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Donghun listens distractedly as the chair beside him, back turned away from it to focus on his own work, skids noisily into his space. The sound of it is always the most annoying way to throw him out of the rhythm in his head, but he turns when the voice starts up anyway.
“Look at you.”
Donghun can’t help the smile behind his mouthpiece as he catches Park Junhee with an expression that could say the same words back. Their music teacher had just finished scolding Junhee for daring to forget his instrument after not showing up all week, but here he is, putting himself exactly where he shouldn’t be with a frown of remorse about something else. It’s mildly concerning.
But that’s sort of what Donghun had been asking himself all class— if he should be here. None of the other euphoniums showed up, likely to study for the finals that follow so closely, and until he caught a glance of that familiar bedhead in the doorway halfway through the period, he kind of wanted to be anywhere else. The circle of seats in front of him are empty as he’d practiced his parts alone, but the moment seems to welcome the unwelcomed.
Junhee looks dead tired, though head up in a half-convincing blink. Donghun glances up over his stand to see the teacher preoccupied with marking, and it’s still a high risk but his friend appears long past that worry.
A month ago this would be far from the case.
“Haven’t heard from you in awhile,” Donghun says.
Junhee nods, passing a smile not looking up as he slouches in his seat and pulls his bag around onto his lap. Donghun returns his attention to practice, resuming a new kind of concentration with actual company and a passive pair of ears. His fingers feel less stiff and his breath too strong in it, but in a way it sounds better beneath the sound of disarray that fills the room. Absently he registers Junhee pulling out music sheets and folding them into paper planes for the rest of the period, in his own repetitive cycle as if the idea of following the rules is overwhelming. At least he’s present, Donghun thinks, as the idea of after school practice doubling his time here is a headache that won’t leave until it’s done with. Junhee is the break in between.
“Sorry I ignored your texts,” Junhee says at least ten minutes after the first thought. He traces his fingers over the ridge of his second paper plane. “Haven’t been on my phone.”
“Assumed so. It’s ‘kay.”
Junhee lets out a huff and tilts his head to the left, looking at where Donghun’s fingers are lifted over the valves. “Your playing is nice.”
“Mm.” Donghun was never sure why he took this class— remembering vaguely about enjoying the side-obligation to take his mind off all the stressful stuff in senior year— but for a second it feels worth it again. Not the music itself…
Junhee bumps his tattered dress shoe with Donghun’s even older one. “No excuses. You’re good.”
“Until you take away the sheet music. I know nothing about the notations, just how it sounds.”
“That’s why you’re good.”
Donghun doesn’t think it’s a good trait, he just likes to have something to follow, but he resorts to playing the intro melody too loudly to prove his point. The teacher looks up with a death stare and Junhee hides his chuckle.
“Fold up my papers too,” Donghun tells him.
“If that’s what you want.”
When class ends, most of the room is already well into their ending routines, packing up and cleaning away. Uncurling from the uncomfortable-looking position in his chair, Junhee looks disappointed to see that Donghun is one of those that isn’t.
“Wind ensemble has practice.”
“Oh.” Junhee looks to the door, well into ignoring everything else around him but this, and Donghun slides his fingers around the bone of Junhee’s wrist. At some point he got used to that too. “I have cram school.”
“Today?”
“Every weekday now. Exams in three weeks and I’ve been missing too much.”
“Didn’t know you cared about that. Parents?”
Junhee nods. Even now, curiously pulling his hand until it intertwines with Donghun’s, he looks so drained, as if the days he’d spent out of school had still gone without sleep. Before Donghun could respond to the silence, a blink of energy flashes back and Junhee pulls away.
A dimple shows up on that scrunched face. “See you tomorrow. Promise I’ll come.”
A humble noise leaves Donghun instead of telling Junhee he doesn’t have to. Like every tired look that grows heavier, Donghun wants to say he doesn’t want to see those faces anymore. They make his chest screw up with a prolonged sympathy, wanting to hold onto Junhee like he always would when he was sad. But those touches grew different up to today… and yeah, those faces too.
