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Everything looked brighter in America. From the dazzling lights that lit their path in Downtown Disney to the smiles of children who hugged their stuffed Mickeys as if their lives depended on it. America sold a dream, not about making it there, but that anything was better as long as it was in the land of the free.
Taeil was absolutely enveloped by that, his eyes had been wide for the most part of the trip and his boxy smile never left his lips. One night, after seeing the end of the day fireworks at the Magic Kingdom, Tinker Bell swiftly flying above the blue castle in the dark sky, Taeil’s cheekbones started hurting due to smiling for too long. It was indeed a land of magic and new experiences. In America, everything was possible.
That was why, by a joke of fate, Taeil ended up being drawn into something he would never dare do in South Korea: agreeing to one of Jungwoo’s games. The rules were pretty simple, his friend explained while sucking on his bright red popsicle, Jungwoo would choose a boy for Taeil to shamelessly ask for a kiss and Taeil would do the same for him. In the end, there was no winner or loser, only the prize of a kiss from American lips.
For some reason, Jungwoo seemed to think American boys were more forward than Korean ones. Taeil didn’t try to understand his reasoning, simply nodding to make his friend happy. Inside, he was thrilled with the idea of maybe tasting different lips than the one boy he had kissed in a dare a year before.
Ugh. Taeil would be kissing another boy in a dare again. How pitiful.
Either way, Jungwoo had excitedly suggested the game and even claimed he would choose only cute boys for Taeil. With a sigh to hide his excitement, he nodded and they went boy-hunting in Downtown Disney.
One thing Jungwoo had miscalculated was that most people in the gigantic outdoor shopping center were families with children. Sure there were some boys around, but most were teenagers or just ugly. Even so, they found some pretty boys within their age range. And got several no’s from them.
Either they considered it to be a prank, were as racist as they came, or Taeil was ugly, which made no sense whatsoever because Jungwoo was as pretty as they came and he was also getting rejection after rejection. Maybe it was their broken English…
Morale was low with these boys.
At the edge of a lake, with their eyes on a LEGO made sea dragon, Jungwoo was feeling rather offended. “My ego is hurt, how come no one wants to kiss me? Look at me, hyung! I’m the hottest thing that has happened in their lives.”
Taeil did take an ounce over at Jungwoo. His friend was taller than him, standing beautifully with his bright red hair in a cap and wearing his leather jacket proudly. His proportions were indeed bo joke and his eyes had some sort of deepness to them that any person could get lost too. He also knew of his friend’s cunning charm to be sexy or cute depending on who he would want to lure. It indeed made no sense.
“Maybe they think it’s a prank? Or just panic…” Taeil tried to explain, growing self-conscious. “or maybe it’s my English, it isn’t exactly charming…”
Completely ignoring Taeil’s last sentence, Jungwoo was lost in thought. “Sounds like they are scared… Wait,” his eyes sparkled and a smile curled his lips. Even if Jungwoo had a sweet smile, it scared Taeil for a second. “Look at those boys over there.”
Taeil’s eyes fell over two young men, walking without course while drinking from beer cans. One of them was taller, with dark hair covered by a grey beanie and a small face while the other was shorter, with bleached portions of hair and wore round-rimmed glasses. Taeil didn’t spend much time with his eyes on them because the color of their skin and the shape of their eyes already told him what he needed to know.
“Aren’t they tourists? Wasn’t the point to kiss American boys?” he inquired Jungwoo, who was still checking them out while biting his bottom lip.
“They don’t act Asian to me…” was his friend’s sultry answer. Taeil was starting to think he would go insane and the cause would be Kim Jungwoo.
“What do you even mean ‘they don’t act Asian’? What are they supposed to do to act Asian?” Taeil inquired, near the outrage. Jungwoo was lucky he wasn’t near the lake anymore.
They had started walking slowly, Taeil following him. It seemed like Jungwoo didn’t want to lose the boys from their sight.
“They have something different about them. Come with me.”
“What are we doing—“
Before Taeil could finish his sentence, he was pulled by the arm and dragged by his friend so they would catch up with the men who were walking together but sometimes distanced themselves on the sidewalk. They were clearly bored and alone, also obviously not boyfriends, perfect prey for Jungwoo and Taeil.
The closer they got, the more anxious Taeil became and he was about to voice his outrage when he was quickly shushed by Jungwoo, who was paying attention to something. Suddenly his eyes shined bright and a lamp turned on inside his head. “Aha!” he murmured his exclamation, walking slowly so the men wouldn’t notice them. “As I suspected, they are talking in English between themselves! Therefore, American boys!”
Jungwoo's excitement didn’t match Taeil's own mood, who crossed his arms and sighed. “Weren’t we going to give up on this silly game?”
“One last try. Please.” his friend pouted and clasped his hands together beggingly to no effect. “I’ll even let you choose between the two.”
