Work Text:
On December 30, Joshua's face is everywhere. He's been in the window of the salon next to Jeonghan's office for a month, selling skincare with every pore blurred smooth, but now there's also a birthday ad at the bus stop down the street, a group of girls with his smile on their cup sleeves walking out of a coffee shop, and some kind of immersive Joshua experience from one of his fansites filling every screen of the train station.
Jeonghan flinches away from the flashing images as he makes his way to the platform, pulling his hands into the sleeves of his coat and wrapping it tighter around himself.
He gets a respite at the next train station—Sana from Twice is all over the walls instead—but at the restaurant where he's meeting the kids, there's another ad for Joshua on the wall across the street. Jeonghan is early enough to pause and confront it.
It’s two photos, the first a wide shot of Thirteen doing their choreography with Joshua in the center, and then a close-up of his face gazing starry-eyed at the crowd. He’s blown up so large that Jeonghan could hug Joshua's lips like a pillow, if he could somehow pull them out of the photograph.
Jeonghan recognizes the photos, taken at Thirteen's concert in Seoul in the spring. Jeonghan was there, in a box with some other friends and family. He was sitting next to Joshua's bandmate Jihoon's mom. Before the show, he leaned over and whispered that he didn't usually like pop music, and she threw her head back to laugh and said out loud, “Me neither. The things we do for love, huh?”
Jeonghan likes Thirteen's music all right, though. They have a lot of ballads—his favorite—and Joshua’s voice is really cute.
Well, he's looking at Joshua, so of course Jeonghan falls too deep into those sparkling eyes and embarrasses himself, even now. He doesn't realize Chan is approaching until his head is settling on Jeonghan's shoulder. Jeonghan refuses to be startled—they regard the photo together for a long, silent moment.
“Maybe you should call him,” Chan says.
Jeonghan chokes on a nasty laugh and coughs twice. “Definitely not.”
“For closure, at least,” Chan says.
“You know how you get closure?” Jeonghan asks. “You close it. You leave it closed.”
“Is it closed?” Chan asks, that brat.
Jeonghan scoffs.
“I won't push,” Chan says. “I just think you deserve to be heard if you still have something to say.”
Jeonghan never told them what he did. If Chan knew it all, he might have a different idea about what Jeonghan deserves.
“Wow, when did you get so wise?” Jeonghan coos, making kissy noises and horrible aegyo around Chan's head until Chan gets exasperated and shoves him off.
Hansol is walking up from the other direction as they come to the restaurant. “Seungkwan’s on his way. He said to go ahead and start.”
He opens the door to a rush of humid air rich from the aromas of the grills and a Thirteen song playing from the restaurant’s speakers. Hansol won’t notice—he only listens to old records and the weirdest arrangements of sounds Jeonghan has ever heard—and if Chan does, he doesn’t say anything.
He might not recognize the song at all. There’s no reason for anyone else to be walking around with this compass seeking Joshua always spinning in their heads.
Before they place their order, Hansol asks the server to confirm with the kitchen that there aren’t peanuts in anything, a routine so familiar that Jeonghan sometimes pauses for it even when he goes out with other people. They’ve been here before and ordered all the same things, but recipes change and habits are important, so Hansol always checks.
“How was your trip?” Jeonghan asks Hansol, because he’s interested and because he wants to start asking questions before anyone can make him answer one.
“So busy.” Hansol shakes his head. “Business trips are a scam. You really have to work.”
Jeonghan laughs.
“Capitalism is a scam,” Chan says emphatically, pouring the first round of drinks.
Seungkwan gets there as the food is arriving, perfect timing to take over and boss everyone around. He puts his hand over Hansol’s and asks the server, “There aren’t peanuts in anything, right?”
“Right, I checked with the kitchen,” the server says.
Seungkwan gives him a brilliant smile and squeezes Hansol’s hand, and Jeonghan’s chest clenches so tight he gapes without breath once before he finds the air again.
And it’s only been a few minutes, but another Thirteen song comes on.
Seungkwan scowls at the speakers in the ceiling and then peers into Jeonghan’s face. “Also, if it’s no trouble—” he starts.
“It’s fine,” Jeonghan says quickly.
“Is something wrong?” the server asks.
“No,” Seungkwan says. “I was just going to ask if you could change the music.”
