Archive of Our Own

It’s the same kind of warm-smoothness as six minutes ago, but, this time, instead of a neon sign, they’re standing in front of a painting of a sea, and in the sea there’s a boat, and Minghao doesn’t say “We should hold hands for this picture,” with his camera out.

“I love this,” Minghao whispers, staring in awe.

The painting. He’s talking about the painting.

This time, there is no preamble to the press of Minghao’s palm, or to their hands clasped together, becoming a clam. A nice clam. Hansol moves carefully to scratch around his nose ring.

“It’s pretty cool.”

“I tried painting water using green paint once.”

Strokes of white scatter across bottle-green waves – small and flitting, large and messy. There’s yellow in the crests. The boat is not perfectly in the middle.

“And?”

“It looked weird. It looked – it became this unintentional surrealist thing. It was more like a field of flowers with a dolphin jumping out of it than the ocean.”

A dolphin among a hill of flowers. Maybe Minghao’s sea was yellow-green, something less blue, so the whites would probably look like daisies instead of foam. The brush would rest against the bones of his fingers, and his hair would skim his temples, and it’d be afternoon because he likes the lighting and mood the most.

“That’s kinda nice,” Hansol says.

“But it was weird and I wanted to paint the ocean.” Minghao checks the time on his brown leather-strap watch. “Half an hour until closing. C’mon.” He lets go of Hansol’s hand.

Hansol only notices the stripes of navy blue on the left-most part of the sea when he walks away from it. It’s vaguely out of place; not quite a sore thumb, but it’s there, and he can’t help thinking about it.

After the museum, they get lunch and ice cream, and Minghao takes them to his place. He talked a lot at the beginning – the most Hansol has ever heard out of him in the few times they’ve seen each other in the past year and a half. They passed the playground and Minghao launched into a story about when he moved into the city for the first time. Finding a house was easy, he said. Settling down was not.

“House-hunting didn’t stress you out at all?” Hansol asked.

“Of course it did. Felt like a chicken running around house to house. But that isn’t the hardest part of moving someplace new. It’s been three years since I stepped out of that airport and I’m still not super used to being here.” He brushed a leaf off his ear.

“I don’t think three years is that long at all. You couldn’t get used to a place that quick.”

“I guess not. In any case, I thought it was the loneliness. But I’m not lonely. That’s not the problem.”

“I'm not, either, but... yeah.”

Minghao glanced at him. “I always forget you’re not from here.”

They passed some more houses and some kids cycling together, helmets on their heads and pads on their joints.

“Look, that house over there?” Minghao placed a hand on Hansol’s shoulder and leaned in, pointing at a direction Hansol couldn’t quite catch. “I wanted to live there.”

“Where?”

“There. See it?”

Nope. “Why didn’t you?”

“There were too many trees. I could barely see anything outside.”

In this sprawling neighbourhood, there’s a huge lake with brown ducks waddling around and gliding on water. For a second, Hansol thought they were fake, but one of them let out a quack. The houses are dizzyingly identical things of beige, dark blues, and grays. The low sun bounces off every surface: windows, roofs, cars lined down the glistening driveways, Hansol’s white sneakers, the two diamantes on the corners of Minghao’s sunglasses.

When they stop walking, Minghao asks, “You’re not heading home yet, are you?” and Hansol wants to say yes, actually, I am, but Minghao’s already unlocking the gate. It’s pale green, wraps around the front yard to the unseen back of the house, and kind of useless seeing how short it is.

“Nope,” he says instead, biting down on his ice cream cone to resist the urge to hike his leg up and climb over.

It’s not like Hansol has anything better to do. He supposes, from Minghao’s small smile, that Minghao knows that as much as he does.

They cross the unassuming front yard and head inside. “Take your shoes off,” Minghao says, and Hansol does. The floor is smooth marble, and Hansol can see his reflection on it. The walls and furniture are beige and white, broken only by the red of the couch cushions. The kitchen’s got a touch of wood from the shelves and island.

“I’ll kick you out if you spill anything on the rug,” Minghao warns, a little suddenly, lighting the lavender-scented candle on the coffee table.

It feels as though Minghao’s been the only person that’s lived in this house ever. Which was technically the case, but boyfriends happen. Then they unhappen, and you’re back to being the sole occupant of whatever space you’re in. The personal bubble becomes personal once more. That bubble never bursts, really. It stretches to accommodate people.

You wouldn’t, Hansol wants to say in retaliation, but steps off the ornate thing. He strolls towards the paintings hung up along the wall by the giant potted plant near the stairs.

They’re all by people no one really knows. Small local artists, he assumes. He stops in front of one he happens to recognise. It’s a pencil sketch of a child in the rain, black and white all over.

“This is Mingyu’s,” Hansol notes.

Minghao slips his shoes into the rack by the front door. “What is?”

There’s a familiar silver scrawl at the bottom right hand corner, bold and neat. Hansol’s seen it in a gallery somewhere, some time last year. “This painting.”

“It is.” Minghao doesn’t miss a beat. Maybe came in half a beat too quick. Too soon, apparently. Sometimes, nonchalance gives away too much. Hansol regrets the harmless comment. “Come upstairs,” Minghao says. “I wanted to show you something.”

Hansol follows his fading footsteps.

The second floor studio mimics the first floor in its showroom neatness. Towards the back of the room is a table, and on it are three clean wooden palettes stacked like pancakes. A metal one rests to the side, next to some jars of brushes. Blank canvases lean against the wall to the left side. Warm light seeps through a vast window. Two beanbags slouch near another big potted plant. An easel stands a little way away from the window at the back of the room, with a stool in front of it. A half-empty bottle of wine rests by the foot of the stool. Minghao rushes to pick it up and goes back downstairs to get rid of it.

Part of the ceiling is carved out into a large square and turned into glass. Watching a chunk of the sky through it always makes Hansol feel like he’s in a movie, or like something big’s about to crash through and fall on him. He stands right under it and basks.

“What are you doing,” Minghao intones, re-entering the room. He looks confused, but amused. Hansol shrugs.

Minghao crosses the room, making his way over to the windowsill, and picks up a small clay pot sitting idly. Hansol pops the last bit of ice cream cone into his mouth.

“Is that it?” There’s nothing but soil in it.

“Iceland poppies,” Minghao says, nodding. “I planted them yesterday.”

“When’ll they bloom?”

“Spring, I think.”

“That’s a long way away.”

Minghao pulls up his black shirt from where it had slipped over his shoulder. “I felt like growing something after watching a show about house plants with Soonyoung.”

The way he sends Hansol a quick look when he says the name does not go under Hansol’s radar. It’s odd how Minghao and Soonyoung ended up being friends. Well, it’s not like polarity ever stopped people from coming together. Hansol hasn’t seen him in a while. They talked, kind of, but that was almost five months ago.

“He’s into plants now?” Hansol traces a finger along the pot's rim. Sometimes he wonders if it’s cool to hang out again.

“Somewhat. He’s trying to grow a sunflower, and yesterday he bought two succulents.”

“Bet you a hundred the succulents die but the sunflower survives somehow.”

Minghao laughs softly, like he isn’t sure if he should or not. He puts the pot down and sweeps his palms over his wide-legged trousers, falling silent in time with Hansol.

There was a time one sweaty summer, in that house with terracotta flooring, where Soonyoung really wanted a pet of his own. When he and Hansol got to the pet shop, he ended up chickening out because he was scared he’d somehow kill it. Maybe a plant is a better choice for him, but Hansol always wagered he’d be totally fine with a turtle or something.

“You have a lizard, right?” Minghao asks.

The gurgling in Hansol’s chest stops halfway, and fizzles off. “I do.” Whatever is left runs down his arms.

“That's pretty hard to take care of.”

Hansol runs fingers through his hair. “Compared to plants? Well, yeah. But Alice is great.”

“Why’d you name her Alice?”

Hansol laughs at that, at the same time as a brilliant idea smacks him in the back of the head. “You should come over and see her some time.”

