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They have known each other forever. In fact, Jisung doesn’t think he can even recall a fully formed memory in the years of his life before the Huangs moved next door—with their perfect angel of an older son, and their devil incarnate of the other.
The initial impressions… weren’t great. Jisung was in the middle of assembling the Milky Way (the Milky Way) in his room when he was called downstairs to “make some new friends”. Jisung didn’t want new friends—or needed them, really. There were even exceptions made for him in the classroom. Where others had to face the dreary prospect of working in groups or pairs for projects, Jisung always got to do everything on his own. And as his mother loved to remind him, made him so much more braver and capable than everyone else.
But he ended up going downstairs anyway, because he’d promised to be on his best behavior in exchange for the galaxy, and Jisung didn’t like breaking promises.
He counted down to one from 22 at the very top of the steps and took a big, deep breath that filled his lungs with the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg before he walked up to the shadow of his mum’s back at the front door.
There were 2 boys on their porch, one on either side of a woman Jisung assumed to be their mother. The one on the left smiled shyly at him, rosy cheeks and pink lips and eyes he didn’t know how to describe besides ‘kind’. The other tugged at his mother’s hand incessantly, his whole body practically shaking with the want to break free and run away. His eyes were full of mischief and he didn’t look like his mother or brother at all.
Jisung didn’t think, just blurted his thoughts out. All five of them sank into an uncomfortably, prickly silence, and that would be the first time he saw Chenle cry—on the very first day they met.
Little did Park Jisung know, that would also be the last time. (Perhaps, until later—much, much later).
I
{
Time, curious time,
Gave me no compasses gave me no signs,
Were there clues, I didn’t see?
}
2010
People tend to disregard the feelings and the world views of 8-year olds.
Jisung knows this, because he is 8, and Chenle is nine, and he already seems to feel so much more all-important than him. What Jisung always has to hold himself back from pointing out is that Renjun, Chenle’s older brother, is a whole year older than Chenle, and 2 years older than Jisung, and he doesn’t make it his entire personality.
Although he likes Renjun way better and isn’t shy to make that clear, he ends up in the company of Chenle most of the time. While Renjun is off busying himself with picking up skills like piano, the er hu, and art, Chenle spends all his days loitering on the couches of whoever’s houses they’re having a ‘playdate’ in.
His mother has never gotten on his back so insistently all these years about having a friend, but she seems to have grown a soft spot for Chenle and Jisung just can’t begin to grasp why.
For the first month of the whole of the first year they spent together, Jisung ignored Chenle, not answering a single word as Chenle drones on and on about everything under the sun. He’d talk about the vegetables they’re growing in the backyard that’s become infested with bugs, the missing block in their Jenga set that he could never locate, and above all else, his favorite topic—and admittedly, Jisung’s favorite, too—about his caring, loving, beautiful older brother.
Everything else goes in one of Jisung’s ears and comes out the other. When the topic falls on Huang Renjun, though, Jisung finds himself assembling things a little slower, his heart beating a little faster.
Chenle talks a lot about Renjun now, maybe excessively so. And one might wonder if there’s really so much to be said about someone who’s barely just lived out a full decade of life, but if Chenle’s words and accounts are to be trusted, there really is.
Jisung still rarely responds, but when he does, it’s either out of annoyance (when Chenle won’t stop running in circles around his lego buildings) or curiosity (“Renjun hyung likes model trains?” “Mhm, he totally does. My dad buys him all the trains in the world and he plays them all with me!” “How many?” “Huh?” “How many trains does he have?” “Every one that exists in the world, I don’t know.”) (And Jisung would secretly think, that he, too, feels like he owns all the miniature galaxies and planets in the world, too, and that Renjun would just get him).
Today, Chenle runs up into his room without knocking while Jisung is working on putting Orion’s Belt together. When he ignores Chenle’s greeting, he feels the boy kneel down next to him, humming so loudly that it shakes the little plastic stars.
“What if you put it together wrong?” Chenle asks.
“I won’t,” Jisung answers simply.
“You don’t know that. You don’t even use the manual.”
“I don’t need to.”
Chenle considers this for a moment, then shakes his head like he knows better. “You’re going to put it together wrongly,” he decides, and it irks Jisung to no end.
“I won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because I’m right.”
Chenle huffs, but he doesn’t leave. Later, when Jisung reaches for the next piece, Chenle wordlessly hands it to him, like he already memorized the pattern Jisung was following. Like he’d taken in the unlabelled way in which Jisung had laid out the parts on the carpet and understood the system himself.
“Do you wanna know what Renjun did yesterday?”
Yes, yes I do. Jisung’s hand pauses mid action, and he has to start counting all the parts from the very beginning. Chenle waits for him, as patient as it gets for Chenle, and beams when Jisung finally nods.
He’s got a 180 and one parts left. He learns that Renjun discovered calamansis the day before, that his interest in them died within minutes because he hadn’t expected how sour they’d be. He thinks, that it might just be the day, but Chenle seems to be a little more bearable than usual.
🪡
2013
Jisung can’t believe he is older than Renjun was when they first met. Perhaps that is why he was so audacious in thinking that the gap between them might’ve closed a little, even just by a bit. That time might have pulled and thinned out and softened the distance, enough for them to exist on the same plane.
He tells Renjun that he likes him in the peak of summer, under the kind of blazing hot sun that makes the air wobble around them. It’s unfortunate timing, but Jisung didn’t think it felt right to hold it in anymore. He’s eleven, Renjun thirteen. He’s going to enter middle school, and if what everyone is telling him is right, he’s going to devolve and become another species altogether. And Jisung must save him before he goes on this terrible expedition.
“Hyung,” he says, his voice cracking on the syllable. Everything about him is starting to change, too, and he hates how foreign he feels in his own skin. How foreign he feels about the things that live in him.
Renjun hums, eyes closed against the sun.
“I like you,” he confesses. And then the world stops spinning on its axis and the sky stops being blue and his heart comes screeching to a halt, too.
But Renjun—not even a look of surprise crosses his face. He simply opens his eyes, blinks against the sunlight, then turns to look at Jisung with a strange expression. He was always gentle. At least with Jisung, he was. But the gentleness that curved his lips into a smile now turns Jisung’s stomach inside out, spilling green acid everywhere around them.
“I know, Jisung. I like you too, so let’s stay friends for a long, long time, alright?” Renjun asks him, and then the moment is over. He goes back to basking in the sun, while Jisung, dazed and confused, is left wondering if the last minute really happened.
A while later, he excuses himself to go back into the house, claiming it was getting too hot for his liking, and runs into Chenle in the kitchen. He looked like someone had caught him doing something he wasn’t supposed to—eyes that wouldn’t meet Jisung’s, his face all reddened like a ripe tomato, all the way up to the tips of his ears.
“Hi,” he greets Chenle first. He’s started to do that more often recently.
When Chenle looks up, he’s wearing a pained expression on his face that, weirdly enough, brings Jisung a lot of peace. At least Chenle still wears his heart on his sleeve—at least nothing about them has changed. “Hey,” Chenle returns the greeting, then looks away abruptly. There's a half-filled glass of water in his hand, a few drops dripping down the sides of it onto the floor.
Normally, he would point it out and ask Chenle to stop being such a slop. Today, he simply offers a terse nod in parting before he goes out through the front door and makes the short walk home with his fists clenched at his sides the whole time.
Three years might have gone by since he first met Renjun, but it seems like no matter how old he gets, the 2 years that exist between them will never go away. Which, of course, makes all the sense in the world, but also none at all.
🪡
2016
In the 2nd week of the spring break after Jisung turns 14, he discovers that boys his age could not stop talking about girls.
Girls, with their cosmic presences and soft curves and their pretty laughs, who filled your mouth with the taste of cotton candy when your tongue moved to the shape of their names. Or so he hears.
He’s a lot less closed-off than he used to be, so he’s made a solid group of friends that still included Chenle, but only somewhat. Donghyuck, 2 years older, and also in Renjun’s year, was the intersection in the Venn diagram of their circles, and so Jisung would still see Chenle around whenever Donghyuck was.
So, yeah, they still cross paths, but not as much as they used to pre-Big Bang (what Jisung’s taken to calling the ill-fated afternoon he confessed to Renjun).
“Who are you going to ask to the festival?” Jaeyun asks, hugging a basketball to his chest. It isn’t really an event where people have to attend in pairs, but it’s common that they do. Everyone knows it’s the event that determines who your plus one is for the rest of the year, and while Jisung doesn’t understand why that’s the case, he’s long since come to accept that he will bend to the rules too.
Jongseong shrugs, feigning nonchalance even though everyone knows his answer. “I don’t know yet.”
“Maybe you could ask Minjeong,” suggests Sunghoon as he bites into an apple, the crunch-crunch-crunching that fills the silence making Jisung’s toes curl in their shoes.
“Yeah, I could ask her, I guess. She’s cool, and really pretty,” Jongseong mumbles, turning red all the way up to his temples. Sunghoon laughs so quickly, it’s clear he was already expecting the exact response. “Shut up, dickhead. Who are you going to ask?”
Jaeyun bounces the ball against the ground, switching it between his hands while his smile stretches wider and his eyes turn a little dreamy. “Gaeul, of course—have you ever seen me talk about anyone else?”
“She’s way too tall for you,” Sunghoon quips, dodging the ball that Jaeyun aims at his face. Jisung watches as the ball rolls to a stop against his sneakers and doesn’t make a move to retrieve it.
“Jisung?” Jaeyun asks, turning to him like it’s the most natural question in the world.
The afternoon heat is turning the concrete between them into a skillet, and Jisung feels his head growing heavy with it.
He opens his mouth. Then he closes it.
The truth is, there isn’t a name he can pull out off the top of his head. They’re all the same to him—pretty, interesting, but at the end of the day, just a girl. And he doesn’t think it’d be fair to tie any one of them down for a whole year just because Jisung asked them out to a pointless school festival he doesn’t understand the significance of.
But if he really has to make a choice, it’d probably be Chaeyoung. Simply because she was the only girl he really talked to (“Hey, do you have a lead I could borrow?” “What size do you use?” “The bigger one.” “Yeah, here.”)
He ends up shrugging, the syllables of her name still refusing to leave his system. “I don’t know. Don’t think I’ll ask anyone.”
The rest all let out groans in unison, and Sunghoon rolls his eyes. “That’s boring. Come on now, even Chenle’s asking someone.”
Jisung’s head snaps up so fast something twinges in his neck.
“Chenle?”
“Yeah,” Sunghoon answers slowly, clearly not expecting his response. “Donghyuck hyung told us last week when we were playing League.”
“Who?”
“He never said. To Donghyuck hyung, that is. No one knows who it is—probably someone who doesn’t even exist,” Jongseong interjects, laughing unkindly. “Sorry, I know you guys are friends and everything but he can be a little bit of an asshole sometimes.”
Jisung purses his lips and holds his knees to his chest, resting his chin on them, his mind still reeling from the shock.
The conversation carries on even without him being present enough to care. But round and round, it all comes back to the same damn thing.
When the sun starts to set and Jaeyun announces he’s got to go home soon to help his family out with dinner and walk his dog if he has the time, Sunghoon asks again.
And because Jisung is sick of feeling like he’s the only person in the world who feels the way he does (because even Chenle, as much as they’ve drifted apart), he answers, “I guess I’ll ask Chaeyoung.”
“Nice!” Jongseong exclaims, clapping a hand to Jisung’s back on the way out of the garage. “I’ll be looking forward to it, then.”
A week later, it gets back to Jisung that all the work he’d put into making a bouquet of mini flowers (by force, because Jaeyun won’t stop insisting) was all for naught because someone else had gotten to Chaeyoung first.
And it was Chenle.
“He asked her yesterday,” Jongseong says, mouth corners turned downward. “By the lockers. Pretty bold, honestly, because everyone would’ve known if she’d said no. But she didn’t, and apparently she wouldn’t stop blushing all the way to class.”
“Oh,” he says. It’s the only thing he can manage without sounding ridiculous. Because for the past week, he’d been trying to convince himself that he wanted this for himself as much as the rest wanted it for him. He thinks that toward the end of the last Sunday, he really was starting to look forward to it. He was going to take Chaeyoung to the festival, and they were going to sit side by side on the grass as the talent show went on, their knees touching, and it was all going to be very normal and pleasant.
And now he knows that the dangerous thing about having expectations is that they made the fall so much more brutal when they shattered.
Strangely enough, it was also the same incident that got him and Chenle talking—properly talking—again.
It happens on a Thursday, when Jisung’s mother insists that he be the person to deliver a plate of homemade kkulteok to the Huangs’ house. He hasn’t been invited over for a very long time, so he feels all jittery as he stands on their porch waiting for someone to just find him.
Maybe if it had been Renjun, things would be easier. Because Renjun has always been kind in that way—he picks up on your discomfort and puts an end to your misery a little quicker. But of course, it ends up being the last person he wanted to see.
Jisung can’t help the scowl that finds its way to his face when the door swings open and he sees Chenle standing before him.
He doesn’t think he’s taken a real look at Chenle in a long time, so his chest echoes with a jealous pang when he realizes that Chenle’s already sporting a bit of hair along his chin and above his upper lip. It’s patchy and nothing real to gloat about, but Chenle isn’t shaving it off because most of their classmates haven’t even progressed past the horrible nasally voice stage yet.
Then Jisung catches himself and drops his gaze because he’s really got no business zooming in and scrutinizing Chenle’s every pore like that.
“Maybe at least try to pretend you want to see me,” Chenle tells him, an amused smile hanging off his face.
“Here,” Jisung says, thrusting the plate toward Chenle. “Mom wanted to offer some.”
“Awe,” Chenle coos, taking the plate from Jisung and peering at them closely. “Are the uglier ones yours?”
They are, but Jisung lifts his chin like he’s offended even by the suggestion. “What are you talking about? They all came out like that.”
Chenle offers him a patronizing smile. “Sure, tell your mom I said thanks. And that her son’s still a terrible liar.”
Jisung takes in a deep, measured breath before exhaling all the air out sharply. “Can I go now?”
“Why, you in a rush? Somewhere better to be?” Before Jisung can even rack his brain and formulate a better retort or at least fashion a convincing lie, Chenle’s already leaning back against the door to open it wider. “My parents aren’t home, if you wanna come in.” Then, after a beat, he adds— “But Renjun hyung’s upstairs.”
A thorn grows in the back of Jisung’s throat at the implication the words carry. “I’m not here for him. And I don’t care if he is.”
“I know, I’m just telling you.” Jisung’s feet shuffle, but he goes nowhere. After another beat or 2, Chenle breaks the silence first. “You’ve probably heard, right?”
“About what?” he snaps.
“About Chaeyoung,” Chenle answers. “I hope you don’t mind.” He doesn’t but he feels like he should, and his stomach turns over at the thought. Plus, he’d assumed he’d gotten over it before stupid Chenle dredged up all the feelings about it again. “I mean, we could talk about it if you want to. You were the one to stop coming over first.”
He’s right, as Chenle, frustratingly, always is where Jisung is concerned. Jisung’s always felt as though his life ran like a well-oiled machine following a schedule that has never seen so much as a minute change. But somehow, the only person in the world who seems to have figured it all out is Chenle.
“...Okay,” he finally says. “Let’s talk about it.”
And so he follows Chenle up the stairs and to his room, the smaller one at the end of the hall next to the bathroom, and holds his breath when they walk past Renjun’s. He never comes out to announce his presence, but he doesn’t have to. The lights are on and there’s music, a classical piano piece Jisung tries to commit to memory so he can search up the name of later, floating out from behind the closed door.
And him and Chenle, well, they talk, but it’s about everything under the sun except for Chaeyoung.
It isn’t until it’s time to go home because the Huangs have come back for dinner that Jisung realizes what he feels pricking his heart is evidence that all this time, he’s missed talking to Chenle again.
And now that they’re talking again, maybe this whole thing with Chaeyoung didn’t really matter at all.
🪡
2017
In the winter, Jisung thinks he begins growing real feelings for a girl named Jiyoon. It started small, at the beginning of fall when the weather still swung between being humid some days to unbearably windy the next.
Jiyoon joined their batch of students in spring, transferring from another school in Gyeonggi-do. She sat 2 rows in front of him in all their labs and he quickly began to notice the different colored ribbons she’d bring to tie her hair up with when she’s concentrating.
It’s early December when Jisung, sitting at the foot of his own bed while Chenle lays spread-eagle on it, says it aloud for the first time: “I think Jiyoon is really kind.”
Kind, he uses. Not nice, not pretty, not pleasant, in all the ways every other girl in his life had been. Kind, because that’s different from being nice, and Jisung thinks he likes that about her.
“Jiyoon? Shin Jiyoon?” Chenle asks, his voice strangely strained.
“Yeah, Jiyoon,” Jisung repeats, and even just the sound of her name leaving her mouth leaves his ears feeling warm.
“I didn’t know you guys talked,” Chenle says, after a long beat has passed between them. There’s the sound of a page being flipped. Then another, and Jisung is sure Chenle doesn’t usually get through his Korean homework that quickly.
“We… don’t? Not really, at least,” he admits easily. “But we’re in the same meetings for the photography club and she’s really… she has a strange taste in food.” It’s somewhat embarrassing to feel the corners of his mouth lift as he thought about her, but it’s an almost natural reaction that he couldn’t keep at bay. It’s horrible.
“Strange taste in food?” Chenle repeats, and Jisung turns his head to look at him. Unfortunately, he’s got his expression hidden behind his book, which he keeps holding up. “What riveting and essential information about this girl you like, I’m so impressed.”
“But isn’t it normal to want to know these things about someone you’re interested in?”
Chenle groans, slapping the book down hard against Jisung’s bedsheets. “No, dude. What does she smell like? Does she like your jokes? Does she look at you like you’re the only person in the room when you talk about black holes for 20 minutes straight?” Chenle’s voice is too loud, too sharp, like he’s trying to cut something with it. “Strange taste in food is not a personality trait, Jisung.”
Jisung blinks. “I… don’t know what she smells like.”
Chenle flops onto his back again, arms flung out like he’s trying to take up the entire bed. “Exactly.”
Silence stretches, thin and uncomfortable.
Jisung picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. “Why does it matter?”
