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“We need kindling,” Felix said. He’d been leading the way downhill to the shore, his smaller hand clamped uncomfortably around Hyunjin’s wrist. Now he brushed it away and handed Hyunjin a big, heavy flashlight that he immediately almost dropped.
“Um… anything’s okay, then? Pine needles?”
“You really don’t know anything, huh.” Felix gave him a pitying look. “Sticks are best. Need some decent-sized sticks, or bark. Make sure it’s dry, that’s all. Pinecones ‘re fine too. And dry leaves are alright as long as we’ve got enough sticks. Pine needles though, they burn waaaay too fast, they’re flammable as shit. And they’re everywhere in a place like this, so you gotta be careful. You don’t contain your fire properly, there’s all these pine needles around, they catch fire and then bam, the whole forest’s a goner. That’s why we’re out here.” Felix jerked his head behind him, towards the lake, black and tremendous in the night. “Safer that way.”
Alright. Sorry for asking a fucking question. Hyunjin rolled his eyes where Felix couldn’t see him, and trekked back over to deposit some very decent kindling he’d gathered during the lecture. “You know, it’s kinda funny— getting lessons on fire safety from the camp arsonist.”
Felix grinned at him. His face was flecked with dirt. “Only you can prevent forest fires,” he said.
“…Right.”
“Any arsonist worth his salt can tell you the rules of fire safety,” Felix went on. He had in front of him what appeared to be a pile of dirt and leaves, which he was fussing over in a way that Hyunjin had to admit did seem to be scientific, somehow. “You gotta know the rules first before you break ‘em. Here…” He flicked on the lighter, and the sad little pile began to crackle and spark. “Throw those on there. Yeah, all of it, come on.”
Felix was shockingly chatty tonight, Hyunjin thought. Then again, it was possible that he’d have talked this much all the time if he’d been allowed. They’d never sneaked out so far beyond earshot of the counselors before this. So maybe this was Felix’s natural state, when he was at ease. His eyes all lit up with flame.
It probably should have been a little scary, Hyunjin thought. Everybody said Felix was a psychopath, even Felix himself— Hyunjin never knew if he was joking when he said stuff like that. Felix, who liked to start fires and liked to call him a faggot, had asked if he wanted to go eat s’mores. And Hyunjin had said yes. And he was afraid. His hands were shaking. But it wasn’t Felix he was afraid of.
Hyunjin shuffled back and forth between Felix and the edge of the woods, careful not to stray too far from him. His eyes darted constantly between Felix’s hunched-over form and the glow of lights in cabin windows, which he could see through the trees even now. He was afraid of being caught— what they would do to him. But oddly enough, no, he was not afraid of Felix.
Soon Felix was happy with the fire, and Hyunjin sat across from him, squinting through the smoke while he prepared the remaining materials. “I don’t know if I should trust you, but I do,” Hyunjin said suddenly.
Felix squinted back at him, considering. “…Sure, you should,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “I’m teaching you real camping shit. You’re supposed to be at camp, and all they got you doing is like, so-called group therapy where we all just lie to each other’s faces. If I was running this place, you’d all learn to be self-sufficient.”
“If you were running this place,” Hyunjin repeated. He had to admit that Felix’s skills were impressive; he knew how to build a fire and how to toast a marshmallow exactly right. Apparently Hyunjin was comparatively hopeless at it, so much so that Felix felt the need to grab the skewer out of his hands and toast it for him in the end. “You, a gay kid, running a conversion camp for gay kids. You, Felix Lee, you’d get all these kids to stop being gay… by teaching them how to build a fire?”
Felix laughed. He laughed really loudly, and it made Hyunjin nervous. “Well, obviously some people are just hopeless cases. Like you! You’re a lost cause. No amount of therapy is fixing you, that’s for sure.” He handed Hyunjin a perfectly assembled s’more as if he wasn’t even being mean. And Hyunjin took it. This was exactly what he’d come to expect from Felix, at this point.
