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It happens on the first day of summer.
Nicholas wakes up in Hong Kong, in his shared hotel room. Half-asleep, he grimaces at the sensation of his skin sticking to the bleached sheets. He rarely sweats like this in his sleep, but the room feels hotter—much hotter—than it did when he passed out last night. Did Maki fuck with the thermostat while he was sleeping?
“Maki,” Nicholas grumbles, face mashed into the pillow. “What’d’you do, you punk?”
His voice sounds strange coming out. He clears his throat, tries to wake his brain up. Where the hell is his roommate? Did he leave without waking Nicholas up? Maki knew he was on alarm clock duty—if Nicholas is late again because of this—
Nicholas finally opens his eyes, turns his head. He then finds himself staring at the most heinous piece of artwork he’s ever seen in his life: a painted monkey, dressed in frills and perched posing on a chair. It looks like one of the ones that scream; Nicholas knows the name, something starting with an H, but his brain is too fuzzy to recall it. The monkey’s eyes are beady and piercing, somehow knowing.
It’s then, squinting at the monkey’s weirdly ominous aura, that Nicholas realizes—that painting wasn’t there last night. He’s sure. One hundred percent sure. He would have remembered. Something close to fear starts to make its way through his body. It starts in his throat and slithers down to his chest, constricting, and then drops with a frightening immediacy to his stomach, rippling and making him shake. The feeling, foreign and all-encompassing, wakes him up entirely.
Nicholas sits up and looks around the room, a hand on his belly. The space where Maki’s bed should have been—it opens up into the bathroom, pristine and shadowed. The other side is just windows, and the curtains haven’t been shut properly, so the bright June sun snakes into the room, bars of light on the tightly coiled carpet. He feels a horrible, visceral sense of foreboding.
Nicholas forces himself to look down at his lap.
Vertigo hits him quick and hard. His hands are—not his hands. They’re thin, tapered, a couple shades darker. Not as familiar as his own, but still familiar; he’s looked at them thousands of times, their elegant lines. He blinks a few times. His brain tells them to move and then they do. No delay. He looks at them, clenching and relaxing: bone, muscle, sinew, tendon, skin. All under his control.
These are Euijoo’s hands. They shake a little. He has to swallow a scream.
This has to be a dream. No. It’s a nightmare. No—some fucked-up combination of the two: a subconscious representation of Nicholas’s insatiable desire to get inside Euijoo. To be able to move him. To have an impact on this person who is always simultaneously so close and so far away.
It’s too early for psychoanalysis, but Nicholas can’t stop himself from thinking about it. His volition, his will, the direct line it now has with Euijoo’s hands. Not just his hands. His entire body.
Nicholas is still sweating like he’s been running a marathon, has to use a wrist—Euijoo’s wrist—to wipe his forehead. Sweat immediately beads in the same place it was just wiped. Euijoo’s always been like that, damp in the heat and after any exertion. His hair always gets wet-dog messy. Nicholas makes a frustrated noise, hears it echo through this foreign skull, feels so suddenly strange and overwhelmed that he instinctively tries to stand up to get some of the energy out, kicking away the sheets.
Except when he stands up, he almost falls over. He has to grab the side table. His whole fucking center of gravity is off; he feels dizzy, lightheaded. Hungry, too, in a sick way, which is an unfamiliar sensation for Nicholas to have at barely eight in the morning. He drinks some water from the bottle on the nightstand, which does help.
He should look in the mirror. He doesn’t want to look in the mirror.
He pinches himself a few times, just in case, but of course he doesn’t wake up. He takes a deep breath and looks down at his bare feet. Euijoo’s legs from this angle look like they go on for miles. He’s in just boxers, and one of those gray tanks that he wears all the time. He plucks at it with two delicate fingers, unsticking it from Euijoo’s sweaty chest. Both of his hip bones peek out, and his boxers are riding low, and Nicholas—
He never wanted to look at Euijoo like this. To touch him without permission. He wanted— thought—dreamed—that maybe, one day, they’d eventually get there. That they could both finally be honest; that Euijoo would trust him enough to want it; that he’d give it up to him freely, willing.
The room spins. Nicholas was wrong. This is nothing but a nightmare.
He sits back down on the bed, puts his head in his hands, and stays that way for a long time.
Eventually, there’s a knock at the door.
Nicholas walks carefully over to the entryway to open it. Slowly, it swings open, and then Nicholas is just standing there, making eye contact with himself.
No one says anything. Nicholas watches his face—and he can assume the owner of the consciousness inhabiting it, but he doesn’t know for sure, not yet—make a series of tiny expressions that somehow seem so obvious when it’s his own face wearing them. Shock, confusion, fear, then something close to resignation. His eyes are darting around Nicholas’s borrowed body, lingering low, and then he just looks off into the distance somewhere to the left of Nicholas, jaw tight.
“Um,” Nicholas starts, because it doesn’t seem like Euijoo—fuck, it has to be Euijoo, right?—is going to. “Hi?”
“What is this,” presumably Euijoo says, in Japanese, in Nicholas’s voice, not pitched like a question. He walks in and closes the door behind him. And then: “What did you do?”
Nicholas furrows his eyebrows. What the hell? What did he do? “Okay, why are you assuming this is my fault? I didn’t do anything. Maybe you—“
“I didn’t do anything,” Euijoo says, switching to Korean, “but clearly something,” he gestures between their bodies, “happened, so if it wasn’t me, then it must have been you—”
“Euijoo,” Nicholas says, because the Korean plus the control-freak logic has imbued him with the confidence that, yes, this is Byun Euijoo, “I swear I didn’t do anything. What, you think I’m some sort of wizard? Sometimes things just happen.”
“Sometimes things just happen,” Euijoo repeats. “That’s what you’re going with?”
Euijoo rarely gets so visibly agitated, but seeing it through Nicholas’s body somehow makes it more familiar, more natural. Nicholas wonders if it has something to do with their differing biological makeup, if that’s why Nicholas feels so stiff and scared while Euijoo seems to be getting worked up, trying to dispel some of Nicholas’s more frantic energy. It’s fucking weird, and it could be a psychological breakthrough if Nicholas didn’t have more important things to worry about right now.
“Do you have any better ideas?” Nicholas asks. And then adds, slightly hypocritically, “And can you try to relax? I mean, it’s—it’s just me.”
Euijoo finally makes eye contact. He takes a deep, measured breath. “I woke up to Maki trying to suffocate me. I thought that someone broke into my room to try and murder me. Is that really how he wakes you up?”
Nicholas laughs a little. “Yeah, sometimes. You have to tap out three times if you want him to stop.”
Euijoo looks at him with his familiar judgment transposed onto Nicholas’s face. “Great. I’ll remember that for next time. He thinks you’re sick, by the way. I didn’t really know how else to explain, um. You know.”
“Did you tell him you were coming to see me?” Nicholas asks. “Or, y’know, you?”
Nicholas really hopes the answer is no. He hasn’t explicitly told Maki about his Euijoo situation, but he’s not stupid, and they spend way too much time together for him to have not realized, and sometimes Maki makes these comments or shoots him these looks and it’s just—obvious. And Nicholas, presumably, scrambling out of bed and telling Maki that he’s “going to go see Euijoo” would be absolutely prime teasing fodder. Nicholas has at least that much self-awareness.
“No,” Euijoo says. He rubs at his right shoulder with a small wince. “I said I was going to talk to the staff. But he was weirded out. I was trying to be nice, but it was just…”
“Trying to be nice was your first mistake,” Nicholas says. He sits back down on the bed. He thinks belatedly that maybe he should have found some pants to put on before opening the door; he watches Euijoo almost grimace as the material of his boxers rides up his thighs. “But it’ll be fine. He’ll forget. We’ll probably be back to normal by tomorrow.”