“It matters because it sounds like you don’t even know her,” Chenle says to the ceiling, and it’s obvious that he’s in a terrible mood. He’s doing that thing again where he just incessantly shakes his legs till everything about him is vibrating and only he doesn’t notice. “‘Strange taste in food’? Come on, man.”
“I don’t understand why you’re so irritated,” he points out.
“Whatever, fuck, whatever,” Chenle hisses, suddenly sitting up, his spine ramrod straight. He grabs his backpack by the bedside and starts shoving all his materials in without putting them away properly. Jisung watches on in confusion but he still moves to help Chenle anyway, tucking his pens and correction tape away into his pencil case and zipping it up. “I should go, Renjun ge’s got a thing tonight.”
Jisung wants to say, stay. Or ask him why he suddenly cares so much about being on time. Instead, he holds his breath as Chenle swings his bag over his shoulder and pauses at the door, his cheeks ruddy.
“Hey,” Chenle says, not turning around. “If you do end up asking Jiyoon out… good luck.”
He’s gone before Jisung can answer.
A week later on the Wednesday before winter break begins, Jiyoon starts wearing a thin yellow ribbon in her hair for the rest of that week. Chenle shows up with the same yellow ribbon tied to the zipper of his backpack that Jisung’s never seen him wear before.
Jisung quits photography club in the new year because he’s busy with exams. At least, that’s what he tells himself.
And these days, he tells himself a lot of things.
🪡
2018
Renjun gets a boyfriend in his senior year of high school, and Jisung knows this because Chenle won’t stop talking about it.
“I don’t think Renjun ge really likes this guy,” he’d tell Jisung. (“How can you even tell, anyway?” “I don’t know, I just know it. You just have to come over for dinner one day and see it for yourself.)
Against his better instincts, Jisung does agree to dinner in June, on a night where Chenle assures he’ll finally meet Renjun’s boyfriend face-to-face. Chenle had been so secretive about the dude’s name that Jisung was starting to think it might’ve been a long, drawn out joke that everyone was in on save for him.
But, he realizes with a pang in his heart that night, the guy is very much not a figment of anyone’s imagination or a bit of a joke at all, and he’s also very much perfect in every sense of the word.
Yangyang is a pretty reserved person, but not so much that he comes off as unfriendly. No, he seems to have mastered the art of being not-too-much while giving as little of himself out as possible. By the end of the night, all Jisung learns about him is that his favorite food is whatever Renjun wants to have, his favorite songs are all the ones on Renjun’s playlists, and his favorite subject is math, which is what brought them together in the first place when Renjun asked for help in tutoring. It’s a whole bunch of nothing, and yet all those answers seemed like the correct ones to everyone at the table.
He knows this because they make Renjun blush and look down, the Huangs smile and nod, and Chenle grimace.
Every time it happens, Chenle nudges Jisung’s knee with his foot under the table and he’d look up to see Chenle making a face as discreetly as he can.
“So how is he?” he asks Jisung when they’re up in his room later. Yangyang and Renjun are still downstairs in the living room now and the sound of the Huangs laughing echoes throughout the house and shakes the dust off the ceiling beams. Or at least, that’s what it feels like.
“He’s nice,” Jisung answers, feeling like it’s the only thing he’s allowed to say anyway.
Chenle fixes him with a look, squinting his eyes. “Nice? That’s it?”
Jisung shrugs, dusting off his jeans as he sits cross-legged on Chenle’s threadbare rug. “Yeah, I mean, I still don’t know who he is but he makes Renjun hyung happy.”
Chenle’s mouth twists into a scowl and it’s obvious he’s pissed, but Jisung doesn’t think he’s too curious about why. “Are you stupid?”
Jisung flinches. “What?”
“I asked if you’re stupid,” Chenle grits. The mattress springs groan when he stands up. He paces 2 steps, then turns, then paces again. “Ge isn’t happy, and Yangyang’s a liar.”
He’s closer to Jisung now, and his silhouette is limned in white as he blocks Jisung off from the overhead light. Jisung looks up anyway, even though Chenle’s face is mostly shadowed. “Did either of them tell you that?”
“They don’t have to tell me anything, Jisung! Renjun’s my brother and I—I know him.” Chenle deflates onto the carpet with a sigh and picks at the sides of it. “I know people don’t always think of us as brothers, but I’ve grown up my whole life with him. And he can be fucking grating to be compared to sometimes but I don’t like seeing him like this.”
“But Yangyang—”
“Ticks all the boxes? Worships the ground he walks on? Did you know, the last time I asked ge what his favorite thing about Yangyang was, he told me it was that he dresses well and holds doors open for him?”
Jisung allows his nose to wrinkle. “What answer were you expecting anyway?”
“Something more personal. Maybe something that told me they actually enjoyed each other’s company.”
“But what do you even know about love, anyway?” Jisung asks flatly. He hadn’t meant for it to be an attack, but he knew the moment Chenle’s face turned guarded that he’d taken it like one.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, things didn’t work out with Chaeyoung or Jiyoon. And weren’t they people you barely knew too?”
“You don’t get it.”
“I know you think I’m stupid,” Jisung says, feeling exasperated. “I know you think I’m clueless and that I’m 2 steps late to every conclusion you’ve already drawn. But that’s why I always ask and you never want to explain anything to me.” He splays out his fingers against the fibers of the rug and leans forward. “And I want to understand, I do.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Chenle mumbles after forever. He casts his gaze toward the tiny window in his room that has the entire view taken up by the branches of an overgrown tree in their backyard.
“But you always talk to me like I’m missing something.”
A dry laugh falls from Chenle’s lips. “That’s because you are,” he says simply, his eyes blank when he turns them back to meet Jisung’s. “But you’re right, maybe I’m the one who knows nothing about love.”
“I didn’t say that,” Jisung says, shifting on his legs uncomfortably. He feels like there’s something he should apologize for—he just doesn’t know what.
Chenle offers him a small smile. They sit in silence for the next few minutes, on the faded rocket in the middle of the carpet that used to take them to Mars.
But these days, even with their feet planted on earth, it feels more like they are galaxies apart.
🪡
2019
People say third time’s the charm, and the number really does irk Jisung, but he really hopes there’s some truth to it. Because at the start of the year, he starts falling for Zhou Xinyu.
She calls his name the way it sounds in Mandarin, she listens to the same bands he does, and she collects the pokemon stickers dispensed by those old gacha machines lined up outside the local supermarkets. And when she talks to him, she doesn’t make him feel inferior for not knowing the things she does.
And this time, he likes her so much that he comes up with some rules: one, never mention Xinyu to Chenle, 2, never let them meet.
As simple as they are, it lasts 4 months before Chenle barges into the band room claiming he was looking for Yesung and finds Xinyu and Jisung laughing over a packet of dried mangoes on the piano bench.
Xinyu waves him over and introduces herself. “Hey, you’re Chenle, right? Jisung talks about you a lot.”
“Does he.”
Jisung wants to shrink himself into the size of an ant and get pulverized under someone’s sole. It’s not like he does it on purpose—but Chenle is such a big part of his life that it’d be impossible to talk about himself without dropping his name here and there.
“Yeah! Told me about that one time you tried to dye your hair with food coloring, too,” Xinyu says, her laugh loud and bright.
Instead of growing embarrassed, Chenle crosses the room and drops himself into the spot right next to her with the ease of someone who seems to have known her forever. Jisung’s watching him work in real time and wishes desperately to spontaneously combust if only to stop Chenle’s charm from taking root.
For the next few minutes, Jisung feels himself vanishing into thin air as Xinyu and Chenle chat away as though he weren’t there at all.
And looking at Chenle now, he thinks he understands why they always end up choosing him. He’s laughing at one of her jokes now, his eyes crinkling, his front teeth showing just slightly behind his pink lips. He asks the correct follow-up questions that make her light up like he’s genuinely fascinated by her stories about marching-band camp. It’s effortless. It’s always effortless with him.
Jisung’s spent weeks in front of the mirror trying to possess a fraction of that charm Chenle seems to just be born with. He’s learned how to tilt his head so the light hits his eyes the way Chenle’s always do. And still, when he tries, it comes out stiff, careful, like someone reading stage directions.
And then he jokes, and Jisung thinks it was something he’d told Chenle first, and it sounds good, of course it does, because everything just seems to taste better off his tongue. She tucks her hair behind her ear, shoulders shaking, her smile wide and delighted.
He hates that he’s jealous of both of them.
But he mostly hates that he suddenly doesn’t know where to put his hands, or his eyes, or himself.
Xinyu eventually turns to him. “You didn’t tell me he was this funny.”
Jisung forces a smile. “He’s… yeah. He’s something.”
Chenle glances at him, just for a second—quick, sharp, assessing. Jisung refuses to meet his eyes.
When Xinyu stands to throw away the empty mango wrapper, Chenle leans back against the piano bench, arms stretched over the edge like he owns the room. The moment her footsteps fade down the hallway, his voice drops.
“You didn’t tell me,” he says quietly.
“Tell you what?” Jisung mutters, though he already knows.
“That you liked her.”
Jisung stiffens. “Why would I need to tell you that?”
“Because I’m your best friend?”
“You’re not,” Jisung tells him. “What kind of best friend does the shit that you do?”
Chenle lets out a breathy laugh, not mean but not nice either. “You really think that I’ve been the one screwing things up for you?”
Jisung thinks his heart is exploding. He thinks a comet’s just crashed into his head and blew it into a million pieces. “Yes, Chenle. People like you always do. Just fucking going around and screwing things up for everyone around them. Not everything’s about you or what you think, you know? It’s pathetic the way you insert yourself into everything that goes on in other people’s lives. Maybe you’d learn how to do it less if you had a life of your own.”
Before Chenle can even react, the door open and Xinyu walks back in, wiping her hands on her skirt. “Did I miss anything?”
“No,” Chenle answers for them. “We were just talking about how much Jisung likes you.”
Xinyu turns crimson. “Wait—what?”
“I—I didn’t—” Jisung stammers. “He’s just—he’s messing around.”
“Come on, Jisungie, you’re going to act all shy like that now after you spent the whole month talking about her?” Chenle stands up and walks over to Xinyu, clapping her shoulder as he leaves. “I’m glad I got to meet you today, Xinyu. I’ve also only heard good things about you.”
And then he’s gone, leaving both Xinyu and Jisung frozen in the room. For a long, suspended second, all Jisung can hear is the echo of the door slamming shut.
Xinyu moves first, shifting her weight from one leg to another.
“Jisung… is that true?” she asks softly, voice careful in the way people speak to frightened animals. “About you liking me?”
He wishes he could lie. He wishes he could laugh it off and make everything go back to normal—whatever normal even means anymore. But he feels like his entire body’s split in half and no matter how much tape he wraps around himself, he no longer feels like they fit together. “Um, yeah.”
Xinyu nods. She doesn’t look thrilled, or flattered, or disgusted. She just looks disappointed. “I liked hanging out with you,” she says gently. “But I don’t think I’m—I’m not really… looking for something right now. I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression.”
Jisung shakes his head quickly. “No, no. It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
But even as he says it, his chest throbs with humiliation and it’s such a foreign sensation, like having a thorn in your finger. Wanting to rip it out but knowing it’ll only start an unstoppable flood.
She excuses herself soon after when the bell rings, but Jisung stays in the room for a little longer.
By the end of the day, he’s decided that he will have nothing to do with the Huangs ever again—Chenle included. And for a long, long time, the last words Jisung ever utters to Chenle will stand like an impenetrable wall between them.
And neither of them will be the first to try.
II
{
Time, mystical time,
Cutting me open then healing me fine,
Were there clues, I didn’t see?
}
Present day
When Jaemin hands the invite to him over lunch on Monday, Jisung’s first instinct is to think that it’s all just a joke.
Except, when he looks up, Jaemin isn’t laughing at all. So Jisung looks back down, his head already spinning with a thousand excuses he could make to not go.
Jaemin and Renjun
would like to invite you to their wedding on the 12th of June.
Surely, there are lots of Renjuns in the world. What are the odds it’s Huang Renjun anyway?
Still, the expensive ivory card feels like exactly the kind of thing Renjun would enjoy. He flips it over twice, trying to find the ‘just kidding’ embossed at the back. No such luck.
“I just… realized I’ve never seen your boyfr—fiance. Do you have a photo? So I don’t embarrass myself congratulating the wrong person at your wedding or something,” Jisung says, the lie rolling smoothly off his tongue.
Jaemin’s one of the sales people upstairs who keeps bugging Jisung about fixing some “software problems” that he doesn’t know how to explain aren’t bugs, simply the way the app works. They’re close, and Jisung likes him, but they’re not close enough that Jisung pries for details about the updates in his life. He’s known Jaemin was getting married for months (he even knows that Jaemin’s fiance had a whole crash out over the different shades of white and the one time Jaemin had to sleep on the couch because he’d dared to suggest they don’t go to Switzerland for their honeymoon) just not to who.
Totally unsuspecting, Jaemin whips his phone out and scrolls through his gallery happily. He’s always enjoyed having a reason to talk about his partner, but—Renjun?
“Here, this was the picture they took of us the day I proposed. Hah! I told him to get rid of the green hair before our trip but he just wouldn’t listen. Now he’s mad at me about letting him have green hair for our proposal pictures.”
Jisung isn’t religious but he whispers a prayer under his breath as he takes the phone from Jaemin’s hands anyway. And then—
He doesn’t notice he’s been staring blankly at the photo for a long time until the screen goes black from inactivity.
Jaemin waves a hand in front of his face, the corners of his mouth turned down with concern. “Hey, you feeling okay? You don’t look too good…”
“No, I, uh.” It’s him. “I’m fine, I just.” Ohmygoditshim. “Wow. Congratulations.”
“I know what it is,” Jaemin laughs, reaching over to punch him in the arm just a pinch too hard. “He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? It’s everyone’s first reaction to seeing his face. They’re always like ‘how’d you manage to pull him?’. Honestly, I don’t know myself, and it still doesn’t seem real, but… but yeah. I’m excited for you guys to meet. Somehow I feel like you’d get along.”
“Does he—how big is this wedding again?”
“Pretty big,” Jaemin admits with a wince as he plucks his phone back from Jisung’s grip. “Not our idea, but his parents insisted.”
Yeah, sounds like the Huangs, Jisung thinks bitterly. He can’t imagine them ever agreeing to marry off their prized eldest son without as much fanfare as a royal wedding might guarantee.
He swallows around the lump in his throat once, then again and again until he thinks his voice won’t crack the next time he speaks.
The image is still burned into his eyes. Jaemin on one knee, beaming up at Renjun—unmistakably the Renjun he knew—who’s sporting a ridiculous head of mint green hair. It’s even more ridiculous that the first thought that pops into his head is that Chenle was right all those years ago—looking at him now, he doesn’t think Renjun was ever in love with Yangyang.
“Congratulations,” he says again, quite uselessly, just because his mouth feels dumb and Jaemin’s looking at him like he’s expecting something.
Jaemin’s smile is so earnest it feels a little cruel. “Thank you. But hey, listen, we’re going to have a small get-together soon and I’d love if you could make it. I was thinking of seating most of you guys around the same age together anyway,” he reasons, like he’s talking about a casual brunch, not detonating a decade-old landmine. “And I’d hate for everyone to be all awkward and stiff during the reception, you know? It’s only, like, 10 or more people we really care about. Renjun’s family, my family, a couple of old friends from college…”
Jisung hears the unspoken part ring out loud in his ears: Chenle will be there. The same Chenle he hasn’t spoken to in a whole decade. Chenle whose last message to him had been unsent before Jisung could even click into the chat.
“Are you sure I belong there?” Jisung interjects before Jaemin can even get to the end of his sentence. He hates interrupting people but he just can’t. He can’t. He rests his fingertips on the invitation and slides it back and forth on the table. “I mean, it sounds like this brunch thing is for, I don’t know, people in your inner circle and I don’t want to feel like I’m intruding or anything. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to attend the wedding, I just, I don’t know.” He winces. I don’t know, I don’t know, Idontknow. “...Yeah.”
“Jisung, we’ve known each other for three years.”
“I know.”
“And I was here on your first day, when you almost died holding in your pee the whole day because you didn’t wanna ask where the toilet was.”
“There needs to be a sign above it or something man,” Jisung exhales. He’d been told 4 different times where the toilet was located. The problem was that its door was made to blend into the surrounding wall and he didn’t know you had to push it open. For the entire day he’d felt like someone was pranking him until Jaemin showed up whistling down the hall and asked him why he was staring blankly at the wall.
“Point is, yeah, we’re colleagues but also, I like talking to you. We’ve been having lunch together every other day for three years.”
“Yes, yeah.”
“So I want you at this brunch if you can make it, okay? No one’s going to make you feel like you shouldn’t be there.”
Jisung looks down at his half-eaten sandwich and nods. He wishes the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. Because Chenle’s going to be there, and if he’s still the same person he once knew, Jisung knows that’s going to be the only thing Chenle will do.
🪡
He spends a long time figuring out what he should wear. He’d searched up the name of the restaurant Jaemin gave him ahead of time just so he could stalk the Google reviews and assess the vibe beforehand.
It’s a pretty fancy place tucked into a quiet alleyway, all warm wood and ivy crawling up the bricks.
Jisung is fifteen minutes early but he hangs out at the bakery next door dilly dallying surveying the salt bread options until it’s 2 minutes to the time he’s supposed to arrive. Then he paces back and forth outside the restaurant before taking in a deep breath and pushing the doors open.
Jaemin spots him before Jisung does, standing up to wave him over enthusiastically. Well. Unless he collapsed to the floor and feigned cardiac arrest, there was no getting out of this now.
So he slowly makes his walk over to the table, trying to avoid scanning the faces seated around it because he really doesn’t wanna know if Chenle is here.
But then Renjun stands up too, and the sight of him is so surreal that it stops Jisung entirely in his tracks. A waiter nearly spills a fizzy purple drink all over his white sweater before he continues walking, trying to let the clinking of utensils scraping against plates drown out the sound of his hammering heart.
“Jisung?” Renjun calls out when he’s standing behind one of the 2 empty seats left.
He offers Renjun an awkward wave. He thinks he attempts smiling—can’t be sure, nothing about his skin feels right now. “Hi, hyung, congratulations.”
Renjun, ever one for theatrics, strides over to him and pulls him into a hug before he can sit down to save himself. At first, he stands still, frozen, as he stares down at Renjun’s pink scalp, peeking through his sea foam hair. He counts to 12 before he wraps an unsure arm around Renjun’s shoulders, too, and he swears he hears Renjun sigh into his sweater.