Still. “I’m not even gay,” Hyunjin mumbled. He didn’t know why he still bothered to say this, other than out of principle. He didn’t exactly believe in it anymore, but it was what he’d said in the beginning, and he ought to stick to it. It was his line, anyway, his classic line. Maybe Felix would have been thrown off if he hadn’t said it.
The s’more was really good, really shockingly good in a way that made Hyunjin close his eyes and do a little spontaneous dance.
“Woah! That’s weird. Do you do that every time you eat something good?”
“I… yeah, I guess so.” Hyunjin shrugged. He noticed that Felix had eaten his own s’more in probably ten seconds flat, but he wanted to take his time, savor every bite. “The food here sucks,” he lamented. He missed his mom’s cooking, but he couldn’t think about that too much or he’d start to miss his mom, even though it was all her fault that he was here in the first place, and he shouldn’t have missed somebody who didn’t even want him there. It was complicated.
“…Wanna ‘nother one? Here, you can give it another try. I’ll trust you with these,” Felix said. He stabbed a skewer through three fat marshmallows and handed it off to Hyunjin, who really felt honored, as silly as it was.
“I’m gonna get it right this time,” Hyunjin started to say. Just making conversation. But when he looked over at Felix, Felix did not look back. Felix was gazing off into the distance, through the trees, at the flickering cabin-lights.
“I hate this place,” Felix said, suddenly. His voice shook— not like he was going to cry, his voice shook with rage. Still, Hyunjin did not feel afraid of him, maybe because it was a rage he was familiar with, a rage he felt himself, all the time, and he just didn’t know what to do with it.
Maybe this was part of the reason why he liked Felix. Because Felix seemed to know what to do with it. With the rage.
“I’m gonna light it all on fire,” Felix said. Hyunjin shivered, knowing Felix wasn’t watching. He tried to check in with himself. No, he was afraid. Not of Felix, but of it. The rage. He knew it was in him, too, he burned with it sometimes.
“Hyunjin.” Felix called him, but didn’t look at him. “When I do it, will you join me?”
“…I don’t know,” Hyunjin heard himself whine. He didn’t know why he couldn’t just say no. No, you fucking lunatic.
“Wait.” Felix turned back and smiled at him. His smile was rather dazzling. Hyunjin had read something before about sociopaths with perfect smiles. “Here. Have this first.” He handed Hyunjin another magazine-perfect s’more, which seemed to have appeared out of thin air. “Then give your final answer.”
Hyunjin took the s’more and inhaled its scent deeply before taking a small bite. He wished he could bathe in the stuff. A big tub full of chocolate and marshmallow. It made him feel like a little kid, having that sort of fantasy. Didn’t every kid want a pool full of jello at some point? It made him sad, somehow, to think about that. It made him think about how he really did hate being here. He wanted to go home really badly. He didn’t know when he’d stopped being a child and started being someone so detestable that his mother couldn’t stand to look at him.
He swallowed. “I don’t know,” Hyunjin said again. “…People could die.”
“People die every day, Hyunjin,” said Felix.
“Y-yeah, but…” Hyunjin’s eyes ached from the fire and from being upset and ashamed about everything. “I don’t want to… I don’t know.”
“Hyunjin.” Felix’s eyes were heavy on him. And Hyunjin was too hot, too close to the fire where he’d already been sunburnt. “I know you hate them.”
“Of course I…” Hyunjin shook his head. He was thirsty, the s’more he’d loved so much had made his mouth dry and tacky. “I hate all the… All the stuff they make me do. I hate it. I hate the therapy, I hate their stupid charts and having to repeat back all the crazy stuff they want me to say and getting punished if I don’t. I hate the sermons and I hate praying and I hate when they pray for me. I hate that they cut my hair.” He brushed the back of his marshmallow-sticky hand against the nape of his neck, which was strange and prickly. This had been the worst by far, the worst affront to his dignity. Because they hadn’t done it to everyone, he’d been singled out and he’d refused to do it himself so they’d held him down and shorn him like a sheep in front of everyone while he cried and begged them to stop. It looked awful. He hated it. They said they knew he wanted to be a girl, he wanted men to think of him that way, and this would help him to let go of his delusion. After that, he didn’t recognize himself, which may have been what they’d intended.