Of course Nicholas has no way of knowing. But ruminating on the other possibilities isn’t productive, and they have to fly home today, surrounded by all the members and staff. They’ll get through it and then they’ll figure it out.
He says something to that effect, trying to be helpful. He tries to make it all sound positive and constructive. Euijoo’s biting hard at his lips, but he nods at the end of his spiel. It’s a strange role reversal, but Nicholas figures it’s fitting, and at the end, he feels an odd rush of pride: that he’s said something worthwhile and productive, that he’s been of value. He wonders if this is how it’s felt for Euijoo, in leader-mode, making it up as he goes along, feeling shocked pleasure every time it actually seems to work.
“It’ll be alright,” Nicholas says, again. “We know each other well enough to make it work, don’t we?”
Euijoo still seems vaguely haunted, but something in him softens at Nicholas’s words, or maybe deflates. Then, with his heartbreaking half-smile, so strangely transposed onto Nicholas's own face, he says, with no tone that Nicholas can really discern, “I guess there’s a use for it after all, huh?”
Nicholas has long since gotten used to the detachment with which Euijoo sometimes seems to view their relationship. The way he vacillates between earnest warmth and glacial distance—the latter winning out more often than not, lately. But his comment still stings, stupidly, even though he knows Euijoo means it lightheartedly. If only Nicholas’s heart could learn how to live like that: light, nimble, unweighted. Or at least, like Euijoo, to be able to pretend at it.
Nicholas looks down at the carpet. The stripes of light are gone, sun back behind the clouds. He replies, blank, the way Euijoo would: “Guess so.”
-
They go back and forth for a while on whether they should swap phones. Nicholas is up for it, but Euijoo fights back, claims it would be too confusing. Nicholas has to remind Euijoo how strange it would look for them to be typing into the other person’s phone for the entire day.
Euijoo has a pretty good idea to swap phone cases, figuring no one will be looking too closely, but they have slightly different iPhone models, so Euijoo’s case is too small for his. Euijoo seems uniquely frustrated by this. Nicholas isn’t happy about it either, but what else are they supposed to do?
So they swap. Euijoo tells Nicholas to hold on a second, taps away at his own phone for a little while. Nicholas does the same, though he’s pretty sure there’s nothing incriminating on there. Any conversations he’d consider private are conducted via call or voice note, pretty much always in Mandarin, so he isn’t particularly worried. He thinks Euijoo would probably be too noble to snoop, anyway. He’s not entirely confident he can say the same about himself, so maybe it’s for the best that Euijoo deletes whatever it is he’s worried about.
Eventually, Euijoo says, “Okay.” He hands over the phone.
Nicholas wordlessly hands his own back. He looks down at Euijoo’s generic default background. He swipes up to a keypad.
Nicholas turns the phone back to face Euijoo, shaking it a little, like, forgot something?
“Oh,” Euijoo says. He hesitates. “It’s, um, 702122.”
The numbers are eerily similar to Nicholas’s own passcode. Nicholas wonders if Euijoo’s means anything. Euijoo can probably see the steam coming out of his ears, trying to figure it out, because he says, “It’s our debut date backwards. I thought, I don’t know, maybe it’d be too obvious the other way.”
Nicholas bites his lip around a smile. It’s cute, the code itself along with Euijoo’s backwards reasoning, the way everything about Euijoo when he’s not trying is cute. Nicholas sighs at himself. It’s pathetic, but it’s so hard to stay upset at Euijoo for long. He can feel himself constantly vacillating back and forth, depending on Euijoo’s behavior—not only pathetic, but frustrating and exhausting too.
He says, “Mine’s 720211. My mom’s birthday. That’s—weird, that it’s the same four numbers, don’t you think?”
“Weird coincidence,” Euijoo agrees. It’s only ever probability when it comes to him, never fate.
Nicholas still remembers that awkward vlog they had filmed, in LA before debut, sitting on the floor together in front of the bed, talking to the camera but really trying to talk to each other. When Nicholas had brought up their mirrored birthdays, said it was like—what’s the word? pretending to look for it when in his heart he knew exactly what it was—destiny. Euijoo had just laughed it off, frowning and then smiling like he wasn’t sure how to react. Then he switched to the safety of Japanese and told the camera that he hoped he and Nicholas would stay good friends.
So.
“Makes it easy to remember,” Nicholas says, now. “The same but not the same.”
“The same but not the same,” Euijoo repeats. “Yeah. That’s it.”
-
Nicholas retreats into his—Euijoo’s—phone during the ride to the airport, hoping that it prevents the rest of the members from talking to him too much. Not that he doesn’t want to talk to them. But he doesn’t know how to talk to them as someone else, as Euijoo.
When he entered the car, Maki had smiled at him. It appeared wildly different than how he usually smiles at Nicholas—he couldn’t decide if it was earnest or bordering on greasy. Then, with a gravelly voice, he wished Euijoo a good morning and asked how he had slept. Okay. Greasy, then. Nicholas had to school Euijoo’s face into something placid and accommodating, despite his initial retching instinct. This fucking guy. Nicholas had to swallow a disbelieving laugh before replying.
Thankfully, barring Maki, the other members seem to be minding their own business. Nicholas quickly gets bored but doesn’t want to become tempted to sniff around Euijoo’s phone. So he just starts texting him, and he quickly learns that muscle memory doesn’t transfer over, because he’s slow as ever with the hangul keyboard.
변의주 10:04
it’s a miracle that the concert was yesterday, don’t you think?
not to mention the fanmeeting the day before
most of the fans would have been speaking to you in chinese, or english
Euijoo is in the seat behind him, and when he doesn’t get a reply after a few minutes, he feels the urge to turn around and crane his head to see if he’s sleeping, or on Nicholas’s phone, or trying to be nice to Maki again, or what, when his phone lights up.
니콜 10:09
i was thinking the same thing
at first i thought maybe language skills would transfer over, but i was looking at your phone and barely understood anything
i had to change it in settings…;;
Nicholas laughs, low and endeared.
변의주 10:10
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
that’s what happens when you slack off your mandarin lessons
니콜 10:12
you’re the one who hasn’t been teaching me lately
Nicholas blinks. He didn’t think that Euijoo had noticed. Or cared. Especially considering the way he’s been acting recently.
He has options: tease, apologize, brush it off. None of them seem quite right. He wishes he could have just been normal about it in the first place.
변의주 10:14
you can always come to me first
you know that
Not one of Euijoo’s strengths—making that proactive effort. Asking. But if he really cares then maybe he’ll do it. The alternative is fine, too. Like he’s said. He’s used to it.
He bites at the soft muscle of his tongue as he waits. Remembers, with a lightning-bolt shock, that this is Euijoo’s tongue. He squeezes the phone tighter in his hand and tries not to think about it.
The car trundles down the airport garage. He was already sweaty, but somehow it gets worse: the circular pattern of the parking ramps is making Nicholas dizzy, suddenly motion-sick. He didn’t know Euijoo got it so severely; he has to tilt his head back and take deep breaths.
When they’re finally parked and settled, Nicholas looks back down at the phone, mouth still full of sour saliva. Only bland geometric shapes stare back at him. Euijoo hasn’t replied. This too: not the same, and still, it is.
-
The airport is hectic enough that no one is paying him or Euijoo that much attention, which is a relief. But then Nicholas looks over, standing in the security line, and Euijoo has his left arm clamped tight over his right shoulder, fingertips white, rubbing and squeezing.
It immediately registers. Fuck. He had almost forgotten about the shoulder.
