Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“you say ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’
(…) because that’s what you say
when a stranger steps out of summer
& offers you another hour to live”

–Ocean Vuong

Of course they have to wait for him. Just like at every event since he's known him, no matter how informal. From a theatre play to a family breakfast, Jimin has never been on time to any place where he was expected with a roaring car or a table ready. Not at Christmas, not at Easter. Not even on his own birthday. It’s one of the few rules of politeness to which he pays no more than a flicker of attention. Perhaps to compensate for the scruples he devotes to other social protocols, perhaps for the mere pleasure of choosing something, for once. Despite the e-mails from his father, so determined in all his postscripts to ask him to change that ugly habit of disposing of other people's time. But Jeongguk has just won a bet against mom and Hyun on whether the month the family shares each year in the bay would be the exception, and now he has fifty thousand won more in the back pocket of his shorts. He doesn't plan to complain. Not in front of the defeated, at least.

And when the lights of a red car peek through the steel gate of the main entrance, beyond the olive orchard visible from the table where they've been dining for the past two nights, no one looks at their watches. Because Jimin's presence is not demanded, it is appreciated. Mom wipes her mouth with the paper napkin and waves back, stretching out her arm. The car responds with a flashing of lights as Hyun runs to remove the chain holding the doors together. The squeak of the hinges sets the rhythm to the muffled music on the radio and, before the vehicle rounds the perimeter of the house towards the garage, four honks wish them bon a ppe tit. When the croak of the handbrake silences the night, a familiar laughter resumes the score.

He’s the only one who hasn't gotten up to greet him. He had just bitten into the chicken thigh when he arrived, and he hates to eat cold a dish that is meant to be hot. He listens to Jimin answer questions about the days he has spent backpacking through Asia and about the result of the last exam. He's spent the last week in Taiwan with his college friends. Or Thailand. He didn't listen to Hyun when he said it, and he doesn't distinguish now, in that hubbub of voices and kisses, the name of any neighboring country. Only that, apparently, it has been to celebrate his latest honor's degree. Jeongguk sucks the sauce off his thumb. At last, he hears the three of them head down the gravel path to the porch. When he looks up, Jimin smiles at him with two lines where his eyes should be. The first thing Jeongguk notices is that he has lost weight. He notices how little he fills out the sleeve of his shirt and the curve that used to form over his jaw. The second thing, when he takes off his beanie under the light of the facade, is that he has dyed his hair. Blond. He points to it with a chicken bone, speechless. Jimin rubs his hair and it falls back over his forehead, clean and shiny like wheat.

"Wipe your mouth and give me a hug."

Jeongguk stuffs his cheeks with more meat and obeys. Does he even have a different voice? But it hasn't been that long since he's seen him. He would have noticed it months ago, on mom's birthday. His plan is to wrap his arms around his shoulders in a brief motion he's perfected with his friends, but Jimin ties his neck in a bind that causes him to stumble over the broccoli tray. He’s always wary of meeting him ever since he left for college two years ago. Distance has spaced out the routines they had in common, and Jeongguk has the impression that without routine there is no trust. But Jimin still smells of Jimin, of that fig and rose cologne he's been buying since he's known him, and, with his perfume, the feeling of home returns to its rightful place in the showcase where he organizes his bonds. Jimin is familiar ground. His lips are always shiny with lip balm and his hands are soft from the cream he applies every hour to keep his knuckles from peeling. The only thing that changes is the number of earrings in each ear —he can see two new ones heading to the cartilage— and the music recommendations, sometimes in the form of vinyl he buys at a bazaar in his neighborhood, sometimes in the form of a personalized playlist. "Kookie pt9" was the last one. It’s the one he plays the most, but he doesn't want to encourage the use of that nickname, so he didn't thank him for it.

"Are you still growing up?" murmurs Jimin into his shoulder. "Last time I didn't have to stand on tiptoes."

He doesn't know what to answer. Maybe it's not that Jimin has lost weight, maybe it's that he’s bigger. It's true that a few months ago he got sick and spent some days in bed, and that when it happened to him as a child, he used to grow up. But mom says that's a myth. He has also been working out at home with Hyun's historical encyclopedias. And although no one has said anything to him, he already sees new shadows on his arms. Now, as the edge of Jimin's hand travels from one forehead to the other, he wonders if he will see any change in him. It is likely that he does. He always notices such things. But he just pushes aside a dark lock of hair that looks like it spent the whole day behind an ear and remarks that he has never seen his hair this long. Jeongguk replies that his ends now curl when he gets out of the shower.

"You're not eating well in college," mom says as she circles his wrist and manages to touch her thumb with her middle finger.

Jimin enters the house to make himself comfortable and takes both his scent and his suitcase with him. Of course they have to wait for him more, even when he has already arrived. But the chicken doesn't wait, and neither does Jeongguk.

* * *

And when he goes upstairs to go to bed, Jimin leaves. And Jeongguk goes back down the three floors to the kitchen to put the orange popsicle he had brought up in the freezer. Once alone in their shared garret, he colonizes the top bunk. This year he was willing to give it up, but since Jimin has left with his friends without even unpacking, the democratic vote with himself has ruled in his favour. The wooden structure creaks under his weight. He has always hated the sloping ceiling of the attic; at night, he sees no end. Only the trail of green stars in the exposed rafters that Jimin must had glued when he was a child. If he stretches his left leg up, he can touch some of them with his big toe.

Sometimes, years ago, Jimin would climb up to his mattress and they would play at writing insults in the air for each other to guess. On full moon days they would write them on each other's backs. And then Jimin would fall asleep next to him before remembering to come back down. Tonight he is bored, and angry that the moon is in the waning quarter. Summer is for the family to stop being three. It's a month booked in advance. It's been that way since, close to his fifteenth birthday, mom met Hyun and Hyun offered his future and this lime house for vacation. When Jimin was still threaded to them and spent alternate weeks between the house where they all lived and his mother's house. Before he went to live on his campus full of ivy and people who answer "oui".

Maybe he has just gone out for a while to reconnect with his friends. Greet each other, catch up and come back. Jeongguk has been seeing them these days while Jimin toured Asia with that guy. The one he loathes. He has listened to Yoongi's improvised verses and made a fool of himself trying to beat him in a rap battle. He has made up a joke at the expense of Tae's rectangular mouth and has tasted a very strange ice cream from Jin's stall every day. That afternoon, for example, he ordered a lavender one and had to give it to Nam because it tasted like cologne. Jeongguk drops his leg with a sigh and a bounce. This is the first year he feels he shares something with Jimin's gang. Maybe, being nineteen at last, they've started to take him seriously. He could have gone out with them tonight, but he prefers to give Jimin space. Well, also he hasn't offered him to join. Jeongguk sets himself the solitary challenge of counting the seconds until he arrives. When he hears him, he will divide the figure by sixty and announce the number of minutes it has taken him to return. Jimin will call him freak and Jeongguk will hear the usual thump against the attic roof.

Jeongguk falls asleep in the eighty-second minute.

* * *

No season of the year holds mom back from putting a hot pot in the center of the table or an extra pinch of salt to all of Hyun's recipes. She is not a demanding or particularly capricious woman in the domestic sphere. She doesn't take his elbows off the table. She doesn't iron pajamas. The only thing she hates is eating after one o'clock. That's why everyone has become accustomed to orbiting around the clock to have the table ready five minutes earlier. At twenty past one, Jimin's flip-flops slap the stairs. His bangs wave, erect on one temple like a little arm, and after a hoarse apology, he kisses mom on the crown of her head. Jeongguk blinks, fascinated that he doesn't sense the tension in the air. Okay, maybe no one is angry. Maybe mom doesn't follow any schedule in summer, and maybe it's just him sitting at the table. But hey, they could have all been there, waiting among the pasta fumes.

Hyun asks about Tae's grandmother, and Jimin informs him that she died in April, while the grandchildren were helping with the strawberry picking. Mom comments that she saw him in his parents' orchard the day they arrived, passing by on their way to the market. And that he looked like a European actor from the 1940's. Jimin replies that it's not because of the mourning, but because of the nose. He then dips two fingers into Jeongguk's glass of water and combs his wild locks down. Jeongguk frowns. It looked almost white last night, but it's a blond that feels natural on him. As the minutes pass and the silverware clinks, the conversation shifts to the debate of whether it's true that tangerines breed worms when you eat them out of season.

"Jeongguk-ah," and he emphasizes the ah, "are you purposely ignoring me?"

Jimin has his hand hovering over the table. He points to the salt, or the bread, or the jar of water. He wasn't listening to him. Jeongguk tries with the salt.

"The bread."

At dessert time, Jeongguk peeks into the freezer and sees a single popsicle, lonely among the bags of meat. The one Jimin didn't eat yesterday. By the time he sits on the rocker in the backyard, only the stick is left. Jimin would leave it half eaten anyway. He pours cinnamon on them and then complains that his tongue itches and asks him to finish them. The sun forms sharp shadows on the stone floor of the terrace. The smell of the mint tea mom has made after lunch still lingers, and in the sway of the swing, Jeongguk dreams that he is attending Tae's grandma's funeral. He didn't know she had died. Tae hasn't told him, nor has Jeongguk asked him. He doesn't have a very personal bond with them yet. He's still the new kid. They've all gone to the same high school, and some have even known each other since they were little. And when Jimin moved away, before his family and Jeongguk's family collided, they kept in contact and met again every summer. It's a small town; it's easy to make a web here.

In the dream, a row of little spiders wraps his ankle in white strands. When he wakes up, the foot he has left outside the shadow burns. And twenty-three stairs later, he can barely open the bedroom door because Jimin has left his suitcase wide open, like a book. He pokes the knob in his ribs as he nudges the door with his shoulder, and when he manages to squeeze through the crack, Jimin's back greets him from the top bunk.

"That's my bed," he says. He hasn't had the decorum to regulate his satoori or check if he was asleep; fortunately, Jimin turns his head instantly. A white earpiece connects him to the phone in his hand. He bets his neck he's watching that modern dance channel.

