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1.
The first time Go Nam-soon slept over, it was an accident. They’d been reading their comics and when the sun had gone down they’d just slid in closer to each other and the lamp that Heung-soo had dragged down to the floor, a small circle of light. Go Nam-soon had been the first to fall, slumping over sideways, feet still in the light, but head in the darkness, like a caterpillar poking halfway out of a hole in a leaf. Heung-soo had planned to wake him up and laugh at him, but he wanted to finish this bit and the next thought he’d had was that his lamp was really bright.
Then he sat up with a gasp. They’d slept through the whole night! And his right pinkie was kind of asleep from where he’d been sleeping on it and it was starting to tingle really hard.
But this was bad. His mom was always telling him to stay away from improper influences and here he was, being the improper influence. Go Nam-soon’s parents were going to be furious and then they’d tell them to stop talking to each other and they would because Go Nam-soon was so serious about all of the promises he made. Heung-soo didn’t know him really well, they’d only been at school together for a few months, but he knew that. Clearly they’d only be able to stare at each other in stern silence and every time they didn’t have to be in the same space Go Nam-soon was going to have to turn away and leave—except he wouldn’t cause Heung-soo knew he was at fault so it was going to be him leaving rooms so that Go Nam-soon didn’t have to. This was awful. What if he got thirsty and Go Nam-soon was already at the good water fountain? It was the only one that didn’t leak. Heung-soo was going to have to spend the rest of his life with a slightly damp uniform tie.
So he shook Go Nam-soon awake. “It’s morning!” he said, a little panicked.
Go Nam-soon stiffened as soon as Heung-soo touched him, going tight all over but not moving. Then his eyes slid open slowly. When he sat up, it was kind of careful, like he was rolling up from one of the toe-touch warmups coach always made them do in practice. Heung-soo ran his tongue over his teeth while he waited. “Good morning,” Go Nam-soon said.
“I don’t want to have to use a different water fountain!” Heung-soo squeaked.
Go Nam-soon stared at him. He kind of squinted a little.
“Weird dream?” Go Nam-soon asked.
Go Nam-soon was clearly trying to let them enjoy their last moments together. Heung-soo wouldn’t ruin that, so he played along. “Haha, yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Anyway, it’s morning.”
2.
They got away with it.
It took a few repeats of them falling asleep the same way, on the floor, manhwa spread between them like empty honey chip bags, before Heung-soo realised: Go Nam-soon could sleep over whenever and his parents didn’t care.
There was no one angrily phoning their house to shout about how Go Nam-soon should have been home. There wasn’t anyone tucking extra snacks into Go Nam-soon’s backpack because he was so, so hungry that sometimes he couldn’t tell if his legs hurt from running or from the way his body was stretching itself out. Heung-soo knew his parents weren’t dead, cause if they were then Go Nam-soon would live in an orphanage right? With all of the other kids? So he wouldn’t be alone, not the way he seemed to be now.
Heung-soo tried to imagine what it was like for Go Nam-soon at home but his mind came up as a big blank. He didn’t know what that would look like. His classmate Ji So-yun had divorced parents, so she only saw her dad sometimes and he came to pick her up in an imported Renault. But she still went home to her mom’s house and had kimbap made for her. It was like Heung-soo’s life, or pretty close.
Whatever was going on at Go Nam-soon’s house was different than that. Wasn’t as good.
Go Nam-soon knocked his shoulder into Heung-soo’s to remind him not to fall behind.
Heung-soo walked through the rest of the day feeling a little off-balance, like all of the blood had settled in his right side and hadn’t shifted back over to be even. His mother was always telling him not to sleep on the floor, but he’d never listened. Why not sleep on the floor? It was there and no one yelled at him if he left crumbs there.
But maybe he should listen to her better, because he didn’t feel quite right today. Coach had to tell him to focus three times when he missed easy headers during drills.
He spent the rest of the week watching Go Nam-soon closely. He seemed the same as always. He walked into rooms like an announcer should have come ahead of him to tell everyone to move, and sometimes it worked like that, classmates scattering out of his way.
When, a few days later, Heung-soo said he wanted to try the new snack place and he had some money to go, Go Nam-soon agreed immediately. How had Heung-soo never noticed that Go Nam-soon never said no? He never had a family birthday or dinner that he had to go home for. He was always free to go wherever Heung-soo wanted.