Minghao hesitates. “Sure.”

“Sure?”

“I don't really like lizards.”

“She likes people.”

“She... does? Look, I’m fine if it’s locked away.”

“She likes people's shoulders.”

Minghao visibly shudders. “That’s disgusting. Sorry. It’s the scales… they look like they’re supposed to be wet, but they’re not.” Red blooms across his face. He looks constipated, teetering between revulsion and embarrassment.

Hansol grins. “Not gonna lie, that only makes me want to put her on your shoulder.”

“Don’t.”

“I won’t, ‘cause you might not wanna come back, and that’d be a real shame.”

Minghao quirks a brow. “Yeah? Would it?”

“Real big shame.”

“If you say so.”

The art room is brighter – whiter – than downstairs. Hansol’s gaze keeps going back to the clean, empty canvases. He hasn’t painted in so long. The last time he held an actual real life paintbrush was in sixth grade art class. Then they started doing pottery. And then they went back to paintbrushes, but this time with watercolours, so it’s way harder, but much cooler. His mom would always tell people “He’s careful with his hands, but not the most gentle.” She said maybe he’d do better with instruments or construction work. (“Little drummer boy,” she said one day, out of the blue, after dinner. He should be in bed but Mom let him watch her paint. It’s a big one this time round, for an exhibition on bar-tailed godwits. “I think I’m pretty grown,” Hansol replied, at age ten. She cocked a brow at him, wiping her cheek and leaving a streak of white on the skin. “Medium-sized drummer boy, then,” she says. “Medium-sized?” he echoed. “Interesting.”) Thinking about Mom makes him miss her, which makes him miss Dad and Sofia. He’s not really one to get misty-eyed, but he sure fuckin’ wishes they could see each other more often.

“Where are your paintings?” Hansol asks.

“In my room.”

“You hang your paintings up in there?”

“The ones I like." Minghao twirls a paintbrush around his fingers. "I keep the rest in the spare room.”

“Can I see them? The ones in your room?”

“I knew you’d ask,” he says, smiling all of a sudden.

Hansol frowns. “Is that a yes?”

Minghao taps the head of the paintbrush to fit it back into the jar. “No, not right now. I’m replacing the autumn paintings for the winter ones.”

“Whoa, what?”

“I paint things for the seasons.” Three for every season, he explains. It's a rule of his.

“That’s efficient. You wouldn’t have art blocks,” Hansol muses.

“I still do,” Minghao says, “but it’s bearable to have something to paint even on days where you can't. Even when it’s not yours.”

"Mm. Sure. Yeah."

Maybe that’s what life is to Minghao. Just bearing things. Hansol doesn’t quite know what life is like to him, but he doesn’t feel the need to think about it. (He doesn’t think he knows how to.) Going through the motions is enough. Feeling things, he thinks, is enough.

Somewhat inexplicably, he stays for dinner. They go through Minghao’s fridge but Hansol isn’t in the mood for vegetables, so he gets take out while Minghao fixes something up for himself. Hansol congratulates him on the veganism.

“I’m not vegan,” Minghao says, not getting that it’s a joke, and Hansol holds back laughter as he rifles through Minghao’s DVDs under the television.

“Right. Sorry.”

It sounds like Minghao has said these exact words before, with the same pauses and inflections, to someone else in the past.

Hansol passes the shrinking joint, blowing smoke out.

“No idea,” he says.

And Minghao falls into this great quiet. He has a lot of Great Quiets.

It was 21:50 the last time Hansol checked his phone, which was thirty seconds ago. Earlier, Seungcheol texted him out of nowhere. He asked Hansol how he was, to which Hansol didn’t have a clear answer for. He said:

Sk told me there’s this beach 2 hrs away
It’s full of crabs lol
Kinda wanna go
9:40

Seungcheol’s reply came seconds later. He must’ve been bored.

In autumn?? It’d be freezing haha
Didn’t know we had beaches
9:40

I almost died on a beach
9:42

“Do you ever think about what love means?” was Minghao’s question, as Hansol thought about dying on a beach. “I always do. What is it really? There's too many definitions.”

Pretty sure there’s a movie about that
9:44

This was in high school
Never go to the beach drunk haha
I swam into the deep rocky end. Not a great swimmer. Nearly drowned if not for stevie
9:47

Hansol had wanted to say, “It depends on the person,” but Minghao wouldn’t have taken that. He said “No idea,” anyway, knowing that that wouldn’t be satisfying either. But fuck if anyone knows.

Smoke pours out Minghao’s parted lips. “No one I asked had an answer.”

“Exactly.”

Leading questions – pretty sure that was what they were called. A memory of Mr. Benson talking from his desk in period two Psych in high school resurfaces. “They lead to a desired answer,” he said, with his deep rumble. “A nudge of the mind.” Minghao’s eyes flash ghost-white when moonlight hits them. Hansol takes the joint from him, their fingers touching briefly.

“What do you think?” Hansol asks.

“Your hand’s cold,” Minghao says. Then, with a sigh, “I don't know!”

The crickets sing and sing and sing. Somebody jogs past them, sneakers crunching on dirt and leaves. In the sky, three bright stars line up next to each other. Hansol sits up straighter, squinting.

“I think that’s Orion.”

Minghao looks up as well.

“See those?” Hansol points.

“Hard to miss.” In a blink, Minghao's gaze turns wistful. “They're beautiful.”

"Auroras are way cooler. Just, like, literal wonders. Ever seen them?"

Minghao lets out a scoff. "Who do you think I am, flying around watching auroras? I'd love to, one day. They're sort of romantic." He stares at Orion for a little while longer, then reaches out and tugs Hansol’s hoodie, beckoning to the joint with his finger. Hansol hesitates for a second, but hands it over.

“I didn’t pack it all the way.”

Minghao smokes it, maintaining eye contact, then chokes on his inhale and coughs a shit ton. Hard-head.

“Just paper, bro.”

Straight-faced, Minghao crushes it under the heel of his boot. “I find it impossible to paint lately,” he says as he tamps down. He says it like it’s a fact. Like, “Frogs are amphibians,” or, “Birds have many bones that are hollow.”

Hansol props his legs up onto the bench. “Sometimes I have trouble writing when I’m super tired or when I find out I missed three of Philomena’s online pop quizzes. I just don’t write until I do again.”

Minghao, for the first time, fidgets. He wrings his hands together, one of them travels up his wrist, and fingers tap anxiously along the bone. It lasted all of maybe two seconds and Hansol thought he was projecting. But then it’s like a glass has broken, along with everything calm about Minghao, and he’s withered and strung-out and sad. “Mingyu and I broke up two years ago today and I can never paint when I think about him.”

And Hansol can’t figure out for the life of him if the glass was in front of his own eyes this whole time or if Minghao had it up like an armour.

His face crumples. “Isn’t that stupid?” He had probably held it in the whole day, wanted to say it since he rang the doorbell to Hansol’s place, since he tried feeding Alice a cricket, since he woke up this morning.

“That’s tough,” Hansol churns out. I understand. I know. I knew. He shakes his head. “It’s not stupid.”

Minghao stares straight ahead, at the darkened trees and the darkened dirt path and the darkened stream they crossed earlier instead of taking the long, roundabout way. They probably left wet shoe prints somewhere.

Hansol’s no stranger to a break-up. It sucks. It stings. Moping about it sucks more, but that’s something he learned after the fact.

“If you look hard enough,” Hansol says, carefully, “there’s plenty of other things to think about.”

Minghao waits.

“What’s better than your ex? Focus on that. And then… you’ll feel better.”

“Move on, right?” Something flares up in Minghao’s voice. Defense. Frustration.

“I’m telling you how to.” Hansol’s never noticed the bags under his eyes before. But how do you do that? he knows Minghao probably wants to ask. And the truth is he doesn’t know, and it probably doesn’t matter anyway, because at some point, you just gotta start. That’s what matters.

