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“There is no such thing as ‘form’ until it is cognized from the infinite phenomena around us. Form is created by our consciousness which selects according to our needs or abilities. Everything is interdependent without definition, until we become aware of one aspect; then ‘form’ emerges for the first time.”
― Kishio Suga
pragnanz
Johyun Gallery is far wider on the inside than its outside would suggest.
Hansol takes his time with it. Rather than sweeping through the massive exhibit in a need to see all of it before having to go, he pauses on each piece. Plants his feet firmly in place, clicks his heels together, and breathes.
His father had been the one to send him the information about the exhibition, a two-line text with a link to the gallery's website. Go when you're in Busan next month. You'd like this.
Kishio Suga's art reminds Hansol very much of his father's work. A mix of different mediums, plays on dimension and space, a heavy reliance on perception.
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is easy to look at work from the Mono-ha movement and strip away its context, easier still to see it as nonsensical, barebones, ugly. Some of his father's work in the '90s—although not part of the same movement—had been viewed similarly in its time: Line Fall (1996), Spinal Pain (1995), Respiratory Distress (1998). A piece of glass, a wooden box, a rubber hose. Human complexities watered down to its materials and naught else.
It is easy to look at these things and not understand. Hansol doesn't always get it at first either. It still takes him a while to settle into the question of how should this be discerned? despite years of practice. He'd grown up surrounded by strange sculptures and giant canvas boards full of nebulous paint swatches, raised by two artists who were better at communicating in images than in words.
Perhaps that's why Hansol finds it difficult to express his thoughts sometimes. He hadn't inherited a single drop of his parents' talent or skill for art, but he'd inherited their voices. The compulsion to show rather than tell.
The desire to still be heard in some way.
In front of Hansol are six works constructed from wood, painted and assembled with steady intention. He considers them slowly: These two lines do not run parallel. These pieces feel like hands on timepieces. The use of layers here opens the work up when seen from the side. Time and space and object and material. They are no longer separate components, but a totality. All six of these works mean something. Copper wires balanced on river stones, those mean something else. A small installation of steps, rising and then falling; it means another.
All of these exist in the same space, on the same plane as Hansol. Three-dimensional like him. Every step he takes changes the way he appreciates each work; suddenly there is a new view, a new angle, a new way to relate. Structures with no real structure, interdependent on environment and human expectation. It feels raw. Heavy with the knowledge that nothing can ever encapsulate the human experience.
Fifty years of one man's life made vulnerable and bared to the world. Hansol wonders if Kishio Suga has been heard yet.
Hansol has.
Find me when you're done, Seungkwan had told him before he'd stepped into this strange new world. I'll be right here.
synchrony
He finds Seungkwan on the forested trail near the gallery, one that twists and turns downward through the thick foliage all the way down to the coast below. "Hi," Seungkwan greets, cheeks nicely flushed, hands stuck deep into the pockets of his favourite navy blue windbreaker. "Funny meeting you here."
There's a tiny dried leaf in his hair. Hansol reaches up to pick it away, and lingers along the curve of Seungkwan's cheek. "Hi," Hansol returns, and he lets Seungkwan thread their fingers together once his hand has fallen back down to his side. "Had a good walk?"
"Mmhmm." Seungkwan doesn't move, choosing to just swing their hands together. Back, forth, back and forth. The steady, persistent sway of a pendulum, keeping Hansol centered within the time of day. It is early in the evening, and the sun is starting to look for rest beyond the lines of their vision. "Did you like the art?"
He thinks about lines and angles. Red on cedar, cedar on yellow. Clock hands pointing nowhere and everywhere all at once. A balancing act of wiry metal, thin and thready like the words in his throat. You don't just look at the art, Han, his mother says, voice clear and steady. You remember that you're right here with it.
To look is to see. To see is to remember. To remember is to allow all of it to stretch infinitely past the boundaries of the structures you thought you had under control, to overtake all your senses, to become part of the memory and not merely observe it.
Hansol looks at Seungkwan, and allows the world to widen around him. The patchy, yellowing grass under his sneaker soles, the biting cold of the air against his face, the roads behind him and the sea ahead of him. A strange, limited solitude at risk of disappearing at any moment. Seungkwan's hand, soft and warm, in his.