After Junhee disappears out the door with a lazy wave goodbye, the clock keeps ticking silently above a practicing flutist and someone messing around on the piano. Donghun takes in the others who chose to stay as well as those passing into the room to join them. A junior greets Donghun, voice lost in the noise of another’s practice, and in that second, as Donghun raises his hand from where it’s grown sweaty under the brass, he decides to take his concentration somewhere else.
Skipping practice is an amazing betrayal to those who’d already seen him before leaving the room, but— well no but’s. He kind of explains it to himself messily as he slings the giant euphonium case over his back. He’s lost— that’s it. Lost in the song, in the dots on the sheets between lines that just grow blurrier in his memory, so he takes the paper plane left so jokingly on his seat and places it in the opening of the bell to take along. It’s like admitting for the hundredth time that he’d been lost all school year with everything but this class, except now it’s added to the list. A mouthful of whatevers into running away from it, he slings the bike lock haphazardly onto the front of his bicycle and takes off.
It’s tough weather to be outside— not in general but definitely like this, barely able to balance on a narrow-wheeler with ten pounds of brass bouncing on the uneven hills of his back, and he has half a mind to tighten the straps along a slight downhill. The forest is right next to the school, protecting him from the strong winds but adding twice the difficulty with bumps his road bike is not accustomed to, but what the hell, he’s come this far.
Only when he comes to the edge of it does he register the roar of the trees. The opening meets grass, five or so miles of it, and it does something to him, feeling like he’s seeing it for the last time. Dropping his bike against the outermost tree, he steps onto the trail.
It’s barely a trail, probably only kept there by the times he’s walked through it. The blades vary in height, most around his shoulders and some even higher. They’re cold as if damp as he pushes his bare forearm against the leaning bundle in front of him, weeds at the bottom scratching his socks, some making it to the tender skin on his ankles that he’d already bruised this on his bike. It’s even harder to pass through with the huge instrument hugged behind him, and the wind is unforgiving, tossing the surface of the field in every direction as if it were liquid, but it also helps him see slightly further, head above where it normally is.
The trail stops twenty feet from where a transmission tower stretches up above him, the wires dangling to where the next tower stands out of his field of view. It’s nowhere near as beautiful as when he first found it, but so strongly does he feel like he misses something, and he could think of nowhere else to go for it.
It’s a bit of work to take out his euphonium and unfold the page, but he knows that space is here between the foliage as long as he imagines it. The sky is an angry grey and he could barely hear himself heaving from all the rushing he’s gone through, but he’ll hear the note if he closes his eyes. The first second should be enough.
It sounds terrible. His hands are cold along the brass, knees weak and muddy from kneeling down to set up, but no one has to hear him or see him out here, nor tell him what the music is supposed to feel like. The song becomes endless. Limitless. Repeating it feels nowhere near the same again, and it doesn’t matter if it sounds terrible because it’s what his fingers want to play and what his lungs let loose. Even better that he doesn’t have to hear himself, because it always shows him what he doesn’t want to see.
It dies down after a while, his thoughts prevailing yet loose. Extended. He could’ve been playing for hours or minutes, trail back lost by the wind, but he’s where he is, and that’s… something.
“Why’d you stop?”
The song still running through his mind is interrupted. Blinking open, a figure is close and apparent in the turn of grass next to him, wearing the same collared shirt and plaid slacks as himself.
“Junhee?” His friend seems to come out of nowhere, and Donghun’s own voice startles himself. “How long…?”
Junhee shakes his head, waving his hands. They’re covered in mud with dirt caked into his nails. “Just a few minutes. Don’t worry about it, I just saw your bike at the edge and came in.”
Donghun hugs the euphonium a bit closer as Junhee sits himself on the case. It puts Junhee a bit out of the wind, but his hair is still mused by it. One of the sleeves of his uniform has unfolded from earlier, draping to his elbow, and the hairs on his arm stand from the cold. Donghun must look no better.
“Why are you here?” The clouds paint a perfect picture of the speed of his thoughts, grey and angry and twisting into confused ends, and the angles of the grass cut through the boy in front of him.
Junhee sounds full of his own mess of conclusions. “Just play for me? A little bit more? I miss the— the noise.” He looks up at Donghun with that faint smile that hides all tiredness from his eyes, like the look asks Donghun not to ask again.
