Archive of Our Own

Saturday, 9pm, 300 covers.

They get killed by the dinner rush. Absolutely fucking run through, really no two ways about it.

The kitchen was usually a ballet of movements, all his chefs carefully coordinated. But Seungcheol could sense there was someone dancing a nanosecond off beat. They were twelve seconds late on the dish. Nothing to be alarmed of. Yet.

“You’re on the abalone?” Seungcheol called out, his voice already hoarse, apron stained with a cranberry reduction that looked like blood. It was hot too, his shirt was sticking to his back and his collar was nearly drenched.

“On it,” something in the way Jeonghan said it made Seungcheol pay attention though he didn’t look up from the orders in front of him. “You have your eyes on it, all the time? Yes, chef?”

“Yes chef,” Jeonghan parroted.

Seungcheol looked up.

All Seungcheol could see was the top of Jeonghan’s chef hat, moving hurriedly as he worked, steam rising in front of him, getting sucked in by the vent.

“Look at me. Chef, look. Do you have this handled?”

“I do.”

The chef hat paused its movement.

“Jeonghan,” he said, but his voice tipped up like a question, confused.

Jeonghan looked up then, met his eyes over two rows of work stations. There was sweat dripping down the side of his face. “I can’t, I quit.” Jeonghan seemed to realize what he’d said. His eyes widened. “Cheol, I-”

The kitchen fell so quiet. Everybody paused in their places. It was jarring. Unnerving. Like even the patrons outside had their ears against the door.

Seokmin burst through the kitchen doors. “There’s a lady on table 13. She’s alone, taking notes.”

Minghao walked in just after. “Critic on table 13. She's already asked if Jeonghanie hyung is in tonight."

It crash landed Seungcheol back into reality. “Okay, Hansol, let’s start them off with the drink.”

Hansol looked up from his station, gave him a thumbs up. “Heard.”

Seungcheol looked over at Jeonghan, who was seemingly moving stuff off his pan. “We are going to talk about this after closing, chef. Take the rest of the night off.”

Seokmin made a quiet sound. “Huh?” but it was mostly drowned out by everybody else going swiftly back to work.

Seungcheol took back the helm, all cold blooded professionalism. “Jihoon, take over Jeonghan's station please. I need four abalone tacos to leave the kitchen in five seconds. Can I have a yes, chef?”

“Yes chef!”

He breathed a sigh of relief, turning his eyes away from Jeonghan taking his apron off.

So yeah, something about the dinner rush.

Jeonghan wasn’t waiting around till the end of the night, which was kind of a relief because Seungcheol hadn’t had more than three seconds to come up with something to say.

12:30 a.m., it was the earliest Seungcheol had made it back from the restaurant in years. He didn’t knock like he usually did, just beeped himself in. From somewhere deeper in the apartment, he received a quiet, “Hey, you’re home.”

Seungcheol toed off his shoes and padded inside. Jeonghan was settled, soft and showered, on the couch. He didn’t look like he’d been manning a station just hours before.

Yu Jaeseok was hosting YouQuiz on the TV screen. But Seungcheol could tell Jeonghan wasn’t watching. An ill-timed ha ha ha punctuated the still air.

“Hi,” Jeonghan said again, looking up now and patting the spot next to him. He motioned to Seungcheol to sit.

Seungcheol didn’t. He walked past Jeonghan and to his room, stripping off his clothes as he made for the shower. He dropped them into the hamper before stepping into the tub. He scrubbed himself hard, under his nails and pits and hair, getting the smell of food off of him.

By the time he walked back out into the living room to grab water from the refrigerator, the TV’s volume had dipped lower, almost nothing. Jeonghan was still on the couch, clear-eyed and following his every move.

“Am I getting the silent treatment?” he asked eventually, voice even.

“No,” Seungcheol said, twisting the cap off a bottle of water.

Jeonghan sat up. “Really?”

“Take a week off, cool down. Visit your parents,” Seungcheol drank some water, wiped his mouth. “It’s natural to hit a block. This is a hard profession.”

Jeonghan’s gaze soured. “Seungcheol,” he said, measured. “I quit.”

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol shut him out, ran back into the kitchen. He filled water in the electric jug to have something to do and waited for it to come to a boil, his jaw hard. He waited and waited and instead of the water, his frustration boiled over first. He stalked back out.

“You cannot pull this shit on me.”

The TV was off. Jeonghan was on the edge of the couch. “Why are you making it personal?”

“Because it is personal.” It wasn’t rage that he felt, but nerves. “It's my fucking restaurant. You're my CDC.”

Jeonghan huffed and a strand of hair fell over his eye, caught in his lashes. “You're being a dick.”

“No, no I’m really not,” Seungcheol dragged a palm down his face. “I don’t want to have this meaningless fight. We never fight.”

“We’re fighting because I’m upset, Cheol. Because you’re completely ignoring what I want.”

“What about what I want?!”

“This is not about you.” Jeonghan rose then, barefoot and adamant. “I’m not going back. You can’t stop me.”

Seungcheol’s jaw ticked. “Well that solves it then?”

“Yes.”

He wanted to do something awful then. Something that couldn’t be taken back, and Jeonghan seemed to know that.

Seungcheol backed away, just a step. His hands at his sides were fists. He made himself unflex.

It fell so silent, he could hear the water heater clicking off and Jeonghan’s sigh.

“I’m sorry we’re arguing,” Jeonghan whispered.

Seungcheol’s heart flipped on its hinges, quick and painful.

“Just for arguing?”

“It really doesn’t have to be personal, Seungcheolie.”

Seungcheol made his voice flat. “Yeah I heard you,” looked down and away. “Whatever.”

Seungcheol poured water into a mug, the blue chipped one that Jeonghan had gifted him from Busan three hundred years ago, and dipped a chamomile teabag into it. Then he took his stupid sleepy tea and sat at the bottom of the staircase, leaning back against the wall. It was tucked away at the end of the apartment lobby and no one really used it. His face felt unstable, trembling. It was sweltering hot. It was three a.m. but it felt like noon. He flipped the idea of going up and facing Jeonghan again over and over till his head began to hurt. If their places had been reversed, Seungcheol would have been out the door in an instant, rushing after Jeonghan.

He showed up at Jihoon’s place instead with nothing but his phone on him, speaking in short, pained sentences, and his tea mug. Jihoon let him in without a word. Let him steal beer and bites of the instant noodles he’d been eating for dinner.

Seungcheol said, after he’d finished the beer and Jihoon was washing his chopsticks, the dim lights of Jihoon’s kitchen swimming together, “I think I’m having a panic attack.”

Jihoon came and stood by him, rubbing gentle circles on his back. “Please don’t. I’m going to have one trying to calm you down.”

Seungcheol laughed, short and derisive, but surprisingly didn’t end up having an attack after all.

He wasn’t hungover when he woke up, but he felt like he should have been. He wanted something to point at and say this is why my head feels heavy, this is what isn’t sitting right in my stomach, but there was nothing.

He was still in yesterday’s sweats when he woke up on Jihoon’s couch. The sun was just coming up as Jihoon and he walked to the train station, rising over the phone lines of Jihoon’s neighbourhood. Usually he was the first one in the restaurant, but not today.

Wonwoo had already started on the bass. First scaling it, then with two long knife strokes separating the flesh from the spine before going over them with a boning tweezer. Then he cut the fish up into filets before tossing them on a bed of ice. They went over the day’s offerings, sea bass, mackerel, yellowtail, scallops, and of course abalone for Jeonghan’s signature yuba abalone taco.

Seungcheol only did seafood on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Saturdays. The day he got delivery and the day after that. It was the little things that mattered.

Seungcheol helped him prep the abalones. Holding the irregular shape with a kitchen rag with one hand and prying the hinge open with a knife in the other with the accuracy of a brain surgeon. Crack, crack, pop. Lining them on a wire rack in neat rows. Like the way Jeonghan had taught him.

His crew began filing in one by one, Vernon and Seokmin, Soonyoung and Mingyu, and Jisoo was the last one to arrive. He was the partner of the restaurant and the best baker in all of Seoul. Seungcheol made his way over to Jisoo’s station and took a minute to appreciate Jisoo’s mise en place.

Chiffonade mint
Caramelized apples
Softened butter
Chopped hazelnuts
Crystal sugar
Heavy cream
Whipped cream
Slivers of lemon zest
Maldon salt

If Seungcheol was the first one in the kitchen, Jisoo was the last one to out. He usually stayed until three a.m. prepping all the leavened bread for the next day.

One could often find fellow cooks and even the front of the house milling about his station, chewing on scraps of baked goods, profiteroles, hazelnut brittle, whipped cream with strawberries folded into them, the occasional blessed souffle that did not rise or had a crack. And Jisoo, no matter how well-natured a choir boy he was out of the kitchen, would be seen swatting people away like flies, screaming, “The staff here are assholes!”

“You need anything?” Seungcheol asked.  Even though the shelf in front was already occupied by Jisoo’s favourite ladles, spoons, tongs, pans, and pots, two of which were on the stove behind him simmering kombu in cream for the choux pastries at dinner.

“I’m set, thanks,” Jisoo gave him a funny look and folded a loaf on itself and loaded it into a bread pan. Those had to go first into the oven for lunch and dinner services both.

Jeonghan looked away over Seungcheol’s shoulder, then down at his notes. “Okay, just let me know.”

“And you’re going to go shopping in the middle of service?” Jisoo laughed.

“Yeah, and, uh, yeah, no, no. I don’t know.” He tapped the back of his pen decisively on the notepad, took a step back as if to leave. “Also I’ve given Jeonghan a week off.”

Jisoo looked up and took his glove off. He touched Seungcheol’s shoulder, so gently and gave him a little shake. “You good?”

The oven door was open and slowly leaking heat, throwing off the preheat. That was how Seungcheol knew Jisoo was really concerned for him.

Seungcheol nodded. “Yep. For sure.”

He kept a spare suit in his locker and changed into it before service.

300 covers for lunch, 300 covers for dinner. No more, he wasn't running a fucking McDonalds. Reservations were often made months if not years in advance.

Seungcheol did not do a la carte for dinner at Coups Du Soleil, only lunch. At night, they served a 13 course tasting menu with Jeonghan's abalone in yuba taco as the highlight. His chef de cuisine. The youngest, most talented chef in South Korea, Food & Wine had said about him.

So it was no wonder then that the restaurant housed two stars, the old Michelin ones, if that was pertinent.

He ran into said ‘youngest and most talented chef’ on his way in that night. Jeonghan was holding a carton of strawberry milk in one hand and a controller in the other. Headphones hung around his neck. He did not look like he had slept. 

“Had a good day?” he asked, injecting some cheer into his voice. He gave Seungcheol a lookover, “Did you bring any leftovers?”

A quiet pang tugged at Seungcheol’s chest, wondering whether Jeonghan had fed himself since yesterday. Jeonghan couldn’t really stand cooking outside of the restaurant kitchen.

“Yeah. Goose with mandarin and watercress salad.”

Jeonghan rubbed his hands together, pleased. “I’ll plate up, go get changed.”

“I’ve already eaten.”