Once again, Taeil’s eyes fell on the two men, who walked around completely ignoring they were part of a social experiment of sorts and that the boys behind them were mad scientists. Both were extremely handsome, or else Jungwoo wouldn’t go to such complete extremes to convince Taeil to take part in that scheme, but the tall one caught Taeil’s eyes. His hoodie looked as warm as he was and there was something magical about standing on his tiptoes to find his lips, even if the possibility of rejection was high.
Begrundly, he muttered, “the tall one,” to which Jungwoo smiled victoriously.
“Perfect! I wanted the little one anyways... Now let’s go-“
“Ah, Woo…”
Taeil stayed on his place, heart-expanding in his chest to the point he couldn’t properly breathe. He couldn’t do it. All the boys he had asked so far weren’t nearly as gorgeous as those and he had only gotten rejections the entire night. One more from that man would hurt him for good.
“Fine! I’ll go on my own to the little one!”
Jungwoo walked rapidly towards the partially-bleached hair boy, taking advantage that the two men had just grown distance between each other again due to their courseless way of walking. Taeil felt his heart beating on his chest as he watched Jungwoo ask him for a kiss, certain his friend would be coming back to him in defeat.
To his surprise, the apparent American boy shrugged and the next second he was kissing Jungwoo. Taeil was absolutely shocked and that scene was all he needed to make his way to the taller man who kept on slowly walking through the sidewalk.
“Hello!” Taeil exclaimed when approaching him.
The man turned to see him and appeared pleasantly surprised, a half-smile on his lips and arched eyebrows. The closer Taeil got to him, the smaller he felt. What must he had looked like through the man’s eyes, he wondered. Probably a blonde small midget with high cheekbones and an awkward smile.
“Hi!” the American replied with a thick voice that turned Taeil’s insides into jelly.
Oh god. Taeil wanted to run. Better yet, he wanted to throw himself on that lake and swim towards the LEGO dragon, maybe then he would be saved. He would look even crazier though.
He remembered Jungwoo kissing the other boy and decided to follow through. Taeil was to be victorious that night.
“Hm, c-can I kiss you?” he asked in broken English the question he had repeated a thousand times.
The answer he already knew, came in different forms that would all mean the same. A snort, a chuckle, a decided shake of head, the person walking away or even a hard no and they all hurt his ego little by little.
Until his answer became a question.
“How old are you?” the man asked, with one raised eyebrow, taking a look at Taeil.
“Twenty-one,” he answered truthfully. Sure he looked like a teenage boy due to his height, his bleached blonde hair didn’t help people take him more seriously in matters of age and it wasn’t usual for men over ten to wear short pants like he was wearing at that moment, but he was still pretty legal. His heart warmed with the question for it meant he was being at least considered.
“Sure,” he answered and before Taeil could do anything, their lips had already crashed.
Maybe Jungwoo was right and American boys were different because never had he seen or felt a kiss that started so eagerly. From the beginning, it was open-mouthed and the man didn’t hold back from touching Taeil’s back and bringing their bodies closer. Against his expectations, Taeil didn’t have to stand on the tip of his toes to kiss him and, when the man inserted his tongue inside his mouth, felt comfortable enough to wrap his arms around the man’s neck. His lips were soft and mouth large enough that when he opened it widely, Taeil almost felt sucked in, and it only drove him to kiss more passionately.
After a few minutes, the two had to take a pause to breathe and there was a shameful string of saliva between the two that was undone when they were distant enough.
“Thanks you,” Taeil said shyly while looking at his feet. There was no certain code on how to ask after you ask a foreign boy for a kiss only to have kissed a boy from a certain country, so Taeil was finding the courage to say goodbye and skip towards Woo.
“Where are you from?” the man asked and, thankfully, Taeil knew enough English to answer him back.
“Korea.” He would have liked to ask him where he was from but was afraid to make a fool of himself and became quiet the next instant.
“How are things back home?” the man inquired nonchalantly. Taeil was about to nag something about the latest elections when he noticed that he hadn’t spoken in English because the only way Taeil could have understood that question was if it was made in Korean.
Wide-eyed and regaining his air only due to gasping, Taeil couldn’t hide his shock. “You aren’t American?!”
“Korean-American,” he softly corrected him with a big smile that turned to tease he next second. “Why? Wanted me to be an American boy?”
Taeil’s cheeks warmed with the question and he tried avoiding the apparently Korean-American man’s eyes. ”M-my friend just heard good things about American’s kisses,” he answered embarrassedly, turning his cheeks even redder.
“Oh, wasn’t my kiss good enough for you?”
The man had a playful smile on his lips, yet Taeil felt himself growing hot by his gaze. “No, no, it’s not that at all—“
“I’m Johnny,” the man, Johnny, informed, seeing as Taeil lacked words. “Hope it’s American enough for you…?”
