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The snow outside is falling faster now, so thick it could be mistaken as fog. Jaemin keeps his eyes firmly out of the carriage window, despite not being able to see past the sleet.
His companion sighs. “Are you really going to spend the whole journey ignoring me?”
Jaemin pointedly says nothing. He’s been keeping this up for two and a half hours now, he can keep going until they arrive.
His companion sighs again, sinking further down his seat. Their knees knock against each other with the gentle rocking of the train.
He isn’t sure what it is about being on a train that feels so different to their usual interactions. They might not have the privacy of their own apartments, but they do have the whole compartment to themselves. There are no locks on the door, but there are curtains to keep passengers from looking in.
But it’s been months since their thing began and Jaemin can’t remember how he’s supposed to act around him anymore. Their public interactions are cordial, their private ones are heated. Now he’s trapped in Schrödinger’s three-hour train ride, where it’s somehow both and neither at once.
“Na Jaemin. Nana. Jaeman.” His companion pokes at Jaemin’s knee. “I’m bored, stop ignoring me.”
Jaemin grits his teeth, craning his head further away. Maybe if he squints he can see some shapes in the snowfall, like cloud-gazing.
“What are you so scared of anyway?” his companion taunts.
“I’m not scared,” Jaemin snaps, turning to glare at him.
Donghyuck’s eyes widen when their eyes meet, before an impish grin blooms on his face. “Hello stranger. Have you finally decided I’m more interesting than your own reflection?”
Fuck. Jaemin hastily turns his face to the window again.
“Jaemin,” Donghyuck says after a beat. “You’re going to have to figure this out before we get off, because Jisung is picking us up at the station and he’ll immediately know something’s up if you’re acting this weird.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” Jaemin argues, abandoning the window entirely. The perpetual greyness outside was boring him anyway.
Donghyuck looks disappointed but resigned. “Okay, if that’s how you want to play it.”
It grates on Jaemin’s nerves. “Don’t make it look like I’m the one making all the decisions here.”
“You are though.”
“Fuck you, you started this.”
That’s not even untrue. Donghyuck had followed him home after a heated argument at work, and true to their nature it led to a screaming match. Jaemin isn’t sure who did what exactly, but one of them had stepped a little too close and the other retaliated by frenching him, until fighting turned into an hour of angry-fucking.
One round of angry-fucking turned into two when another stupid argument happened a few days later, then turned into three a week after when Donghyuck got chewed out by the higher-ups and needed an outlet. It felt less pathetic to stop counting after that.
“I did,” Donghyuck agrees tiredly. “But you didn’t end it either.”
“Don’t think it means anything,” Jaemin warns. He isn’t pleading—he isn’t.
Donghyuck smiles sardonically. “Right, it never means anything, does it? That’s why you always stay the night?”
Jaemin hears the sharp intake of breath before realising he’s the one who made the sound.
“It means so little,” Donghyuck pushes on, because he could never just toe the line, he always has to leap three feet over it. “That the first person you told when you got the promotion was me. The first person you called when your grandfather went to the hospital was me. The first person you asked to go on this trip with was me.”
Donghyuck wasn’t smiling anymore, his words coming out in a hiss.
“What do you want from me?” Jaemin bursts
“No, what do you want, Na? Because I think I’ve made it clear what I want.”
Jaemin considers for a hair of a second just playing dumb. It’s not like Donghyuck has ever actually said it in words.
No, what Donghyuck does instead is shit like run Jaemin a bath after a brutal 20-hour work day, gently kissing away his weak protests of not returning the lazy handjob Donghyuck had given him. Like abandoning a date to drive Jaemin four hours to see his grandfather after he heard about the heart attack.
Like agreeing to accompany Jaemin on a cross-country train ride for Mark’s wedding because he knows Jaemin hates travelling alone, even though he could have gotten a flight and visited his family for the first time in months with the precious extra time.
All the fight leaves him. Playing dumb would be cruel, even for him.
“I can’t,” he says, voice small.
“Can’t what?” Donghyuck digs. “Seriously, what are you so scared of?”
Jaemin hates that question. He hates that he’s scared of something. He hates that Donghyuck knows him well enough to know there is something he’s scared of.
It’s probably not what Donghyuck thinks it is. He isn’t scared of his feelings—not anymore, at least. He had a minor freakout a month back when he realised he equated going to Donghyuck’s place as going home.
He had spent about two days avoiding Donghyuck at work, before he was cornered after a company dinner with a demand that they get out of here. Jaemin had assumed they were going off to have sex; instead they got drive-thru McDonalds and spent the night watching a cheesy rom-com. It was the warmest he had felt in days.
Jaemin may be stubborn but he isn’t stupid; he accepted what that meant for him and moved on.
His problem isn’t all the times he’s alone with Donghyuck; it’s all the times that he isn’t.
“I had a call with Mark months ago, before we— you know,” Jaemin starts. “And I kept bitching about you, about working with you, having to see your stupid face everyday even after we graduated. And Mark, you know how he is. He made this joke about how I’m this riled up because of my giant crush on you.”
