Chapter Text
It feels a bit like dying, loving someone so much. There’s a vague sickness in it. You’re so disgusted that you could think so highly of someone who never thinks about you until you’re right there. Until they need you. You want to think you’re better than that. Better than someone loving someone who doesn’t love you back. But the truth is, you’re not. It’s easy to say you’d save someone from a burning building when you’re on the opposite side of the screen. Love isn’t invigorating like it is in the movies. It’s something much darker. Something that kills you. Something that wraps itself tenderly around your neck and tells you to lean into the touch, and you only realize it’s a noose once the chair’s been kicked away. Until you’re blue in the face, and you’re not sad about it, because blue is their favorite color.
That nauseating sensation has followed Nam-gyu for most of his life. Since the double-doors of elementary school opened wide and he sat next to a cherubic flashbang of a boy who brought superhero figurines with him in his backpack to accompany him on his “adventures” on the playground during recess, who listened to nothing but rap and hip-hop, even in different languages, memorizing them to showcase to whoever would listen, whose mother registered him for school a year late, so he was older than everyone else. Nam-gyu has always been small, in stature and in personality. There’s a solace in the corners and darkened spaces that the spotlight greedily snatches away. He’s not a leader. He’s a follower. And that boy took Nam-gyu under his wing where Nam-gyu lived in the shadow all his life, idolizing the feathers and the person they’re attached to, loving the boy who’s been bigger and brighter than life itself since he could talk.
He has so much love to give and nowhere to put it. He tried to cradle it in his hands and bury it deep, but his devotion is wider than his self-preservation. He tried to ignore it, but that nagging feeling in his stomach, the spark in every touch, was ceaseless: I’m here. Can’t you feel me? I’m still here . This love is a warning. It’s something with such depth that Nam-gyu has been drowning for over a decade but convinces himself he can still breathe. It’s a feeling you know goes nowhere. You know it will always linger within you, and even when you’re older, even when you’re married and told yourself you’ve moved on, you’ll still hold your partner’s hand at night and think, His hand would have been so much warmer . You’ll compare, and compare, and compare, chasing a ghost who’s not even haunting you. You’re haunting it. Nam-gyu would know. Nam-gyu has.
Buried in blankets in high school, parents passed out in bed or on the couch, whispering, Maybe God won’t see us if we kiss under the covers , to the Christian boy from math class, who passes just enough for the one you really want that you can deceive yourself when you close your eyes. Rendezvous in the bathroom stall during lunch on the third floor where no one else looks, his hand down your pants and your hands in his hair, pulling, and you think, he doesn’t smell like my person at all . And you stop yourself. Because you have no such claim on them that you can call them yours. So you stop breathing and go through the motions, because a distraction must work eventually. If not this time, maybe the next. Strangers, always, never the same person twice. Too personal, and, in a strange way, it feels wrong to force normalcy and routine for someone you should want, but don’t. Because they’re not him .
Nam-gyu has been good. He’s been respectful of Su-bong all his life in terms of who he wants. He can’t help the jealousy he feels towards the women Su-bong brings home, giggling and drunk after a performance, but he never does anything about it. He’ll hear muffled sounds behind the door, hold his hand to his mouth to silence his grunts of agony, mind reeling, I should be there, I should be there, I should be there , but he shouldn’t. He’s not who Su-bong wants. He doesn’t think Su-bong would want him even if he was a girl. He’s not pretty like the women Su-bong takes home. He’s not nice. He’s not graceful. He’s not much of anything. He’s never really had to be. Living in the shadows, you become one. You can mold into whoever you need to be.
But Nam-gyu has been good . He’s kept everything together enough that Su-bong doesn’t know. He doesn’t know about the painful affection that chips away at Nam-gyu’s heart like a chisel, he doesn’t know that every time Su-bong looks at something for a beat too long, Nam-gyu makes a mental note about whether or not he can steal it and give it to him as a gift. Just because . He doesn’t like waiting for holidays. He wants to see that smile. That bright, beautiful smile, sunshine incarnate and radioactive, deep-cut dimples and joyous laughter. A hug. Those hugs . They make everything else melt away until it’s just the two of them. Just Nam-gyu, just Su-bong. One body. One flesh. And the breakaway is dreadful, but it’s something he’s mentally prepared for. Something he can manage.
But Su-bong has just barreled into their apartment, tripping on his shoes and frantically running his hands through his hair, and asked Nam-gyu to do the one thing he knows will break him.
“You want me to what ?”