“Oh,” Jeonghan took the plastic bag Seungcheol extended, holding it in both hands. “No need for dishes then. Ha.”

Seungcheol had nothing to add to keep the conversation going, so he excused himself to his room.

Monday, his one day off. Seungcheol had been dreading it for a whole week. One beautiful, unusually sunny week, clear and rosy, with summer creeping ever closer, and he’d spent it with the knot of knowledge that he was going to be home with Jeonghan.

It became worse when he entered the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes, and found Jeonghan already at the breakfast bar. One leg folded and propped on the stool, chin on his knee. A mug of coffee, already half gone, steaming before him. He was reading what looked like an email on his phone and startled when Seungcheol crossed behind him to get to the stove. Seungcheol ignored him and poured himself a coffee too from the moka pot. He went about popping some bread in the toaster and buttering them up for breakfast.

Jeonghan’s leg must have come down from the stool because both of them were tapping a fidgety rhythm against the bar.

Seungcheol tossed the toast on a plate and was about to leave when Jeonghan stopped him. “Do you want to get breakfast outside?”

Seungcheol looked uselessly down at the toast. “Uh”

“No, uhm, never mind,” Jeonghan looked almost apologetic, and Seungcheol felt that terrible pang in his chest.

He put his plate down on the counter. “Sure, whatever.”

Jeonghan’s mouth quirked. Seungcheol knew that he was trying not to smile. It broke through Seungcheol's gloom like sunlight on a wintery dawn.

They took the train to their usual spot, a Chinese bakery they liked a few neighborhoods over. It was on a street beside a tattered bookstore and a pawn shop. Jeonghan loved the Doberman pup that peeped through the rails of the pawnshop and he always tried to sneak him a few treats when the owner wasn’t looking. It always barked up a storm when it caught sight of Seungcheol though, and he was convinced that the dog was homophobic.

The place was pretty busy, especially for a Monday morning. Jeonghan frowned in concentration looking up at the display menu as they stood in line for the counter. 

“I’ll have youtiao with soy milk. The usual for you, right? And do you want to split a char siu bun?”

“Yep, and a matcha for me with-”

“Soy milk, yeah I know dummy,” Jeonghan reached into his pocket to take out his wallet to count out notes because it was a cash-only establishment. Which was what threw Seungcheol off, because Jeonghan never paid. Seungcheol must have looked really surprised because Jeonghan laughed at him. “I’ve paid before.”

“Only like never.”

They moved forward in the line.

“You’re giving me a bad reputation.”

“Deservedly.”

Jeonghan elbowed him, laughing. “Who pays for your birthdays?”

The line kept moving.

“We get drunk at pojangmachas, Hannie.”

Jeonghan gasped. “I took you to La Bamba last year. So ungrate-”

Seungcheol faked tackling a squealing Jeonghan, engulfing him from behind. “We didn’t buy a single drink there-”

“They brought out cake!” Jeonghan fought back, trying to shake him off. “Ack, let go!”

“You know the bartender, it was fr-”

They both stopped at the sound of a throat clearing in front of them. They had somehow reached the counter and the lady taking orders was looking at them expectantly in a no-fuss way. Jeonghan ordered, and really did pay. They were given a little flag indicating their order number and they made their way towards one of the few open spots, their shoulders brushing and warming Seungcheol up. With Jeonghan, this camaraderie felt so natural.

They settled in some stools near one corner of the bakery. The waiter brought out Jeonghan’s order and Seungcheol’s matcha. His noodles were going to take another five minutes. Seungcheol thanked her as she handed him the tray.

The waiter grinned at them and Seungcheol wondered if they’d been recognized as she departed.

When he turned back he saw Jeonghan rolling his eyes over the lip of his paper cup.

“What?”

Jeonghan shrugged and busily sipped his soy milk. Eventually he put the cup down and straightened up.

“Uhm, you know Mitsu Shinazugawa?” Jeonghan casually began.

“I’ve heard the name.”

“She runs this restaurant in Sapporo. Well not a restaurant, per se”

This meant nothing to him.

“Cool.”

They weren’t sitting all that close to each other, but then Jeonghan moved just an inch closer. Tearing off a bite of the char siu bun. One of his knees came to rest between Seungcheol’s thighs. Seungcheol sipped his matcha. Jeonghan ate the bite and swayed in his chair. The matcha slid down Seungcheol’s throat, cold. It settled colder in his stomach when Jeonghan finally dragged his eyes up and met his.

Seungcheol had a feeling he was at a tipping point of something.

“I’m going to go shadow her.”

“I don’t understand."

Seungcheol must have been gripping the plastic cup of matcha pretty hard. He heard the top pop out. Jeonghan took it out of his hands, trying to fit it back on because he didn’t want to look at Seungcheol.

“Put it down. I don’t understand what you’re saying."

Jeonghan put the cup down.

“What does that mean exactly?”

“It means I’m going to shadow her in-”

They were interrupted by the waitress bringing Seungcheol the Sichuan noodles with meatballs; his favourite breakfast in the whole city. And it all began to fall into place. Jeonghan paying for breakfast, Jeonghan bringing him out in the first place. In a place filled with other people, so there was only one way Seungcheol could go about this. He could not quarrel, he could not shout, he could only accept it.

God, Jeonghan was so transparent, but only in hindsight, and Seungcheol could never catch up to him. He was always three steps ahead.

The waitress set the bowl down and Jeonghan thanked her. Seungcheol could only relax his jaw enough to say, “You’re going to Sapporo.”

Jeonghan nodded, pushing the noodles around in the chilli oil.

His pulse kicked up such a noise, Jeonghan must have been able to hear it. He sounded a little hysterical, even to himself. “Are you, you are, for how long?”

This was the first time in over a week that they’d been in each other’s company for more than five minute and Jeonghan had known he was going to leave all this time.

“I don’t know, it’s not just shadowing. She’s given me a job.”

Seungcheol shook his head. “No,” he ground out, getting louder and louder. “No, I won’t let you.”

“Seungcheol, you can’t stop me.”

A few curious glances lingered too long at them. Seungcheol shifted in his seat.

“I can, I will. You can’t have two jobs, you’re my CDC.”

Jeonghan glared at him. “The thought of cooking another abalone taco in this life makes me want to hurl.”

It almost brought Seungcheol to his knees. Instead, Seungcheol shot up, something livid and wet in his eyes. “Fine, fucking leave. Fuck you, fuck.” He was trembling and could feel the waiter hovering behind their table, waiting to break things up if it got any rowdier.

Then Seungcheol turned away and stalked across the cafe, walking out. The little bell above the door rang dimly over the rush of blood in Seungcheol’s ears.

He didn’t get too far away before he had to lean against a storefront just to catch a breath. He blindly dialed Jisoo. “Josh,” he said, “Jeonghan’s really quitting.”

There was some shuffling on the other side. “Seungcheol, what, what time is it?”

“Jeonghan is not coming back.”

“Oh boy. I was afraid that might happen.”

“It can’t be that easy, right?” He dug his forehead into the scratchy brick, eyes squeezed shut. “In the contract, there has to be some clause, something that-”

“He gave me a one month notice, Seungcheol-ah. Technically, and he’s a friend”

That made Seungcheol pause his fidgeting. His hands were shaking and the phone stuck to the layer of nervous sweat that had covered his whole body. “When?”

“Do you remember when we did the omakase for the Blue House delegates?”

It had been at the behest of the government, something to do with showcasing what Seoul had to offer. They had never really done the omakase before and Jeonghan had manned most of it. Seungcheol had been pulling insane shifts to get everything perfect, and he knew Jeonghan got in before him and left after. He could only imagine the kind of hell he’d been putting himself through.

“Yeah?” Seungcheol ignored the way his stomach churned and he swallowed down hard against the mass lodged in his throat.

“It was after that.”

Seungcheol should have made himself more useful. He should have shouldered more responsibility. He should have- “And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Honestly, Cheol, I thought that he’d just had a long day.”

“Dammit Jisoo, he’s not just leaving CDS. He’s leaving, leaving Seoul.”

Seungcheol made it home around 8 p.m., after being kicked out of the park where he’d been occupying a swing for most of the day. Jeonghan wasn’t home. He didn’t return that night or the night after when Seungcheol came back from his shift. On the third day, Jeonghan’s shoes were back, but Seungcheol didn’t knock on his shut door.

Seokmin found him in his office on Friday. He was rubbing his temple, going through bills like he thought he could break straight through bone to dig inside his brain. Seungcheol’s office wasn’t exactly big enough for two of them to sit, so Seokmin stood by the door.

“So Jeonghanie hyung is leaving.”

“Mmm.”

Seokmin was in regular clothes at the end of the shift, his collar wet from the shower. Outside he could see Jisoo and Hansol both giggling as they sipped the new wine of the day from plastic tubs. His dishwasher guy was pushing four trash cans on a trolley out to the garbage disposal out back. Mingyu was sharpening his carbon knives on stone, ready to dice chives as thinly as humanly possible the next day. Jihoon and Junhui had both long fucked off. It was sort of funny that the world hadn’t stopped.

Seokmin watched Seungcheol go through the bill for their recent pantry ingredients drop-off. It was the most mind-numbing thing to do, parsing carefully whether his suppliers were cheating him out of money. But Seungcheol was fastidious. If a supplier said there were 150 servings in a crate, there better not have been 149.

Eventually Seokmin got bored of waiting for Seungcheol to initiate and hopped up on the desk. Seungcheol’s neat piles of receipts be damned.

“Are you going to give him a raise?” Seokmin broke the silence, the cadence of a joke.

It was a joke. Jeonghan took home nearly as much as Seungcheol did himself.

“He hasn’t asked for a raise.”

Seokmin chewed on his bottom lip.

“Is hyung really never coming back?”

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol said. “I have no clue.”

Seokmin nodded. “Okay.” He hopped off. “Are you doing anything fun later? Hansol and I are going to check out a new noraebang in Seongsu.”

“You mean you’re going to check it out and are dragging your helpless roommate along.”

“You’re snappy today, it’s entertaining.” Seokmin’s eyes curved into smiles. “So, are you coming or not?”

Seungcheol shoved the bills away and grabbed his key. “Okay, let’s go.”

They recruited Jisoo and Mingyu too, and among the four of them barring Hansol, the drive to get drunk was so high, that karaoke became a background feature at best. 

He stumbled out of the elevator drunk and noisily tapped the passcode into the door. He should take a shower, put some lotion on and change his sheets. Heck, he should get some water to drink before the dehydration kicks in. He should have called his mom.

He did none of that.

He carried himself to Jeonghan’s room, tucked between his own and the balcony. He could tell the room was dark from the space underneath the door, but he barely felt a moment of doubt as he carefully turned the handle and pushed it open just enough to slip inside.

In the pitch dark, there was still a dim screen light, and illuminated in it was his best friend’s sleepy face, and for some reason that had tears welling in his eyes. Fuck. Seungcheol let the door fall closed, letting his voice carry in the open space. He whispered, “Jeonghanie?”

Silence. The light continued to flicker. Was he wearing headphones?

“Hannie?”

Shuffling of the duvet. Seungcheol waited and listened with bated breath.

“Mm?” came his delayed response. It leaned on tired more than annoyed.