The server smiles in a bright, slightly evil way Jeonghan recognizes, about to win a game. “Oh, no worries. I hate this stuff, too.”
He strides over to the woman behind the counter to cement his victory.
Seungkwan doesn't hate Thirteen's music at all. He freaked out when Jeonghan started dating Joshua.
“You really didn’t have to do that,” Jeonghan says. But what could he say instead? When you look so in love, I remember to feel lonely.
Seungkwan shrugs. “Leave more space!” he scolds Chan, who is laying galbi out on the grill.
“I do this every time,” Chan whines, “and every time you tell me I’m doing it wrong, but every time it turns out fine—”
The volume on the music goes down a little as it switches from pop to milder ballads, and the kids don’t stop bickering all through dinner, and Jeonghan laughs and strings the minutes together without thinking about Joshua at all.
It falls apart on the commute home—he doesn’t run into as many versions of Joshua’s face everywhere, but he can feel himself looking for them, which is no better, really.
But it doesn’t matter as much, because he’s alone again. He got through dinner without dredging it all up, and in the privacy of his own mind, he can do whatever foolish thing he wants.
*
While Jeonghan was getting his master's degree, he worked the night shift in a convenience store. He needed the money and the owner let him do his schoolwork as long as he wrote longhand instead of on his laptop or phone, but he treated it like a bit, an aesthetic affectation, the kind of job the love interest in a drama would have. He would laugh with Seungkwan about having a meet-cute there.
The store was a big, bright one in a business district, quiet during Jeonghan's shifts but touristy during the day. Joshua used to come in at blistering hours, while Jeonghan was burning a hole in his stomach lining with instant coffee and nodding over his textbooks, to carry candy bars from the international display wistfully around the store for a while before buying himself vitamins or diuretic tea.
Jeonghan didn't recognize him, but he was too handsome and too perfectly polished, especially at 3 a.m., to just be anybody.
Jeonghan was handsomer than all those idol boys—lots of people said so, not just his grandma. He might have tried to become one, if a single interaction with a middle school art teacher had not set the course of his life instead. But working in that store by a big entertainment company, he saw enough of them wander through in the small hours to learn that it wasn't all bone structure, it was maintenance. That kind of effort and money left a glow.
And no one glowed more than Joshua.
“I don't think one candy bar is going to ruin your looks,” Jeonghan finally said, one drizzly night.
“Once I start, it won't only be one,” Joshua said, but he walked over and put the candy bar down to pay. “The kiss.”
Jeonghan blinked at him, and then down at his textbook—a full-page print of Gustav Klimt's The Kiss. “Good catch.”
“One of my friends in high school had a poster of that in her room,” Joshua said.
Jeonghan was impressed, but Joshua laughed it shyly off before he could say so. “I think it's pretty popular, where I'm from.”
“Where are you from?” Jeonghan asked as he rang up the candy.
They talked until Joshua's candy was gone. Jeonghan flattered himself that Joshua looked reluctant to leave.
Joshua started dropping in even more. He stopped pretending to shop. He asked, casually, when Jeonghan's shifts were, and then later in the week he showed up toward the end of one and let Jeonghan take him home. It was only that, for a couple months—Joshua came around like it was a coincidence and looked surprised to end up in Jeonghan's bed long past when it could possibly be surprising.
Jeonghan used to joke that he was going to keep getting degrees in increasingly obscure subjects and work in the convenience store forever, but he did land a job eventually. He was going to be advising corporate clients on art investment, the kind of gig his school would want to put on a brochure. He was going to make his parents proud. He was going to have to completely invert his nocturnal bridge-troll lifestyle. “If you want to see me, you'll have to do it on purpose,” he told Joshua at one of his last shifts.
Joshua gave him a particular smile, so beautiful it was hard to see through but a little confused around the eyes. “I'm hard to date,” he said. “The schedule is brutal.”
That was probably Jeonghan's cue to say they should keep it casual, but he liked Joshua and couldn't see the harm in giving it a try. If it didn’t work out, then they’d move on separately, no problem—but it would be fun if it did work out. After all, Jeonghan wasn’t some clingy teenager. He was almost insulted at the warning. “I think you're worth the trouble.”
Joshua's smile bent around the edges, more strange and more true.
It felt so easy.
It should have worked.