(“Chiaroscuro. It’s an intense play between light and dark; but there’s something soft about it, too, right?” The sketch was of a girl reading a book and biting her thumbnail. Hansol asked if she knew Minghao was drawing her, knowing that she definitely didn’t. Minghao said of course not, it’s better that way.)

“The least fun part is when you start questioning stuff,” Hansol goes on. “It’s like you’re on autopilot but the controls are fucked.”

“Mm, exactly. And then you crash and die.”

“I came out just fine. Couple fractures, but you’ll be fine, too. Just… you know. Make sure the controls are okay this time, I guess.” Hansol spares mentioning that the fractures have healed but nothing’s the same. Bones are constantly realigning. Lungs. Heart. Brain. He has a feeling Minghao knows all this; he just needs somebody to word it different. “You’ll paint again.”

Minghao swallows, softening a bit. Serenity, however little, floods back into the lines on his face. “That’s the plan.” The moon, dancing on his skin.

Seungcheol is chewing the inside of his mouth, drumming his fingers against the hi-hat, wearing Hansol’s lime green hoodie he stole a few months ago. Not like Hansol has ever asked for it back.

“Winter’s coming.”

He announces it like he’s about to lead his men into battle or something, burning holes at the floor by Seokmin’s feet with his laser-focused gaze. “We gotta get some new songs done, then play a gig,” he says. “Warm the people up. We did jack in summer and autumn. I’ve got a song in the oven.” He sends a pointed look at Hansol.

Hansol does not believe in pushing music like that, but he gets it. As the lead singer and founder of them, Seungcheol's got the whole band in his square, loving, reliable hands, so Hansol trusts his decisions.

Slouched against the only sofa in the back of the garage, Jeonghan raises his hand. The egg cartons plastered on the wall behind him are begging to be drawn on, but Seungcheol’s like don’t do that, that’s for soundproofing, as if drawing on them would affect soundproofing at all. Hansol looks for the Dalmatian he doodled secretly two weeks ago.

“What?” Seungcheol demands.

Jeonghan’s arm flops down listlessly but his eyes are gleaming. “We should do a mosh pit.”

“What? No. Why?”

“What do you mean why? It's culture."

“Oh fuck, there's this video... I'll show you later but people do the goofiest shit in pits, you'd be surprised,” Seokmin adds, head on Jeonghan’s lap.

Seungcheol's mouth is twisted in distaste. “Just 'cause it's culture doesn't mean we have to subscribe to it. They're awful. Lucas got his nose broken twice.”

“They're not always violent, though,” Jeonghan counters.

“They can be! You wanna stand and watch a bunch of people crack their fuckin' femurs and whatever else? Also, I don't think we're super moshy. Are we?”

"Oh, good point. I don't think so, no," Seokmin says.

Jeonghan purses his lips. “Shame.”

Seokmin quietly chants, “Shame, shame, shame, shame.” Seungcheol glares at Jeonghan, who guilelessly stares back, and not even five seconds into their weirdly sexually charged staring contest does Seungcheol start snorting about how freaky Jeonghan’s bug eyes are. Hansol attempts to strum the Seinfeld bassline.

During their break much, much later, Hansol quickly writes a joke verse about being so obviously, grossly whipped for someone and yet doing nothing about it. He shows Seokmin.

“Asshole.” Seokmin laughs, pushing the notebook to Hansol’s chest. “He’s old. Forgive him.”

Hansol closes it and rubs his butt-cheeks, gazing longingly at the way Seokmin is sprawled out on the sofa. Great seats these milk crates do not make. Seungcheol piled into the garage with them one day with Jeonghan close behind. “Found these behind the convenience store; my manager said they’re all mine if I wanted them.” He was toting two in each hand because he could, or because he was trying to impress Jeonghan, or both. It was windy and warm.

(“Have you learned his name yet?” Jeonghan chastised in that half-serious way of his.

“I should.”

It wasn’t until Hansol started working there months later that Seungcheol finally got the manager’s name. He was an elusive man, and it was a small store.)

Hansol shakes hair out of his eyes and gets two epiphanies from the motion of it; firstly about how maybe a haircut would be nice, but that one’s less important.

“I should ask Minghao to come to our gig.”

Seokmin yawns. “Who’s that?” His sweater is comically small on him but he loves it to death because it’s got a picture of a cartoon hamster wearing sunglasses. Hansol can’t really say anything, though; he owns a sweater with a peeling print of an alien cat.

“He goes to Avalon. He’s a painter.”

Seokmin’s brows shoot up. “A rich painter.” Yeah, Avalon’s full of upper-crust twits, but Minghao isn’t like that. Not on the inside, anyway. “What does he paint?”

Hansol can see it. Minghao, sitting in a bar, wearing one long, dangly earring, and a clean shirt with one of those loose pants that kinda look like skirts. He’d look like an oddball amongst the regular goers. Too clean, too upper-crust, perfectly out of place.

“He does these paintings that, like… they look like if you were looking at something through frosted glass.”

“Abstract?”

“No idea, man.”

“That’s sick. I heard painters are great in bed.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“I don't know. Is it true?”

Hansol’s nostrils flare. “I don't know?”

“Oh, you’re not fucking.”

Hansol slowly shakes his head, making sure Seokmin knows he’s being judged very hard.

“You could’ve started with that.” He is, of course, unfazed. “Now I’m bored. Kidding. You should bring him along! Get his friends to come too.”

Jeonghan and Seokmin both went home at twelve-thirty a.m., leaving the other two behind to work on Seungcheol’s new song. At about two-twenty, they got a rough draft and a couple melodies sorted out, and that’s the most progress they’ve ever made on a song in a long while. The words sounded angry, spiteful, a departure from the sappy, piney stuff Seungcheol usually writes. Hansol told him as much. Seungcheol merely said, “I know,” and unplugged his guitar, placing his effects pedal on top of the amp.

Hansol is sagged on the sofa, brain juices melted out of his ears and dripping down his neck. Seungcheol beams down at him, eye bags heavy. He plops down on the nearest crate and offers Hansol a dart. Hansol refuses. “It’s banana,” Seungcheol says, and to that Hansol says, “It’s still gross.”

The lighter clicks once, twice.

Hansol rests his head against the wall and lets his lids slip shut as Seungcheol takes a drag. The scent of smoke floats and becomes friends with the walls and their hair. It’s a blissful, tired quiet for a while.

“Hey.” Seungcheol’s voice drifts, later. “Don’t fall asleep.”

“’m not.”

“I’m about to say something important.”

“Mm.”

“Jeonghan’s friend’s setting us up at this small music festival. It's in a few months. You should write something and play it then.”

Hansol cracks one eye open. Seungcheol is fixing him with a look behind overgrown bangs.

“I’ve seen your stuff. They’re pretty good,” he goes on. “And I’d go insane if I had to keep playing Ferns or Timber.”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Seungcheol smokes his cigarette, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

Hansol watches smoke rings float and disappear. “A whole album of new songs would be nice.”

“I’m just waiting for you lot to graduate,” Seungcheol says. “But that’s my point. You should get a song out there, you know, in the meantime.”

Hansol’s a bass guy; that’s what he does and loves doing. Lyrics are secondary. He writes bits and pieces; for Seungcheol, for no one, for himself, all deaf to melody and rhyme. Sure as hell isn’t the same as writing a full song, and then playing that song – his song – to people. Total strangers. He never had a desire to, but…

“Wait.” He frowns, a record-scratch screech in his head. “You’ve seen my stuff?”

Seungcheol bites his bottom lip in a grin and takes another drag, then gets up. He grabs a tattered brown notebook from a wooden shelf filled with old, dusty knick-knacks and tosses it to Hansol.

“What the –” Hansol’s face falls, barely catching it. Shit, when did he nab that? “That’s stealing.”

“But now I know you’re a genius!” Seungcheol plucks the cigarette out his mouth ‘cause he can never keep it there for too long when he’s talking, try as he might. “And a dickhead. Jeonghan’s totally out of my league.”