I look at you more than you think, he'd said last year. It is still true.
"I did," Hansol says, and he leans in to brush a kiss against Seungkwan's cheek.
Seungkwan's eyes curve as he smiles, lips pressed together in that little way that means he's more pleased than he lets on. It's what leads Hansol to kiss him once more, his mouth covering Seungkwan's with his own answering smile, eyes falling shut when Seungkwan pushes up on his toes to meet him.
Their hands have kept up their gentle swing the entire time. Elements moving together in sync, neither of them stationary. A reflection of their lives together since the first day they'd met.
"Hansollie, c'mon," Seungkwan says, tugging him down the long and winding path. "The lighting's good here."
They take photos together, Seungkwan's arms around Hansol, his head tucked under Hansol's chin like a little kitten. Hansol's cheek against Seungkwan's hair, his own eyes unabashedly bright in the screen of his phone. Then, Hansol takes a few more of Seungkwan alone; the thin sunlight turns his hair a pretty burnished brown, settling around his head like autumn come alive.
To see is to remember. Hansol will never forget.
similarity
They get lucky; there's an empty spot in the parking lot of the coastal restaurant they've just driven thirty-five minutes in traffic for, and Seungkwan does a maneuvre that would probably make his driving instructor cry, snatching it up before the poor Sorento behind them can even think about it. "That's for tailgating me into the school area," Seungkwan mutters, side-eyeing the car as it passes them by. "Yeah, that's right, keep on going."
Hansol snorts, closing Spotify on his phone as the car engine rumbles to a stop. "I thought you stopped giving into your road rage after that last time."
"This isn't road rage. I'm not raging." Seungkwan pointedly flicks Hansol's knee. "It's constructive criticism. And Hyelim-ssaem says being passive-aggressive keeps your blood pressure at a stable level while letting you stay mad."
"Or, y'know," Hansol points out, "you could just not be mad."
Seungkwan bares his teeth in a smile. "Now where's the fun in that?"
"You're terrifying sometimes, you know," Hansol says, after a long pause. "It's kinda hot."
"Hansol!" There we go. Seungkwan's all pink down the bridge of his nose and across his cheeks, eyebrows furrowed and mouth pouty in indignance. "Don't say things like that."
"Why not? It gets you mad." It's Hansol's turn to grin now, delighting in the way Seungkwan will always let him tease and push, only ever playing at being coy when he makes weak protests like this. "And you're hot when you're mad."
"Okay, we're getting out of the car now, we are in a public parking lot and the restaurant is right there—"
To anyone else, it might seem like a dismissal. But—right after, when Hansol attempts a quick, handsy grab of Seungkwan's ass and gets caught in an instant, Seungkwan just lets out a fond sigh and tightens his hold on Hansol's wrist with a wordless promise to let him have his way later.
(If Chan were here, he'd have said something like, the two of you are perfect for each other, equal parts joking and completely serious.
Well. Hansol doesn't know about perfect, though. He likes to think they've just worked hard to get here.)
They find a table tucked away in a corner against the glass. Seungkwan orders so much food that Hansol thinks they might both explode by the time they're done, and flirts lightly with the older woman who comes by with a kettle of broth, and later with their orders of grilled pollack and steamed rice, of savoury fish stew and a generous helping of homemade kimchi.
Seungkwan chatters away happily as he eats, and Hansol listens in turn as his gaze drifts towards the window. Outside, the waves crash against the rocks, over and over again. Inside, chopsticks clink against metal bowls; there is laughter from a group three tables over. Seungkwan's voice is hopeful as he says, "How's the food?"
"Mm. It's really good, Seungkwan-ah." Hansol tugs his spoon out of his mouth, nodding. "You should tell Jiwon thanks for the recommendation. From the both of us."
They're similar in this—when they'd planned the trip, the most important thing had been that it had to be for the both of them. Somewhere with good food, something they wouldn’t regret filling their stomachs with. Somewhere close to the ocean, where Seungkwan could feel like he was back in Jeju-do, and Hansol could stare out at the horizon and wonder just how far it stretched. No big plans, no walking tours. Just some time together, a bit of time apart, and time well-spent overall.