—Every time he looked in the mirror it was like a reminder that they’d won. Nothing was his. His own body least of all. He did not even belong to himself—
“Yeah,” was all that Felix said. But there was an odd sort of sorrow in his voice, pity or sympathy. Hyunjin tried not to look at him, at his eyes that reflected the firelight and blazed brightly with whatever-it-was.
“B-but I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Hyunjin whispered, trying to make sense of it. “I don’t want to kill someone! I don’t want them to die, I don’t want anyone to die.”
Felix was quiet. He poked at the fire, which was starting to die down. Hyunjin’s eyes watered. He wished for things to be different. A longer night, a bigger fire, more s’mores. A big house with a fire pit in back. He and Felix could be next-door neighbors, and Felix could come over and drink beers every night and nobody would get punished and Hyunjin’s hair would be however he wanted it to be.
“I don’t know yet,” said Felix. “If I’m gonna burn it down with me inside.”
“Felix.” Hyunjin stared at him. His throat ached. “Why…”
“I’m miserable. Every day, I’m miserable. I know it’s not going to stop. I know… this is it, for me.” Felix’s mouth was a grim, straight line. “You don’t get it— I don’t expect you to. Because you have someplace to go back to. I have nobody, nothing. I’m alone with myself. And I hate myself.”
“…But you said you don’t know yet.” Hyunjin worried at his lower lip, carefully holding himself together. Through the screen of the fire between them, he was hopeful that Felix would not be able to tell whether he was holding back tears. “So… is there something that’s, like, stopping you?”
“Kind of a fucked-up question,” said Felix, smirking like an asshole. Hyunjin was tempted to chuck a burnt marshmallow at him.
“You know what I mean, man. Like, there’s something good, isn’t there? Otherwise I think you’d have already, yannow.” Hyunjin shrugged. “I would have, anyway, I think.”
“Something good? I don’t know.” Felix poked at the fire again, and it gave a weak gurgle in response. It was fading now, making it more difficult to hide behind. “I hate pretty much everyone I’ve ever met. Well…” Felix’s eyes rolled up to the sky. Hyunjin followed his gaze up there, and saw stars— many more than he had expected. It was a clear night. A rare, clear night with a friend. Hyunjin personally thought this was as good a reason as any not to light yourself on fire.
“I don’t hate you, though,” Felix conceded. “Isn’t that weird?”
“…Yeah, man,” said Hyunjin, trying not to smile too much. “Super fuckin’ weird.”
“What about you? I mean, is there ‘something good’? For you. Since actually it sounds like you don’t wanna kill yourself.”
“I really don’t,” Hyunjin agreed. “For me, I think… I kind of… well, I already know what you’re going to say.” They stared at each other. “I want to be an artist.”
“Okay,” said Felix. He seemed to be holding himself very still. Hyunjin did not look away from him. He narrowed his eyes and counted down in his head: 3, 2, 1– “Faggot! Sorry.”
“I know, I know,” Hyunjin rolled his eyes.
“It’s just, it’s really gay. It really is. Wanting to be an artist is— it’s even gayer than being an artist.”
“I know! Shut up, I know.”
“…Do you, really?” Felix cocked his head to one side, analyzing. “You definitely didn’t know, a few weeks ago.”
“Yeah, well— I really thought I wasn’t, but…” Hyunjin shrugged, scratching at a new mosquito bite on his wrist. “I don’t know. I guess the therapy isn’t working.”
Felix snorted. “D’you reckon they made you gayer?”
“Probably,” said Hyunjin. He’d scratched too hard, and his mosquito bite was bleeding. “They had to like, convince me that I was even gay in the first place, so they could un-convince me. How about you?”
“Boy, I’m gayer ‘n a barrel of monkeys,” said Felix, deadpan. “They don’t make ‘em any gayer than me. Nothing can hurt me, none of this stuff even touches me. I’m pretty much invincible. They give me this medicine that’s supposed to make me sick, y’know. I don’t even feel it.”
“Medicine?” Hyunjin blinked tiredly. This was new to him; no one had given him medicine.