“Leagues don’t really exist.”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. Go home, prince. Get some shut-eye.”

Hansol blinks down at the sofa. “Could I get some shut-eye right here?”

Seungcheol lets out a hearty laugh. “Yeah, sure. Take, um, take Angela’s bed, she’s gone for the weekend.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Your roommates seem to be totally cool with your monthly disappearing act.”

Hansol gets up and holds back a yawn. “I like your house.”

Seungcheol musses his hair. “Do you like yours?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good.”

“…and I wasn’t even that upset about him taking my notebook.”

The next day comes too soon. Seokmin is busy trying to study for a quiz that they both have in three days and Hansol is busy picking out the blue gummy bears to eat. Studying in libraries sucks and never works.

(“And you’re tagging along why?”

“I just wanna be with you.”

“Okay, cutie.”)

“Any ideas?”

Hansol bites down on a bear’s head. “Nope.”

Seokmin snorts. “Buddy.”

“I don’t wanna half-ass it.” Hansol leans back in his chair so it teeters on its hind legs.

“So, like, wait, he saw the whole song? The one about Jeonghan?”

“Probably.”

“That’s pretty funny. He’s such a softie. He’s right, though, about you writing stuff.” Seokmin sniffles and dabs his nose with his sweater sleeve. “I’m starting to get sick of Timber.”

Hansol catches a gummy in his mouth and frowns. “Nobody seems to like that song.”

Seokmin yawns. He doesn’t even look like he’s focusing on anything. He’s flipping pages, looking at words but not reading.

Hansol gets up from his seat, and it scrapes quietly against the carpet. “Alright. See ya.”

“Oh. Okay?” Seokmin watches him walk off and wave. He looks between the exit and the textbook before decidedly gathering up his stuff.

The cold gnaws at Hansol’s fingers and cheeks. Some guy runs past him and almost knocks the pack of gummies out of his hand. He tugs his beanie further down the back of his neck and pulls his hoodie up. He should’ve worn a coat. Temperatures here drop heavy and quick, unlike back home. Back home you’d never get a day under eighteen. The coldest days there are warm winter days here.

Hansol’s got plenty of ditties in his notebook, but they’re old words – some better as additions to Seungcheol’s songs, and some he’d really like to keep to himself. He wants something completely new, something he and his notebook has never seen before.

For the first time in a long while, he feels a thrum of nervousness. He starts to laugh at it.

“Don't do that, you look cuckoo.” Seokmin, who’s caught up and stuffing his textbook into his backpack, looks on.

Hansol stuffs his hands into his pockets. “I have no clue what I’m gonna do.”

“You'll come up with something cool anyway.”

He breathes out, feeling something more than air escape his chest. It gets filled back in with anticipation, and he fights a smile.

By sundown, after an aimless walk, he ended up at Minghao’s. Seokmin left to go meet some girl just before Hansol rounded the corner of Minghao’s street. (They’re probably together one way or another because Seokmin got all weird talking about her one time. Hansol didn’t even ask.) He stayed until the sun went out.

Minghao’s backyard is small and well-lit. The grass is trimmed all neat. On the clothesline next to the shed, shirts and pants hang like limp ghosts. The coat Minghao lent him is a little narrow around the shoulders but it’s keeping him snug. The soup they had was warming, but it’s kind of wearing off.

“You’re not listening.”

Hansol turns the song down. Marietta is too good and too distracting. “Sorry. I am now.”

“I asked you,” Minghao pokes him in the cheek, “about when you started playing bass.”

His back hurts from where he’s leaning against the sliding glass door leading into the living room, but he doesn’t dare move with Minghao against his side. “Bass. Uh. I started in sixth grade. But I stopped for a while in the eighth grade. Wait, I think that’s Venus.”

There’s a silver spot in the sky, bigger and brighter than the rest of the stars. Minghao looks up as well.

“Ah, maybe not?” Hansol points to a much larger spot to the left of it. “That, though, is the moon for sure. She’s super full today.”

There’s shapes around the stars. Between them. In them. He could… write about… launching yourself up there and floating forever. Hm. Nah.

“Why’d you stop?” Minghao asks.

“Grandpa died, so we went to this place an hour away from home for the funeral, and that was a couple days long, so I couldn’t take lessons while I was gone.” He cracks his neck. “But I caught up really quick. Easy.”

“I think I’ve said this before, but you look like you’ve lived here all your life.”

Hansol doesn’t know what that looks like. Minghao doesn’t elaborate.

Home was six hours away by plane; his family’s two-storey townhouse; the park he went to every weekend in elementary school and a lot less in middle and high school. Now, home is his house shared with Big and Alice. Home has always been his parents and kid sister and Seungkwan, and maybe one day home will be the people he’s met here. He wonders when that’ll be.

“Home changes all the time,” Hansol says.

“I was just about to say that,” Minghao replies.

He throws Minghao a glance. Minghao in his thick turtleneck, hair falling soft over his forehead and just a little past his lashes.

“Come watch me and my band play some time.”

“You and your band?”

“Yeah, might’ve heard of us.”

Minghao smiles. He's got the kind that changes his whole face. It's pretty insane. Shocking like a small firework. “Bigshots, are you?”

“Totally. Nah, um, we're playing at this mid-winter festival in two months. You might’ve actually heard of that.”

“Seungkwan mentioned it a couple times.” Minghao yawns and rests his head on Hansol’s shoulder, and Hansol shifts to accommodate the new weight. “Sounds fun.”

“You’ll come?”

“Why not?” His voice cracks on the last syllable. “Is Seungkwan coming?”

“Probably not.” He’s who Hansol likes to call a faithful downloader. He whispers, “My back really hurts.”

Minghao looks him over, then stands, dusting off his checkered pyjama pants. He offers a hand, nails bare and fingers loosely curled. Hansol takes it.

“I hope you’re seeing somebody,” isn’t the best greeting ever, but it’s Seungkwan, so it goes.

“Say hi to Big if you can’t say hi to me,” Hansol says.

“Hi Big.”

“Ouch,” Hansol says. He moves stuff out of the way to set it down on the coffee table. The glass surface seems to take a large intake of air at the now empty space. He flops backwards onto the couch, accidentally nudging Big in the shoulder.

Big grins. His eyes are fixed on the TV and his thumbs are busy on the game controller. “I knew that was you, Seungkwan.”

“Big, you have to tell me your real name. I’m sure you get that a lot, but I’m nosy.”

“That sounds like a second-date kind of question, honestly,” he replies in his sweet South African twinge.

Seungkwan laughs appreciatively. “Speaking of da – oh! What is it, baby?” There’s yapping in the background, followed by Seungkwan’s incomprehensible baby-talk.

That must be Cloud. She’s Seungkwan’s current boyfriend’s dog, this small, white, curly-haired thing you can put in your hoodie. Wonwoo’s away a lot for science stuff, so Seungkwan comes over often to dog-sit. At this point, they practically live together; a big chunk of Seungkwan's belongings have become permanent fixtures in Wonwoo’s residence, and whenever he and Hansol have plans Hansol would be picking him up from Wonwoo’s place.

“I can’t play with you right now,” Seungkwan is saying. “I know, you’re very cute and hard to resist. You and I are one in the same. Go to bed. Go on! Bed! Good girl! Good baby! You never listen to Wonwoo, huh?”

Big guides a mutant bandicoot through a snowy mountain scene while Hansol becomes mindful of the short pocket of free time he has until band practice. “Make it quick, man.”

“Right, right, sorry.” There’s the crisp crunch of Seungkwan biting down into something, and some chewing in between words. “So. There’s this guy I think you’ll like.”

Hansol narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

What happens when you take an adamant guy and a persistent guy? The adamant guy (that’s Hansol) will refuse the help of the persistent guy (that’s Seungkwan), but in the end the persistent guy wins out by sheer willpower.