Wherever Junhee came from like a ghost in the fields, it almost makes Donghun too sad to play again— and then that look makes Donghun want to drop his instrument to grab Junhee and hold him close, just to feel the way his shoulders tense up and sag again. He doesn’t want to admit that he misses him after only a few days, whether sad or distant or whatever Junhee’s going through lately, so, half-stubbornly, half-miserably,
He raises his euphonium back to his lips.
It’s impossible not to act like Junhee’s right there.
Every small movement of Junhee’s, from the way he angles his head at Donghun’s first few notes, to his arm dropping to relax back— it’s all impossibly apparent. The notes grow more stiff and anxious, and with them mistakes. Why is he doing this?
Donghun goes back to repeat a part and Junhee smiles so sadly, so genuinely, it almost makes him mad. Even as the mistakes grow, he waits and waits, Donghun’s frustration bursting when Junhee finally lays his back onto the grass.
“Did it feel good to let that out?”
“I hate you.”
Junhee laughs and closes his eyes. “Me too.”
Donghun sits onto his knees and sits his euphonium in the bed of grass. The wind untucks part of his uniform and it blows a shiver up his back. His instinct like this is to make Junhee fall asleep, and he wishes he could play that, in his music or his words, but this mess is far from what he’d imagine this to be.
Junhee’s tiredness is most apparent now. His skin has gone pale, his words are stiff and low, and he holds himself in a way that can’t be healthy, shaking and shivering like it took all of his energy to sit straight and hold himself together beneath his own skin. How could he let it slip this far?
“Shouldn’t you be at cram school?” Donghun gives it to him instead.
“Shouldn’t you be at wind practice?” Junhee sits onto his bottom and Donghun pulls a frown. The grass follows him up and pushes against his hair. Donghun being Donghun could read all of his expressions, has trained himself to in their endless years together, but this, being Junhee, is looking through Donghun for the same. Somehow it’s almost the opposite.
“Where have you been, Junhee?”
The sky rages.
“Just now, actually,” Junhee pushes his hair back, “I really was going to cram school. Deserve to punish myself for all the stupid days I skipped. And then I remembered my dad would pick me up.”
Falling still, Donghun waits for him to continue.
“Stupid, right?”
“No… I mean… Why?”
Junhee shivers, flinching when the grass tickles his ear. “Because you… he…”
“Junhee—”
“No, no he didn’t do something bad. He’d never.” Junhee licks his lip, tongue caught when he sees Donghun reach out to his ankle. It’s soaked with mud. “You know he hates you, right? I… never explained why.”
Donghun tries to look at him, to hold his stare and ensure that he’ll hang onto every word. Junhee’s come to be like this, make himself untouchable and fall back after everything they’d built up together, and it should make Donghun grow insecure, except he knows why.
“I’m sorry.” Junhee curls away, his knees tugged and hands pulling the hem of his slacks down from the cold. “I stopped coming and answering and I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t mean to… I can’t… I need to tell you.”
And Donghun, lost Donghun, dips his head in the cold. Wishes he could’ve found it sooner. Wishes for once in his life that he could know what to do, when the only thing that he’d ever been sure of was Junhee. Terrible, beautiful Junhee destroying himself over something he doesn’t deserve.
“I can’t, I—”
Donghun already knows. “I love you Junhee.”
Junhee’s hand twists into the grass.
“You can tell me.”
Junhee turns away. An arm wipes over his face. “I shouldn’t need you,” his voice croaks against the gust of wind. It makes Donghun want to pull away but come closer twice as much. Twenty times as much. He sees Junhee’s body sob into something, breath going slowly then quickly and then he turns himself fully away, knees hugged like it’ll make him warmer. Every crack in his shell shatters slowly away.
He needs the space, and it doesn’t matter if Donghun came out here first. Yet he just wants to…
“Donghun… I love you too.”
Donghun’s a little bit selfish.
His lips are on Junhee— his hair, his eyebrow, his dampened cheeks. He feels Junhee tense at the touch, hands getting pushed away to grab at Donghun’s. Hold him down.