“Yeah. You know when they show you pictures of gay people and you’re supposed to throw up or whatever?”
“Oh. Yeah. I hate that, too.” It was also one of those things that Hyunjin suspected had backfired and actually made him gayer. He’d never looked at so many pictures of men kissing each other in his life.
“I wasn’t acting sick enough, so they started giving me these pills beforehand. But they don’t even work. Isn’t that funny?”
Hyunjin grimaced. He did not think it was especially funny. He knew that Felix didn’t want his sympathy, though. That was never what Felix was looking for, when he said things like that. “Maybe they’re sugar pills. A placebo. They’re trying to get you to make yourself sick. It’s another headfuck-thing.”
Felix blinked at him. “Huh. You’re pretty smart. I mean, I knew I was smarter than them, but I guess you are, too.”
Hyunjin shrugged. “Maybe we’re not that smart, they’re just dumb. I know they’re not real doctors, anyway. I fool them all the time.” He busied himself peeling the bark off of a fallen piece of kindling. “Maybe I’ll be an actor.”
Felix smirked, watching him with his chin in his palm. “You are such a faggot,” he sighed, sounding inordinately fond. Hyunjin peered over at him searchingly, finding his inflection strange. “But that’s okay, you know?”
“What?” Ordinarily when Felix called him a faggot, it was more or less indistinguishable from run-of-the-mill schoolyard bullying, except for the fact that it was coming from an out-and-proud gay person, which made it confusing. Now he was saying it almost as if it was a compliment, which added another layer of confusion.
“I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it.” The fire was just a pile of glowing embers now. Felix poked at it sadly, then switched on his headlamp so they could see each other. “It’s not all misery all the time. You’re gonna grow up just like anyone else, and you’ll probably even be happy.”
Hyunjin could not describe how this made him feel. He felt very warm, and also like he wanted to cry. He wanted to move over and sit next to Felix, but he couldn’t. This would have been imbued with far too much meaning. So he had to just sit with himself. He pulled his hands into his sleeves. “And you’re not?” he asked Felix, knowing already what the answer would be.
“Definitely not,” said Felix shortly. “But it’s not because I’m gay. That’s what I’m saying. It’s irrelevant. All of this…” He gestured widely, making a big circle with his arms and then sweeping it away. “None of it really matters. Like, I’m miserable, but I know it’s not because I’m gay, it’s because I’m worthless. Like, on a molecular level. See, we’re both gay, but I’m worthless and you’re not.” There was a heavy pause as Hyunjin tried to conceive a response to this. “Diversity win,” said Felix, laughing.
“You’re not worthless,” Hyunjin said quietly. He suspected he would be shouted down for this, but he would not have felt right if he didn’t try. “You’re my friend. You’re the only friend I’ve got, right now.”
“Right now,” said Felix.
“Right now might as well be forever. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here, to be honest. I think without you to talk to, I’d have gone crazy already. I’d be naked and living in a tree or something, I’m serious.”
Felix’s mouth was turned up at one end. “You’d be alright,” he said.
“Fuck off,” Hyunjin said. He didn’t know what else to do, so he stood up and kicked some mulchy dirt onto their dead fire.
Felix followed, producing an empty solo cup from his backpack. “We gotta wash up,” he explained, and he began what would be the first of several trips between the lake’s edge and the makeshift fire pit, dumping three full cups of lakewater over its remains before he was satisfied. “Leave everything the way you found it. To cover our tracks, obviously, but also, like, you know, out of respect.”
“Respect?” Hyunjin had never heard Felix express respect for anyone before, much less for this place, of all places.
“Not for the camp, obviously, but for the natural environment. The forests and the lake. It’s not their fault, none of it is. The deer and the foxes and stuff. It’s not like they’d approve of what they do to us here.” The fire was well and truly stamped out, and Felix replaced the plastic cup in his bag, but walked back to the lake anyway, Hyunjin following him. “The deer. I bet they hate it, too,” Felix said. “The earth and the water and everything, they were here before the camp was built, and they’ll be here after it’s all burnt to the ground.”