After food, Go Nam-soon walked home with Heung-soo, fists deep in his jacket pockets and kicking at the ground as he went. His shoes were always scuffed, not just the ones for gym.
They went up to Heung-soo’s door and kind of...loitered. He knew he should go in, but Go Nam-soon didn’t really seem like he had anywhere to go. So.
“...I got a new video game,” Heung-soo said. It wasn’t new, it was just something for his Nintendo DS.
Go Nam-soon’s head jerked up.
3.
Building blanket nests on the floor is all well and good, Heung-soo thought, but they were getting too big for that. Eleven was too old, practically teenaged. Somewhere in his brain, Heung-soo thought that he should start thinking of his dignity, and maybe about Go Nam-soon’s too. It had been fun, in a kind of childish way, to sprawl out on the floor and read til he couldn’t keep his eyes open. But they could do better.
So when it came to their regular sleepover, he kept a closer eye on Go Nam-soon. He saw the way he started to go sleepy, leaning a little. Heung-soo bit his lip.
“Come...come up here?” Heung-soo asked and then glued his eyes to the floor. It wasn’t weird, he told himself. Just because he was doing it on purpose doesn’t mean they hadn’t slept together tons of times already. And this time they’d be more comfortable.
Go Nam-soon suddenly looked wide awake. And then his shoulders curled in a little. “Up... in the bed?”
Heung-soo didn’t trust himself to speak so he just nodded. He felt like his cheeks were a sizzling bowl, if he put rice on them, it would crisp the edges.
They kept that silence as both of them crawled their way up. The only noise was the sound of the covers being pulled back, the rustle of fabric on fabric. Heung-soo wanted to change into pajamas, but he knew somehow, in that way he sometimes knew if a keeper was going to break right or left, that if he did it would break the moment and Go Nam-soon would leave. And he didn’t want him to leave.
This was nicer.
There was still some light creeping in through the window, just enough to see how Go Nam-soon was all flat out now, not curled up. He was probably warmer up here than on the floor—Heung-soo hadn’t thought about that since he was a little furnace who didn’t get cold. That’s what his mom said anyway. But Go Nam-soon got cold. He shivered sometimes when he was waiting to pick Heung-soo up from practice. His coat was thin and the sweater he had was short in the arms and stomach. It was only going to get colder too. Go Nam-soon was warm now, though, under the blanket that Heung-soo’s mom had picked out, warmer than he would have picked for himself.
Go Nam-soon’s eyes were already closed and the low light made everything blur together, look smooth and soft.
Heung-soo turned onto his side and closed his eyes. Now they matched.
4.
Heung-soo’s family didn’t believe in painkillers, but the doctors said these anti-inflammatories were important for his recovery. Recovery was a good word, recovery made it sound like he could go back to where he was. It implied a Heung-soo who could walk without collapsing, a Heung-soo who could run and jump. Recovery didn’t match with the way his family had clearly been crying when they came back into the hospital room after hearing his diagnosis.
He wasn’t in the hospital now. He hadn’t been in the hospital long anyways, it was too expensive, so now he had to keep going back for check-ups and treatments. The doctors asked him a lot of questions, but Heung-soo wasn’t sure what there was to say. His leg hurt. And they could see he couldn’t walk on it. That bastard Go Nam-soon had seen to that.
It made him so angry, a seething ball of it in his chest. Anger was familiar, at least. He knew what to do with anger, with the insult that caused the anger. He wanted to lash out at Go Nam-soon and settle the score. He wanted to shout at Go Nam-soon and ask why he’d done it, how could he have done it? But he had to be here to be yelled at. And he wasn’t. Where was he?
These were the thoughts that kept him awake at night. That and the pain. Awake was a strong word for what he experienced. At night, with the moon glaring at him even through the window coverings, he hazed in a middle state. His body was heavy and muzzy, didn’t move when he wanted it to, and his eyes wouldn’t stay open. Things felt weird in this state. Time moved slowly, but then it was morning, and the things that he dreamed felt more real than his useless body did.
This dream felt familiar, even though he was sure he hadn’t had it before. The bed dipped and Heung-soo rolled, a spike of fire in his knee before his roll was stopped by a hand. And then the feeling of someone sliding in behind him. His brain faded to true black after that.