"Kookie," he yawns.

"I want to sleep."

"Use mine."

"You use yours."

Jimin sits up and looks at him for a few seconds. He’s checking if he's angry. He’s able to detect it in something he does with his eyebrows, so Jeongguk tries to relax them. Because he's not. He's just overheated, drowsy, and his right foot itches.

"I brought you something from Thailand."

Capital, Bangkok. Bordering Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Burma. Tropical climate. Its most important river, the Chao Phraya.

"Alcohol?"

Jimin stops in his tracks as he descends the stairs. "I always forget you're nineteen now." Goodbye to alcohol, he deduces. As he approaches the suitcase, Jeongguk reconquers his mattress. With his eyes closed, all he hears are the zippers of the pockets and the sound of several books deposited on the floor. He already imagines the little tower, next to his feet, of new novels that he will never have time to read. He doesn't think he’s bought him a book. The last one he finished before losing interest was in elementary school. Jimin knows he is unable to concentrate long enough to read more than four pages in a row. No matter how much he is drawn to the story, no matter how eager he is to stop attending to any stimulus that slips through the cracks of the environment. If he stops being bothered by the smell of the page, he begins to be distracted by how the cover feels. He is unable to disconnect from the tangible world. With his eyelids still closed, he senses something close to his face. A leather string swings like the pendulum of a clock over his nose, and a cat's-eye hangs from the string.

"My favorite color. This exact shade of yellow," he murmurs as he examines it closely. The look travels from his palm to Jimin's eyes.

"I know. And this is mine," he points to the cord already hanging from his neck. A lilac stone sleeps on his sternum. He looks like he's about to add something, but smiles and scratches the gap between his lip and nose. "Can I sleep there with you?"

"In this heat?"

"We can jump in the water later."

Jungook puts on the necklace. For the first time since he’s arrived at the bay, he smiles effortlessly. He doesn't remember why he was upset yesterday, or today. And the afternoon finds them back to back when Jimin's phone begins to vibrate.

* * *

Only Jin is missing, because he doesn't get off work until dinnertime. In summer, the ice cream shop in the square full of cats becomes the biggest tourist attraction in the village. And this year, judging by the number of unfamiliar faces, it seems that even from neighboring villages. The boys have decided to wait for him at the lake; some on the natural stairs that make the ruins of the temple, others inside that icy pool that one only enters drunk or bored. Nam lets out a cry of elation that is broken towards the end when a fish touches his shin, and runs back to the bank. The lake has connections to the ocean, and twelve years ago a baby shark bit Mrs. Lee's sandal. The one who always points to her swollen ankles when asked how she’s doing. Yoongi complains about getting his cigar wet as he shakes past him, and Nam shakes his hair like a dog to splash him more.

Tae takes off his shirt, Jeongguk follows behind. Jimin runs a few feet ahead, but he hasn't taken off any of his clothes. Laughter answers the cicadas. It is Jeongguk's fourth day in the bay, and he hadn't yet bathed in the lake. The afternoons have been spent helping Hyun clean the rooms and accompanying mom to the market. He has been seeing the boys in the evenings. And the girls, he recalls when they appear at the top of the hillside. They’re a pastel vision in the middle of the ochre of the field. They look like fairies. Hana is in purple. He was introduced to the other two yesterday, but has forgotten their names. And those in the water greet them by raising their arms in a dance of drops, and Jeongguk shivers. The lakes have sudden streams. Has Jimin learned to swim? When he turns to ask him, he’s already at his side. And he smiles at him in a kind of conniving way. As if there’s an inside joke that Jeongguk has overlooked. He can tell by the two little bags forming under his eyelashes.

Before he satisfies his curiosity, an unproduced rap comes out of Nam's little speaker. It's made of plastic, and the sound quality isn't optimal, but it serves to get Hoseok to start punching the air with his shoulders and the others to sing along with a chorus of rhythmic exclamations. It's Yoongi's latest track, recorded in his garage. Since he's filled the space with inflatable mats his voice sounds less metallic. But it's unbearably hot in summer, he says. There's not much melody; Yoongi is still learning to play the piano. Jeongguk likes it, though, because when he makes a mistake he laughs into the mic and keeps going. He doesn't need to re-record, only his friends will listen to it. Although Jeongguk suspects that it wouldn't be much of a dilemma for him to send it to a producer like that. Yoongi is a guy who seems as stable as he is absent. When he glances at Jimin, he's already on the bank, his t-shirt sticking to the curves of his back.

* * *

Hana shows him the selca she has taken with an ice cream the same color as her dress. "It was made with violet jam," she chirps. Jeongguk doesn't understand this new trend of making flower flavored ice cream. Jimin talks to Hoseok, to his left, and if he squints he can see the wetness of his clothes evaporating in the sun. When he notices Jeongguk looking at him, he sticks his tongue out. It’s not until they return home, around eleven o'clock, that the two little bags reappear under his eyelashes. Jimin walks backwards in front of him without falling. Jeongguk frowns, something he does a lot to ask.

"I've been told," he sings. And Jeongguk hastily undoes the knot between his brows, as if it might undo the implied question as well. Maybe, if he keeps quiet, Jimin will keep silent until they get home. And so it is.

* * *

He likes mom and Hyun’s table talk after dinner. He just listens to them, without contributing anything more concrete than some affirmative hum. When asked, he answers that he enjoys chocolate more in winter and salty food in summer. And when he doesn't feel like joining in the conversation, he counts the moths that flicker around the light bulb on the porch. Five. An hour later, eight. When asked why he doesn't go out today, he answers that he wants to watch a movie on the laptop and discuss it with some friends. It's only half a lie. He's going to watch it alone. But there's nothing like rambling for a few minutes about the endless list of apps that his generation has changed socializing with to make them lose interest in digging around. Lately he's taken a liking to Rohmer's nothingness. It reminds him that life is equally unepic everywhere, from Paris to Busan. Later, when the protagonist overhears two strangers talking about the green light one can see in the sky for a few seconds in the coast, he thinks back and believes that yes, he too has seen it sometime.

* * *

The seventh day of the seventh month according to the Korean lunar calendar is his favorite day of the year, even without dad. Maybe even more, because now it's mom who makes the red bean cakes. And they’re not as good as his, they’re less sweet, but that's the least of his worries. He likes that they didn't stop celebrating Chilseok. That dad didn't take anything from them when he left. That he left everything behind, and that mom decided to stay, too, whole, for him. That she looks for the Ursa Major every year with him and they argue about whether the constellation inside is shaped like a chariot or a pot. This afternoon, mom has made extra pastries for the boys. It's the first time he's going to ask for rain with them.

Life has changed a lot since he turned twelve. But he's thankful that Hyun is in their lives. He's a good man, a committed guy. Generous in a genuine way. He didn't try to win Jeongguk over in any way, he just asked him if he wanted to get to know him. Jeongguk shrugged and told him that he wouldn't make his life difficult. He had nothing against someone who had brought more flowers and more fruit to his home. He just wouldn't call him dad. Not because of anything personal, but because dad was dad, and Hyun was Hyun. And it didn't make sense for dad to stop being dad just because he was dead. Dad would always be dad, even if he was no longer in the Chilseoks. He didn't want another one. He didn't need another one. And that was fine with Hyun.

"Not yet," he says to Jimin as he peeks under the basket cloth.

"I haven't had breakfast. Or lunch."

Yesterday he came home late and smelling of weed. And he hit the attic roof, and then the bunk bed roof. And just a while ago, when they cleared the table and mom set a plate aside for Jimin in the kitchen, Jeongguk pretended he didn't know it was for him and ate it, too. A car passes beside them on the dirt road and honks the horn. Jimin raises his hand to wave: in this little town everyone recognizes each other by the license plate. On the bank, waiting for the others to arrive, Jeongguk strips off his t-shirt and after submerging it a few seconds, ties it around his head and sits back down. Jimin leaves it on. As the drops trickle down to the waistband of his pants, Jeongguk wonders if he is perhaps self-conscious about the weight loss. Jimin lives most of his life as scantily clad as possible, like a greek athlete on one of those museum vases, but since he arrived, he hasn't seen him naked even when he gets out of the shower. He already comes out of the bathroom dressed. Jimin rests his head between his bent knees. His hair shines golden in the five o'clock sun. Jeongguk puts his hand on the crown of his head to check if it burns and Jimin purrs, without opening his eyes. He does it a lot, communicating with noises.

"What did the guys tell you?" he finds himself asking. He didn't know he was going to feel like picking up on what he had managed to dodge the other night.

Jimin blinks before understanding. Jeongguk knows what he has been told. About Hana. That the first night he had her sitting on his lap for a few minutes, after the third round of shots in the woods, and that he didn't know what to do with his hands. That in the end he left them on the floor, so as not to touch her skirt, and that when Hana proposed a walk, he told her he was tired from the trip. They haven’t stopped teasing him since then. And that's without knowing that, from so much keeping his hands glued to the ground, several ants crawled up his arm and bit him around the elbow. They think he didn't understand that taking a walk meant something else. Well, he's not an idiot. Jeongguk has known for years that the edge of the forest is where people go to shove their hands in other people's underwear. They could’ve made out, but he didn't feel like it at that moment. It was the first time the guys had counted on him to go out, the first time Yoongi had made him sit next to him to show him a beat on his phone. Also, he has a hard time feeling interested in new people. And he's a little creeped out by the fact that she has the same name as mom.

"The baker's granddaughter," he says. And he laughs when Jeongguk growls at a gyoza-shaped cloud. "I know her. I’d see her in the hallways at school, when we were kids. I think she's three years younger than me. This past year she's made friends with Tae's gang... She dresses well. Do you like her?" asks Jimin. And for some reason, Jeongguk keeps thinking about whether she dresses well. Does she dress well? Maybe. He only remembers the purple outfit from the other day.

"There's plenty of time left," he replies. Whatever that means. Jimin stares for a few seconds at the subtle waves of the lake.