Seungkwan beams. Then, he spoons more rice into Hansol's bowl. "Eat more," he says, the same words said a thousand, ten thousand times over, with a never-changing amount of affection.
They're the same in that way too—that they'll say things to each other and mean it more than most will ever know. Hansol wonders if Seungkwan knows this too: that sometimes it feels like their hearts beat in the same tempo.
Hansol-and-Seungkwan. Seungkwan-and-Hansol. Thump, thump. In all other ways that they are contradictions of each other, for all that they seem diametrically opposed, it is in this they are the most alike.
Hansol eats, and drinks in his fill of Seungkwan, happy and content.
proximity
There is an illusion that Hansol has enjoyed since he was a child.
His mother would often put on American children's shows for him and his sister even after they'd moved to Seoul; their favourite had been Bear in the Big Blue House. After each episode, Sofia would tug at his shirt until he'd agree to go outside with her (under the watchful eye of their mom), stand in the middle of the garden and squint up at the sky until they both went cross-eyed. Look how big Luna is tonight, Hansol would say, look at how bright she is.
When the moon rises close to the horizon, full and luminous, it often tends to look bigger than usual. Like it's close enough to be plucked out of the sky. Throw a rope around her and pull her in. Pull her close and watch her spin. Hansol would snatch Sofia up in his arms when she least expected it, swinging her around in circles until she gasped and giggled. Hey, this was really fun, the Bear sang to Luna, every single night, and Luna would reply, we hope you liked it too.
Come on, Hangyeollie, Hansol would urge. What's the next part?
"Come on, Hansollie!" Seungkwan tugs at him, voice dipping into that cute whine he can't help but fall into whenever Hansol's not paying attention. "We're almost there!"
Post-museum and hiking trail and lunch, they'd gone to a little arcade where Seungkwan and Hansol got to play their fill of games—1v1 basketball free throws (where Seungkwan had absolutely demolished Hansol), Mario Kart (where Hansol had soundly trounced Seungkwan) and then claw games (where Hansol had wordlessly pointed out an adorable pair of mini bear keychains, and Seungkwan proceeded to spend approximately all his money trying to get them for him).
They wander over to a section of the docks that isn't occupied by too many people. It's a stunning backdrop: the sea, Gwangan-daegyo stretching out overhead, a watercolour palette's worth of paints staining the skies.
In the distance, the moon is already beginning to show.
Hansol allows himself to huddle close to Seungkwan, to hide their joined hands within the comfort and warmth of Seungkwan's lined pocket. Seungkwan's lashes brush against the top of his mask with every blink, lit up against the golden light of the setting sun. Their matching bears, white and brown, dangle lightly from their belt loops.
"Did you ever think," Seungkwan begins softly, "that we'd be here? Like this?"
Together. Not just as friends, or as dorm-mates, or as members of the same group. Instead, as two people who have been forever altered by the deepest, most intimate knowledge that could possibly be shared between men. Aches and laughs, tears and fears.
Would Hansol have ever imagined it when they'd been fifteen, going through some of the hardest moments of their lives, close to giving up each and every day, clinging onto each other to get through? When they'd been eighteen and the routine of their lives had expanded beyond belief, the abrupt distance between them feeling insurmountable? When they'd been twenty-one, caught within each other's orbit once again, closer than ever? When they'd been twenty-five, the weight of each other's worlds on their shoulders, and more than willing to bear it for the other?
"I did," Hansol says, watching the moon and the sun wave to each other as they trade places. Watching a decade of memories play out in the water's reflection. Closer, closer, the waves call out to Luna, even as she remains in place. Come and play.
Seungkwan lets out a breath. "Me too," he says, voice tremulous, like he's afraid to admit it. As if the moment the words leave his lips, they'll cease to become true, just because he's been holding onto them for so very long. "I always hoped—I just… always wanted to go somewhere by the sea with you. Just you. Like when we went to Jeju-do all those years ago, but just the two of us."
"I still want to go to Jeju-do with you," Hansol says. "Just us."