He asked his mom in the morning and she told him no one came in. What did it say about Heung-soo that he wanted comfort from the one that hurt him? Wanted it so bad he’d make it up.
5.
Never let it be said that Park Heung-soo had self-preservation skills.
When he saw Go Nam-soon getting into a van with men that Heung-soo knew for a fact wanted to beat the shit out of him, well, he took the least reasonable course of action and chased the fuck after them.
They got Go Nam-soon out and Heung-soo dropped to his knees and reached out, automatically. He put his hands all over Go Nam-soon, brushing over his chest, his shoulders, fluttering up at the edges of the gushing cut on his forehead.
Go Nam-soon blinked at him, eyes slightly unfocused. “Heung-soo?”
Heung-soo swallowed. He nodded, but he wasn’t sure Go Nam-soon could see it. “Yeah?”
Go Nam-soon smiled at him, teeth bloody. The way he looked at Heung-soo… Go Nam-soon had always had the biggest eyes in the world. He tried to hide them by looking down, or glaring, or crinkling them up into little smiles, but they were massive. Too big for his face. He looked like a manhwa character. And every time he looked at Heung-soo he made them as big as he could, and shiny. It was this horrible look of hope on his face like Heung-soo was the sun or some other stupid metaphor that Teacher Jung kept trying to teach them about with her awful worksheets.
Heung-soo hated it. He hated the way that it still made him happy when Go Nam-soon was happy. Before, a happy Go Nam-soon had meant good things; it was like his body hadn’t gotten the message that wasn’t true anymore. It felt confusing. Like his body was trying to go one way and his brain was trying to go another.
But he’d re-trained his body not to jump when he wanted something up high, not to run when he was late for something, and he could re-train it out of this too. He could practice and be patient and one day when he looked at Go Nam-soon he’d only feel the cold wind of resenting him. His body was always late on learning the truth, but it would catch up and then he’d be of one mind.
He needed to start teaching his body the score.
He reached out and touched the cut above Go Nam-soon’s eye. Go Nam-soon let him do it, head steady and looking at him the whole time.
Go Nam-soon’s eyes were on Heung-soo, too sharp and knowing. It occurred to Heung-soo, somewhat late, that as much as Heung-soo’s body hadn’t unlearned Go Nam-soon, the same went for him. All of the little tricks and tells that Heung-soo had—Go Nam-soon had seen them. He knew what the reach of Heung-soo’s fingers meant. As much as he wanted to say Go Nam-soon was nothing to him, his body made him a liar.
“I’m invincible,” Go Nam-soon said, reassuring Heung-soo. The utter bastard. Heung-soo scoffed.
Heung-soo knew the lie in that. Go Nam-soon wasn’t invincible, he was breakable. And as much as Heung-soo complained about how much he remembered about Go Nam-soon, how much space Go Nam-soon took up in his mind, he’d forgotten that when they were young, Go Nam-soon was the damaged one.
On the walk home Heung-soo felt like he had a shadow tail, Go Nam-soon hobbling his way after him.
“Hey motherfucker,” Heung-soo heard himself say, “You should have apologised before. Either way, you should have been there.” Go Nam-soon was crying. Heung-soo didn’t want to think about his own face. “Didn’t you miss me at all?” he asks.
Before he could do anything about it, they were kissing. It wasn’t nice. It didn’t feel like coming home. Heung-soo pressed into it, pulling Go Nam-soon’s body against his. Go Nam-soon tasted like iron and salt and Heung-soo hoped it stung, the kiss, hoped it felt as raw on Nam-soon’s ripped up lips as it did on Heung-soo’s skin.
Heung-soo pulled Go Nam-soon’s lip into his mouth, scraping it with his teeth on the way. Go Namsoon moaned. It broke them apart, gasping into the night air.
“This isn’t—this doesn’t—” Heung-soo said.
Go Nam-soon shook his head, hair falling against his face. “Just—let me,” he said. Heung-soo swallowed. Let him, like Heung-soo ever did anything else.
Go Nam-soon dropped to his knees.
“What are you…” Heung-so asked, like he couldn’t tell. Go Nam-soon reached for his pants, hands still so steady, and unzipped and pulled them down. Heung-soo couldn’t breathe. It felt like the air was made of ice now, sharp and stabbing, like he’d run too hard for too long, and the last time he’d felt like that his mom had been sick and Go Nam-soon had come to the hospital to stay with him, to spend the night with him.