"I've known you for almost five years." He picks up a couple of stones and weighs them in his palms until he chooses one. And he throws it, almost parallel to the surface; the stone takes four bounces before it sinks. Dad was good at doing that, but he never understood the technique. "And I don't think I've ever seen you show interest in anyone." He throws another stone, and this one takes three bounces. The third bounces six times. "Have you had a girlfriend since I left?"

"What do you think?"

"I think not," he replies. "I think you would’ve told me."

"When? You haven't really been around for the last two years."

“Indeed," he acknowledges after a brief silence. "So my father would’ve told me."

"I don't talk to him about these things."

"But you do with your mother. And your mother would have told my father, and my father would have told me. It's a chain," he smiles.

"Does it work the other way around?"

"No. Whatever you tell me will never reach your mother's ears."

Jimin looks at him, still standing, and Jeongguk is grateful for the shade he casts. Finally, he shakes his head. He starts to regret coming to the lake so early; they're going to catch a sunstroke. Jimin sits down beside him, again. The light hangs on the tips of his eyelashes. And he senses that he wants to ask him something else. But he lifts the cloth again, and this time, Jeongguk lets him.

"Have you ever slept with anyone?"

Bingo. He feigns discomfort, which he would have had with anyone else, but he knows he's asking with honest curiosity. Jimin doesn't judge. Nothing, no one, ever. And he grabs another rice cake, just to have the excuse of a full mouth so he can mull over the answer. But silence has probably already cleared any doubt. And yet, he sees no mockery in his smile, no condescension. "Just— stuff. Stuff with the hands. Last year. With one in my class." The more time Jimin spends silent, the more he has the need to fill it up. He takes another bite. "At her place, one afternoon she asked me for help with geography. I'm good at geography."

"I know."

"I'm the highest grade in my course."

"Only once?"

"Three or four." He clears his throat. He doesn't feel like remembering the last one, in the high school bathroom, or that bleach smell. He was more concerned about the girl's knees on the pee-sticky tiles than her tongue on his dick. He asked her to stop at the second lick. "I don't know."

"Did you like it?"

"Well, I guess. I— I, uh, cum." He's finished his pastry and doesn't know what to do with his fingers, so he drums his knees.

"Ah. That's a natural reaction. But did you enjoy it?"

What a peculiar question. Jeongguk has never considered that there might be room for displeasure in a handjob. And now he rummages through the drawer of that experience, and although he can't find any feelings akin to distress, it's not honest for him to say he enjoyed it. Jeongguk merely accepted an offer. Because it was logical, and his friends had been having sex since they were fifteen. Because it was more embarrassing to refuse and keep studying in that room than to let himself go. But he wasn't turned on by the prospect of seeing her again, nor did he think about her when he jerked off alone. He never thinks about anyone. Only isolated concepts. Lips without an owner, an ambiguous hole to put it in. What he doesn't know how to tell Jimin is that he felt lonely when he returned home. And that when Hana suggested going for a walk the other day, he didn't feel like leaving the bubble of the group. The smell of pot, the noise Nam makes with his throat when he’s embarrassed. The girl smells good, but doesn't make him nervous. But it doesn't matter, because Hoseok's raucous laughter interrupts them from the crest of the hillside, and the seven of them ask the gods of the Ursa Major for rain. Against all odds, it rains within forty minutes. And when he gets home, he agrees with mom. The celestial chariot is a pot.

* * *

The next day, after lunch, Jimin asks him to finish his orange popsicle. Jeongguk thinks that even more absurd than systematically leaving his food half-finished is the fact that he likes to punish his tongue in such an odd way. "I like it to hurt a little bit," Jimin replies as he crunches his ring fingers.

* * *

"You look like teenagers," Yoongi mutters.

"Technically, I am."

"Oh, really. And what excuse do those two idiots have?" He points with his head to Tae and Jimin, entwined in a drunken laughter.

None of the elders ever join these games. Sometimes they give in to Never Have I Ever just for the sake of getting drunk faster. But Jeongguk doesn't like that one. He has never done anything the others confess to, and, although he tries to be completely honest, he ends up drinking with statements he has never experienced. Just to save himself from questions he’s not comfortable answering. Even if it is at the cost of not looking in the mirror, later, while brushing his teeth. Today, instead, they will just twirl the bottle of Absolut they have finished. And even if it's a childish game and there are mouths he doesn't feel like getting into, he won't have to pretend he knows what people are talking about. It's easy, and it's a different endeavor, and it won’t make him feel ashamed. Moreover, Tae firmly believes that making fool of oneself is contextual and that it is possible to override it when a whole group replicates it.

"Double negative. Basic maths," he ditches with a flick of the wrist.

Jeongguk nods: he doesn't mind speaking that language now and then, if it's collective. He looks around as the groups are separated by activity. Jimin, Tae, the girls and he will waste time until the glass shatters from all the turning over the stone. Yoongi, Nam and Hoseok will improvise some lines on the tree stumps. And Jin will watch both groups embarrass themselves in different ways. And that will be enough for him, because Jin doesn't need to do anything concrete. He enjoys everything and nothing in general, and what he doesn't enjoy, he is just indifferent to. One of Hana's friends suggests that they sit interspersed. Boy, girl, boy, girl. It's more girls than boys until Yoongi lets himself be persuaded to play for half an hour. The condition is that they let him stand outside the circle while he gets high. Tae pretends to throw the bottle at him.

And as the dawn breaks, the participants keep adding rules: each new turn, five more seconds are added to the kiss of the next couple. One of the two has to be on the other's lap. The couple who does not want to snog, has to drink. Whoever does not want to even give the other a peck, is a slave to the group until the bottle points to him or her again. At some point in the night Nam can be heard asking them to please not end up fucking in the middle of the clearing, and one of the girls claps her sweater paws. Due to a sink in the ground, the bottle tends to lean toward Tae two out of three times, but he doesn't seem to complain, even when he has to kiss Yoongi. Neither wants to snog, so they drink before Tae sits on the older one's thighs. Jeongguk has only been kissed three times: once for fifteen seconds, once for thirty, and once for forty, and all three have been with Hana's friends. He doesn't give a damn about kissing. It's one of the few things he doesn't mind doing with strangers, especially in a game where the rules prevent going further. He prides himself, moreover, on having left his hands on the waists of all of them.

When the bottle points to Jimin and then Yoongi, Hoseok looks up from the notebook where he scribbles and puts a couple of fingers to his lips to whistle. Jimin raises his eyebrows and one corner of his mouth. Eyes fixed on Yoongi, he begins to walk on all fours like a panther. Or a kitten. He climbs into his lap, unhurriedly, gets comfortable, unhurriedly, and wiggles his pelvis against his hip, unhurriedly. Jeongguk joins in the cheers with a nervous clap and the feeling that he has arrived mid-joke.

“Piss off. Make it quick," Yoongi complains. And Jeongguk knows the annoyance is fake, because Yoongi scrunches his nose the way he does when he doesn't want to smile.

After learning that the kiss must be fifty-five seconds, Jimin pulls his friend's hair and sinks into his face. The group begins to count in unison. On the second forty, when the lips offer a glimpse of the inside of the mouths, Jeongguk realizes that they haven't vetoed their tongues. Yoongi's hands remain in an aseptic position. One on his head, resting on the log he is sitting against, another on one of Jimin's knees. In the last five seconds, Jeongguk sees him squeeze such knee. It’s subtle, almost unconscious. And he's finding the countdown excessively slow; he wonders if it’s because of the people or the alcohol. When they part, Yoongi pretends to shake him off and Jimin staggers back into the circle. His lips have lost definition. They are almost as red as they were this afternoon, when he painted them with half a cherry and then tried to paint Jeongguk's.

The next time the bottle points at Jeongguk he is aware that his kiss, with whomever it is, will be a minute and ten long. He clears his throat to ease the tickle in his throat as the hollow sound of the glass acts as a drum roll. Jimin bursts into a high-pitched laughter as the bottle neck, after a hesitant sway, points at him. The group chants a hurrah for dysfunctional families, and Jimin shakes his head. His eyes sparkle as he mutters something that only Tae hears.

"So now you guys are brothers?"

Jin boos Jimin's ploy and the rest follow suit. Since they know each other, they’ve been answering "we’re not brothers" all these years in unison until it has become a recurrent joke in the gang. Because they are not. Not even half-brothers. If Hyun is not his father, Jimin is not his brother. He's the son of mom's boyfriend. He's— Jimin. A friend. An intermittent roommate. Jeongguk looks at the soles of his sneakers. The right one has a hole in the heel and the sole is starting to come off. He has a supinator, the podiatrist told him. The tingling creeps back up his neck and into his ears, and he shakes his head to get rid of an imaginary line of bugs. It hadn't occurred to him that it was a possibility like any other, when the game started. Kissing a guy. Him. Or being kissed by him.

With his index finger, he traces the little path of the laces to forget the mess in Yoongi's hair. It puzzles him to imagine himself underneath Jimin in that unmeasured way. And it seems that, to his surprise, so does Jimin. Maybe he sees him as a brother after all. Or maybe the real reason is one more uncomfortable to share. He hears him mumble something about age; but he hasn't shied away from Hana, who is eighteen. Does he like her? What impression did she make on him the other day, in her mauve dress? And him, on the lakeshore, as they waited for the boys at Chilseok? Was he left with the idea that he was a vapid prepubescent who doesn't even know how to cum willingly? In that case, maybe he prefers excuses to the truth.

"If you refuse, there's penalty," says Tae. Solemnly, he points to some spot on Jimin's torso and Jimin's eyes widen.

"You're going to hell for this."

"I'm going to hell for many, many reasons. Off."

The council approves the punishment, and two of Hana's friends share a knowing look. Jeongguk remains silent. And when the whistles flood the night again, he raises his eyes to find what looks like some graffiti from any wall in high school, scrawled on Jimin's ribs. He doesn't quite get a good read on the word, but he could have sworn it was written in marker if it weren't for the memory of all those days Jimin hasn't taken off his t-shirt. His mouth goes dry. Jimin asks not to say anything, and looks at him as he says it. Jeongguk shrugs.