It was such a stupid injury. Late-night gym session, alone, trying to work off excess energy, anxiety, whatever you want to call it. He pushed himself too hard and fucked up his shoulder. He didn’t think it was that bad, thought probably he could sleep on it and it’d be better in the morning. The problem is that it’s been almost a week and it’s just as bad. Maybe worse.
He figured if it was still painful enough when they got back to Japan, he’d tell one of the managers. Looks like the decision might be made without his input, now.
Once they get to their gate—away from the fansites, thank god—Euijoo catches his eye and inclines his head, mouths something that Nicholas doesn’t catch, and then gets up and walks back towards the emptier section from which they came.
Nicholas follows. If he’s wrong, what’s the worst that could happen? Euijoo telling Nicholas to leave him alone? Euijoo’s been telling him that, over and over again, in so many different, subtle ways. It might even be nice to hear it said aloud, direct, for once.
To either Nicholas’s luck or detriment, Euijoo doesn’t tell him to fuck off once he finds him, leaning against the off-white wall of the walkway. The light is strangely dim. Nicholas goes to stand next to him. It’s strange to have to look down to see his face. His body looks smaller than he views himself, more fragile. Breakable.
Nicholas wonders how Euijoo’s viewing himself, if it’s the same, if it’s the opposite. And then Euijoo asks, cutting into his internal monologue, “What happened to your shoulder?”
Right into it, then. Nicholas sighs. “I hurt it while exercising. It’s not a big deal.”
“What? How long ago?” Euijoo asks. “And you didn’t tell m—anyone? Why?”
“It was like a week ago,” Nicholas says, catching Euijoo’s verbal slip up and ignoring the stupid possessive warmth that the half-said word blooms in his chest. “It’ll get better on its own. Don’t worry.”
Euijoo looks upset. Maybe even angry. Nicholas suddenly understands why people tell him he has a scary face: with his eyebrows turned in, eyes narrowed into slits, jaw clenched, he looks like an animal about to pounce.
“I don’t know if pain tolerance transfers over,” Euijoo says, “but this really hurts. I think something’s wrong. How have you been dancing like this?”
“It’s because of the backpack,” Nicholas says. “You made it worse with the weight. I should have warned you. That’s my bad—”
“Your bad is that you didn’t say something sooner. I thought you…” Euijoo trails off. He’s looking at the people walking past them, at a distance, a family with a trail of young children.
Nicholas follows Euijoo’s line of sight, and then glances back, makes an urging noise when he still doesn’t say anything after a few beats pass.
Euijoo breathes out. “I thought you trusted me,” he says, finally. “I don’t understand why you’d keep this to yourself.”
Nicholas doesn’t know what to say to that. He watches the toddler’s light-up shoes retreating into the distance instead, red and orange lights blinking on and then off.
Eventually, Nicholas says, “I’ve been babying it. Maybe you haven’t noticed. And there’s painkillers in my bag if you need. It’s really not that bad as long as it’s not, uh, what’s the word. Weight-bearing. Just leave it alone. It’ll heal.”
Euijoo is quiet for a while. “Still,” he says, low, like it’s painful to even voice. “You should have told me.”
“Okay,” Nicholas says, unsure why this of all things is something Euijoo’s putting his foot down about, considering. Surely they have more important things to worry about. But it’s kind of nice, despite everything, to be fretted over, even if it’s just Euijoo trying to be a good leader. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Euijoo doesn’t seem fully placated, but he deflates a little. His hand comes up to rub at his shoulder again. “Just be careful,” he says.
“I’m being careful with your body, don’t worry,” Nicholas says, more willing to tease now that his spirits have been lifted a little. “You have bird bones. One wrong move and you might snap in half.”
“And yet you’re the only one here with an injury,” Euijoo replies, quick and deadpan.
“Well, yeah,” Nicholas says, equally quick, “that’s because you never say yes when I ask you to come work out with me.” He doesn’t really register the vague hurt in the words until they come out.
Euijoo pauses, and then asks, with a different kind of the same hurt: “You’re saying you wouldn’t have gotten injured if I was there?”
“Uh,” Nicholas says. He catches Euijoo’s meaning, what he really said: You’re saying it was my fault?—which isn’t at all how Nicholas meant it, totally misconstrued. Yet somehow it’s still true. He had asked Euijoo before he left if he wanted to come along to the gym, and Euijoo had said no thanks, and it was like the tenth time in a row he’d gotten a rejection, and Nicholas knows that Euijoo goes along with Jo sometimes, or with Fuma, so it just felt—bad. He felt bad and he pushed himself too hard and then he paid for it. That was all it was.
Obviously he’s not going to tell Euijoo any of that. So instead he says, “I guess, maybe, who knows. Of course I’d like it if you came. If you actually wanted to. But that’s not why I—I didn’t say it to make you feel guilty.”
Euijoo’s looking down, tapping his foot against the linoleum. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didnt…”
“Sorry for what?” Nicholas asks. The area they’re in has a slight echo, and Nicholas has been trying to ignore it, but it feels like it’s getting worse. It’s like their words are bouncing back and forth at each other, hitting strange angles. “It’s nothing, it’s not your fault. I didn’t even mean it like that.”
“Okay,” Euijoo says. He looks—really sad. Nicholas kicks himself. He’s been making Euijoo suffer by virtue of just being in his body, with his fucked up shoulder, and now he’s making his mind suffer too. Somehow now Euijoo’s the one apologizing for Nicholas’s self-imposed injury, his self-destructive neediness. It’s absurd.
“You don’t owe me anything,” Nicholas says. Surely Euijoo already knows, but still it’s probably worth saying. He fumbles out, “I’m not asking for what you can’t do, or, like, more than you want, or are able to give. Just forget about it.”
Nicholas thought that would make Euijoo feel better—to know that he’s relieved of the responsibility, Nicholas’s weight in his life—but Euijoo is still looking at him like Nicholas is breaking his heart. It doesn’t make any sense. Nicholas knows they’re talking around something unspoken, and the feeling it brings him is the same as the motion sickness from earlier.
Euijoo is quiet. Always so quiet. Sometimes, talking to him, Nicholas feels like he’s just echoing back into himself. Euijoo, impenetrable, and Nicholas, so easily gouged out.
“Okay,” Euijoo says, again. “That’s—okay.” Silence, for a while, while Nicholas furrows his eyebrows, and then: “You might be stuck with me for a little while longer, though. Until we can get this,” he gestures between their bodies, “sorted out.”
“Stuck with you?” Nicholas asks. It’s a strange way to phrase it.
“I’m stuck in your body,” Euijoo says. “And vice versa. So even if I can’t, um, give you—you know, like you said. I’ll try to make it bearable. I hope it doesn’t cause you too much pain.”
Nicholas barely has any idea what Euijoo is talking about. Euijoo talks himself in circles sometimes, hovering around what he actually wants to say; Nicholas gets so frustrated because he can never tell if it’s his lack of fluency or Euijoo being purposefully opaque.
He looks at Euijoo’s face, now back to that placid blankness. Sometimes, Nicholas thinks, it feels like I’m never going to understand you at all.
Nicholas frowns, but he doesn’t know how to fix this, if it’s even something that can or needs to be fixed. “Okay,” he says. “Whatever you want.”
Euijoo just nods, but it doesn’t really seem like he’s listening anymore. Something else from deep within is speaking to him, and even though Euijoo’s psyche is nestled inside his body—whatever it is, same as always, Nicholas isn’t invited.
-
Nicholas sleeps on the flight, which is a relief, because it means he can stop replaying Euijoo’s words in his head, over and over. It’s hard to know how much of the exhaustion is coming from Euijoo’s body versus his own tired brain. Or, well, it’s probably still Euijoo’s brain. His tired soul? Nicholas has no fucking idea how any of this works. It still feels like it might be a particularly vivid, self-aware nightmare.