All of his memories had Go Nam-soon in them, and Heung-soo knew he’d remember this too: Go Nam-soon on his knees, pulling Heung-soo’s mostly soft dick out of his pants. Heung-soo hissed when the cold air hit his bare skin, but it wasn’t for long. Go Nam-soon leaned in, fast, and put his lips around it, sucking him in. Heung-soo grew hard so fast he felt light-headed and had to reach out to brace himself on the wall. Hard enough it pushed his dick out of Go Nam-soon’s mouth, made him work to swallow it all. But he did. He choked himself on it, pulling Heung-soo into his mouth and swallowing around the head. Heung-soo was stretching him out, could feel the flutter at the back of Go Nam-soon’s throat where he was struggling. He could feel the tautness of Go Nam-soon’s lips where they stretched around his dick.
Go Nam-soon kept swallowing, but he couldn’t catch all of the spit and some of it dripped down his chin. Heung-soo reached out and swiped his thumb, trying to wipe it away. His thumb came back pink-tinged. Always blood between them. Heung-soo shivered again, but not from the cold.
His hips started to move without his permission, short, uneven jerks. Go Nam-soon just let him, just kept letting him and it felt so fucking good, so hot and tight, and it was Go Nam-soon looking at him, and taking him.
Heung-soo came.
He shook in the aftermath, knees dangerously unstable, but Go Nam-soon had his hands on him, at the juncture where his thighs met his ass, holding him up.
Heung-soo allowed himself a breath, two, and one more. Then he rubbed a hand over his eyes. Go Nam-soon was trying to be helpful and tuck Heung-soo’s dick back into his pants. Heung-soo batted his hands away and did it for himself.
He had to look down to do it, at the picture Go Nam-soon made. Split lip, beat-up face, and eyes full of hope. It didn’t drive Heung-soo to rage like it normally did, his body felt too warm for that. He reached inside for it, but it wasn’t there. And Go Nam-soon kept looking at him, still on his knees—there it was, a shadow of the usual, a slight spike of irritation. Go Nam-soon could stay down there, on his knees, on the hard ground, for as long as he liked. For longer than Heung-soo could even dream of.
“Don’t expect me to do the same,” Heung-soo said, sharp.
Something slid sideways behind Go Nam-soon’s eyes. “I didn’t ask,” he said, and staggered when he stood up. It was so familiar, the only thing that had been familiar since Go Nam-soon had got on his knees. Go Nam-soon wasn’t graceful, never had been.
Heung-soo reached out a hand to steady him, fingers curling over the joint in Go Nam-soon’s shoulder and Go Nam-soon—flinched. He hadn’t flinched when Heung-soo had pressed his hand against the free-flowing cut on Go Nam-soon’s head. Go Nam-soon never flinched. He hadn’t flinched when Go Nam-soon had taught Heung-soo how to throw a punch and Heung-soo had tried it with a hit that had pushed Go Nam-soon back three steps. He’d never flinched when Heung-soo woke him up for school, a soft shake of his shoulders on mornings that felt too early, that hadn’t been enough rest to lighten any of the dark circles under Go Nam-soon’s eyes.
Heung-soo’s stomach clenched, and he looked away.
It should be easy, he thought, to see the shadow in his eyes. To know that he was the one who reached out and turned off the light in them. He’d be fine. They’d seen each other banged up so many times when they were growing up. The fights they’d gotten into had left bruises, and life had given them their fair share of knocks and scrapes, but Go Nam-soon always bounced back.
One time, when they were kids, they’d been pushing each other as they were walking along and Go Nam-soon had tripped over his own shoe, staggered, and whacked his head against the edge of the bus shelter they were passing. Heung-soo had felt like his stomach was going to fall out of his feet when Go Nam-soon’s head hit the metal. The sound had been awful and wet.
Go Nam-soon had bounced off the bus shelter. One moment they’d been joking and the next moment it was like Go Nam-soon was just a very breakable doll that was bleeding and falling onto the pavement—no one was driving his body anymore. He’d stood right up, blood streaming from his forehead, already joking around. A week later the scab was fully sealed over. And then the wound was gone like it had never been there.