It’s been almost two years into singledom, and in recent months Seungkwan’s taken it upon himself to try and get Hansol to meet new people again. It hasn’t been too bad going on dates, and it’s not like Seungkwan’s shoving people down his throat; honestly, it’s fun, but no one’s clicking, ‘cause everyone’s looking for one thing and one thing only. Seungkwan knows that, was told as much, but he’s super into the idea of constant effort yielding good results. Which… makes sense. But Hansol doesn’t think it works that way for people.

“He’s a friend of Wonwoo’s. Name’s Ed. Doesn’t really go out of his way to meet people, so I thought, oh! I know someone like that.”

“Ha-ha.”

He and Seungkwan had a conversation one time at some point about how happiness isn’t and shouldn’t be an endgame. Putting it on the top end of some grand heavenly staircase to reach for would wear anybody out. If you’re looking for constant happiness, you’d never be happy at all; it comes and goes, like any other feeling.

“He’s cute, handsome, big, deep eyes, I know you like that, nice hair… I’ll send you his Facebook if you want.”

Forget dating apps. Hansol could easily hit Install and start swiping, but that sounds way fuckin’ worse, and Seungkwan seems to like matchmaking anyway. Plus, it feels kind of old-timey and cool, doing it this way, like oh, she knows someone who knows somebody who knows this guy, you interested?

“I’m good for tomorrow.” On the television, Big clears a checkpoint. Hansol gets up to go get a drink from Big’s mini fridge.

“You’re... huh? For the date?”

“Yep.” Hansol eyeballs the carton of juice. Hard. Hmm.

“You haven’t even…” Seungkwan sighs, a little on the melodramatic side. “Okay. I’ll set it up.”

“You sound like my secretary.”

“I’m telling you, I should be getting paid for this. Except I’m doing this from the good of my heart, so, y’know, other forms of tokens of appreciation are acceptable.”

Hansol puffs his cheeks out to retain some form of dignity as he grabs the apple juice. He should be saving that for some other time so he doesn’t have to stock up so soon, but he feels less bad about it when he takes a long sip.

He moves to his room to grab his bass, and finds that he’s quelled a worry he didn’t realise has been creeping. And isn’t it funny how I never notice something’s there until it’s gone – line ten or nine of their new song. (Seungcheol’s calling it Razor Burn for now.) Hansol gets a fragment of a melody in his head and straightens up so quickly his right knee pops. “Gotta go.”

“Okay, have fun, don’t hurt your fingers. Oh, good luck with the writing!”

“Thank you.” He hums to stick the tune in place, gives Alice a small pat goodbye, and then he’s out the door, a bassline following suit.

Ed wears glasses that make his eyes look smaller than they actually are. He took them off briefly to clean. Awed, Hansol asks him how thick they were, momentarily forgetting that people can take offense to stuff, but Ed took it in stride.

“These?” He thought for a genuine moment. “No idea. Had them for, like, five years, you’d think I’d know, but I don’t even know my shoe size and I’ve had my feet all my life.”

Hansol nods solemnly. “Mine’s forty-four, but I get that. You don’t really think about it.”

“That’s exactly it. Nobody knows anything.”

Ed’s nice to talk to. He takes care of things, takes charge of where they’re going, what they’re eating, what they’re doing. It’s not even that he was super exciting, per se, but he sounds so sure about everything he says, even when he’s unsure, and it eases Hansol’s first-date nerves. He smells nice (like lavender). Laughs nice (like a movie star). Has a gray cat and a white owl. Hansol likes him. Would date him if he was braver, if it was two years ago. Something stops him, though. Whatever it is, Hansol carefully listens to it, and when the afternoon ends and Ed is smiling at him with a newly softened gaze, he offers a hand to shake.

“Good to meet you, man,” Hansol says, and means it. Ed blinks down at it, then back up. “I had a great time.”

“You said no?” Seungkwan asks, much later on. It’s half an hour past one in the morning and the moon is nowhere to be seen. A little shy tonight. Hansol keeps his bedside lamp on.

“Yeah. But we got along fine.”

“Hmm, okay. Well... I’m not surprised.” Seungkwan sighs. “Thanks for going out with him.”

“Why are you thanking me?”

“‘Cause I’m stubborn and I don’t know how your conscience handles rejecting this many goddamn people,” Seungkwan says.

Hansol rolls over onto his back, hand flopping off his bed. “You are stubborn. It’s okay.”

“I know. And so are you. It’s okay.”

“I know. Also it’s not like I like rejecting people. I like meeting them.”

“You just don’t like them.”

“That's it.”

“Hansol, Hansol, Hansol. Are you looking for wives and husbands?”

“I would’ve dated him if I had met him, like, two years ago,” Hansol admits, fingers finding comfort in running along the edge of the mattress.

He remembers a light headache and cramped seats on a budget flight, Seungkwan asking Are you nervous; Hansol swallowing the weird ear clog thinking about if he had forgotten to pack anything, saying Kinda; thinking that if he had forgotten something, it’d be an excuse to come back home.

He was so different then. So full of fear and a splash of excitement and not much else.

“I thought he’s somewhat your type,” Seungkwan says.

“It’s not that. It’s – well, let’s put it this way: the person I was before had different interests than the person I am now.”

“Oh, okay.” A pensive pause. “I don’t think I would’ve even gone near Wonwoo if we knew each other in high school.”

“No?”

“I mean, he’s real annoying, but… I guess I’m into that now.”

“You don’t really think that.”

“What? That he’s annoying?”

“Yeah.”

“I think he’s plenty annoying, but he’s also kind and goofy and listens to me. So, fuck if I don’t love the shit out of him.”

Hansol snorts. The thought of Wonwoo as a high schooler, and Seungkwan as a high schooler, and Wonwoo and Seungkwan as a couple in high school, is pretty fuckin’ entertaining. He’s only met the guy once. Polite, well-spoken, knows more things than you do and knows it. “That’s pretty funny.”

“It’d be terrible, but holy shit, that’s entertainment, even for me.”

“Are you going to sleep any time soon or am I gonna have to keep humouring you?”

Seungkwan makes an affronted noise. “You can say you wanna stop talking, you know.”

“I would like for us to stop communicating, please.”

“Jesus, see – you and Wonwoo both do the same thing where you’re facetious as fuck. It kills me.”

“Do we? I’m so sorry about that.”

“Shut up. Go to bed.”

Hansol laughs softly. “I was going to. Should I hang up or let you hang up?”

“I don’t care. Good night.”

“Nighty-night.”

“I hate to love you.”

“I feel the same way.”

Green. Seokmin has green hair. Seungcheol’s eyes are wide and Jeonghan isn’t blinking enough.

“Wowww.” Jeonghan stops chewing gum to comment from behind the drum set. All eyes trail Seokmin as he crosses the room and sets his guitar down by the couch.

Seokmin turns to face them, sort of. “’Sup.”

Seungcheol tilts his head, hand braced on the mini fridge door. “Did you do that yourself?”

“Mostly.”

Seungcheol nods, pursing his lips and squinting like he’s looking at a giant puzzle. Seokmin hesitantly pats the top of his head.

“Me and Minkyung were watching Green Room last night and I was like… ha-ha… imagine if I had Tiger’s hair… and she was like, I have bleach ha-ha, and I went, oh, okay. We didn’t have dye, though, so we used leftover food colouring.”

“It suits you,” Hansol enthuses.

“Yeah, it’s cute. Like broccoli,” Jeonghan says, waggish, and Seungcheol guffaws and goes back to foraging for drinks inside the fridge. (It’s always full. His roommate’s on top of his shit. Big is, too. What’s with second-year male students and mini fridges?)

“You look good,” Hansol insists.

Seokmin sighs. “Thanks, man.”

“Think I should dye my hair?” Hansol asks.

“I'm thinking you should do orange for sure.”

“Yeah, guys, hey, we’re Sly Guns, not the fuckin’ Rowdyruff Boys.” Cracking open a can of Redbull, Seungcheol shrugs his jacket off and shuts the fridge door with his hip.