Regardless, he sleeps—dreamless, which is good, he doesn’t want this turning into some Inception scenario—and when he wakes up, Fuma’s hand is on his thigh.
Which is. Well.
“You okay today, Euijoo?” Fuma asks, low and intimate in the white-noise susurrus of the plane. It’s a tone that he’s rarely, if ever, used with Nicholas. “You’ve been extra quiet.”
Nicholas feels his pulse start to kick up, startled fully awake. He has no clue how to reply, how to navigate Fuma and Euijoo’s private relationship. It’s always been like that: Euijoo with all of his different sides, the self that he shows to Nicholas different to the one he has for Fuma, for Kei, for each of the kids. So really, even if he wanted to, Nicholas could never truly know Fuma’s Euijoo. He has the sudden, monstrous urge to act poorly, to say something unforgivable, to get his hands inside this place that isn’t his and mess it up beyond repair.
Of course he’d never, no matter how greedy and childish he feels. Even thinking about it makes him feel sick. He shakes his head to try and clear it, disgusted with himself.
“I’m okay,” Nicholas says, and it sounds unconvincing even to his own ears. He clears his throat and tries again. “I’m alright. Just tired, I think.”
“Haven’t we talked about this?” Fuma asks. His hand is still on his—Euijoo’s—thigh. It’s warm. “What’s going on?”
Talked about this? Talked about what? Getting anything out of Euijoo lately is like surgery without anesthesia. But it figures that Fuma isn’t having the same problem. So it’s just Nicholas, then. It’s just something wrong with Nicholas.
“Refresh my memory?” Nicholas asks, trying to pitch his voice the way Euijoo does when he’s hedging a question, that hesitation that sometimes borders on coyness.
Fuma lets out a small laugh. He pats his thigh a couple times. “Euijoo, c’mon. I know things are hard lately. But you have to use your words. You can’t neglect yourself because you’re busy helping everyone else.”
Fuma’s better at this than Nicholas is. Much better. Maybe it shouldn’t be such a hurtful shock that Euijoo’s been going to him instead. But maybe Nicholas could—no. It’s probably overstepping. But who knows what Euijoo’s doing two rows back in Nicholas’s body? Harua could be telling him anything.
So Nicholas says, in Euijoo’s soft voice, “I think I’m fighting with Nicholas.”
Fuma makes a concerned face. “It’s gotten that bad?”
So Fuma already knows something. Nicholas can be tactful about this, despite the way his heart is pounding. He says, “Um, I guess so. I think he’s upset at me.”
“Well,” Fuma says. “I told you avoidance isn’t always the answer. I know you don’t really want to talk about it, so I won’t make you. But I think you might be underestimating the guy. He’ll understand.”
Nicholas thinks, frustrated: understand what? It could be anything. But there’s no way to tactfully ask, especially in a public space. And Nicholas doesn’t even—he doesn’t think he wants to know. To be sure. When he spends a good minute just sitting there racking his brain for possibilities, the only one that seems remotely realistic is that Euijoo is tying himself in knots over how to tell Nicholas to back off, to reject him without ruining the integrity of the group dynamic.
Nicholas waits for the flight attendant to pass by him, clenching his jaw, and then asks around the ache, “You don’t think he’ll be too upset?”
“Nah,” Fuma replies. Nicholas thinks that he’s giving him a little too much credit. He must think Nicholas is a lot more emotionally formidable than he really is. “I think maybe it’ll be hard, but. You guys will make it work. You always seem to.”
It really does sound like he’s talking about a fucking rejection. Nicholas makes a noncommittal noise. No wonder Euijoo’s so upset about being trapped in Nicholas’s body, if he’s been thinking like this for god knows how long.
There’s silence for a bit, and then Fuma adds, “You know how Nico is. The distance is probably worse than anything you could say.” He squeezes Nicholas’s thigh, then takes his hand away to gesture with open palms. “I really think it’ll make him happy. Even just to know, whatever comes of it.” Another pause, then: “It’s you, after all.”
Nicholas is about to say, “What?” because—seriously, what?—when the flight attendant starts speaking over the intercom, drowning out the million overlapping thoughts in his brain. The Japanese barely sounds like anything, meaningless syllables. He forces his hands to cooperate, to put all his shit away so that they can land.
Maybe once they’re back home, everything will begin to make sense. He knows it’s wishful thinking even before the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac.
-
It’s almost impressive how every single conversation Nicholas has had in this body has left him wrong-footed. He thinks he knows where something is going and then suddenly he’s missed the last step on the staircase.
The next one happens later that evening, not even 10PM and Euijoo’s body already exhausted, when Nicholas is brushing his teeth in the bathroom. One of the lightbulbs above the mirror has burned out—Nicholas is staring at it when the door creaks open without a knock and Harua’s blond head pops in. Nicholas raises a heavily judgmental eyebrow. Then he remembers that Euijoo wouldn’t do something like that to Harua, so he raises both instead in what he hopes is a more leader-appropriate expression.
Harua steps into the room and says, “Nicholas told me to ask you about your ideal type.”
It’s such a bizarre, out-of-left-field question that Nicholas almost chokes on Euijoo’s peppermint toothpaste. He spits, quick, into the sink before asking, “Excuse me?” in such an affronted tone that it almost makes him smile to hear it in Euijoo’s voice. Almost. What the hell is going on today?
Harua grimaces. “Sorry. Weird question, I know. But Nico-chan made it sound like something you’d be excited to talk about?”
Nicholas doesn’t understand why Euijoo would have said something like that. He rinses his mouth out and tries to think. Eventually, he realizes, of course: they were probably talking about Harua’s crush, on the plane.
Harua had explained the situation to them a little over a week ago.
He said it was sort of a long-distance thing, someone from back home. Apparently they’ve been texting constantly, and it’s been making Harua sad that he never has any free time to make the trek back to Nagano. He said they’ve been friends for a long time but it seemed like it was turning into something else. He said, scared but giddy, that he really wanted it to. He was gender-neutral the entire time, which Nicholas noticed, and he knew Euijoo noticed, and the only other person there was Taki, who seemed like he had more pressing internal concerns on the matter. (Not that that was Nicholas’s business.)
Nicholas thought he was pretty supportive about the whole thing. He teased first, said something stupid about sexting that had Harua wrinkling his nose. Then, more genuinely, that he was glad Harua opened up to them, then something vague about following your heart, how when you know, you know. Maybe a uselessly sentimental platitude, but Nicholas has always found it to be true. And he thinks Harua’s smart enough to know if this crush of his is real or not. If it would really be worth it to do something about it.
He was about to ask Harua more about the person, what they were like, but he barely got out the words “ideal type” before Taki stammered out something about Kei needing him and quickly booked it out of there. Nicholas had to bite his lip so as to not say anything aloud. Again. Above his pay grade.
Euijoo on the other hand was less supportive, but that was to be expected. He had to be the voice of reason, to tell Harua to be careful, that there was a reason the company didn’t want them dating for at least a few years, how it’s always better to be safe than sorry, etc etc, until Harua was frowning, hard.
It was a spiel Nicholas had heard before, at a distance, more warily, to Jo of all people. He’s pretty sure that it never went anywhere—though leave it to Asakura Jo to have a secret relationship that not a single other person knows about—but Harua can be pretty headstrong. He fought back, even got a little heated. Probably he thought Euijoo would be on his side (they’re fellow rom-com lovers, after all) and was frustrated at the pushback. But Euijoo must have been in a bit of a mood too, because he was less patient than usual when Harua started his own spiel in return about true love.