“I need you to pretend to be my boyfriend,” Su-bong explains, frenzied. “I’ve been thinking. I’m seeing my parents this weekend and they keep fucking bugging me, man. Do I have a girlfriend? Am I doing anything meaningful with my life? Do I have anything to show for anything I’ve ever done? And they’re gonna keep going, going, going, and if I bring a girl home, they’ll be happy, but they’ll always want updates, especially my mom, and then when we break up ‘cause Thanos doesn’t do relationships, they’ll be devastated and harass me about getting another one. But if I bring a boy home, they won’t ask any questions. If we break up, they won’t pester me about finding a chick, ‘cause they’ll think I don’t swing that way, and they’ll leave me alone, ‘cause they don’t wanna know. If we keep up the ruse, they won’t ask shit . Ever. They’ll get off my goddamn back! It’s genius. Actual genius. Nam-su, I am so fucking smart —”
“Nam-gyu,” he meaninglessly corrects. It hurts every time Su-bong gets his name wrong. He knows he struggles with a short-term memory on account of his drug usage, but shouldn’t he remember his childhood best friend’s name always? Another testament, he supposes, about how Su-bong really feels about him. “And absolutely the fuck not.”
“C’mon, Nams, we all know you’re a queermo, it’ll be so easy.”
“Are you forgetting that your parents fucking know me? Su, we’ve been friends since we were five . Count how many years that is.” Su-bong starts counting on his fingers, and Nam-gyu frustratedly stops him with a hush. “Oh, my god. Twenty-three years. That’s over two decades. Fuck, man, they know me.”
Su-bong’s eyes widen animatedly. “Ohhhhhhh right.” He blinks once. Twice. Beams. “So, we won’t even need any introductions! That makes it even better! Okay, we need, like, a story—”
“Su-bong. No. This is a shit idea.”
“—You fell wildly in love with me once my rap career started and you saw how amazing and talented and handsome I am and I realized you’re not that bad and said, ‘fuck it,’ so now we’re dating? Or is that too simple? Oh, my god. Kidnapping . I saved you from getting kidnapped.”
“ Su-bong . This… is a shit … fucking… idea. I’ve never been in a relationship. All yours went to shit. For fuck’s sake, you record for keeping a chick around is, what, three months? Tops? Fuck do we know about what we’re even supposed to do ?”
“Dude. I’m a Casablanca . I’m literally a performer. Lying’s in my blood.”
“ Casanova , dipshit. What do you wanna do, roll up to your parents’ crib and say, ‘Hey, everyone, I’ve never been attracted to a man in my entire life but here’s Nam-gyu and we’re dating’?”
“Ugh, Nam-su, please ,” Su-bong pleads, rolling his head back in a groan and shuffling dramatically to the couch. Nam-gyu knows what’s coming. He knows it’s virtually impossible to resist. He’s never been able to, so he looks away. Su-bong shakes his shoulder, and asks, “ Please , my boy.”
Nam-gyu doesn’t entertain him. He straightens his head and closes his eyes. Folds his arms over himself to protect his beating heart from pulsing through his clothes. He wishes he could reach within his chest with his bare hands and tear it out. Beat it to a pulp and feed it to a stray dog. Somewhere he never has to feel it again. Because this idea, what Su-bong wants Nam-gyu to go through, unaware of how much it’s going to hurt when it’s done, is going to destroy him. And he won’t even have an excuse for how ruined he’ll be. Lying is in his blood, too, just as much as Su-bong’s, and he knows he’s more convincing than Su-bong. There’s a difference between a lie and performance. In a performance, you only need to convince the audience. In a lie, you need to convince yourself, too.
“Why me?” he asks, but he knows he shouldn’t. Always aching for another jolt of misery like a proper junkie should. Why does anyone smoke if they’re going to cough? Why does anyone drink if they’re going to black out? Because it feels good before. Before is always good. Nam-gyu relies on before. He wants Su-bong to say, Because I trust you. Because if I had to be attracted to a man, it’d be you. Because I really do love you . What he gets is nothing in the ballpark of his fantasies.
“‘Cause you’re a dude with piercings and you dress like a dumpster rat, they’ll hate it.”
Nam-gyu pushes him and makes the mistake of opening his eyes in the process. Su-bong’s nose crinkles as he laughs, dimples darkening against his honeyed skin, stars in his glacial eyes as he brings the back of a beautiful tattooed hand to cover his snow-white teeth, canine poking through, the one Nam-gyu loves so much, the one he’s imagined tasting. His laughter is nothing short of intoxicating, stronger than alcohol, stronger than drugs, stronger than Nam-gyu’s inhibitions, because that’s how it is when you love someone. It doesn’t matter if what they do will hurt you. You could starve yourself all day, call them home for dinner and watch them take it all. You’ll tell them, No, I ate earlier. Really, I couldn’t eat with you even if I wanted to . Your stomach will rumble and you’ll blame it on the floorboards.