Seungcheol took a few more steps into the room. Jeonghan was sprawled across his mattress on his back, phone hovering over his face like he always lay, his pre-sleep ritual. It almost felt as if he was still going to be right here for a long time. Almost.

His inky black hair shone with fluorescence and streaks of moonlight, swathed in baby blue covers, and the peek of his pale body under the rucked-up Property of Balenciaga shirt was almost lewd.

“Hannie-yah,” Seungcheol’s dry throat clicked. “You're leaving.”

Nothing but silence.

“Why are you leaving?”

“Because I’m going to shadow-”

“Here’s the thing,” Seungcheol slurred. “I didn’t believe you.”

He was pathetically getting to the point where just an inkling that some part of Jeonghan wanted to stay would have been enough. He just wanted something to hold onto.

Jeonghan took a long moment to respond. “What else could it be?”

“I have this list. A list of things I think I’ve done. That time I forgot to inspect how the mussel beards had been trimmed and you had to do them and you cut your hand. Remember that?”

Seungcheol watched him swallow. “That was years ago.”

“I know. I know. I keep thinking, if I, if I really think, dig deep, then somethi-” The words got stuck. He continued. “Maybe the time I asked you to take an extra shift during the holidays. Maybe when I wanted to change our wine pairing to the cab sav you didn’t like, I insisted so many times. When my parents dropped Kkuma off here and he wouldn’t stop barking at you-”

Jeonghan grimaced, just a flash of emotion, then looked away.

Seungcheol’s vision was blurry. “Was it because I worked you too hard and you want to punish me?”

“Please don’t do this,” Jeonghan said.

“Was it any of those things?”

Jeonghan didn’t answer. Just looked down at his lap.

The panic in his stomach turned to nausea. He went to Jeonghan, on his knees at Jeonghan’s bedside, and Jeonghan pulled at him in vain, tutting, “Get up, Seungcheol, come up.”

Seungcheol gathered Jeonghan’s fussing hands between his own, held them to his chest. “Tell me why you’re going away from me.”

“God,” Jeonghan said, and again, “God.”

“I had to have done something for you not to tell me, right? Jisoo's known for weeks. So I must have fucked something up,” Seungcheol ducked his head to look up at him. “Please tell me what I can do to fix it.”

“Seungcheol.”

He leaned up, his nose brushing Jeonghan’s. “Whatever lesson you’re trying to teach me. I’ve learned it, I’ll learn it. Please. I just want things to be okay again, I just want-”

“Let it go. You have to let it go,” Jeonghan said, and Seungcheol pulled at his shirt, making the collar gape wide over his chest.

“H-how can you say that to me?”

Here is what an abalone in yuba taco is. 

The tofu skin is used as the shell, grilled over charcoal until it holds. The abalone, jeonbog from Wando Island, is grilled the same way.

It’s finished with shiso leaf and sweet mustard, to cut through the more richer flavors.

The first time Jeonghan made it, Seungcheol hadn’t liked it at all. 

Jeonghan stood aimless at the door, bag in hand.

Strangely, it reminded him of the first time he had met Jeonghan. It had been at a food expo. Jeonghan had been handling a version of mulhoe and was the only one manning the stove. His sister had been handling the till because he didn’t have more than a moment to greet the ever-growing line of customers queueing up after the good reviews. Seungcheol had hung back till the end to talk to him. Jeonghan’s handshake had been cold from all the ice. Seungcheol had wanted to offer him a job at the restaurant he was about to open, but somehow he had ended up buying Jeonghan drinks first.

It had been between summer and spring then too. The same kind of halfway weather, sunny but not warm in the shade just yet, forcing Jeonghan to stay in oversized sweatshirts though the evenings had started to grow shorter.

This overlarge jacket slipped from his shoulder as Jeonghan swayed on the balls of his feet. It was Seungcheol’s jacket from college, the white Y of Yonsei stitched over the chest.

Jeonghan was waiting for him to speak, but words continued to fail Seungcheol.

“Have a safe flight,” he finally said.

Jeonghan’s grip on his suitcase tightened. The elevator was out of order. He would have to carry it down all five floors. Seungcheol maybe should have offered to help him, even driven him to the airport. But Seungcheol felt untethered. One wrong move and he would collapse on himself. Jeonghan could cough and he would keel over.

“Take care of yourself, Cheolie,” Jeonghan whispered. He reached out to touch Seungcheol’s face but then thought better of it and dropped it to Seungcheol’s shoulder. Seungcheol’s own hand was pressed against the door frame.

In the end it hurt less than Seungcheol had expected, watching Jeonghan slowly wheel his luggage towards the stairwell, in the way that nothing hurt or touched him anymore.

Inside, he cleaned up. Next week he was moving out of this place and needed to get it clean. He vacuumed the rug, and washed the curtains, and wiped down the table, the kitchen counters. One hour ago Jeonghan had been everywhere and now not a speck of dust knew his name.

As Seungcheol was taking the trash out, someone came out of an apartment, a Pomeranian barking on a leash, and saw Seungcheol and said, “Oh my God, Choi-ssi, are you okay?” and Seungcheol couldn’t imagine what she saw on him, his face, how he carried himself. Outside, the first rain of the year came down. She had already forgotten about him to complain aloud that she wouldn’t be able to walk her dog anymore.

Someone wise once said memory was a sort of architecture.
It was weird what Seungcheol remembered.

Despite their hectic schedules, the one time Seungcheol could always count on seeing Jeonghan was before service for house lunch. Sitting across from his devastating pretty boy smile. It grounded him. The service rush would be unpredictable, but at least the way Jeonghan caught his eye would be the same.

What he had wanted to say as Jeonghan left was, Jeonghan-ah, I don’t want to do this alone.

“Jihoonie, can you come by my office after your shift?”

Jihoon wiped his hands on a dish rag before pulling on gloves, and Seungcheol watched him gently lift a rich orange egg yolk and drop it into a divot in the coarse salt bed, precise as ever.

“Am I getting promoted?”

Seungcheol laughed. “Yes. Now that the position’s open.”

Jihoon dropped another yolk in without looking up.

“I’m not going to lie, hyung, I’m happy about it.”

Seungcheol paused, confused. “Of course, of course, you should be.”

“I know it’s not exactly under the best circumstances.”

Seungcheol waited while Jihoon finished the tray, layering salt over the yolks. It struck him how naturally Jihoon moved through the work, how little needed explaining anymore, how much of the kitchen already belonged to him.

“Jihoon-ah, I’m very happy to offer you the position,” Seungcheol said slowly, unease creeping in as he realized how distant he must have seemed to the crew these past months.

Jihoon looked up at him, steady and unflinching. Whatever Seungcheol’s face gave away made a small smile pull at the corner of Jihoon’s mouth. “Okay.” He went back to work, collecting another tray of salt and starting again. “Should we discuss my salary after I finish this?”

“Should we also discuss your signature dish along with that?”

And that, truly, caught Lee Jihoon by surprise.

His mother called him two days before his birthday, like she did every year, to confirm he’d be making the trip down to Gwacheon. It was the one day of the year he took off, and she was surprised to learn that he would stay the night when he normally never did, but then quickly grew excited. Usually he was in and out of his parents’ house in four hours. This year, she could throw a party at last.

Seungcheol agreed to cater the whole rowdy lot, his too many aunts and uncles who came to arrange themselves on the nice August day in his backyard. His cousins were setting up the birthday decor, a gaudy balloon arch and more helium-filled balloons around the back garden weighed down by rocks. His sister-in-law was setting up the long table as his hyung burped their baby. Kkuma kept getting underfoot. His mother was still fussing with the vacuum cleaner in the living room that was empty. There were at least three more toddlers than the last time he had seen everyone. They all shared the same generational character in their names, and Seungcheol never stood a chance of keeping them straight.

He took the marinating steaks out of the aluminum containers he had brought with him and threw them on the grill as soon as he had the fire going.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you cook,” Mingyu said, the one person Seungcheol could convince to accompany him to his parents’, on the condition he’d still be paid full hours.

The grill was making Seungcheol hot under the collar. “Yeah.”

“You don’t look particularly pleased.”

Seungcheol clicked the tongs twice. “S’my birthday and I’m stuck here, grilling beef. Not exactly, you know.”

“12 a.m. dates across the city with your best friend?”

The last two words sounded like they had air quotes around them.

“Fuck off.” Seungcheol flipped a steak, pleased with the grill marks on it. “First time in eight years that I’m sober on my birthday at one p.m. You could be nicer.”

The hesitation from Mingyu made Seungcheol look over. “What?”

“You know I was only kidding. I didn’t figure you were so.” Mingyu shrugged. “Lovelorn.”

Motherfucking.

Then, out of the blue, Mingyu added, matter-of-fact. “Sorry. I know you have a crush on Jeonghanie hyung.”

“I'm turning thirty-one today,” was the only thing Seungcheol could say.

Mingyu mouthed ahjussi at him.

Seungcheol gave a grunt of complaint, but his heart wasn’t in it.

It was underwhelming now that he knew Mingyu knew. He’d carried it around like this ugly, perverted secret, and Mingyu just didn’t care. He didn’t look like he was waiting for an explanation, either.

Eventually father corralled them all into the long table set up in the garden. His family sang him a mostly off-tune happy birthday to you, and he was happy to let his nephew blow the candles out on the cake.

Unlike in his restaurant, the food here didn’t demand any finesse, though he was glad to know everyone enjoyed it just the same. His parents touted him around as the poster Korean son, mindful of his sleeves as he sliced the steaks and drizzled onion oil on them, his utensils making no noise against the dishware, his posture perfectly straight.

The after-lunch lull came slowly, yawns spreading. Somebody put on some music, and Mingyu was slow dancing with one of Seungcheol’s giggling aunts, having charmed all of them. Digestion tablets were being passed around by his eldest granduncle. Three individual card games had sprung up amongst his relatives like spot fires. One of his nieces was chasing a pigeon through his mother’s flower patch.

At some point, Seungcheol escaped the house to get some air on the pretense of taking Kkuma for a walk. He resisted the urge to run a hand through his gelled hair and mess it up as he walked to the neighbourhood park and checked his phone instead.

Thirty-one. Seungcheol had already been tussling with his older brother in the living room when his dad was thirty-one. He scrolled through Grindr before the fact that he was doing it in a children’s park grossed him out. His texts were stuffed with wishes, personal and professional. The entire crew had gathered in the kitchen and sang him happy birthday at midnight, so there wasn’t much from them. One of his exes had sent a wish with a kissy-face sticker. He texted everybody back dutifully, letting Jisoo know his family loved the cake, till there was nothing to do except scroll to the bottom of the chats, the first message waiting patiently since exactly midnight. From Jeonghan.

Happy birthday, Seungcheolie.
Don’t have too much fun without me.

Seungcheol stared at the screen until it blinked off. In the reflection, he saw himself, mouth twisted in a grimace, on the brink of a tantrum, not having fun at all.

Then one fall Sunday, the signature dish at Coup de Soleil changed. Articles appeared in food columns and blogs about the last yuba abalone tacos being served, and phone calls and emails poured in from patrons hoping to move their reservations forward. On the final day, they accepted walk-ins, something they rarely ever did. The line wrapped around the block and service ran an hour over schedule.