Euijoo didn’t say anything even close to rude; he’d never, not to Harua, but it was really just the way he was acting. Like he was above it all. Like he’d never let something like that happen to him; like it was completely, utterly unfathomable.
So Harua said what he said to Euijoo, and Nicholas still remembers the knife it was, the exact phrasing of it: “You don’t get it, Euijoo-kun—not everyone can be emotionless like you.”
The language was polite, because Harua still has respect for Euijoo in a way he doesn’t with Nicholas anymore, but the words themselves were piercing. Nicholas found himself instinctively cutting in with a “Hey,” a little sharp, because even if Harua was maybe right it was still uncalled for. But Harua just got up and left.
Of course he apologized within the hour, but Nicholas still remembers the look on Euijoo’s face after. Like an oil painting with all of those tiny cracks. Hairline fractures. That gradual shattering. It’s the same expression that was transposed onto Nicholas’s face during their conversation in the echoing airport hallway. Like slow, barely-visible heartbreak.
Nicholas didn’t know what to say. It was just them, no shields. The clock ticked, loud in the oppressively still air.
Nicholas knew he couldn’t stay quiet for much longer, so after a few moments he started with, “Hey, Juju, that was—”
Nicholas wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say: That was messed up? That wasn’t right? It’s not like Nicholas hasn’t said similar things to him, albeit always under the guise of a joke. Heartless Juju. No feelings at all. Cold like ice.
But it didn’t matter, because Euijoo cut him off regardless. He said, “Can you please go after him?”
His voice sounded normal. Maybe a little more detached than usual. Nicholas felt awful, like there was somehow ice lodged in his chest. He got up to go, but then he thought about it for a second, turned back and said, “He didn’t mean it,” small and useless.
Euijoo replied, in a tone that left no room for argument, “Yes, he did.”
So what else was there to say.
Nicholas has to blink away painful pinpricks of light from the memory. Somehow worse to relive it with context than to actually be in it, and it was pretty fucking awful to be in it.
There’s a shadowy outline of understanding taking form in Nicholas’s brain. Barely there, but still undoubtedly present. He tries to follow the train of thought before he realizes Harua is saying something, that he’s still in the middle of a conversation.
“Euijoo-kun? Was Nico messing with me? You don’t actually have to answer.”
Nicholas says, “Um,” stalling, trying to think. Euijoo’s never mentioned anything in the realm of an ‘ideal type’ to him, not even back when they told each other everything. He can’t even recall any of Euijoo’s interview answers, and those are usually fake anyway, so it’s not like it matters, but still. His head is a barren landscape.
“Nevermind,” Harua says, wincing, “he was totally pulling my leg. I should have known. But he sounded different than usual, so I thought—well, I don’t really know what I thought, but—“
“Did you ask him about his, too?” Nicholas asks. Maybe he can just flip the conversation around.
“Yeah,” Harua replies, “but he didn’t really…” He makes a cute face. “Like I said, he sounded different. He didn’t really seem like he wanted to talk about it, but he said you would.”
Nicholas almost wants to laugh. It’s all so ridiculous; it’s all so mixed-up. He thinks about Euijoo, forced into conversation with Harua on the plane when their relationship has been awkward and strained for the past week. These conversations about romance that seem to make him so unsettled. And stuck in Nicholas’s body he can’t even try to be honest—Nicholas’s skin just another ill-fitting role he has to fit inside, just another mask to wear.
So Nicholas says, thinking of Fuma’s words from earlier, “I haven’t thought about it that much, but I think I’d like someone who’s understanding. Whatever that looks like.”
“Euijoo-kun is so mature,” Harua says, a little wistful. He turns like he’s going to go, and then looks back. “Also, um, I know I already said, but I’m really sorry about how I left our conversation last week. I know that you were just trying to help, and, y’know, it’s okay if you don’t look at that sort of thing the same way. I understand.”
If it was actually Nicholas having this conversation, he’d say something like ‘Oh, you understand? Trying to be my ideal type, Haru-chan?’ but Euijoo—wouldn’t do that, so he just says, “Thank you,” earnest in Euijoo’s soft voice.
He feels bad that Euijoo isn’t actually here to accept the apology. But Harua looks placated, and he gives him a quick hug before slipping back out through the crack in the doorway.
-
After a while spent washing his face, the baby-soft feeling of Euijoo’s skin shamefully mesmerizing under his fingertips, Nicholas stares at himself in the mirror for a while.
Such a familiar face. And, even bare and exhausted, such a beautiful one. His big, uncharted eyes, the depth in them; that full mouth, pink and bitten; all of his delicate angles, those bird-bones. Even when he’s the one wearing it, he can’t get used to it.
He sighs at himself. Then he grabs something from the bathroom cabinet, and then he forces his feet to walk to his own room to find Euijoo.
The room is mostly dark, shadowed, just a single lamp on. Maki isn’t there, thankfully, but Euijoo is. He’s sitting on Nicholas’s bed and still rubbing at his shoulder, Nicholas’s phone lying in his other hand, limp. He’s staring at nothing.
Nicholas walks in, locking and shutting the door, and the noise prompts Euijoo to look up, startled, phone falling from his hand to the floor.
“Hey,” Nicholas says, walking over to pick it up. “Be careful with that.”
“You scared me,” Euijoo says. He lets both of his arms go limp at his sides.
“This is my room,” Nicholas says. He looks down at his phone and frowns; there’s a notification for a missed call from his mom on the home screen. He texts her, slowly, too used to using voice notes instead, sorry, really busy today. i’ll call soon.
“Sorry I didn’t answer,” Euijoo says, watching. Nicholas looks up and is relieved to see that his eyes have regained focus. “Obviously I couldn’t—you know.”
“It’s okay,” Nicholas says. “How’s… how’s the shoulder?”
Euijoo’s quiet for a while before he says, “It hurts.”
Yeah, Nicholas thinks. He throws his phone back on the bed and then goes to sit next to Euijoo, acutely aware of the distance between them. “I brought you, uh,” he starts, taking the tube out of his pocket, “pain cream. Aloe vera. It helps.”
Euijoo looks at him with an unreadable expression on his face. “Oh. Thank you.”
Nicholas replies, “Sure.” The air between them carries such a strange weight. It’s always like this, lately, when it’s just the two of them. Nicholas couldn’t even point to anything in particular that’s changed: it’s just been a steady descent, a sinking into the quicksand of possibility. He knows they both feel it—knows it likely has something to do with Euijoo’s widening distance. That dark, expanding chasm.
I really think it’ll make him happy, Fuma had said. Nicholas still doesn’t know what they were talking about, not really, but he knows that Euijoo is at war with himself about it. Nicholas, even if he wanted to, can’t unburden him from that weight. But he can try to push past his own insecurity to make a place for its lifting. And this, too: there are other ways to relieve pain.
Nicholas unscrews the bottle cap, watching Euijoo’s fingers do their elegant work, biting hard at his tongue, before he finally asks, “Can I help you with it?”
Euijoo seems surprised by the question, because he stammers out, “I mean, you don’t—you don’t have to—”
“It’s my body,” Nicholas says. “It’s not that weird, is it?”
The whole situation itself is so far past weird that there isn’t even really a word to describe it. It’s Nicholas’s body, sure, though Euijoo’s still going to be the one to feel it.
Euijoo eventually says, “Okay, I guess.” Nicholas takes a deep breath. This is going to be normal. It’s just his own body.
Nicholas says, “You should—take your shirt off. It’s worse in the, like, lower trap area.”
Euijoo looks at Nicholas like, really? which is embarrassing, but he’s not even lying. That’s where it’s most painful, in that hidden place.