“You 2 know each other?” Jaemin asks, surprise coloring his face as he takes in the scene before him.
“Sorry, Jaemin hyung,” Jisung says as Renjun detaches himself from his side, only to reach up and pat the hair at the back of Jisung’s neck. “I didn’t know how to tell you and—it’s been a long time.”
“We were neighbors,” Renjun explains as he makes his way back to the seat next to his fiance. “I literally watched that kid grow up, you know.”
It’s strange. Everything is strange. Jisung sits down, too, but he feels like this is all part of a weird dream he’s bound to wake up from. Still, he guesses it’s a relief that Chenle isn’t any of the faces at the table.
There’s 6 of them discounting the 2 grooms-to-be and none of them Jisung recognizes at all, so that’s good. It’s fine. They’re all peering at him like they’re watching some kind of zoo animal and it slathers humiliation all over the back of his neck.
He gets made to introduce himself and he chooses to make a poor attempt at joking about being Jaemin’s IT slave guy in the office (there were some small smatterings of unsure laughter) before he sinks lower in his chair and prays no one singles him out again.
They’re another 10 minutes into brunch when he sees Renjun stand up again from across him, waving, and Jisung gets a really. Horrible. Sinking. Feeling. In his stomach, all the way down to his toes which have begun to feel cramped in their confines.
“Lele! You made it!” Renjun calls out, and then, with a nervous flit of his eyes to Jisung, he adds: “Look who showed up.”
The chair beside him gets pulled back and a man drops himself into it with a sigh. “Hi, ge. Jaemin hyung,” he greets, then looks around the table exchanging polite how-do-you-dos before he finally reaches Jisung.
And the moment their eyes meet, it’s like the whole room shrinks into the size of a shoebox.
“Oh,” Chenle ends up saying, soft and flat. He brushes his grape-colored hair out of his eyes and his mouth flattens into a thin line for a second. “Hi.”
Jisung is too caught up in the fact that Chenle looks so different to remember the basic rules of communication—that when someone greets you, you greet them back.
A cousin named Yizhuo has to clear her throat before Jisung comes back to his senses. “Chenle, hey. It’s been… a while.”
Chenle offers him a polite curve of his lips, but it stays for barely a second before he’s turning around to ask Renjun about the menu. Just like that, the moment Jisung had been dreading for a week ends, and it hits him in the face that all along, he might’ve made a mountain out of a molehill and he was never that important at all.
All around him, the conversations began to stitch themselves up—talk about venue flower arrangements, Jaemin gushing about a custom cake topper, Yizhuo teasing him for planning a wedding like it’s a military operation (“do you miss being in the navy that much, Jaemin?”). The whole time, Jisung leans back as far as his chair will go, hoping he finds an opportunity to excuse himself soon.
Unfortunately, the topic of conversation has shifted to everyone’s first impression of Jaemin/Renjun and Jisung realizes very belatedly that he’s the only one who hasn’t spoken when the rest fall into a stilted silence, staring at him.
He clears his throat, straightens his spine and slides the tines of his fork against the edge of his plate to get the rest of his waffles off. “Well, Jaemin hyung and I work at the same company and he showed me around on my first day. He was also the one to show me where the toilets were hidden, so he kind of saved my life.”
There’s a weak burst of laughter around the table, kind, but it still feels a little like charity to Jisung’s ears.
Renjun leans forward, elbows on the table, his chin on the back of his interlaced fingers. “And what about me, Jisungie? What was your first impression of me?”
At this table, there is probably only one other person who knows of Jisung’s embarrassing childhood crush on Renjun. And maybe it’s slipped Renjun’s mind, or maybe it was so inconsequential and stupid that he didn’t think Jisung would still care to some degree, but the question puts him on the spot and he feels his fingers reaching out to curl around the fork again, just to have something to hold. “That’s—well, I always thought you were really kind, Renjun hyung.”
“And your opinion of him still holds up? After all those years?” Chenle suddenly asks, chewing obnoxiously next to him with his eyes on his phone. Jisung tries not to snoop but he thinks Chenle’s replying to an email.
Renjun is still looking at him expectantly when he lifts his gaze. “Yeah, I mean, I haven’t seen you in a long time, but I’m sure that’s one thing that will never change about you.”
Everyone bursts into a chorus of awes but they move onto something else relatively quickly and, well, Jisung is just relieved no one thought to ask him for his first impression of Renjun’s younger brother.
When the time comes for them to leave, Chenle insists on picking up the bill. He doesn’t come back to say goodbye.
🪡
“I still can’t believe you used to know Renjun, like—that’s kind of crazy.”
Jaemin is sitting on the edge of Jisung’s standing desk now, and he’s got half a mind to press the up button on the control panel to eject the guy from his working space. Ever since the brunch Jaemin has been acting like they’re lifelong best friends and Jisung doesn’t know how to feel about it. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a small world.”
Jaemin swings his legs like a kid at a playground. Jisung wonders how much effort it would take to discreetly alert a team lead to the situation at his desk to reestablish peace and give him space to do actual work again. “It’s more than that, no? You’ve literally known my Junie longer than I have. That literally makes you my brother-in-law. Kind of.”
“I think that’s Chenle, not me.”
“I know, that’s why I said kind of. Besides, Chenle’s never really around. You feel even more familiar to me than he does.”
“Chenle?”
Jaemin gives him a weird look. Right before he uses the toe of his shoe to kick off the other as he holds his sock up to his face, inspecting it. “I feel like there’s a rock in here somewhere… But, I mean, yeah. Chenle. I think I’ve met him, like, 4 times tops in all the years I’ve dated Renjun. And all 4 times was when he came back to visit for Chinese New Year.”
Chenle? The same Chenle who wouldn’t stop trailing Renjun around everywhere? He looks at his screen, where there’s some guy from Taiwan screaming at him in the ticket about their third party platform going down (absolutely nothing Jisung can do about it) and parks it aside. He locks his PC, then he pushes himself back from his desk to give a very delighted-looking Jaemin his undivided attention. “Are you trying to fish for intel about your future in-laws from me, hyung?”
“Don’t put it that way!” Jaemin exclaims, waving a hand in the air so wildly that Jisung instinctively pulls his tea mug out of the splash zone. “It’s not like I’m—God, Jisung, seriously. Intel. Future in-laws. You make it sound like I’m plotting a coup.”
“You kind of are,” Jisung mutters. “In my workspace.”
Jaemin ignores that. “Anyway,” he continues, dramatically clearing his throat as if resetting the conversation to a respectable place, “I’m telling you because this is—listen, this is actually a big deal. Chenle’s coming back.”
Jisung waits for a few more seconds. He’s kind of lost on why this information is being dropped on him like it’s meant to elicit a bigger reaction. “I mean, didn’t we just see him the other day at brunch?”
“I mean, he’s coming back-coming back permanently.” Jaemin tilts his head when he realizes Jisung is offering him yet another blank stare. “Did you not know? Chenle’s some bigshot curator in China. He hasn’t lived here in years.”
“Curating… what exactly?”
“Art pieces. He stares at blank canvases for a few minutes then decides he knows how much they’re worth and who can benefit from laundering money through them.”
“What, really?”
“No, Jisung. I don’t know what art curators do, just that they pay him ridiculous bucks to do what he does.” Jaemin sighs wistfully. “But he recently got offered a semi-senior position here for Leeum’s expansion, so he’s moving back for a bit. Happens to coincide with the wedding date—I’m not even sure if he would’ve attended if not for the job.”
He would’ve, he’s not that kind of person, Jisung starts to say, but manages to shut himself up in time before something stupid slips out. “Sounds more interesting than our jobs anyway.”
“Yeah, but that’s not the point. Thing is, he’s looking for an apartment and Renjun volunteered me to do it because he claims it’ll be a good chance for me to get to know him.”
“...Okay?”
“And then I volunteered you instead.”
Jisung stops half-listening and shoots up straight, the chair wheels screeching against the office floor. “You did what?”
“Jisung, hey, listen. I’m not going to force you to do it if you don’t want to but like, these next few months are going to be really tough for me and Renjun. There’s so much to be done and so little time and I’d love to be the one to help Chenle, but I’m already being stretched thin as is. And then I thought—Jisung might be able to help. After all, Renjun told me you guys were inseparable when you were kids.”
“Hyung—”
“And I’m just saying I’ve already checked and Chenle is still single, okay?”
“No.”
“He’s rich. He’s rich and Renjun also not-so-subtly divulged that the benefits that come with his job are great.”
“Hyung, no,” says Jisung resolutely, the edge of his voice sharpened to a point that he hopes Jaemin can feel. He feels like he’s about to lose his mind. Why is Renjun of all people trying to set them up through such infantile means? He of all people should know and remember how horrible it was when Jisung and Chenle fell out. It was months of icy silence and deliberate timing on Jisung’s part to monitor when Chenle left the house just so they wouldn’t run into each other on the way to school.
At least Jaemin still seems like he’s being left in the dark about the details of their non-relationship because he’s still fixing Jisung with his wild, hopeful eyes. “Why not, Jisung?”
“Because,” he exhales, pushing his hair back from his forehead, “I’m busy.”
“With what?”
“Work. Life. Many other responsibilities.” He gestures to his table and his laptop, where there are probably tickets piling up the longer this conversation lasts.
“Okay,” Jaemin says sweetly, “so tell me more about this rich and fulfilling life you lead.”
Jisung very nearly tears his keyboard off and bashes himself in the head with it. He grips the edge of his desk to hold himself back.
Jaemin’s palm lands between Jisung’s shoulder blades with the gentle insistence of a man who has never once accepted no as a final verdict. “Come on Jisung, you’ve spent a ridiculous portion of your life eating convenience store meals alone until I decided to grace you with my company during lunch. And I know you have most of your dinners alone at home, too.”
“And what’s wrong with that? I enjoy solitude,” Jisung mumbles under his breath, dragging himself back to his laptop and unlocking the screen. The inbox icon on the sidebar has turned red, the bubble next to it showing ‘28’.
“Nothing,” Jaemin immediately answers, “but what’s wrong with not being alone?”
“I doubt Chenle would want to see me for a few weekends consecutively, hyung. We don’t have the kind of relationship you assume we do.”
“Quite the opposite, actually. We’d already taken the liberty of asking and he said he’s fine with it. I think he’s just tired of being scammed on Zigbang.”
The ticket number climbs to twenty-nine and Jisung looks at it, unblinking until the number turns blurry. “He said that?”
“Yeah, I was there. And Renjun can vouch.”
Jisung takes in his bottom lip between his teeth and bites down so hard an old wound reopens and fills his mouth with the taste of iron.
Slowly, Jisung forces his thoughts into order, one brittle piece at a time. Chenle agreeing to this doesn’t erase the last 2 decades or rewrite all the nights Jisung spent cursing his name to sleep. He’s probably just saying yes out of convenience anyway, because Jisung is his best and most efficient way to secure housing without the risk of being swindled. And Jisung still doesn’t think he wants to have anything to do with Chenle, but if he says no at this point, it’s just going to look like he’s the one who’s still hung up over something that happened ages ago. And what will Chenle think then? And—why does it even matter what Chenle thinks?
Finally, he nods, and Jaemin immediately gets on his phone with a whoop.
Seconds later, he has his desk to himself again, and he has to pretend he doesn’t see the new notification on his screen that has a contact number attached to it.
🪡
Chenle is harder to reach than he’d initially thought. It takes more than a day for Jisung to get a reply and even then, with the fork clenched between his teeth as he hurriedly opens the chat to check what Chenle had said, all he sees on the screen is a simple: ‘OK, see you’.
He stares blankly at the message for longer than the three words deserves.
Jisung sets the fork down on the table, his noodles soaking up the broth in the plastic cup as he hovers his fingers over the message he’s trying to type. He makes it to the 6th version of ‘I’ll text you when I’m there’ before he gives up and deletes everything.
🪡
Saturday morning arrives too quickly.
They’d both agreed to just show up at the first place separately, except Jisung should’ve expected Chenle would be late. He sits across the property agent in the lobby nervously, feeling like a fish out of water. No, he feels more like he’s way out of his depths and the pressure is crushing him alive.
The agent looks even better dressed than him, which is probably expected considering the nature of his job but it’s somehow still deeply embarrassing. Plus, every look he casts towards the entrance, as unfazed and expressionless as he remains, just makes Jisung want to sink deeper into the couch and rot there.
His eyes dart to his phone screen for the nth time—still nothing. Jisung smooths his palms against his slacks, the fabric catching slightly on his calloused fingertips.
“And he will be arriving soon?” the agent asks, and Jisung flashes him an apologetic smile.
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry for the wait.”
As if summoned by Jisung’s mortification, the doors open with a gentle hiss and Chenle saunters into the lobby without a single ounce of urgency in his steps. His hands are tucked deep into the pockets of his grey hoodie and a huge pair of sunglasses cover nearly half his face.
The agent doesn’t make it obvious but Jisung is sure he’s very unimpressed with Chenle.
“Morning,” he greets in lieu of an apology. “Should we head up now?”
“Yes,” the agent replies curtly. “You can follow me.”
Jisung and Chenle fall into a pace a few steps behind the agent as they are led toward the elevators.
“You dressed up today,” Chenle observes with an amused smile.
“No I didn’t,” Jisung shoots back quickly. “This is normal for me.”
Chenle hums, the sound a clear indication that he doesn’t believe Jisung in the slightest. His face warms and he makes a futile attempt to straighten his posture and reclaim some of his dignity.
The elevator ride is mercifully short even as they make a few stops to other floors. For the entire duration of the ride, Chenle leans against the mirrored walls with his sunglasses pushed up into his hair, studying Jisung unabashedly. He never makes a move to say anything, though, and Jisung just ends up letting his gaze fall to the floor hoping something puts him out of his misery soon.
The doors slide open and the agent leads them out into a hallway where Jisung can count only 6 doors on the floor. Chenle hums as he looks around appreciatively, but all Jisung can think about is how expensive it will be to rent this place.
As soon as they enter, they are greeted with a view of the Han river that almost looks photoshopped onto the windows. Jisung’s half-tempted to reach out and test the theory, but he also doesn’t want to leave fingerprints on the pristine glass so he sticks his hands in his pockets and dutifully follows Chenle around. The agent launches into his practiced monologue about the triple-layered glass, the built-in smart home system, the 24-hour security and concierge but the words all wash over Jisung like white noise.
Chenle seems to have zoned out, too, because halfway through the explanation about the private elevators, he wanders off from the group and trails one hand along the kitchen island as if testing its temperature.
“There’s too much grey,” he declares to no one in particular, interrupting the agent mid-sentence. “Honestly, it’s making me depressed and I’m not even staying here yet.”
“It’s a very popular neutral palette among our international clients.”
Chenle turns, eyebrow arched. “I’m international. I hate it.”
Jisung snorts before he can stop himself. Chenle’s eyes flick to him, something quick and pleased flashing across his face, gone just as fast.
They move through the rooms in a strained choreography with the agent in front, Jisung hovering awkwardly in the middle, Chenle drifting behind like a restless ghost. Every time Jisung thinks the silence might swallow them whole, Chenle breaks it with a new verdict. “The tiles in the bathrooms are too dark. How am I supposed to know if they’re clean?” “The bedroom faces the west? I’m going to be melting first thing in the morning.” “How cute, the walk-in closet is almost big enough to do what it’s supposed to.” And finally, as they leave the guest bedroom—
“Why is there a mirror on the ceiling? Is this a love hotel?”
The agent’s composure is starting to visibly fray and as much as Jisung is regretting his decision to babysit Chenle, he must admit it’s at least entertaining.
By the time they’ve reached the terrace, the agent has excused himself to take a call in the hallway (Jisung suspects he’s just saving himself from being drilled by Chenle’s endless interrogation) and Chenle looks like he’s all loosened up. He’s got 2 arms thrown over the railings and Jisung watches him from the back, leaning against the wall.
“Thanks for coming,” Chenle tells him, finally breaking the silence. “I didn’t think you’d actually agree to it.”
“Is that why you said yes?”
“Well. Kinda,” Chenle says with a shrug. Then he looks over his shoulder with a small smile. “I figured I might be able to do this without help anyway. I expected they’d be too busy to host me, really.”
It may be a little belated, but it comes to Jisung as a startling realization that this is the most they’ve talked in a decade.
When Jisung looks at him now, he wonders if all the resentment he harbored toward Chenle had been worth it at all, especially when he thinks about how… surprisingly tolerable today has been.
Chenle’s looking down at the river again, absentmindedly running his knuckles along the metal.
“I don’t know if Jaemin hyung’s told you, but time is all I seem to have in abundance,” he says, attempting to crack a joke but it just comes out flat and pathetic.
He sees the corner of Chenle’s lips curl just slightly before his face loses any hint of amusement again. As they lapse into silence, a gust of wind sweeps across the terrace, tugging lightly at Chenle’s hair and flattening Jisung’s shirt to his ribs. A bird lands on the railings near Chenle, then immediately flies off when Chenle cocks his head at it curiously, offended by something only birds understand.
They both watch it leave. “I don’t think I’m taking this one.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Amazing input, you should consider being a consultant yourself.”
Jisung shrugs as he pushes himself off the wall, rolling his shoulders. “I don’t think it takes a professional to realize that having a mirrored ceiling in your bedroom would be weird.”
“That was… definitely a choice,” Chenle says, grimacing. “A bad one, but it was probably also intentional.”
“People live weirdly,” Jisung offers.
Chenle hums non-committedly. He also withdraws himself from the railings with a sigh as he turns around. “So tell me Jisung, are the other places you found for me just as bad or am I just going to have to settle for what I hate least?”
The rest of the showings Jisung arranged for the day also turned out to be landmines. By the time it’s half past seven, Chenle starts stealing glances at the clock way too often for Jisung to not notice.
They hang at the entrance to the apartment building for a little too long after exchanging goodbyes and telling the agent they’ll be in contact (they won’t), and eventually, Chenle seems to bite the bullet and ask, “Are you free now? We could grab dinner together if you want. Maybe I’ll find that you have better taste in restaurants than you do in apartments.”
Jisung doesn’t know why his immediate reaction was to turn Chenle down. He also doesn’t know why, 2 blocks later, he turns back and breaks into a sprint toward the apartment. What he doesn’t understand above all, is why he thought Chenle would still be there, waiting for him to come back.
