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“I’ve never kissed a boy,” the kid says, and his legs stretch out across the train seats. They cross and uncross at the ankles. Jinki’s taken with them, with the movement of his hands as they wave freely, drawing shapes in the air, like he’s miming it: Kiss. Boy. Never.
“Or a girl. I’ve never kissed anybody. But you know. It’s boys, for me.”
Jinki hums into his paperback. It’s not actually his book. He’d found it on the train just yesterday, and he’ll leave it in another car for somebody else to find when he’s finished. It’s not bad. Some kind of mystery.
“Is that your name? Sukwon?” Kid says, gesturing to the paperback and the sharpie marks on its side.
Jinki smiles. “No,” he says.
--
“What university do you go to?” Kid says, chewing his lips. Kid’s name is Taemin. He seems like the shy type, and Jinki would wonder why he’s so insistent on talking to him, except he knows. He knows why.
“Goryeo.”
Taemin’s mouth expels a little rush of air, wahhhh. “Impressive.”
Jinki nods, watching Taemin’s hands again. He’s got his breakfast in hand, a little sandwich. Ham, maybe. He tears it into pieces and sticks them in his mouth absently, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it, which might be why he sometimes talks with his mouth full.
He can’t sit still, this one, and Jinki’s been sitting still for a long while. He never learned the easy grace and willingness to push that Taemin’s legs have, so casual they can take up half the row of seats without a care in the world.
It’s not a problem, though. There’s nobody else this far back on the train, early morning on a Thursday.
“I go to University next spring,” Taemin says. He’s facing Jinki across the aisle, and when Jinki looks up the window’s lit him up from behind, trees flashing by in green rushes. The sky’s a naive sort of blue, light with early sunshine.
“I think I’d like to kiss a University boy,” Taemin says.
Jinki flips a page in his book, keeping his eyes down, his legs very still.
--
Taemin’s going to visit his grandparents, he tells Jinki. He’s going to spend the weekend at the movies and screwing in new lightbulbs and his grandmother will probably foist some graduation money on him. They bake together every time he visits.
Jinki’s learned a lot about Taemin. Most of all, that he has a nervous talking habit. Jinki hasn’t made anyone nervous in a long time.
“Will you tell me your name?”
“Maybe.”
Taemin licks his lips at Jinki’s smile. That’s half the fun, isn’t it, especially at Taemin’s age? Not that Jinki feels old. Just a little heavier. Somewhere deep, like in his elbows and knees and maybe the base of his skull. Somewhere that’s a little lonely, a little bored. Somewhere not so easy to charm; but here’s Taemin, putting down the armrest just so he can swing his knees over it and kick his feet, left-right-left-right.
The toes of his sneakers come close to Jinki’s thigh, like they’re teasing him back. Jinki grabs one foot and laughs when it jerks in his hand, laughs at the ‘o’ of Taemin’s lips, laughs at his happy giggle, flying out his mouth.
--
“Jinki,” Taemin says, when they’re only an hour away. “You’re like me, right?”
It isn’t as if he hadn’t known Taemin was building up to it. Not with the shy glances, the surprising admissions. He’s just not sure how Taemin picked him out so quickly, like it was branded on his eyelids, transmitting in morse code every time he blinked.
“Sure,” he says. He doesn’t look up from the novel when he hears Taemin suck in a quiet breath. He’s almost finished with it.
“When did you know?”
“Best friend kissed me,” Jinki says. “He was good at it.”
They’re quiet for a little while, but Taemin’s limbs are still winding around the limited space, trying to fill it up. Jinki watches his hand card through his hair from the corner of his eye.
“Wish I’d found out like that. My best friend’s got a girlfriend.”
Jinki looks up to find Taemin watching him. He pushes up the middle armrest and scoots over to the window seat, leaving the one next to him free. Taemin’s slow, startled smile is beautiful.
--
“I don’t know how to be like this, to be good at it.”
“I don’t know either, you know. It’s not like it’s suddenly easy one day.”
Taemin’s legs are complex, moving things. One foot is balanced against the seat in front of him; the other is slung over Jinki’s knee, warm and playful and close and longing.
Jinki hasn’t been nervous around anyone in a while, either.
“Will you kiss me?” Taemin says, like it’s the first time he’s asking it. Like his fingers haven’t been pressing against the pads of Jinki’s own, intermittently, like pleading. As if he hasn’t been blinking and breathing and speaking in a rhythm that would lend itself to kissing Jinki, to being kissed by the stranger he met in the last train car on the way to his grandparents’ house.
“Alright,” Jinki says, like he hadn’t already answered, two stops ago.