Euijoo shakes his head, almost amused, while he gingerly takes his shirt off. Slow like he’s shy, which makes Nicholas feel raw and tender inside. Maybe he can sense Nicholas’s staring, because Euijoo teases, “You don’t see enough of this in the mirror?” but quietly, like he’s not sure he’s allowed.
“Shut up,” Nicholas says, laughing. And then, “Lie down.”
Euijoo looks wary again. “Why?” he asks.
Nicholas says, “It’ll be easier,” though really he had just said it on instinct. His embarrassing fucking hindbrain. “If you lie on your stomach with your arms raised, it’ll stretch the ache. Then I’ll know where to massage.”
Euijoo goes to move, and then hesitates, turns his face halfway back at Nicholas. “Has someone else done this for you?” he asks.
There’s a number of things about his relationship with Euijoo that are painful. High on the list are Euijoo’s fleeting moments of possessiveness. Like earlier, his half-said ‘me.’ You should have told me. I thought you trusted me. And now this. It makes him hopeful and delusional and then Euijoo always goes away again.
Nicholas just says, “No.” Wants to say, I’ve thought about you doing it. Wants to say, I’ve thought about doing it to you. Both are the same right now, anyway. But he just says, again, pitched low, “Lie down.”
Euijoo does. He puts his arms up too, like Nicholas said. He hisses, a breath sucked in between his teeth, like it really hurts.
“Sorry,” Nicholas says. He debates straddling Euijoo; then he thinks about the image it would make, Euijoo’s body on top of his in this position, and it thrills him so much that he ultimately decides against it. “I didn’t really think it hurt that bad.”
Euijoo replies, slightly muffled into the pillow, “I noticed it right when I woke up. You were right, that I ignored it and made it worse.”
Nicholas hums in reply. “That is usually what happens,” he says, “when you ignore things.”
Nicholas squeezes the aloe vera into his palm. He hears Euijoo breathe out.
Nicholas puts the bottle down and scoops the cream with his other hand. He presses three of his fingers into the space under Euijoo’s—his—shoulder blade. Euijoo makes a noise, pained.
“Relax your back,” Nicholas says. He thinks, fuck it, shifts to straddle Euijoo’s lower back against his better instincts. “Let me make it better,” he adds, quiet.
Euijoo tries to ease up, but he’s still tense. It’s alright. He’s trying. Nicholas massages his own back, his own shoulder, with the surreal knowledge that, through it, he’s touching Euijoo more intimately than he has in so, so long.
Euijoo is quiet while Nicholas touches him. Nicholas moves all around the isosceles shape of his shoulder blade, rubbing in the cream, all the way up to the dip where neck meets shoulder. He has to use more strength than he’s used to, in this body, to press firmly into the muscle there. At the pressure, Euijoo’s throat lets out something small, muffled. Nicholas does it again. Harder. Euijoo makes that same noise, just as quiet.
Those are the only sounds in the room: their breathing, Euijoo’s tiny noises, and the slight wetness of the cream, of Nicholas’s hands moving over bare skin.
After a while, Euijoo says, slipped out around an exhale, “It feels strange.”
“I bet,” Nicholas says. He’s sure Euijoo’s gotten massages before, but it’s like they said earlier: everything’s the same but not the same.
“No, I,” Euijoo starts, and then cuts himself off. He’s shifting under him, his lower body pressing forward, once. “Nevermind.”
“C’mon, what is it?” Nicholas asks. Most of the cream is gone, already absorbed, but Euijoo hasn’t told him to stop yet, so he hasn’t. He’s rubbing tiny circles into his upper ribs, his other hand splayed over the side of Euijoo's torso, holding firm at his waist, fingertips digging in.
“Um,” Euijoo says. His voice sounds a little strangled. He’s stopped moving, is now staying perfectly, deliberately still. “I think—I think your body is more sensitive than mine.”
Nicholas furrows his eyebrows. His hand stops moving. Is he saying—?
Nicholas mentally tries to swap their positions. If he was in his own body, and Euijoo was touching him like this, firm and lingering—fuck. Of course. Of course he’d be hard. He’d probably be vibrating out of his own skin, shaking, aching with it.
But Euijoo’s body is… Nicholas doesn’t know if it’s the swap, but it’s like it’s all happening to him at a distance. He’s turned on, sort of, but it’s more mental than not, and—god, he shouldn’t even be thinking about it, but Euijoo brought it up, didn’t he?—he’s not hard at all, there’s no ache. But now that he’s thinking about it, he feels this vague heat slowly start to diffuse in his stomach, though it’s nothing like the desperate need he usually feels, it’s just—warm, not hot. Wispy, hovering, half-there. Is this how it always is, for him?
Euijoo’s breathing hard. Nicholas doesn’t know what to do.
He starts saying, “Do you…” before Euijoo cuts him off, the words quick and a little rough:
“Is this how it always is?” Euijoo asks. A panting echo. “For you?”
Euijoo’s head is turned to the side, half-mashed into the pillow. His face is—Nicholas can’t even imagine Euijoo making an expression like that. Desperate, fevered, like he’s feeling something no one on earth has ever felt before.
Nicholas says, “Yeah.” It’s the truth. This is what it’s like, for me, when it comes to you.
Nicholas’s head is starting to spin. He needs to do something. He needs to get out. He needs to crawl inside Euijoo and never leave, except he’s already inside him, they’re both inside each other, and it shouldn’t be possible, but it is, because they’re both right here.
Nicholas can feel the tiny shifting of Euijoo’s hips pressing forward into the mattress. Like he can’t help himself. Nicholas lets more of his weight rest heavy on Euijoo’s lower back.
He feels like his brain is completely detached from his body—which is ironic, because, in a way, it literally is—when he presses a still-sticky hand into the space between Euijoo’s shoulder blades, the straight line of his spine. He pushes Euijoo further into the mattress, and then says, in Euijoo’s borrowed voice, feeling suddenly totally batshit insane: “Does it feel good?”
And the words sound like—it sounds like—
Then Euijoo makes a noise, or, no, Euijoo moans, and it’s the most fucked-up thing, because it’s in his own voice, but he still hears it as Euijoo. He can tell. He can hear him in the echo of it, that beloved timbre.
“It’s never like this,” Euijoo says, breathy and shaky, “I think, um, ah—”
Nicholas can tell Euijoo’s trying to be quiet, but he’s mostly failing, every other breath a gasp or a whine. Nicholas can’t believe what’s happening; the entire day has felt like a surreal dream, and the fact that he’s found himself here at the end of it, watching Euijoo rub himself off underneath him, is somehow the most unbelievable part of it all.
Nicholas wants to—if he could touch himself, then maybe—he asks, “Juju, can I…?”
Euijoo lifts his head up from where it was mashed into the pillow, looking back at him, face red and eyes dazed. His eyes dart down to where one of Nicholas’s hands is twitching at his own upper thigh, close to his crotch. “You can try,” Euijoo says, letting out something like a scoff. He immediately puts his face back down, mumbling, “See if you get anywhere.”
Nicholas figures that’s permission enough. Though when he touches himself, he thinks he understands what Euijoo means. He can feel it, obviously, and it feels nice, but Euijoo’s right, it’s not the same. It’s less. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. That doesn’t mean it has to be bad.
Nicholas braces himself with a hand back up where it was, high on Euijoo’s back, and the other next to him on the bed. He closes his eyes, ruts forward into the swell of Euijoo’s ass. Euijoo makes a choked noise. Nicholas does it again.
“Yeah?” Nicholas murmurs.
”Yeah,” Euijoo breathes.
They find a rhythm like that; neither of them say anything else. Nicholas feels like his body is lagging compared to his brain, which feels like this is the hottest thing that has ever happened to him, but slowly his cock hardens, and the pressure starts to feel better, though still not enough.