“You proud of that one?” Jeonghan jeers, and Seungcheol starts whinging for him to stop bullying him, that was pretty good. “Josh was kidding when he suggested it, but I actually wanted us to be called that,” Jeonghan goes on, after assuaging him.

Seungcheol takes a gulp. “You said you hated it.”

“I actually thought it was cute, but I knew you wouldn’t like it.”

“Aw, babe, you don’t have to hide stuff from me.”

Jeonghan blows a bubble. “Just respecting your authority.”

Seungcheol looks at Jeonghan very, very seriously. “I love you.”

Jeonghan smiles all-too easily. “And I love you too.”

A short, loud rumble resounds from where Seokmin has plugged in his guitar into the amp. Everyone turns to him.

“That was loud. My bad.”

Seungcheol’s face falls, like he’s snapped out of something he probably should’ve not been in, and now he looks like he’s contemplating bringing a toaster into his bath. Jeonghan tosses hair over his shoulder and blows another bubble. Hansol hides his snort under his sweater, wiggling his brows to Seungcheol’s pointed glare.

Hansol has one verse down by the following week. It’s lost still, but it’s going somewhere.

Tonight, band practice was at his place. Big drove out of town in his car (“BACK IN 3 WEEKS –Big” says the note on the fridge) and the garage is empty. When Jeonghan and Seungcheol left to go pick up in the city (their guy would usually come by, but he’s broken his ankle or something like that), Hansol invited Minghao over.

Minghao tried the bass. Hansol thought his fingers would probably be more suited for the piano. He kept mumbling sorry or hang on whenever he’d mess up.

“It feels so big on me,” Minghao said, after he slung the guitar over himself. For once, he looked stiff and awkward.

“Eh, maybe you’ll grow into it,” Seokmin said.

Jeonghan and Seungcheol returned soon enough. "It was half off," Seungcheol said, perplexed, as Jeonghan got his papers out. "He's way too nice to you, Jeonghan. It's suspicious." Minghao politely refused when Hansol passed it to him, and he didn’t talk too much. Just watched a bunch. When Hansol came back from the bathroom, Minghao’s expression went from deer-in-the-headlights to deer-back-in-the-safety-of-the-woods.

Later into the night, Minghao wanted to go for a walk. Seokmin lifted his brows in a knowing kind of smile at Hansol, eyebrow ring glinting in the light. Hansol’s about yay high and giddy and gave Seokmin the finger when Minghao wasn’t looking.

“I’ll come,” Hansol said. “Anyone else?”

Seungcheol’s laughing trying to eat the cheese off of Jeonghan’s pizza, and Jeonghan wasn’t exactly trying to fight back. Seokmin smacked Hansol in the ass. “Just go, dude.”

So he went.

They waltzed around the neighbourhood, air wrapping freezing fingers around skin left uncovered. Nobody was outside and Hansol wondered why. It made it way easier to just fall down in some grass and lay there, though, ‘cause there weren’t any weird glances to worry about. Hansol isn’t shy, but he does hate being stared at for no good reason.

The stars are so bright Hansol can see thin clouds. He can even see the blue-black of the sky. He frowns deeply.

“You’re not supposed to see colour at this time.” It was well into one a.m. when he last checked. He checks again to make sure. It’s one-eleven. He snaps his jaw shut. “What the hell.”

“Are you talking to me?”

Minghao’s all shadow and a white outline, backlighted by the lamppost. He looks like some otherworldly being.

“You’re not supposed to see the colour of the sky at this time of night,” Hansol reiterates.

"Right." He moves to brush Hansol’s hair away from his forehead and Hansol can see his nose and mouth again.

“Also, no, I wasn’t really talking to you.”

“Cold?”

“What? Oh, uh, kinda.” Spurred on by some mysterious force for a split second, Hansol tugs Minghao downwards, and Minghao’s chin collides with his chest.

“Ow.” He glares.

“Ow,” Hansol echoes.

Minghao goes onto his side, resting his cheek on the palm of his hand. “What, did you want a cuddle?”

Hansol glances down at the dark jut of his hip. “You look like you’re not from this planet.”

“What?”

“The lighting’s making you look like a ghost.” Oily, inky, something or other.

“The lighting?” Minghao spares Hansol one last confused look before looking around. His expression shifts into one of mild intrigue when he takes it all in. “Bit eerie. I wish I had my camera. …It’s so cold out here.”

“What, did you want a cuddle?” Hansol sneers.

Minghao snorts, stretching his arms out in front of him, and begins rotating his wrists. “I’m gonna head home.”

Outwards, inwards, outwards. “Already?” Hansol could reach out and slip a hand under Minghao’s coat and sweater. Get to the spine. The small of his back, his sides. Come back to mine, we could, I dunno, who cares, I don’t really wanna leave you yet.

“Yeah, I’m getting tired.”

Ah, that’s it, I’m tired too, we could sleep together, like real actual sleep, warm under covers, hands on chest, legs over hips, oh crap, oh no –

Hansol drapes an arm over his eyes, stretches his fingers against the grass, and breathes out slow.

Yeah, it is pretty fuckin’ cold.

Hansol scrawls giant question marks where the title of his song should be. He likes the sound of the chorus. He isn’t sure about the bridges, but he’s okay with them for now. He wants a guitar solo somewhere in the middle or towards the end. Most likely towards the end. A super nice, long one.

He sends a text to the group – all donez – and almost immediately Seokmin replies with a shocked emoji and a thumbs up. The rest chime in with more thumbs and OK-fingers. Seokmin tacks on a yellow chick emoji. Hansol pockets his phone and chews on his bottom lip.

Later, Minghao invited him over to his place for dinner and some wine. While doing the dishes, Minghao talked to Hansol about his new painting. (“I’ve had a total of maybe ten hours of sleep this entire week.” He picked up Hansol’s half-finished glass of Prosecco waiting to be washed and downed it.) That’s how Hansol has been warming up this beanbag for two hours, watching Minghao finish it up. The painting looks done, but Minghao’s still carefully dotting orange paint over yellow. Even if Hansol squints, the dots don’t blur together. It’s the best thing about Minghao’s stuff.

A new song starts up and Minghao makes a noise. “Change it.”

Hansol picks his phone up. “To what?”

“Umm…” Minghao shuts his eyes and rubs the inner corners. A small frown distorts the skin between his brows. “Something with guitars? Not too slow.”

“Any requests?”

There’s a red ribbon tied to one of the tree branches. Minghao likes painting nature according to what he sees, and then adding something interesting to it. “You’re the music guy.”

“I totally don't feel burdened.”

The soft drone of the heater by Hansol’s head fills the room while Hansol scrolls through his music player. Eventually, he chooses a song he’s been listening to a lot. It’s sweet and a bit hopeful and Minghao lets out a satisfied hum. Hansol gets up to stretch and walk around.

“You never disappoint,” Minghao says.

“My favourite part’s coming up,” Hansol says, as the music builds up. “There. So good.”

“Oh, I liked that.”

“It only happens once in the entire song, so I don’t catch it sometimes.”

An hour later, Minghao finally draws back from the painting.

“I think I’m done.”

Back on the beanbag, Hansol yawns and stretches. He brushes the ice cream wrapper off his stomach as he gets on his feet. He goes up behind Minghao and rests a hand on his shoulder.

"I think I like it," Minghao goes on. "But that doesn't really matter."

The ribbon, as it turns out, isn’t a ribbon, but a thick piece of string, tied to one branch and extending to the bark of a different tree. Minghao pushes his head onto Hansol’s hand, and when Hansol overturns his palms, Minghao pushes his cheek into it. Hansol quirks a brow.

“Can’t wait to nap,” he says, muffled a bit.

“Weird time to nap.”

“I’m an artist.” Minghao smiles all sleepy, cat-after-a-meal-like, and Hansol resists scratching him behind the ear. “Stay over if you’re free.”

“What?”

Minghao presses his lips against Hansol’s palm, only for a second. Hansol almost – almost – pulls away. Rushing into the periphery of his thoughts: the smell of grass, cold air piercing into nostrils, Minghao’s silhouette inked into the night; a fuzzy brain, cotton-mouth, and a loud resolve through it all.