🪡
“So… how goes the house hunting.”
“For someone who works in sales, you seem to have a lot of free time at work, hyung.”
This time, Jaemin ambushes him while he’s making his morning coffee in the pantry. He doesn’t enjoy pumping himself full with bitter poison so early in the morning but he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the previous night. Desperate times, desperate measures.
Plus, the machine at their company dispenses unusually sour coffee regardless of how much milk (whatever the kind) Jisung adds to it and last month, Kun emptied it for cleaning and found 2 dead cockroaches so these are all the markers of really trying times.
He tries his best to manoeuvre around the roadblock that is Jaemin as he rummages through the cabinets looking for spare packets of brown sugar. He would use the kind they keep filled to the brim in the glass jars, but he never gets the proportion right and his coffee either ends up being too sweet or not sweet enough to mask the fermented taste. You’d think having the spoon there would help, but apparently even having a tool as a standard measuring unit means nothing to him. Jisung chooses to blame the machine.
He reaches deep into the top shelf and is triumphant to locate 2 age-old brown packets. Does sugar have expiry dates? He’s tempted to google it but maybe not while Jaemin’s breathing down his neck.
“I’m not free, Jisung, which is why you should know this is really serious business for me. Ah-ah, Jisung, not letting you go until you tell me everything.”
Jisung levels Jaemin with an unimpressed stare and hopes it’s enough to deter him from pursuing an ad hoc interrogation in the pantry where there are people constantly coming in and out—it isn’t.
“It went well, hyung. I’m not sure what else you want to hear from me. Plus, you could always ask Chenle yourself. Or better yet, just ask your fiance to ask his brother for you.”
“But what if he thinks I’m being overbearing?”
Jisung tears open the first packet and tips it into his mug, relieved that whatever comes out resembles the normal stuff he keeps at home. “Who, Renjun hyung?”
“No, Chenle.”
“Do you care that deeply about what he thinks of you?” Jisung gives his mug a swirl, rolling his wrist, before he holds it to his mouth.
“I mean, he’s going to be family, so yeah.”
“So why’d you ask me to do something so important in your stead?”
“Because, Jisung,” Jaemin says, drumming his fingers against the marble of the island. “While I care about what he thinks, Chenle also scares the shit out of me.”
Jisung inhales deeply, trying to figure out the best way to break the news. He stares into the deep void of his black coffee, cockroach essence and all, and imagines it to be a black hole beckoning him in. “Well, it was fine,” he says slowly, bracing himself. “Then he asked me to grab dinner with him.”
“...And?”
Jisung clears his throat before taking a sip, the regret manifesting on his face instantly. “And then I said no,” he says as he sets it down on the counter to tear open the 2nd packet.
Chenle had texted him at eleven in the night on the same day, and Jisung had to pace back and forth 10 times to calm himself down and prepare for the endless possibilities it could be, only to discover it was Chenle asking him to reschedule all their showings on Sunday because ‘something came up’.
He considered asking exactly what it was but ended up responding with a simple ‘OK’. He doesn’t reschedule any of them—just straight cancels because he’s really just a terrible person who deserves the death penalty and can’t do anything right.
“But why would you do that?!” Jaemin demands, and there’s a crazy look in his eyes.
“I don’t know!” Jisung hisses, lowering his voice when someone from HR drifts in to wash a mug. “I panicked. He caught me off guard and I already had plans for dinner!”
“Plans,” Jaemin echoes flatly with a tone that betrays the fact he did not believe Jisung whatsoever. “What plans? And no, your pre-stocked sad cabinet of instant war food doesn’t count.” Jisung was going to say something but he aborts it. “But how do you just panic at the thought of eating dinner with someone you’ve known since childhood?”
Jisung stares at him. “Do you want the full story or do you want to keep judging me?”
“Both,” Jaemin answers, devoid of any real shame.
Jisung gestures wildly midair, frustrated. “I already told you that we weren’t as close as you think. But then, as I was making my way home, I—” he winces, “—I thought that it wasn’t a very nice thing to do considering I’d already promised you I was going to do this properly so I… might’ve run back.”
“Might’ve?”
“I did.”
“What kind of run?”
“What?”
“Was it a brisk jog or a run-run.”
“Why the hell does it matter?” When Jaemin doesn’t relent, Jisung sets his mug down with more force than necessary and rolls his eyes. “It was a normal run.”
“Oh, you definitely booked it.”
“Okay, that’s enough. I have work to get back to now,” Jisung says, attempting to weasel his way past Jaemin.
“Jisung,” Jaemin whines, and it’s so breathy Jisung has to throw a nervous look over his shoulder to make sure there isn’t anyone around to misunderstand. “You promised me that you were going to try with him.”
His nose wrinkles as racks his brain going through past conversations to evaluate the truth of that claim. “I said I was going to help him find a decent place to stay. I have never once said—and you have never clarified—that included keeping him company during dinner. There’s a name for that kind of service if that’s what you’re looking for for him.”
“I don’t think he’s the sugar daddy type, honestly,” Jaemin says, shrugging.
“Hyung, who cares!” An edge creeps into his voice as he cradles the mug in his hands. “It was just dinner. A meal. People eat those alone all the time. I eat alone all the time. It’s not—” His words tangle on his tongue. “It’s not a big deal and he’s old enough to get that.”
Jaemin looks like he has more to say, but in the end he just drops the topic with a waning smile and rests a hand on Jisung’s shoulder. “Okay, Jisung. Sorry for stressing you out. I appreciate your help anyway.”
Then Jisung gets what he wants, and Jaemin finally leaves him alone. When Jisung insists on taking his lunch in solitary at the pantry a few hours later to prove a point, Jaemin doesn’t fight him on it and somehow it makes everything worse.
🪡
It takes another three showings before they come across The One.
The apartment is smaller than the other places they’ve been to, and it was only something Jisung reached out to the agent to see because he was at his wit’s end with the endless torture of his weekends being wasted away on someone who seems to have nothing but complaints. He’d thought this would be a sure ‘no’, too, but from the moment they walked in, Chenle had been uncharacteristically quiet, putting his contentious nature in the backseat for the entirety of the tour.
There was no agent, just the landlady herself who explained her daughter had bought the house for her to stay in after her retirement, but she was so attached to her old home where they’d stayed since they arrived in Seoul that the move never happened. After it stayed uninhabited for a little over a year, they decided it was time to rent it out.
She pads through the rooms in house slippers, proudly pointing out all the nice little details: “When my Yujin bought the place, she really loved how big the window is in the living room. I grow plants you see, and she knew I would like it if there was a lot of natural light in the place”, “The balcony gets a lot of sun in the afternoon. I’m not sure if you youngsters will care about this kind of thing but it makes drying clothes much faster”.
Chenle doesn’t once mention that he doesn’t particularly care for plants or that he’s rich enough to send all his cleaning to the laundromat, and Jisung finds himself relaxing over time.
They end up in the second bedroom last, with Chenle running his fingers along the wood of the window frame for so long that the landlady drifts back into the kitchen to give them some space.
She seems to be under the impression that the 2 of them were newlyweds searching for a home, and while it deeply embarrasses Jisung to think so, neither of them makes a move to acknowledge the assumption and correct her.
Jisung lingers in the doorway, watching Chenle zone out in the soft, diffused light like a contented cat in the sun.
“I think I like this place a lot,” Chenle finally says. He turns to look at Jisung, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I might just end up taking it.”
“It’s small,” Jisung notes.
“I live alone, I don’t need that big of a place anyway,” Chenle reasons.
“Don’t you need space to do your… art thingies?”
“Art thingies?” Chenle laughs, stepping around Jisung to walk to the other side of the queen-sized bed frame. He crouches by the side drawer and pulls it out, testing. “I like that it’s quiet here.”
Jisung wants to say something just for the sake of saying something. But his brain fails him and he doesn’t come up with the words so he just stays quiet in observing Chenle as he flits around the room, fussing like it’s already his.
Finally, he stands up, hands on his waist. “Let’s do it.”
There is a lot of paperwork to go through that can’t be completed on the same day, but it’s basically a done deal by late evening. After a final round of verbal communication, they’re getting ready to leave by the door when she suddenly chuckles and says, “You 2 seem really close.”
Jisung thinks that the confusion must really show in his face, because she just rests a hand on his forearm gently and tells him, “It’s okay. I remember when me and my husband were trying not to be affectionate in public, too. But somehow people could always just tell.”
“No,” Jisung sputters, heat rising to his face immediately, “we’re really not…”
“Oh! Please excuse me, then,” she apologizes quickly, mortified, waving a hand in the air like she’s trying to swat away the last 10 seconds. “I just thought—”
“It’s alright, you’re not wrong. He’s just shy,” Chenle interrupts, and Jisung’s head whips to him so quickly he almost gives himself whiplash. All of a sudden, Chenle’s pressed himself closer and he’s looped an arm around his. The warmth emanating off his body seems to wrap around Jisung like a constrictor and he seizes up instinctively. He even ceases breathing, because even that feels too laborious on his body now with Chenle stuck up right to his side.
Jisung’s face is fully on fire now. He can feel the heat crawling down his neck, pooling under his collar and spreading further down across the expanse of his chest. It seems to work in Chenle’s favor, though, because it sells his story even more.
The landlady recovers with grandmotherly grace, patting Jisung’s arm one last time. “Young people these days. Always so shy.” She winks at Chenle. “Take good care of each other, hm?”
Chenle bows slightly, the picture of politeness. “We will.” We.
It hangs in the air long after they step out the apartment together, the heavy wooden door closing behind them.
Jisung counts to himself the whole time, attempting to soothe his nerves, and they make it all the way down to the ground floor of the building before Chenle lets go.
“What the hell was that?”
Chenle shrugs. “I don’t know, some landlords are nicer if they know you’re starting a family.”
“What landlords have you been talking to? Families are difficult to handle and babies freak me out.”
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have one with you even if my life depended on it,” Chenle dismisses. He sticks his hands in his pockets and stares off into the distance. “Anyway, I guess that’s it… thanks for helping me out these few days. I will see you at the wedding?”
Jisung swallows, his hands balling into fists. Somehow, the part of his arm that Chenle had held onto still burns. It’s almost like he’d touched a hot curling iron and the pain was finally starting to set in after the initial shock had worn off. “Yeah, see you,” he responds, voice small.
He sees Chenle opening an app to grab a car, and right before he clicks on the button to book the ride, Jisung blurts out, “Do you want to have dinner together? It’s my treat.”
Chenle’s finger freezes, hovering over the screen. “You don’t have anything to do tonight?”
Jisung shakes his head. Then, somehow deciding that isn’t enough, he adds: “No, I… I’m free tonight. Are you?”
🪡
Times like this, Jisung really does regret not going out more often to explore the city.
Of course Chenle would expect him to pick a place. Jisung has half a mind to suggest showing him around his favorite aisle in the convenience store (where the instant foods are) and bringing him home to have dinner on his sad coffee table with the water stains. But he can’t, because the thought of allowing Chenle to see that side of him immensely embarrasses him already—so much so that he can’t fathom how demeaning the actual thing would be.
“Give me a second,” Jisung says, already pulling his phone out like it might save him from his own incompetence.
Chenle hums casually, drifting a few steps ahead, stopping beneath a streetlamp that casts him in an amber glow. He looks annoyingly at ease, like this is just another evening he’s decided to occupy. Jisung, meanwhile, scrolls with increasing desperation, his search history rapidly devolving into things like good restaurants near me and not too expensive but tasty.
“Do you need help?” Chenle asks without looking back.
“No, I’m fine, I’m just—looking up the location,” Jisung lies, thumb slipping and opening a review page he absolutely did not mean to tap on. The pictures load slowly, each one a fresh humiliation—minimalist plating, dim lighting, portions for insects, e.t.c..
“We don’t have to go far,” Chenle tells him. “I was thinking of going somewhere close, so I can see what there is around the neighborhood.”
Oh. “Oh.” Jisung’s fingers are still trembling as he slips his phone into his back pocket. He wipes his palms on the fabric as he does. “Yeah, I guess we could do that, yeah.”
They pick a random direction that feels like it has more foot traffic and commit to it silently. The whole time, Jisung is carefully maintaining a safe distance between them so their shoulders don’t touch. The sidewalk is narrow, uneven, and crowded with discarded flyers and cigarette butts.
Eventually, they stumble across an unassuming kalguksu restaurant that looks good enough. The signboard outside has a hand drawn bowl of noodles on it that looks sunfaded from the years of usage and warm light spills out from the fogged up windows.
Chenle slows, peering in. “This one?”
Jisung leans forward to look past him, cautious not to brush against his back. Inside, there are maybe 6 tables occupied, the low hum of conversation blending with the rhythmic clatter of chopsticks against metal bowls. “Yeah, it smells good.”
They walk in and drop into a table by the window and Chenle immediately starts inspecting the laminated menu closely. There’s only one and they could share, but that would require Jisung leaning in closer than he thinks he can stand, so he tells Chenle to go ahead and pretends to be interested in the yellowed calendars from past years lining the walls. He also finds a framed photo of the owner with a much younger Kim Yonja, which takes him back a little.
Eventually they both get a bowl of kalguksu each and a kimchi pancake for sharing, and without a menu occupying their hands, an odd stillness settles between them.
Jisung wraps his fingers around his metal cup of water and lets the coldness seep into his fingers. He watches the condensation bead at the lip of the cup and traces it with his thumb. He shakes his leg while waiting for food. He does everything but look Chenle in the eye.
But Chenle’s never been known for being good with silence so Jisung expects it to end eventually, anyway. And he’s right. After 2 minutes maybe, he asks, “So, how’s life?”
Of all the filler questions in the world, this is probably the worst one he could’ve asked Jisung. Because besides work, there really isn’t much to say. So he looks up, shrugs, and rests his eyes on the photo hung up behind Chenle’s head. “Life’s fine. Mostly I just keep busy with work,” he answers honestly.
“And your parents?”
“I visit as often as I can.” And then, with a press of his lips together, Jisung grips his knees under the table and returns the question because he can also bully himself into conversing like normal people: “What about you? I heard your job’s pretty demanding.”
“Yeah, that’s the best way to put it I guess.”
“And you like it?”
“Can’t imagine what life would be like if I weren’t busy with something all the time.” Chenle stifles a yawn. “But it’s fine, I get to travel a lot so it never gets repetitive.”
“What is it like, though? Do you just work for a museum long-term or…”
“It really depends,” Chenle tells him, his fingers fiddling with the red plastic sauce trays on the table. “In the beginning of my career it was really just shadowing my seniors and picking up whatever work was leftover. It’s a lot of researching, interpreting, talking to people, adding context to pieces. And during this time you’re usually just like any other salaried employee since you’re contracted by the museum full-time. But as you go on or start freelancing it depends on the exhibitions. Some pay by project and others give you a cut from the sales they make.” His fingers still and he looks up, and the sudden locking of their eyes makes Jisung shift uncomfortably in his seat. “What about you? What’s your job like?”
“Not nearly as fun for sure,” Jisung says, a nervous laugh bubbling up his throat. He interlaces his fingers below the table and pulls at them. “Mostly it’s just responding to problems as they come along.”
“Sounds stressful.”
“Not really—you have no idea how many of those problems can be fixed by a simple rebooting or an update.”
Silence envelopes them again and this time he can tell it unnerves Chenle, too. It’s like there’s an invisible third person sitting with them coaxing them to keep the conversation alive just so they don’t have to think about all the things they’ve telepathically agreed not to dredge up anymore.
“And do you still build or collect those space models you used to?”
“Not as often as I’d like,” he bashfully admits. His energy depletes way faster than it used to when he was younger, and he still keeps everything he’s ever built on display shelves that he routinely cleans, but rarely does he get the urge to mobilize himself the way he once did, knees tucked up against his chest, surrounded by loose bits and pieces and instruction manuals with glossy pages that he’s run his fingers over countless times. These days, all the new sets he purchases on impulse during big sales still sit dormant in their boxes in the corner of his apartment. “And what about you? Do you still play basketball?”
It’s a joke, going back and forth the way that they are now. Jisung still recalls whole days that they used to spend together, never running out of things to say. Now they’re sitting across from each other desperately clutching at straws asking about hobbies and work in stilted, awkward sentences just to elude the punishment of sitting in dead silence together.
“Yeah, if I can find the time or people for it. Since I move around a lot it’s hard to have people I can just call out for a game. But these days I’ve started cooking again, as a hobby.”
“Cooking?”
“Do you know how many of the lunches Renjun ge shared with you were made by me?” Chenle asks, lifting an eyebrow. “I always figured you were clueless but I didn’t think you were this clueless.”
“Oh,” he says again. It’s becoming a problem.
Chenle watches him carefully now, chin resting on his knuckles. “You really didn’t know?”
“No,” Jisung answers, too quickly. Then, more honestly, “I thought… I don’t know. I thought Renjun just liked feeding people.”
“He does,” Chenle says. “But he also can’t boil rice without turning it into paste.”
Something tight pulls in Jisung’s chest, small but insistent. He had always assumed the extra banchan or portions of sweet and sour pork were a product of Mrs. Huang’s quiet affection. Never once did he consider the boy who used to wake up at five am to fight Renjun for the bathroom might have been the one measuring out sesame oil with careful hands first thing in the morning.
Just then, Chenle rolls his sleeves up deliberately, revealing smatterings of scars marring the skin on his arms, all the way up to his biceps. There are also small square patches of bandaids applied on some spots, which Jisung assumes are where the newer ones are. He looks up to meet Chenle’s eyes, horrified, but finds that Chenle has his chest all puffed up, pride pulling the corners of his mouth upward.
“I stopped cooking for a year or so when I first moved overseas. It always seemed more convenient to eat out or order something in.”
“What changed?”
Chenle breaks eye contact to finger the patch on the underside of his wrist with a whole lot of softness in his gaze. “I started dating this girl when I was living in Australia… I was 25 then and already working but she was still in her final year of college. She didn’t have a lot of time to take care of herself or even have time for me, so I started cooking all her favorite meals just to have an excuse to see her between her classes.” He smiles to himself like he’s recalling a fond memory and Jisung doesn’t know why his stomach clenches. “She was a pretty picky eater too, so in a way that helped me pick up cooking a lot faster. And her company made it a lot more enjoyable.”