The air feels dense and thick around them, charged, taut like string about to snap. They move together, a gordian knot of hips and thighs. He wishes he could see Euijoo’s face; wishes they were in their own bodies; wonders with keen desperation whether they’re ever going to do this again, or if Nicholas needs to memorize this, every pant and shift of Euijoo beneath him. Every moan, gilded with sweet, desperate pleasure. But is it even—real? He can’t help but think about it. How much of it is really Euijoo?
Euijoo’s squirming frantically beneath him, trying to press himself forward into the mattress and back against Nicholas at the same time. It’s insane to watch: Nicholas can tell Euijoo has his brain turned off completely, that he’s just following instinct. The instinct of Nicholas’s body? Another, deeper buried instinct? Who knows—and does it matter?
Nicholas doesn’t know. Maybe it’s okay, not to.
“I’m,” Euijoo starts to say after a while, nestled in those panting breaths, “Nico, I’m—”
“Yeah,” Nicholas says, because he knows what he’s trying to say. He recognizes the signs in his own body, the way his hips are starting to stutter erratically. Euijoo’s close. Euijoo, beneath him, is going to come.
“God,” Nicholas says, low. He can still feel his own pleasure, rocking into him, but it’s like he’s experiencing it through a layer of fog. He can hear himself babbling: “Yeah. Fuck, baby, c’mon, it’s alright, just let it happen. You can do it for me, yeah?”
Euijoo makes a noise like a cry, like a sob, and then he’s coming, hips moving in long thrusts against the bed. His hands are still high up clutching at the pillow, where Nicholas had told him to put them. His knuckles are white against the dark fabric. It must be hurting his shoulder, but maybe he can’t even feel it; maybe he feels too good, maybe he doesn’t even care. Nicholas can hear his wet, gasping breaths.
The sight of him makes Nicholas feel like his brain is melting. He shoves a hand down his pants, fully aware that this is Euijoo, Euijoo’s cock, and he has to jerk himself off firmer and faster than he usually does, but it finally feels like something close to what he’s used to; and when he looks down at this body, his but not his, Euijoo’s, it’s such a visceral mindbody rush that he feels suddenly close, like a punch to the gut.
His heart beats hard in his throat. He’s close, so close, he just needs—something, he needs something—somehow it’s still not enough—but then Euijoo is stretching an arm back to reach for him, the non-injured one, and it lands on Nicholas’s inner thigh, and then he squeezes, hard, his short nails digging in, at the same time that he whispers, “Nico,” soft, and that’s all it takes; Nicholas comes with a moan, right onto the small of Euijoo’s back.
It feels different. Still good. More like relief than anything else. There’s—a lot of it, pooling.
Euijoo takes his hand away. He moves it, brings it up to cover his face. The other one is still holding onto the pillow. He just breathes for a while, then asks, quietly, “You came?”
Nicholas’s heart was starting to calm down, but it suddenly spikes again. Was he not supposed to? Was there an unspoken rule, somewhere? Did he mess everything up again? Nicholas figures Euijoo can feel it, that it was probably a rhetorical question, but he answers, “Yes,” anyway. “I’m sorry, I thought…”
“No, it’s,” Euijoo starts, putting his fingers to his mouth. He bites down on one, which short-circuits Nicholas’s brain a little, then says, “It’s just, it’s difficult for me. To do that.”
“Oh,” Nicholas says, stupid. That makes sense. It was, a little. Difficult.
“Yeah,” Euijoo says. And then, shifting, “Sorry, can you—do you mind—”
“Sorry,” Nicholas says, moving to get up. “Yeah. Hold on a sec, let me get, um, something.”
He wishes he could brave the hallway to get a warm washcloth from the bathroom, but he can’t, not looking like this. So he has to get a tissue from the desk in the corner, paltry in comparison, to clean Euijoo up. It seems—lewd, now that he’s out of the haze, the way his back looks striped with come like that. He wipes it all away. Euijoo doesn’t say anything the entire time.
“Was that…” Nicholas starts to ask, wanting to know if it was okay, if it was something Euijoo even wanted, but then Euijoo cuts him off.
“Yeah,” he says, moving to sit up. “Can I put my shirt back on?”
Frowning, Nicholas replies, “You don’t have to ask.” He reaches to pick it up from the floor, gives it to him.
Euijoo puts it on. There’s silence until Nicholas starts talking again. “Euijoo, really, I’m… if that was crossing a line, if you didn’t…” He can’t even say the words if you didn’t want it out loud, because if that was the case, Nicholas would never forgive himself. “I’m really sorry.”
Euijoo just looks at him. It looks like he’s weighing something in his head. And then he makes a noise. It takes Nicholas a second to realize that it’s a laugh. There’s something disbelieving in it. Nicholas feels his chest loosen, a little, sitting in the small bubble of that sound.
After a minute, Euijoo says, “It’s the weirdest thing,” looking away again, down at his lap. “I’ve never wanted it like that. Not once.”
“You’ve never wanted it with me?” Nicholas asks. His brain feels like it’s on a delay. “Or… with anyone?”
There’s a long pause. Euijoo’s voice is tissue-paper fragile when he eventually says, “With anyone.”
“Ever?” Nicholas asks.
Euijoo’s jaw works. “Yes, Nicholas. Ever. It doesn’t work like that for me.”
“Oh,” Nicholas says, stupid, like earlier. Brief self-loathing: Fuma would know what to say. Euijoo trusted him with it first, anyway. He must have had the perfect words, the exact right thing.
Euijoo continues, getting the words out slow, “I don’t know if it’s ever going to be like that for me.” A pause. “The way it is for you.”
“I think I understand,” Nicholas says, “but before you say anything else, I just want to make sure—that, what we did, it was okay, right? I didn’t force you? You liked it?”
“It’s all so mixed-up,” Euijoo says, and Nicholas hears it like an echo. “I… yeah, I liked it. Your body really liked it. I wish…”
Nicholas waits. He watches Euijoo rub a hand over his eyes. Finally, he finishes the thought, saying, “I wish it was always like that. I don’t know why it isn’t. I’ve always been a little defective, I guess, in that way.”
“Euijoo,” Nicholas says. It’s hard to hear. “You’re not. Don’t talk like that.”
“I am,” Euijoo says. “It’s the truth, you don’t have to try and make me feel better about it.” He swallows, continues, “Sex, feelings, I don’t know. All of it. It’s not the same, for me. The way people describe it. The way you feel it. I just—don’t.”
“It doesn’t have to be the same,” Nicholas says, quietly. It is a little bit like a rejection. But Fuma was right; Nicholas doesn’t feel bad. Euijoo’s being honest with him. “Do you still… want it? Sometimes?”
“Sex?” Euijoo asks. Nicholas nods. “Not really. No. With you, I mean, some things, maybe… I don’t think I’d mind it. It—it makes me happy to see you feeling good. But no, I don’t think I want it, not in the way you mean.”
He hadn’t even asked if Euijoo wanted it with him specifically, but Euijoo answered his question in relation to Nicholas anyway. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means something.
“With me,” Nicholas says. “Other things. Not sex. With me—you’ve thought about it?”
Euijoo is looking at him with wide, trembling eyes. It’s an unbearable expression to see on his own face. Euijoo says, biting down hard on his lip, “Yes.”
“Like a relationship,” Nicholas says, heart beating heavily in his chest. “Something like that?”
Euijoo’s gaze darts around the room. Looking for something. No, looking for something inside him, and not wanting Nicholas to see him while he searches. “I…”
Eventually: “I just… I don’t know if I want it in the same way. I don’t think I can be sure. But I still—I still want you. I want you to be mine. Isn’t that selfish? How could I ask you for that?”
