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“I’ll make you a deal,” Jaehyun had said, reaching to take Johnny’s right hand in his own right hand, as if to arm-wrestle him, “I’ll make you a deal.” With his elbow in the sand and his body twisted sideways, he had looked ridiculously uncomfortable. Johnny, nodding and laughing, had leaned closer so Jaehyun could unfold his limbs a little. He didn’t unfold, though, only said, “You and me. If we never get significant others, we marry each other.”
“Yeah,” Johnny, laughing at him, had said, “isn’t that already a thing? Yeah.”
Jaehyun’s slightly inebriated smile dipped in the firelight. “Don’t forget you said that. I’m not gonna let you forget it.”
“The fuck would I forget,” Johnny had said, and they had dropped each other’s hands. That was on Sicheng’s birthday at the beach, several beers after the campfire had burned down. It had seemed like all the couples in the friend group were trying to out-couple one another—Taeil was singing to Sicheng softly on the other side of the fire, Ten and Kun had just started making out avidly next to the cooler, Mark and Hyuck were taking turns dragging each other into the ocean, Yuta and Taeyong had disappeared into the dunes to do unnamable things. Only six singles had remained, Doyoung trying to keep Lucas along with Hyuck’s friends Jeno and Jaemin in check while Jaehyun and Johnny commiserated about the way romance as an institution was slowly destroying the friend group from the inside out.
It made total sense, what Jaehyun said—even sounded like a predetermined given—when they were drunk. Sober, it didn’t cross Johnny’s mind again until a month later, when they were playing fuck-kill-marry in a café instead of getting work done as they had planned.
“No, I got it. Doyoung, Park Seojoon, Taemin from SHINee,” Johnny whispered across the table.
Jaehyun slapped a hand over his mouth to contain his giggling. “Oh, god. Fuck. Okay, actually that’s kind of easy. Kill Park Seojoon—”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Kill, yes, kill Park Seojoon, fuck Doyoung, marry Taemin.”
Johnny folded his arms, snickering. Jaehyun kept his hand pressed over his mouth while he thought. “Mm. This one’s gonna fuck you up.”
“Try me.”
“Taeyong, Yuta, me,” said Jaehyun, ticking the three names off on his fingers. At the look on Johnny’s face he hissed a laugh and threw his head back.
“Shhhh,” said Johnny, “people are staring.”
“Do you forfeit?”
“Fuck.” Johnny put his head in his hands. “Shit. You’re going to make me kill Yuta, aren’t you? Damn it. Shit.”
“You’re allowed to kill me, you know—”
“Yeah, right. Goddamn it, kill Yuta—Yuta, I’m so sorry. Fuck Taeyong, marry you.”
“Ha,” said Jaehyun, lowering his voice when a girl a few tables down gave them an affronted look, “exactly what’s going to end up happening. Not the killing Yuta part, I mean. Well, probably not the fucking Taeyong thing either, I guess.”
“You mean like, when you and I get married because we can’t get boyfriends?” said Johnny.
“Yeah. I mean, in all likelihood—”
“In all likelihood, we’ll have to get married because nobody else will want our dumbasses,” said Johnny.
Jaehyun nodded, grinning that grin. “Yeah, we’ll be like fifty and we’re going to realize—”
“We have no other choice.”
“Right,” said Jaehyun, “it won’t be like a Yuta and Taeyong thing where we get in a fight and somebody screams that we were in love all this time. Because we’re not in love with each other.”
“Ha! We’re not?” said Johnny.
“I’m not in love with you,” Jaehyun said emphatically, looking him up and down with a raised eyebrow, and both of them had dissolved into laughter. Even as he giggled, something felt a little sore in Johnny’s chest. “Good thing I’m not in love with you either,” he retorted, to try to smooth out the ache, but instead of smoothing, it clunked and fell heavily. Jaehyun was gasping with laughter and rubbing his eyes with one hand.
“Or am I,” Johnny said, continuing to laugh so Jaehyun couldn’t tell if he were joking. Johnny himself couldn’t even tell if he was joking. It didn’t matter, because the next thing Jaehyun said was, “I think you’d know if you were!” and they both laughed so loudly that the barista approached their table to remind them that this was a study café and that if they wanted to talk, they had to go somewhere else.