The restaurant noise seems to fade into a distant hum when Jisung hears how tenderly Chenle had said “she”, like the memory still tasted sweet on his tongue.
He can’t believe there’s so much to Chenle that he never knew. Not just the things that’d fallen through the cracks in the time they stopped talking, but even before all that, in the years where Jisung naively believed he knew all there was to know about Chenle, and that all those things ultimately summed up to him being, very simply put, a horrible friend.
The food arrives then, steam curling up into the air. Chenle reaches for the pair of scissors in the cup filled with utensils in the middle of the table and wipes it down with a new piece of tissue. Then he gets to work cutting the pancake into 6 ridiculously equal pieces. If the art curator thing doesn’t work out or if Chenle tires of it, Jisung feels like he’d be great working at preschools.
“What happened then? I mean, I’m assuming you guys aren’t…” His sentence trails off but Chenle understands what he’s getting at.
Chenle passes Jisung a pair of chopsticks before getting his own. “We broke up after a year,” he admits. “She got into a grad program in London and we tried to do long distance for a while but I learned the hard way that that isn’t for me. But I kept cooking because it kept my hands busy and my mind occupied and it’s a great way to eat healthier. Plus, I enjoy it. The measuring, the timing, the way you can fix things if they go awry the first time…”
The aunty manning the store chooses the exact moment to refill their waters. She pats Chenle on the shoulder twice in a motherly manner, telling him to eat up because he’s way too skinny.
Chenle laughs, thanks her, and the moment is broken.
They eat the rest of the meal in a gentle quiet. Jisung chews slowly, distracted, rehearsing sentences he never quite allows to leave his mouth. He wants to tell Chenle that the girl must have been very loved, that care like that doesn’t happen by accident. He wants to say that once, long before Australia, before distance, he, too, had once been lucky enough to be on the receiving side of that care but too stupid to realize it.
He thinks all of this and says none of it.
Instead, when they stand to leave and the night air rushes in to cool the warmth clinging to his skin, Jisung hears himself offering to help Chenle move in. The words slip out easily, almost innocently, as if they haven’t been weighed down by everything that’d gone unsaid between them. And Chenle accepts just as easily, like this is the most natural next step in the world.
🪡
Deep down, Jisung isn’t naive. He knows he is simply inventing excuses to keep seeing Chenle.
A small part of him enjoys that his life has been shaken up with Chenle thrown back into the center of it. He hadn’t realized how monotonous everything had been until now, when he began reorganizing his life around Chenle’s schedule and filling his search history with things like: ‘moving tips’, ‘things i wish i knew before i started packing’.
He tells himself he’s just being practical and helpful, of course. Moving, logistically speaking, is a whole lot of work and takes more than a pair of hands. Chenle doesn’t know the city the way he does anymore. It would be rude to abandon him halfway through, especially when Jisung was the one who helped him find the place. These explanations stack neatly in his mind, logical and airtight, the way he likes things to be.
But they don’t exactly explain why he checks his phone a lot more often now, or why the thought of Chenle fully settling in and not needing his help anymore leaves him with a faint, irrational ache.
On moving day, Chenle hires actual professionals to do the heavy lifting for all of his furniture. That, too, makes Jisung feel a little like he’s lost in a competition he didn’t know he was participating in but Chenle keeps him occupied with the cardboard boxes piling up at the ground floor. They work out a system—Jisung arranges the boxes by whatever’s in them, and then he passes them to Chenle category by category, who knows exactly where he wants everything.
Chenle peers into the box in his hands now, clearly confused. “I don’t remember packing this.”
“That’s because you didn’t. Your kitchen equipment was all thrown in with a bunch of clutter so I took those out.”
Chenle looks at him then, something unreadable passing over his face before he laughs. “What would I do without you.”
Heat creeps up the back of his neck and he shakes his head, hooking a trembling finger over the edge of a box.
Chenle sets the box down carefully, then crouches to start unloading everything, movements precise, unhesitating. Jisung watches the way he works in wonder—notes how he commits to a decision once he’s made it, how he doesn’t second-guess the placement of things. It’s different from Jisung, who tends to circle choices until they give in first. He’d sooner leave things up to divine intervention and cosmic alignment than trust himself to make choices as simple as where he wants to put his clutter.
The apartment slowly begins to resemble something lived-in. Countertops emerge from beneath cardboard; cabinets fill with Chenle’s expensive wine glasses and scratch-free china. The movers are gone by 2pm and then suddenly, it’s just them.
At some point, Chenle disappears into the master bedroom and comes back holding a framed photograph. He studies it for a moment before placing it face-down on the living room shelf above the TV console, undecided. Jisung pretends not to notice, though curiosity prickles beneath his skin.
“You don’t have to help with everything,” Chenle says suddenly, not looking at him. “I think I can manage the rest myself.”
“I don’t mind,” Jisung answers too quickly. He clears his throat. “I mean—it’s easier if it’s organized properly from the start.”
Chenle snorts. “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
Jisung presses his lips together, conceding the point. There are worse compulsions to have, he thinks, than wanting things to end up where they belong.
Jisung tells himself he doesn’t mean to be a creep. But when Chenle leaves to get their takeout (the kitchen wasn’t ready enough yet and they were too knackered to go out and eat), Jisung hovers awkwardly at the spot on the couch where Chenle had just been.
He dithers there, going back and forth about how weird it would be, before he decides, fuck it, and sits down.
It’s warm.
Jisung exhales slowly, letting the air out slowly as he sinks back into the cushions. There’s nothing weird about it at all, it’s all just physics. That bodies are warm and when there’s contact, the heat transfers and furniture retains it for a moment. It’s just conduction and Jisung is just looking for a place to sit and rest. He is just. Functioning normally.
His eyes trace the unfamiliar angles of Chenle’s living room. Half-unpacked boxes line the walls, their flaps yawning open, spilling pieces of Chenle’s life in no particular order. He folds his hands in his lap, then unfolds them, then rubs his thumb against the side of his index finger until the skin feels too sensitive.
His gaze drifts without permission to the frame on the shelf and he wonders what it could be. For someone who worked with art, the walls remain surprisingly bare, and the whole time he’s been here, Jisung kept waiting for the photos to go up if only to catch glimpses of Chenle’s life.
Before he can stride across the room to sneak a peek though, the door swings open and he hears the crinkling of plastic bags. Jisung shoots up straight immediately, feeling like he’d been caught red-handed doing something he shouldn’t have, and nearly knocking his knee against the table.
“I’m back,” Chenle calls out, voice echoing a little in the half-empty space. “They forgot the pickled radish, but they got us the large portion of dumplings, so I think it evens out.” He rests the bags on the counters and fusses over them for a moment to make sure none of the containers are spilling.
Chenle turns, wiping his hands on a paper towel, and catches Jisung standing awkwardly in the middle of the room like a startled deer.
“You okay?” he asks, eyebrow raised. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Jisung forces his legs to move, crossing to the kitchen island to help unload the bags. “I’m fine, I was just… I think I’m just tired.”
“Sorry about using up all your weekends lately,” Chenle says, reaching into one of the bags to fish out plastic utensils. “You can leave right after dinner if you want. I think I’m just about done for the night anyway.” He starts pulling out containers—steaming jjajangmyeon, crispy tangsuyuk, a mountain of fried dumplings, and small boxes of assorted side dishes.
“Okay,” Jisung says, voice small. If Chenle notices, he doesn’t comment on it.
They eat cross-legged on the living-room floor because the table is still buried under a box labeled “cables & chargers” Chenle spreads napkins like a makeshift tablecloth, hands Jisung his fork and the sound of the occasional slurping fills the room.
When the dumplings are half gone, Chenle wipes his mouth and says, casual as anything, “You can look at the photo if you want.”
Jisung freezes, a dumpling halfway to his mouth.
“I wasn’t—” he starts, then stops. There’s no point lying; Chenle’s always been able to read him like a large-print book.
Chenle shrugs, but his eyes are careful. “It’s not as scandalous as you might think it is, though. I just didn’t know where to put it yet.”
For a moment, he considers feigning ignorance or nonchalance, but Chenle really does seem like he doesn’t care at all and that is enough to stir Jisung onto his feet. He crosses to the shelf, heart thudding stupidly, half-preparing for disappointment, the other half with the expectation that he might be in it.
He turns it around and—
It’s not him. It’s just a photo of the Huangs at Renjun’s high school graduation. Renjun is holding a bouquet of yellow roses, his parents on either side of him while Chenle hovers closely behind. He must be standing on tip-toes, because he’s still visible in the gap between Mrs.Huang and Renjun’s heads despite not being that tall himself.
The disappointment is sharp and immediate, followed quickly by a wave of shame for feeling it at all.
He sets the frame back down, face-up this time because anything otherwise would feel wrong now, but angled slightly toward the room instead of the wall. Chenle watches closely from the floor like he’s waiting for a reaction, chopsticks paused mid-air.
“Oh,” Jisung says, an extremely delayed response that means at least 4 things at once. “Renjun hyung looks really happy here.”
“He was crying right after we took that photo,” Chenle tells him, mouth still full of half-chewed noodles. “Ugly crying, too. This was the only decent shot we had so we printed it out in all the sizes.”
“I can’t believe that was so many years ago,” he comments as he settles back down in his spot at the table. He thinks he might be closer to Chenle now than before, he doesn’t know. “I can’t believe he’s getting married.”
“What I can’t believe,” says, waving his chopsticks in the air, “is that you know his fiance. That’s weirder to me. Does he know you used to like Renjun ge?”
His voice is carrying a playful lilt to it, but it’s a loaded question, considering his crush on Renjun was, in a lot of ways, what got him and Chenle so close in the first place. “No, but I doubt it would matter. Who didn’t like Renjun hyung growing up? He had the entire school wrapped around his finger.”
“Yeah, lucky Jaemin, hm?” Chenle laughs, but it’s thin, swallowed by the scraping of his chopsticks against the bottom of his bowl.
“Yeah,” Jisung agrees easily. “Lucky Jaemin.”
Chenle’s smile lingers for a second too long, like it’s waiting for something that doesn’t arrive. He spears the next piece of tangsuyuk with a lot more force than necessary. “Renjun ge always had this thing that made people gravitate to him. Teachers, parents, random people he came across at the bus stop. Everyone always wanted to take care of him.” His mouth twists into a half-smile. “I guess some things never change.”
Jisung nods because it’s true.
Chenle looks away, a crack-crack-cracking punctuating every bite as chewed on cartilage. “I really used to think that if I stood close enough, some of his likeability would rub off on me. Like maybe if I carried his books or wore his hand-me-downs without complaining or made his lunches or laughed at the things he said, people would look at me the same way.” He shrugs, small, like it’s nothing. “Didn’t really work.”
Jisung frowns, his thoughts immediately drifting to Chaeyoung, to Jiyoon, to, worst of all, Xinyu. “What do you mean? Everyone loved you.”
“They liked Renjun’s little brother. That’s different. It’s only a bonus that I was adopted. It made for a good story—that I was a well-adjusted, grateful little adopted child with a really nice older brother.” Strangely, the breezy way in which Chenle says all this doesn’t seem to be artificial at all. He simply continues sucking on the bones while he looks off into the distance, zoning out.
“You weren’t—you weren’t just Renjun’s little brother to me.”
Chenle stops chewing to look at him. “Yeah? The only way I could get you to respond to me was to talk about him, Jisung.”
“But that was before. Before I really got to know you.” Jisung opens his mouth, closing it again. He hadn’t realized that was how Chenle saw him. No doubt there’d been animosity at the start but Chenle had never once brought it up so Jisung didn’t think it needed to be addressed. He sets his mouth into a determined line and lays his chopsticks down on his plate. “Maybe that’s how it started but I really thought of you as my friend after, Chenle. Like, that you were my friend as your own person, not that you were simply someone I had to hang out with because we were in the same school and we were neighbors.”
Chenle’s expression remains impassive, but his shoulders loosen just a fraction before he says, “Just finish your dinner, Park Jisung.”
They finish the rest of the stuff on the table in silence. And when Jisung tells Chenle, “I forgot a housewarming gift—I’ll bring it next time”, Chenle simply smiles and says, “Sure”.
🪡
Jisung has only ever had 2 partners in his whole life. Neither outlasted his exes’ patience for him, and both times when he was sat down for The Talk, Jisung simply let his eyes fall to the ground and waited for the words to finish washing over him.
The first was a girl called Joohyun. She was a senior in the engineering faculty when he was at college, and she was blunt, had little tolerance for most things, but she was kind. She remembered all of Jisung’s favorite things and bought every little trinket that reminded her of him when she was out and kept them on her shelf. It proved to be an obstacle when they broke up a few months into her first job and she realized she needed space to grow on her own. Jisung threw the cover letter he’d written for the company she was at into the bin and never told her about the surprises he’d been planning for all of their relationship and just never got around to executing.
He’d been too embarrassed to admit that he had plans for their future together. Though now, looking back, maybe that was exactly the kind of thing she was holding out hope for him to indicate he shared.
After Joohyun, he’d cemented it as fact in his head that his type was just people who were kind. Because while the world had an endless supply of nice people—people who held the doors open for you, people who exchanged small talk with you at bus stops, people who put a pause to their plans to help you pick your things up from the ground when you tripped over air—but kind people were few and far between, and you rarely find those tendencies for surface niceties in them.
Jisung found himself drawn to people with hardened, prickly personalities because of that. People who, at first glance, were churlish and foul-tempered, but had a lot more empathy under all those layers than most.
Perhaps that was why Kangjun happened. Jisung didn’t even know he could have feelings for a man until him. He worked as a graphic designer in the marketing department, and despite his sharp tongue and offhanded acerbic remarks for everyone, he had a presence that was hard to ignore. Or even hate. Jisung had been wary initially, but then he saw the way he’d stayed back late one day to help a junior fix a crashed file and thought to himself that maybe Kangjun wasn’t as hostile as he made himself out to be.
So he wore his meanness like an armor—at that time, to Jisung, that armor looked like honesty, and it made headway for this little voice at the back of his mind that conjured excuses for Kangjun’s every action. Bluntness mistaken for the kind of kindness Jisung craved; sarcasm mistaken for care.
They started dating after a company retreat where Kangjun found Jisung hiding in the hotel garden, avoiding the forced karaoke. Kangjun handed him a beer without asking, sat down on the grass beside him, and said, “These people are exhausting.” Jisung nodded, relieved someone finally said it out loud. Then when his cheeks began to heat up and his temples felt slick from sweat, Kangjun pulled him in by the back of his neck and they kissed and Jisung’s first thought was how it didn’t feel all that different to kissing a girl.
Kangjun was kind in flashes—picking stuff Jisung turned his nose up at out of shared dishes, texting “eat something, idiot” on nights when Jisung forgotten how much time had passed since he was supposed to clock out—but now that Jisung looked back on it, those flashes had never been enough to substantiate his reasons for staying so long.
Kangjun would always tease Jisung in front of his colleagues about how boring he was to live with, saying that he lived like a monk, that he had more fun talking to a wall. He’d bring Jisung over to his parent’s house and dump him there, saying the cabinets needed fixing or that he should take a look at the TV’s capacitors because it kept going out every other hour and while Jisung worked, humiliation burning through his clothes, feeling like a repairman in a house where he should feel like home, Kangjun would leave for hours saying he had errands to run. When Jisung forgot to reply to a text for a few hours, Kangjun would ice him out for a day, then act like Jisung had been overreacting the whole time on his fifth attempt at apologizing.
Still, when they broke up, it was Kangjun who initiated it. “I’ve been seeing other people,” he’d told Jisung, who nodded and waited for the tears to come but nothing ever did. This time, there was significantly less to remove from his house.
Both times when it all came to an end, Chenle visited him in his dreams. And to this day, Jisung still does not know what it means.
🪡
He doesn’t know how, but he ends up being recruited into the wedding planning group.
It’s Renjun who reaches out to him first, and Jisung had pretended not to see the message in his notification bar for the whole day until he could no longer avoid it. He tells himself he’ll reply after work. Then after dinner. Then after he showers. In the end, he types out a careful, polite response seconds before he falls asleep, fingers moving on muscle memory alone, so there isn’t a risk of Renjun replying immediately and dragging him into a conversation he doesn’t have the emotional bandwidth for.
As it would turn out, weddings are a lot of work and Jaemin wasn’t lying.
And on top of all that, it appears to be very emotionally taxing as well, which is how he ends up sitting in the living room of the Huangs a week a later, trying not to let it show that the fingers wrapped around his mug are trembling from nerves.
They’ve moved, so the layout of the place is all very new to him, but the faces around the room are not.
“It’s really been too long,” Mr. Huang says for the nth time, and Jisung is starting to catch on to the fact that it’s simply the line he falls back onto when the conversation fizzles out, and not truly an indication of how much affection he still reserves for Jisung. Mrs. Huang is a lot nicer, but she asks one too many questions about his job and tries (jokingly, maybe not so jokingly) to pry about his salary one too many times.
For the most painful 30 minutes of his life, he sits on a sofa alone as he watches Jaemin converse naturally with the Huangs with a hand on Renjun’s knee. Chenle is apparently running late again—something Mr. Huang tells him with a disgruntled click of his tongue.
Looking around now, at the many photos of Renjun and his achievements hung up on the walls, Jisung thinks he’s finally starting to see what he never did.
Each time they glance at the clock, sandwiched between Renjun’s master’s degree and a photo of the Huangs at a family trip apparently Chenle missed out on, Jisung inches himself closer to the edge of the sofa with another (what he hopes comes off as reassuring), “It’s completely fine, I have time. I understand he’s a busy person.”
They were supposed to do a wedding cake taste test today. The first round had taken place a month ago at Jaemin’s house, and today they were gathered to choose the final vendor and flavor. The box of samples had already arrived in the morning, and is currently sitting in the fridge, the toothpicks for testing already prepared on the counter. It was just going to be their family and Jaemin, until word got out that Jisung was “back” (regardless of whether he’d ever really been gone) and got invited by virtue of being “practically family”.
Finally, Mrs. Huang stands up and offers Jisung a brief reprieve from interrogating him about his marriage prospects to make another pot of tea.
“That boy,” Mr. Huang grumbles. “He never changes… always on his own schedule.”