“Uh-huh.” Hyunjin nodded. It was always surprising to him, the stuff that Felix decided to care about. He watched, wondering, as Felix took his sneakers and socks off.
“We should wash off, too,” Felix said. He reached up and switched his headlamp off, dropping it by his shoes. Hyunjin’s eyes struggled to adjust to the new darkness. “Otherwise we’ll smell like the campfire.”
Hyunjin was skeptical of this reasoning. If they went in the lake, they were going to smell like the lake, which was not really any better than smelling like the fire. He thought it might have been worse, actually, just thinking it through. If the truth were to come out-- making a campfire was not inherently gay, as far as he knew. Skinny-dipping, though?
So, Hyunjin was skeptical. There was no point in arguing, though. He wanted to do whatever Felix wanted him to do, anyway, so he took his clothes off.
“Don’t look at me,” said Felix. Just to be shitty, maybe. Hyunjin rolled his eyes. It wasn’t like he could see much of anything in the dark, anyway. Just the outline of Felix’s skinny little body, bare in the moonlight for a couple of seconds before he disappeared into the water. He did not bother to defend himself, and Felix had not allowed for much of a response anyway. He followed Felix into the water in silence. He was beginning to think that he would follow Felix anywhere, no matter what he said. Maybe that was not a good thing.
He and Felix swam out until their toes no longer skimmed the slimy bottom of the lake. They floated there and looked at each other, treading water. Felix’s hair was plastered to his head. He’d been at the camp for a long time and obviously he wasn’t allowed to dye his hair, so his roots had grown out and his tips were fried to hell. But right now, flat against his scalp, it all looked black.
Hyunjin thought, not for the first time, that Felix was very handsome. And that he was really in big trouble, because there was no way that his or Felix’s hair would be dry by the morning, even if they got back unnoticed. Everything was going to be worse, after this. Maybe they would never see each other again.
Felix was very handsome.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Felix said suddenly. Hyunjin was not sure at first what he was referring to. “Like, in a ‘don’t-be-gay’ way. I didn’t want you to look because I’ve got scars, and stuff. It’s embarrassing.”
Hyunjin nodded. “I didn’t see anything,” he said.
“But I’m fine like this,” Felix said. They were both quiet for a moment. A bird cried out somewhere, its song sounding like a mockery of a person crying. A-hoo, hoo, hoo. “Because you can’t see me.”
“Felix,” Hyunjin said. He was afraid. Now he was afraid. He was afraid of Felix. Felix swam up to him. Knocked their heads together. Felix’s hands found his shoulders. His arms, his neck. Felix couldn’t decide where he wanted to put his hands, maybe. This was understandable because it was the first time they’d ever touched like this. Maybe he didn’t know where he wanted to start.
“You’re shaking,” Felix said. Curious. Making an observation. Hyunjin sighed. He felt something stirring in him and despite himself, he felt the urge to stamp it out. It got to him— being told every day how bad it was. It was hard not to think that it was bad. Hard not to be afraid. “Do you need to go back?”
“Let’s… go a little shallower,” Hyunjin said. “If that’s okay.” He and Felix stared at each other until Felix nodded his assent and they both turned and swam a little bit closer to the shore, Hyunjin’s blood pounding in his head. He didn’t want to be afraid. He didn’t, he didn’t want to show Felix how afraid he really was.
Their feet found purchase in the mud, and Hyunjin and Felix turned and looked at each other again. Felix was still in the water up to his neck, but Hyunjin was taller, so the tops of his shoulders were exposed. He shivered.
“You’ve probably kissed plenty of people,” Felix said. “Right?”
Hyunjin rubbed at the back of his neck, which had always been his habit. The hedgehog-prickliness of it startled him into fear again, which he tried to ignore. But this was why they’d pinned him down and shaved him like an animal. This was exactly why. He couldn’t forget it.
“I had a girlfriend,” said Hyunjin, by way of answer. “Before.”
Felix’s expression was especially unreadable, barely illuminated by moonlight. “Not anymore?”