Johnny had never been in love. He wasn’t sure what it should feel like. Jaehyun hadn’t either—Johnny was sure, as they’d known each other all their lives. The thought of being fifty years old and still never having fallen in love depressed him. He hoped it never came to that—to marrying Jaehyun at age fifty because there were no other options.
The first Saturday the spring air came, one of them suggested that they spend the day doing things they had never done before. They made it through a few serious things, like the Trickeye Museum which Jaehyun hadn’t seen yet and the café where you could pet raccoons, but quickly descended into the arbitrary—walking backwards on a moving subway, stepping on all the white bars on the crosswalk. Johnny remembered something Jaehyun had said the other day about never having properly gone stargazing, and before the sun set they rented bikes and rode north up the side of the mountains.
“I don’t think we’re supposed to be here after dark,” said Johnny when they finally disembarked their bikes and started wheeling them up a slope. The street had glowed in the twilight, but here darkness clung to the underside of the trees.
“Illegally entering a national park: check,” said Jaehyun.
“If we can’t see stars from here I’m going to be pissed.”
“Sure we can. If we get far enough above the city.”
“Yeah.”
“And the fine dust was low today.” Jaehyun stopped, peering between the low-hanging branches. “Hey, full moon.”
“You can see it?” Johnny shifted. There was a blink of light through the leaves.
“Yeah, come here.”
Johnny leaned his bike against a tree and went to stand in front of Jaehyun. He stretched his neck.
“Do you see it?”
“Only a little.”
Jaehyun put his hands on Johnny’s arms and pulled him closer so Johnny’s back collided with Jaehyun’s shoulder.
“Oh!” Johnny ducked his head a little, and the bright coin of the moon came into view. “Yo, I see it!”
Jaehyun didn’t say anything, only gave a low laugh and leaned into Johnny’s shoulder blade. The moon was perfectly round and tinged wheat gold. It appeared magnified somehow, there at the edge of the lavender sky.
“It’s beautiful,” said Johnny, “damn.”
“I know.” There were another few seconds of silence and then Jaehyun said, “Bet this would be romantic as hell if we were boyfriends.”
“Huh?”
“Like, probably,” said Jaehyun.
“Oh. Yeah.” Johnny nodded and turned back to the moon. Then he said, “Wait, what?”
Jaehyun let Johnny go and said, “Like, you know. If we were here with significant others or something.”
Johnny blinked while Jaehyun picked up his bike, which he had let fall to the ground. He grabbed his own bike and trailed Jaehyun up the path. He wanted to ask why Jaehyun had said that, or why Jaehyun had said it like that, or something, but after a minute Jaehyun said, “Does a full moon make it easier to see stars, or harder?”
“Probably harder,” said Johnny.
“Maybe neither.” They pushed their bikes up the narrow path. The air smelled like summer even though it cooled down. As the minutes passed, it became increasingly difficult to steer around imperceptible rocks and roots on the ground.
“Hey,” said Jaehyun, “I’ve never ridden a bike down a hill.”
“Don’t, dumbfuck.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Should we stop? You see that ledge over there?”
Jaehyun paused in the dark and followed Johnny’s pointing finger to the ghost-pale shadow of a rocky outcropping a few yards off the path. “Mm.” He dropped his bike. “Let’s check if you can see any stars from there.”
Johnny stuck out a foot to catch the bike before it crashed into a rock. Then he lowered both bikes gently to the ground before following Jaehyun through the trees. “Is it good?” he called.
Jaehyun was standing like a suburban dad with his hands in fists on his hips and his feet squared. “It’s okay,” he called back. He craned his neck. “The mountains block, like, a third of the sky. But the rest is good.”
Johnny stepped closer to Jaehyun’s turned back. He felt the urge to grab him. He put his hands on Jaehyun’s waist and squeezed, hard enough to give him a shock. Jaehyun screamed and kicked him.
“Fuck, Johnny!”
“Ever been shoved off a cliff?” Johnny said as Jaehyun fought his grip.