They'll go back to Seungkwan's hometown someday. Eat meals with Seungkwan's family, drive down the coast, eat lots of good food together. Buy a small house, fill it with secondhand furniture and gifts from friends. Get three kittens, attempt to start a garden, and play with Seungkwan's nieces and nephews every single weekend. Watch the moon rise and fall, again and again and again, until Hansol has memorised the shape of Seungkwan's face against its light.
Hansol wants it more than anything else in this world.
"We'll go." Seungkwan squeezes Hansol's hand, and Hansol squeezes back. "Eomma would love to have you again."
There's something lodged firmly in Hansol's throat. He nods instead of speaking, and settles in to count the stars as they wake all around them, to watch the moon take her place and watch over them in turn.
And tomorrow, just like today, Hansol had sung quietly to Sofia, cheek pressed against her little head every single time. The moon, the bear, and the Big Blue House, will be waiting for you to come and play.
To come and play, a nameless little girl in Hansol's imagination sings back, her features all Hansol's and her joy all Seungkwan's. She'll grow up by the beach, loved by three old cats and four generations of family, dance along to David Bowie and the Wonder Girls, and sing this song with Hansol every night until she's too old for kid's shows. She'll be tucked into bed by Seungkwan's kind hands, and kissed on the forehead by his gentle mouth, and wished goodnight by a pair of matching bear keychains on the bedside dresser, white and brown.
Bye now.
Until then, Luna will hold this dream for them until it's close enough to grasp.
perception
His fingertips and his lips, they burn. Every touch feels sacred, every motion something so substantial. Like before, Hansol takes his time. He has no need to rush. Not tonight.
They undress each other slowly, stripping away sweaters and shirts, shedding jeans and socks, setting all of it aside without haste. Seungkwan takes Hansol's face in his hands and runs his thumbs over all of his features. Learning him, seeing him as he is—open and naked and wanting.
Hansol does the same thing. He presses Seungkwan into the sheets and carefully kisses over the angle of his brow, the pretty apples of his cheeks, the cut of his jaw. Some parts of Seungkwan, he's had to relearn. His nose curves differently now, his shoulders are a little broader, his thighs stronger and thicker. There's a bit more muscle to his arms, a bit more give to his hips.
None of it is ever anything Hansol could see him differently for. Neither of them are done changing; they will be relearning each other for years to come. One day Hansol will have salt-and-pepper in his hair and jowls that sag and a belly round from rest, and Seungkwan will still touch his ears and kiss his laugh-lines and call him my sweet boy.
Seungkwan will still look at him just like this. The focal point in his life. Eyes bright with desire and face turned towards him, a sunflower heavy with bloom. As you know me, I know you too.
"Hansol," Seungkwan whispers, and Hansol answers.
They cling to each other, Seungkwan hoisted into Hansol's lap, legs wrapped tight around his waist. They are skin to skin, heart to heart, one and the same. Seungkwan opens up beautifully for him, welcomes Hansol into his tight, slick heat, begs wordlessly for Hansol to keep going, please, just like that. His mouth is rosy and wet against Hansol's neck, his fingers tugging so hard at Hansol's hair that Hansol feels dizzy with it.
"Seungkwan," Hansol breathes, pleads, prays, and he surrenders the rest of himself. Take all of him, have all of me. His world stretches beyond the two of them, far beyond the confines of this bed, this room. We exist in each other, some strange new creation born from the act of sacrifice. I see you, I see you, I see you—
Hansol's hands bruise at Seungkwan's thighs when he comes. Seungkwan cries out, shuddering around him. "Yes," he says, "yes."
He has been heard.
symmetry
His phone lights up in the morning, a handful of notifications left unread from the night before. Hansol begins from the top; Chan's sent a photo in the members-only group chat, him and Soonyoung and Junhui, the three of them apparently having gone out and about on the town together last night. Hoshi-hyung threw up twice! Chan's message proclaims gleefully. Hansol drops a vomit face reaction on the image and keeps scrolling.
There are a couple of messages from Seungcheol that follow, something about getting him home safe and to please not send videos of anyone throwing up in this chat again, and then a back-and-forth between Seokmin and Wonwoo about how many eggs someone can viably eat in a single day without dying. Jeonghan has responded with a question of whether they think he'll look like one once he's shaved his head in September.