“I think she’s kind of the reason I’m here,” Hyunjin said, staring down into the black water. “We were drinking her mom’s liquor and we started watching that Western movie on Netflix. The Power of the Dog. We didn’t know it was a gay thing, just thought it was a normal… cowboy thing. And then she wanted to turn it off, but I didn’t, and we got into a big fight. And I’m pretty sure she told my parents, and so here we are.”
Felix frowned. “Couldn’t you have just said, like, I wanna see all the Academy Award nominated films, I’m an artsy straight guy?”
“Well, that’s not what I said,” Hyunjin sighed. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been over this plenty of times before in his head; all the things he could have said, contrasted with all the things he did say. In the end, he knew that he had said far too much. He had never fought with his girlfriend like that before, so he hadn’t known what the consequence for speaking his mind would be. “I don’t know. I’m not into Westerns like that. It was her idea to watch it anyway.”
“Oh.” Felix’s eyes widened dramatically. “She knew it was gay, then. It was a test.”
“A test?”
“She probably saw something on your phone, so she was already pissed off and suspicious of you, and then she picked a stealthy gay movie so she could suss it out. Like, I could be wrong, but girls are sneaky like that,” Felix explained, with the air of a math tutor.
“You think? But I didn’t have anything on my phone, I don’t think I-- wait…” Hyunjin’s face burned under Felix’s scrutiny. “Um… well, yeah, I probably did.”
“I think you might be the last person to find out that you’re gay,” Felix mused. Drawing closer again. Hyunjin dodged his gaze, looking down at the water again. Felix drew himself up onto his tip-toes, and Hyunjin watched his shoulders emerge from the water. He was freckled all over.
“It’s not funny,” Hyunjin said, suddenly obstinate. He tried to glare at Felix, but ended up with what he thought was probably a plaintive, desperate look. Because Felix seemed charmed by it, more than anything.
“Yeah.” Felix’s hand cupped the back of his neck, thumbing across his shorn-animal hair. “I’m sorry,” Felix said. He gave Hyunjin’s neck a little squeeze. It was more than anyone had touched him in months, which felt like years. He closed his eyes in surrender. The loon called again, somewhere out on the lake. “You deserve better,” said Felix, his breath warm on Hyunjin’s face. Hyunjin knew his mouth would taste like sugar. He was waiting, they both were. The campfire-smell was very much still on them, Hyunjin could smell it clearly with Felix this close. They were fucked. “I don’t mean just better than me,” Felix was saying. “A better world. Kinder people.”
“I’m not even a good person,” Hyunjin protested faintly, thinking of his drunk self, with his face all bloated and red, lazing around on his girlfriend’s bed, eating her food and calling her a crazy bitch.
“You don’t deserve it,” whispered Felix, like he hadn’t heard him. “What they did to you. What they’re still doing.”
When Felix kissed him, it had been a long time coming, and yet Hyunjin gasped anyway. He sucked in a breath like he was drowning and Felix chased it, rubbing up and down the back of his neck like he was a spooked horse. “It’s okay,” Felix said, pressing a kiss against his closed lips. “It’s okay.”
“They’re going to kill us, Felix,” Hyunjin said. His breath hitched in a sob. “I’m scared.”
“No, they’re not.” Felix’s hand stroked his cheek. Needing to hold onto something, Hyunjin put his hands on Felix’s shoulders, then slipped them under the water to his waist. Felix was so tiny, he thought. He could not think of going lower, not out here in the lake. He wished for a swimming pool again. Not one full of s’mores this time, just a regular one. The big house he imagined with the fire pit in back, it would have a swimming pool too, and the water would be clear so Hyunjin could dunk under, open his eyes and see Felix. Felix, with his hair down to his ears and bleached blonde the way he liked it, would pull him under the water and kiss his neck and stick a hand through the leg of his swim trunks.