“Ever eaten shit?” Jaehyun panted and finally managed to break free long enough to turn around and bowl Johnny over. They fell onto the ground and scuffled for a second. Jaehyun punched Johnny’s chest and rolled off him, satisfied. They sat up, breathing heavily. Johnny folded his arms on his knees and looked out into the distant east. The moon, now halfway to the center of the sky, cast a silvery haze over the network of city lights on the ground, so they appeared to be in a world apart from the clear air of the mountainside. Johnny placed the heel of his hand on the rock behind him and leaned back.
“I see some,” said Jaehyun next to him.
A handful of stars had appeared above the mountain. They were simultaneously tiny and fierce, like they had had to fight their way through the thick blue sky to finally break the surface and breathe. “One, two, three, four, five, six,” said Johnny.
“Eight.”
“Where?”
Jaehyun pointed. Johnny didn’t see the eighth star, but after Jaehyun said “Right there” a few times, Johnny said “Ahh” and nodded anyway. Then there were stars nine, ten, and eleven, and then too many to count seemingly all at once. They lay down with their hands behind their heads. Johnny pulled out his phone to answer a text from his mom. When he put it back and refolded his hands behind his head, his elbow rested against Jaehyun’s. They tried to look for a constellation they knew and gave up.
“Okay,” said Johnny, “what’s another thing you haven’t done.”
“Hmm.” One of Jaehyun’s legs was bent. His foot tapped the rock lightly. “Screamed as loud as I could.”
“What? I’ve heard you scream loud.”
“Yeah, but never as loud as I could.”
“You sure you want to do that here?” said Johnny.
Jaehyun took a breath and raspberried his lips. “I won’t scream like I’m being murdered. I’ll scream like I’m having a great time.”
“What the fuck does screaming like you’re having a great time sound like?”
Once he said it, they both heard how it sounded and burst into laughter. “Come on,” said Jaehyun after a minute, “we’re laughing loud already.”
“Okay. Fine.”
“Are you going to scream with me?”
“Maybe after.”
Jaehyun drew a block of air into his lungs and let it go, loud enough that Johnny had to cover his ears. The yell teetered into laughter by the end. Johnny let a beat pass before unleashing a bellow of his own. Instead of echoing as he’d feared, the mountainside swallowed up the sound as if it had never happened.
Johnny giggled and exhaled. “Nice,” Jaehyun said.
“Was that as loud as you could?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
“Now something you haven’t done.”
Johnny clicked his tongue. “Okay…tied my shoe while lying down?”
Jaehyun said, “Oh yeah. No one does that.”
“Let’s try,” said Johnny and they both straightened a leg above their heads. Johnny reached his shoe easily and untied the shoelaces. Jaehyun had a harder time wrestling his foot close enough to get to the laces.
“Okay, ready?” said Johnny.
“Wait. Okay, yeah. One, two, three. Tie!”
They rushed to tie a proper knot, both knowing that within the last few seconds the task had become an unspoken race. Johnny finished first and brandished his shoe in the air. “Aha!”
Jaehyun followed a split second behind, saying, “We finished at the same time! It was a tie!”
“HA. A tie tie,” said Johnny.
“What?”
“We were tying our shoes and we tied. A tie tie.”
Jaehyun snorted. “Tying tie, maybe. No, that doesn’t work.”
“Fuck you.” They dropped their legs back to the rock. “Your turn for something you’ve never done,” said Johnny.
Jaehyun didn’t say anything for several long seconds. His foot started tapping again. “Jaehyun?” said Johnny.
“No, yeah, I’m just thinking of something good. Things I haven’t done, things I haven’t done,” he muttered.
Johnny sat up and pulled off his jacket. The night had grown chill, but he felt warm. His heart was beating hard for some reason. Maybe it was the effect of being so close to the overhang.
“Oh,” said Jaehyun, “I’ve never played the game chicken.”
Johnny cocked his head. “Like the game where you both get closer and the first person to bail loses?”
“Mm,” said Jaehyun.
Johnny turned and looked at Jaehyun. “You wanna do that now?”
“I just meant it’s something I haven’t done,” said Jaehyun, who was still lying down.