“We’ll be fine. As long as he isn’t late to the actual wedding,” Jaemin jokes, clearly trying to lift the mood. Except it seems to have the opposite effect as it plants a new worry in Mr. Huang’s head that manifests as a scowl on his face.
Renjun catches his eye from across the room and offers a small, apologetic smile—the same one he used to give when Chenle was being particularly chaotic and Renjun felt responsible for cleaning up the mess. Jaemin, ever perceptive, squeezes Renjun’s knee and launches into a story about the few cake flavors he’s already vetoed, drawing the parents’ attention away.
“—ah, speak of the devil,” Mrs. Huang says, peering toward the door as the lock clicks.
Jisung straightens, shoulders drawing back like he’s been caught slouching in class. The front door opens and Chenle steps in, shoes kicked off carelessly by the mat, hair slightly mussed like he’s run a hand through it one too many times on the way over.
“Sorry I’m late,” Chenle says, breathless but smiling. He lifts the paper bag in his hand like an offering. “Traffic was terrible. I brought fruit. It was a gift to my office, but still a gift.”
“Is the traffic always especially terrible for you?” Mr. Huang asks sharply, and Jisung feels his shoulders tighten on Chenle’s behalf.
Chenle on the other hand doesn’t appear to be the least bit affected by the comments, humming to himself as he dumps the bag of fruits onto the counter.
“You’re making a mess of things,” Mrs. Huang chides, immediately fussing, and she marches over to bump him aside with his hip. “Go wash your hands and sit down with everyone,” she instructs, steadily building a pyramid of oranges under her weathered hands.
He grins, presses a short kiss to her temple and makes his way to the sink, still humming.
Jisung sits very, very still, palms pressed to his thighs. Then even that feels wrong, because suddenly everything feels too warm and he feels sweat seeping through the fabric.
He hasn’t seen Chenle since the night he moved into his apartment. Hasn’t heard from him either. Everything about Chenle’s presence makes him nervous. Ever since he entered the room, it’s felt like something shifted, like the air’s turned viscous and is refusing to sit right in his lungs somehow.
“Are we all ready to start then?” Chenle asks, hands on his hips like he wasn’t the hold up the whole time.
Jisung gets onto his feet awkwardly, suddenly feeling like he shouldn’t have come. Well, he really shouldn’t have, but now the regret and shame are starting to set in.
He trails after Renjun, who urges him to hurry up. Mrs. Huang claps her hands together and starts directing everyone toward the kitchen island. Jaemin is tasked with bringing the nice plates out while Renjun retrieves the cake box from the fridge, which is opened with ceremony. Chenle disappears into the bathroom right after sparing the neat little cake made up of small individual slices a short glance, though.
When he returns, his bangs are damp and pushed back from his forehead and Jisung gulps, trying not to notice how a bead of water is caught in his eyebrow. He wants to reach across the counter and wipe it with his thumb. He wants to, he wants to, he wants.
Instead, he lets his eyes drift back to the cake.
“Chocolate first,” Renjun declares, already reaching for a toothpick like this is a foregone conclusion.
“Of course you’d say that,” Jaemin replies, fond and exasperated in equal measure. He rests a hand on the back of Renjun’s head and ruffles his hair, his eyes soft with overflowing affection. Jisung instantly looks up, exchanging glances with Chenle like they’re kids spying on the adult table again. “I feel like your blood’s all turned to cocoa by now.”
“Let everyone try properly before you decide anything,” Mr. Huang says, clearing his throat.
And they do, one by one, with neat little bites taken under the kitchen lights. Mrs. Huang hums thoughtfully after every bite, but barely offers any critique that doesn’t align with Renjun’s. Chenle leans against the counter beside Renjun, arms crossed, nodding along, chiming in only when directly addressed.
Each time, Jisung chews carefully, counting. He waits until the flavors settle before speaking, like his opinion might somehow matter more if he does it right. Like there’s even a right way to feel about something like cake. “This one’s lighter,” he says quietly after the lemon slice. “I guess it wouldn’t feel too heavy after dinner.”
Mrs Huang brightens immediately, revealing her true feelings. “See? That’s practical.”
Renjun’s mouth twists into a scowl. “I don’t want practical. I want memorable. It’s a wedding after all—right, Jaemin?”
“He’s just going to go with whatever you want anyway,” Chenle interjects before Jaemin can answer. “I think Jisung’s right. Aren’t you planning on having the reception in a Chinese restaurant? Might need something more refreshing to balance everything out.”
“I feel like you’re treating this like a work discussion,” Renjun accuses, narrowing his eyes as he takes another bite of Jaemin’s chocolate slice. “I still prefer chocolate.”
Jisung finds himself watching Chenle again, against his will. The way he lets Renjun take the lead, how he steps in only to smooth things over. How he never reaches for the last piece until Mrs. Huang nudges the plate closer to him with a pointed look.
“Eat,” she says. “You rarely ever have lunch when you’re working.”
“I did, today,” Chenle replies mildly, but he still obeys anyway, spearing a leftover slice of vanilla on the cardboard box.
Jisung wonders, distantly, how often that happens—how often Chenle is told to eat, to sit, to wait. And wonders why he appears to have no problem acting docile and compliant when he’s here.
When the tasting winds down, the verdict lands predictably with chocolate being declared the winner. Lemon stays in the brackets for much longer than Renjun liked, though, so Jisung takes it as a small victory. In the end, Renjun drags Mrs. Huang back to the living room so they can discuss florist arrangements and, after lingering for a few awkward moments gruffly asking Chenle about work (“It went well, just busy as usual”), Mr. Huang excuses himself for a smoke in the balcony, too.
Jisung lingers by the island, unsure of his place now that his usefulness has expired.
“Hey,” Chenle says suddenly, low, close. Jisung startles despite himself. Chenle nods toward the fridge. “Can you help me gather all the toothpicks and put them back in the drawer over there? They’re going to get misplaced otherwise and Ma’s gonna talk about it for months.”
“Oh. Yeah,” Jisung says, too quickly, already clumsily reaching out to collect them all. Eventually, he figures out a way to do things quicker and rolls them off the edge of the counter, where his palm serves as the landing. He tucks them away where Chenle had pointed, and then joins him at the sink where Chenle is scrubbing away at the plates.
They stand side by side, shoulders almost touching. Almost. The hum of the appliance fills the small pocket of quiet between them.
“Feels like all they can talk about these days is the wedding,” Jisung suddenly blurts out, feeling like he can no longer stand the silence.
“Well, weddings are probably the next most exciting thing in a Chinese household besides having babies,” Chenle answers quickly, then shudders right after. “I’m glad they can’t have biological kids. The thought of having either a mini Renjun or Jaemin running around the house is terrifying.”
“I don’t know, I think it’d be cute if it were a mini you.” The sentence escapes him, light and far too honest. As soon as the air hits the words, Jisung feels a prickling heat crawl up his neck. He suddenly finds the dishwater incredibly fascinating, his hands tightening at his sides. Why did you say that? Why would anyone ever say that? The hum of the fridge suddenly sounds like a roar in the ensuing silence.
“I think you’re probably the only person in the world who would say that,” Chenle laughs, thankfully not weirded out by the comment. He puts away all the plates out on the rack for drying, smiling to himself as he does. “So, how’s everything been? Do you wish you’d resigned before this whole wedding thing started?”
“No, I mean.” Jisung fidgets with his thumb, worrying the skin there until it stings. “It’s not like I had anything better to do on the weekends anyway.”
“Really? Jaemin hyung tells me you were always occupied on the weekends and that it’s basically impossible to see you outside of work.”
“That’s because Jaemin hyung is—”
“A lot?” Chenle asks, eyes bright with mirth.
“—a colleague,” he finishes, and Chenle shrugs.
“Fair enough.”
“What about you, though? Were you really at work, even today?” Jisung asks, eyes following Chenle’s hands as they press into the dishcloth hung on the handle of the drawer. The faint smell of lemon reaches Jisung’s nose and he has to physically stop himself from ducking his head lower.
Chenle pauses, fingers stilling against the cloth. “Yeah,” he says after a beat. “There was an issue with one of the pieces. It’s tiny, but it’s also a big deal and I have to complete the report and sign off on the insurance stuff or the artist is gonna lose his shit on me.”
“That sounds… important,” Jisung says, though it comes out flatter than he means it to. He glances toward the living room, where Renjun’s laughter rings out, bright and easy, followed by Mr. Huang’s voice chiming in over something trivial. The sound presses in on him from all sides.
“It is,” Chenle agrees, already reaching for his phone. “I was trying to settle it in the afternoon but I didn’t manage to. I have to go back tonight so I was actually going to head out soon.”
Jisung’s stomach drops—not from disappointment, but from the sudden, selfish relief that blooms right after he hears that. “Oh. Could you—”
“Yes, I can drop you off at a nearby station so you can go home.”
“Can I—” he starts again, voice catching. He swallows. “Can I come with you?”
“Yeah, that’s what I just offered, didn’t you hear me?”
“No, I mean to the museum.”
Chenle blinks, surprised. “To the museum? It’s not exactly exciting, you know? And you might be stuck there for a really long time. I don’t know when I’ll get to leave.”
“It’s just that. Your mom keeps asking me if I want to meet your ‘really young and pretty’ cousin, Lingying and I’m running out of ways to say no.”
“Lingying is really pretty, though,” Chenle tells him with a teasing smile as he digs through his left pocket presumably looking for his keys. “You sure you don’t want to be involved in the next wedding in the family?”
Jisung levels a look at Chenle, one that lingers until the teasing air between them runs thin. He’s stalling for a few heartbeats too long and he knows that, but his eyes search Chenle’s face as if the answer should already be obvious anyway.
Finally, he shakes his head, the movement slow. “No,” he says, voice dropping to a pained whisper.
🪡
Jisung grew up believing that humans were but a speck of dust on earth, in the universe, in the grand scheme of things.
He never really minded it. He loved the universe, and he liked believing that with how big everything was, nothing ever really mattered when you put it into perspective, and he held onto this belief for a long, long time as a way to shrink his anxieties and keep them locked up even tighter.
It started small, with the realization that even if the galaxy was infinite and their actions were inconsequential, it never really felt that way when Chenle shared a set of earbuds with him, or when they walked home shoulder-to-shoulder, laughing as their popsicles melted and ran down their fingers, making it sticky when their hands brushed against each other. Or, when Chenle found out Jisung liked someone, and decided to make a move on them first. The math never added up—if things really didn’t matter, then it shouldn’t hurt that much for Chenle to cross boundaries like that, time and time again.
Jisung would be lying if he said he never thought of Chenle in all the years they spent apart. But he also used those 10 years to build a quiet life maintaining a safe distance with everyone, convincing himself that he had finally achieved that peaceful, nihilistic drift through the void.
But now, he’s standing next to Chenle again, and it feels as though all of that effort had been shredded to pieces. Chenle’s still doing it, laughing, teasing, pushing, carelessly offering Lingying up like he hadn’t spent their entire youth systematically dismantling every romantic prospect Jisung ever had.
It still hurts, he’s still wary, and every time Chenle makes off-handed remarks like that without thinking twice, it still feels like he’s tearing through stitches and rubbing salt on wounds.
But Jisung spent a lot of those years learning how to forgive all the things Chenle doesn’t apologize for, just to follow him to the ends of earth, and it seems it’s still muscle memory to him now. Old habits die hard, he supposes.
Chenle’s office in Leeum is surprisingly neat, and he’s dropped Jisung here and told him to stay while he went to the basement to settle his things.
The office smells like him. Jisung tries his very best not to think about it, or why he knows what Chenle smells like at all.
The desk is bare save for a few color-coded binders and a laptop. There’s also a ceramic mug repurposed as a kind of stationery holder, and besides the regular things you’d expect to find in an office, there really isn’t anything else to see. There are no photos, no personal effects. Jisung doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he’d thought there’d at least be something here, considering his apartment had been just as sparingly decorated.
He sits there for a long time, trying to make the heads and tails of the exhibition plan on the whiteboard before the door swings open and Chenle slips inside, tugging his ID lanyard loose and dropping it onto the desk. His shoulders sag the moment he does, the sharp lines of professionalism melting away.
“Hey, sorry for the wait,” he exhales. “Turns out the frame was defective in the first place and it’s all going to be okay. I think.”
Jisung offers up a small smile, stretching as he stands up. “Don’t be. Sorry, I mean—it was fun to see where you work.”
Chenle looks around the office as though it were his first time here, too. He wrinkles his nose before he drops his gaze from the ceiling back to Jisung. “I don’t spend a lot of time doing any work here, to be honest.”
Jisung’s hands close into fists and open again and again at his sides. It’s almost like every time it’s just the 2 of them in an enclosed space, Jisung forgets everything he’s learned about conversing at all. “Why, do you work from home often?”
Chenle snorts, walking toward the desk to pick up a sheaf of papers and shuffle them against the desk. “Is work all you ever talk about, Jisung?”
“Well, it’s not like you give me much to work with, Chenle,” he answers, and it’s the most honest he’s been in a while. It should come with relief, then, but all it makes him feel is heavier. Maybe avoiding talking about it had been good for him, in a way. Nothing feels real or pressing until it’s spoken aloud.
Chenle stalls, then flattens a palm against the desk. He looks up, and half his face is bathed in pale moonlight and Jisung forces himself to stay looking instead of tearing his eyes away like he really wants to.
He grew up well, he thinks. Chenle’s lost all of the fat in his cheeks, and his mouth is still seemingly permanently downturned at the corners and his lips are still chapped and cracked and there’s a scab on the bottom where Jisung can make out the indent of where his front tooth always fits, but he’s as handsome as ever, and Jisung cowers with that realization—not with how he looks now, but more so how Chenle has always been beautiful and the years that passed by did not take that away from him.
“Are we going to talk about it, Jisung?” He tilts his head, sucking his bottom lip in. “Here?”
It’s very tempting, the idea of backing out now. Jisung could drop the topic, ask, “What is there to talk about?” and get a lift back, but he also knows that if he chooses to go down that path now, another decade would fly by and Jisung would never know why. So he hangs his head between his shoulders before he nods slowly.
To his surprise, the next words that leave Chenle’s mouth are: “I’m sorry.”
His head snaps up, and he sees that there’s blood on Chenle’s lower lip where the scab has been gnawed open again. “I’m sorry, Jisung,” he repeats, wincing. “I really wanted to apologize back then, even right after that whole thing went down.”
“So why didn’t you?” His voice does not really sound like his own now, and his skin also did not fit quite right over his flesh and bones.
Chenle grimaces, eyebrows drawn together. “I was a kid. Too prideful to admit that I was wrong and—and truthfully, I thought you would talk to me again. And I thought when that happened, the ice would’ve been broken and I’d get to say sorry to you except, yeah, that day never came and then all of a sudden we were graduating and it’s already been a year…” Chenle drags a hand through his hair, a bitter sound escaping his mouth. “And then I was going to contact you before I left for college, but I stared and stared at the last exchange we’d had and thought, well, if it time had frozen the way it did in our chat, then maybe there would always be somewhere to go to to feel like everything was okay between us again.”
Chenle’s voice trails off into the quiet hum of the office lights. He looks suddenly smaller, shoulders curved inward, the confident curator replaced by the boy who used to sit on Jisung’s bedroom floor at 2 a.m., insisting they could finish the entire spaceship model in one night if they just didn’t sleep.
“Chenle…” He didn’t know what else to say, but he just felt like it was his turn to fill the encroaching silence somehow.
“I still visited our old conversations back then, you know. I moved halfway across the world all alone and it was the only way I could pretend my situation was anything but.”
“I didn’t know you cared. I didn’t even know you’d be gone,” Jisung says.
“I was a lot of things, Jisung,” Chenle laughs, tracing his jaw with his thumb. “But mostly, I was just an idiot who realized a little too late that he burned the only bridge that mattered. So I’m sorry, I really am.”
“But what was the point?” Jisung is desperate to know now, his pulse picking up pace and his head swimming. “If I’d mattered that much to you, why did you do all that to me?”
“Because I’d never had anything to myself before!”
They both sink into stunned silence when they realize that Chenle had raised his voice. But it was out now, and Chenle’s fingers are twitching on the desk, fingernails caught in a chip in the wood, and Jisung is relieved that this wasn’t a message Chenle could just choose to unsend in their chat history.
He sucks in a deep breath before he speaks again. “I wanted you for myself, Jisung. And I know it’s a really fucked up and selfish thing I did, but I’d never had a friend of my own before. Everything in my life was an extension of my identity as Renjun’s brother—even you. The only reason we started talking was because you liked him..”
Guilt pools in Jisung’s stomach, heavy and disorienting.
“I was okay with it at first,” Chenle continues, nibbling on his lip between words now. “But then I realized I really enjoyed hanging out with you, and being his younger brother, or being your neighbor, didn’t feel good.” He shrugs, letting go of his lip, and Jisung feels a deep pang resonate in his chest. Chenle’s face is wrought with pain, and it hurts to see him like this. “Then we did become friends, even without him in the picture and god, that just made everything so much fucking worse. I thought taking away people you liked would help keep you around. Turns out, as good as I was at keeping you close, I guess I wasn’t as good at making you happy.”
“You know,” Jisung says after a moment, voice barely above a whisper, “I spent years thinking I was just… unlovable in that way. That there was something wrong with me and that I wasn’t enough and people would never choose me.”
Chenle’s eyes widen, horror flickering across his face. “Jisung—”
“I know you didn’t mean to do that,” he cuts in gently. “But that’s what it felt like every time.”
Chenle looks like he might say something else, something quick and self-flagellating, but he stops himself. He just listens. It’s new, this restraint, and it makes Jisung’s throat ache.
“I don’t hate you,” Jisung says finally. “I was angry. I was confused. And then I was tired. But I never hated you.”
Chenle’s shoulders sag, relief and grief tangling together. “That’s more than I deserve.”
“Maybe,” Jisung concedes. “But it’s what’s true.”
They stand there like that, suspended in the aftermath of honesty, neither of them quite ready to move. The office lights hum on, indifferent to them. The universe remains vast and uncaring.
But for once, Jisung doesn’t take this as a cue to shrink his feelings down to nothing. “I don’t want things to be weird between us after this wedding is over, Chenle. I think I really missed you, even if I didn’t realize it.” He stops, swallows, and it just won’t go down his throat. “And for what it’s worth, I’m really glad Renjun was what gave me this chance to talk to you again.”