Two minutes later, the bottle pairs him with Hana, and this time he doesn't keep his lips glued together, but opens at the touch of her mouth. And he rests his hands on her hips, and gropes her thighs a few inches below her skirt. Someone howls, another counts seconds, Hana sticks her tongue in, Jeongguk responds with his. He wonders if he'll have fuzzy lips too, like Jimin. Suddenly, letting go is not what pulls him away from the group, but what brings him closer. He can try. Relativize. Show that he’s not a frightened child. He tilts his face to the side and squeezes the back of her neck. And when the kiss ends, there is widespread applause. A minute later, someone throws the bottle into the confines of the forest and the sound of breaking glass officially ends the game.

"Do you want to go for a walk?" whispers Hana. She has had to lean over her friend to keep from saying it out loud. Jimin is staring at his cell phone; the light from the screen paints his features blue.

"Why not."

He still doesn't enjoy that night's handjob.

* * *

"Soursop, my ass." The ice cream tastes like soap. "What happened to strawberry, vanilla and pistachio."

"Those do sell. Be content with what I can give you."

Three minutes left for Jin's break to end and they are still leaning against the pink wall of the stall. In the sun, like lizards. One dressed in black; the other in an apron. It has become an unspoken habit for Jeongguk to keep him company during the afternoon break. He shows him some stupid video he's shot that day of the boys and Jin shares the latest gossip he's heard while customers were waiting in line. Jeongguk alternates licks with grimaces under his bucket hat. He likes this bartering of needs. To create a chronicle of his days in the bay and, in exchange, learn that someone fucked on a rooftop three nights ago, scaring away the neighborhood cats, or that the ceramics classes at the cultural center are going to be cancelled after the only teacher who taught them suffered a stroke.

"I love the shots you take of people."

Jin smiles at the screen as he stirs the dirt in his sunglasses with his t-shirt. How silly. It's just a square format video of Hoseok screaming at an insect to leave his shoulder. In the final frame, the bug looks relaxed.

* * *

The first time Jeongguk gets high, he spends seven minutes coughing. It has no other effect. He doesn't feel light, or sleepy. Just disappointed and with a raw throat. Until, suddenly, Jin yells at Nam for stepping on his new sneaker, and that brown footprint on the nuclear white is the funniest thing he's ever witnessed in his life. And absolutely everything that comes after that is funny. The trail the lights create when he moves his head, the khaki that startles Hoseok by falling off a branch. Even the moon smiles that night. And he has learned two things: that hashish and pot are not the same, and that Tae's grandma was like his second mother. Jimin feeds him fries from his greasy newspaper cone, every now and then, licking them first to remove the yogurt sauce that Jeongguk hates. He looks like a little bird feeding his baby. He tells him that his body will be asking for salty food in an hour, and Jeongguk assures him that he's fine. "Look," he says, and tries to do a ballet pirouette that ends with his knee buried in the mud. That's hilarious, too. And he laughs, and coughs, and laughs again. And when Nam offers him his hand, he sees it lopsided, the size of a racket. Jeongguk whistles. From this angle, Nam's nostrils are bigger than his eyes. "You look like an alligator." Jimin forces him to eat the rest of the paper cone.

* * *

"Of course we're not even," Jeongguk mutters. "Having a tattoo is cool."

Jimin thinks that him knowing he got a tattoo is comparable to what he told him the other day. Jeongguk lifts up his shirt with his index finger to look at it again. The tattoo screams NEVERMIND from a range of ribs that ripples as Jimin leans over to rinse the pot. He's amused by the angry teenage calligraphy. And it's even funnier that he still hasn't seen the "dear diary:" he's written over it in pen, during his nap in the garden. Jeongguk smiles as he imagines tonight's reaction, when he looks at himself in the mirror before stepping into the shower. He actually likes it. He envies it, even. He wouldn't hide it, if he had one. But Jimin thinks the saying "ignorance brings bliss" applies very well to his father when it comes to his son's life. So he only takes off his clothes outside the house, when they go swimming in the lake or sunbathing on Hoseok's rooftop. He doesn't even take them off to sleep, just in case mom or Hyun might come upstairs to wake them up some morning. The ink waves again, like a flag. Jeongguk can tell he's been working out these past few months. He is leaner, but also more defined. He doesn't know whether his back is wider or his waist narrower. He drops the t-shirt.

"It's the same point. My tattoo only concerns me, and your sex life only concerns you."

"But I'm not the only one who knows about it."

"What?"

"No one raised an eyebrow when you showed it. Everyone knew but me. Whereas about my thing, only you know."

Jimin continues to do the dishes in silence. Mom and Hyun sleep in the living room, with the Tour de France lulling them from the TV. To the rhythm of the advertising tune, Jeongguk swings his legs from the counter, sitting next to the fruit. He gazes at the pears. He doesn't like them when they're too soft, they turn to sand on his tongue.

"I sent the photo to the group when I got it done."

"I'm not in it. Anyways. It's okay, hyung."

Jimin looks at him as he dries the frying pan. He looks like he's about to say something, but he just turns off the tap and takes off his rubber gloves. Suddenly, he smiles.

"How was your walk?"

Ah.

"Fine."

"Did you enjoy it?"

The aftertaste of that last conversation feels bitter in his mouth. The only positive thing about that night is that, he doesn't quite know how, at least he did manage to make Hana have fun. And then he washed his hands three times when he got home, on the smae spot Jimin is now. Jimin pulls his hair back. It's a tic he's had since he started growing it out in college and now, even when he cuts it again, he keeps doing it.

"I guess we all did, in our own way," he replies at last. Jimin laughs through his nose. The eyes are two little lines, like two stabs in a loaf of bread. "You were busy, too."

"What do you mean?"

"You were among the ones the bottle pointed to the most. You kissed the whole circle." Except me, of course, he thinks. Because saying it out loud would sound weird.

"Except you, of course." Jeongguk blinks. "You're welcome for that," he laughs again. And pulls his bangs back, again.

"Welcome?"

"You know. It would’ve been awkward." When Jeongguk doesn't respond, he waves his hand. "Having to kiss a guy. For I don't know how long, in front of everyone. To kiss me. On top of me, or under me."

"Isn't that what you did with Yoongi? What Tae did?"

"Well, it's— different, sure."

"Why, wasn't I part of the game?" Jimin tugs on his left pinky. He does it when he's uncomfortable, so he doesn't bite his lips and have them peel. "Did you feel that sorry for me when I told you I've never fucked anyone?"

"What does that have to—"

"Do I look like a weirdo, or something?"

"Kookie."

"Maybe, I don't know, you thought I'd panic and start screaming with my hands over my ears."

“Jeongguk.”

"Believe me, if anything should have traumatized me, it would have been the rubbing between you and Yoongi."

Jimin pulls his wrist with a sharp "upstairs." In the garret, Jeongguk doesn't know what else to add. He suddenly doesn't feel like talking. He would simply like people to stop treating him like the eternal underage boy. Jimin often forgets that he is already nineteen. Almost. And he forgets because he is not present. He climbs up to the top bunk, lazily, and fixes his eyes on the ceiling. It's orange. Soon it will be lilac.

"You were uncomfortable. That's all I'm trying to say. I don't care if you've done a thousand things more than me, I can manage a fucking kiss. And if you interpreted otherwise from what I told you, then I regret telling you."

Suddenly, the wood creaks and he has the scent of Jimin all over him. Figs, peach. Today he doesn't smell the rose. Good, because it's the only flower he can't stand: it smells like a nursing home. The t-shirt is soft, so worn. If he concentrates, he can even see the tattoo through the fabric. Now that he knows where it is, he's surprised mom and Hyun haven't noticed it. Jimin's knees dig into the mattress, on either side of Jeongguk's hip. It's a habitual gesture, sitting on him. One of many that he got used to reluctantly, out of inertia and insistence, and now he wouldn't know how to see it any other way but natural. Like when he jumps on him and Jeongguk has his arm ready to grab him, or sucks his finger full of a sauce that Jimin promises he'll like. But this time he doesn't rest his hands on his thighs, this time he leaves them crossed under his head.

"You don't look like a weirdo," he quotes. "I don't even know what a weirdo looks like. It wasn't out of pity. I really thought you'd find it humiliating to have to kiss your brother in front of his friends. And the girls."

"I was the only one someone preferred the penalty for. I mean, what's more humiliating than that. And we're not brothers." Jimin throws his head back in a silent laugh, and the movement bounces off Jeongguk's pelvis. He doesn't know which is sharper, his jaw or the collarbone peeking through his shirt. "I think Yoongi likes you," he says. He thought about it yesterday, for a few seconds. It was the way he squeezed his knee. So unconscious, so unintentional. He wouldn't know how to explain it, but if he'd squeezed his ass or moaned into his mouth it wouldn't have felt half as intrusive to look at. Jimin stops laughing and looks at him. Strange that he doesn't deny it. It's as if he agrees. Jeongguk frowns. "Does Yoongi like you?"

What kind of question is that? Since when is that question normal among them, and regarding any of the gang? He doesn't know them well, but he would never have thought they could have their attention on anything other than rap, pot, or senior girls. He's never thought of the village as particularly diverse. Things never change here. Only those who leave do. It was almost a question to provoke, to make Jimin whine. But suddenly, it's as if Jeongguk has come late to an old debate again. Jimin smiles in that way where his cheeks swell up and look like they're carved out of clay.

"No. But it doesn’t matter. If I liked someone, it would be Nam."

As he goes down to his bed, Jeongguk, lying on his own, feels his pants getting cold.

* * *

"The fuck is this. Ah, that brat," he hears him mutter in satoori on the other side of the door. Seconds later, the muffled clatter of the shower floods the darkened room, and Jeongguk wrinkles his nose into a smile no one sees. That night he dreams of rain.