“So you…” Johnny faltered.
There was another moment of agonizing silence and then Jaehyun rose onto his elbows and said, “I mean have you ever played it…?”
Johnny put his hand on one side of Jaehyun’s head and leaned over him. Jaehyun’s voice faded. His mouth was still open from the unfinished sentence.
“First person to bail loses,” said Johnny.
“Yeah,” said Jaehyun.
Johnny lowered himself an inch. Jaehyun let out a half-giggle and straightened an elbow. There was moonlight pooling in his eyes and falling off his cheek. As they got closer, they slowed down. Jaehyun’s smile ebbed. Another second and neither of them were stopping, another second and Jaehyun’s face was out of focus. Johnny’s heartbeat rang in his ears as he suddenly realized neither of them were going to stop. He had known Jaehyun might not—the guy never let a competition get away from him. But it hadn’t occurred to him that he himself might not stop either.
Just before their noses touched, there was a breath of a pause, like a wordlessly-called timeout to gather themselves, then Jaehyun rose, and Johnny went down, and they were just close enough for their lips to touch.
Neither of them moved. Johnny felt Jaehyun’s eyelashes flutter. He thought he might kiss him, really kiss him, if this lasted another second.
He pulled away and sat back on his heels.
“Welp,” he said. “I lost.” He lay down, focusing his gaze on the sky now abundantly strewn with stars. He cleared his throat. “Right?”
Jaehyun said nothing. Johnny looked sideways at him. “Aren’t you happy you won?”
Jaehyun, blinking rapidly, turned his face away. “No, yeah. Sure. Your turn.”
Johnny propped himself up on one elbow. “Are you good?”
“Yeah. Go ahead. Something you’ve never done before.” Jaehyun was ignoring Johnny’s attempt to make eye contact. Johnny’s gaze ran along the half-silhouetted curve of his lips, following the lines down his chin and Adam’s apple. He was so perfect. Shit. Oh, shit.
“I’ve never kissed someone on a mountain while we were umm,” said Johnny, “like, both sitting up,” and Jaehyun turned to him, surprise evident on his moonlit face. Johnny thought he’d made a mistake but then Jaehyun bent at the waist and said, “Sitting up,” his hands clasping his knees, and Johnny closed the distance between them again. This time they were only still for a moment before their mouths began to roll into one another, slowly, unceasingly. They trailed apart and came back together, once, twice, again and again, as if in a pattern. After ten seconds, Johnny wondered if the kiss was supposed to end now, but no, he didn’t want it to end, he wanted to keep going. Jaehyun’s lips were equal parts soft and firm, equal parts give and take. Johnny suddenly wanted to kiss them sore.
He couldn’t, though, because a moment after Jaehyun’s fingers grazed his jaw, they fell away again and Jaehyun put a hand on the ground to steady himself. Once he got his balance, his mouth was a few centimeters out of range. Johnny glanced over Jaehyun’s face and couldn’t read it in the dark.
“Uh,” said Jaehyun.
“What?” said Johnny.
They looked at each other. There was no light in Jaehyun’s eyes now because he had his back to the moon. Johnny cleared his throat. He wondered if he’d gone too far. He put one hand to his hot cheek and said, “Okay…cool. Your turn.”
Jaehyun repeated, “My turn?”
“For the…things you haven’t done. Or should we just go home? It’s almost ten, I think…yeah. Almost ten.” Johnny stood and stretched his arms.
“Johnny!” said Jaehyun from the ground. There was a shade of panic in his voice.
“What?” said Johnny.
Jaehyun seemed to struggle for words for a moment. Then he said, “We can…stay a little longer.” He crossed his legs in front of him. “You said yourself it’s not even ten yet.”
“Hmm.” Johnny’s heart was beating erratically. He didn’t know how long he could sit here on the moonlit mountainside next to Jaehyun knowing they had just kissed. Knowing how they had just kissed. “I’m kind of hungry. How about we go get chicken at—”
“Johnny Suh, sit down.”
Jaehyun’s voice was so sharp that Johnny physically jumped. He stared down at Jaehyun, holding his shoulders with his forearms crossed. Jaehyun’s hard glare weakened and he said, “We’re not—we’re not leaving until we finish this game! Okay? We need to finish.”