“Unless you’re too tired,” Minghao says, and a hand wraps around Hansol’s, and, dangerously, slowly, but quick all the same, a truck crashes into the side of his brain and the driver hollers high thoughts don’t just pop outta nowhere, man!

“No, I’ll stay.”

Minghao doesn’t hear the way blood rushes into Hansol’s heart and ears. He says, “Okay, help me set the mattress up,” and then Hansol’s following him, and it’s a good kind of blankness.

While waiting for his noodles to boil the next morning, Hansol unlocks his phone to two voice messages in the chat sent about fifteen minutes ago. Minghao pours them both mugs of hot tea, looking on with mild curiosity.

“What’s that?” He smells like his blankets. They both do. He offers Hansol the mug, “Here,” then goes to check the noodles.

(Minghao had forgotten that Mingyu took the air mattress with him, but he had a queen bed.

Hansol whistled. “Dang.”

“What?”

“…My single’s gonna suck so bad after this.”

“Oh, you don’t mind sharing. That makes things a lot easier. Ah-ah – go get showered first.”

Drawing his right knee back and off the bed, Hansol looked down at himself, then at Minghao. “And change into…?“

Minghao nodded at his white wall-to-wall wardrobe. “Whatever fits. I’ll get you a towel.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Whose house are you in?” Minghao gave him a funny smile before disappearing out the door.

Was he like that with Mingyu? Hansol shook himself off and went looking for clothes. Doesn’t matter.)

“–pe you had a nice, restful sleep,” Jeonghan’s voice starts up. “You might be wondering what this is about. Well, we were thinking of going to the bea –”

“…Oh,” Minghao says, after a small silence. “It’s over.”

“How’d he even get cut off?” Hansol opens the next one.

“BEACH DAY, BABY.” It’s Seokmin, on full blast, and Minghao giggles out of surprise. It shouldn’t work, this soft sound with the sharp glare of his eyes. “I’M WEARING SANDALS SO SAND DOESN’T GET INTO MY SHOES.”

“We’re leaving later, after lunch or something,” Seungcheol continues, and in the background, Seokmin goes WHOO! “Wait, Seokmin, did you want snacks? Alright, prince, bring snacks. Can’t wait to get a crack on your song, by the way. It looks really… what? OK, Jeonghan says bring y – ow, shit, okay, you didn’t have to hit me. We’ll see you there, buddy.”

“You should put some actual food in this,” Minghao says, pointing to the noodles. “I’ve got veggies, eggs, and tofu.”

Hansol sends the chat a thumbs-up and perches himself on the counter. “Uh, I’ll pass on tofu.”

“Okay.” As Minghao nears, Hansol catches that warm, fresh scent. He places a hand on Hansol's thigh, looking straight into his eyes. “Sit on the table, please.”

“My toes are gonna fucking fall off!” Hansol exclaims, bounding towards Seokmin stood by Jeonghan’s car. His bike is tossed onto the patch of grass near the mailbox.

“I thought you were joking when you said you wouldn’t let me drive,” Seokmin says to Jeonghan texting away on his phone, wrapping Hansol in his arms.

“I never joke around,” Jeonghan says.

“But why, though? Can’t I drive, I mean.”

“It’s for your own sake. You’re not wearing shoes.”

“Seungcheol, can you lend me some shoes? Ah, nothing matters anymore. I shouldn’t even bother.”

“I’ll let you drive the next time we go somewhere,” Jeonghan says, all easy and genuine, and Seokmin lets Hansol go to shake Jeonghan’s hands.

From the garage, Seungcheol calls Hansol.

“Yeah?”

“Get the crates into the back.”

“Aye-aye.”

After loading two crates into the back and then taking them out again after Hansol pointed out that they wouldn’t really be needing them at all since they’d be walking around, they pile in and get moving with Jeonghan behind the wheel. First Date booms from Hansol’s speakers and Seokmin starts off with an anecdote from his fencing tournament. He landed in second place and is moving on up to mid-levels. Jeonghan says he dated a girl that fenced, but that’s all she would talk about, so he broke up with her a week in.

They pass the old market, the one that’s always crowded, and Seokmin lets out a noise, looking out. Nobody reacts, so Seokmin pulls Hansol to his side of the window. He points. Hansol doesn’t see anything but green and red and bread and fish. But then Soonyoung turns, gaze going through the window and right at Hansol. Except, not really, because the windows are tinted dark as hell.

“Oh, hey, that’s…” Seungcheol, it seems, has caught up, which piques Jeonghan’s interest.

“What? Are we getting stuff from the – what?” Seungcheol gives him a meaningful look. “Oh,” he whispers.

The car quickly leaves Soonyoung behind, but there’s a red light up ahead. Hansol thinks and thinks until there’s nothing left to think about. The car stops. Eyes flicker between each other and Hansol.

It’s a greeting. A hello again. Hey, it’s been a while…

They hit them with the classics first; the songs everybody knows and loves to sing along to, one after the other with no breaks or pauses, just the way Seungcheol likes it. Hansol tunes out and lets his ears and fingers do the thinking. Bassline after bassline after bassline. The crowd’s not the biggest, but they never are, and their collective voice sends his blood rolling, and he thinks he will never hear anything as powerful.

The third song finishes with Seokmin’s riff careening off the edge, bold and crisp, and the crowd goes completely silent during it. It ends a little soft, and the quiet shatters into whoops and hollers. Hansol sends a thumbs-up to Seokmin, who grins back with his tongue out.

“Never gets old,” Seungcheol says into the mic, over the cheers. “Now, this next song…” he goes on, when the noise dies down a little, and sends Hansol a look.

Excitement swells once again, in fits and starts, and Hansol feels many, many pair of eyes move to him. He wraps a hand around his mic and leans into it, squinting at the hot stage lights. “Huh… what to say.”

Some people holler back at him words of encouragement.

“Um…” he starts. “So, I started writing this about a month back.”

It was a demonic possession of some sort. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. And the whole while all that was in his mind was his short, small life, and everybody else in the middle of it.

He scans the place for a skinny face. Pretty eyes. But it’s too dark and the lights too bright. He doesn’t want to keep everybody waiting. He’ll hear it anyway. If he’s even here.

“I wrote it thinking about some important people in my life. I guess it’s for anybody that’s thinking about somebody.” Hansol lets out a shaky laugh. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m kinda shitting my pants right now.”

The crowd laughs, warm. Backstage, Hansol was on a pendulum swinging back and forth between scared and excited. His nerves were all electric and everything is slow and fast at the same time, and his mind keeps going blank – still is. But Jeonghan, as usual, was right. People did miss them. That keeps his feet on the ground and his head not too in the clouds.

“I love you!” someone yells.

“Thank you. Love you too,” Hansol replies. He breathes in. “It’s my first song, so I’m super nervous, but... it'll be fun.”

“You guys had better like it!” Seungcheol amicably warns over the crowd’s cheers as Jeonghan starts the drums. Thump, thump, thump, thump.

Hansol laughs, “Or not, whatever,” and Seokmin follows up with the opening riff. It sounds right. It forces Hansol out of his mind-fuzz. Okayokayokay. He grabs his mic. “If you’re here,” he says, louder than before, “you know who you are. I haven’t really decided on a title, but enjoy it anyway.”

He smells Minghao’s perfume over the scent of beer and vodka before anything else. The girl lifts her pen off his skin, smiling.

031-489-482. He smiles back. “Thanks.”

“Whenever you want,” she says, and Hansol watches her saunter off.

“Day in the life,” Minghao speaks from behind him. He turns around.

“Hey,” he greets, somewhat bashful. “You came.”

The dangly earring on Minghao’s right lobe glimmers when he tilts his head. “You didn’t think I would?”

“No, I knew you would.”

He’s overdressed. His boots are heeled and black, his shirt is frilly and sheer, and his pants are high on his teeny waist. Hansol snaps out of staring at him long enough to go in for a hug.