Everyone was dead on their feet by the end and dispersed quickly. Even Jisoo left early because the next day they were closed. Seungcheol called out a tired goodbye from his office as Jisoo left through the back door.

He made his slow way around the polished clean work stations towards the walk-in refrigerator. It was uncomfortably cold inside, but Seungcheol knew what he wanted. He retrieved a covered stainless steel hotel pan and took it back to one of those stations. The one that used to be Jeonghan’s.

He took the ingredients out one by one. A pocket of fried tofu to be grilled. Followed by the cushiony abalone to be cooked the same way. He glazed it with sweet mustard and encased it in shiso. So much could be learned just by watching another person do it for years. Though he doubted it would be as good.

He plated it the way it left his kitchen. The bundle placed in the middle of a white ceramic appetizer plate, drizzled with soy sauce and sesame seed.

He picked it up. Three bites and it was gone, the last abalone in yuba taco in the world.

His knee gave out and he squatted down under the counter, the lights stinging his eyes. He dropped his head between his shoulders, staring at the dirt that got into the grout and stayed there no matter how hard you scrubbed.

Jihoon received a roaring review the day his new dish went on the floor. A beautifully steamed tilefish, served in either a corn consommé-style sauce roasted with brown butter for a nutty, caramelized depth, or a black garlic purée that added just the right amount of depth.

Some things didn’t change. The determined sharpening of knives, the stockpiling of favorite pans, ice, extra pots of boiling water, backup supplies of everything. The crew moved around one another in the cramped, heavily manned space behind the line without colliding or wasting a motion. Cutting board to stovetop to plates set on crisply ironed tablecloths, bracketed by tightly rolled silverware. It was a rhythm born of years working together in a confined space under pressure. Still, there was always room for improvement, faster, cleaner, better, and Seungcheol poured all his energy into realizing that.

September turned into October turned into November. Day after day, Seungcheol took his place at the pass and called out orders, inspected each dish that left the kitchen, wiped stray drops of oil and sauce from the rims of plates.

Best new chef at twenty-nine, Seokmin announced when praise was sent back to the kitchen. The most excellent CDC at the most excellent restaurant in the country. Only it isn’t Jeonghan anymore, it’s Jihoon. And Jihoon deserves it. The only thing Seungcheol can do is get used to it.

The Michelin list dropped on a Wednesday morning, and by noon the kitchen phone wouldn’t stop ringing. It was Jisoo who told him, halfway through prep for the lunch service. Seungcheol was standing at the pass, going through the prepped items on a list, pen tucked behind his ear.

“Cheol, open your fucking phone.”

The crew erupted into chaos around him. Someone engulfed him in a hug, all arms and shoulders, and the weight of it landed all at once, sudden and unreal. Three stars. God.

That Monday, he threw a party at the restaurant, borrowing staff from friends’ places so none of his own had to lift a finger. Coup de Soleil was filled with critics, journalists, celebrities, all sorts of rich somebodies in slinky cocktail dresses and rolled-up shirt sleeves, APs glinting in the soft afternoon light. The lacquered tables gleamed as crystal glasses with thin fruit peels were set on them.

Seungcheol hadn’t expected to see Jeonghan. Through the grapevine, he’d heard Jeonghan was in Seoul, but still, he hadn’t expected him to show up. He’d thought Jeonghan would be too good to come back, or that he’d forget, or something. Yet here he was, greeting his old coworkers and getting comfortable in the seat next to Seungkwan.

When Seungcheol came outside, into the alley behind the restaurant, he started when he saw Jeonghan. He was leaning against the wall of the building, under a yellow rat poison warning sign, shoulder blades against the brick. Seungcheol had almost forgotten that Jeonghan had ever used to be there. All night he’d been avoiding him, and this was how.

“Hey,” Jeonghan said first.

“You’re back?” Seungcheol couldn’t stop himself from asking.

“For a while, yeah.”

Jeonghan had let his hair grow out. It looked choppy at the shoulders, the bangs falling into his eyes. Seungcheol swayed on his feet.

“I didn’t think you’d come.”

Jeonghan’s eyes were red and tired, probably from the cold.

“Why wouldn’t I come? J-Jesus. If you didn’t want me to”

“Never said that,” Seungcheol interrupted.

“Okay, fuck, because you emailed me the invite yourself.”

Jeonghan coughed, fist balled against his mouth. Seungcheol could smell smoke in the air.

“I thought you quit.”

Jeonghan made a face. “You know cigarettes make small talk bearable.”

Seungcheol didn’t say about twenty things.

“It’s not easy.”

“What’s not?”

Jeonghan was absently rolling the bracelet around and around on his finger. Seungcheol watched him do it.

“I mean, it’s just one of those things about trying something new. It’s not that I didn’t know.” Jeonghan’s mouth twisted down, and he straightened all of a sudden, brushing nonexistent dust off the lap of his jeans. “I’m, I don’t know anybody there, right? I don’t speak the language, and I’m not the kind to, I don’t make friends quickly. I’m not like you.”

“Everybody loves you,” Seungcheol said almost instantly.

Jeonghan looked away, squinting in the sun. “Of course you’d think that.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol bristled. A wall rose up inside of him. He was angry, did not want to be angry, did not know how to not be angry.

“I mean,” Jeonghan began again, “you’ve always...no one is like you.”

“Well, you wouldn’t stay there for long if they were.”

Sharp eyes looked back at him. “I worked here for seven years.”

“And you still left.”

A minute passed.

Seungcheol hated that six months had not healed the dumb ache inside him.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I deserved that.”

“Nevertheless.”

Jeonghan pulled out another cigarette. Seungcheol left him to it.

He walked back home after the wrap. It was a long way, and it was bitterly cold. The cut of someone’s mullet reminded him of Jeonghan, and he had to take a detour, needing an extra street to walk away from it.

He took the stairs up to his floor. The stairwell was drafty, the landings only briefly warm where sunlight cut in. The hallway light flickered on. By Seungcheol’s door, two legs were stretched out into the corridor. Someone was sitting on the ground.

He didn’t know who it was, and then he knew. Knew he was right. He took several fast steps, then two slow ones, then an out-of-breath, “Hello?”

Jeonghan scrambled to his feet. He opened his mouth, closed it. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn that morning. He had a carry-on by his feet and looked frazzled, as if he was confused how he’d ended up here. He'd come to the party from the airport. 

“How did you-,” Seungcheol said, just as Jeonghan began, “Um, I.” Jeonghan spoke up first the second time. “I asked around for your address.”

“Jisoo?”

“He would never,” Jeonghan said, in a tone that implied he had asked Jisoo and been refused. Then he reached into his breast pocket, took out an envelope, and held it toward Seungcheol.

“I forgot to give you this earlier.”

Inside was an invitation to Jeonghan’s supper club, two weeks from today’s date, written with blue ink in Jeonghan’s gorgeous, familiar handwriting.

“I’ll have to see if I’m free that day.” Seungcheol closed it, put the card back inside the envelope, and slid it into his suit pocket.

“Come on, are you really going to be that way?” Jeonghan was incredulous. “It’s a Monday. Everyone’s coming.”

“I still have to check whether I have plans,” Seungcheol insisted.

Jeonghan quieted again. “Okay, and-"

He stooped down and opened his carry-on, right there in the middle of Seungcheol’s apartment corridor. He dug around in it and came up with a few bags. “It’s just some stuff. Small things, nothing...too much.”

There was a case of Oolong High inside and some Japanese snacks. A new cologne from the boutique in Omotesando that Seungcheol always visited. All things Jeonghan knew Seungcheol liked. Seungcheol’s heart squeezed. He was worn down by the day and this conversation.

“What are you doing here?” Seungcheol asked.

For both their sakes, Jeonghan didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

“You never,” Jeonghan started. He stopped. He looked at Seungcheol, something so hurt in his expression that Seungcheol made himself keep looking. “I texted you, like, a thousand times. I called you.”

“I had nothing to say.”

“I did. I owed you an explanation.”

“No you don’t,” Seungcheol said, snapping, irritable. “You made that bit clear, remember?”

Jeonghan stopped him from entering through the door, bodily blocking his way.

“Of course I do,” Jeonghan looked up at him. The two of them were pressed together between the heavy door and the door frame. “Ask me why I left."

Seungcheol’s stomach was clenching in an unpleasant way, but if he wanted to refuse Jeonghan, he would have had to start a long time ago.

“Why did you leave?”

“I lost myself in CDS. After the delegates’ dinner, it hit me how much I missed actually having control over my food. Markets, menus. The little things. I didn’t want to be trapped behind a workstation cooking tofu for the rest of my life.”

“Trapped?”

“I was beginning to resent you for being the only reason I didn't resign and I couldn’t do that. I can't allow myself to hate you. Not you.”

He didn’t want to hear it, and having to hear it was fucking him up big time. “And you told me it wasn’t personal, what, three times?” Seungcheol slumped against the doorpost. “You’re breaking my fucking heart with this shit.”

“I know,” Jeonghan said, all raw and broken and crazy. He was brushing Seungcheol’s shoulders, weakly, over and over, petting him, trembling. “But you have to understand, I won’t lose you, even if I have to walk away from your restaurant.”

“That restaurant is me.”

“You’re not your restaurant.” Jeonghan meant it too. Seungcheol could hear it in his voice, the firm certainty. “To me, you’re.” The pause was so long that Seungcheol thought Jeonghan would never finish the sentence. Then in a single rushed exhale, he did. “My life began the day I met you.”

And suddenly there were tears sitting fat in Seungcheol's throat. The sting in his hot cheeks made him feel like maybe they’d already fallen. His throat hurt as much as his heart when he tried to swallow. Seungcheol pushed past Jeonghan into his apartment. It was dark except for the sensor light at the entrance. “Good night,” he said, raw.

“Seungcheol.”

“No,” Seungcheol said with finality.

Once inside, he could not sit still. He paced around the entryway, jumping at every noise outside his door, convinced with each one that Jeonghan was going to come knock. Surely. Surely, so he could say yes.

He washed his face and stood there, hunched over the sink. Seungcheol felt flayed, like he was missing a layer of skin. He felt so far from being a person that he feared if he didn’t make an effort soon, he might never be able to come back to himself at all.

He got dressed again. Tight pants. A black shirt, sheer in the seams, just enough skin showing through the stitching. A silver chain, the top two buttons left open. Thin rings that caught the light in narrow slices. The Rolex flashed once on his wrist. He smoothed his hair down, then did it again. He threw on a jacket, then abandoned it.

He sprayed the new perfume and pregamed with expensive whiskey, downed it without tasting.

Part of him knew this was all performative. A little voice in the back of his head that sounded a lot like Mingyu saying, I know you have a crush on Jeonghanie hyung.

He ended up in the back alleys of Apgujeong, at the bar where he had been picked up for the first time in college. Where he had lost his virginity and never looked back. The floors were sticky. The drinks were strong. Everyone looked beautiful under the lights.

Someone joined him at the bar. Then another drink appeared. Then music. They danced under the lights, vanilla chandelier, blood orange, white gold, pink. He didn’t expect the man to stay, but he did. They slow danced afterward, close enough that Seungcheol didn’t have to think.

