there being no one around to help him when he inevitably panicked. Busy spaces always felt dangerous, and, more than that, they were always lonely.
Now though, huddled under a blanket with Johnny while the two of them drink cheap cider that tastes truly disgusting and laugh about nothing and everything, he doesn’t feel any of that. Ten feels safe, and calm, and most of all he feels loved.
And what else can he do except try to express that love?
A cheer rips through the audience around them as the first bang goes off. Ten jumps out of his skin at the sound of it, partly because it’s so loud and partly because he hadn’t been expecting it. He hadn’t even noticed when it got dark.
Apparently neither had Johnny, judging by the surprised look on his face. The shock quickly fades into a smile though, and he pulls Ten closer under the blanket so that they’re pressed up against each other. The younger sighs happily before burying his head in his chest, watching the beginning of the fireworks go off out of the corner of his eye.
There are five little rockets to start, one going off every two minutes like a countdown, and they’re a bit disappointing, but once the show gets started it is truly a spectacle to behold. Peonies and Chrysanthemums adorn the sky in more colours than Ten knew fireworks could be, with the odd Horsetail shell and smaller explosion thrown in for good measure. Johnny also claims to have seen several fountains along the shoreline, but they’re too far back and Ten can’t see anything that low down, so he’ll just have to take his word for it.
Every couple of minutes there’s a minute break in the frequency of pyrotechnics and everyone starts applauding thinking the whole display is over, only for more to start going off seconds later.
Whenever one of these pauses happens Ten feels worry bubble up in his chest, thinking that he’s missed his chance, and every time they start up again he breathes out a sigh of relief. It does give him a sense of certain urgency though, one that grows stronger and stronger until he’s sitting up suddenly and pulling the blanket off himself to stare Johnny straight in the eye. His boyfriend merely looks at him curiously, cocking his head to one side in question. Damn him for being so cute.
“I…” Ten starts, before an extraordinarily loud bang startles him and the words die in his throat. Come on, he berates himself, just say it. But for some reason that’s very hard to do. “I just wanted to say that I…”
Another loud bang.
“I lo…”
Bang.
“I… you.”
Bang.
“I love you!” Ten shouts so loudly the he feels instantly embarrassed, cheeks turning a furious shade of pink. But it’s alright, because he’s done it now. He’s what he wanted to say, what he’s wanted to say all this time.
Three words that he’s only ever told one other person, but that he now wants to give to Johnny.
Johnny, who’s still staring at him with the same blank expression as he was a couple of minutes ago. Johnny, who leans in closer, so close that Ten hopes he’s going to kiss him, but who instead just shouts “What did you say?!” right in the younger’s ear.
Because of course, the fireworks are beautiful, and romantic, and unique, and all the other hundreds of positive attributes that Ten gave them in his mind when he was formulating his perfect plan... But they’re also loud as f*ck. And even though Ten insisted they came all the way here, and built up all his courage to get those words out, Johnny couldn’t hear him.
The Thai man groans and buries his face in the heels of his palms. How could he have been so stupid?! He’d wanted everything to be perfect and now it was all ruined. He couldn’t even bear to watch the fireworks anymore, although the were probably ending by now. He vaguely registers Johnny rubbing reassuring circle into his shoulder. Stupid perfect Johnny and his stupid perfect face and stupid perfect smile. If only his stupid hearing was perfect too.
“Ten? Baby? You okay?” He hears the elder saying softly. It takes him a moment to realise that the bangs have stopped, as has the cheering, and that everyone around them is now is just chatting away happily. “Were the fireworks too loud? Do you want us to go somewhere quieter?”
Ten shakes his head without looking up. “I’m good.”
“You’re clearly not. Come on, let’s get you out of here-”
“I said I’m fine!” Ten half-screams before he can stop himself. Their eyes meet and he watches as Johnny frowns, clearly kind of hurt. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, just tell me what happened.” Damn him for being so nice and caring. It only makes Ten feel worse. “You were so happy and excited until a few minutes ago, and then you… Did you say something? And now you’re all grumpy.”
“I’m not grumpy.” Okay, maybe a little. “I just…” The dancer groans again, running a hand through his hair. “I had this plan, for something I was going to do, during the fireworks, and I wanted it to be perfect but it didn’t work and now I’m disappointed. And it sucks, you know, because I wanted to do something nice for you for once.”
“A plan? For me?” A shit-eating grin spreads across Johnny’s face. Ten just nods. “That’s so sweet baby, thank you. Even though it didn’t work it still makes me really happy to know you put so much thought into it.”
“Yeah?” Ten perks up a bit at that.
“Of course.” Johnny sighs and pulls his boyfriend back into his lap, where Ten immediately curls up into a ball. If any of the passers-by around them mind how close they are to each other, none of them say anything. “Although I don’t like the way you worded that. What do you mean ‘for once’? You do so much for me already. Hell, you ever agreed to come on this damn trip with me even though you didn’t even know me that well. I mean, who even does that? Abandones everything and sets off on a cross country trip with their boyfriend of less than three months, and with no means of communication? You’re something else, Ten.” He pauses for a second, once again pensive. “I don’t think I ever… thanked you for that, not properly. It meant so much to me at the time. It still does. You may feel like you don’t but you do so much for me Ten, and I love you for it.”
And just like that, Ten freezes.
“What did you just say?”
“I said you do so much for me.” Johnny, beautiful, oblivious Johnny, says, as if he’s only telling him what’s the grocery list or something. “And that I love you.”
Immediately Ten is, once again, scrambling out of the confines of the blanket and half-leaping to one side, raising an accusing finger at his very bewildered boyfriend. “You… you can’t just say that!”
“Say what?”
“T-that!”
“What? ‘I love you’?” Every time the words leave his mouth Ten feels a new wave of warm and endearment wash over him, along with another equally strong wave of annoyance. “Why not? You say it through text all the time.”
“That’s different!” Ten whines, fighting the temptation to Eat His Own Damn Fist. “Texting and saying it in person is different! I was going to say it first.”
“Ten, baby, I’m sure I’ve said it before. I remember when…” Johnny trails off suddenly, his eyes widening comically as the realisation comes crashing down on him. If not for the children screaming and laughing around them, this would have been a very tense moment. Instead it just feels kind of stupid, both of them staring at each other opened mouthed as Johnny whispers out a small “Oh.”
In retrospect Ten’s not exactly sure who breaks the silence first, but before they know it they’re rolling around on the sand, practically sobbing with laughter because wow, they’re both so stupid. Absolute fools. Ten thinks that this relationship must be meant to be, because there’s no way there are another two dumbasses out there who compliment each other so well. There’s sand all over their clothes now, and probably in their hair too, and the towels have been rendered absolutely pointless, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because Johnny loves him too. And that’s all that will ever matter, really.
“Is that what you wanted to say then?” Johnny asks finally, once they’ve both managed to catch their breaths and make out for a hot minute before a nearby mum cleared her throat as a way of asking them to stop. “You made me come all the way here just to tell me you love me?”
“Shut up, it’s romantic!” Ten punches his shoulder lightly. “It would have worked too, if it wasn’t for the fireworks.”
“Ten, we literally came here for the fireworks.”
“I know, I know! I'm a moron and I should have thought this through better, blah blah blah. I assure you there’s nothing you could tell me that I haven’t already told myself.”
“You are a moron.” Johnny says a little too happily. Ten glares at him for as long as he can manage without breaking into a smile again (which is not very long at all). “But you’re my moron and I love you.”
“I love you too, stupid.”