*
At the end of the year, there's always some music special or award show on. Dinner didn't go very late, and Thirteen usually performs toward the end of these things—when Jeonghan turns on the TV, there they are on a clip labeled "coming up."
Jeonghan changes into house clothes and gets his comforter off the bed, wrapping it around his shoulders. He sighs as he sits down on the sofa, as if someone is making him do this.
Jeonghan has never lingered over an ex the way he torments himself with Joshua. He has never wanted to, really, but even if he had, he wouldn't have been able to. Most people's social trail is made of brief, grubby fragments, easily sifted and discarded. Nothing that would drag him in like this.
He has too much pride to bother Joshua directly, of course, and he'd be too embarrassed to talk to his friends even a fraction as much as he can track Joshua without anyone knowing. But a big part of Joshua's job is to be a continually available, criminally attractive fantasy boyfriend. He's very good at it. And though it's a pale imitation of having him as an actual boyfriend, it's such an elegant way for Jeonghan to hurt himself. It's silent and invisible from the outside, and coherent and aesthetically pleasing as an experience.
He's addicted.
He has four different apps on his phone he uses exclusively to consume Joshua’s celebrity content. A lot of his job is running around town to meetings, and he blocks off time in his calendar in between to sit around watching videos of Joshua tilting his head in slightly different directions for a camera. When he tries to stop, it's all he can think about, even worse than indulging for a few minutes—or an hour—or two—each day.
So he cuddles into his blanket and watches the show.
Thirteen wins an award before they perform. They rotate through members to give remarks in different languages, ending on Joshua for English. Jeonghan doesn't listen for the words he knows, just watches Joshua's pretty smile move. When Joshua presses a hand to his heart to show his sincerity, his members reach to grip his shoulders in collegial warmth. As he finishes, cheers roar.
This is one reason Jeonghan watches him so much. In an achy, inconsistent way, it eases the clawing guilt inside him to be reminded that Joshua is swimming in more love than Jeonghan can even fathom. He has his members, and his fans, and Jeonghan knows how close he is with his small family. It's obviously false to think he might be worrying for even a minute about the convenience store cashier who tried to break his heart.
Thirteen's performance begins with an aesthetic video, opening on a shot of Joshua in a fabric blindfold, the ends of the knot trailing through his hair. Jeonghan's mouth pulls into an offended moue. But he doesn't even blink as he watches the scene unfold, shadows lifting in sunlight.
And then it cuts to the stage, to Joshua bathed in that same gold light in the center. If Jeonghan were still in school, he could write a paper about that shot. Interpreting classical forms for the female gaze. Worship at the altar of capitalism. Homoerotic cooptation of the Christ figure. Oh, Joshua would hate that one. He always got startled when things were too true all at once.
Jeonghan hides behind the distance of interpretation. This Joshua is untouchable, more performance than person, like Jeonghan thought the real Joshua was when they were at their worst.
When the performance ends—on a shot, mercifully, of Wonwoo rather than Joshua panting in white light that fades to black—Jeonghan turns off the TV. He drags his comforter back to the bed and washes up and really does intend to go to sleep.
But as he's plugging his phone in, a new notification pops up. THIRTEEN started their live: Thank you Carats
If he doesn't watch it, Jeonghan will lie awake all night pretending he's not thinking about it. If he turns it on, he can fall asleep to Joshua's voice, or at least sleep when it's over.
He pulls it up on his laptop so the picture will be larger and he won't have to hold his phone over his head. Joshua is still waiting for people to arrive, sitting in front of a cake with cartoonish chocolate antlers in one of the rooms in his company's building. He's wearing his stage makeup, all sexy dark angles, and a big checked shirt.
Jeonghan sets his laptop on a pillow and curls onto his side in bed. He told Joshua he loved him for the first time when they were lying like this, face-to-face in Jeonghan's bed. Maybe Jeonghan wasn't as sure as he should have been, but he wanted to be, and time was short because Joshua was about to leave for a North American tour, so he'd leapt and hoped the ground would be there to catch him.
Joshua seemed nervous when he said it back. Good nervous? Bad? Jeonghan couldn't tell. There was a flattering interpretation available there, but Jeonghan was too smart to trick himself into believing it because he liked it best.
Sometimes it was like that. Jeonghan was ready to hand over his heart, pink and shining like a spring fruit—not something he did often, but also not something he was reluctant to do when it felt right—and Joshua gave him back this complicated clockwork thing, confusing and treacherously delicate in Jeonghan's hands.