“What—”
“I need to finish.” Jaehyun hugged his knees. “I still need to do some things I’ve never done.”
“Like…like what?” said Johnny.
“Well,” said Jaehyun. “Some things.”
Johnny sat down and said, “It’s your turn.”
Jaehyun swallowed. Johnny watched his Adam’s apple bob. It took a few seconds for Jaehyun to say, “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Really?” Johnny said.
“Have you lied to me?” said Jaehyun.
“No.”
“Exactly.”
Moonlight played on a muscle in Jaehyun’s jaw flexing and unflexing. Johnny said, “You want to try?”
When he spoke, he spoke slowly. “I still think we should get married when we’re fifty. I,” he cleared his throat, “I think it’s a great idea and…yeah.”
“What?” Johnny frowned, scratched his head, and said, “You…that’s a lie?”
“Yeah.”
“Well what—you’re the one who always says—”
“I know,” said Jaehyun, “I know, but I don’t mean it. I mean, like, who waits that long to get married? I—”
“Fine, dude, shit. It was never that deep anyway,” said Johnny, sitting forward so he couldn’t see Jaehyun anymore.
“No, like,” said Jaehyun, “fifty is way too far away for that kind of stuff, for, for, falling in love and all that biz, we have to—”
“Whatever, I get it,” said Johnny, studying the craters in the moon. He felt like he had when Jaehyun had said he wasn’t in love with him at the café, except worse, like there was a crack in his chest and it was widening.
Jaehyun started to say something. Then, “Johnny?”
“It’s my turn, right?” said Johnny, pulling at a tuft of grass peeking out of a crack in the rock. “Great. I’ve never finished this fucking game. Done. Yayyy. Let’s go home.”
“Johnny, wait,” said Jaehyun, grabbing Johnny’s sleeve as Johnny stood up.
Johnny yanked his arm away. Jaehyun toppled onto his side. “No,” said Johnny. “I’m sick of this. I want chicken.”
“Johnny,” said Jaehyun, following him under the trees, “I said I’m not done—”
“Well I am.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“I’ve heard plenty.”
Johnny felt Jaehyun’s hands on his shoulders and the next thing he knew, he was being spun around and shoved into a tree. He hadn’t even gotten his balance before Jaehyun put a hand flat on his chest and growled, “I’m trying to tell you something, Johnny, god fucking damn it, you bigass sasquatch.”
Johnny’s voice squeaked. “Jaehyun?”
“You think you’re sick of it? Imagine how sick I am, seeing all our friends being in love and living their lives and not knowing what it’s like,” said Jaehyun, “and knowing I could know, if you would just let me. I’m sick of you not letting me know.”
“Letting you know—”
“Here are some things I’ve never done,” said Jaehyun. “I’ve never been in love, and I’ve never been able to imagine being in love with anyone except you. Because it wouldn’t be any fun with anyone else. And I’ve always wondered how it would feel, and I’ve always wanted to try, with you, and I’ve never told you that either. Well now I have.” He stopped talking when Johnny kissed him, and they stumbled into the tree trying to pull each other into their arms. Jaehyun let out a little gasp when Johnny’s hand found the back of his thigh and heaved him up. He locked his legs around Johnny’s waist while Johnny turned around to press him against the tree. Johnny had never kissed anyone like this before—had never been kissed like this before, like Jaehyun wanted to empty him, to burn all the way through him. And he wanted to burn right back.
Johnny shifted so Jaehyun could hook an elbow around his neck. They panted in the pause. “Yeah,” whispered Johnny, “I think that’s how it’s supposed to feel.”
“Fucking finally,” grumbled Jaehyun. Johnny couldn’t see in the dark that Jaehyun was smiling, but he could feel it when he kissed him again.
Eventually, with Johnny’s mouth on his neck, Jaehyun breathed, “Let’s go home,” and Johnny stopped to say, “Home?” and Jaehyun said, “Yeah, like, now,” and Johnny put him down, saying, “Okay, okay.” They ran to get their bikes.