Jaemin finds he can’t meet Donghyuck’s eyes, keeping his gaze fixed on the lace of Donghyuck’s shoes.
There’s an expectant silence, before Donghyuck asks, “So? It was just a stupid joke, whatever. How does that have anything to do with us now?”
“You know he’s not the only one? I’ve had Chenle saying that stuff since freshman year, and you know how Jeno and Jisung are, the minute they heard it they started in too. Even Renjun likes to ask me whenever we call if we’ve gotten together yet.”
“Cut the crap, Jaemin. So fucking what?”
“I don’t want to prove them right,” Jaemin grits. “It’s such a dumb cliché. The two of us complaining about each other all the time, then they don’t see us for months and suddenly we’re—whatever this is?”
Donghyuck looks furious. “You’re fucking with me.”
Jaemin glares.
“No, seriously, what the fuck?” Donghyuck looks like he’s gearing up for an epic tantrum, all wide eyes and flared nostrils. “All this time you’ve been stringing me along just because of, what, your fucking pride?”
“I haven’t been stringing you along.”
“The fuck you haven’t,” Donghyuck scorns. “Treating me like we barely know each other at work then showing up at my doorstep for a fuck whenever it’s convenient? That’s you not stringing me along?”
“You have never been convenient, Hyuck,” Jaemin says fervently. “Never.”
Donghyuck snorts in disbelief, turning his face to the window.
“No, listen, you’re right—I never ended it, even when I could.” He leans forward, desperately needing Donghyuck to hear him. “You’re not convenient. I don’t just go to you for easy sex, Hyuck.”
“Wow, lucky me, better than an easy fuck but still not good enough to start anything real with because you’re scared people will laugh at you,” Donghyuck says venomously. “You're a self-centered dick, Na Jaemin.”
“So, what, you’re just perfectly fine with everyone knowing about this?” Jaemin demands.
Donghyuck laughs derisively. “You really think I didn’t call Mark the minute I left your place that first time? He already knows, dipshit.”
Jaemin’s stomach plunges to his feet.
“And if he knows, I bet you anything Renjun and Chenle do too,” Donghyuck barrels on. “And Renjun tells Jeno everything, so even he probably knows. Jisung—god, who knows, maybe him too, with the way this friend group works.”
Jaemin realises his hands are shaking. He clenches them into fists.
“So you told them everything?” he asks quietly. “Without ever thinking to ask me first?”
“It’s my life. It’s my feelings. I can tell whoever I want.” Donghyuck crosses his arms. “Besides, I never hated you as much as you hated me.”
That startles Jaemin. “What? I never hated you.”
Donghyuck scoffs.
Just then, the intercom speakers come to life with a crackle. “Dear passengers, this train will shortly be arriving at its final destination. Please make sure to take all your belongings with you as you depart. The platform will be on your left. We hope you had a pleasant journey.”
They make eye contact. Jaemin sees it for a split second, the hurt in Donghyuck’s face before he shutters it with careful indifference.
“I think we need to put some distance between us while we’re here,” Donghyuck says quietly, dropping his gaze. “They won’t be too surprised if we act like we did in uni.”
The idea of pretending like they’re nothing more than unwilling acquaintances makes Jaemin’s chest ache unexpectedly.
“I don’t know if I can do that,” he says.
“You’re a great actor, Na. Just do what you’ve always done,” Donghyuck says dismissively.
“I don’t care what I do in front of them. I don’t think I can pretend in front of you.”
Donghyuck says nothing, looking out of the window. The snow has lessened now, pale sunlight breaking through the heavy clouds.
Jaemin realises with a startling clarity that this might be the last straw for Donghyuck. He sees it like two forks in the road, a splitting of the train tracks he’s been hurtling down for months. Pull the lever to keep him; continue forward to lose the happiest thing in your life.
“Believe what you want to believe, Hyuck, but I never hated you then—and I certainly don’t hate you now.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “I can’t stop you from walking away, but I don’t think I can go anywhere.”
Donghyuck watches him, wide-eyed. Jaemin hopes he hadn’t made a mistake, that the train track he chose isn’t leading to a sharp drop off a cliff’s edge.
The train comes to a halt with a heavy groan, steam billowing from the ground. They both jolt as Jaemin’s phone blares with an incoming call.
“Hyung!” comes the cheery voice from the speaker. “I think I can see you and Donghyuck hyung!”
Time’s up for their conversation, Jaemin thinks. He isn’t sure how he feels about that.
“We’ll be the first ones out, Jisung-ah,” he promises before hanging up.
They make their quiet trek to stand in front of the train door as the passengers come to life, the sounds of clattering luggage and pleasant conversations filling up the heavy silence between them.
Jaemin spots Jisung through the narrow window right away, a lanky figure in the distance buried under layers of winter wear. Everything that happened in the last few hours, few weeks, few months has to take a backseat now.
Still. Jaemin fears whatever might be going on in Donghyuck’s head.
Without giving himself time to chicken out, he slips his hand into Donghyuck’s and squeezes. We’ll figure this out, Hyuck.
After a pause, Donghyuck tentatively squeezes back. I’ll be around.
They let go as the train door slides open.