It wasn't until Jeonghan looked back at the memories, trying to figure out where everything had gone wrong, that it occurred to him that maybe that mysterious object was the heart Joshua had. That if Jeonghan had been only a little more patient, he could have figured out how it ticked.
Jeonghan thought he was so smart the whole time, and then after it ended, he just felt stupid.
On Jeonghan's laptop screen, Joshua tilts his head and smiles like he's never been nervous in his life. "Hello, lovely Carats," he says. "Did you watch our stage tonight?"
He pauses to read the comments, eyes crinkling. "Aww, thank you! We prepared diligently for this one, did you like it? Oh, good. It's been a busy day but I saw all your birthday wishes and I wanted to come say thank you."
He switches to English for a bit. Jeonghan's eyelids droop, and even when Joshua goes back to Korean, he doesn't have to shake off his doze to follow the stories. It's simple stuff—what he ate today, which gifts he got, how his members greeted him. The kind of boring things you care about when you're talking to someone you love.
Jeonghan listens to what Joshua is saying, but he's also listening for something Joshua probably isn't going to say. He doesn't even know what he wants to hear—a clue, a sign. Some proof that either Jeonghan chased a foolish thing for too long or fucked up a good thing too soon. Neither is going to make him happy, really, but he has to figure it out.
He hates feeling so stupid. He needs to know.
Because Chan was right—it's not closed.
Fine soap bubbles start to float across the screen as Joshua smiles at someone out of frame, which is a level of whimsy Jeonghan cannot honestly be expected to tolerate. And then Joshua's bandmate Seungcheol steps into view. Jeonghan huffs into his pillow.
Seungcheol takes the chair next to Joshua and rests his head on Joshua's shoulder, cheek squishing up. Joshua puts a hand on Seungcheol's thigh.
As untouchable as Joshua looks with his dark eye makeup and white smile, he would have no problem finding someone to touch him. Jeonghan knows that, whoever it is, it's not Seungcheol, but he still feels queasy as he watches them relax into one another so naturally.
He never got friendly with Joshua's bandmates, but he did run into a few of them, and Seungcheol the most. Seungcheol was very committed to being intimidating and Jeonghan was equally committed to not being intimidated. Joshua laughed at their tension and said they were cute, which made Seungcheol bashful and Jeonghan really annoyed.
He should have said something instead of letting it become a bit, probably. Instead, he took every opportunity to compete with Seungcheol, escalating the bit to try to win it and getting even more annoyed.
You have to be mature all the time in relationships. It's exhausting.
The whole thing is exhausting. Jeonghan is so tired, in the regular way where he ought to be asleep instead of upsetting himself with stale drama, and deeper than that, too. He barely paid attention to dinner with his actual friends. There's no clue coming. To finish this story, he only has to close the book. If he's not ready, he has to get himself ready.
It's a good time to end it. He can turn the calendar over to a new year and delete all these apps from his phone.
He's not going to call Joshua, like Chan said. But maybe he does want to say something. Maybe Joshua wants to hear it, too. Or not, but maybe even then, Jeonghan deserves something other than this endless self-flagellation.
One message. He only wants to say one kind thing. He can have that. If Joshua wants it, he can have it, too, and if he doesn't, he can delete it and keep basking in all his other adoration.
Joshua has to change his phone number and KKT a lot, when fans get it or whatever, but he has one jealously guarded WhatsApp account that doesn't change. He started it to talk to his mom and some friends he kept in touch with in America, and still allows only his closest circle to use it. No staff, even.
Jeonghan sometimes had trouble reading the warmth under Joshua's cool gestures, but this one, at least, he had immediately understood as a serious and important trust. He hasn’t touched the contact since they stopped talking, and the last messages are still there when he opens the conversation, absolutely damning.
Joshua was conscientious about sending goodnight texts when they started dating, but he dropped off while he was touring, overwhelmed by the time differences and his own odd schedule. He sent them at weird times, or not at all, and then the habit was inconsistent even when he was home. Jeonghan thought about just sending the fucking texts himself, but it seemed like taking a loss he couldn't risk. He doesn't remember why, now.
The last thing he'd sent instead was a few links to gallery events he had coming up in case Joshua wanted to join him. He knew he was setting Joshua up to fail, asking him not only to reply but to click a bunch of links, gather information, and triangulate schedules on a busy day.