Heung-soo wasn’t like Go Nam-soon. He wasn’t the type who bounced off and healed up. His knee was always going to be in bad shape.
It should put a big wall between them. It didn’t. Heung-soo was fooling himself.
He’ll be cold, Heung-soo thought, nonsensically, from having been on the ground so long. It was cold enough that he could see his breath even when he wasn’t smoking and the ground… it was cold. And hard. And wet. Heung-soo was stupid, he knew he was, he was never going to university, but he knew what it was to hurt.
He brought Go Nam-soon home. Snuck him in quietly, navigating by street and moonlight only. He used the kit in the bathroom to clean Nam-soon’s cuts, and for them to clean up as best they could. Heung-soo put out a t-shirt and then. Then it was just them, and the room, and the dark.
Go Nam-soon looked around at the bedroom, taking in the small, shitty bed, the charger cables next to the sockets, tangled up together. Heung-soo saw the moment he clocked the exercise band and foam roller, the tools of his physio he left out because he used them so regularly what was the point of putting them away.
Go Nam-soon’s eyes flashed and Heungsoo saw pity there. What else could it be? And he was tired of it. This pity shit was aggravating. It was a constant reminder of everything that was broken between them. Like Heung-soo needed another reminder. His body was full of reminders. His knee hurt when it was cold, or he put his foot down wrong, or he didn’t do his stretches. Or sometimes just because. And it was going to feel that way forever.
His body wasn’t going to get better.
“It’s late,” Heung-soo said, softly. Telling Go Nam-soon to stop pitying him was the failed attempt of yesterday. He’d already picked that fight, and he’d picked tomorrow’s fight. Goal: get Go Nam-soon to let there be nothing between them, no bonds of obligation or betrayed trust. That Heung-soo putting his dick in his mouth was a goodbye and not a hello. They were in the space between these two fights right now. There was just this moment, this night, and the one bed.
Go Nam-soon nodded, so agreeable lately.
Heung-soo knew it was a mistake to bring Go Nam-soon home, had known it before he did it, but he hadn’t calculated the full magnitude. Not until he’d turned to face the window, as always, and Go Nam-soon slid in behind him, close enough that Heung-soo could smell him. He still smelled a bit like sweat and adrenaline, but also like Heung-soo’s soap. Underneath both of those things there was still the smell of Go Nam-soon, so teeth-achingly familiar that Heung-soo felt like he’d shrunk. The bed was suddenly larger it had ever been, or maybe that was just the sense memory of him being smaller, of the times when he and Go Nam-soon had fit in easily together.
He couldn’t believe he thought for a moment that they could be nothing to each other. His body was right, Heung-soo thought. He couldn’t argue his way out of this.
He was sure he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, these new thoughts thrumming through him, but it barely took a moment for Heung-soo’s eyes to get heavy.
When he woke up in the morning, Go Nam-soon was there, hovering.
Heung-soo sighed.
Go Nam-soon pressed his lips together. “You have to sneak me out,” he whispered. Which Heung-soo supposed was valid enough. No use getting them caught, hanging out. He could imagine his family’s reaction. His lips quirked.
Go Nam-soon was looking at him funny. “What?” Heung-soo asked. Go Nam-soon shook his head. Heung-soo figured he’d get it out of him at one point or another.
***
That’s what he thought before finding out that Go Nam-soon was transferring. “We were just beginning to make up,” he said through numb lips.
Later, Go Nam-soon caught up to him. “We’re making up?” His eyes were doing that stupid shining thing again. It was better, Heung-soo thought, than when they were crying, which was altogether too frequently.
Heung-soo shrugged. His backpack raised and lowered with his shoulders.
Go Nam-soon looked at him again, shadows at the edges. Heung-soo was reminded of his stupid flinch. He reached out, deliberately, and shook Go Nam-soon by the shoulder.
“Ah, I’m hungry,” he said.
“You’re always hungry,” Go Nam-soon said.
“Ramyeon would be good,” Heung-soo said, ignoring him. “You still remember how to make that, right?” he asked, enough edge to be an asshole. Go Nam-soon’s eyes flashed.
“As good as always,” he said.
Heung-soo turned to go. His feet knew the way. He waited for Go Nam-soon to realise he was leading them home.