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Keonho stared at the glowing orange cherry of the cigarette joint in between the stranger’s lips, his brain momentarily short-circuiting. The bass from whatever atrocious EDM remix was blasting through the living room speakers vibrated right through his ribs, making his heart palpitate. Though, if Keonho were being honest, the palpitations were mostly due to the guy standing in front of him.
“Martin,” that was the name the sophomore had shouted over the music three minutes ago when he’d found Keonho practically pressing himself into the drywall to avoid the crush of sweaty bodies. Martin had floppy, perfectly messy hair, a thrifted leather jacket that’s probably still expensive as fuck, and pretty eyes. “You need some company?”
“Uh,” Keonho stammered. He pretended to cough into his fist, desperate to salvage any shred of dignity. “Company would be... cool. Yeah. Cool.”
He actively ignored the burning in his cheeks. He’d been dragged to this sweatbox of a house party by his overzealous roommate, promised networking opportunities which apparently just meant standing in the corner holding a lukewarm red solo cup of mystery punch until a tall attractive guy took pity on him.
Martin exhaled a thin plume of smoke, raising an eyebrow in silent prompting at his second question. “You smoke?”
Keonho looked at the joint again. The sight was very distracting. He had never smoked anything in his life. His lungs were pristine, temple-like organs dedicated solely to oxygen and the occasional accidental inhale of dining hall exhaust fumes. He needed them for swimming.
“Oh, yeah. All the time,” Keonho lied until his voice pitched up at the end. He didn’t know why he felt the need to appear cool in front of this stranger. “I’m a... big smoker. Of the weeds.”
Of the weeds.
He wanted the sticky, beer-stained hardwood floor smelling of piss to open up and swallow him whole. Martin paused, the joint hovering inches from his mouth. A slow, devastatingly amused smirk spread across his face. He didn’t laugh, not that bad, but his eyes crinkled at the corners in a way that made Keonho’s stomach do a pathetic backflip.
“Right,” Martin said, his voice somehow cutting through the deafening noise of the party. He extended the joint toward Keonho; the smell of pine and skunk suddenly overpowering the suffocating cocktail of stale beer, cheap vodka, and Axe body spray permeating the hallway. “Lead the way, Snoop.”
Keonho stared at the offering like it was a live grenade. In a way it was. He tentatively reached out, his fingers accidentally brushing against Martin’s warm knuckles. A jolt of electricity zipped up his arm, entirely unrelated to the narcotics. But he was determined to leave a lasting first impression, so Keonho brought the paper to his lips. He inhaled exactly a millimeter of smoke, choked on air before it even hit the back of his throat and immediately launched into a coughing fit so violent his eyes watered, completely doubling over as he handed the joint back.
He saw Martin lean against the peeling wallpaper through his blurry stinging vision, looking thoroughly entertained. “Yeah,” Martin chuckled, patting Keonho’s shaking shoulder. “You definitely need company. Let’s start by finding you some water, big smoker.”
Martin guided him to the kitchen, somehow knowing the house like the back of his hand.
“You’re Sean’s roommate?” he asked, towering over Keonho as he offered the younger one a glass of water. Keonho wasn’t even short. Martin was just a tall fucker.
Keonho took the glass like he’d been burned, wrapping both hands tightly around the cool condensation. The kitchen was making his head spin due to its contrast with the dim hallway, blindingly bright fluorescent lights shining against the top of a counter that had entirely been flooded by a sticky graveyard of crushed cans, neon puddles Keonho was careful to avoid touching, and a single pepperoni slice.
He chugged the water, welcoming the fresh relief down his sandpaper throat before daring to look back up. And up. And up.
It really wasn't fair. Back in high school, Keonho was the guy teachers asked to reach things on the top shelves. But standing this close to Martin, he felt like a garden gnome. A deeply uncool, coughing garden gnome. And the garden gnome was taking way too long to answer Martin’s question.
“Yeah,” Keonho rasped, his voice still sounding remarkably like a cheese grater. He cleared his throat violently, trying to summon a normal octave. “Yeah, Sean. He, uh, he abandoned me by the punch bowl an hour ago.”
Martin tapped a bit of ash into a completely overflowing, beer-soaked sink. “What’s your name, Snoop?”
Keonho stared into his empty water glass, desperately wishing it were filled with something stronger. Or perhaps a portal to another dimension. Don’t say anything stupid, his brain commanded. Just say your name like a normal, functional human being.
“Keo…ni,” he said. And then, completely incapable of leaving well enough alone, he added, “And for the record, I do smoke. Sometimes. I just... inhaled wrong. Because of the wind.”
Martin stared at him.
Keonho stared back.
A quiet laugh started in Martin’s chest, shaking his shoulders before spilling out into the kitchen. It was a genuinely warm and entirely unfair sound that made Keonho want to simultaneously melt and do a victory lap at the same time.
“Right.” Martin said slowly. “It is notoriously breezy next to the downstairs bathroom.”
Before Keonho could come up with another lie, the jarring, bone-rattling bass from the living room abruptly cut out. There was a second of ringing silence before the buttery wail of a saxophone oozed through the speakers. Someone must have hijacked the aux cord, and for reasons completely unknown, had put on a slow jazz.
Martin’s eyes lit up. “You wanna be cheesy?” he asked, finally putting his cigarette out and throwing it carelessly into the overflowing sink. This whole house was a fire hazard.
Keonho’s brain flatlined and he was stripped of his ability to protest when Martin’s large hand suddenly spanned the curve of his side, his thumb resting just above Keonho’s hip bone through the thin cotton of his shirt. Keonho looked down at the arm attached to his waist, then up at Martin’s face.
“Cheesy?” Keonho squeaked, the word barely making it past his vocal cords.
“Yeah,” Martin murmured. He took a half-step closer, invading Keonho’s personal space. The scent of leather and some expensive cologne completely obliterated the kitchen’s lingering aroma of stale beer and piss. “Dance with me, Snoop.”
“In the kitchen?” Keonho asked, his voice pitching high again. “Next to the sink?”
“It adds personality,” Martin countered. He applied a gentle pressure to Keonho’s waist, tugging him away from the sink. “Come on. I promise not to step on your toes.”
Keonho let out a strangled noise that was halfway between a laugh and a whimper. He tentatively brought his own hands up, entirely unsure of what to do with his gangly limbs, before awkwardly settling them on Martin’s broad shoulders. Underneath the thrifted leather jacket, Martin was entirely solid. Warm. They began swaying under the evil overhead blindingly bright fluorescent lights, stepping carefully around a sticky puddle of what looked like blue Gatorade.
Keonho felt his face heating to the temperature of a dying star. It was objectively the most ridiculously unromantic setting in the history of the universe, and yet when Martin smiled down at him with amused eyes completely at odds with his intimidatingly cool exterior, Keonho realized sickly he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
“So,” Martin hummed, leaning in just a fraction closer that Keonho could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest. “Are you going to tell me what your major is?”
“English,” Keonho blurted out, the lie leaving his lips without a second thought. It was a spectacularly stupid lie. What kind of English major spent four hours a day doing butterfly sprints in the campus aquatic center? Martin didn’t immediately call him on it, though. Instead, he guided Keonho carefully around a towering stack of greasy Domino’s boxes, his thumb tracing a slow distracting arc against Keonho’s shirt.
“English,” Martin mused, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. He leaned in closer, dropping his chin, and Keonho’s breath hitched as Martin took a deliberate sniff near his collarbone. “Fascinating. Why do you smell like chlorine?”
Keonho’s face burned so hot he was genuinely surprised the kitchen smoke detector didn’t go off. “We’re studying Moby Dick. Method acting.”
“Ah, chasing the white whale,” Martin nodded sagely, his voice dropping into a lower register that vibrated straight down Keonho’s spine. His dark eyes were practically sparkling under the harsh kitchen lights. “Commendable dedication to the text. So tell me, Captain Ahab, who’s your favorite classic author?”
Keonho’s brain, which had been operating on low-battery mode since the moment Martin touched his waist, immediately powered down completely. His extensive college reading list currently consisted of swimming heat sheets, the syllabus for his actual major, and the nutritional information on the back of protein powder tubs.
“The, uh,” Keonho stammered, frantically scanning the kitchen for a cheat sheet, or a sudden localized meteor strike. His eyes landed on a crumpled fast-food wrapper on the counter. “The guy who wrote... the burger book.”
Martin stopped swaying. He stared down at Keonho, a beautiful portrait of utter bewilderment. “The burger book?”
“You know,” Keonho said, his voice shrinking to a miserable whisper. “With the... the hungry caterpillar. Very profound. Heavy themes of... gluttony. It was written by… Franz Kafka.”
Martin bit his lower lip hard but completely failed to attempt to suppress his reaction. A loud, booming laugh burst out of him, rich and genuine, echoing off the sticky linoleum and magnetic cabinets. He laughed so hard he had to rest his forehead against Keonho’s shoulder, his chest shaking against Keonho’s own. Keonho stood there, holding up a ridiculously attractive sophomore in the middle of a disgusting frat kitchen. It was humiliating. It was disastrous.
He had never been happier.
—&—
The morning sun harshly cut through Keonho’s eyelids, piercing past the cheap plastic blinds of his dorm room. He groaned, squeezing his eyes shut against the glare. His tongue tasted like stale punch and minty toothpaste. There was a faint rhythmic thudding behind his ear. He tried to roll over while squinting, seeking the cool side of the mattress, and abruptly froze at the sight of his own body.
There was skin. Too much skin. He kicked a leg out under the scratchy duvet and confirmed the horrifying truth that he was butt naked.
Keonho’s eyes snapped open. The water-stained ceiling tiles of his room stared back at him. Across the cramped space, Sean’s bed was perfectly made and empty (thank God), but that was where his luck ended.
Like a dam bursting, the memories of last night flooded his brain. Leaving the kitchen. The cold night air prickled against his flushed skin. Martin’s heavy, leather-clad arm draped over his shoulders as they walked across the quad. Stumbling through the dorm hallways. The frantic, desperate fumble of keys. And then...
Oh.
Oh, wow.
Keonho yanked the blanket up to his chin, his face instantaneously combusting into a shade of red. He remembered Martin’s hands, warm and surprisingly gentle. He remembered a lot of kissing. He remembered the feeling of Martin’s chest pressing against him, and making breathy, embarrassing noises that he would firmly deny until his dying day.
He slowly turned his head. The spot next to him was empty, the sheets wrinkled where a bigger body must have been sleeping on it. Sitting squarely on his bedside table, propped up against a five-pound tub of whey protein powder, was a torn piece of lined notebook paper.
Keonho reached out a trembling arm. He snatched the paper, bringing it close to his face with a sudden spike of dread. Had he snored? Had he said something weird in his sleep? Had he accidentally brought up the hungry caterpillar again? He read the neat, slanted handwriting scrawled in black ink.
The Metamorphosis isn’t about burgers. —M
Keonho stared at the note. He stared at the word Metamorphosis. And then, the crushing weight of his humiliation came crashing down on him. Martin hadn’t just been laughing at him for citing The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a profound piece of literature. He had been laughing because Keonho, the fake English major, had apparently confused a beloved children’s board book about a gluttonous bug with Franz Kafka’s existential deeply depressing masterpiece about a man turning into a giant insect.
“I have to transfer,” Keonho whispered to the empty room, his voice hoarse and horrified. “I have to change my name and move to the woods.”
He collapsed back onto the pillows, pulling the duvet entirely over his head to form a shameful cocoon. The note was still clutched tightly in his fist. He was ruined. He had successfully slept with a literal god walking among undergrads, and he just had to mention Eric Carle.
Before he could fully map out his escape route to a remote Canadian province, the deadbolt clicked. The heavy wooden door swung inward, hitting the drywall with a hollow thud. Keonho stopped breathing entirely, freezing inside his duvet cocoon. Footsteps shuffled in. A heavy backpack on the linoleum. Dreadful silence.
“Bro,” Sean’s voice pierced the quiet, sounding raspy and entirely too awake for a Sunday morning. “Why does it smell like sweat in here? And why are your jeans currently hanging off my desk lamp?”
Slowly, agonizingly, Keonho lowered the duvet just enough to peer over the hem. Sean was standing in the center of the room. He was still wearing the same button-down from last night, but his bloodshot eyes were currently darting around the room, taking in the scattered clothes, the rumpled sheets, and Keonho’s bare shoulders. His jaw dropped.
“Holy shit,” Sean breathed, his eyes blowing wide. “You got laid.”
“Keep your voice down,” Keonho hissed, frantically pulling the blanket higher.
“I leave you alone for two hours and you bring someone back?” Sean completely ignored the plea for volume control. “Who was she? Or he? Wait, do you swing both ways? Are you open minded? Did you talk?”
“I talked,” Keonho said miserably. “That was the problem.”
Sean frowned. He walked over, squeaky sneakers against the floor, and stopped at the edge of Keonho’s bed. “What do you mean? What happened? Did you puke on them? Tell me you didn’t puke.”
“Martin,” Keonho whispered, closing his eyes. “The guy whose house we were at. The tall one. The really, really tall one.”
Sean stared at him. “Wait. You hooked up with Martin? Martin Edwards? How?”
“I don’t know!” Keonho wailed, burying his face in his hands. “He started talking to me, and he smelled really good, and he called me Snoop because I lied and told him I smoked weed, and then we danced in the kitchen next to a pepperoni slice!”
“Okay, skipping past the pepperoni,” Sean said, holding up a hand. “Explain your pathetic state.”
“I panicked, okay?” Keonho started defensively. “I lied about smoking weed but I also lied about my name and my major because I wanted to look cool and impressive but he caught on to it because I thought The Very Hungry Caterpillar was Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka! If you laugh, I’m moving out.”
A snort escaped Sean. Then a wheeze. And then, he completely lost it, falling backward onto his bed and howling at the ceiling. “I’m going to murder you in your sleep,” Keonho hissed.
Sean sat up, wiping a legitimate tear of mirth from his eye. He took one look at Keonho’s expression and finally managed to reign in his laughter, coughing to clear his throat. “Okay, okay, look,” Sean said, leaning forward and adopting a tone of sympathy. Fake ass bitch. “It’s really not that bad.”
“It’s the end of humanity! My first ever college party and I’ve already butchered my reputation—”
“Think about it," Sean reasoned, gesturing broadly around the room. “This campus has, what, thirty thousand undergrads? It’s massive. He’s a sophomore who hangs out at frat parties. You’re a freshman whose entire life revolves around the Kinesiology building and the swimming pool.”
Keonho slowly lowered the blanket an inch. “You think so?”
“I know so,” Sean said confidently, giving Keonho an encouraging nod. “Campus is huge. Your schedules are completely different. You run in zero of the same circles. There is a literal, statistical zero percent chance you are ever going to run into him again.”
Keonho let out a long, shaky exhale, the tight knot of anxiety in his chest finally loosening just a fraction. Sean was right. It was a big school. It was just one embarrassing, highly mortifying, incredibly hot night. He would just stay in his lane.
—&—
Sean was a fucking liar. A dirty, incompetent, unhelpful liar.
Statistically speaking, a university with thirty thousand students should have provided an unbreachable safezone. Keonho had done the math. He’d practically lived at the aquatic center for the past three days, perfectly content to let his fingers prune and his hair turn into a permanent, crispy helmet of chlorine. He had restricted his movements to a highly controlled triangle just to stay safe. Dorm pool and the dining hall at off-peak hours, dorm pool and the dining hall at off-peak hours, dorm pool and the dining hall at off-peak hours.
But Wednesday morning, a desperate, soul-crushing need for caffeine after a brutal 5:00 AM butterfly sprint session drove him off-campus. Sean had dragged him to a trendy, exposed-brick coffee shop a few blocks from the university gates, promising it was entirely outside the frat ecosystem.
“I’m getting a nitro cold brew,” Sean muttered, already glued to his phone screen. “What do you want?”
“Something with enough sugar to put a small horse in a coma,” Keonho mumbled, rubbing his stinging eyes. “A caramel macchiato. With extra caramel.”
“Got it. Go grab that table in the corner.”
Keonho should have walked away. He really should have. But his tired brain misfired, and he stepped up to the counter alongside Sean to pull out his wallet.
“Next,” a loud voice called out over the hiss of the espresso machine.
Keonho froze. His blood turned entirely to ice water. That voice was permanently burned into his auditory cortex, right alongside the buttery wail of a saxophone.
He snapped his head up.
Standing behind the glass pastry case, wiping down the steam wand with a rag, was Martin. He looked impossibly tall, even behind the register. He was wearing a dark green canvas apron over a plain black tee that hugged his chest entirely too well. A smudge of powdered sugar dusted his jawline. It made zero sense. Frat guys who threw massive house parties were supposed to spend their mornings sleeping off hangovers or playing lacrosse, not operating an industrial espresso machine. Keonho knew it. The movies were fake as hell.
Martin tossed the rag over his shoulder and turned around. His dark eyes landed on Sean first, then shifted slightly to the left. He stopped. Keonho watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as the gears turned in Martin’s head. The polite barista mask vanished in a millisecond, replaced by that devastatingly familiar smirk. His eyes crinkled at the corners, practically gleaming with unholy amusement.
“Well, well,” Martin hummed, leaning his forearms on the counter and completely ignoring the growing line of under-caffeinated students behind them. He looked Keonho up and down, taking in the damp crunchy hair, the oversized swim team hoodie, and the expression of a deer caught in the headlights. “If it isn’t my favorite English major.”
Sean’s head snapped up from his phone, his jaw dropping as he looked between Martin and Keonho. Keonho briefly considered throwing his wallet at Martin’s head and sprinting into oncoming traffic. Instead, his mouth opened, and his traitorous vocal cords bypassed his brain entirely. “You have flour on your face.”
Martin’s smirk only widened. He reached up, casually wiping his thumb across his jawline, never breaking eye contact. “It’s powdered sugar. We were out of the seasonal scones. Had to improvise.” He tapped the register screen, leaning in just a fraction closer. The scent of coffee and that stupid intoxicating expensive cologne washed over Keonho.
“He’s from Sports, isn’t he?” Martin shifted his focus, turning his piercing gaze away from Keonho and onto Sean. “I’ll give you tiramisu for free if you answer me. Coffee bonus if you leave us.”
Sean stopped breathing. Keonho could practically see the calculation happening in his head. Free pastry plus free premium caffeine minus one socially inept roommate equaled a massive win for Eom Seonghyeon. Keonho’s hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Sean’s flannel shirt. Don’t you dare, he tried to communicate through sheer, panicked eye contact. I let you use my Netflix. We are bound by blood.
Sean didn’t even hesitate. This little devil.
“Kinesiology,” Sean blurted out, firmly prying Keonho’s fingers off his sleeve like he was brushing away lint. “He’s a Kinesiology major. Swims the butterfly. He used to read books but hasn’t touched one without pictures since middle school.”
“Eom Seonghyeon!” Keonho shrieked, his voice cracking spectacularly over the indie-folk music playing softly through the café speakers.
“It’s an eight-dollar tiramisu,” Sean defended himself, already backing away toward the pickup counter with zero remorse. He pointed a finger gun at Martin. “Every man for himself, Keonho. Nitro cold brew. Make it a large. Pleasure doing business with you.”
And just like that, the traitor scurried behind a display tower of coffee mugs, abandoning Keonho to his fate.
Keonho stood frozen. He slowly looked down at his own chest. The bold white letters of his oversized MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING hoodie burned his skin past the navy blue fabric. It was less of an outfit and more of a neon sign flashing LIAR LIAR & LIAR.
A victorious chuckle rumbled from behind the espresso machine. Keonho slowly brought his gaze back up. Martin was looking at him with an expression of pure unadulterated delight. His dark eyes tracked Keonho like a hawk that had just cornered a helpless pigeon.
“Kinesiology,” Martin repeated, the syllables rolling off his tongue slowly. “Swim team. That explains the chlorine perfume. And the shoulders.” He tilted his head, the powdered sugar on his jaw catching the warm amber light of the café pendants. “Makes a lot more sense than the Moby Dick method acting. Though I have to admit, I’m a little disappointed. I was really looking forward to your thesis on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”
Keonho squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to melt. He wanted to dissolve into a puddle of espresso and be mopped up by the closing shift. “I hate you,” he mumbled to his ratty sneakers. “I hate my roommate. I hate capitalism.”
“No, you don’t,” Martin hummed, his voice suddenly much closer. Keonho opened his eyes. Martin had leaned all the way over the counter. He was close enough that Keonho could see the faint, sleepless purple shadows under his eyes, and smell the roasted espresso scent clinging to his skin. “Should I ring you your sugar intake of the day?”
Keonho’s vocal cords, having already proven themselves to be enemy combatants, decided to bypass his brain entirely and launch a nuclear strike. “Caramel macchiato is fine. With extra caramel,” he squeaked, his ears burning so hot he was certain they were visibly glowing radioactive red. And then, because his mouth was a runaway train with no brakes, he added, “Why did you leave after that night?”
The words hung in the air, heavy and entirely inappropriate. Behind Keonho, a girl with a messy bun let out an audible sigh of impatience, but Keonho didn’t care. Not yet. Martin’s finger froze mid-air, hovering an inch above the glowing POS tablet. The teasing smirk completely evaporated. Martin blinked, his dark eyes widening a fraction as he stared down at Keonho. For the first time since Keonho had practically plastered himself to the drywall at the frat party, Martin looked genuinely caught off guard.
“Wait,” he said. “You think I just bolted?”
“You left!” Keonho defended himself, his voice pitching up as he clutched the edge of the counter. “I woke up, and you were gone, and all I had was a note making fun of me! What else was I supposed to think?”
Martin stared at him for a long second. And then, very slowly, he leaned his elbows heavily onto the counter, dropping his head into his hands. His broad shoulders began to shake.
“Are you laughing at me again?” Keonho demanded, mortification washing over him in a hot tidal wave. He took a step back, ready to abandon the coffee, abandon Sean, and sprint to the exit. “Because if you are—”
“Stop right there,” Martin interrupted, lifting his head. He wasn’t laughing, though a helpless, fond smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I left at five-thirty in the morning because I had to open this café. You were dead to the world, completely starfished across your mattress. I tried to wake you up, but you just swatted at me. Multiple times.”
Keonho’s mouth clicked shut. “Oh.”
“Yes, oh. And the note,” Martin continued, reaching across the counter to lightly tap the tip of Keonho's nose with a sugar-dusted index finger, a gesture so casual and intimate it made Keonho’s brain short-circuit all over again. “Was supposed to be a joke. An inside joke. Because I thought you were cute.”
“Oh,” Keonho repeated, eloquently.
“Did you... did you not flip the paper over?” Martin asked, his eyes dancing with amusement again.
Keonho’s heart stuttered in his chest. “Flip it over?”
Martin let out a low, disbelieving chuckle. “Snoop. I wrote my phone number on the back. Along with an invitation to get actual food. I’ve been waiting for three days for the fake English major to text me. Nobody I asked knew who Keoni was.”
The note. The torn piece of lined paper that he had crumpled up in a fit of absolute despair and aggressively slam-dunked into his dorm room trash can before fleeing to the aquatic center. He had never looked at the back.
Keonho buried his face in his hands, groaning so loudly the girl behind him actually took a step back. “I threw it away,” he confessed into his palms, his voice muffled by his own embarrassment. “I thought you were making fun of me for not knowing Kafka. I threw it in the trash.”
“Hey.” Martin’s voice was soft. A warm, calloused hand gently gripped Keonho’s wrist, pulling his hands away from his flushed face. Martin’s thumb traced the prominent bone of Keonho’s wrist, sending a jolt of electricity straight up his arm. “Good thing I found you then, Captain Ahab.”
“If you guys are done flirting,” the girl behind them interrupted. “I just want my Americano.”
Keonho snatched his wrist back as if he’d been electrocuted. He whipped his head around, coming face-to-face with the messy-bun girl. She was glaring at him over the rim of her tortoiseshell glasses, tapping a single, exasperated sneaker against the floorboards.
“I—I’m so sorry,” Keonho stammered, frantically bowing to the girl, his face burning with the heat of a thousand suns. “We’re not—I was just—he was—”
He gave up, opting instead to grab the drawstrings of his oversized swim team hoodie and pull them tight, retreating into the fleece collar like a deeply traumatized turtle. Behind the counter, Martin didn’t look embarrassed in the slightest. In fact, he looked like he was having the absolute time of his life.
“My apologies, miss,” Martin said. “One diabolically sweet caramel macchiato for the athlete, and one black Americano for you.”
He grabbed two paper cups and a black sharpie. Keonho watched as Martin quickly scribbled something on the side of the first cup. The chemical smell of the marker briefly cut through the overwhelming aroma of the café.
“Hey!” Sean’s voice echoed from the pickup counter at the far end of the bar. “Where’s my tiramisu? I sold my roommate for it!”
“Coming right up, Judas,” Martin called back lazily.
Keonho stood in a state of suspended mortification near the espresso machine while Martin worked. It was entirely unfair how good Martin looked doing his job. Steaming milk, pulling espresso shots, and drizzling an absolutely obscene amount of caramel into Keonho’s cup, all while keeping up a steady eye contact whenever Keonho dared to peek out from his hood.
A minute later, Martin slid a small ceramic plate carrying a massive slice of cocoa-dusted tiramisu across the pickup counter to Sean, who immediately grabbed a fork with zero remorse.
Then, Martin walked back down the bar and set a steaming paper cup in front of Keonho. It was heavy, radiating a comforting heat through the cardboard sleeve, and smelled like sugar.
“Here you go,” Martin said. “Caramel macchiato with extra extra extra caramel.”
Keonho tentatively reached out, wrapping his cold fingers around the hot cup. Written in bold, black sharpie across the corrugated texture was a string of ten digits. And right beneath the phone number, in that same neat, slanted handwriting from the note: Don’t throw this one in the trash, Snoop. Dinner Friday?
Keonho’s heart did a miraculous backflip crashing right into his ribs. He looked up, his cheeks still blazing, to find Martin smiling at him, bright and breathtaking. “Enjoy your sugar, Captain Ahab. Text me.”
“Yeah,” Keonho squeaked, immediately turning on his heel before he could combust on the spot.
He practically sprinted toward the door, shoving his shoulder into the heavy glass and bursting out into the chill autumn air. He took a massive breath of oxygen, clutching his cup of coffee to his chest like a lifeline.
“So,” Sean said, casually strolling out behind him, his face completely covered in cocoa powder as he shoveled the last bite of tiramisu into his mouth. “How was he anyway? Handsy? Or…”
Keonho inhaled exactly half an ounce of scalding sweet milk and espresso directly into his windpipe. He doubled over on the sidewalk, exploding into a coughing fit. His eyes watered instantly, stinging against the morning air as he tried not to drop his life-changing, phone-number-bearing coffee cup onto the concrete.
Sean didn’t even bother to pat his back. He just stood there, wiggling his eyebrows. An impressive feat considering he was still actively chewing the last bite of his blood-money tiramisu.
“I am,” Keonho wheezed, his voice completely wrecked as he aggressively wiped a tear from his eye, “really going to murder you in your sleep.”
“I’m just asking!” Sean protested loudly, throwing his hands up in a gesture of faux innocence. The cocoa powder dusting his chin made him look like a very gossipy toddler. “You vanished into our room with a guy built like a Calvin Klein model, and the next morning my desk lamp was wearing your Levi’s. As your roommate and your wingman, I am entitled to a crumb of context.”
Keonho’s face, which had just barely begun to cool down to a manageable pink, instantaneously reignited into a furious scarlet. Because the horrifying, undeniable truth was that Martin had been incredibly handsy.
Even now, standing freezing on the sidewalk, Keonho’s traitorous brain decided to supply a high-definition sensory flashback. He remembered the warmth of Martin’s large hands sliding under his shirt. The way Martin’s chest had felt pressing him back into the mattress. The low rumble of Martin’s voice vibrating against the sensitive skin of Keonho’s neck, and the breathless, embarrassing noises Keonho had made in response.
Keonho squeezed his eyes shut.
—&—
The bass was a physical assault ringing against Keonho’s ears, vibrating up through the soles of his converse and rattling his ribcage. It wasn’t that much different compared to the first party, except this time Keonho was currently trying to merge his molecular structure with a faux-leather couch in the darkest corner of the basement.
He had been invited. Specifically invited. Martin had texted him two days ago with a winking emoji that had sent Keonho into a 45 minute hyperventilation spiral. But for the last hour and a half, Keonho had been playing a game of one-sided hide and seek, with the primary objective being to avoid the incredibly handsome, pretty, blond Wasian sophomore.
From his pathetic vantage point behind a plastic fern, Keonho watched Martin. It was a rather masochistic activity. Martin looked like he had stepped directly out of a headphones ad from the 2000s. The harsh lights caught the golden-blond streaks in his messy hair and highlighted his jawline every time he threw his head back to laugh, and he was laughing a lot. Mostly at something whispered into his ear by a terrifyingly gorgeous girl with a flawless blowout and a skirt smaller than a cocktail napkin, who was currently pressing her hand completely flat against Martin’s chest. Next to her, a guy with slicked back hair was clapping Martin on the shoulder, hanging onto his every word.
They were cool. They were gorgeous. They did not smell like an industrial vat of chlorine. They looked like they would know the difference between Franz Kafka and a children’s board book. A heavy knot formed in the pit of Keonho’s stomach watching them, completely overriding the cheap buzz of his spiked punch.
What was he doing here? He was a Kinesiology major whose idea of a wild Friday night was eating a family-sized bag of Takis, watching Mamma Mia! for the hundredth time while icing his shoulders. To Martin, who clearly belonged in this glimmering beautiful stratosphere, Keonho was probably just an easily flustered little freshman plaything he had dragged out of a party for a few laughs. A temporary mascot of some sort.
Keonho took a miserable sip of his punch, deciding he would give it exactly three more minutes before faking a hamstring injury and sprinting back to his dorm. That was until—
“Hey, Snoop.”
Keonho choked, inhaling a mouthful of red dye #40.
A large hand clamped down firmly on his shoulder, steadying him as he violently coughed into his fist. The suffocating smell of stale beer and sweat was instantly overwritten by the intoxicating scent that expensive cologne Keonho had learned to recognize in a heartbeat. Oh. Speaking about heart. Keonho’s heart completely abandoned his chest, plummeting straight to his toes. He looked up, despite despite despite.
Martin was standing over him, having somehow materialized out of the crush of bodies. He was holding two fresh solo cups in one hand, his dark eyes locking onto Keonho’s with a piercing focus. The lights that caught the dusted gold in his hair made him look impossibly taller than he already was, and way too beautiful to be standing next to a plastic fern. This was all Keonho’s fault. Martin tilted his head, studying him like a confused puppy, his brow slightly furrowed.
“Were you avoiding me all night?” Martin asked, his voice sliding under the deafening bass of someone playing Ke$ha right after Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood. Who was in charge of this playlist?
“No,” Keonho squeaked, his throat instantly reverting to its factory-setting panic mode. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, stepping away from the couch. “Avoiding you? No. Why would I do that? That would be so silly of me. Ha-ha-ha.”
Martin didn’t laugh. He didn’t even crack a smile at the absolute absurdity of the situation. He just stood there, towering over Keonho, the neon lights starting to cast shadows across his face when he tilted his head to another direction.
“Yes you did,” Martin insisted, stepping into Keonho’s personal space effortlessly. “For an hour and forty minutes. While staring a hole through the side of my head from behind a fake plant.”
Keonho’s face burned instantly. “I wasn’t staring at you! I was looking at... at the girl. With the cocktail napkin skirt.” The words flew out of his mouth before his brain could censor them. The bitter insecure so unlike him jealousy dripped off his tongue like poison and he immediately wished for the sticky basement floor smelling of piss to swallow him whole. Again. Why did this always happen.
Martin froze. He blinked down at Keonho, the slight crease between his eyebrows smoothing out as the cogs turned. He looked back toward the keg, where the blowout girl was still holding court, and then slowly turned back to Keonho. A breathtakingly bright realization washed over Martin’s face. The devastating smirk returned in full force, accompanied by a low chuckle that vibrated straight through Keonho’s chest.
“Are you jealous, Captain Ahab?” Martin hummed, leaning in so close Keonho could feel the warmth radiating off his chest. He passed one of the solo cups into Keonho’s white-knuckled grip, his fingers deliberately brushing against Keonho’s knuckles.
“No!” Keonho lied desperately, his voice cracking on the vowel. “I’m just... acutely aware of my position. You’re... you.” He gestured vaguely at Martin’s perfect hair, his height, his general aura of I walk the campus grounds and people make way for me. It was even worse because Keonho could tell Martin loved being popular. “I don’t know why you invited me. Unless it’s to be the punchline of whatever bet you have going with the lacrosse guy over there.”
The smirk vanished off Martin’s face faster than Keonho could blink. His playful expression instantly evaporated, replaced by something so heavy and intensely sincere that it actually made Keonho take a half-step back until his shoulder blades hit the load-bearing wall.
“Hey,” Martin said. He reached out, his large hand wrapping gently but firmly around Keonho’s wrist, anchoring him in place. “Look at me.”
Keonho swallowed hard, forcing his eyes up to meet Martin’s.
“I don’t make bets,” Martin said quietly, his voice sending a shiver down Keonho’s spine. “And I don’t invite people to my house to be punchlines. Sarah and Tyler are my lab partners. That’s it.”
Martin took another step closer, successfully trapping Keonho between his solid frame and the drywall. His thumb started drawing slow, distracting circles against the pulse point on Keonho’s wrist.
“I invited you,” Martin murmured, his dark eyes tracing the frantic flush spreading across Keonho’s cheeks, “because I spent the last three days hoping the guy who smells like chlorine would text me back. And when he finally did, I wanted to see him.”
Keonho’s pout deepened instead. The bottom lip actually pushed out in a display of petulance he hadn’t utilized since he was denied a highly coveted pack of Pokémon cards in the fourth grade.
“I thought it was going to be dinner with just the two of us,” Keonho grumbled, completely abandoning any remaining shred of his dignity. He gestured vaguely with his plastic cup toward the center of the room, where two guys were currently attempting a coordinated backflip off a sagging futon and failing spectacularly. “You wrote dinner on the cup. This is not dinner, Martin.”
Martin stared at him. His dark eyes dropped to Keonho’s pouting mouth, lingered there for a heavy suffocating second and then slowly dragged back up to meet his eyes. A smile broke across Martin’s face then, not the teasing smirk he usually wore to disarm people but a genuine, incredibly soft smile that reached all the way to the crinkles by his eyes. The thumb that had been tracing circles on Keonho’s wrist suddenly pressed a little firmer against his racing pulse point.
“You wanted a real date,” Martin said softly, the realization wrapping around the words like velvet. It wasn’t a question. He sounded entirely too pleased with himself. Keonho’s face flared hot again, his brain instantly screaming at him to deploy defensive countermeasures. Abort! Retreat! Throw the red dye #40 in his face and run!
“I wanted food that wasn’t dispensed from a keg,” Keonho corrected defensively, though his voice lacked any real bite. He sounded breathy. He sounded like a guy who was currently pinned against a load-bearing wall by a guy who smelled like heaven. “I’m an athlete. I have high caloric needs.”
Without breaking eye contact, Martin reached out with his free hand and effortlessly plucked the solo cup from Keonho’s white-knuckled grip. He set it down on top of the nearby plastic fern. Then, Martin slid his hand down from Keonho’s wrist, intertwining their fingers. Martin’s palm was huge, warm, and slightly calloused. It swallowed Keonho’s hand completely. Keonho’s brain started blasting red alarms.
“What are you doing?” Keonho squeaked, staring down at their joined hands like they were a glowing radioactive isotope.
“Leaving,” Martin stated simply. He gave Keonho’s hand a gentle tug, pulling him away from the wall. “I live here. I had to show my face for the first hour so the seniors wouldn’t key my car, but my shift is officially over. We’re going to get dinner.”
“Now?” Keonho asked, stumbling slightly over his own shoes as Martin began to tow him through the sweaty pulsating crowd.
“Right now,” Martin called back over his shoulder. The bass of a terrible EDM remix of a Taylor Swift song threatened to drown him out, but Martin’s grip was solid. “I know a 24-hour diner three blocks from here. The lighting is terrible, the booths are sticky, but they serve breakfast all day and they don’t play dubstep.”
Martin expertly navigated them through the sea of college students, using his height to part the crowd like modern Moses. Keonho trailed behind him, his heart hammering against his ribs in a giddy pattern that could rival his daily cardio. Of course, a few people tried to grab Martin’s attention as they passed. A high-five here, a shouted name there, but Martin barely acknowledged them, his focus entirely set on leading Keonho toward the basement stairs.
The night air instantly cooled Keonho’s flushed cheeks when they finally burst out the front door and onto the porch. The deafening noise of the party was finally muffled behind the heavy wooden door, leaving only the sound of their sneakers crunching against the leaf-strewn sidewalk.
Martin didn’t let go of his hand.
Instead, he slowed his pace, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Keonho under the glow of the amber streetlights. He bumped his shoulder gently against Keonho’s, looking down at him with that soft smile. “So,” Martin hummed. “Just to be clear... is this a date with the hungry caterpillar, or Captain Ahab?”
Keonho let out a breathless laugh, his fingers tightening entirely on their own around Martin’s. “It’s Keonho,” he said, looking up at the sophomore who was currently ruining his life in the best way possible. “Keonho Ahn.”
“Keonho,” Martin sounded like he was testing the name in his mouth. The syllables rolled off his tongue slowly, deep and deliberate, like he was mapping out the phonetics of a foreign language he was entirely eager to learn. “Your name is pretty.”
Keonho’s worn converse caught the edge of a completely flat, structurally sound concrete sidewalk square, immediately stumbling forward. If Martin hadn’t been holding his hand and anchoring him with a tight grip, Keonho absolutely would have face-planted into a pile of damp oak leaves.
“Whoa. Easy there,” Martin chuckled, tugging Keonho upright and steadying him with a hand on his waist.
Keonho stood frozen under the amber halo of the streetlamp, his breath pluming in the freezing autumn air. Pretty. People did not call Keonho pretty. They called him handsome. Athletic. Fast. Tall. But pretty? Pretty was a word reserved for his favorite shade of sunsets, expensive café pastries he never dared buying, and frankly, the guy currently holding his hand.
“It’s just... a name,” Keonho squeaked, his voice pitching high again in embarrassment. He stared at the silver zipper of Martin’s leather jacket, completely unable to meet those dark, intensely focused eyes. “It’s Korean. It means... well, it means a lot of things depending on the Hanja, but I think my parents went with ‘heaven’ and ‘greatness.’ Both of which don’t sound like me, objectively speaking.”
Martin didn’t laugh.
Keonho finally dared to glance up, expecting the trademark teasing smirk, but it wasn’t there. Martin was just looking at him, his expression soft. The streetlamp was now casting a warm halo behind his head. Keonho thought he looked like an angel.
Slowly, Martin reached out with his free hand. He tucked a stray piece of dark hair behind Keonho’s ear. His warm knuckles brushed against the burning shell of Keonho’s earlobe, sending an electric shiver straight down Keonho’s spine that completely bypassed the cold weather.
“Heaven and greatness,” Martin murmured, his thumb stroking the back of Keonho’s hand. “Yeah. I think they nailed it.”
Keonho made a sound that could only be described as a dying tea kettle. “If you don’t feed me pancakes in the next five minutes,” Keonho threatened, “I am going to spontaneously combust on this sidewalk. And you are going to have to explain my ashes to my roommate.”
Martin finally let out a loud laugh, the sound echoing beautifully down the quiet residential street. He squeezed Keonho’s hand, pulling him gently back into step. “We definitely can't have that,” Martin grinned, his thumb still tracing Keonho’s knuckles as they walked under the canopy of autumn trees. “Sean would never forgive me for murdering his other half. Come on, Captain Ahab. Let’s get you some syrup.”
—&—
Waking up in Martin’s bed was like experiencing a fever dream. Or a sleep paralysis. The mattress was devoid of the familiar spine-realigning springs of his dorm room bed. The sheets were some kind of terrifyingly high quality fabric that felt like they had been woven by angels, or at the very least, extremely well-paid Italian artisans. It was like sleeping in a hotel bed. Keonho blinked his eyes open, not seeing his water-stained ceiling tiles for the first time in months.
He sat up slowly, clutching the heavenly duvet to his chest. Martin’s room was massive. There was a genuine leather armchair in the corner and a large, thriving Monstera plant that looked well taken care of. Martin was a sophomore, Keonho thought he’d be living in moldy windowless basement closets. Either Martin was secretly funding the fraternity with daddy’s money or he was just influential as fuck, Keonho didn’t even want to find out.
A biological necessity unfortunately forced Keonho to abandon the sanctuary of the Egyptian cotton. He shimmied into his wrinkled grey sweatpants, grabbed a random oversized vintage band t-shirt off the floor, and tentatively cracked the bedroom door open.
The illusion of a five-star hotel vanished the second his foot hit the hallway. The floorboards were immediately tacky with spilled beers. They hadn’t cleaned the place yet. Keonho tiptoed down the hall toward the bathroom, trying to make himself as small as physically possible, comedically pressing his back against the wall. He almost made it to the toilet that way.
Just as he reached the bathroom door, the door across the hall swung open. Out stepped a guy who looked like he ate raw meat for breakfast. It was the lacrosse captain from the party, shirtless, sporting an eight-pack, and drinking raw eggs out of a measuring cup. What the fuck. Keonho froze. He stopped breathing. He stopped blinking. He stopped existing.
The senior stopped mid-chug. He slowly lowered the measuring cup, staring down at Keonho. “Sup,” he grunted.
“Sup,” Keonho squeaked back, his voice octaves higher than humanly possible. He offered a frantic salute (why did he salute?) and threw himself into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking the deadbolt with trembling fingers.
What was he doing here? He was in a mansion full of athletic men who drank raw protein out of measuring cups. Martin could have literally anyone in this house, or on this campus. He could have the blowout girl. He could have a guy with an eight-pack. Instead, he had Keonho, the socially inept pool rat who tried to romance him by lying about his major and his name and the fact that he had never read Franz Kafka once in his life. This had to be an elaborate joke. A charity case. A social experiment for one of Martin’s classes.
Keonho managed to creep back to Martin’s room by avoiding eye contact with another senior who was shirtless on the kitchen counter. He shut Martin’s heavy bedroom door behind him and immediately began stress-pacing. The doorknob clicked.
Martin strolled in, he was wearing grey sweatpants that hung dangerously low on his hips and a fitted white shirt, balancing two plates of steaming food and two mugs of coffee.
“I almost thought you left,” Martin smiled, kicking the door shut behind him. His smile faded slightly as he took in Keonho’s rigid, hyperventilating posture. “Whoa. Hey. Why are you hyperventilating?”
“I met your lacrosse friend,” Keonho blurted out, his voice bordering on hysterical. He threw a hand out toward the hallway. “He drank eggs, Martin! Raw eggs! From a measuring cup!”
“That’s just… he’s harmless, okay? He probably didn’t mean any harm and just wanted to acknowledge you.”
“That doesn’t help!” Keonho wailed. “Look at this room! Look at you! Look at him! I don’t belong in this ecosystem! I’m a bottom-feeder! I’m the algae you scrape off the side of the pool!”
Martin stopped moving. He crossed the room in three long strides, entirely ignoring Keonho’s frantic pacing, and caught him by the waist.
“Hey,” Martin said firmly, his large hands warm and heavy through the thin cotton. “Stop. Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Keonho gasped, though it sounded more like a wheeze. “Scrape me off of the pool, Martin. Why are you hanging out with the algae?”
Martin let out a heavy sigh, though his dark eyes were incredibly tender. He slid his hands up from Keonho's waist, cupping Keonho’s flushed face and forcing him to look up. Martin’s thumbs gently stroked his cheekbones, instantly melting the manic energy radiating off of Keonho’s skin.
“I don’t want the lacrosse guy,” Martin said, his voice low. “I don’t want anyone else in this house. I want the guy who smells like chlorine. The guy who…” Martin paused, his eyes dropping to Keonho’s lips before flicking back up, “...who’s wearing my shirt. Is that my shirt?”
Keonho’s jaw dropped. “No!”
The sickening smile returned to Martin’s lips. Martin wrapped his arms around Keonho’s waist, pulling him entirely flush against him, letting out a bright, booming laugh that vibrated against Keonho’s cheek.
“Stop entertaining those thoughts,” Martin hummed, pressing a warm kiss to the crown of Keonho’s crunchy hair. “I made you pancakes. And I promise there are zero raw eggs in them.”
Oh, and Keonho was just so, so helpless.
They strolled back toward the freshman dorms. It was a Saturday so the campus was largely deserted, save for a few joggers. Keonho felt normal, almost. He was warm, caffeinated, and holding hands with the guy of his dreams who chose to walk him back instead of sleeping in. Then, Martin had to go and ruin the peace.
“Is there any reason why you keep straightening your curls?” Martin asked.
“My what?” Keonho choked out, his voice cracking like a stepping on a dry twig.
“Your curls, Snoop,” Martin repeated patiently, stopping on the leaf-littered sidewalk to look down at him. He reached out, his long fingers gently grazing the nape of Keonho’s neck. A rogue lock of hair, rendered completely immune to Keonho’s cheap flat iron by the morning humidity and the disgusting frat house air had sprung up into a ringlet. Martin tugged on the curl softly, letting it bounce back against Keonho’s skin. “I’m assuming this is the natural state of things, considering the roots.”
Keonho slapped a hand over the back of his neck, glaring up at Martin. “I don't know what you’re talking about,” Keonho lied.
Martin hummed, looking unconvinced. His dark eyes danced with amusement as he studied Keonho’s thick, over-processed hair. “So, there isn’t a fifteen-dollar Conair straightener shoved into the bottom of your dorm room desk drawer?”
Keonho gaped at him, genuinely horrified. “How do you know the brand?”
“I guessed,” Martin laughed. “But thank you for confirming.”
“I hate you,” Keonho groaned, burying his face in his hands. It was useless. He couldn’t hide anything from this guy. “It’s a hassle, okay? Do you know what happens to naturally curly hair when you submerge it in industrial pool chemicals for four hours a day? I look like a poodle. A crazy poodle. Or an electrocuted sheep.”
He had spent the last few months of college waking up an extra twenty minutes early just to iron his hair. Sean judged the burning smell every morning. Sean’s opinions didn’t matter. “A crazy poodle,” Martin repeated, biting his lower lip in a failed attempt to suppress his grin. He gently pried Keonho’s hands away from his flushed face, his thumbs smoothing over Keonho’s knuckles.
“It’s not funny,” Keonho pouted, glaring at the silver zipper of Martin’s jacket.
Martin laughed again. He let go of one of Keonho’s hands to reach up, dragging his fingers through the stiff, chemically tortured strands at the crown of Keonho’s head. He winced slightly at the texture. “I’m pretty sure you’re going to go bald soon.”
Keonho swatted weakly at Martin’s chest. “Don't touch it, it’s fragile.”
“Then stop frying it,” Martin murmured. He stepped into Keonho’s space, crowding him slightly. “Let it be curly, Keonho. I want to see the poodle.”
“You say that now,” Keonho mumbled. “Until I show up one morning looking like an electrocuted sheep.”
“I’ll risk it,” Martin smiled, leaning down just enough to press a soft kiss to the corner of Keonho’s mouth. “If you let it go natural, I’ll buy you curl creams with my barista tips. Think of the economics, Snoop.”
“You’re manipulative,” Keonho squeaked, his face burning though he was leaning heavily into Martin’s space anyway.
“Is it working?”
Keonho let out a defeated sigh. “A little.”
—&—
Keonho’s strategy for battling his crippling internal insecurities was to try and increase his intellectual value by reading random classic literature he could find at the campus library. Since the frat house incident, the social status gap had set up a permanent camp in the back of his brain. To combat it Keonho was currently sitting on the floor of his dorm room, ignoring his Kinesiology textbook in favor of a used and dog-eared copy of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. He was also wearing a black turtleneck. It was an incredibly itchy garment he’d panic-bought at a thrift store because he wanted to match Martin’s aesthetic. It was currently eighty degrees in the dorm too, so Keonho was sweating through his deodorant. His natural curls bounced wildly around his face against the buzz of the electric fan.
“Are you in a cult?” Sean’s voice shattered Keonho’s intense focus.
“I’m closing the gap,” Keonho tugged at the collar of the turtleneck to allow a microscopic amount of oxygen to reach his trachea. “I have to be profound.”
“This is making me deeply uncomfortable. Stop trying to rebrand.”
Keonho slammed the Kafka book shut. “He’s going to wake up one day, realize I smell like pool piss and not cool enough for his friends, and leave me for someone who wore cocktail napkins as skirts!”
“He bought you a thirty-dollar curl cream yesterday,” Sean pointed out bluntly, gesturing to the expensive bottle on Keonho’s desk. “He walked you here. Bought you coffee and breakfast. The guy is invested. Just HODL, bro. Hold on for dear life.”
Before Keonho could tell Sean to shove his philosophy up his ass, three familiar knocks rattled their flimsy door. Keonho froze. The turtleneck suddenly felt ten degrees hotter. Sean traitorously leaped up and yanked the door open to reveal Martin standing in the hallway, looking casual in a faded vintage band tee and jeans, holding a brown paper bag that smelled greasy.
He took one step into the room, his dark eyes instantly zeroing in on Keonho who was still sitting cross-legged on the floor clutching a library-borrowed copy of Kafka. Martin stopped. He looked at the book. He looked at the itchy black wool swallowing Keonho’s neck. An amused smile slowly spread across his face.
“I’m going to the library,” Sean announced to nobody in particular, already grabbing his backpack. “The air in here is not good for my mental health.”
The door clicked shut behind him. Martin walked over, completely unbothered by the stifling heat of the room, and gracefully dropped onto the floor right in front of Keonho. He set the takeout bag down. The smell of cheap, glorious cheese fries instantly overpowered the dusty scent of the books around Keonho.
“Hey,” he said. Martin reached out, lightly tapping the cover of The Metamorphosis with a long finger. “Did we get to the apple part yet?”
“I don’t understand it,” Keonho confessed miserably, his defensive wall crumbling the second Martin looked at him. His shoulders slumped, the weight of his own ridiculous overthinking crashing down on him. “It’s depressing. He’s a bug. His family is mean to him. Why are we reading this? Why am I wearing this sweater? I’m sweating, Martin. I’m sweating so much.”
Martin let out a loud laugh, the bright sound bouncing off the walls. He reached out with both hands, firmly gripping the hem of the cursed turtleneck. “Arms up, Captain Ahab.”
Keonho obediently raised his arms, letting Martin expertly peel the heavy wool off him in one swift motion, leaving Keonho in his thin cotton shirt. The blast of the fan hitting his damp skin felt like a religious experience.
Martin tossed the sweater onto Sean’s bed with extreme prejudice. He didn’t pull his hands back. Instead, he slid his warm fingers up into Keonho’s curly hair, massaging his scalp with a firm pressure that strangely calmed Keonho’s anxiety in an instant.
“What are you doing, baby?” Martin whispered against his skin, his thumb dropping down to trace the apple of Keonho’s cheek. “You don’t have to be reading The Metamorphosis to be completely out of my league. Now eat your cheese fries before I have to fight your roommate for them.”
Keonho wanted to melt right then and there. Good thing he didn’t because the cheese fry was lukewarm, salty, and soggy with neon-yellow processed cheese. It was a disaster and Keonho loved it. Keonho shoved it into his mouth, chewing as the fan blasted cool air over his damp skin.
Across from him, Martin was entirely ignoring his own food. He was just leaning back on his hands on the scratchy dorm room carpet, watching Keonho eat a soggy potato with a quiet content. The harsh overhead lighting should have done him no favors, but it only caught the golden-blond streaks in his messy hair and the sharp angle of his jaw. He looked completely at peace sitting on a floor that definitely harbored Sean’s stray toenail clippings.