Doesn’t he know that’s all Nicholas has ever wanted from him? To be asked for?
“Okay,” Nicholas says. His body feels shaky, nerves like spiders up and down his spine. But he also feels strangely relieved. Hopeful. Willing—to try, to make it work.
So Nicholas says, “Ask me. I’ll say yes.”
“What?” Euijoo asks, a little harsh. “Yes? You’d want m—that? Even though I can’t even—I’m broken, Nicholas. You felt it. You’ve said it. I can barely feel anything.”
The last piece clicks into place. Nicholas says, suddenly and with surety, “You’re not emotionless, Euijoo.”
It’s like everything is finally coming together in his head, Euijoo’s manifold sides coming together to create a vivid portrait: whole and intact, no cracks, nothing shattered. Nicholas says, “I know I can be an annoying bastard sometimes, and yeah, you can be distant. Difficult. But you’re not cold. I see how much you care, every single day. I can see it right now. You’re not broken because you don’t want things in the same way as everyone else.”
Euijoo’s quiet for a while, processing, his knuckles sweeping back and forth over the bedsheets.
Finally he says, looking up, “If we do this, it’s going to hurt you.” His eyes look glassy; he’s blinking rapidly. “That’s why I haven’t—asked. Because you’re saying this now, but it’ll come, and soon it’s going to hurt.”
“It’s not going to hurt more than not having you at all,” Nicholas says. He knows it’s true. He’s lived inside that particular hurt for almost five years. “And even if it does, I’ll tell you—it won’t be like the shoulder. And then we’ll figure it out together. Can you try to trust me?”
He hears his own words from this morning, another lifetime in another country, echoing in his head: We know each other well enough to make it work, don’t we? but he wants to change the phrasing; wants to tell Euijoo that they love each other enough, don’t they? And isn’t to be loved to be known?
He’s about to push past his hesitation to try and say it, aloud, even though it’s maybe definitely too soon, when Euijoo says, “I trust you.”
Nicholas lets out a long breath. He says, “I trust you too.” To hear it all finally said, the simple beauty of it plainly laid out. He has to swallow around something stuck in his throat. “We’ll go at your pace. Whatever that looks like. Just—stay with me.”
It sounds like don’t leave me, which is more humiliatingly needy energy than he really wanted to give, but Euijoo just smiles. Actually smiles.
“Where else could I go? I’m kind of—literally—stuck with you, aren’t I?” Euijoo says, and it’s teasing, but his voice is wet. He gestures between their bodies, these swapped, disparate forms that still feel so familiar. “You’re in possession of something that I’m going to be needing back.”
“It’s yours,” Nicholas says. “I’m just keeping it safe for you.”
Euijoo’s smile takes on a new slant. “You’re doing a good job,” he says. And then: “I’m with you, Nico. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Clearly,” Nicholas says, copying Euijoo’s same gesture between them, “literally, considering—“
“No,” Euijoo says. He reaches out a hand to grasp at the cuff of Nicholas’s sweatpants, knuckle brushing against ankle. “I’m being serious. Maybe fate did this to us, the swap or whatever, but—me, staying. I’m making that choice. Because I trust you.”
“Yeah?” Nicholas asks. His throat feels like it’s closing up, that burning heat that promises tears.
Euijoo, for once speaking of fate in relation to the two of them. Nicholas can’t believe he didn’t understand it until now: Euijoo scorns fate because he wants to decide for himself instead. Because he thinks it’s more meaningful that way—to not be impelled by fate, biology, all forces beyond your control. To choose to love anyway.
And now he’s sitting here, laid bare and honest in front of Nicholas, choosing him, for the first time saying the words out loud.
Euijoo says, “Yeah.” His eyes are closed. “I like… life, with you. I like myself with you. So if you’re okay with me, like this, then.” His eyes shut tighter. “Of course I’d want it.” He takes a deep breath. “This is me, asking.”
Euijoo’s voice is steady and true, despite his closed eyes, despite the way his chin is wobbling. He’s trying so hard. It’s always terrified Nicholas, that he could feel like this about another person: the chasmic depth of it, so fervent and unyielding. And now, in Euijoo, to see it finally unearthed and reflected back. A tiny, moonlit miracle.
Nicholas says, voice thick, “This is me, answering.” Euijoo’s eyes open right as Nicholas says, “Yes.”
-
When Nicholas wakes up the next day, the second day of summer, he’s back in his own body. He stretches in bed, languid. 7AM has never felt so sweet.
Even sweeter: that first glance of Euijoo, the real Euijoo, perfectly inhabiting himself, from across the kitchen. Nicholas doesn’t really know why he got up so early—residual Juju genes or something—but the timing means the kitchen is empty. The sun is already fully up; Euijoo’s light brown hair is haloed gold with it. When Nicholas walks into the room, Euijoo looks at him, spoon in his mouth. He smiles around it.
Nicholas wants to kiss him badly. The feeling isn’t new. What is: the fact that Euijoo might let him do it. He might even kiss him back. Even the thought of it is enough to make him feel raw with hope.
He goes to stand next to Euijoo at the counter. He watches him eat for a while. Euijoo doesn’t ask if he wants any, because he knows Nicholas can’t stomach food this early. Just one of the million ways in which they know each other best.
Eventually, watching the kitchen’s dust swirl in strange light, Nicholas asks, “Hey, do you remember that painting? From your hotel room in Hong Kong?”
Euijoo looks confused. Then his face smoothes out, gains an amused tilt. “The one that looked possessed? Did it freak you out?”
“Well,” Nicholas says, “Yeah. It was freaky. I think—”
“Wait,” Euijoo cuts him off. He points his spoon at him. “You think that monkey switched us?”
“Do you have any better ideas?” Nicholas asks. Another echo. He flicks Euijoo’s spoon. “And, hey, clearly it left an impact on you too, since you remember it.”
Euijoo takes another bite of his food. “I guess,” he says, around a mouthful of rice. “Maybe you’re right. It’s funny, I…”
Nicholas watches him as he finds the words.
“When I woke up today and realized I was back in my own body, I started thinking about why it happened, and how, and if it could happen again. How it might be nice, even, if it did. But in the end, all I could think was… does it matter?”
Nicholas can’t help but smile.
It doesn’t, really.
However it happened. However anything happens. Fate or choice. Nature or nurture or whatever else makes them who they are: so different from each other. And despite that difference, both patient in the gesture of trying to understand, of trying to bridge the gap of biology—yet, still, always marred with the pain of being two separate bodies.
But for a time the boundaries were breached. And that strived-for understanding led them here: Euijoo back in arm’s reach in this far-away place they both call home. They can find it together—a deliberate connection, a renewal, a realization: that there doesn’t have to be a perfect answer, an exact right thing. That it can just be them.
So Nicholas says, around his full heart, “When’d you get to be so well-adjusted, huh? Did one day in my body do it for you?”
Euijoo hides his smile with a fist, still chewing. “Very funny,” he says. And then, quietly: “But you did help. You always do. And I’m… I’m sorry for running away.”
Euijoo puts his bowl down, done eating, turning to face him properly. Nicholas wraps two fingers around his slender wrist, says, “I know. Thanks for coming back.” He uses his pinky to trace across the infinity ring on Euijoo’s finger, almost as warm as the skin around it.
Euijoo does this helpless sort of half-shrug. He tangles their fingers together, holds onto him. “It’s you,” he whispers, so soft it’s almost just breath. “It’s you, Nico.”
Nicholas understands; he loves him, loves him, loves him.
The future is theirs. They’ll figure it out. Maybe the red string of fate doesn’t connect them, maybe it’s going to be difficult, definitely it will be—but it doesn’t matter, because neither of them are letting go.
So let it come.