“You smell incredible,” the man said, swaying into him.

He bought him a Sex on the Beach. He liked it. Seungcheol told him he’d fuck him so good when they got back to his place. He didn’t want to wait. He blew the fuck out of Seungcheol in a relatively clean bathroom stall first, as they waited for the Kakao taxi.

In plain streetlight, Seungcheol noticed the details. The inky black of his hair, the thin lips curved in a pout. The lithe frame and broad shoulders. Round innocent eyes. Seungcheol took him to bed and made good on his promise. He wouldn’t let him close those eyes, tugged at his crown of hair when he drove into him, spread wild across the pillows.

It was dawn when his stamina gave out. Seungcheol had him on his front, trembling in the sheets. A wet spot where his face had been shoved into the pillow, with tears or spit, or both.

The next morning, Seungcheol woke confused, his thighs sore.

“Can I see you again?” the man asked when Seungcheol was already at the door.

He walked over and leaned in, close. He was about Seungcheol’s height and smelled like sleep, like sex. Seungcheol allowed a slow kiss, pulled back, said, “I’ll call you,” and left.

He didn’t have the man’s number. He knew that.

Outside, the first snowfall was in the air. He could feel it in the crisp chill, and it was only a matter of time before it painted the town white. Seungcheol got onto a bus headed to the subway station instead of walking all the way without a jacket. In the back corner seat, curled against the window and chewing on his bottom lip, he looked up Mitsu Shinazugawa for the first time.

In the photos, she was small-boned and severe, hair cut blunt at the jaw and wearing a mauve lip, always dressed in functional clothes with sleeves that stopped just above the wrist. Her website boasted a Quiet Table Award from a Scandinavian food collective. Chef to Watch lists in La Liste and Gault & Millau Japan. Articles on her emphasized her nomadic approach. No single restaurant, but a constellation of them. Guest residencies. Pop-ups. No fixed brigade. No permanent menu. The opposite of the kind of kitchen that Seungcheol ran.

She was quoted on a TV show saying, “If there are no seasonal tomatoes and you want to serve a tomato dish, go where the tomatoes are in season.”

This was what Jeonghan wanted.

The bus lurched forward. Seungcheol closed the tabs, pocketed his phone. He could not give Jeonghan this. That was the only thing Seungcheol was sure of.

I’m sorry for my behavior yesterday

Seungcheol typed twenty minutes later in the subway train. 

Thank you for the souvenirs

Not a pause, 

Consider it forgotten.

Then, Did you like the cologne?

The scent lingered on Seungcheol’s clothes. He slumped in his seat, breathing it in where it clung to his collar.

Yes

There was never any question about whether Seungcheol would show up for Jeonghan’s invitation. But it still felt surreal as he rang the bell. He worried at his eyebrow with his thumb as he waited, self-consciously smoothing it back when he heard the knob turn. But it was only Junhui who let him in, greeting him with a half hug.

Over Junhui’s shoulder, he could see Jeonghan at the end of the narrow hallway, his face lighting up when he spotted Seungcheol. “I’ve got it, Jun,” Jeonghan said, hurrying toward them. “Get yourself another drink.”

“Cool,” Junhui clapped him on the shoulder. “See you inside, hyung,” and disappeared back into the living room.

“Hi.” Jeonghan came to a stop before him. He was wearing a grey cardigan over a white shirt and dark-wash jeans.

“Hi,” Seungcheol replied.

It was warm inside, but he still shivered. A thin layer of snow had clung onto the leaves below Jeonghan’s building.

“Let me,” Jeonghan motioned to help Seungcheol shrug off his coat. He opened the coat closet. “Did you find the place okay?” he asked.

There were goosebumps where Jeonghan’s fingertips brushed him. Seungcheol shook out his shoulders. “Yes.”

With the closet door open, their view was blocked off from the living room. Jeonghan hung his coat up and turned back to face him, leaning into the multitude of winter garments hanging inside. “I’ve always liked that shirt,” he said. It was the same shirt with the black paneling. Seungcheol took a breath, said, “Hmm,” and did not think of pushing Jeonghan deeper into the woollen darkness and keeping him there for a while. “I know.”

It was an old building, the interiors done up entirely in white, from crowning to baseboards. Only the window panes of the large bay windows were black. In the living room, all the furniture had been cleared, leaving space for two large dining tables joined together to seat around a dozen people and then some. Dumbly, Seungcheol thought of the Last Supper.

But the table was empty at present, the guests milling around and helping themselves to the hors d'oeuvre lined against a wall with a large silver mirror. The little cards read, mini beef tartare on milk bread with capers, shallot, quail egg yolk, smoked eel crostini with cultured butter and chives, roasted Jerusalem artichoke with hazelnut, aged vinegar, parsley oil. Though the setting was communal, the presentation was very professional. All toppings were uniformly piled, every bite was of the same size and arranged neatly in off-white melamine trays. There was some amount of fine dining instilled in Jeonghan, Seungcheol was happy to note.

Seungcheol picked up an artichoke entrée, the one that seemed most technically difficult of the three, and watched his expression soften in pleasure in the mirror as he bit into it.

Seoul was small. The culinary world in it was even smaller. For weeks, he’d half-expected to run into Jeonghan again but hadn’t. And he hadn’t, and he hadn’t, and eventually Seungcheol stopped bracing for it. Not until he had walked to Jeonghan himself. This version of him, laughing easily at the center of a room, surrounded by friends. Something so bright in his eyes, so unguarded in his grin that Seungcheol moved toward him without thinking, to see it better. And Jeonghan received him every time, a light touch to the elbow.

When everyone had arrived, Jeonghan, the careful coordinator, invited them all to take their places, denoted by little name cards.

It wasn’t service the way Seungcheol understood service. You had to talk to the people next to you, even if it was only to ask them to pass something down the table. Seungcheol could see the appeal, even if he couldn’t imagine running something like this himself. There was no rigid pacing, no visible hierarchy, no pressure bearing down from a pass. And yet nothing was sloppy. Nothing was late. Small portions arrived in steady succession, woven between quiet conversations around the table.

It was brave, the way Jeonghan stripped away the strict architecture of fine dining and left only what mattered. Immaculate food and hospitality.

And to say the food was good was an understatement. All seasonal dishes, from the careful starters to the tender meat and fish and broth, every ingredient chosen with utmost care.

“I went to the market this morning,” Jeonghan said lightly as they were served mussels braised in a gochujang sauce. “And the vendor tried to sell me mussels that were already turning, for twice the price. I thought, ahjussi, you must not know where I’m from.”

Laughter rippled down the table and, amongst it, Jeonghan’s eyes flicked briefly to Seungcheol’s, holding there for half a second too long. Coup de Soleil, Seungcheol understood, was what he meant. Where he was from.

Dessert was a black sesame lace tuile dipped in tempered chocolate, followed by milk sorbet with olive oil and Maldon salt sprinkled on top.

“Wow, that’s good.” Seungcheol didn’t know Jeonghan could even do desserts, not of this prowess.

“Isn’t it just?” the patron next to him agreed. It was a young lady with blonde hair. “I liked the tuile too.”

“But the flavour of the sorbet is so clean.”

“Mhm, agreed.”

Seungcheol turned to introduce himself, now that they had spoken. “I don't think we've met before. I’m Seungcheol. I'm his ex colleague.”

“I know,” she smiled.

“Oh? Well, Jeonghan and I were also friends, I guess.”

She smiled. “Yeah, he's the kind of guy who would be friends with ex colleagues.”

“He's a good guy,” Seungcheol said.

She nodded.

“He's the love of my life.”

Those wine pairings were some strong stuff.

Her eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “Does oppa know that?”

That gave him pause. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“I'm his sister.”

“Oh,” Seungcheol said. “Oh shit. Soobinie?”

“Finally,” she threw her hands up.

“Sorry,” Seungcheol grimaced, embarrassed. “The last time I saw you, you were in high school. Braces and everything.”

Soobin laughed, and in the curve of her smile Seungcheol found Jeonghan so prominently that he wondered how he hadn’t recognized it.

“Sorry, please forget I said anything,” he said, feeling his cheeks heat up. “I’m a little drunk.”

She patted his arm kindly. “Chill. I'm not going to tell him.”

Then Jeonghan opened a bottle of aged Japanese whisky, to applause and murmurs of appreciation. He made his way around the table, pouring the amber liquid into crystal glasses. When he reached Seungcheol, his hand tipped just a little too far. “Oops,” he whispered, entirely unapologetic, winking under his fringe.

Seungcheol sank back into his chair, edges of the room softening.

By one in the morning, the guests began to thin out. Friends dropped kisses on Jeonghan’s cheeks, patted his back. Jeonghan waved and waved to their retreating backs. Seungcheol had a ride back home with Seungkwan and Chan, but he got waylaid collecting any stray tissues from around the room to trash them. He checked for half-finished drinks, stacking matching glasses neatly in the sink, relieved to see that the kitchen came equipped with a dishwasher.

“We're waiting downstairs, hyung!” he heard Chan shout.

He was by the hors d’oeuvre table, transferring leftovers onto a smaller plate so the larger trays could be cleared, when he heard the soft close of the front door and the quiet slap of house slippers on the floor. Seungcheol caught Jeonghan looking at him in the mirror above. He cleared his throat, went back to the job at hand. “I’m just cleaning up a bit. It’s a lot for you to do on your own.”

Jeonghan hummed, moving around him to lean on the wall just beside the table. The light caught the shimmer of sweat on Jeonghan’s neck and the wet corner of his mouth. He was so beautiful Seungcheol wanted to look away, but of course he couldn’t. The long line of his body angled toward Seungcheol.

He took the plate from Seungcheol’s hand and set it aside.

“It means a lot to me that you came, Cheol.”

“Does it?”

Jeonghan’s weary voice was pitched lower. Smoother. It reeled Seungcheol in like a song. “You can’t know how much.”

Maybe it was tasting Jeonghan’s cooking again after so long, or the Japanese whiskey warming his blood. Maybe it was the heater working overtime against the snow outside.

Whatever was going on with him that night, he let it sway him forward and catch Jeonghan’s lips. His mouth going soft against Jeonghan’s and he didn’t push him away. Jeonghan gave in to the languid press of Seungcheol’s mouth. Seungcheol tilted his head, and Jeonghan followed the sure pressure.

It felt like something they’d done before, only they hadn’t.

His body pushed off the wall and into Seungcheol’s with a sigh, breath trapped in his chest. Seungcheol’s hands slid up his neck and into his hair, cradling his head.

They broke off because they had to. Jeonghan pressed his forehead to Seungcheol’s. Seungcheol wanted to kiss his nose, his cheeks.

“The food could not have been that good,” Jeonghan whispered, quiet and pleased against his lips.

Seungcheol’s hands were two tight grips on Jeonghan’s bony hips. Seungcheol nodded in, seeking. “It was. You are. Incredible.”

A car honked on the street, followed by a smattering of their friends’ giggles, and they moved away. Jeonghan swiped the back of his hand over his lips and they came back shiny. He licked his lips, a darker color now, blooming from the pressure of Seungcheol’s mouth.