You’ll tell them, “Fine.”
Su-bong stops laughing. “Really? You’ll do it?”
“Stop fucking smiling like that, I’m gonna make this hell for you.”
“Ahhhhh, Nam-su loves me soooooo much,” Su-bong chirps.
“Nam- gyu is going to change his mind if you don’t shut up.” He blows his hair out of his face. He’s been letting it grow out a bit, leaning into its natural waves, no longer parting it and simply brushing it back, shoulder-length and voluminous, heavy enough that it stays put and doesn’t part itself. It swallows his face up. “You know, today’s Friday. An earlier warning would have been nice.”
“I forgot. You know me.” Su-bong taps his temple with his middle finger for emphasis with a lopsided smile, that crooked one that makes Nam-gyu’s heart skip a beat, cliche as that is. And you know I’ll let you get away with it . “You need to be on your best worst behavior, Nams! Don’t mention drugs, obviously, or that you work at Club Pentagon, nothing about the sketchy shit. But you don’t need to be overly formal. They can’t like you too much. Feel me?”
Nam-gyu purses his lips. “Be me… but more clean … but unlikeable?”
“Basically. And we need to leave tomorrow at, like, eight.”
“In the morning ? Where the fuck do they live now?”
“Busan.”
Nam-gyu groans and rubs his hands down his face, pulling the skin, wanting it to come off. To make someone else wear it. “That’s a five hour drive, Su.”
“Yep.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Nope.”
“Grown ass man…” he mutters to himself. “You want me to pretend to be your boyfriend and drive the five hours both ways? What’s in it for me?”
“Hm?” He cocks his head.
“You get a ticket out of your parents’ badgering and a chauffeur. What do I get?”
“Um… I’ll pay for your food for a day.”
Nam-gyu arches a brow.
“Fine, a week.”
Silence.
“A month! And I’ll buy you that watch you’ve been bitching about. Happy?”
“Mm…” Nam-gyu taps his chin in thought, making Su-bong wait. The man is on edge already, splaying his arms in an attempt to get Nam-gyu to talk. “Say, ‘Nam-gyu is better than me at writing poetic lyrics.”
“ What? Fuck no!”
“So, that sad little rap ballad about coming home from war to find your wife dead from childbirth… That wasn’t me who wrote the storyline and all the good parts people keep clipping and praising you for?” It was easy, really. Channel the desolation he feels every time he’s around Su-bong. He doesn’t need nor want recognition from the public for it. But from Su-bong would be delicious. A little something to feed his masochistic, gluttonous head.
“All my raps are poetry. That’s not the only one people like or clip. You kept being a picky little bitch about the lines I wrote, so obviously, I had to let you jot some shit down to get off my back.”
“You honest to god wrote, ‘My shawty died, I shawty-cried,’ scribbled the second part out, and put, ‘then I cried,’ and called it a master lyric, then had no idea where to go from there.”
“It resonates with people! You’re not better than me at writing poetic lyrics. I am poetry.”
He is, but not in the way he means. “I guess you don’t want my help then…” Nam-gyu stands up, swiping imaginary dust off his pants and stretching blithely. “Too bad. You’ll have to find someone else.”
He moves to leave, but Su-bong grabs his wrist harshly. Nam-gyu doesn’t think about the dull ache in his arm or the force when he looks down at Su-bong. He thinks about the difference in their skin tone. Subong, tanned, sunny and smooth, scarred from desperate nights with razor blades and tears. Nam-gyu, pale as the moon with dull pink scar tissue of his own and old cigarette burns on the back of his hand, pallid and virtually colorless like a specter. Another difference between the two: Su-bong has always preferred the sting. Nam-gyu favours the burn. They’ve both been clean for a few years after leaning on each other to get through it, but they can’t erase those scars.
“N…” Su-bong grits his teeth and closes his eyes. “Nam-su—”
“Gyu. And look at me when you say it.”
Su-bong stares at him from under his thick, black lashes, draped over those frigid eyes like wings. Su-bong is an art for which no name exists. His eyes alone, those godforsaken lashes of his, are the things the ancient poets write volumes about, what sculptors make statues of. Nam-gyu gets those eyes to himself only when they’re in their apartment. When there’s no one else fawning over him in the street. When Nam-gyu can fawn over him by himself. It’s childish, the lengths this man goes to preserve his pride, but in the end, he knows what’s good for him, so Nam-gyu waits patiently. Always patient with Su-bong. Always waiting. Never found.