Keonho slowed his chewing.
“You drive a car with an embossed leather steering wheel,” Keonho said. “Why work at the café?”
Martin shrugged, looking almost embarrassed as he avoided Keonho’s eyes. “James, the shift lead,” he murmured. “He’s a senior working two part-time jobs to cover his tuition gap. If I don’t take the opening shifts, he works open-to-close. He needs the hours on paper, so he clocks in, I send him to the back office to sleep, and I run the front.”
Keonho blinked.
For the past few weeks, he had been so blindingly focused on the glaring differences between them that he hadn’t stopped to actually look at the guy sitting in front of him. He hadn’t bragged about it. He hadn’t posted it anywhere. Martin, the supposedly stereotypical party guy, was voluntarily waking up before dawn to quietly catch the heavy weight of a struggling senior just because he could.
He had abandoned a house full of gorgeous, socially acceptable upperclassmen to sway under blinding kitchen lights with a panicked freshman. He had bought a thirty-dollar, salon-grade curl cream because he adored Keonho’s natural state of things. And right now, instead of being literally anywhere else on a Friday evening, this deeply compassionate, ridiculously wealthy, impossibly handsome guy had walked across campus just to physically peel a suffocating thrift-store turtleneck off Keonho’s body because Keonho was having an existential crisis.
Hell yeah, Keonho thought, a stray drop of cheese wiz threatening to slide down his chin. He’s down bad in love with me.
A massive and giddy wave of pure affection swelled in his chest. Keonho stopped chewing entirely. He just sat there, a half-eaten cheese fry held limply in his hand, his eyes softening as he stared at Martin. Martin’s fond smile slowly faltered under the unbroken eye contact. He shifted slightly on the carpet, his brow furrowing as he looked back at Keonho’s fond expression. Martin reached out, waving a long hand gently in front of Keonho’s face.
“Snoop?” Martin asked, his voice laced with genuine confusion. “Are you okay? Why are you looking at me weird?”
Keonho looked, really looked at this boy, and felt a rush of adrenaline so strong it actually made him dizzy. He let out a loud breathless laugh and tossed the remaining half of the cheese fry back into the takeout bag.
“I was just wondering,” he said, “if you’d still love me if I turned into a beetle.”
Martin stared at him for three long seconds. The confusion on his beautiful face morphed into a look of absolute disbelief. “A beetle.”
“It’s a serious question!” Keonho defended, though he was laughing and crawling across the scratchy carpet to close the distance between them. Martin lifted his head, his dark eyes sparkling with mirth as he easily caught Keonho by the waist, pulling him right into his lap.
“Eat a leaf, caterpillar,” Martin murmured warmly, leaning in to kiss the goofy smile right off Keonho’s face. “I’ll love you anyway.”
—&—
Their new off-campus apartment was still full of cardboard boxes and bubble wrap but they managed to make enough room for celebration. They just signed the lease two days ago, and it was Keonho’s birthday. They had friends over, even the lacrosse guy and James were there. Sean made a big deal out of his gift for Keonho before stealing a whole pizza box off of their counter, but he stayed there the longest, seemingly unable yet to accept the fact that this was where Keonho lived now.
A heavy weight settled against Keonho’s side as Martin shifted on the floor next to him. Martin laughed with that rich sound that still made Keonho’s chest do a pathetic flutter even after a year of dating. He casually draped an arm over Keonho’s shoulders, pressing a kiss into the mass of his curls.
“Leave him alone, Sean, it’s his birthday,” Martin said, easily pulling Keonho flush against his side. “I’m going to check the kitchen boxes to find where we packed the trash bags.”
Keonho watched Martin navigate the cardboard maze, his eyes lingering on the broad stretch of Martin’s shoulders under his fitted black shirt. The lingering disbelief that he actually lived here with the guy who looked at him like he hung the moon made his heart swell to an uncomfortable size.
A sharp snap of fingers broke his trance.
Sean leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his eyes turning soft in a slightly terrifying moment of sincerity. He looked around the half-empty apartment, taking in the expensive coffee machine Martin had already unpacked on the counter, and then looked back at Keonho.
“So,” Sean said softly, his voice dropping below its usual volume. “You happy?”
Keonho blinked, caught off guard by the genuine question. He looked down at the pile of torn wrapping paper, tracing the edge of a box with his thumb. He thought about the walls of their old dorm, the crippling anxiety that used to follow him like a shadow, and the absolute, terrifying certainty he felt every time Martin held his hand.
“Yeah,” Keonho murmured, dopey smile breaking across his face. He felt his ears heat up, but he didn’t fight it. “Like, really stupidly happy.”
Sean’s face softened into a remarkably fond smile. He nodded slowly, looking like a proud, slightly unhinged older brother. “Good. That’s good, man. I’m happy for you.” Sean paused, a devious glint suddenly returning to his eyes like a spark catching dry kindling. “I mean, I’m mostly just thrilled I don’t have to wake up to my desk lamp wearing your Levi’s—”
“I’m going to end your bloodline,” Keonho hissed, his athletic instincts kicking in as he launched himself over a box of tupperware, his hands outstretched toward Sean’s neck.
“Whoa. Am I interrupting a homicide?”
Keonho froze. He turned his head, his hands still locked in a death grip on Sean’s collar. Martin was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, a roll of black trash bags in his hand and a look of amusement on his face. He leaned against the doorframe, clearly making zero effort to save Sean’s life. “Sean, if you value your life, I suggest you take the pizza box and go home.”
Taking the lifeline, Sean wriggled out of Keonho’s grip, grabbed the box with lightning speed, and bolted for the front door while yelling, “Happy birthday, Keonho!”
The apartment instantly fell into a ringing silence.
Keonho lay on his back in the sea of bubble wrap, staring at the ceiling and trying to will his heart rate back down to a normal human baseline. Footsteps approached, and suddenly Martin’s face appeared above him, blocking out the overhead light. His dark eyes were entirely soft and dancing with affection. His boyfriend offered a hand, pulling Keonho up from the floor and dusting a stray piece of packing peanut off Keonho’s shoulder.
“Sorry about him,” Keonho mumbled, avoiding eye contact as the memory of Sean’s joke threatened to reignite his blush. “He’s a menace to society.”
“I think he’s charming in his own way,” Martin replied, stepping closer until their chests were almost touching. He reached behind him, picking something up off the only unpacked end table, and gently pressed it into Keonho’s hands. “I know you already opened it, but you got distracted by our friends before I could officially say happy birthday.”
Keonho looked down. Resting in his palms was Martin’s gift. It was a first-edition, vintage hardcover of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, its colorful spine slightly worn with age. But what made Keonho’s throat tighten was the small silver object resting on top of the cover. It was a brand new house key, attached to a custom-engraved metal keychain that read: To Captain Ahab. Stop looking for whales. You’re already home.
Keonho’s vision blurred completely without his permission. He swallowed hard against the sudden lump in his throat, his thumb tracing the engraved letters on the cold metal. It was perfect.
He looked up, meeting Martin’s eyes through his watery vision, and let out a shaky laugh. He wrapped his arms tightly around Martin’s waist, burying his face in the crook of Martin’s neck and breathing in the scent of expensive cologne and home. Martin’s arms immediately came around him, wrapping him in a warm embrace.
“Thank you,” Keonho whispered against Martin’s collarbone, squeezing him just a fraction tighter. “It’s my favorite. You’re my favorite.”
Martin laughed and pressed a soft kiss into Keonho’s hair, his deep voice rumbling against Keonho’s chest. “Happy birthday, Snoop.”