“Taeil,” he spoke his name and tried to explain himself to Johnny when he was again interrupted.
“Your friend is that one with Mark over there?” Johnny asked, signaling to Jungwoo and Mark casually talking but still very close and intimate to each other.
“Y-yeah, that’s Jungwoo,” Taeil confirmed with a nod.
Johnny turned to him with a big smile that turned his eyes into big half-moons. “He’s about to have an even bigger surprise.”
Suddenly a yell cut through the night.
“You’re Canadian?!”
Johnny laughed loudly. Taeil may as well be in love with a sound. “Well, seems like he already knows.”
Taeil chuckled along, a bit starstruck by the energy that Johnny exhaled. Somehow he was warm inside and out, a big ball of energy and kindness so big that wasn’t contained inside his body, no matter how big he was.
It was awkward to find someone so comfortably comfortable in the face of the unknown. Most of the time Taeil was whatever he had a small circle of friends he trusted his life with and played it cool. Yet, when faced with someone as handsome and charming as Johnny his flight instincts yelled inside his head.
“Hm. Yeah. Thanks for the…” Failing to say the word, Taeil scratched the back of his head and hummed, “hm, you-know-what, I will just…”
For the third time that night, Johnny interrupted him. “Where are you going? Were my kisses that bad you don’t wanna try again?” He feigned a hurt expression, but Taeil felt his heart drop.
“I—“ he tried speaking but Johnny’s eyes on him only made himself more self-conscious and words were stuck on his throat. To keep himself calm, he tried playing with his fingers.
He heard Johnny clearing his throat and when he spoke, Taeil couldn’t hear any sign of a smile in his tone. “Sorry for being so forward, just seems like your friend is getting really invested in creating good Korean-Canadian relationships,” at the mention of that, Taeil turned his head to find Jungwoo and Mark making out in the middle of the sidewalk once again. In the end, Jungwoo didn’t seem to care much about American boys… Taeil’s attention came back to Johnny, who cleared his throat once again and looked terribly shy for the first time. “So… I was wondering... Wanna hang out?”
Apparently, Downtown Disney had their own version of Prince Charming. All Taeil had to do to be taken to the ball was say yes.
⭒⭒⭒
It wasn’t smooth from the start. Taeil often missed words, expressed himself wrong and avoided Johnny’s eyes even when there were only his eyes right in front of him. Johnny would try to fix their awkward start with stories about his childhood in Korea, how he moved early to Chicago and missed the small things about Seoul.
Step by step, as they walked through LEGO stores and gigantic birthday-themed Disney stores, Taeil was eased up by Johnny’s dad jokes, casual flirting and overall comforting aura. It was only natural for Johnny to hold his hand as they walked around the sidewalk together after having visited the year-long Halloween store and when he gave Taeil a peck while Taeil was trying Santa Claus’ beards in an all-year Christmas store Taeil beamed in happiness.
When he first accepted that date-like offer, Taeil was scared for he had zero experience in dates whatsoever. Johnny, on the other hand, with his endless charms, seemed to be on the other end of that spectrum. Perhaps because he was more experienced, he was able to relax Taeil enough to lure him in to watch a magic show just by the lake.
Taeil smiled and clapped at the easy tricks, almost forgetting Johnny was there, wasn’t his arm around his shoulders and the warmth he exuded enveloping him. When the magician asked for a volunteer, the blonde gladly raised his hand, almost jumping to be spotted due to his small height.
Luckily he was picked for the trick and, when asked to introduce himself, he did his best in his few English words. The magician seemed very interested in who Taeil had brought along with him and, having lost any of the vocabularies in English to explain they had just met, he said, “my boyfriend.”
He was embarrassed at first but Johnny whistled and clapped, even screaming, “that’s my baby right there!”
The specifics of the magic trick were lost on Taeil after that.
“So… you must be hungry…” Johnny commented as if he didn’t mean anything by it. However, Taeil was starting to get the hangs of him and knew very well there was something he wanted with that.
“A little…” was his neutral answer, waiting for Johnny to stick his neck out.
“We could go to a nice restaurant… I’d pay of course…” Taeil stopped walking, completely shocked by the offer. Johnny smiled teasingly. “A boyfriend needs to treat his boyfriend sometimes, right?”
Taeil pushed him a little but was soon dragged to a big ship that was anchored by the bay. Johnny informed him it was a temporary restaurant he had been meaning to try. Inside, it was underwater-themed with big nets hanging from the ceiling and a beautiful aquarium that they sat right next to.
Somehow that entire night had been pure magic and the spell finally fell over Taeil and he told Johnny everything he would ask, from when he met Jungwoo to what had taken them to choose Disneyworld as their destination place. Weirdly enough, Johnny didn’t seem scared the more Taeil spoke and the contrary seemed to be true.