It was midnight by the time they got back to their neighborhood. Jaehyun was singing. Johnny only caught pieces of it as he pedaled behind him.
“Want chicken?” Jaehyun called as they passed a place that was still lit inside.
“Not hungry anymore,” Johnny called back.
“No wonder,” said Jaehyun, and then something like “I’m a meal and a half” got lost in the wind.
“True,” said Johnny, “who knew.”
“I knew!” shouted Jaehyun.
“What was that song?”
“What?”
Johnny pedaled up next to Jaehyun and said, “The song you were singing.”
“I was singing?” Jaehyun shrugged. “I don’t know. I forgot already.”
“It was like, I feel like I’m dreaming all day long—”
“Oh oh, Taeyeon. ‘Starlight.’ LOOK AT ME, SHINING LIKE A STARRR…” Jaehyun belted.
“I’m looking,” said Johnny.
Jaehyun tsked. “If you crash I won’t be held accountable.”
“If I what?”
“If you crash!”
“If I smash?”
“Johnny—” Jaehyun swerved to try to run him off the road, and Johnny raced ahead of him.
A few minutes later, they pulled up next to a bike return point a block down from their apartment and dismounted. Jaehyun locked the bikes in. Johnny noticed his hair was mussed. He looked tired under the harsh streetlight, and dead beautiful. A thrill went through Johnny at the sight of him—at the thought of the next few days with him, the next few weeks…months…
Jaehyun caught Johnny’s eye and raised an eyebrow, saying, “Well? Happy your game’s finally over?”
“My game?” said Johnny.
“Yeah, you came up with it, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, the last thing you said was that you’d never been in love, so technically it’s not over till you’re in love with me,” said Johnny.
Jaehyun smiled, lowering his eyes, and said, “You being serious?”
“What? That the game’s still going?”
“No, the…kiss kiss fall in love thing.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Johnny, “I’m serious. If you’re serious. I mean I—” His hands gesticulated and Jaehyun giggled. “I know we’re best friends and you’re my bro, but—wait…”
“Oh, god,” said Jaehyun, pretending to walk away.
“BUT,” said Johnny, catching his hand, “I also know that my cold dark empty heart felt feelings today that it never felt before, so, yeah, I think we owe it to ourselves to try.”
“Cold dark empty heart,” snorted Jaehyun. “You’re kidding yourself.”
“You’re missing the whole point of that sentence. And it was a really romantic sentence.”
Abruptly Jaehyun’s smile half-crumpled and he reached up to throw his arms around Johnny’s neck. Johnny blinked and rocked back before folding Jaehyun into a hug. He’d always wanted to hug Jaehyun like this. Long and close. They’d never really had the chance before.
“Johnny,” said Jaehyun.
“Yeah.”
“I think,” he said, face in Johnny’s shoulder, “maybe I lied when I said I wasn’t in love with you.”
Johnny’s breath caught in his throat.
“Like accidentally,” said Jaehyun. “And uh, when I said I’d never lied to you.”
Johnny, unable to keep from smiling, held Jaehyun’s face in his hands. “I forgive you. Also, me too, a little, maybe. It’s fine. Tomorrow we’re going to go on a date and it’s going to be the best date you’ve ever been on in your life.”
Jaehyun’s eyes widened. “A date?”
“Yeah. I’m planning it in my head as we speak.”
“Wait…” Jaehyun groaned. “Wait, not tomorrow. I have to study for the stats test on Tuesday.”
“Oh yeah.” Johnny bit his lip. “Sometimes I forget you’re a college student still.”
“Fuck off. It’s like two more months.”
“New plan, tomorrow I’m going to make extra coffee and then this week we’re going to go on a date and it’ll be the best date you’ve ever had,” said Johnny.
“If you get to plan the first date, then I get to plan the second date.”
“Fine.”
“My date’s going to be better,” said Jaehyun.
“As if,” said Johnny, and their smiles came together and melted, and cradling Jaehyun’s head into his palm Johnny thought, Oh yeah, I should have done this a long time ago.
“Let’s go home,” he murmured.
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Jaehyun said, allowing Johnny to take him by the hand and pull him the remaining distance to the door.