* * *

Hyun is teaching him how to develop in analog in a small room on the first floor. Jeongguk didn't know he had been a freelance photographer for a couple of nature and mechanics magazines before he had Jimin and relegated the profession to simply a dusty camera in the bay. Nor did he know that the bolted door he left behind every time he went to the pantry for food was a six-foot-square hovel where he’d end up spending so many hours of his summer. He didn't think it was possible to be interested in such slow processes. He has never been able to sit and wait. To sit, plain and simple. Especially to watch a blank sheet of paper turn into a set of coherent spots. Jeongguk leaves the magnifying glass on the table after checking the last photograph, hanging on the end of the rope with a clothespin. He grins in satisfaction: he has counted only two bubbles and a hair. He likes it. He likes to experience again that magic he felt as a child when he mixed shampoos in the sink. He loves the way his hair smells when he finishes emptying the developer tank. He loves the sound of the portable fan Hyun has placed in the corner, the glow of the thermometer, the color of the walls under the red bulb. Even the labels on the jars with the corners curled by time. It's been a long time since he's loved so many things together.

And, paradoxically, it's stressful. Because it reminds him that there's a month left before college enrollment starts, and he still doesn't know what to do with his life. Broadcasting and Entertainment. That's what's been flitting around in his mind, like a fly that won't get out of the car even if the window is open, since the day Jimin left a flyer on his nightstand of what he was studying. "Film! Radio! Television! Print!" He had never asked him what his career was about, because Jimin wanted to be a radio host or a reporter, and Jeongguk was not attracted to anything related to being in front of a camera. He preferred to be behind. But there it was, that glossy paper between his fingers promising him in neon yellow everything he enjoyed in a single program. Film, television, music, magazine. Video editing, directing. Photography. All his hobbies within reach. Or a failure away. What if it went wrong? What if he discovered he wasn't good at anything that made him happy? Would he end up hating it all? And then what? Sometimes his brain turns into a wasp's nest, and they flutter and sting. He prefers the flies, even if they're dumb.

Maybe the most reasonable thing to do is to study something practical that he doesn't hate too much. Something that will put mom's mind at rest. Or let September go as it comes, and with it, the opportunities. Jimin would kill him if he stood by and watched that train go by. He thinks he's got too much potential to get to work so early and all that. But he doesn't think it's so crazy to spend a year earning money and saving. To become independent, or to buy a second-hand car and ditch mom's scooter. It's a pain to ride it in winter, and last year he fell off when he stepped on the white stripe of a crosswalk on a rainy day. Two tourists had to help him pick it up. He only told Jimin about it when he came home for his birthday. God, the look on his face. One would have thought he'd witnessed the accident, based on the gasp as he showed him his bruised skin in the bathroom. He'd pay to rewind to the scene afterwards, with one of them sitting on the toilet, skin the color of china, and the other one doing a handstand against the shower screen to prove he was okay. He had a hell of a time convincing him not to tell anyone, and Jimin didn't calm down until he saw him eat half the pot of homemade kimchi he'd brought wrapped in foil.

When he finally turns off the projector and closes the door, the light makes him blink; it's almost dinnertime. This time he hasn't been called to set the table, and he's sure it’s thanks to Hyun. He smiles again, still squinting. Today is the first time he hasn't needed to look at the timer to get the sheets out of the plastic tub, and he hasn't felt this accomplished in years.

* * *

"I like to work the land."

Tae sits on the ground, head tilted to one side, eyelids heavy from the summer. He likes the cold better, he told him before. He knows how to fight it. The heat flattens him. It takes away his desire to go out, it screws up his freshly washed hair, and brightly colored clothes look worse on him. Besides, he doesn't like to show his legs. He always has some injury or bruise that infantilizes his knees. Tae looks at his nails to make sure they’re clean. It's a habit acquired from hours in the orchard. When smoke comes out of his nose slowly, Jeongguk is reminded of a dragon.

"I don't need to leave, like Jimin or Hoseok," he says, looking in their direction. The alluded are around the campfire, a few meters away, talking about rents in Seoul. "I envied them, at first. I looked at a thousand options to study abroad, scholarships, weekend jobs. I almost went into Architecture; anything to get out of here. To be a city boy." The cigarette butt dances between his lips as he speaks. Since he's lit it, he hasn't touched it once with his fingers. Jeongguk is uncomfortable with his smoking. It's the last smell he remembers of dad. And it's an annoying habit that forces him to wait for him now, every time they go to some establishment together and he wants to finish off the cigarette before throwing it away. "But just spending a week in Seoul made me realize that the only thing I missed was my two best friends. I envied them because they were together, not because they were gone."

Jin's histrionic laughter contrasts with Yoongi's silent one. The only thing they’re alike in is the shoulder shake.

"I like working on my parents' farm. I'm good at taking care of things, I think. Watching them grow. The animals love me, and not just when I feed them or squeez their udders. Sometimes they come to sit at my feet. And I think the plants listen to me when I talk to them, because if I don't they're kind of sad. That's my contribution to the world, I guess. Reviving my mother's orchids. I don't need to leave a bigger legacy. Maybe plant a tree that will outlive me, in the future, or have a couple of kids. But there are people who don't fit in here."

Jeongguk looks at Jimin. He is incapable of visualizing him in the bay, as an old man, on the gravel roads. Even cacti die on him.

* * *

"Kissing is not boring at all."

"It's— static."

"It's spiced up with a lot of things: a bite, hands."

"Does it count double if you bite a hand?"

"Hearing each other breathe."

"Ah, yes. The eroticism of knowing your partner is still alive."

"Kissing on the neck, for example. You can't go wrong with that."

"I don't know how to kiss a neck."

"You don't kn— you're kidding me."

"Well, it's like walking without a gps. I know how to kiss a mouth because I can see it. There it is so there I go. But I don't understand the neck. Why is one spot sensitive and another one not? And how do you find it? It's just skin and more skin."

"From previous experiences. You've never been kissed there?"

"A while ago." It was Eunwoo, after winning a relay race against the rival school. And it felt as if he had kissed his elbow. "I'm convinced that those of you who say you enjoy that are faking it. You've all ganged up to make me feel like a malfunctioning android, like the ones from Blad—"

Jimin rustles the sheet beside him, and in a neat twist, he's straddling him. He doesn't quite discern his features, but he knows he's smiling half-sideways just by the silhouette of his right cheek. Silently, Jimin points to a spot on his sternum.

"You can start here," he murmurs. And he leans down to glue his lips to that little piece of pajamas. Slowly enough for Jeongguk to push him away, if he wants to. But Jeongguk holds his breath, because it's a little chilly tonight, and Jimin's breath warms the thin fabric. "You go up," he instructs as he ascends towards the collarbone. He runs along it like a bridge to the shoulder and, once there, lingers at the junction between the two bones. Like a line of ants, he leaves a trail of soft, squishy kisses against his skin.

"Tickles."

But it's not exactly that. It's something similar to a low-frequency electric current. Quiet, steady, like the vibration of his computer when he turns it on. Suddenly, he contracts his abdomen and Jimin laughs through his nose.

"Here's a sensitive spot. When you find it," he says as he runs his teeth over the area, "you'll notice it, if you're attentive." He gently nails the incisors, and Jeongguk stifles a sound before it reaches the roof of his mouth. "It's a matter of listening to the other. Even if they don't speak." He caresses the tortured area with the tip of his tongue. Jeongguk releases a spasm. "You can entertain yourself all you want once you have it. Attack," and he bites, "and repay," and licks. And Jeongguk feels like those frog legs on display in some Busan flea markets, wiggling on contact with salt. It’s the weight of a body on top of his what he didn’t expect to be pleasant. It oppresses him, but it also settles him. For once, he doesn't mind having restricted control. It's strange to be comfortable being invaded, to have his hands asking him to participate. He's not usually generous when it comes to giving in. To give anything at all. He fails when trying to stifle a second grunt.

Jimin abandons all decorum as he bites him, and Jeongguk clenches his fists around his clothes. He doesn't know how many minutes it's been, nor he gets the transition between not making a sound and being this vocal with each new kiss. Under his jaw, on his Adam's apple and in the valley between his collarbones. He is only aware of the sensation of saliva as it cools. Of a fringe caressing his cheek on the way to his ear. And every time he feels receptive to the most discreet stimulus, Jimin leaves that area and travels to others in the periphery. Like a hummingbird, pecking here and there. When he gets off his hip, satisfied with the lesson, Jeongguk is faced with the task of regulating his chest. He puffs, and the sound is reminiscent of a horse's snort. He has liked having a face sunk into a private corner of his body. He would run away, if his legs responded, so as not to hear the obnoxious I told you so that Jimin sometimes sings. So-So-Re-Ti. When he looks at his face, he finds him dozing in the moonlight. He could let him sleep. Accept defeat gracefully. But Jeongguk wants to prove himself. And a sound of surprise later, he rests between his partner's legs, spread without resistance, lax, tired.

He begins at the shoulder, just as he did. If he concentrates, he can imagine a line drawn on that skin. He remembers where it first shocked him, and places his lips there. Bingo. He senses the response. He detects all the ones he gives, as the kisses go by. Sometimes it's a tilt of the head against the pillow. Sometimes it's a squeeze of fingers on his bicep. A movement of the foot, as if stepping on a piano pedal. But the responses he likes best are the audible ones. The purr. The shy moan, almost by mistake, just below the lobe.

"Here?" he asks. He knows the answer, but he wants to hear it, and he wants it in an affected voice. When Jimin sighs under his torso, he strikes again with the notes he's gathered. A nibble, a suck, a blow and a lick. Jimin squeezes him between his knees in an unconscious attempt to be less exposed, and Jeongguk wonders if he, too, enjoys having his movement neutralized. His hips draw a question mark with a rude spasm. Jimin answers with a shiver that lifts his spine. And in the middle of this dialogue, he hears himself, distantly, mumble a pasty "Can I try a hickey?". A minute later, he has barely managed to paint a shadow that fades with the passing seconds. And as breaths are tempered, he finds himself wanting to conquer something more. Validation. A pinch. He is on the X of the map and has not gotten the treasure out. And it bothers him to move away. It bothers him to stop doing something when he's still not good at it. Back to their initial position on the bed, they both look up at the ceiling of the bunk. Or Jimin looks at the ceiling and Jeongguk looks at Jimin. "Did I do well?"