Chenle shifts, then hesitates, like he’s debating whether to cross an invisible line. “I don’t want things to be weird either,” he says. “But I also don’t want to pretend we’re the same people we were back then. I don’t want to go back to… whatever that was.”
“I don’t think we can anyway,” replies Jisung. “Too much has changed.”
“But we’ll be better. I’ll be better,” Chenle says, bursting into laughter. “And this time, if you end up liking Lingying, I won’t intercept.” Then, almost as though he realizes just what he’d said, he wrinkles his nose and sticks out his tongue. “Ew, I didn’t mean it in that way I just—I won’t be a jerk anymore. Promise.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Jisung tells him, returning the smile.
Eventually, Chenle glances at the clock on the wall and grimaces. “I should probably drive you back now. Sorry this took up so much time.”
“Don’t be, I’m glad I came.”
Chenle smiles at him as he stands with his back against the door. The grin pushes his eyes up into crescents on his face and he suddenly looks so much younger in Jisung’s eyes. “I’m glad you came, too.”
III
{
Time, wondrous time,
Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies,
And it’s cool, baby, with me,
}
2 weeks later
Against his protests, Jisung does eventually get acquainted with Lingying. On Chenle’s insistence.
And it isn’t so bad. Lingying sat at the same table during a family dinner next to Jisung, doting on and peeling prawns for Yixin for nearly 2 whole hours. And although she seemed privy to the fact that the Huangs were trying to set her up with Jisung, she didn’t overtly reject the idea or play into it. Talking to her felt pleasant, and her giggles always left Jisung with a fuzzy warm feeling in his chest when she turned away to entertain Yixin’s many requests.
Chenle sat across from them, flashing not-too-discreet thumbs up every time he thought Lingying wasn’t looking. And Jisung kept smiling through the night till his cheeks hurt, feeling nearly giddy with happiness that Chenle was back.
And that it almost felt as though nothing had changed at all.
🪡
Jisung doesn’t know how it happened (he does, but it still feels surreal), but his life has suddenly taken a 180 degree turn since that wedding invite. He had things to do on the weekends now; his phone was always pinging with notifications, either with messages from the wedding group chat or Instagram reels Chenle sends over at all odd hours of the night; he had someone who was interested in him again. He doesn’t remember the last time that’s happened semi-organically.
Mark is someone he befriended in college, and they don’t speak as much anymore because they no longer had an excuse to see each other every day, but Jisung still considers him one of his closest friends. And so naturally, he calls Mark one night and unloads all of this new information on him after Mark spends an hour oversharing about all the crazy sex he’s been overhearing his new roommate having.
“Dude, that’s literally insane.”
“I know,” Jisung says, as he slaps on his nightly skincare routine. He’s got his phone propped up against a box of tissue as he looks in the mirror on his vanity. “Like, what are the odds that my colleague is marrying Renjun?”
“No, dude, like, what are the odds that this is how you reconnect with your childhood best friend, hello? This is like, soulmate level or some shit.”
Jisung pauses with the cotton pad halfway to his face, toner dripping onto his wrist. “I wouldn’t call him a soulmate or anything. He’s just something soulmate-adjacent.”
“What do you mean? You’re either someone’s soulmate or not. There’s no halfsies in childhood soulmate territory.”
“Okay, then he isn’t.” He chucks the cotton pad into the small plastic he keeps at the side for his trash and turns back to Mark. “I mean, I can’t deny that this whole… chain of events has been insane, but I’d sooner kill myself than have him be my soulmate.”
“Why not?”
“Aren’t you supposed to like your soulmate or something.”
Mark lifts an eyebrow, staring into the camera like he’s waiting for Jisung to say something. Then he clicks his tongue and looks off into the distance, all backlit against the sky—it’s afternoon where he’s at—so Jisung can’t make out the expression he’s making. “But you like him, though. You guys have literally been going on dates. You’ve been to his house.”
“To help him move,” Jisung stresses. He presses his knuckles into his cheeks to check if all the goop has properly absorbed and they come off sticky. “Those weren’t dates at all. Dates are… what I’m going to have with his cousin if things go the way I want them to.”
“Jisung, seriously,” deadpans Mark. “You’ve literally said his name more than 12 times in the last 10 minutes and every time you do this constipated little smile like just saying his name makes you happy.”
“It does! Because I haven’t talked to him in so long. I don’t know how to explain it—it’s like, I guess I’ve been feeling a little depressed these days.” He frees his bangs from the hair band holding them back and shakes it over his forehead again. “I was just thinking a few months ago how badly I miss being a teenager. And it was—a coincidence, I suppose, that Chenle just showed up. Talking to him brings me back, you know? It’s just. Just. A happy thing.”
Mark exhales deeply, then sucks in another breath before he speaks, hesitantly like he’s choosing his words with extra care. “Okay, well, if you’re happy, I’m happy. Just keep me updated on this, okay? I’m feeling a little too invested in this for my own good now.”
The conversation moves back to talk of Mark coming back for summer later in the year, but long after they hang up, Jisung’s mind is still caught on the idea of soulmates and if platonic ones really did exist.
🪡
Jisung isn’t the type to give gifts. He’s never been that genre of caring, he supposes. He’s always liked to believe that he belonged to the category of people that was more generous and giving, but beyond his inability to turn anyone or anything down, he doesn’t think he was ever warmhearted in that way.
Chenle, on the other hand, never missed a special occasion. If he cares about you, you will know it.
It’s why the room where Jisung keeps all of his models and collectibles is also used to store some of the things Chenle gave to him throughout the years. Star Wars figurines. The Beyblades he could never afford and his parents refused to buy him. Gloves and knitted scarves for the colder months. They were all packed away into a box and shoved into the top shelf in his storage, but they were only there because Jisung never had it in him to throw everything away. He’d meant to at one point, though—it was how they all ended up in the same box in the first place.
Point is, he’s never been the giving type, and he’d spent a whole week browsing through random shopping links at work mulling over what the perfect housewarming present would be. Kitchen appliances are out of the question, considering he saw the stuff Chenle already owned. Anything more would be rendered redundant and effectively useless. He also seemed to have very particular taste in his china and utensils, and Jisung doesn’t want to buy him a set that, for all he knows, is expensive garbage to Chenle, so that’s out of the question as well.
And then things like throws, pillows, bedsheets were hard to pick because then he’d have to factor in stuff like personal tastes and preferences with patterns and thread counts and fabrics, so Jisung ended up scrapping the idea too.
In the end, he shows up on the Friday 2 weeks before the wedding at Chenle’s door holding a bottle of wine that the clerk swore would go with most things.
Chenle opens the door in socks and an oversized hoodie that swallows his hands, hair still damp like he’s just showered. He blinks once, then twice, before breaking into a grin. “Wow. You came armed.”
“I mean, I did owe you a housewarming gift,” Jisung says, feeling nervous for no reason. Chenle cracks the door open wider and Jisung walks into the apartment, the bottle suddenly growing heavier in his hands.
Then he looks around, and he’s stunned by how different the place looks. There’s still a roll of bubble wrap sitting on Chenle’s couch, but the boxes that used to occupy the floor are all gone and all his little ornaments sit on the shelves that were previously empty. His gaze almost immediately finds the framed photo of Renjun’s graduation, angled exactly the way he’d left it before. But there were new photos on the wall, some of them of landscapes but most of them of Chenle on his travels. Jisung’s eyes linger on them, wondering who’d taken them for him, and who’d chosen those specific shots to be printed.
“How is it? Much cleaner than the last time you were here, right?” Chenle says, accepting the wine into his hand and shuffling to the kitchen to place it on the counter.
Jisung trails after him like a lost puppy, lingering awkwardly in the kitchen as Chenle checks on the stove. Something smells incredible, all garlicky and a little spicy.
He makes several attempts at being useful around the kitchen but ultimately, Chenle insists Jisung not help and simply tells him to keep him company while he finishes up with the cooking.
Then dinner is done and one hour turns into 2, and 2 turns into three. They’ve moved from the dining table to the couch some time between the debate about the different shades of purple (as per Renjun’s insistence) and Chenle’s thoughts about getting dogs instead of children.
They’ve broken into the wine, and Jisung’s tastebuds are not refined enough to tell the difference between good/bad wine except when it’s the watered down kind, but Chenle keeps humming and looking at the label between refills, so Jisung lets his chest swell with pride each time he does it. And against better judgement, this is also what compels him to keep accepting when Chenle pours him another glass.
He tells himself he’s going to be fine as long as he paces himself, but the wine is smooth, and Chenle’s laugh is smoother, and the apartment is warm with low light and the faint hum of the city outside the windows and time slips as it always does.
The conversation is softer now, or maybe it just seems that way to Jisung’s ears when he isn’t fully sober, and Chenle is telling Jisung about his first apartment in Shanghai.
“It was so loud but it was also so quiet, you know?” Chenle’s saying, and when Jisung nods, looking down, he realizes the weight pressed up against his side is Chenle, his thigh, warm and solid, against his own.
When did he get so close? he wonders, panicking, because they really are too close. They’re close enough that he can see the faint flush that suffuses Chenle’s cheeks, feel the heat radiating off of him. Too close, too close. But Jisung doesn’t inch away, and Chenle consumes all the distance they have left between them with his presence.
“Sometimes I feel like how loud the city was made me feel a little more lonely than I really was. There always seemed to be a house party going on, or a bunch of kids would be hanging out at the playground downstairs, or…” Chenle’s voice trails off and Jisung holds his breath to hear the end of it, but it never comes. He just shrugs, mouth set in a frown, and Jisung resists the urge to pull the corners up with his own fingers. “I was just such a lonely person, all the time.”
“I get that,” Jisung tells him. He sets his glass down, feeling lucky it didn’t spill. “I think I live a pretty lonely life, too.”
“But you don’t mind it, do you?” Chenle asks, voice small.
It’s his turn to shrug. “I don’t know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. So I guess it isn’t that big of a deal for me.”
“It’s horrible,” Chenle confesses, and when Jisung looks down again, he wishes he hadn’t because Chenle is looking up at him, eyes wide, their corners upturned, his pupils darting. “I tried dating around and it never really lasted, and every time I called home their answer would be the same: just come home. As though I feel any better when I am.”
“Chenle, you…” Jisung’s felt ashamed for a couple of weeks now, seeing what he sees now, wondering in all his spare time how he never noticed the difference in treatment. He doesn’t believe the Huangs were ever doing it intentionally, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. And Jisung was his friend. He should’ve said something about it, if only to make Chenle feel like he wasn’t going through everything on his own. You aren’t alone now. You still grew up well despite everything. A million thoughts race through his head and not a single one comes out.
Chenle tips his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. The light catches on his lashes, throwing thin shadows under his eyes. Then he squeezes his eyes shut, and Jisung wants them to open again, if only he could see the way light swam and glittered in them. “I wish to love. I wish to be loved. I want it so badly sometimes, Jisung. I feel like I could die for it.”
“But people have loved you, Chenle.” People do. “What about all those girlfriends you had before?” he asks, attempting to frame it like a light-hearted joke and horribly failing.
This is when Chenle cracks open his eyes again, his gaze sliding sideways to meet Jisung’s in apparent exhaustion. “After all these years, how could you still not get it, Jisung?”
He stays quiet, frozen, fingers stilling, heartbeat skipping. “Get what.”
“It was really you that I liked,” Chenle says, simply, matter-of-factly. “I didn’t even want them. I wanted to be them. I wanted to know what made you look at a person like they were the only star in the sky, and I thought if I took their place, I’d finally understand how to make you look at me like that.”
Jisung’s heart isn't just skipping; it’s flatlining. He can’t move. He can’t even blink.
“You’re drunk,” Jisung manages to whisper, though it sounds like a plea.
“I am,” Chenle breathes, shifting closer. “I am. I feel like I’ve been drunk for years.” Then he laughs, giddy, sad, everything all at once. There’s warmth cupping one side of Jisung’s cheeks. It’s Chenle’s hand. And it isn’t soft. It’s dry, and rough, and Jisung can feel his callouses slide against his cheek.
And then he’s being kissed, and it’s Chenle, too. And it’s warm, wet, and it tastes like the wine they had and garlic and the drag of Chenle’s cracked bottom lip against his own isn’t immediately nice. But it’s warm, it’s wet, and it tastes like their dinner, like his Chenle, and Jisung’s heart is beating 6000 miles and hour and surely, Chenle can hear it thundering against his ribs.
It’s not sudden or forceful. If anything, it’s hesitant, like Chenle is giving him time to pull away. Their noses brush. Jisung’s heart slams against his ribs, so loud he’s sure Chenle can hear it. When Chenle’s lips press against his, it’s brief and soft and trembling.
Jisung doesn’t move.
He doesn’t pull away and he doesn’t lean in either. His body feels locked in place, suspended between a lifetime of wanting and the sheer shock of being wanted back.
Chenle feels it immediately.
He stills, then draws back like he’s been burned.
“Oh,” he breathes, horror dawning as clarity rushes in. “Oh. Fuck—Jisung, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have— I misread that, I—”
“No,” Jisung says instinctively, but the word comes out too slow, too late.
Chenle’s on his feet, running a hand through his hair, eyes refusing to meet Jisung’s now. “I crossed a line. You didn’t—you didn’t do anything wrong. I just—god, I’m drunk and I shouldn’t have said all that like this. I shouldn’t have said anything at all.”
“Chenle,” Jisung tries again, rising to his feet, but Chenle holds up a hand.
“Please,” he says quietly. “Can we just… not do this right now?” He swallows, jaw tight. “I think it’d be better if you slept in the spare room tonight. And—” He hesitates, then exhales. “And maybe you could leave in the morning before I wake up. Please.”
The words hurt more than Jisung expects them to.
Still, he nods.
“Okay,” he says, because it’s the only thing he can manage. And because it seems like the only thing he can say that Chenle will allow.
Chenle looks at him then—really looks—like he wants to memorize his face, like he’s bracing himself for loss. “I’m sorry,” he says again, softer this time. And then he’s gone, and Jisung doesn’t remember how he ends up in the bed of the spare bedroom he’d looked at with Chenle, but he stays tossing and turning on it all night, replaying everything in merciless clarity, wondering if things could’ve gone down differently.
Come morning, he moves quietly. He gathers his things, does the dishes piled up in the sink, and savors the way the lemon dish soap lingers on his skin. Then he slips on his shoes by the door, and pauses with his hand on the knob.
He considers turning back to knock on Chenle’s door, asking to talk.
But he doesn’t. At 6:48 a.m., before the sun is fully up, he slips out.
The door closes quietly behind him.
He doesn’t leave a note.
He’s too afraid of what he might write.
And too afraid of what Chenle might end up reading into the silence.
🪡
Jisung spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to date Chenle, in his teenage years.
He’d think about it when he saw Chaeyoung post photos of them going out and having suppers at fast food chains or after hagwon. He’d think about it when Jiyoon started sporting this yellow jacket in their lab classes, the exact same shade as the bottle Chenle started using. He’d think about it every time he passed by the classroom where the thing with Xinyu blew up. He’d think about all of it, less with resentment, and more so with a certain kind of curiosity. About Chenle. About what kind of lover he would be. About what it was about him that made him so endlessly fascinating and exciting and exhilarating to be around.
He never blamed any of those girls for falling for Chenle so hard and fast, because he understood too. Chenle was loud, funny, unapologetic. He went about things with such a fuck-all attitude it almost made you feel like some of that invincibility would rub off on you eventually, too.
In his youth, Jisung spent a lot of time living in his own head. And in his head, Chenle was a lot of things.
Looking back on it now, Jisung should’ve known what it meant to spend so many hours lying awake at night, fantasizing what it’d be like to date his best friend, hypothesizing about the places he’d bring his girlfriends, about the jokes he’d tell them. He should’ve known a lot of things.
And this whole time, Chenle had always been right. All along, it was Park Jisung who didn’t know what love looked like, and the whole time it was staring at him right in the eyes.
🪡
“Are you nervous?”
“I’m terrified,” Jaemin answers, looking up from his lunch. “But in a good way.”
“Of the permanence of it all?”
Jaemin gives up trying to strip the meat off the bone with his fork and spoon and switches to his hands instead. “No, I can’t wait for that part. It’s the spectacle of the wedding I’m scared about.”
“I’d be terrified too, to be honest. I feel like I’d cry if I tripped walking down the aisle,” Jisung offers up weakly as a joke, but Jaemin’s eyes only widen in annoyance as he tears through the chicken leg.
“Don’t even joke, man. I’ve had actual nightmares about it.” Then he looks up, popping a piece of chicken into his mouth. “I’m scared of a thousand things. Of crying, of forgetting my vows. Of my mom crying, which will make me cry. Or Renjun crying, which will probably make everyone cry. I just really wish it were tomorrow. Then at least I don’t have to overthink about everything for another week.” He finally looks up, and Jisung drops his gaze immediately. “What about you? How’s everything been?”
Jisung stirs his soup, further breaking down the tofu cubes with his spoon. “Fine. Just tired.”
“I haven’t been asking for too many favors from you, have I?” asks Jaemin, gnawing at his bottom lip. And the gesture reminds him so much of Chenle that his stomach twists in pain. He pushes the soup away. “I feel like I have, god, I’m sorry… at first I was just excited that you knew Renjun and his family and I thought it would be a good idea to get you involved with everything. Look, I apologize if you felt pressured to do it because I asked.”
“No, don’t worry. It’s been tiring, but not because of this,” Jisung reassures him with a small smile.
They eat in companionable silence for a bit. Around them, the cafeteria buzzes with the low, weekday hum of people easing back into routine. It feels surreal to Jisung—how the world insists on continuing as though nothing monumental has happened, as though time hadn’t stopped in Chenle’s apartment on Friday.
“So,” Jaemin says eventually, wiping his hands on a napkin. “You’re still good to walk in with the groomsmen right?”
Jisung nods, his body on autopilot. “Of course.”
“And you’re sitting with Chenle’s side during the ceremony?”
His fingers freeze. “Am I?”
“Yeah, I assumed you’d be sitting with them. Renjun’s parents say it’s customary to have the guests divided into either side of the family and they were saying you’d fit right in with Renjun’s cousins. You know, Lingying.” And Chenle.
Jisung keeps his eyes on the table, on the faint scratch in the laminate shaped like a lightning bolt, on anything that isn’t Jaemin’s face while he recalibrates his breathing and thinks about what he’ll say to Chenle when they meet again.