Against his back, the blankets shift. He can feel Seungkwan's weight between his shoulder-blades, the dry warmth of his palm when he reaches out to splay his hand over Hansol's hip. You're here, the touch says. I'm here. They are here, curled up together in a hotel room bed, hundreds of miles away from home.
204, Hansol sends in the chat. Then, he adds a photo that he'd taken last night, a blurry one of their seafood dinner. In the photo, Seungkwan's hands are just visible. The glint of his team ring is bright and obvious.
Minghao's the first to reply, already awake at seven in the morning despite the fact that they're all on break. Good? is all he says. It's all he needs to say. It's the same way that Hansol understands what it means when Jihoon sends him a new song to listen to, or when Mingyu asks if he's eaten yet, or when Joshua calls him Vernon with all the consonants sharpened in his own accent.
They are here, always with him no matter how far away he is from home.
Hansol hearts the message, and then sets his phone down.
Seungkwan blinks awake blearily when Hansol turns around to tug him closer, one hand sliding around to the small of his back. "Rrrmhh," Seungkwan mumbles, allowing Hansol to move him where he wants him to be, tucking his elbows in so that he can rest his face against Hansol's bare chest. "Morning."
"Morning," Hansol says, keeping his voice low. "How many eggs do you think you could eat before you died of eating too many eggs?"
There's a long pause, and then Seungkwan's letting out a soft, amused breath. "Less than you, probably," he says. His fingers stroke along Hansol's ribs, just on the side of not-too-ticklish. "Did you actually want eggs for breakfast, or was this some sort of messed-up egg nightmare you had?"
"Member chat. But I wouldn't say no to gyeran-mari."
"You never do." Seungkwan stretches a little, and comes nose-to-nose with Hansol. His eyes are shuttered, barely open, but he still looks at Hansol like he's seeing all of him. "What time s'it?"
"Seven." Hansol nudges back at his cheek. "We can sleep in a bit more."
"Checkout is at eleven," Seungkwan says, and he shakes his head, letting the tips of their noses brush together. The same little gesture from a decade ago, kept away for moments like these. Quiet, lovely. The kind of affection that Hansol prefers over the louder ones that Seungkwan's often fond of, because no one else is privy to them. Just them, and sometimes the other members.
Them, and the family they've found and carved out for themselves.
Both their phones light up with new notifications. Hansol doesn't bother to reach for his. Neither does Seungkwan. Whatever the message is, if it's from the others, they know that they'll wait for them to see it on their own time.
Hansol kisses Seungkwan, making sure to linger, to feel the press of Seungkwan's soft mouth against his own, to say what he needs to say, to make sure that Seungkwan understands what he means, too.
"Mm. Well." Seungkwan's smile is gentle. Yes, he knows. He knows Hansol from the inside-out. Every cell and every nerve has the unique, unmistakable etch of his fingerprints. I know, Chwe Hansol, I know. "I guess we can stay in bed a little longer."
"Just a while," Hansol agrees, matching his smile.
I know, Boo Seungkwan. I know too.
Just a while more, with you, before we go home.
closure
The ocean beckons one last time before they leave.
It is blue, so very blue and so very wide, eager and willing to swallow them up without a second thought if they would just take a single step in. Hansol toes the edge of eternity along a small walkway that disappears into the water, crouching down to take a photo of the way the seafoam melts into the rocks.
Beside him, Seungkwan has his fingers splayed out across the path. Water splashes up against his knuckles every time a wave comes in. His eyes are closed, face turned up towards the sun as if he's trying to commit the feeling of it all to memory.
Hansol reaches out. Curls their fingers together, and pushes their palms flat against stone. The ocean is eager and willing to take them, but they are grounded in each other. Immovable, unafraid, purposeful. Seungkwan opens his eyes and smiles at him, and Hansol has not a single reason to feel unmoored.
It is the simplest answer to the question: how do we make sense of this?
(How do we make sense of each other?)
It's easy. Hansol knows it.
It's love.
emergence
Go as one, come as two,
Made whole, remade in you.
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince