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The call comes at 3 am.
Seungkwan awakens blearily, fingers fumbling for his phone in the dark of his bedroom. The screen reflects back a blurry picture of a boy with shaggy brown hair and a heart-shaped smile, backlit in neon green and eyes bright with joy as he sings into a mic.
Hansol’s contact picture, taken at the V8 concert a month ago.
Seungkwan’s heart leaps, then falls sharply in fear as awareness filters in. 3 am calls have been Seungkwan’s exclusive domain for the last decade; for Hansol to call at night, something must be wrong.
He accepts the call with shaking fingers, sleep and adrenaline making his voice tremble as he says, “Hansol?”
In response, Hansol breathes.
Which might be alarming to anyone else, but ironically enough, the absence of a hello or explanation calms Seungkwan down. If it was actually urgent, Hansol would be speaking already. The sound of his measured, even breathing is familiar, even if it’s not a sound usually heard via mobile phone, and Seungkwan’s heart rate slows.
Then confusion settles in.
“Hansol?” he tries again. “Is anything wrong?”
Hansol is silent for another long moment before he finally speaks.
“You know I care about you, right?” he asks.
Seungkwan blinks. Looks down at the phone like it can provide answers, then frowns when it does not.
“Um, sure?” he tries. He rubs at his eyes, clearing the sleep from them as he tries to clear his mind as well.
“I care about you, Seungkwan,” Hansol repeats, like he’s talking about weather, easy, casual. Like it’s just an ordinary fact, though the declaration is more than a little out of character and the timing is more than a little strange. “I wanted to make sure you knew.”
Seungkwan checks his phone again, then frowns even deeper, brow furrowing.
“Yah,” he says without heat, but with real worry, “It’s so late it’s early. Why are you calling me about this right now? Are you okay?”
“Are you?”
It’s not a rhetorical question, or one that seeks to turn attention back onto Seungkwan. It’s grave, with the sort of sincerity behind it that typifies Hansol’s kindness, his care. He really wants to know.
“I–what, of course I am, yes,” Seungkwan stammers, flustered.
Even as he says it, there’s a little insidious whisper inside that chants, liar. It sounds like Jeonghan hyung, because all insidious internal whispers do.
But just like he does with Jeonghan hyung, Seungkwan ignores it.
“I know you care about me,” he says, firmly, sitting up in bed. “What I don’t know is why you felt like you had to call me in the middle of the night to confirm.”
Hansol hums. “Well, you said it was one-sided,” he says. “Our friendship.”
Oh.
Oh no. Seungkwan’s whole body goes immediately hot in humiliation. The live. The damn Weverse Live and the damn red wine at midnight and the damn sentimentality that made him run his damn mouth.
Seungkwan closes his eyes as realization sets in. He feels almost light-headed with embarrassment.
“Yah,” he says again, weaker this time, raking a hand over his face and rolling over to stare at the ceiling. “You’re never online. How did you find out so fast?”
Hansol laughs. It’s Seungkwan’s favorite laugh, a snicker of genuine amusement. It means that he’s not annoyed, or even worse, pitying. Relief is a cold breeze, though Seungkwan’s cheeks are still warm.
“The group chat blew it up just like Channie’s Kany segment,” Hansol says. “They sent links.”
Seungkwan groans, embarrassment fading slightly in the face of indignation. “Nosy,” he says. “I do those lives for Carats, not you punks.”
He thinks about his 5-minute monologue on the livestream, half-improvised, one-third a bit. And that remaining one-sixth which was something secret and small, young and untouched by the years, uncovered only when alcohol and exhaustion loosen his guard. He winces, imagining those words heard by Hansol, received with such seriousness that he felt the need to call.
“Hansollie knows I was joking, right?” Seungkwan ventures, because the best offense is a defense, especially when one’s emotionally contained but uncannily perceptive best friend is in question.
Hansol huffs, soft.
“I told the chat that you never asked to go for a meal with me, just heavily hinted,” he says in lieu of a direct response. Which for Hansol means he definitely heard that one-sixth of insecurity and decided, as he often does, that a direct route to address it was necessary.
Seungkwan’s embarrassment intensifies, and he squirms against the horror of being seen. “Hinting is me asking!” he retorts.
Hansol huffs again, affection lacing the sound.
“I know,” he says. “Just like I thought you knew that if you really wanted to, I’d go anywhere with you.”
Seungkwan falters. He is always so unprepared for Hansol’s particular brand of honesty. For a second, he fights the urge to deflect.
Hansol remains patient on the line.
After a moment, Seungkwan ventures, unable to stop himself: “Anywhere?”
The question is telling. Seungkwan flips over so his face is hidden in the pillow, voice muffled.
“I mean, hah. I know. Of course I know! I said so, didn’t I? That you would have said yes if I asked.”
“You also said you thought I might get tired of you.”
Hansol’s voice is steady, even. If it was accusatory, if it was teasing, if it was sad — Seungkwan might have felt pressure to perform. He feels the tenor of it lay over his nerves instead, a balm on something that has started to itch again under Seungkwan’s skin, a fear made amorphous by an unknown future but large enough to still cast a shadow, swimming like a barracuda in his blood.
“I was joking,” Seungkwan says again. But this time he adds, into the patient static: “And maybe, I was also telling the truth.”
Hansol is quiet. The rhythm of his breaths take on an encouraging quality.
Seungkwan sighs, chest tight around the words pooling there before crawling up his throat.
“Sometimes I think about how much we’ve changed,” he confesses, because being Hansol’s friend means being brave enough to have the conversation. Hansol is a T, yes, but that means he’s more careful about his sentiment, more measured. He will keep this safe, Seungkwan trusts that. He wished he was better at always trusting it.
“I get scared,” he says. “You’re so amazing, Hansol. You’ve grown so much, I’m so proud of you, but it also means maybe…maybe you’ve outgrown me. We’re enlisting soon, and we’ve been busier than ever this year, and I thought—maybe being same-aged friends won’t be enough when we aren’t forced to see each other every day. When you have a choice, maybe you…won’t want to choose me.”
Out in the open now, the strange emotions that have had a hold on Seungkwan for the past few weeks seem to fade. His shoulders release and he slumps in bed, feeling tired.
“Sorry,” he says shyly. Even after more than a decade together, he is learning how to apologize with some measure of grace.
Hansol’s quiet feels heavier on the line. When he speaks, his voice sounds hoarse, almost pained.
“Seungkwan,” he says. “Can you open the door?”
Seungkwan sits up in bed, all fatigue forgotten.
“What?” he asks stupidly. Even as he asks, bewildered, he’s getting up and stumbling to the front door.
He unlocks it before Hansol can answer. And there, wearing pajama pants and a pair of slides, bundled in an unseasonably heavy sweatshirt with the hood up over his messy hair, is Hansol.
Handsome, dear, familiar Hansol.
Hansol, who is so busy they’ve barely spoken over the last few weeks.
Hansol, who is not the type to leave the house after dark unless it’s to a studio or DJ set.
Hansol, who values sleep so much the group teases there’s no surface he couldn’t use to find a way to doze off.
“Hansol,” Seungkwan says, stunned. “You came all this way? At this hour?”
Hansol tilts his head. “You said we all would, if you were having a hard time.”
He steps in, stepping close. “You were right.”
The door closes behind him. His lashes are so long, eyes dark and fathoms deep. A pimple patch sits on his chin. Seungkwan is confronted with the reality of Hansol’s handsome face all the time, but tonight it feels particularly devastating to acknowledge it right next to nostalgia for the children they were, two kids, gangly and imperfect, full of boundless love for one another.
Not for the first time, Seungkwan wants to touch him.
But for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel ashamed of the desire, the way he externalizes his love, gestures every bit as loud and exaggerated as his affection.
Hansol is here, unbelievably. The moment is precious. So Seungkwan allows himself to honor it.
He reaches out, grazing the tips of his fingers against the starburst tattoo sitting behind Hansol’s ear.
Hansol stills, eyes searching. Usually, he stands like he is carved out of stone, immovable even against the force of Seungkwan’s attention, bearing it with all the dignified grace of a black cat. Today, even his stillness is alive, gaze darting to different parts of Seungkwan’s face, taking in his rumpled hair and wrinkled pajama set.
His hand raises to Seungkwan’s, touching his wrist gently.
“I have a choice, Seungkwan,” Hansol says. And I’m still choosing you, is what goes unspoken, said only through the way their hands fall, and somehow in their descent, end up tangled together.
Seungkwan swallows back the shock of this contact, grounding and disorienting all at once. He takes a deep breath, feeling a reckless sort of bravery take hold. They’re both going to be separated for a long time very soon. Maybe it’s time to lay it all out on the line. To stop letting his feelings sit underneath exaggerated jokes or questioning glances, and instead be more like Hansol: saying exactly what he means.
“You’ve become even more than you were before,” Seungkwan says, staring at their joined hands, the loose knot of their fingers. “I suppose we all have, that’s what growing up is.” He shifts, shuffles in place, helpless.
“But every version of me loves every version of you a lot, Hansol.” He closes his eyes briefly at the weight of the confession. “I love you so much that it spills right over into the next person I become. I just don’t know if, when you become your next ‘you,’ I’ll be part of what remains. What…carries over.”
Seungkwan clears his throat, nervous. “I’d like to be,” he says, voice very, very thin. “If you wanted that, too.”
His heart is beating hummingbird fast, but he’s less nervous than he thought he’d be, standing here and saying this now. He’s not scared of his feelings being unreturned so much as them being inconvenient. He could take rejection; what he wants more than anything is for his love to be something that builds Hansol up, not burdens him.
Hansol is quiet again, simply staring at Seungkwan. There is a childish sort of discontent in the pinch of his dark brows. The set of his mouth.
“Seungkwan,” he says finally, and there’s something acutely wrecked in his voice, a sound Seungkwan has never once heard in the last fifteen years. “Don’t you know that you’re one of my favorite parts of me?”
Oh.
Hansol is good with words. He is a songwriter, after all. Seungkwan knows this. But sometimes he is reminded of it in the most devastating ways.
He blinks, winded. He raises the hand not holding Hansol’s. Touches his fingers to his mouth. The question feels, crazily enough, like a kiss.
Hansol ducks his head, but not before Seungkwan sees his tongue dart out to wet his lower lip.
“I wasn’t going to say anything till after enlistment,” he says, haltingly. His other hand raises, hovering over Seungkwan’s cheek before landing, fitting against the curve of it with an intimacy and ease that feels almost unfair.
“Say anything about…what?” Seungkwan asks. He doesn’t dare to hope. But it’s 3am and they’re in pajamas and Hansol’s hand is on his face.
He is one of Hansol’s favorite parts of himself.
“About us,” Hansol says. “About how I feel about you.” His thumb presses against the constellation of moles in front of Seungkwan’s ear. His face is wreathed in a sudden, boyish tenderness, young and earnest. “Seungkwan. This isn’t one-sided. You’re allowed to ask me for a meal, or touch my ear, or write me long Insta posts. Okay? I don’t hate it. I like it.”
He crooks his mouth a little, and corrects himself: “I love it.”
His thumb trails down, loosely ghosting over Seungkwan’s mouth. The pressure is like heated silk. It makes Seungkwan drag in a shaky breath.
Hansol’s eyes turn a deep, glowing amber. Lit from within.
“I love you,” he says.
Seungkwan’s mouth drops open.
“I don’t say it like you say it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it,” Hansol continues doggedly. He sways closer. Swallows. His lashes are very long. “It’s not proximity. It’s not, I dunno, situational. When you were gone for months, I felt it. When we’re apart for the next two years, I’ll feel it too.”
He tilts Seungkwan’s chin so their eyes meet, and his expression is serious as he says: “If every version of you loves every version of me, every version of me loves every version of you, Seungkwan.”
He grins, a little silly. “Especially the ones with the wigs.”
Seungkwan barks a hysterical laugh before slapping a hand over his mouth. He feels dizzy. He reaches down to pinch the outside of his thigh, inhaling sharply at the pain.
Hansol makes a noise and bats his hand away. “What was that for?” he asks, reaching down to smooth a finger over the sore spot.
Seungkwan coughs against the heat in his chest, the way his body thrills at Hansol’s casual, caring touch.
“I kind of thought I was dreaming,” he says faintly.
Hansol closes his eyes on a silent wheeze, stepping near enough to slide his arms around Seungkwan’s waist, the unselfconscious grip he used to have when they were teens.
They stand like that, hip to hip, chest to chest, strangely intimate but equally as strangely at ease. As if the pivot from friend to something more was a matter of centimeters rather than years.
Seungkwan doesn’t dare to look away for fear that all of this will dissolve the instant he does, so he sees it when Hansol opens his eyes again, a tentative question in the wrinkle of his brow.
“I don’t know if now is the right time to do anything about this,” Hansol says. “Us. With enlistment and everything. But if you, um. If you were okay waiting for me. I’d wait for you. And we could figure it out together. After.”
Hansol says it with an uncharacteristic hesitance. Like he knows it’s a good idea but is nervous to suggest it because he doesn’t want Seungkwan to disagree. But Seungkwan has waited for a long time already. Two more years, on the strength of this night, this declaration, don’t feel terrible.
And for someone like Hansol, who lives in the moment and doesn’t like making promises he can’t keep, the suggestion — as pragmatic and logical as it is — is also deeply romantic.
Seungkwan reaches up and gives in to the impulse his body has had since Hansol entered the room. He drapes his arms around Hansol’s neck, pulling him closer still, marveling at the hitch of Hansol’s breath, the way, when he allows himself to look with the knowledge of Hansol’s words, he can see:
Hansol, following him on stage.
Hansol, giving him an extra helping of stew.
Hansol, placing a hand on his nape when he cries.
Hansol, looking at him. Always looking.
Not too cool. Not tsundere. Not hard to get.
Quiet, contemplative, contrary, stubbornly himself. Speaking in a language Seungkwan was too loud to hear.
But in love.
Yes, Hansol,” Seungkwan says. “I’d like that.”
Hansol’s face lights up. He looks young and terribly pleased, and Seungkwan thinks of watching him on stage, awash in green light and walking with full-bodied confidence, singing his heart out.
The joy was incandescent then. It burns just as steadily now, bright and unrelenting.
And, because Seungkwan is greedy, he tips up to kiss Hansol, to feel that radiance against his mouth. To sigh into the sun of Hansol’s smile.
The kiss is warm. Soft at first, then deeper. Hungrier.
The slow discovery that every place they touch is electric. A cut-off breath. A gasp. The parting of lips and Hansol’s tongue touching Seungkwan’s, his hands sliding under Seungkwan’s pajama top to press against the heated skin of Seungkwan’s waist.
They break apart, slightly out of breath. Seungkwan feels kiss-bruised and hazy. Light like he’s walking on air.
“We — uh. We can still, like. Kiss, before enlistment. Right?” Hansol asks, dazed. “Because that was…nice.”
Seungkwan laughs, head thrown back. Once upon a time, the word would feel like being damned by faint praise. Nice? Just nice?
But it’s 3:30am and Hansol came all this way, and there’s something beloved and fierce burning in the depths of his eyes.
Seungkwan can’t find it within himself to second-guess anything here.
Two truths can exist, it seems. Hansol can grow and change and be his own person, with different ways of expressing himself, different needs and desires and dreams. A path that deliberately branches into a new direction.
And — his love for Seungkwan can grow and change with him. Become bigger. Truer. Braver.
He can choose every day to bring Seungkwan on that path with him, or to allow their paths to be parallel instead of divergent.
The years don’t have to force them apart.
Hansol loves him, and will get better at saying it, just like Seungkwan will learn how to get better at seeing it.
They have time.