He wanted to be surprised by a prompt response. He was ready to be so happy about it. Sometimes a full schedule meant Joshua was sitting around waiting for most of the day, sending message after message that Jeonghan was actually too busy to answer. But other times—this time—there was nothing.
After twenty-four silent hours, Jeonghan wrote: I can't believe you are really just ghosting me
He told himself it was like a dare—faux outrage, almost flirty—but he was mad and he sounded mad and he knew when he was doing it that it was an awful thing to say.
Well, it did get a reaction, at least.
I'm not doing that
I'll check about the shows when I can. I'm sorry but I'm really busy this week, I told you that
I have a whole day off on Thursday if you want to do something
Jeonghan seriously
Jeonghan didn't write back—see how Joshua liked it—but he meant to meet up on that off-day and have a rational conversation. Then he woke up to:
Today's my day off. I'm all yours if you want me.
At the time, it seemed so passive-aggressive. It seemed like Jeonghan was not only justified in leaving that on read, but like it was the only option that preserved his dignity.
Anyway, Jeonghan had to go to work. It wasn’t like Joshua was the only person on earth who had important things to do. It was easy to stay angry until he got distracted, and let the day melt away.
That was it. Jeonghan still has a box of Joshua's things stuck under a corner of his desk.
He had this idea Joshua ought to reach out to apologize as the only possible start to a conversation, which of course never happened. Jeonghan couldn't think of anything he wanted to say until it was too late to try.
Now, he looks at that last message and sees nothing but painful vulnerability. If Joshua was a little defensive, well, Jeonghan had been on the attack.
In a way, it was a long time coming—maybe inevitable—but it was more impulse than decision, and every day Jeonghan thinks of something kinder and more productive he could have tried. He was so concerned about his dignity when Joshua was his own, and now he follows Joshua hopelessly across the internet when he ought to be sleeping and wishes he had it all back.
On the laptop, Seungcheol guffaws at something and Joshua smiles, slow and cool. Seungcheol is turning a phone in one hand but Joshua's is nowhere to be seen.
Happy birthday, Jeonghan types into WhatsApp, and then he closes his eyes and thinks of what he wants to say, in what is probably his last chance before he gets blocked.
Not the whole story he's rewritten to make it all his fault—Joshua has probably known it was Jeonghan's fault the whole time. Not a long paragraph of groveling that will do nothing but make them both cringe. No questions or anything that will ask for a response, because Jeonghan is resolutely ignoring the part of himself that's hoping for one. Just something simple, something sweet, something true.
I really love you and miss you. I hope you're living peacefully. Sleep well tonight.
Fine. Whatever. This is more about the gesture than the content, and Jeonghan has to send it before he changes his mind, so he does. He smashes the send button and then plugs in his phone and slides it out of reach across the floor.
On the screen, Seungcheol finishes laughing at whatever story Joshua was telling and leans forward to look for another question. Joshua scratches through Seungcheol's hair and then turns his own head aside, pressing his lips together, to daintily hide a yawn. He does that, swallowing his yawns, by habit even when he's not on camera. Curled up on Jeonghan's couch in a mask pack, his manners were still so nice.
“Oh, comeback spoiler?” Seungcheol says. He twists to check with Joshua.
“What comeback?” Joshua asks, voice ditzy and gaze sharp.
Seungcheol turns back to the camera with a smirk. “Sexy?” he says. “But also… fresh?”
As Seungcheol lists unrelated adjectives like that's a slick joke, Joshua shifts his weight to one side and reaches behind himself. From a back pocket, he produces his phone.
Jeonghan's pulse races sickly.
Joshua presses his lips together, stifling another yawn, as he unlocks his phone.
Jeonghan doesn't want to see this—good or bad or nothing, whatever it is, he doesn't want to see it. And he didn't mean for Joshua to have to get that message on camera, either. Why is he so hard to be nice to, even when Jeonghan is really trying?
Jeonghan doesn't want to see this, but he doesn't close his laptop, either.
Joshua's eyebrows lift in the middle, a few millimeters of motion that changes his whole face. His features grow round and open, a little lost.
Seungcheol sits back and glances over once, twice, and then grips his gross meaty hand around Joshua's wrist to bring his phone closer. Joshua lets him read it, and then they hold brief eye contact. Joshua's eyes grow even rounder, almost sheepish. Seungcheol puts an arm around the back of Joshua's chair and glowers through the screen.
It's visibly awkward—this moment will be dissected online, probably sparking rumors about stalkers or anti-fans. But Joshua only says, “Wow, Carats should go to bed soon! Let's answer one more question and then say goodnight.”
He scans the comments again, and finds a question he reads and answers in English.
“Happy birthday to our Joshua!” Seungcheol says. He handles turning the camera off as Joshua slips out of his chair and disappears past the edge of the frame.
*
Jeonghan wakes up with his heart pounding. He has to reach far for his phone, dragging it closer by the charging cord.
No messages.
It's 3 a.m., and Jeonghan's body is telling him this is all the sleep he'll get tonight. He's okay at falling asleep but bad at staying there. It was fine when he was a grad student, and he could get his work done anytime and then fall asleep where he sat whenever the exhaustion caught up with him.
But the transition to an office job hit him hard. He could not believe how tired he was after work every day, and how much brainpower it took to understand the tasks of his job. He called his mother, furious, to demand to know if everyone was really living like this. She laughed at him.
Joshua's schedule was as brutal as he said, and Jeonghan should not have brushed off the warning. And there was something about their personalities that didn't click as easily as Jeonghan had thought it would—they'd spend their rare days together bickering amiably, and it was fun, but something inside Jeonghan was screaming to say something more. He just could never figure what that was, and it wasn't like Joshua was saying anything else, either. Maybe your match isn't really the person who matches you, but the person who fills your gaps and rounds off your edges, like Seungkwan and Hansol do for each other.
Those were the stories Jeonghan told himself after the end, but they didn't feel complete. Plenty of celebrities—including several of Joshua's bandmates with his exact schedule—find time for relationships. There's more than one way to fit together, and Seungkwan and Hansol don't have the only relationship in the world that works.
What tipped it over into something Jeonghan couldn't work was not Joshua's schedule, but Jeonghan's own. He didn't fully grasp how hard it was kicking his ass until he started adjusting, found a little more energy in the evenings and made more plans with his friends. He bought a car, which he didn't use much but turned the occasional errands that used to be two-day ordeals into single pleasant afternoons.
Once he found a little more space, it was undeniable that something was missing.
And he regrets the way he treated Joshua for many reasons, reasons that should matter more to him, but this is the worst one. It's humiliating that what took him down was this mundane bullshit, that he got so overwhelmed and confused by things that everyone else apparently deals with fine.
He has found his feet. He could do it right, if they did it again.
There are better reasons, too, to fantasize about a second chance, but this petty one cuts deepest. Jeonghan actually is smarter than these tedious little problems; he could prove it now.
Anyway. Jeonghan is supposed to be closing this useless loop. That was the stated goal of that message, and apparently he has succeeded, because Joshua hasn't written back.
Jeonghan throws off the covers. He will be miserably tired tomorrow, but it's the weekend and he can nap. He pulls a variety of sweatshirts and coats on and leaves his phone on the charger as he goes, shuffling to the convenience store around the corner.
He has ramen at home, but it's better to go out, to kill some of the long hours before dawn, to breathe different air. He makes his ramen in the store and sits at one of the little tables under the fluorescent lights, watching the cold street.
Even at this time of night, there are people out—sleepily rushing workers, partiers swaying home, couples wound together against the wind. It's comforting, in a way. There are so many ways to live a life, but also really only a few. People get over breakups all the time.
Jeonghan is so tired his eyes hurt. Maybe he will be able to sleep more, if lets himself try. He throws his empty bowl away and walks slowly home. He managed to burn about twenty minutes of his lonely night.
There's someone standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside his building in a massive black long padding—just standing there, oddly still even in a still night. Jeonghan's heart says, it's Joshua.
Jeonghan is so tired, and he's especially tired of this, looking for Joshua like a ghost in every elegant nape or whiff of high-end skincare he passes on the street, even when he knows Joshua is somewhere far away. It's the most painful part, each quick hope and long crash, and he has to let it go. He's still telling himself to stop being so fucking completely stupid all the time, because obviously that's not Joshua, when Joshua turns around and sees him there and says, "Oh, shit."