“Seungkwan’s going to come up looking for you.”

He could see his own cheeks, unmistakably pink, in the mirror.

“Yeah,” Seungcheol said, hesitating for a second before making for the door. Seungcheol shook his coat out, put it back on. He buttoned up to his neck, then thought better of it, stuffing his hands into his pockets. But at the last minute, over the threshold, Jeonghan grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him in. Jeonghan’s kiss landed at the corner of his mouth. His hands slid under the fabric and shrugged it from his shoulders.

“Let me have this coat. The other one doesn't smell like you anymore.”

Seungcheol entered his office the next morning to his usual array of emails, but one in particular stood out to him. It was from the Food & Wine critic from table 13, the night Jeonghan resigned, and it was funny that Seungcheol recognized her given everything that had transpired that night. If he was being honest, he could probably recognize every patron from that service.

Seungcheol normally never interviewed, much less replied to emails asking for them. But today he did. His first reply to thousands of requests over the years.

If you want someone to really write about, Seungcheol typed back. You’ll have to track down Yoon Jeonghan.

The article was published on Boxing Day with a picture of Jeonghan in his starched white chef’s coat, JY embroidered on the lapel. The shadow of his Adam’s apple above the neat collar. The brush of inky black hair over his shoulders. A peek of thin wrists where his sleeves were rolled back, their shared gold bracelet hidden there. Seungcheol had no doubt that the readers would eat it up.

He read it while eating a peanut butter sandwich, leaning against the railing of his balcony, debating the merits of frying up some bacon.

Yoon Jeonghan’s ‘supper club’ isn't just baekbans redefined. It is about feeling. It is more than his ability to cook, it is genuine desire to not only feed stomachs but feed souls, and he wants to do it in as many cities around the world as possible. Looking at his trajectory now, it is evident why he had had to leave Choi Seungcheol and Hong Jisoo’s celebrated Coup de Soleil.

Seungcheol skimmed over it once, then read it again, slowly. Towards the end of the article, Jeonghan was asked about whether there was any bad blood between him and the owners of CDS.

“No way,” Yoon said easily. “They’re my best friends. My time there.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Those were some of the best days of my life.”

Were you happy with the interview? 

He shot Jeonghan a message.

It’s whatever 

The reply came fifteen minutes later.

Thank you. For sending her to me 

The text was waiting for him after the shower. 

I know you must have pulled strings.

Consider it an apology

For what

Making you feel I wanted to trap you in my restaurant Hannie

If I truly believed you wanted to trap me

I think I’d let you

Oh. Okay. He could pretend to be naïve all he wanted, but he knew what this was. What it meant. He licked his bottom lip. A familiar heat stirred deep in his abdomen, and he tried to will himself to behave.

You don’t mean that. 

Somewhere in the days to come, they kept texting each other. Jeonghan still had the annoying habit of sending voice notes instead of typing stuff out. His scratchy low voice, the way he got slightly distracted, like he was doing something else while he talked. Sometimes there was the clink of a spoon against a bowl in the background, sometimes the soft rush of water from a sink. Ordinary sounds. But Seungcheol was like an addict at the end of a line of coke, he replayed each voice note twice, thrice, and couldn’t get enough of Jeonghan’s voice, the glimpses into his life.

He lay awake imagining Jeonghan’s soft lips that Seungcheol had kissed them forming the words. Could maybe kiss them again if he really wanted. He did.

Then one day, at the end of his grueling last Sunday dinner shift of the year, the 30th of December, he got a call.

Jeonghan.

Seungcheol wiped his hand on the butt of his Valentino suit before swiping to accept.

“Hey?”

“Hi. Have you eaten yet?”

“No,” Seungcheol frowned. “Why?”

“I’m making dinner.”

There was a pause, the quiet hum of the line filling the space between them. Seungcheol could hear movement on Jeonghan’s end, the muffled sound of a cabinet closing.

“Okay,” Seungcheol said slowly. “Bon appétit.”

Jeonghan exhaled a short laugh. “You’re annoying.”

“Blatant lies.”

“Come over,” Jeonghan said into his ear, like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just made the blood in Seungcheol’s vein run thicker.

“It’s a little late for hosting.”

“Not hosting,” Jeonghan said. “Just you.”

Little tremors shook Seungcheol’s legs. “Still late.”

“I was packing, I’m going to—”

“Your parents tomorrow, I know, you told me.”

“I made too much dinner and I’d hate to see it go to waste.”

Seungcheol leaned back against the stainless steel counter in his office. “What’re you making?”

“You’ll like it, promise.”

“Someone has a pep in their step.”

Seungcheol jumped. “What?”

Jisoo raised an eyebrow. “Was that Jeonghan?”

He gave Jisoo a deadpan look.

“What? Why would you think that?”

He coughed, tried to school his face, and didn’t do a very good job.

“God, you’re disgusting,” Jisoo waved him away. “You disgust me.”

Seungcheol parked in front of an E-Mart on the way. He was going to be in and out in under five minutes, just get a wine and get going. He crossed past buckets of flowers by the entrance. It might have been closing time, but there were still a few good bundles of flowers, handwritten prices taped to the rims. He slowed, then backed up a step, debating with himself whether showing up with flowers was being presumptuous.

It didn’t have to be roses, right?

Seungcheol picked up a bouquet of pink tulips with white hyacinth. It was tied in a simple white wrap with twine. Seungcheol was surprised by the weight. He hadn’t expected them to feel like anything. He took it to one of the open checkout counters.

The guy rang him up, chewing on minty gum. “Your girl mad, bro?” he asked, probably because of how late he was buying them.

“Not not my girl... I mean. Not. You know,” he said too quickly. Then, after a beat, “And not mad.”

“Cool,” the guy could not have been less interested as he put them in a brown paper bag and handed them over. “Cash or card?”

“Card.”

As he waited for the receipt, he looked down at the flowers again. God, he wasn’t subtle. He took the bouquet and stepped back out. He told himself they were just flowers.

Two short knocks. Jeonghan opened the door wearing an apron, all smiles. They greeted each other quickly, easily, the way they always used to. Jeonghan glanced down at his hands.

“Tulips?”

Seungcheol didn’t quite flush, but his face prickled though he made a noncommittal hum, as coolly as he could. “Didn’t know if you’d like wine the night before travelling.”

“It’s two hours away,” Jeonghan put his nose to the flowers and took a deep breath. “Thank you, they’re very pretty. Come in.”

This time, the living room was just two couches and a low glass coffee table, all traces of supper clubs ever being present there had disappeared. Jeonghan looked around and pouted. “I don’t have anything to put them in.”

“That’s okay, just leave them.” Seungcheol walked towards the kitchen, eager for them both to forget about the flowers.

There was something like a fragrant pilaf on the stove. Beside it, shucked prawns lay curled in a row, marinating in paprika, crushed garlic, oil, and something sharp. Seungcheol sniffed. Sumac. Jeonghan entered the kitchen after having put the bouquet away and threw in a cube of yellow butter to melt in the pan.

“What’s on the menu, chef?”

“I haven’t heard you call me that in a while," he dropped prawns into the hot pan. While it sizzled, he retrieved a plastic tub of pickled onion and beet from the depths of the refrigerator and spooned it into a bowl.

“Uh, Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

His back brushed Seungcheol’s chest as he sidestepped over to the stove to flip the prawns with tongs. “Is there something you want to say to me?”

“No?”

“Cool,” Jeonghan said, waving steam away from his face. “Cool, cool, cool.”

Seungcheol plopped a ring of onion into his mouth. It wasn’t a kimchi. The pickling was sour but light. He tried a beet next, and this time Jeonghan looked over and caught him. He swatted him with a kitchen towel. “Not double dipping, Cheol, eww.”

Seungcheol shrugged. “It’s good.”

“Can you make yourself useful, please?”

I could skin a hundred potatoes, Seungcheol thought helplessly, and peel a hundred more cloves of garlic. Anything you want. Aloud he said, “Right away.”

“Whisk this.”

He was handed a whisk and a bowl.

Inside the bowl was possibly Greek yoghurt, definitely olive oil, garlic, and maybe lemon juice.

“What is this?”

“Yoghurt sauce.”

“What else, lemon?”

“Lime, salt, and pep. Chaat masala.”

“Chaat masala?”

“I'm trying recipes.”

“Ah-ha, I'm the guinea pig.”

Jeonghan looked over at him like Seungcheol was mad for asking. “Duh.”

The onion and beet pickle came to an end. Seungcheol came just short of sucking on the shrimp shells, heads and tails that were scraped into a plastic bag and tied to be thrown away outside to keep the smell out. He learned the apartment was a holiday sublet from a university student. None of the furniture or cutlery were Jeonghan’s, and the long tables had been rented for the previous dinner. Seungcheol offered to go down and trash the shrimp carcasses. Outside, it was snowing in tufts, and he hurried back up, eager to get back into the warmth of Jeonghan’s kitchen.

“Okay, I think I’d waited long enough,” Jeonghan said suddenly. Seungcheol had been washing dishes and was trying to get a stubborn bit of sauce off the lip of the mixing bowl.

Absently he replied, “Hmm?”

“I recently got off the phone with my sister and she had some...insight.”

Seungcheol kept scrubbing and realized he really didn’t care. He had no reason to hide it.

“You had to have known.”

A beat. “I did.”

Seungcheol shrugged. “That’s that then.”

“Really?”

“I would never want to trap you, in any way.”

He heard Jeonghan shuffle behind him, he heard him exhale. 

“I meant it, you know,” Jeonghan trailed off, drowning under the rush of water from the tap.

Seungcheol carefully twisted the tap shut. It was very still in the kitchen then.

“Meant what?”

“If you truly wanted to trap me, I’d let you.”

Seungcheol set the bowl down and took off the gloves, wiped his hands on the kitchen towel. Back, front, sides. Then he turned and put Jeonghan against the dining table and kissed him. Jeonghan hiccupped a noise of surprise and Seungcheol kissed him, and kissed him. Like it was his right. Something that had been taken away from him, and he was taking it back.

Jeonghan shivered, his knees locking together and Seungcheol had to pry them apart so he could step further in between Jeonghan’s thighs. His hands pulled at every bit of clothing on Jeonghan, rucking Jeonghan’s shirt up till it was under his chin, apron and all. He caught a sweet brown nipple between two fingers and Jeonghan’s bottom lip in a gentle bite. The reciprocal hitch of breath laced with the softest moan zipped like fire up Seungcheol’s spine.

“Fuck me.” The words were hardly more than a soft breath at Seungcheol’s cheek.

Seungcheol leaned back, searching his face, “If we fuck, you can't undo it.”

Jeonghan swallowed, lashes heavy. “Do you still keep a condom in your wallet?”

“Yes.”

Jeonghan brought Seungcheol’s face back into a kiss. “Then put it on and undo me.”

He carried Jeonghan to the bed. The flowers were laid on the side table, perfuming the room.

They worked together to get his briefs down, and the first finger slipped in him so smoothly. But the second finger less so, smoothing the creases of his hole. Jeonghan breathed through the resistance. He breathed out of his mouth, and it hitched towards the end. Seungcheol pulled his fingers out and poured lube on them, inserting them again and again till Jeonghan loosened up and could take a third.