“Nam- gyu ,” he mocks in an exaggerated voice, “is… better th-than me… at writing… poetic … lyrics. There. Done?”
“And I can outdrink you.”
“Are you fucking—” Su-bong lets go of his wrist and throws his hands up, exasperated. “You can outdrink me, congrats, you fucking dipsomaniac. And you call me narcissistic.”
Nam-gyu giggles. It really is astonishing how little it takes to get Su-bong drunk. For a tall, well-built man who doesn’t even work out, but possesses natural muscle born from sprinting around onstage and completing his stunts, it takes remarkably little to send him over the bottle’s edge. Nam-gyu’s a few inches shorter with a sinewy, sewing-needle body, spare muscle peeking through the flesh pulled taut over his protruding veins, and needs about two or three times as much as whatever Su-bong has to even them both out. Nam-gyu’s had more nights mimicking Su-bong’s father: trying to find the answer at the bottom of a bottle, and if it’s not there, try another. If not now, next time . Every addict’s motto. Every addict’s downfall. A beautiful, damning phrase. Five words to hell.
“I’m gonna take a shower. You’re going to order us something from that bulgogi place.”
“Ugh, fine,” Su-bong grumbles. “And I need you to show me the outfit you plan to wear both days. Pack your bag to stay there for one night, ‘kay? We need perfection to sell it.”
“Why the hell would I bring two outfits if we’re just coming home on Sunday?”
“Pajamas, idiot.”
“Dude, I sleep in boxers, not pajamas.”
“Well, you’re wearing pajamas tomorrow night, because chances are we’ll be sharing a bed.”
Kill me. I’ll thank you for it . Of course, in the presence of Su-bong, he’ll be wearing a tank top, too. “Tough shit. You’ll just have to take the floor if you can’t handle it. It’s not like we haven’t had sleepovers before, anyway.”
“Pfft, yeah, back in, like, middle school.”
Nam-gyu shrugs. “Again, tough shit. You know what I like, so just order for me. I’ll be out and show you your precious fuckin’ outfit.”
Su-bong utters curses under his breath, and Nam-gyu shuffles to the bathroom with a small grin of affection. It falters when he locks the door behind him and looks in the mirror. Eyes buried like a corpse in a graveyard under his dark circles, gaunt cheekbones deepening by the day with the stress he’s been under at Club Pentagon. The only colors Nam-gyu can ever get out of himself are the insipid ones. His eyes, not wide, not colorful and otherworldly like Su-bong’s, are narrowed and black, an abyss to fall through. His lips are a lifeless pink, naturally pursed in a sneer as if he’s always ready to spew something hurtful. His eyebrow and septum piercing glint under the harsh fluorescents, earrings cloaked by his obsidian hair, just as dark as his eyes, just as unforgiving. He’s painted his nails black, too. He looks like an ink drawing someone spilled watercolor on and tried to sweep away. Nothing quite so colorful. Nothing quite so poetic. Smudged .
He undresses and looks at himself in the mirror, as is routine, checking— have the scars disappeared? Have I healed? They never have, of course. It doesn’t work that way. All that greets him are patchwork tattoos and a cybersigilism bat with its swings splayed across his collarbone and chest, stick-and-pokes from almost-friends in high school. His nipples are pierced with small barbells, something Su-bong doesn’t know about, a little secret he keeps to himself just to have something. His ribcage is prominent through his flesh, moles dotting the canvas like paint splatters, faint freckles on his cheeks, nose and shoulders, a boxy slope to his narrow waist to his hips where the bones jut out just so where he can trace the pitch of them like hills. There’s not an ounce of muscle on him. A paper-thin, paper-toned boy who never became the man he dreamed of being when he was ten. You never become who you wanted to be. Not really.
He turns around and cranes his head. His spine creeps through the flesh like a river, running down his back that he’s covered with an eldritch sword to hide its prominence. Ridges from where his father’s belt broke skin on those rare occasions he was too upset to use his fists or his venomous tongue. More moles, some bumps, some just there, like a stain you can’t rid yourself of. Su-bong doesn’t have any. Su-bong is perfect. He always has been. He was never afraid to take his shirt off at a lake and jump right in. Nam-gyu would cower at the shore, taking in the water inch by inch, never removing the black shirt. Su-bong’s father, when he got aggressive, typically went for pulling his hair and throwing him, so at worst, he usually had a bruise exposed that he would attribute to a fight he won. Nam-gyu had welts. And he didn’t want anyone to ever see them. Not even Su-bong has seen him shirtless before.