Jeonghan's jaw drops, and then he's standing still, too. His blood freezes and his mind goes blank as white snow. He has so many things to say and all he's doing is staring at Joshua staring at him. He must look terrible. Joshua looks terrible.
“You came,” Jeonghan says.
“I didn't,” Joshua says, against obvious evidence. “I mean, I was just going to go for a walk.” He trails off, confused, squinting at the ordinary streetlight.
Jeonghan is appalled. “You walked here?”
“From the company,” Joshua says. That's not as bad as all the way from his apartment, but it's still too far to be wandering in the middle of the night. “I was just…” He finally turns to Jeonghan, only to shake his head. “I should get back.”
“You didn't walk all the way here to turn around and leave,” Jeonghan says.
Joshua steps back. “I didn't mean to see you. I shouldn't have come.”
Jeonghan's heart is trying to claw its way out of his throat. He wants to scream. He can't even move. “Let me drive you, at least,” he says weakly. “I got a car. Come have some water and I'll get my keys and I—it'll be faster than getting a taxi.”
He waits too long without a breath until Joshua nods and lets Jeonghan lead him inside. Jeonghan pours a glass of water first, and Joshua sits gingerly on the edge of Jeonghan's sofa as he takes it. He sips once, tiny; pauses; and finishes the rest in a long chug. Jeonghan doesn't watch but he hears it—the messy slosh of water, Joshua's throat working around it.
Jeonghan putters around to get his phone and wallet and keys, taking longer than he needs to. Joshua types something efficient on his phone, probably letting someone know he's safe. Nobody knows or cares where Jeonghan wanders to in the middle of the night, but Joshua is always accountable to someone, no matter the hour or day.
Joshua doesn't say anything, and Jeonghan is standing in front of him with the keys, and this can't be all. It can't be.
“There must have been something you wanted to tell me,” Jeonghan says. “To come so far—”
“I mean, yeah,” Joshua says. “I wanted to tell you that you fucked up my birthday like you fucked up this whole year.”
A cold hand scoops out Jeonghan's chest. Right. Of course.
There really isn't anything else to say, then. All he can do is stand there and flounder while Joshua watches, eyes all bruised from smeared makeup and sleeplessness.
“And I wanted to tell you I love you and I miss you, too,” Joshua says. He wipes a hand down his face, like he's miserable about it, like he's giving up.
“Oh.” Jeonghan doesn't know where his heart is in his body.
“Oh,” Joshua repeats derisively. “Why did you send me that? Don't try to tell me ‘I love you’ is a normal birthday text.”
It is for Jeonghan—he tells his friends every chance he gets. But that isn't why he sent it.
“Chan said he thought I needed closure,” Jeonghan says.
Something truly murderous crosses Joshua's face, brief and sick and honest.
“And all I could think,” Jeonghan adds quickly, “Was how much I wanted to open it again.”
Tension falls out of Joshua's shoulders, and it must have been the only thing holding him up, because he slumps deep into Jeonghan's sofa.
“You were everywhere, all day, looking so beautiful,” Jeonghan says. “It was hard to believe I could really annoy you, even if you didn't want to hear it, too.”
“Never worry about that, you're very annoying,” Joshua says sourly, and then, as if he's trying to keep Jeonghan all turned around, “Do you know why I love you?”
Jeonghan ventures a smile. “My fashion?” he pretends to guess, opening his arms in all his sweaters.
Joshua doesn't laugh. He can be cold—Jeonghan didn’t make that up. “Because you made me,” he says. “You really tried for it, I think. But once you had me, I was too much trouble. And now you see me looking all right again and you know you can pull me back in—”
“That's not it.” Jeonghan steps closer. He wants to touch Joshua so badly, if he could just figure out how. “I could do better. It was bad timing—”
“The timing is always bad,” Joshua says. “There's always another comeback and another tour and another and another. Always.”
“Not your timing.” Jeonghan opens his hands, still trying to figure out how to fit Joshua into them. “Mine. I got overwhelmed, and I made a mistake, and I fucked it all up, and you were perfect the whole time. I swear. I have better than what I gave you.”
Joshua doesn't have an answer right away. He searches Jeonghan's face, and Jeonghan lets him look. He wants to put his hands on Joshua's cheeks and use his thumbs to smooth Joshua's heavy eyes closed. He settles for asking, “Do you want more water?”