Jeonghan panted against his mouth as Seungcheol fucked him on three thick fingers, his kisses faltering. With every move, lube gushed out, slicking his hand down to his wrists. Seungcheol smoothed his other hand down from where it had been holding Jeonghan’s face to tweak his nipples, taking them in his mouth one by one. When he used a hint of teeth, it knocked a ragged moan from Jeonghan’s chest, and Seungcheol had to forcibly hold himself back from getting any harsher.

“Mmn,” Jeonghan shuts his eyes and seems to brace himself. “Okay— in me, n-now.”

Seungcheol positioned them on their sides, cupped like shells. He rolled on a condom and pushed one of Jeonghan’s trembling knees up, opening his body. He held his cock and pushed in. Jeonghan reached back to hold Seungcheol’s hip, his nails biting into the meat there. “Nnggh-.”

Seungcheol took it slow, thighs quaking. He wrapped his other hand under Jeonghan’s waist and held him to his chest, petting his stomach.

“Keep going,” Jeonghan said around his gritted teeth. Seungcheol had to pull partway out and push back in several times, making more and more space inside him.

Slowly, the pressure let up just enough to make Seungcheol whimper. His hips rocked forward to fuck Jeonghan in fuller strokes. Not all the way in. They didn’t have to do that yet, but deep enough that Jeonghan threw his head back and squeezed Seungcheol inside without even realizing.

“Feels so good,” Jeonghan’s brow tipped with pleasure, breath tied in his throat. “So, so good, Cheol... I’ve...for so long.”

Seungcheol pulled out of a shuddering Jeonghan and turned him onto his back. Jeonghan whined and pulled at him, tugging at his hand to show him where he wanted it. His neck strained as Seungcheol palmed him. It was a gorgeous length, rock hard and soaking wet, the most frustrated shade of red. Seungcheol leaned back momentarily and spat on his cock, and this time he was less careful as he pushed in. His Chrome Hearts pendant swung with the first thrust, catching light from the floor lamp, gold glinting back and forth, tapping Jeonghan under the chin.

Seungcheol bent himself over Jeonghan, enveloping him. The breadth of his body, so close, forced Jeonghan’s thighs to spread wider. His lips moved along the delicate shell of Jeonghan’s ear, the velvet softness of the lobe. He sucked there, pouring every praise about how good Jeonghan was making him feel into that soft ear, how perfect he was, that he was made to be fucked like this, by him. Jeonghan’s hands fisted into the pillowcase at his ears, knuckles white.

Seungcheol stuffed a pillow under Jeonghan’s waist, and like this, his weight pushed him into Jeonghan to the root, filling him up. The angle was deep, and Seungcheol let himself sink into Jeonghan’s guts like another right. Jeonghan dragged Seungcheol’s face up to his, his lips feeling the soft rumble of every broken-off word he uttered, there, God, fuck. There was spit shining bright on his parted lips as he breathed, over and over, please, please.

Maybe if Seungcheol could lean back, he’d have had even more leverage to fuck harder into him, but Jeonghan held him close, arms around his neck. His lips were open and panting against Seungcheol’s. His hair stuck to the sweat at his neck, caught in the wetness at his cheek, and he rocked forward with every snapping thrust. Seungcheol put the pad of his thumb to the freckled dot under Jeonghan’s eye.

“God, I love—”

“Cheol,” Jeonghan gasped, finishing with a long, pretty moan, spilling between them.

Seungcheol felt him closing up inside, tightening. He sped up, stuttered, and then lost his rhythm altogether.

“Fuck,” Jeonghan groaned, hips and knees hitching up around Seungcheol’s waist as Seungcheol thrust decisively a few times in, heat licking up his balls.

Fuck, Seungcheol mouthed silently in agreement.

They fucked again before they slept. Jeonghan rode him in the easy chair, feet tucked under him with Seungcheol gripping his hips, telling him to go slow, and they fucked one last time late into the night after they’d showered together, against the mirror in Jeonghan’s living room like animals.

They stripped the bed of the sheets and climbed onto the bare mattress, settling against each other. He lazily nosed the lithe line of Jeonghan’s throat and Jeonghan sighed, offering more skin for his perusal, drowsy.

“Jeonghan-ah,” Seungcheol called him back to the surface, and Jeonghan looked up at him dazed through sugar-spun eyelashes, nestled against him, all smelling like his lemony body wash. “I’m too happy. I can’t sleep.”

He brought Jeonghan’s palm up to his beating chest. “See?”

But Seungcheol did fall asleep, like falling from a very tall cliff onto a bed of clouds.

A phone call woke them up in the morning. It was Jeonghan’s mom, confirming that he was coming down to them that day. Seungcheol heard him mumble ye, ye in sleepy Korean.

Jeonghan carefully slipped out of bed to brush his teeth. Seungcheol sleepily watched him do it, still in bed but sitting up against the headboard, and occasionally their eyes met in the mirror through the open door. Dimly, he hoped for unrealistic things, like an avalanche trapping them there for a month. Not a real one, but the kind he’d watched in movies, just wind and snow, cold and quiet, the two of them having to subsist on cookies and tea and fucking. No trains to catch, no other home to go to.

On the way out, Jeonghan dutifully grabbed the bouquet and unceremoniously butted his head into Seungcheol’s shoulder, fussing the way he did when he didn’t get enough sleep.

They had to brush snow off Seungcheol’s hood and windows before they could get in. The flowers went in the back seat. Once he got the car started, Seungcheol tried to rub the warmth back into Jeonghan’s hand. He was always cold, for someone who spent most of his life hovering over burning fires.

At the red light, Jeonghan trailed their intertwined hands down and pressed the back of Seungcheol’s hand against his own crotch. Seungcheol warned, firm, “Behave,” and Jeonghan giggled, “I love when you pick on me.”

“Fuck off.”

“Chef,” Jeonghan began, in a tone meant to mimic Seungcheol, “this batch of glaze has a touch more sesame seeds than the previous one. Let’s revise that pronto.”

“I do not talk like that.”

“Yeah, you do, and sesame seeds can be scooped out. Who cares?”

“Michelin.”

“Show off.”

The light turned green. Seungcheol didn’t let go of Jeonghan’s hand. He brought it up to his mouth and brushed a kiss to Jeonghan’s knuckles. Seungcheol didn’t know what Jeonghan was talking about. He’d never gotten the glaze wrong, even once.

Jeonghan had a carry-on and a backpack. “Here, let me—” Seungcheol sprang at the suitcase at the station.

“No, no,” Jeonghan said, intercepting him. Seungcheol didn’t let him. He was already looking for the train schedule. Jeonghan had prebooked a ticket, so they just had to follow the signs to the correct platform. Seungcheol made his way deeper into the expectedly overcrowded train station, and Jeonghan trailed after him, backpack on, with an armful of flowers. Seungcheol wished he’d bought roses after all.

It didn’t take them too much time to find the platform. “Your train is in fifteen minutes,” Seungcheol said, setting the carry-on down.

Jeonghan nodded.

“Excited?” Seungcheol asked. He knew Jeonghan hadn’t booked a return ticket, didn’t even have an apartment in Seoul, would be at his parents’ a while and then who knows what his next city would be.

Jeonghan hummed again, fidgeting with the paper of the bouquet. Seungcheol nodded, at a loss.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets, looking nervously up at the train schedule. He could go to his own parents’ later. His nephew was probably there for his first New Year. He could spend the rest of today visiting his grandaunt with his parents, playing card games and drinking warm cider. It might be nice. Two holidays in the same year, his mom would be ecstatic.

A train rushed by and chilled him to the bone. The fifteen minutes had become nine now. His mind played the last year like a highlight reel, a series of images and sounds strung together. What kept coming up again and again was Jeonghan looking up at him, earnest and sad. You’re not your restaurant to me.

And maybe Seungcheol wasn’t after all.

Jeonghan didn’t care to work in his restaurant, and CDS would be fine without him, but Seungcheol would just disappear. It wasn’t the same thing. It never had been.

It was possible, Seungcheol thought madly, that he couldn’t handle this a second time after all.

Seungcheol’s heart startled, then picked up, his pulse beating in the hollow pit of his throat.

Impulse seized him.

“Hey,” Seungcheol said, croaking. “I've to say something.”

Jeonghan turned to him, eyes flickering up to the digital clock. Then he gulped and said rapidly, “Okay. I don’t have much time.” He looked down at a watch he wasn’t wearing. “Say it quick.”

Seungcheol cleared his throat, and Jeonghan huffed, half-hearted. A speech.

“If you give me one chance—”

Jeonghan flinched. “What?”

Seungcheol powered through. “If you give me one chance again—”

Jeonghan made another sound of protest, shaking his head. “I can’t stand this. It’s so stupid.”

Seungcheol asked, watery, “What’s stupid? Me?”

“Me.”

Seungcheol reached for his arms. “No. What?” Jeonghan took a breath like he was about to cry, and Seungcheol panicked. If he cried, Seungcheol would die. He would just die. “Hannie, what?”

Jeonghan shook his head. “I’ve said all the wrong things and done everything wrong and now—” Jeonghan looked up, blinking tears away. “Give you a chance? When it’s me who should—”

Seungcheol shook his head. “Never. You did nothing—”

“I should be the one. You’re all I ever— I don’t know why I’m going.”

Jeonghan tried to break away from Seungcheol’s hold, but Seungcheol was a starving creature. He wanted. He didn’t know how not to. He thought he needed more time, but he didn’t. He was unraveling at the seams and he had to have Jeonghan now. He took Jeonghan’s cold hands in his, the bouquet falling between them. “Then take a chance on me again. Do this with me. Because I can’t- without you.”

“Do what again, the restaurant?” Jeonghan asked, his voice jumping around sobs. “I don’t know if I could—”

“No,” Seungcheol shook his head, helpless. “Life.”

Jeonghan fell silent at last, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

Then Seungcheol had an armful of Jeonghan and had to take a step back to balance them, his hands tight around Jeonghan’s waist, lifting him off the ground, backpack and all. Jeonghan clung back to him, kissed him with the smallest, most desperate of noises, and Seungcheol held him blindly, fingers digging into his back and the strip of skin exposed above his waistband. He wanted to feel him everywhere. He could not imagine letting go.

Jeonghan cradled his face with both hands and tipped him closer, nuzzled his nose. “You love me.”

Seungcheol nodded, overcome, overwhelmed. Jeonghan’s eyes closed and fresh tears wet his lashes but his lips were shaped in a blurry smile.

“I can’t believe you told my sister before you told me.”

“So yes, you will?” Seungcheol asked, his heart beating out of his chest. He leaned in to kiss his tears away, but Jeonghan whined. “You never listen to me- my life only started when I met you.”

Seungcheol bit his shoulder, his neck, overwhelmed. Jeonghan laughed with no air, a sob still caught in it, and touched Seungcheol’s mouth where it latched, brushed his teeth, pushed at his gums. Jeonghan stroked his hair and Seungcheol hid in the shadows of his neck, overwhelmed, aware that people were staring at them. His heart was beating up a storm in his chest, trying to reach Jeonghan. Jeonghan, who was pressing kisses along Seungcheol’s temple. Jeonghan, the nexus of Seungcheol’s life.