🪡
Fate has never been on his side. Or rather, fate has always been and is still on his side, and Jisung is surprised she hasn’t given up on him after all the chances he’s wasted before.
It’s how he chooses to take things when he inevitably meets Chenle face-to-face again.
He’s out on the balcony with Yixin the night of the wedding rehearsal, and Jisung is surprised they’ve managed to avoid each other for so long. It’s Lingying who brings him out here. Unlike whatever’s been going on between him and Chenle, the 2 of them have been speaking all night.
Not that he remembers anything they talked about. Not that any of it matters at all.
Throughout the night, every time he heard Chenle’s laugh to his back, even if it sounded like it came halfway across the hall, Jisung had to channel all of his restraint and focus into not turning back just to catch a glimpse of happiness on Chenle’s face. Doesn’t help the image that forms automatically in the forefront of his mind, though. He wants to see Chenle, he dreads seeing Chenle, he sees Chenle anyway—whether as a blur of color in his peripheral vision, in person, or as the image of him permanently seared into his mind.
“Jiejie,” Yixin greets when Lingying coos and runs over to pat him on the head. He detaches himself from Chenle’s side and reaches up for Lingying instead. “Shushu was bullying me.”
“Little traitor,” Chenle says, bending down to tweak Yixin's nose. “You were just telling me that I was your favorite.”
“You haven’t given me my money.”
“What’s a little kid gonna do with a 100 bucks anyway?”
“The new gundam máng hé just came out. All of my classmates already have it.”
“That’s exactly why I’m not giving you a single cent,” Chenle tuts, standing up and pushing his hair from his forehead, still pointedly ignoring Jisung’s presence. While everyone else was dressed in semi-formal attire, Chenle showed up in a hoodie and jeans, and he still somehow managed to look the best. Now that Jisung’s properly taken him in with his eyes, it’s like he could no longer look away. He feels his fingers twitch with want to reach out by his side, and he buries them into his pockets to stop them.
“But I already gave you all the kisses! This is so unfair!” He turns to Lingying to complain, and her eyes are melting with soft affection as she nods and assures him she’ll buy it for him instead.
Lingying scoops Yixin up with a dramatic gasp. “Of course I’ll buy it for you. Shushu is just being mean because he’s jealous of how cute you are. Come, let’s go and ask if your Ma will allow it, hm?”
Yixin giggles, wrapping his arms around her neck. “Thank you, jiejie! You’re the best.” He swivels around to stick his tongue out at Chenle.
Chenle rolls his eyes, but the corner of his mouth lifts in that fond, helpless way he’s always had around Yixin. “Traitor,” he mutters again, ruffling the kid’s hair one last time before Lingying carries him back inside. The door slides shut behind them, and silence falls, sudden and thick.
And then it’s just the 2 of them, and Chenle finally looks him in the eyes. Right before he swivels back to lean against the railing, looking out into the distant city.
There is the loud jackrabbitting of his pulse in his ears and gravel in his throat.
“Hey,” he calls out, testing the waters.
Chenle doesn’t turn. “Hey.”
Another beat.
Jisung takes a step closer, then another, until he’s beside Chenle at the railing. He wonders what he will have to do to press closer, closer, until all he can smell is the citrus scent of Chenle’s cologne, then even closer, till he can taste the warmth underneath that is wholly Chenle alone.
“I was wondering if I was going to see you tonight,” Jisung admits.
“I’m all out of apologies, Jisung, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“I’m not. There’s nothing for you to apologize for.”
“Then I’m glad,” Chenle hums, his hair whipping against his face in the cold bite of the wind, “that we’re on the same page.”
“I just wanted to say hi to you.”
“Hi. Consider that done.” The dismissal isn’t kind. It’s far from it, actually, and Jisung feels the sting as though Chenle had just held a hot poker to his skin.
Still, he’s always been drawn to this bluntness. He’s always searched for the kindness beneath it. After all, wasn’t Chenle what he was looking for all these years, in Joohyun, in Kangjun? How could he have been so blind to what he wanted most?
“Just. Leave. Jisung, please.”
“Are you planning on avoiding me forever?”
“I’m not avoiding you. I’m simply letting things return to normal,” Chenle insists, and there’s a raw edge to his voice as he speaks now.
He turns, and Jisung’s already looking at him, but he looks harder than he has before. He wants to pull him closer and look and look and look, with his fingers and his mouth and his whole body is seizing up with how much he wants. He’s not himself, hasn’t been since he’s managed to name whatever it is he’s been carrying on his back for all his life since Chenle helped him put the universe together without asking.
“Jisung, Lingying asked me about you before you arrived today. And she’s great, really great. She’s funny, she’s nice, she doesn’t take shit from anyone.” He pauses and looks past Jisung and into the wide windows, from which they can see Chenle’s family laughing together inside. “She likes kids, and I told her that you were a really great guy, too. The best.”
Jisung’s eyebrows knit themselves together as he tries to understand what this means.
“I’ve messed things up for you too many times, Jisung. Don’t let me do it again.”
“You’re not messing anything up for me, Chenle, I… Do we have to do this all over? From the beginning? Pretend we never met or that we’re strangers? It’s not like I will fall apart just because we’re in the same room.”
Chenle’s mouth twitches with a wry smile. “I might. I will.” Then he swallows, and Jisung’s eyes track the way his throat bobs with it. “So, we’re going to be normal tomorrow. And I’ll stay out of the way, and you and Lingying will get along just fine. She adores you. Or she will, anyway. You should go back in and find her before she starts wondering where you’ve gone.”
“Lele,” he calls out, then stops. He hasn’t called Chenle that in ages. His mouth opens again, and Chenle’s eyes are alight with anticipation when light suddenly pours over them and they realize the door has slid open.
Lingying peeks out, scanning the space until her eyes land on Jisung. She brightens immediately.
“There you are,” she says. “Jaemin was asking for you. Says his brother’s asking about a broken PC.”
“But I’m not a hardware guy,” Jisung grumbles (not that anyone has ever cared to learn the difference), but he pushes himself off the railing as naturally as he can manage anyway, even though it feels like he’s physically extricating himself from a thorn bush.
Lingying wraps a hand loosely around his wrist and pulls him back into the chatter inside. Jisung listens when she speaks, laughs where appropriate, lets himself be folded into the noise and color and movement of the night. If this is what Chenle wants, then maybe he’ll find the strength to give it to him.
Later in the night, when Jisung is about to excuse himself to drive home, he sees Chenle leaning against a wall (he’s always leaning), laughing (he’s always laughing, when it isn’t with Jisung), that playful look back in his eyes as he talks to one of Jaemin’s friends from college.
The last thing Jisung sees before he leaves is that guy’s hand on Chenle’s forearm. He wonders if Chenle was also familiar with the pain left by the knife twisting in his gut when he saw the scene unfolding.
He hopes he is. Bitterly, he hopes the guilt and memory of every person he took from Jisung sits like lead in his stomach, a weight to match this abject hollow in Jisung's own chest. It’s a petty sort of wish, one that shames him even as he grips his keys tight enough to bruise, but as he turns his back and walks toward the exit, he realizes that "forgiving and forgetting" was a luxury he never truly possessed. If he has to spend the rest of the night drowning in the ghost of that kiss, the least Chenle could do is drown along with him.
🪡
Jisung only realizes in a deep moment of shame on the morning of the wedding that he’s never learned how to tie a tie.
He watches as many youtube tutorials as he can fit into the tiny window of time he has before he has to drive to the venue and still he shows up looking like a mess. Who knew even ties had dimples?
He tugs at it in the lobby, pulls at it in the hallway on the way to the toilet, fusses with his jacket when he comes out still unsatisfied, muttering curses under his breath the whole time. Then, when his nerves feel like they’ve been set alight on flames, a hand lands on his elbow.
“Park Jisung”.
Chenle. “Come here,” he commands, and Jisung wordlessly obeys. He’s in his grey suit already, a sprig of lilac tucked into the front pocket, his tie perfect. His hair is styled up too, but still a few strands fall over his forehead that Jisung thinks might’ve been intentional.
He’s beautiful. He’s so beautiful.
Jisung allows himself to be steered into a small side room—some kind of bridal suite annex, empty except for a mirror and a chaise. Jisung’s heart stutters, stupid and hopeful, muscle memory kicking in before sense can catch up.
But Chenle doesn’t say anything about the conversation they had last night, nor does he lean forward and offer Jisung another chance to kiss him stupid, just gets to work undoing the mess of Jisung’s tie.
Chenle is nearly a whole head shorter—has to rise slightly on the balls of his feet to reach properly, his brows furrowed in concentration.
“There,” Chenle says quietly, pulling the tie snug and adjusting the dimple with a final, precise touch. He smooths down Jisung’s lapel, fussing like this is the most natural thing in the world. “You look fine now.”
“You look better.”
“I always do, don’t I?” Chenle jokes, his entire face softening with the smile that surfaces.
Is this what it would’ve been like? Mornings like this, with Chenle fixing his tie, looking at him, maybe even pressing a soft kiss to Jisung’s jaw where he can easily reach. If only this were their wedding. If only they weren’t here to be guests.
Chenle doesn’t linger before he leaves. So it’s a strange thing, that Jisung still feels the weight of his hands on his neck, on his lapel. If anyone sees him running his own fingers over his tie again and again through the day, no one questions it.
🪡
The ceremony is perfect, because of course it is. It’s Huang Renjun’s wedding, and anyone lucky enough to be marrying him would be a fool if they didn’t ensure the wedding was anything but.
Jaemin does sob his way through his vows, though, because he spoke after Renjun, but somehow even that felt like everything falling into place where they should belong.
Yixin is the only thing separating him and Chenle during dinner because the adults have all been assigned to sit at the same table. Then, right after Renjun and Jaemin visit their table, hands not leaving each other, he leaves his seat and wriggles himself between Jisung and Lingying, who’d sat on his right the whole time. He giggled to himself like no one could tell what he was thinking, and everyone played dumb—most of all Jisung, who was whole-heartedly convinced that the only other person who knew what was on his mind was Chenle.
With any luck, Chenle might even be thinking the same thing.
🪡
The upbeat music eventually swells into something slower, more traditional, and the air in the hall feels thick with a romantic humidity that Jisung finds increasingly difficult to breathe in.
Especially when he watches Chenle get guided onto the dance floor with the same guy from the night before, laughing, laughing, laughing.
Jisung should probably take the cue and ask Lingying for a dance, too, but she’s also been spirited away by another person, and Jisung stays seated where he is, nursing a glass of champagne he’s barely touched.
Chenle and this guy, they move together clumsily, with the guy not knowing what to do with his hand and Chenle chuckling as he guides it to his waist and somehow that’s worse. It’s worse because Chenle’s eyes keep bunching up with mirth and amusement, and just watching him look at someone else with those eyes is killing him.
Oh, Jisung can’t breathe, he really can’t.
He watches too long. Long enough that his chest starts to ache, long enough that something hot and reckless crawls up his spine and lodges itself in his throat.
Before he can talk himself out of it—before fear or pride or common sense can intervene—he stands.
Someone comments on how grating the noise had been but he doesn’t look at them. He doesn’t look at anyone as his feet carry him forward with single-minded purpose, straight toward the dance floor, straight toward Chenle.
“May I cut in?” he says, loud enough that he can be heard over the music.
The guy says something, chuckles nervously, obviously at a loss for what to do, but as soon as whatever leaves his mouth approximates permission, Jisung takes Chenle’s hands into his own and pulls him away.
“Jisung—”
“It’s okay, we’re just dancing,” Jisung tells him. He doesn’t want to hear the rejection at the tip of Chenle’s tongue. He doesn’t want to hear anything or say anything, just wants to savor this moment for what it is if he’s never allowed to be this close to Chenle again.
Chenle presses his lips together in exasperation, but he nods, and they start moving.
Instinctively, Jisung’s other hand lands on Chenle’s waist and it just feels right. It feels impossibly correct that it just fits at the curve above Chenle’s hips, that Chenle is looking up at him now, not anyone else.
He’s waited for this moment for too many years; he’s wasted too many years not knowing he was waiting for this moment.
Chenle doesn’t pull away. He doesn't even try to maintain the "polite distance" expected of 2 friends at a wedding. Instead, he lets his arms slide up to rest on Jisung’s shoulders, his fingers curling into the fabric of the suit jacket he had helped adjust only hours before.
"You're making a scene," Chenle whispers, though there’s no bite in it. His voice is thick, strung with the shake of an anxious laugh. "Ma is staring. Lingying is definitely staring. Ge is staring.”
“Okay, good,” Jisung says, suddenly possessed with bravery he didn’t know he had.
“Ge’s going to be mad at you for stealing all the attention on his wedding day.”
“Stop thinking about what they want.” He tugs Chenle closer, and feels the anticipation rising when Chenle doesn’t resist. They’re close enough that Chenle’s forehead is nearly resting on his collarbone, but Jisung wants them to be closer. He breaks the rules, if there are rules to a stupid dance at a wedding that isn’t even theirs, anyway. He slides his other hand down to grip at Chenle’s wrist, feeling the flutter of his pulse beneath his thumb. Chenle is so beautiful, so small, so alive. Chenle is so beautiful. “I was scared stupid the other night.That night at your apartment, when you kissed me. I wanted it so much I couldn’t move. And then you told me to leave, and I thought I’d ruined everything again.”
Chenle’s fingers tighten on Jisung’s shoulders.
“I want you badly, Chenle… I’ve been wanting you forever. So much so that I wonder how I’ve never seen it before—if it’s exactly why I never saw it.” He dares to draw himself till he can feel Chenle’s breath hitting his neck. “And I’m sorry I have to say it now, when I had so many chances to say it before. But I just know I have to do it if this is the last time you’ll allow me to be so close to you.”
He braces himself for the rejection, but Chenle doesn’t pull away.
Instead, his fingers slide from Jisung’s shoulders to the nape of his neck, threading gently into the short hair there.
“You idiot,” Chenle whispers, voice thick with something that isn’t anger. “This isn’t the last time. Do you know what was the first thing I thought when I landed in Seoul? I was thinking if I was going to get to see you again.” Chenle’s crying. Jisung still remembers the last time he’d seen Chenle cry, on the first day they met—that was because of him, too. “I never stopped thinking about you, you fucking idiot.”
“Good,” he breathes.
This time, it’s him who leans in first. It’s probably a spectacle. It’s probably a really horrible thing to do at someone else’s wedding. But Jisung holds Chenle close as he slots their lips together, and Chenle’s lips are trembling but he steadies them with his own.
He keeps it short, pulling away before he thinks he’ll do something he regrets in front of so many people.
Distantly, he registers Renjun and Jaemin dancing just slightly closer, and the sound of someone wolf-whistling to their backs.
“Your timing is horrible, Park Jisung,” Chenle laughs through his tears.
“Yeah, 20 years too late,” Jisung agrees. But he hopes the choice he makes today will give him more than 20 years to make up for it.
🪡
epilogue
The universe is big. The universe is science. The universe is explainable. It is also probabilistically random.
And sometimes, against every odd, it aligns.
In late August, Jisung wakes up in Chenle’s bed, sunlight streaming in through the gauzy curtains Chenle has installed but deeply regrets. He mourns the loss of his blackout curtains every day, and even though Jisung likes to remind him that he can simply take them down, he still turns down the suggestion every time. Sometimes, Jisung thinks Chenle just likes to complain and whine so Jisung will hold him in his arms and kiss his frown away.
Chenle sleeps like he always does, with his arms flailing everywhere, one leg draped over Jisung’s waist possessively. They struggled the first few times they slept together—Jisung was kicked in the jaw in his sleep once, and Chenle still won’t stop laughing about it.
His hair is longer now, curling at his nape. He also only brings himself to shave every five days just before his stubble grows long enough that it’s too unsightly for his job, and his mouth is slightly open. There’s a faint line between his brows, even in sleep, like his thoughts never quite learned how to rest.
Jisung lies there and lets himself marvel at it.
They are not perfect.
They argue about stupid things, like whose turn it is to do the laundry and whether Jisung is allowed to buy yet another figurine when there is already no space on the shelves. They bicker about the order of the steps when they’re building model planes, longer than the time they actually spend putting things together. Chenle still deflects with humor when conversations get too heavy, and Jisung still retreats into silence when he’s overwhelmed. Some wounds ache if pressed too hard, old habits flaring up like ghosts that refuse to be exorcised all at once.
They are not perfect by any means, but they talk about it now.
They talk about Shanghai, all of the people they’ve loved, why they loved them, drew the connections linking everything to each other and wondered why it took them so long to see.
Some of the apologies come late, some forgiveness takes time. And some things, they decide, don’t need to be excavated any further to still be understood.
“Stop staring at me,” Chenle mumbles, throwing a hand over his face as he stirs, his voice rough with sleep.
Jisung startles. “You were awake?”
“Half,” Chenle says, eyes still closed. His grip tightens, tugging Jisung closer. “You always get this stupid look on your face when you’re thinking too hard.”
Jisung huffs a quiet laugh. “Was just thinking.”
“Dangerous hobby.”
“About you.”
Chenle cracks one eye open, lips quirking. “Still dangerous.”
Jisung wraps his arms around Chenle’s waist and pulls him till they’re pressed up against each other snugly. Then he buries his nose into the back of Chenle’s neck and takes in a deep breath, earning himself a smack on his hand. “You’re a pervert, man. Why are you always trying to smell me?”
“Because you smell delicious,” he mumbles against Chenle’s skin, then nips at it lightly till he hears the telltale tremble of Chenle’s next exhale.
“You’re a freak.”
“You’re the one who wouldn’t let me leave last night. Says a lot more about you than it does me,” Jisung points out, and Chenle tchs under his breath, muttering something in Mandarin that Jisung knows is nothing nice.
Still, his hands slip under the thin cotton of Chenle’s shirt and slide up to his chest. He draws in another deep breath, and Chenle pretends he hates it, but he pushes his hips back and it’s just so easy, with Chenle.
The universe is vast. Perhaps they really are just specks of dust at the end of the day. But Jisung is lucky, he thinks, that for all its distance and noise and indifference and his own stubbornness, that he still ends up here, next to Chenle.
Maybe it was simply coincidence, but Jisung likes to think that all along, there was an invisible string, stretched thin across many years of silence and too many different cities, that pulled them home in the end.