He starts the water lukewarm and prepares everything he needs. He usually just uses a scentless bar of soap and standard shampoo and conditioner that smells vaguely like oak trees. But since he’s seeing Su-bong’s family tomorrow for the first time in years, he decides Su-bong can forgive him for using his extensive collection instead. Moisturizer. Body wash that smells like cedar wood. Expensive shampoo and conditioner that smells like coffee and leather. A hydrating face wash. It all smells like his Su-bong. It smells like late nights in Nam-gyu’s dad’s stolen car at two in the morning, Su-bong inhaling a blue-raspberry vape with his arm out the window with Nam-gyu’s fingers around a flask of rum and the steering wheel. Beautiful, awful decisions. The very best of them.
Drying off, he puts his clothes back on to walk the three steps from the bathroom to his room. Only then, after locking the door, does he begin laying out what he can wear tomorrow. He has a decayed sweatshirt he loves that falls perfectly over the palms of his hands, a vaguely abstract elk skull on the front and a wide, gaping maw in the back, torn around the sleeves, collar and hem, oversized and enveloping him. He’s lucky he just did laundry. He lays that on his bed and a casual vampiric muscle tank top underneath that reads, Bite Me . The pants are easy. Black utility trousers with patches from his favorite pants and some random paintings he did in white when he was bored, heavy on the pockets and a studded belt. It’s easy. It’s him. It’s not too loud or overwhelming to someone who wouldn’t approve.
He faces the door when he takes his shirt off and quickly puts the tank on. Sweater. Change of briefs to a simple black pair. Pants. Belt. Keys. Belt loop chain. Silver spider, cross and chain necklace. Snake, claw, cross, spider web and Ace card ring. Chain and leather bracelets. He’ll wear his combat boots tomorrow. He cards his fingers through his hair to tame it in the mirror on his wall until it’s out of his face and falling in slithery waves over his ears, brushing his shoulders and the back of his neck like an embrace. This should be fine. He knows Su-bong’s parents almost as well as he knows his own. He knows their views on queer relationships, queer people, that “violent” music that could really refer to anything that’s not an optimistic pick-me-up track. He looks normal enough, he supposes, and he can say the cross is religious if he needs to win some extra points.
He opens the door and shags his hair one more time, splaying his hands in front of the couch where Su-bong sits with one knee propped up and the other laid flat, scrolling through his Instagram feed and liking edits of himself. He looks up at Nam-gyu. Doesn’t look him in the eyes. Gazes from the hair to the sweater to every inch of him, analyzing, scrutinizing. He knows Su-bong likes it when Nam-gyu’s hair is messy and wet because it reminds him of a “stray black cat in the rain.” He supposes that’s what he is. Su-bong finally meets his gaze, eyes as intense as ever, enthralling, and Nam-gyu hopes desperately that he did a good enough job.
“Lookin’ flashy, boy.”
Nam-gyu’s shoulders sag with relief. “Okay. You ordered the food?”
“Yes, your highness , it’ll be here in, like, twenty minutes. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”
“You should get someone’s panties in a twist, you haven’t gotten laid in a fuckin’ month,” Nam-gyu snickers, falling next to him in the couch, black socks slipping on the floor. He’s grateful that Su-bong’s hit a dry spell, so to speak. His manager is up his ass about making a new album and collaborating with an American artist. He’s been in the studio later hours more often than not, too tired to even go out clubbing. It means no more women coming in to break Nam-gyu’s heart. There are only so many times it can shatter before it can’t be put back together anymore.
“Shut the fuck up, that’s not my fault. And how many dudes have you brought here since we moved in?”
“None,” he answers easily. “I don’t spend the night with anyone usually, but that doesn’t mean I’m a celibate or some shit. Something tells me you don’t want to hear two guys going at it in the room right next to yours.” Same way I don’t want to hear you and whichever lucky lady made your hit list .
“Just say you’ve never gotten dicked down,” Su-bong chides with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Dude.” Nam-gyu pauses to make Su-bong pay attention. “I’m not into it like that.”
“Oh.” Su-bong blinks. “Actually? You look like you are.”
“I’m gonna tear your dick off with a pair of pliers,” Nam-gyu threatens. “I literally told you about that one guy, Ji-ho, who tried back in high school. Remember? I left in the middle of it ‘cause it was so bad?”
He juts out his lower lip in thought. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”
“In any case, I don’t do it that way. Not that you’d know, because I’m respectful of our shared space.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. There’s a new cop movie out I wanna watch. One of those things where the criminal and the cop have to team up to catch someone worse? We gotta watch it. We need to pirate it, though.”
“Whatever. Fine by me.”