One second, then another.

"Yes."

"Wasn't I boring?"

Jimin smiles, and even lying down, he manages to push his hair back.

"No girl will be bored with you."

Jeongguk takes a few moments to understand what he's talking about. Ah, yeah. And he falls asleep with one leg dangling off the edge of the bed.

* * *

The sky is mustard yellow, like his necklace. In front of him, the silhouettes of the six of them look black, standing on top of the ruins. They recall anecdotes from high school. Hobi and Nam were classmates since they were kids, like Jimin and Tae, and Yoongi joined them when he repeated a year. There they began composing for the end-of-semester performances every year. Later, Jimin and Hobi met while dancing at the cultural center, and that was the collision of the two groups. Jin came later. Seen from afar, from the rock he is perched on, they look like the most disparate group he’s ever seen. Not a single laugh is similar to the other. Not a single color on their shirts. Maybe they hit it off by inertia, until they really loved each other. Like Jimin and him. Maybe he has the same right to fit in. Even if Jin is five years older than him, and Tae talks about music he doesn't understand, and Nam asks him questions he doesn't feel like answering. Like what does he like. Nothing. Everything. He doesn't know. When they go back home, before the crossroad that separate their houses, some dogs bark in the distance and the seven of them bark back.

* * *

The second time he bites Jimin's neck, he gets it. Jimin explained it poorly. It's not hearing each other's breathing. It's hearing how the breathing changes.

* * *

"When did you take this one?"

Jeongguk averts his eyes from the film to fix them on the photograph Jimin holds in his palms. He holds it as if it’s a manuscript about to disintegrate, the fingertips barely serving as a lectern. Even he doesn't handle them with such care. He scratches his chest when he feels something crawling up the inside of his shirt. Jimin has found his folder. The one he bought the other day at the bookstore for the photographs that passed the first sieve of his self-criticism. He put it in one of the drawers of the desk that serves as a rack, and now it rests on Jimin's knees in the same position in which the laptop rests on his. And he can't help thinking that when the owner showed him the same model in several colors, he was right to choose the black one. It looks good against that skin that is finally starting to tan. He leans over his shoulder and smiles at the image. It's one of the few he's proud of, and it's not even developed properly. Too clear, too much light. Hyun told him it's because he let the developer fluid cool more than it should. But he likes it, because he took it when Jimin was in full laughter, right before he fell to the ground like a puppet having its strings cut, and when he looks at it he swears he can hear it.

"When Hoseok-hyung said his grandfather kept his shoes in the refrigerator to keep his feet cool."

Jimin replicates the expression so exactly that, for a moment, the photograph becomes a mirror. Jeongguk smiles out of inertia, as he always does when someone laughs near him. And to the question of why he prefers his father's analog camera to his digital one, he answers with a shrug. He answers a lot of things this way lately. It has become a habitual gesture for some years now. But that in the studio he feels, at last, in control of something in his life is not something he wants to talk about, and that he enjoys playing alchemist is not what Jimin wants to hear. Jimin doesn't insist, however, and Jeongguk is grateful for the truce. The minutes it lasts until he closes the folder, at least. Maybe he shouldn't have let him pry. But he saw his tiny hands holding it and he thought him harmless. And, given the chance to receive someone else's opinion, he prefers his, always so kind when it comes to the things he shares.

What he has just discovered, as he watches him lift the next picture to examine it in the afternoon light, is that it makes him uncomfortable to witness his reactions. That silence, that mute study. It makes him feel vulnerable. Jimin rests his chin on his fist, like when he reads those European authors' books, and makes a sound similar to the one the neighborhood cat does. The one that meows to complain and also when is content. Jeongguk knows how to distinguish them by now, and Jimin's too. The noise he’s currently doing makes him look at his laptop, again. And in the reflection of the black screen he sees a smile that rises to his nose. When he starts developing in color, he’ll buy the yellow folder.

* * *

They talk about the most beautiful universities in Seoul. Jimin's wins the vote because of the facade completely clad in vines, or ivy, or whatever mom told him they were. He never understood the difference. Jeongguk saw it once, when they went to visit him with the excuse of bringing him a box of mugs he had left at home. He remembers the trip to the kitchenware section of Ikea. Because, actually, he hadn't forgotten any mugs, but Hyun missed him. He remembers the campus, smelling of wet grass, and he remembers running out of air as he got out of the car and left the first wall behind. It looked like one of those dystopian buildings in those movies where the Earth has been desolated by too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A building reconquered by nature when the human disappeared. A green sheet only pierced by the windows of the classrooms facing west.

Jeongguk remembers the feeling that all those people didn't belong in that landscape. Him included. Mom included, Hyun included. But when Jimin greeted them in sweatpants, on the fourth floor of the residential building, he knew he did belong. He had already made it his home. Jeongguk was annoyed that he had on his bed the drawing that used to hang in the room they shared. It was a sketch he did some time ago, a day when Jimin had fallen asleep eating. His chin on his chest, chopsticks still between his fingers. Jeongguk would’ve liked to have it at home, now that he was gone. And not in a building where something as alien to those ivies as Broadcasting and Entertainment was taught.

"How does the irrigation system work? I mean, all that stuff has to be maintained. No one wants to see a facade full of dried-up vines."

"Do I look like I know how vines are watered?"

"I beg to differ. It must be beautiful to see the passing of the seasons in the color of the leaves."

"The most logical use of water would be to apply it from the rooftop. And let gravity do the rest."

"Are there even leaves in winter?"

"The classrooms must be full of bugs."

* * *

Jimin is not as discreet in the first stage of alcohol as he usually is in his day-to-day life. Jeongguk almost prefers him in his second or third stage, or even in the latter, when he barely speaks and his eyelids swell with sleep, all candid and liquid, and he adapts his forms to the back of whoever is in front of him. They’re both lying on the olive green couch, one at each side, jostling for the center in a tangle of legs. An empty cardboard cup falls down the precipice of cushions and rolls in a semicircle. Mom and Hyun have gone out to see a play, as they do every Friday, to that little spot of white dots that can be seen from the dry tree by the ruins, if the afternoon is clear. Soon they will have to throw the boys out and clean up the alcohol they’ve spilled but, for the moment, they rest and hear them talking on the porch. The voices come muffled through the mosquito screens of the living room windows. It's a quiet party. Weed, soft music and ashtrays on the floor. A girl sings in French about an internet love.

"So you've never gotten sucked off?" When Jeongguk sighs at the ceiling, Jimin sinks a little deeper into the blankets. "Don't be shy. I don't think Nam has ever gotten a blowjob either."

"Go give him one, run."

"Yah," Jimin replies with a kick that lands on his hip. He barely hurts him with his bare feet. "Watch your mouth."

"You said if you liked anyone, it would be him."

"I'm not giving anyone head today."

Two moths tinkle against the light bulb in the living room, and it sounds like someone is tapping on the glass with their fingernails. Today. Jeongguk opens his mouth and closes it again. Sometimes he doesn't know how to continue the joke Jimin offers. So he just looks at him, lying between his knees, and Jimin smiles in a very particular way; he wants to tell him something but he doesn't know how, he senses it from a slight contraction he makes with his cheeks. Jeongguk has learned a lot about him in those blank spaces between them.

"What."

"Nothing."

"Hyung. I can barely see your eyes."

"Want to know what it feels like?"

"Are you going to tell me to stick it in a mango?"

Jimin lets out the first laugh of the night, and he sits up. When he giggles like that his forehead turns red.

"Give me your hand."

For some reason that tomorrow he’ll blame on alcohol, he’s not alarmed by any proposal as long as it doesn’t force him to get up from the couch. He's comfortable, warm, drunk and happy. And when Jimin sticks his index and middle fingers in his mouth and smiles around his knuckles, all he manages to do is ask with his eyebrows. Jimin has an easy laugh when he's tired. Of the texture of smoke, always towards the ceiling. He knows he’s waiting for him to pull out his fingers, disgusted by the contact with other people's saliva. But Jeongguk, this time, doesn't pull back. For once, he's going to get the joke. He's going to be part of it. So he holds on for a few seconds there, on those lips swollen from the spicy ramen. If he pushes the fingertips in a little further, he can make him gag and win the challenge. Nah. Too easy. The next step is Jimin's, and he's genuinely curious to see what he does when confronted in his language. He's never seen him solve his own games. Maybe because he's never wanted to check how far he could take them. Today he doesn't care. As a warning, he lays his fingers on the bed of that black vodka tinted tongue. He wonders if when he pulls them out they'll be ash-colored. And for some reason that he has missed while staring at the contrast between his beige skin and the pink that surrounds it, when he looks up he discovers a pair of eyelids that seem to languish between blinks.

"Is this all 'm missing?" he stammers. Almost there. Jimin's gaze has always been eerily dual. Resist. Resist.

As if his voice were the password to start a machine, Jimin's teeth grope the skin. Remembering them on his neck, Jeongguk conceals a shudder with a nod that pushes his bangs away from his forehead. They must compose a strange image, seen from the outside. Jimin, with the flaming cheeks of a child sipping his milkshake. Biting his straw. Jeongguk, waiting to find out where the challenge takes him. Slowly, Jimin gives him the answer. Want to know what it feels like? His mouth slides up his phalanges, leaving a shiny, snail-like patina in its wake. And with the same parsimony, it again seizes him between tongue and palate. The speed is almost hypnotic. In, out. He could be an eternal spectator of this loop. Outside, inside. Because he understands what he’s proposing. He can isolate that mouth and reinterpret those ups and downs with a little imagination. He can blur everything and concentrate the view on those lips and the volume that the cupid's bow gains with the shadows of the living room.