“Hyunjin.” Felix’s arms wrapped around his shoulders. Hyunjin bent down and encircled Felix’s waist fully. He buried his face in Felix’s shoulder. “I got you, Hyunjin,” Felix whispered. “I got you.” His voice was so deep, so soothing, Hyunjin couldn’t help but love him. I love him, Hyunjin realized sharply. He didn’t know if he’d known Felix long enough to love him, technically, because he didn’t know how long he’d known Felix. They didn’t tell you dates, here— it was part of the whole cult-like thing. Felix had said he’d tried secretly making tally marks on his thighs but then he’d been found out and they had taken his razors away, so he’d given up counting. Time didn’t mean anything to Hyunjin now. Space, too, was negotiable. He could have been anywhere at all, he thought. He could have been nowhere. The lakewater was glassy and motionless, and cicadas and birds and frogs chirped all around them, and Felix held him in his arms and swayed them back and forth together, rocking him like a baby. And Hyunjin felt a little bit like he was a baby.
They were naked and holding each other, and it was completely nonsexual. Nobody would ever believe that, Hyunjin thought. He wept a little bit, thinking about that. Nobody would ever understand this except for him and Felix.
“Baby,” Felix called him, shushed him. He found that he didn’t mind being Felix’s baby at all. He couldn’t seem to stop crying, though, once he’d started. His tears dripped hot onto Felix’s neck, and he could not even bring himself to be embarrassed about it.
“I don’t w-wanna be here,” Hyunjin moaned, gripping Felix harder.
“So don’t,” Felix said, in his soothing voice. “Don’t be here.”
“Wh-what…” Hyunjin didn’t know what that meant, and he equally did not have the presence of mind to ask the question. He gave up and groaned wordlessly, because his heart was hurting so badly and he suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore. He opened his mouth wide and bit softly at Felix’s bony shoulder.
“Hyunjin…” Felix’s hands massaged his shoulders and his back. “This place… it doesn’t exist.” Hyunjin stopped biting him, sucked in a ragged breath, pressed his lips to Felix’s collarbone. Listened to him. “You’re not here,” he said. “No one knows you’re here, so you’re not here. It’s dark, and they’re all sleeping. This… It's like a dream, it’s not real.”
“Okay,” Hyunjin said, feeling dazed. He probably would have been soothed by anything that Felix said in that voice of his, but he did hope that Felix was real. Otherwise he’d have been in love with a figment of his own imagination, which was awfully sad.
“Hyunjin,” Felix said. “Let’s walk back…” Hyunjin made a despairing noise, and Felix shushed him, a hand gentling through his too-short hair, walking him backwards. “Just a little. Just so you can sit. Wouldn’t you like to sit? There you go,” Felix said, kissing the side of his head. “Good boy,” said Felix in his ear. Felix kneeled between his legs, water lapping around his knees. Hyunjin sat in very shallow water, now. He was more or less uncovered, and Felix was, too. He seemed to have gotten over his uneasiness about the scars, somehow. Maybe he had just decided that he trusted Hyunjin not to look at them, or to ask about them. “You’re being so good,” Felix cooed at him.
Hyunjin sniffled wetly. He could not help but feel terribly exposed. Crying like a baby, having Felix mothering him. This was not how he’d imagined his night ending up. If he was going to be naked in the lake with Felix, then he would’ve thought at least they’d have…
“Felix,” Hyunjin said, suddenly needing an answer. “Do you… are you not interested… in me, like that?” Felix stared at him, then began to snicker. “It’s not funny,” Hyunjin said again, giving him a little kick in the side.
“Sorry, I just… come on, Hyunjin, I just kissed you on the mouth! And everyone is interested in you ‘like that.’ You’re like… offensively, conspicuously hot.”
“Be serious,” Hyunjin whined. Felix reached up and tweaked one of his nipples. “Be serious!”
“Everyone you ever meet in your whole life is going to want to fuck you, Hyunjin. Even if they say they don’t.” Felix smacked him firmly on the chest for good measure. He seized Hyunjin’s lower lip with two fingers and rolled it between them, and Hyunjin stared at him and drooled. His hand tasted like dirt and like the lake, because it was dirty, and Hyujin didn’t even care. “I’m the one who should be asking you. Are you interested in me? ‘Like that’?”
I am in love with you, Hyunjin thought. I want you to get me pregnant. I want nine kids. You have no idea.
“I l-like you,” Hyunjin said, with some effort, around Felix’s fingers. “Feliksh.”