But Junhee doesn’t pull away when Donghun’s nose pushes against his. Shoulders going tight and words at the tip of his tongue, Donghun silences them like the greedy person he is.
Junhee’s lips are wet and shaking, and Donghun’s there as gentle as possible, pursuing less than he wants to but more than what’s allowed. Junhee’s barely there to kiss back, breath choked behind his nose and arms frozen where they hold Donghun’s beside himself, going just a bit weak enough to fall to his elbows, and even then, Donghun can’t help but chase him there.
It’s cold and uncomfortable, Donghun’s belt a bit tight when he’s leaned at this angle, and Junhee’s hands are muddy. Neglected stubble scratches on his chin, and his collar keeps flipping up and hitting his neck. There’s an incredible sadness pulled from Junhee in this state, but Donghun wants all of it and somehow always has. He’s always wanted to see another end.
And then he starts to feel as Junhee comes back, mouth angling slightly then falling back, breathing. “Donghun I’m gay.”
“I know.”
Donghun kisses him again and Junhee pushes him weakly, muddy hand shaking against Donghun’s white t-shirt, and he’s committed but Junhee pulls an inch back, burying his head into the leaning stalks of grass.
“No, I can’t.”
Junhee’s cheeks are wet and he closes his eyes when Donghun brings his hands up to brush it away, but now, with Donghun’s heart racing out of his chest and will given up under the shadows of foliage, he feels Junhee’s reluctance and can’t pull any of it back.
“I’m sorry.”
It should’ve come from Donghun’s mouth first. “No…”
Tears completely cover Junhee, far more than Donghun had ever seen on him. His tired eyes look the worst like this. Donghun doesn’t breathe.
“I wanted to tell you,” Junhee says, quiet in the breeze.
When Donghun brings his hand to his own face, he notices a sting in his finger that he hadn’t known was there before. It’s stupid, now, having to feel frozen and guilty to realize his own pain.
“You can tell me anything.”
The storm in his eyes could only match the blaring field around them. “Please.”
“Breathe, Jun.”
Junhee rubs his arms all over his face, sobbing fully, violently. His next sounds are too helpless to form words, erupting into everything he’d drawn out. Donghun can only tug him into his lap and pull him finally close, his own skin prickling at the cold. The weather is monstrous but the body in his arms is most terrifying, impossible to hold together with just his own will. At the force, Donghun realizes how incredibly sad Junhee’s first kiss had been.
“Breathe it out,” Donghun tries.
The hands in his shirt still weakly pushing Donghun’s chest make to grab onto added wrinkles. To see the Junhee he’d always relied on shattering into something so vulnerable, Donghun clings tighter until the trembling stills into hiccups and the pattern of his breath can be counted evenly. He won’t let it go.
“That’s really hard to admit.” He finds the tense dip in Junhee’s shoulder and buries himself there. “You can let it out. No one will see you.”
The grip goes tighter and Junhee’s weight on him goes tight, but gives. He starts to nod it off, the slightest show of his face coming back, and Donghun dares to see it again.
“Donghun,” ruthless, precarious, still Junhee, “I need to leave. Cram school. They’ll kill me…” He whispers like the words on his tongue grow more impossible.
“Can you stand?”
“I have to.” His back dips, and then with one last exhale, he gives a self-assuring nod, but he makes no effort to hide it back now.
Donghun doesn’t move, listening and waiting for Junhee to find his way back to him, sag into his weight and drop his hands to Donghun’s sides, sighing like the ending of a note held too long. There’s nothing about him that isn’t unsure but time passes still, engrossed in this whistling mess of tangled limbs and tense fingers. Finally, Donghun brings his hands to Junhee’s wrist with a little tug to wait for Junhee to look back. He won’t let go until Junhee’s certain of at least one thing.
“Can you just… play one more song?” Junhee tries for a smile, but instead of all the ones he’s used to hiding everything away, it’s confound, like a small thank you.
“Of course.”
And Donghun, still semi-paralyzed, waits for his own limbs to loosen, worth one last give of effort. There’s no amount of turmoil that’s really left him, but at least he can raise the euphonium to his mouth with a tremble that he can answer to.
At least now, Donghun knows what he’s playing for.