Joshua nods, and Jeonghan takes the glass and goes to refill it. To give them both a little space to breathe, even though Jeonghan doesn't want it.
Joshua lets his fingers touch Jeonghan's as he takes the glass back, which looks careless but can't be. Jeonghan reaches forward—slowly, testing—and brushes a comma of hair, sticky with melting styling product, away from Joshua’s forehead. Joshua closes his eyes and doesn’t lean into it or away, waiting to move until Jeonghan steps back.
Joshua drinks and licks his lips and says, “I don't know. Like, yes, that's basically a fantasy of something you'd say to me. But also I don't really trust you, and I've been awake for like twenty hours, and I just don't know.”
“Sleep first, then,” Jeonghan says. “I'll take you home. Or—you can stay here, if you want.”
Joshua doesn't even respond to that, just slowly raises his eyebrows.
Jeonghan lifts his hands. “I'll take you home.”
His cute little Kia can't compare to Joshua's car, but Jeonghan is proud of it, and when Joshua grins faintly at the cat figurine stuck to the dashboard, it feels like a victory. Jeonghan winds them through quiet streets in a quiet car for long enough that he thinks Joshua won't say anything else.
That's okay—it's a gift to see him pillow his head on his arm against the window, the light on his face flashing orange and white, red and green.
“You seemed too good to be true,” Joshua says once they're almost back to his place. Jeonghan checks his face quickly—his eyes are closed. “So funny and handsome. Fine art all over the convenience store counter. It was like something from a drama.”
Jeonghan knows that—he did that, performed it, flipping through his textbooks for the most beautiful pieces with the most tragic stories to show Joshua while he ate his secret candy.
“But when we started dating for real, I thought, ‘this is a stupid fantasy, you know he's just a guy,’” Joshua says in a strange, sarcastic voice.
“I am just a guy,” Jeonghan says. “I literally am that.”
“I know.” Joshua sits up with a sigh as Jeonghan reaches the gate in front of his building. “The code is 4738.”
Jeonghan punches it in and the gate slides silently open.
“I'm saying, I think I was so ready for it to go wrong I almost wanted it to,” Joshua says. “Might as well get it over with, right? I expected it, so I let it happen. Sometimes I could tell you didn't understand something, and I'd decide you didn't want to get it instead of just asking.”
Jeonghan pulls around a short drive toward the brightly lit glass doors of the lobby. Someone is waiting there, a hunched shadow in another big coat.
“I'm saying, I could do better, too,” Joshua says.
“I think you were perfect,” Jeonghan says. He puts the car in park in front of the building. The waiting figure is Seungcheol, scowling in his long padding.
“Please stop saying that,” Joshua says. He looks a little haggard. Maybe that's a hard word to hear for someone who really is perfect most of the time.
“Okay,” Jeonghan says, and thinks about what he really means under the saccharine hyperbole. “If you want to do something differently, for yourself, then I'm interested in that. But also I really think you were good enough. I think you’re good enough right now.”
Joshua's lips part on a stuttered half-breath. “Jeonghan,” he says, but nothing else.
Jeonghan might be gambling with Joshua's fragile, intricately delicate heart. If he's betting wrong, he's the most selfish, toxic person alive. But what if he's right? He wants to be right. It feels right, to finally say a true, real thing and watch it settle into Joshua where he needs it.
Jeonghan has thought of saying these words to Joshua so many times. It feels right to finally get to speak them.
“I loved what we had until—well. I loved it. And it's okay if you don't trust me yet,” Jeonghan says, speaking faster to get it all out as Seungcheol, done waiting, strides fiercely up. “If we’re going to try again, we should start over, from the beginning. We can do anything—ah, I think we're out of time.”
Seungcheol tries the locked door and then knocks sharply on the window.
“We're off on the fourth and fifth,” Joshua says, unbuckling his seat belt. “You can call me, I guess.”
“I will,” Jeonghan says, and not goodbye, as Joshua gets out of the car.
“Okay, okay,” Joshua says to Seungcheol as the door closes, a laugh in his voice that he didn't have for Jeonghan.
Seungcheol glares into the window and Jeonghan smiles back. That will probably be more obnoxious to Seungcheol than a matching glare would, but Jeonghan only means it to be friendly. He's going to be better.
And he's glad that's what is on his face when Joshua turns around once, looking back, before he goes inside.