“You were great,” Minghao says when he pulls away. His hand lingers on Hansol’s hip for a second. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look that serious before.”

“No?”

“Never. Also, I had a bouquet for you, but they didn’t let me bring it in.”

“Shoot, yeah, Pete takes his job really seriously.”

“He convinced himself I was smuggling something. If I was I’d sew it into my shoes.” Minghao checks the place out, the stage and the bubbles of excited people waiting for the next band to come on. They’re all behind by ten minutes, as these things usually go. “People keep looking my way,” Minghao says. Flecks of purple neon from the mini bar’s lighting glimmer in his eyes.

“Day in the life?” Hansol grins.

“Stop it.”

Later, the stars watch them as they walk past closed gift stores and kebab shops glowing white. Hansol waves to more fans scattered about, drunk and sober. Somebody wolf-whistles, and somebody else notices and lets out a whoop.

“Sheesh.” Hansol takes longer, faster strides.

“You seem to get attention wherever you go,” Minghao says, keeping up.

“It’s not me they’re whistling at.”

Minghao falls silent. “This is kind of exhilarating.”

“The hell it is. Getting whistled at by random people?”

“Not that, this. Walking around past midnight.”

“…Right.”

Hansol thinks he’ll never get used to Minghao’s dreamy candor. It’s bordering on cheesy, like hanging out with a person that’s old and young at the same time.

“I don’t go to this part of the city. It’s all new.”

“I’m here a lot. I live ten minutes away.”

The traffic lights turn green, and a car rolls by. Then another.

“Where to?” Minghao asks.

“There’s this park.” Hansol shakes hair out his eyes and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Me and the guys go there after shows sometimes.”

“You’re ditching them for me?”

Hansol shrugs.

Minghao grins. “How sweet.”

“Yeah, real Casanova right here.”

“You’re more of a Montague than a Casanova.”

“Montague.” It takes Hansol a second to get the reference. “You think?”

Minghao doesn’t elaborate.

The park is small, fifty years old (maybe older), and overgrown, because no one cares about this corner of the city except the people who do. (But the people who do happen to not really give a crap about parks.) A willow tree grows sweetly sad and the moss-mottled eagle statue lost its head ages ago. A ghostly, winter glow surrounds it.

“Wow,” Minghao says, all quiet, staring up at the statue like it’s some kind of god. Hansol slowly turns to give him a doubtful look. Minghao returns it, cool as water. “It’s pretty.”

Minghao sits on the platform where the eagle stands, and Hansol hunches over to the wind that blows and follows. Around them are stone benches, darkening in some spots and chipping away in others.

Minghao combs through Hansol’s fringe, then pushes it back and away. Sleepy shivers run down his back.

“Thanks for coming,” he says.

“Thanks for the invite,” Minghao says. “Were you nervous?”

“Tonight was the first night in a long time, so, you know, yeah. Seokmin thought people were gonna throw lettuce. Seungcheol was down a few tequila shots by the time we actually came on. But then we started playing, and it was fine.”

“That’s the name of the game.”

Hansol leans in and sniffs. “Did you drink?”

“A cocktail. Something easy.” Minghao hums the chorus. “I liked your new song.”

Hansol's heart skips a little. “Yeah?”

“It was a little more mellow, but it’s not quite sad. It was a nice break from the rest of the songs. They sounded heartbroken, lost… and then you calm down, clear your head, and you’re on your way to acceptance and getting better… that's the feeling it gave me, I think.”

"Interesting." It was a bone-baring, the song, or something like that. But most of all it was a story. And in the story there happened to be a confession of feelings and a bunch of other shit: regret, reflection, doubts. Seeping through all that is a marked sense of defiant, patient nonchalance.

"Was it..." Minghao lets loose an odd little smile, then shakes his head. "Never mind."

"What?"

"Nothing. It wasn't a big deal." His gaze falls off to somewhere on Hansol’s face that’s not quite his lips, then back up. Then he kisses him, square on his left cheekbone. Good aim, weirdly enough. Like he knew exactly where to go. Maybe he did.

Hansol’s jaw goes a bit slack. “You liked it that much?”

Minghao laughs and leans back on his wrists, screwing his eyes shut. “Shut up. And I'm not drunk, I swear.”

Hansol chases after him, and he’s got Minghao’s lips on his, and they’re kissing, just like that. Short and wondering, but far from chaste, and when they pull away Hansol almost forgets to open his eyes again.

The fact that Minghao’s mouth is just as soft as Hansol imagined blows his goddamn mind. He wants to feel it again. But then he thinks about how maybe he didn’t kiss Minghao right or something. “Sorry if that was weird.”

“It wasn’t.”

Dawn rises, gentle.

“Are we…?” Hansol can’t finish the question. Didn’t think about it enough.

Minghao waits, all lovely owl eyes. Hansol’s sure there’s a song lyric about that. He could make one, if there isn’t. Neon lights on one of the shop windows nearby turn on with a quiet buzz. PAST PRESENT FUTURE, it says in purple capitals, and the moon under it glows blue, and Hansol’s heart thuds dully. “Where do we go from here?”

A lone bike rolls past. Minghao says, clear as day, “I'd like to go steady.”

“Sounds like a business transaction,” Hansol mumbles, quick enough that Minghao doesn’t question it. Minghao looks to Hansol, a silent "And you?" Hansol pauses only to gather himself enough to answer.

“I feel the same way.”

And Minghao bursts into a smile.

So…

So Hansol could have said something sooner, done something sooner, put his mouth on the back of Minghao’s neck when they were wrapped up in each other in Minghao’s bed a week ago because of course the heater decided to stop working. So they could’ve took their socks off and romped around and said teenage vows or whatever. But that’s not who Minghao is, and not what Hansol wants to be. Not again. It would’ve been like popping a drifting bubble, or picking a really pretty flower, or putting a firefly in a jar.

Hansol drops his face into his hands, and Minghao laughs at his weird little noise of relief. He takes a deep breath when he looks back up, gaze roaming across the sky. “Hey, that one’s pretty bright.”

So at the museum, at his house, all this damn time –

He supposes he knew. He’s sure Minghao did too. But they waited, and were careful. So… whatever. There’s no logistics in stuff like this. Only patience.

“That’s Venus for sure.”

SOMEWHAT OF AN EPILOGUE

Two young adults (presumably in their early twenties, because that’s how these stories usually go) sit side by side below a headless eagle statue made of stone and what is commonly thought to be bronze (though the latter fact is yet to be confirmed further than shrugs and I guess-es). One of them lodges his dusty combats into the soil and scratches around the hoop on his right nostril, scrolling through his phone. The other has just fallen asleep on his shoulder. It is unknown how long they’ve been there for.

A fellow young adult with fading green hair walks past, slinging a guitar case around his shoulder. He does a double-take, then breaks into a small, questioning smile. The one with the nose ring gives him an amicable nod. “Nice goatee,” Nose Ring calls out, noticing the Sharpied-on facial hair. Green Hair gives him the finger. He points to the sleeping guy and makes a naughty symbol with his hands. Then he grins, and walks off.

The one with the nose ring squints at something moving in the trees. He hesitates, but then shakes his companion awake. He stirs, then straightens up and runs a hand through his hair, silver bangles gleaming around a thin wrist.

“What?”

“There’s a – sorry. There’s a cockatoo in the trees,” the first one whispers. “They used to come here all the time when I was little, but then people started making bars and clubs and drove them away.”

“I don’t see anything,” the other says, yawning.

“I’m pointing at it. See?”

“…No.”

“Okay. That’s cool. Go back to sleep.”

Under his coat, his white frilled top seems to glow in the dim dawn – too clean against the park’s decay, too crisp next to Nose Ring’s giant brick red jacket. He twists his lips in displeasure, but sidles up closer and goes back to sleep on Nose Ring's shoulder. Their elbows are joined, loop-the-looped. Maybe their heartstrings, too.