Johnny would play with his hair, laugh at his jokes, ask for more details and even lean closer to steal another kiss from Taeil’s lips at the most random of times that left the blonde embarrassed. Sitting on a sofa, it was easy for Johnny’s hand to slowly make its way to Taeil’s thigh and, when he placed it there, Taeil smiled happily. Johnny’s touch had become addicting to him in a matter of hours.
They ended up ordering a pizza with Johnny smiling at the cute way Taeil pronounced it (“pijja! Pepperoni pijja!”) and being the one to communicate with the waiter in his perfect American English. Taeil looked at him with loving eyes as he did that and, when the food arrived, couldn’t help but let his eyes fall over how rapidly he ate the pizza.
Uh-oh. Maybe Taeil had caught feelings for an American Prince.
⭒⭒⭒
Taeil had texted Jungwoo. It was getting late and they should be getting back to their hotel since the next day they would unbrave the jungle that was the Animal Kingdom. They had scheduled a time to meet and Johnny was walking him there like the perfect gentleman.
“So, was the American experience with the American boy good enough for you?” he asked, never tired of teasing Taeil about this America obsession he didn’t have.
“It was never about you being American or not…” the blonde murmured sheepishly.
“What was it then?” Johnny inquired, eyes on Taeil.
“It was about enjoying a trip to the fullest and trying new things…”
This time, Johnny looked slightly shy when voicing his question. “Did you... like this new thing?”
Taeil nodded avidly, but there was a hint of melancholy in his voice. “More than I should…”
They finally spotted Mark and Jungwoo on the place they had first run into each other the first time. For Taeil, it felt like a lifetime ago but only a couple hours had gone by. Johnny’s hold to his hand felt more real than ever.
“Wow, Mark is never this clingy with anyone, he must have really liked Jungwoo…” Johnny commented, watching Mark’s hand casually grabbing Jungwoo’s slim waist. They hadn’t seen them yet, too lost in their own world.
“My friend has his charms,” Taeil remarked feeling slightly proud of Jungwoo. He turned to look at the man towering over him. “Guess this is where we say goodbye. It was a pleasure, Johnny Suh.”
After speaking solemnly, he started walking away fast. He wasn’t ready for that parting and it felt ridiculous something as temporary as a Disney date could affect his heart, but he didn’t want to think about it. Taeil didn’t have to give himself the trouble though, for soon his hand was caught and he was pulled next to Johnny.
“Wait!” he exclaimed in slight desperation. “Can’t we see each other again?”
Taeil nodded, even knowing it would hurt him more when that vacation was over. “I’ll be going back to Korea in a week but sur-“
Johnny interrupted him. “No, in Korea. I am probably going back there for my masters and… wanted to know if there was a chance we’d see each other again.”
At the news his American prince would probably become his Korean prince in a few months, Taeil’s lips curled in a smile. “High chances. But don’t let that boost your ego,” he said, confidently playful while trailing a finger up and down Johnny’s arm.
Johnny pulled him closer to his chest.
“Wow, Moon Taeil came to me a stuttering mess and leaves me with a promise, so teasingly,” he murmured, approaching Taeil at a dangerous pace.
“Do you want my number or not?” Taeil whispered back while holding a chuckle. Something about Johnny turned him into this powerful force of nature who teased and stopped kisses whenever he wanted. Not only Johnny had taken his heart quickly, but he also made Taeil like who he was when they were together.
Numbers were exchanged, kisses were stolen, but it was time or Taeil and Jungwoo wouldn’t be able to come back to their hotel by public transportation.
“Tonight was perfect. Let’s spend tomorrow night together too,” Johnny asked, but became worried the next second. “Unless it’s too much, don’t wanna be too much.”
Taeil shook his head. There were no specific plans for what they’d do after Animal Kingdom and maybe exploring Orland with Johnny wasn’t such a bad idea. “It’s okay, Johnny. We will meet at night. Pretty sure Jungwoo will beg to see Mark again.”
They kissed one last time, a sweet kiss that left more to be wanted for the next day. It was the bittersweetness of a goodbye kiss.
“Hope I fulfilled your kinky desires to kiss an American boy…” Johnny murmured into his ear and Taeil only pushed him before running towards Jungwoo with a big smile on his face.
At night, at the hotel, after Jungwoo had told him about the romantic night that consisted of smoking weed and almost having sex behind the bushes. It sounded amazing to him and it was a date very fit to Jungwoo. He also shared his sweet love story with Johnny. When he mentioned his date was from Chicago, Jungwoo gasped.
“Wait! So yours was indeed American and I got the Canadian one?!”
Taeil nodded, lovestruck while checking Johnny’s last message to meet the next day. Oh, America, the land where the unimaginable happens.