--
Taemin’s hands are shy and ghost around his edges, hovering in the air. Jinki squeezes one and puts it on his shoulder. “Wherever you like,” he murmurs, and lets his own palms run over Taemin’s skinny waist.
Taemin’s nodding and it’s uncomfortable, turned toward each other in their seats, cramped and quiet. Jinki’s thinking about the people in the next car, but only vaguely. Most of his attention is on Taemin’s lips, the bob in his throat, the downturned shyness of his nose.
Taemin moves his mouth like he’s saying Jinki’s name, but no sound comes out. Jinki reads the squeeze of palms against his shoulders: Boy. Kiss. Now.
He can do that, he thinks, he can do that.
When he leans forward Taemin sucks in sharply, and it creates this little vacuum: it draws Jinki in closer, faster, and they press together, Jinki’s fingers squeezing around Taemin’s waist, smoothing down over his hips as he pulls back. It’s good. Taemin tastes sweet, like his hot chocolate from lunch, like seventeen and hopeful, like Jinki probably did three years ago.
He leans back in, buoyed by the tiny noise Taemin made upon contact, and his stomach flips again, and again, because the noises keep happening. Tiny, quiet admissions, easily tasted: Jinki took his first kiss, and he takes his second from him, and his third, and his fourth. Taemin steals the fifth, with his arms winding around Jinki’s neck, his lips wet. Both of them breathe together, in the hot space between their mouths, between the seconds. The train’s rocking side-to-side helps to set their rhythm, a little quick, a little unsteady.
Jinki’s never heard sounds like the ones Taemin is making, so soft and full of need. He’s open and unashamed of it. His tongue meets Jinki’s easily, like they moved forward at the same time, and the brush of them together makes Jinki gasp a little.
“Wow,” Taemin whispers, and Jinki kisses the corner of his mouth.
He can’t keep away, so he kisses a line across his cheek, over his jawline, to the junction of his ear, so soft and expectant. Jinki sucks at Taemin’s neck gently, nosing at the lines of his tendons when Taemin rolls his head back. He registers the hand squeezing at his chest, thumbing over the planes of it, gripping his biceps; the other seems unsure whether to explore his hip or his back and shifts between both. He registers the fact that he should move back up, so he does, and Taemin’s waiting for him.
A few more pecks, a daring tongue slipping into his mouth. Jinki likes this, he likes the way Taemin kisses. Easygoing, naturally graceful, like he’s painting, or dancing, maybe. He tries to pull back, but it’s difficult. Taemin’s lips are so plush. Jinki lets himself wander and drown, just a minute more, as they shift against each other, naturally accommodating to the best fit.
A few more seconds, he thinks, Just a few more.
Taemin whines against his lips, their mouths opening in tandem. His tongue slides over Jinki’s bottom lip, and then Jinki bites at Taemin’s, and the noise he makes is obscene , shitfuck, fucking shit . Two more presses of their lips, one, two -- and Jinki pulls back, like he’s ripping one magnet from another, like he’s pulling a great weight up from underwater.
“Wow,” Taemin says again. His voice is hoarse. Jinki might be smug, except his pulse has never been this loud, like it’s shouting at him, begging him to understand something, something important.
“Wow.” Taemin throws his head back and looks at the ceiling of the train car. “So, yeah… definitely gay, then.”
Jinki throws his head back too, and laughs and laughs.
--
Taemin’s face is still flushed when they pull into the station. Jinki smoothes Taemin’s hair, fixes his shirt for him.
At the platform Taemin waves to his grandparents, who stand at the edge of the crowd, looking small. “Hey, Jinki…” Taemin’s fingers wiggle over the strap of his backpack, but he’s smiling, eyes flashing in the light. “Thank you.”
Jinki clears his throat. He thinks he might be flushed, too. “You’re welcome.” The smile follows Taemin naturally.
Taemin turns so his back is facing the crowd and takes a step backwards, his eyebrows waggling. “That was really something. I could say wow again.”
“You really shouldn’t,” Jinki grins. But then Taemin’s swinging his arm forward, grasping his hand.
“Oh right. You forgot your book on the train,” he says, and Jinki takes it from him, blinking down at the cover, running a finger over the stranger’s name written on two sides of the pages: Sukwon, Sukwon.
“Have a nice stay, Goryeo Boy,” Jinki hears, as a swell of people come down the stairs, like water flooding a narrow gutter. He looks up and Taemin’s winking at him, backing into the crowd of people, raising his hand in a wave to match Jinki’s own. Then he turns into it and wades across the current to his grandparents, leaving a gap in the crowd behind him.
Jinki hails a taxi to his parents’ place just outside the station, listening to his pulse ebb and flow, and ebb and flow, all the way home.