Seungcheol ended up buying a ticket to Hwaseong himself. There were only standing tickets left, so Jeonghan gave up his own seat to a middle-aged woman and joined him at the back, resting his head on Seungcheol’s shoulder and allowing himself to be cuddled close.

At first, Seungcheol felt guilty to impose, but Jeonghan reassured that his parents had been asking him forever to bring Seungcheol around, and he shouldn’t worry. They adored company. Seungcheol had never been to Hwaseong before, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Jeonghan for long enough to look around.

Jeonghan’s parents were waiting for them at the station to pick them up in a red Hyundai Grandeur. Jeonghan’s dad hugged him in greeting, and his mom kissed his cheek. “Oh baby,” she said, “are the flowers for me?”

Jeonghan held them to his chest. They were a little trampled. “No, eomma. They’re mine.”

But his mother seemed to have only just noticed that Seungcheol was loitering behind him and stepped around Jeonghan to greet him. “Omo, Jeonghanie, you should’ve told me Seungcheol was coming. Get inside, son, it’s freezing outside.”

Seungcheol sat at the back with Jeonghan’s mother for the twenty minutes it took from the train station to Jeonghan’s ancestral home, listening to KBS Radio 1.

Jeonghan’s family was rather tight-knit. Soobin was home for the holidays from college, and she threw the door open to greet them when the car pulled in front of the house. Then she spotted him inside, and Seungcheol saw her visibly put two and two together, a smug smile taking over her pretty features.

Seungcheol helped Jeonghan’s dad with the suitcases, which earned him an approving pat on the back, and stepped inside to greet Jeonghan’s grandmother, who was waiting for them in the living room. She recognized him right away because, apparently, Jeonghan talked about him all the time. “Halmeoni, seriously,” Jeonghan grumbled as he kissed the top of her head and distracted her.

Inside, all the Christmas decorations were still up. Jeonghan arranged the flowers in a blue-white porcelain vase and placed it on the coffee table next to the bowl of tangerines. Halmeoni lined them up on the sofa and peeled those tangerines to tide them over till dinner, offering Seungcheol the biggest portion because, in her opinion, he was “very big,” and it made both the Yoon siblings giggle.

Jeonghan’s dad offered him inside clothes to change into when he learned Seungcheol hadn’t brought anything, then wondered aloud which bedroom he’d be staying in, just as Soobin piped up, “Guest, of course. Right, oppa?”

“Of course,” Jeonghan said amiably. Out of their parents’ sight, he caught Soobin’s eyes in a glare and mouthed, “I’m not going to help you sneak out tonight, asshole.”

“As if I need your help, fucker,” Soobin mouthed back. Seungcheol hid his smile behind a cough.

Dinner was Jeonghan’s favorite kimchi jjigae, and the few spring onion pancakes left after Jeonghan and Soobin kept stealing them as their mom fried them one by one, alongside some of the best banchan Seungcheol had had in his life.

After they played a couple of rounds of go-stop over beer with his parents as they asked him about the restaurant and the business, Seungcheol helped Soobin wash and dry the dishes in the kitchen. “Thank you,” he told her between passing a bowl and a saucer to be put away into the cabinets.

Soobin shrugged. “I accept New Year cash as payment for good deeds.”

They really were siblings, Seungcheol thought, amused, as he took out his wallet and took out two hundred thousand won in crisp notes.

“Bro,” Soobin sputtered, “I was joking.”

Seungcheol put it into her hand at the same moment Jeonghan entered the kitchen with the beer bottles to be trashed. “Soobin, are you extorting my boyf-extorting Seungcheol?”

He felt the tips of his ears go warm.

“You know what? I deserve payment for having to witness this.”

She dramatically pocketed the cash.

“Hi,” Seungcheol whispered to Jeonghan in the five minutes they got together alone after Soobin pushed her duties onto Jeonghan and left to watch the New Year broadcast, fingers flying over her phone. It had been hours since he’d gotten to be this close to Jeonghan.

“Hi,” Jeonghan whispered back, his fingertips brushing over Seungcheol’s with the pass of every utensil and piece of cutlery. Seungcheol felt like a teenager, like his mom was going to show up any minute now.

By the time midnight rolled around, Halmeoni had already gone to bed. Fireworks bloomed over the Han River on TV. Seungcheol received another pat on the back from Jeonghan’s father, a high five from Soobin, and a kiss from his mom. For a moment, he really missed his own family, but it was interrupted by Jeonghan loudly exclaiming that he was going to take out the trash now. “Soobin and Seungcheol, I need help. Hurry.”

They made their way out the door before his parents had even properly waved them goodbye. Soobin was on the phone immediately as the door fell shut. “Yeah, I’m outside. Okay, cool, cool, bye.” She started stripping out of the baggy hoodie and pajama pants she’d been wearing, much to Seungcheol’s utter shock. Underneath, she was wearing a pair of cigarette pants and a gorgeous glittery spaghetti top. She shook out her hair, and it fell in styled waves across her shoulders.

“You’re going to catch a cold,” Jeonghan said as she stuffed her old clothes into Jeonghan’s hands. Jeonghan apologetically passed the garbage bag to Seungcheol to hold them.

Soobin made a face. “I’m not thirty-two, unc.” Then, as they started walking toward the bin near the gate, snow crunching under their feet, “I’ll text you when I get back?” She looked between them while applying her lipstick and added, “You’ll obviously be awake.”

Jeonghan swatted at the back of her head, and she dodged, laughing. A car pulled up and the window rolled down. More young twenty-year-olds inside beckoned her wordlessly inside, some of them chirping greetings at Jeonghan.

At the last moment, Soobin hugged her brother. “Thanks, oppa. I owe you one. Also, I’m happy for you.” She glanced at Seungcheol over Jeonghan’s shoulder. “You too. I like you. Thanks for the cash.”

Then she was inside the car and driving away.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t,” Jeonghan whisper-shouted through cupped hands.

Soobin leaned out of the window laughing. “The bar’s really low.”

Jeonghan sighed as the car disappeared around the bend, shaking his head with the fondest smile on his face. He took the garbage bag from Seungcheol and flung it into the bin.

“Your little sister’s a bully,” Seungcheol said under a chuckle as they made their way back into the house.

“It’s my fault,” Jeonghan admitted sadly, and then pushed Seungcheol up beside the front door and pulled him into the filthiest kiss that turned his knees to jelly. “Next year,” Jeonghan said, kissing down his jaw, and Seungcheol’s tiny groans misted the air, “I’ll be right on dot.”

Seungcheol pulled him back up to kiss him better.

Seungcheol called his parents before brushing his teeth with the extra toothbrush Jeonghan’s dad had left on the neat pile of clothes and climbed into bed.

It was way past three a.m. now. He had been scrolling on his phone earlier, going through everyone’s New Year posts. Then he found an old quarterly magazine in the room and was flipping through the faded pages in the dim light of the table lamp, unable to sleep. The house was silent around him. The curtains were open and he could hear wind whistling through the gap in the windowpane, but it was still warm with the HVAC turned up.

He jumped a little as the door opened. Jeonghan slipped in and pulled the door shut. He locked it.

He turned to Seungcheol, practically twirling, grinning and pink from a fresh shower. His gaze swept over the room, otherwise doused in bluish darkness. “Wow, this is weird.”

Seungcheol sat up self-consciously. “Do I look weird?”

“Not you. You here. This is the room my sister and I used to share when we were little.”

“Really?”

Jeonghan slipped into his lap. “I had my first dream of a prince here.”

“Oh yeah?” Seungcheol asked, giddy to have Jeonghan near him. “What was he like?”

Jeonghan ran his hands over Seungcheol’s arms and under his sleeves. “Big,” he murmured, squeezing the muscles there, “and strong.” He took Seungcheol’s hands and put them around himself, locking them in a hug. “And dependable.”

Seungcheol flexed his arms, squeezing Jeonghan harder in the hug.

Jeonghan moaned. His fingers curled into Seungcheol’s hair, and Seungcheol shushed him. “Dude, your parents are right next door.”

“They’d probably appreciate a grandchild.”

Seungcheol’s cock, which had been half hard just at the sight of Jeonghan in loose pajamas, twitched up. He worked his arm between them and massaged his cock with the heel of his hand.

“I’d give you a hand, but,” Jeonghan snickered into Seungcheol’s neck, though he did not initiate anything further.

They sighed in the wintry silence. Jeonghan’s hand in Seungcheol’s hair loosened up and went back to petting him absently.

“I wish I hadn’t promised mom. You’d probably want to do something else for New Year than hang out with my family.”

Seungcheol ran a gentle stripe down Jeonghan’s spine. “No, Hannie. I had a good time. Promise.”

Jeonghan’s bony chin dug into his shoulder. His sigh tickled Seungcheol’s ear. “No wonder my parents like you.”

“Do they really?”

Jeonghan leaned back just enough so they could face each other.

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t look so pleased. I’m still sore from last night, and I have to go hiking early tomorrow.”

Seungcheol gave Jeonghan’s ass an affectionate squeeze. “Great. I have to get to CDS before lunch, so I’ll probably leave around the same time.”

Jeonghan sat back.

“No, you don’t,” he said audaciously.

“So what am I to do tomorrow, then?” Seungcheol pulled him back close by the hips.

“Come hiking with us to offer prayers at the temple on top, and if the weather is good, we might go down by the dock. My uncle knows this guy who sells the best abalone in town.” Jeonghan drew circles on Seungcheol’s neck. “My grandmother cooks them on an open fire with sesame oil and a soy glaze. It’s so rustic. We eat it with rice, wrapped in—”

“Shiso?” So this was where the dish came from. From the kitchen downstairs, under this very roof.

“Yeah. It’s my favorite,” Jeonghan said, twisting a finger in the neck of his sleep shirt.

“Hmm.”

“Look at me,” Jeonghan tucked a bit of hair behind Seungcheol’s ear. “I’m not trying to be mean.”

Defensively, Seungcheol replied, “I wasn’t thinking that.”

Jeonghan lightly pinched his side. “I know you like that I’m a little mean. Don’t lie.”

“So you were—”

“No,” Jeonghan insisted, softer again. “Not about this.” He brushed the tips of their noses together, but his eyes were downcast. “You don’t have to have any. We make galbi too. I know you’re probably sick of abalone by now.”

Seungcheol hooked a finger under Jeonghan’s chin and tilted his face up. He put his thumb to Jeonghan’s bottom lip.

“I love you,” he said, in explanation. “Jeonghan, I love you.”

Jeonghan drew a slow breath, nodded in. “Okay, whatever. Me too.”

Seungcheol laughed, gathered him close, and tackled Jeonghan onto his back, going down with him. The light shivered above them. They had jostled the table lamp. He chased Jeonghan’s mouth and pressed him into the blankets, felt the purr of Jeonghan’s pajama bottoms sliding against him, against his calf, his thigh. The old bed creaked loudly underneath them, but Seungcheol honestly couldn’t bring himself to care. He wasn’t that good of a Korean son.