“Aww. See, that’s how a normal person says it,” Felix beamed. He leaned in and licked at Hyunjin’s mouth, but he didn’t move his hand. It was all very frustrating of him.
“D’you like me?”, Hyunjin whimpered, panting.
“You still need me to say it? Even after all that?” Felix smirked. Hyunjin was beyond denying it, at this point. He nodded feverishly. “I like you.” He took Hyunjin’s hand and pressed it to his own mouth, kissing his knuckles. “I like you, I like you.”
“If they catch us…”
“Then what?” Felix threaded their fingers together.
“We’re dead,” Hyunjin whispered.
“So we’d better not get caught,” Felix concluded. He turned Hyunjin’s hand around and kissed his palm, then dropped it. “Let’s go back and shower. We’ll do it in shifts, the one who’s not showering can be the lookout. Then we’ll sneak back in the way we came. It’s not even twilight yet. We’re gonna be fine.” He traipsed off to put his clothes on. Hyunjin’s brain stuttered before he got to his feet. He was still horny and emotional and now he was going to have to pretend like he’d just had an ordinary night of sleep. He was going to have to get really good at pretending, because if he and Felix were both falling asleep the next day then it’d be suspicious. He thought he might reconsider wanting to be an actor.
Hyunjin slowly gathered up his things. He noticed Felix, already fully dressed, sitting on the sand and drinking in Hyunjin’s nakedness. He didn’t know whether to play into this or not, so he shied away from it and pretended it wasn’t happening as he pulled his clothes back on. He was still dreadfully horny from before and he didn’t know what to do with it.
“Hey,” Felix said. He reached out and held Hyunjin’s hand and turned to lead him back to camp, as if he didn’t know the way. It was the same way he’d led him here, but he remembered Felix had held him by the wrist, which had reminded him of being tugged around against his will as a child. Now Felix held him tightly, their fingers laced together. Of course Hyunjin knew his way, but he figured that Felix liked to lead him, and he didn’t mind following. “We should pretend to be in a fight or something,” Felix said over his shoulder. “Throw them off the scent, you know. We shouldn’t talk at all for a while.”
“Oh,” Hyunjin said. “Okay.” He was going to have to try his best to not seem too put out by this. Felix glanced back at him and grimaced.
“Maybe don’t go into acting, actually,” he said.
“Fuck off…”
“You’re gonna miss me that much?” Felix giggled and squeezed his hand. “For real? It’s just for a little bit, until we can do this again!” The word again was a soothing balm for Hyunjin’s soul. They would do this again, and maybe again and again after that. And maybe they would get to things faster the second time around.
“I just… kinda have blue balls, yannow,” Hyunjin mumbled, wanting an excuse to be sulky. Felix’s eyebrows shot up, an interested gleam sparking in his eyes.
“Wow! Spoken like a true straight guy.”
“Yeah, whatever, man.” He tried to ignore the sound of Felix’s cackling. He stopped suddenly, making Felix almost trip over himself. “Just, wait. Before we get too close. Can we…”
“You want a handjob or something?”
“What? No! I mean…” Felix stared at him, cocking an eyebrow. “I mean yeah, but that’s not what I was gonna ask! Just, like, could we have some kind of signal, or something. To communicate.”
“A signal?”
“When we’re not talking. When we’re throwing them off the scent. I just want to know… that you still like me.” Hyunjin shifted nervously on his heels. “That I didn’t imagine all of this.”
“Okay.” Felix smiled and gave his hand another quick squeeze. “Like a wink, or something?”
“No, not like a wink!”
“Oh, how about this? A slow blink. Like this. Look at me.” Felix pointed directly at his big sparkly eyes, and very slowly let them drift closed, and then gradually opened them again. “That’s how cats say ‘I love you,’” Felix chirped.
“Okay,” Hyunjin said, blinking slowly back at him. Obedient as always.
“Anything else? Before we’re back in hell?”
“If you do burn it all down,” Hyunjin said quietly, “I’ve decided. I wanna go with you.”
Felix didn’t say anything to that, just smiled. He swung their hands back and forth like a giddy child. Behind his eyes, a fire crackled.