Something rebels in the moors of the navel. He has the urge to do many things, and when his free hand flutters over his stomach, not quite sure what to hold on to, his shirt or Jimin's, or whether to tell him to stop, or ask him to bite him, Jimin releases his fingers with a sucking sound and Jeongguk surprises himself by emitting a moan. They go cold on contact with the air. But they still glow. His dick makes an awkward feint to peek out. Outside, someone burps. And Jimin hugs him with his mouth again, and Jeongguk catches air between his teeth. From the position he's in, it looks like he's getting a real blowjob. A head bobbing up and down upon his pelvis, at a lazy pace. Can sex be slow? In a room with the door open, in a bathroom, in a forest. All the experiences he's had have been rushed and with all five senses more attentive to the surroundings than to the girl.

As the seconds pass, he finds it harder to discern what is uncomfortable and what is erotic. He only knows that he has the physical urge to rub his palm over the cloth that separates him from his erection. Tomorrow he will promise not to drink anymore. Today, he pats the button of his pants, unsure. Jimin neither encourages nor restrains him. He merely traces circles with his tongue on the tip of his fingers. On whose roof is the ball, and why they don't laugh anymore. Pop. The bubble bursts as Jin announces they’re leaving and Jimin is back to curling into a ball on his side of the couch, his cheeks almost maroon. Jeongguk promises those outside, in the same volume, that they don't need help cleaning up. The beaded curtain rustles and one by one they peek through the frame to say goodbye. At the last farewell, Jeongguk looks at his fingers. They feel rough. He doesn't know if he wants to return to that damp cave or hide in his sheets, but somehow he senses that, from that moment on, his imagination has expanded without remedy. He’s a very sensitive guy. Touch, smell, sight. Sounds. They’re new brushstrokes for the narratives he’ll create in future jerk-offs. Luckily, or not, it's not clear to him, Jimin gets up and starts picking up the cups of instant noodles that have been left next to the sealed fireplace. And with a soft sound, his footsteps walk away up the stairs. It seems that the gift he has given him will be as transcendent or banal as Jeongguk chooses it to be. That night, before going to sleep, he wonders which one of them has won.

* * *

There’s very little toothpaste left. Jimin uses a lot, the three times a day he brushes his teeth, and never restocks it.

* * *

And it's not that he doesn't understand why everyone comes to Nam looking for something. Comfort, or a lighter, or opinion. He's a smart, educated guy. He could be just one of the two things, but he's both. And more. Always just a little bit more than the rest: more stable, more mature, more level-headed. Jeongguk thinks he's outgrowing his hometown. He could study whatever he wants outside. Philosophy, philology, or any of those degrees that force you to become a college professor. Nam would be good at it. Speaking to an audience five times the size of the bay. He's a natural mentor, a gentle guide. And when he doesn't know which direction to point, he doesn't mind sticking around and tagging along. He could help many in a classroom. If I liked someone, it would be Nam. Jeongguk ponders whether it’s possible to surpass him in anything. He’s taller than him, has broader shoulders and a couple of dimples under his cheeks. Thinner nose, deeper voice. A book always between his elbow and his ribs. And when he talks about art with Tae, Jimin listens. If only he had the courage to show him the photograph he took of him while looking at his blank notebook, waiting to come up with a verse as good as Yoongi's.

* * *

“One, two—“

Jimin jumps up and Jeongguk lifts him by the hip. The elbows shiver for a few seconds until they manage to stretch all the way under his weight. It's harder to keep their balance now than when they started, because Jimin no longer straps on his shoulders: he leaves his hands free, like on a bicycle. From the courtyard steps, Hoseok applauds as the T they compose spins on itself. Jeongguk deposits Jimin on the ground like he were a little present under the Christmas tree, and that's really how his eyes shine, as if dozens of light bulbs were reflected in his pupils. It's seven o'clock in the evening, and it's the first time they make it. Jeongguk pants, satisfied. He likes Jimin teaching him dance steps. Not because he's interested; he can't pay attention to a ballet for more than six minutes, let alone those broken noises and poses they call contemporary. It's because he enjoys solving riddles. Whether it's in the form of algebra, a recipe, a drawing or the dance routine Jimin teaches his students. And he likes that Jimin thinks he's capable. That he trusts him not to throw him to the ground, and that he scratches the crown of his head when he lifts him. From high above, stretched between his fingers. Yes. Definitely, what he likes the most is not to fail when they depend on him.

"You can let go."

Jeongguk takes his hands off his waist and, for the sake of doing something, dries them in the back pockets of his sweatpants. He’s been sweating for three hours. For the second time in a week, he ponders whether maybe he should stop accepting Jimin's challenges. He walks to the kitchen, remembering that mom has prepared a jar of peppermint water. When he opens the fridge, the mist envelops him for a few moments in an icy embrace and he stands there, still, until the machine beeps. Returning to the garden with the tray of Pepsi logos, he finds them crumpling the grass to the rhythm of one of Yoongi's raps. They improvise as they go along, amid giggles and coughs, but he recognizes several steps they've reproduced on a few drunken binges. He replicates one with his arm at the same time as them and sits back to watch.

Hoseok is a striking dancer, full of detail. The way he plays with the opposing forces, the way he blocks a whole area of his body and only releases the bit he needs. He used to try to imitate him in the cramped space between the desk and the closet of his Busan room, pulling from memory and youtube searches. Today, however, he can't take his eyes off Jimin. Suddenly, like a child reciting all the street signs after learning to read, he’s able to locate the classical dance in the popping with which he accompanies Hobi. There are not pirouettes like the ones he does around the house, when he crosses the hallway, nor arms outstretched like wings in the middle of a jump. But it’s there; it’s always been there. In the neck, in the fingers, in the eyes. Especially in the eyes.

Jeongguk fogs the rim of his glass as he sighs. If only he had, for once, let Jimin lead him by the hand along the path he was walking. Maybe now he would be standing on that patch of grass, not sitting. He accompanied him once or twice to the hip-hop school he went to on Thursday afternoons and Sunday mornings. The one he left when he moved to Seoul, and the one Jeongguk almost signed up for, one open day, when he saw the breakdancing class. But he didn't like the glass walls. It makes him uncomfortable to be seen learning. His mistakes are his own, and no one else's. That's why he crumples all his sketches. Jimin is much more generous, he’s always shared himself to the last consequence. Even if said consequence was a disappointment. And he enjoys the processes of things. The hours-long rehearsals. The thousand-piece puzzles and cooking rice in a pot. He doesn't have his impatience, nor his lack of concentration.

"I'm talking to you," Hoseok snaps between gulps. "This year it won’t coincide with your birthday. Are you coming to see us?"

Jeongguk raises one eyebrow, then both. Oh, he mutters. When Jimin entered college, Hyun insisted on taking care of tuition and course payments if Jimin promised to manage the expenses of his room and living in the capital. He remembers his call, a few weeks later, to tell him that he was going to work as an assistant in the children's ballet class at the school where Hoseok was working. It was a few hours' job that would not take up much of his study time, and would allow him to get back in touch with that branch of dance he had neglected for the past years. He had sounded happy while he listed all the styles that were being taught and how the music tracks mixed as he walked the halls. Urban songs with symphonies and jazz beats. It was a beautiful chaos, he told him. Jeongguk thought it was poetic that he was going to be teaching kids the same age he started at.

"Jimin told me the assistants didn’t dance at the opening."

"You didn't tell him?" says Hoseok. Jimin shakes his head as he stretches, pink ears showing through platinum strands of hair. "Well. Here you have the new ballet teacher at Hongdae's oldest school."

"The new— you got promoted?" The alluded one smiles sheepishly and, without understanding why, Jeongguk feels like when his phone battery runs out in the middle of a long drive. Excluded. From something, from someone. "Jiminie—"

"Please address Mr. Park with the appropriate honorifics. Jimin-ssi, from now on. Jimin-nim doesn't sound cool."

"Hyun didn't tell me anything."

"He doesn't know," he finally replies. "And I'd like to keep it that way, for now."

"What about the boys?"

"Only you two know."

Jeongguk relaxes a frown he didn't know he had been wearing. Suddenly, the smile he has been forcing for a minute becomes sincere. He's gone from believing he's the last to arrive at the party, to being the first. Well, almost. He nods in an attempt to be nonchalant. "Why?"

"I haven't said yes yet." Jimin sits up and shakes off a lone blade of grass that's stuck in his knee. Sipping from the only glass left on the plastic tray, he wrinkles his nose. "Ugh. Warm."

* * *

There’s a ladybug drowning in the juice sediment, and Jeongguk watches it climb up the pulp and slip back down. Hyun has told him again that if he doesn't want to study, he's welcome in the cafeteria for as long as he needs. But Jeongguk doesn't feel like thinking about the world after summer. He doesn't want to choose. He wants to have the chance to ponder forever. To go back to being a kid and only hesitate between lemon and strawberry. Lemon, always. Only when the ladybug falls belly up, legs flailing in an impossible tango, does he stick his finger in to twist it around and let it climb up his fingernail. He's spent the last two years of high school battling the pressure of the what nexts. Hating all those expectations. His teachers', mom's. His own. And now he'd give his Nintendo to have them back. To go back to that dance between utopia and anxiety, where the what now was so many realities away. Overcoming the vertigo of immediacy requires a talk with himself that he doesn't feel like having. He can still postpone it a little longer. Just a little longer. Maybe until his birthday, in less than a month. It seems appropriate for it to be his first decision as an official adult. The ladybug flies off and leaves him, without looking back.

* * *

That same night, he tries to put as many plates on his forearms as possible. If they let him walk at the speed at which grass grows, he shouldn't do badly. Jimin clicks his tongue and slams the door on his way out.

* * *

"The beetle," Hoseok says, and those with a cigar in their fingers freeze the gesture of bringing it to their mouths.

"I can't believe your favorite animal is a bug. It's like falling in love with your nemesis."

"It's slow; it's easy to run away from it."

Jeongguk understands. It's not self-sabotage, as someone mutters between puffs. It’s the door to becoming someone else. It’s an enemy that makes him feel safe and with whom he believes that, at some point, he could coexist. One who, moreover, prefers to go slowly rather than fly. Or maybe it's just funny because it makes poop balls. Yoongi's favorite animal is the panda, which is corroborated by his youtube history. Tae's is the elephant, because they recognize the bones of their dead when they visit them every year. When Nam hesitates between the crow and the jellyfish, Jin asks him to choose one for him to keep the other. Jimin debates between several animals and they all turn out to be felines. Jeongguk doesn't think there's nothing better than a dog.

* * *

Her perfume floats in the attic after waking them up with a bang of the curtain. Mom smells like grandma's pink lipstick. Jeongguk sniffs against the pillow and Jimin groans in the bed downstairs. Yesterday he arrived in the wee hours of the morning, even later than him. He would have waited for him to come home together if he hadn't spent the whole night calling him "excuse me waiter". With a crinkled eye, he looks at his watch: 6.12 in the morning. It was Hyun's idea; mom doesn't like sightseeing this early. But Hyun promises that the views from the caves should be seen in the dawn light. That if they’re seen in brighter light, it's just another grotto. Jeongguk sleeps the car ride to the other end of the bay, where the western headland separates the village from the next, and when he wakes up, Jimin has left a puddle of drool on his knee. He takes a picture of his mouth, swollen like two sausages. He laughs. And instead of rubbing the saliva with the sleeve of his sweater, he lets the breeze dry it.

When the tide comes in, the cave is flooded. As a result, it stinks of seaweed and saltpeter, and the floor is slippery with the gelatinous film spat out by the sea. Hyun has fallen twice trying to help mom. The rest, trying to avoid a similar fate, end up hand in hand. Jeongguk is unclear whether he prefers to fall accompanied or alone, but somehow Jimin manages to even out his balance in a gait that trembles and steadies in unison. When they reach the end of the walk, Hyun points to the stone dome above their heads. It is hard to believe that the columns supporting it are not the work of human hands. Mom takes a picture that comes out black. Jeongguk thinks of the ceiling of his room at night: you can't see the end. About to ask aloud where the little green stars are, he notices Jimin, clutching his fingers, running his thumb over his fingertips.

Jeongguk takes a few seconds to identify that little moon pattern he always makes in every notebook and every arm within reach. He hadn't realized they were still holding hands. He closes his mouth and adjusts his breathing to that tempo, distracted and automatic. The menu of a video game is projected on the walls of the cave: option a) is to move his hand away and put it in his swimming trunks pocket. Option b) is to shrink the remaining fingers into a fist so that he has better access to the two he already has trapped. Jimin looks at the prey he doesn't remember catching, then at the shadowy outline of his hiking companion. And his thumb runs up the center knuckles, the ones Jin tells him look like horse knees, to the ones that meet the palm. Carefully, he caresses the spider veins Jeongguk gets from boxing. And the friction waxes and wanes, and once again he sketches some circles that massage his nails. They go down, slow, and up. Jeongguk feels more unsteady than when they were climbing the folds of the stone.

"When did you get sunburnt?" mom says as he comes out of the cave, and puts a hand on his cheek.

* * *

Jimin asks why all the hoods of the cars in town are full of dents. Jeongguk takes a closer look. It's true. It's like they've been riddled by pigeons. Tae answers that there was a hail storm a few months ago that broke two stained glass windows in the church and wiped out the crops. That's why lettuce is so expensive this summer and the apostles' faces are a different color than their hands. The ice stones stripped the trees bare until the streets were green with leaves, he tells him. It was like waking up in the Amazon, Jin nods. They sent a video to the group. Jimin replies that he hardly ever watches them.

* * *

He has drunk Nam's two shots while he wasn't looking and then has convinced him that he had already taken them. He has thrown vodka from the plastic bottle to Tae thinking it was water and has cried when Jimin has pretended to faint after catching him on his shoulders and falling with him on top. He’s not drunk. There’re only stretches of the way home that he doesn't remember. Of the way from the kitchen faucet to his toothbrush and to his sheets. He does remember giving Jimin a piggyback ride because his knee hurt. A kiss on the back of his neck, the tube of toothpaste squeezed in half. And the third time down to his bed. He doesn't even have to take the phone out of his hands: Jimin sets it down on the mattress and spreads his knees apart to welcome his weight. Because, somehow, he distinguishes when he goes down to pee and when he goes down to continue practicing what he teaches him. And Jeongguk settles into that space that seems to have been his for nights and stays for a few seconds doing nothing but rest the effects of alcohol. Even if he's not drunk.

Jimin hums while tucking his hair behind his ear. He could fall asleep like that, there. But he wants contact and he wants attention. All he hasn't given him today but has given to Yoongi. Sometimes, when he looks at them, he feels like he's witnessing a school scene where a boy pulls the pigtails of the girl he likes. Jeongguk laughs when he imagines Jimin with pigtails. And the t-shirt underneath ripples as his fingers pass by. His palm is a boat forming little waves of fabric. He's a quick learner, but he still doesn't know what to do with his hands. Jimin laughs when he presses his nipple and mumbles something along the lines of trying to turn on the TV. He tells him that nipples can be very sensitive, and that he should try stroking them.

"Like this, see," he says as he traces subtle circles over his.

Jeongguk replicates them and Jimin exhales something akin to a chuckle that smells like mint. They remain silent, both of their thumbs under each other's clothes.

"You've used up the toothpaste."

"Take a new one from the drawer."

He finds it funny that Jimin hugs him with his legs. When he jumps on his back, or here. It's like putting on a seatbelt in a car that's going too fast. He moves his hips so as not to dump all his weight on him, and his chest shrinks just as if he'd skipped a step. It's been happening to him for months, it's not that he's drunk. It happens to him before he signs his exams, or when he's about to beat Wario, or when Jimin comes home for a weekend. It's not his fault. It's because of the constant new proposal he brings with him. Of music, or style, or ways of interacting. For not knowing if he'll jump on him in public or call him handsome in front of his friends. He settles his hip, and when Jimin takes a breath through his nose, he does it again. The second night they rocked like that for a while. It's not strange, because Jimin used to cradle him when he found him crying for dad. Now Jeongguk doesn't know who cradles whom. And out of drowsiness, out of safety, out of escape, Jeongguk sinks his mouth into Jimin’s neck as if opening his homework notebook and taking up the last day's notes. The previous time he managed to leave a small mark that lasted until next day's breakfast. Now he is going to leave a galaxy. Andromeda is the prettiest; lilac, pink and blue, like the clothes he wore as a child. But he wants to draw in him the Milky Way, because one early morning he read on a forum that its core tastes like raspberry and smells like rum, and that's exactly how summer nights taste and smell.

He sucks for a few seconds and contemplates the shadow of what he thinks in the morning will be his best hickey to date. He paints another one on the Adam's apple, just to see how it moves when Jimin gulps. And another on the collarbone, purely to test if it looks different on bone. And face down, already on his side of the mattress, he realizes that his hand is still buried in someone else's t-shirt. Jimin doesn't seem to have noticed. Maybe it's normal for him to have hands exploring him. He hasn't asked him about his love life in Seoul. If he's been with anyone. How many people. Or if he is, in present tense, proposes a little voice in his head. Jeongguk presses the invisible keys of the only song he knows how to play on the piano. Jimin's outline contracts from the tickle and the volume of those lips stretches over his teeth. That tooth slightly more protruding than the rest. If he were to sketch that mouth he'd make it like the clouds five-year-olds draw. Jimin turns his head to look at him, and it takes a few seconds before Jeongguk realizes that he’s the one who has grabbed his chin. He stares in surprise at his fingers as they trace that jawline, entranced. Maybe he is drunk.

Because when he gets three inches closer, not one more, he gets the impression that the noise his head makes as it slides across the pillow is enough to wake mom and Hyun downstairs. It is thunderous. Almost as loud as Jimin's breathing as he comes another two inches closer. He doesn't know what he intends. So before Jimin can ask, and before he doesn't know how to answer, he lands in his mouth. It almost bounces, so fluffy it is. And all the senses converge on one, and none. There is nothing else. No noise, no pillow, no toothpaste, no mom. Just lipbalm and eyelashes that caress his dark circles until they stop fluttering. He feels the root of his hair cold. And knees that bump as Jeongguk plays with his tongue at the gates of those teeth. He licks them and wears them down until they open and then he is licked and worn down, and in that silent film dialogue the only soundtrack is the crackle of saliva. It sounds as if they were telling each other secrets, or pleading, and maybe it's both. He has always liked Jimin's silences. When he listens to him, or chops zucchini, or when he buries his face in a class book. But he's just decided that his favorite is this one. Because of the way he grabs his neck, and because of the smell of his hand cream. Jeongguk gropes his hips. And in slow motion, he finds himself kissing the air.

“Kookie.”

“Mhm.”

“Go back to your bed.”

* * *

He notices his bewilderment at breakfast. The effort to not touch him when he complains about his shoulder to mom. He sees the new toothpaste bottle, next to the Aladdin mug where they leave the toothbrushes. Jeongguk hears him sigh at the third unanswered joke. With the condensed water in the butt of the glass, he makes the five Olympic rings on the table. Hyun passes the cloth seconds later.

* * *

And he doesn't know why, but it bothers him that he's covered up his hickeys. It bothers him that he prefers mom's makeup on his neck, two shades darker than his skin. It's not about ego, it's about aesthetics. The bruise matches his pajamas better. He wonders if he already covered them yesterday, as soon as he woke up and examined himself in the mirror. He would know if he had dared to look at him. But he was unable to focus his eyes on anything but the last four movies he had left on the flash drive. "Can we talk?" he heard him say at some point in the afternoon. Jeongguk was grateful for the earphones' excuse to pretend he didn’t hear it. Reproach, mockery, pity. Who knows what he would’ve found, had he faced Jimin's eyes. The gallows, the stake or the electric chair. Which death sentence was the least humiliating.

* * *

He finds nothing. Because when he finally manages to look him in the eye, it’s Jimin who doesn’t look at him.