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Minho hated hospitals, he hated injuries, and most of all, he hated having to sit the next three months out following a ruptured meniscus in a football game against Dankook university. It was not as serious as it could have been and it would heal by itself, but he was referred for a course of physical therapy. There was a waiting list, but a student therapist could take him, the hospital had said.
His teammate Jinki wordlessly handed him a paper crane that he folded from a scrap piece of paper lying around, and their captain Changmin promised to not let Hyukjae doodle on Minho’s face while he fell asleep in between diagnostic scans in the hospital room. It was payback for his stupid, small, handsome face, Hyukjae reasoned. A chance to equal their footing.
“Thanks, that’s reassuring. While I’m incapacitated, you might finally be able to get off that bench more often,” Minho tried to be cheery, but the joke felt like flat soda on his tongue.
“I could’ve had that goal before you dove for that ball like an idiot!”
“Sooyoung-noona told me she saw you eat five hotdogs last Friday after you got so drunk that you got kicked out of the club. That’s after you insisted you could do the dance to Mommae.” That shut him up. Changmin had just sighed and pushed the rest of the team out of the room, ushering Minho’s brother in.
“You don’t even have the decency to look like shit right now,” Minseok complained. “Mom has been worried sick. I told her that they don’t need to come, especially after dad’s taken a turn for the worse again, but you might need to call her after this. They’re all the way out in Cheongju too. She seems to think you might need your whole knee amputated.”
“You shouldn’t have told her. I’ll call her.”
Minho’s knee ached, and the sheets were scratchy against his skin. He loathed to feel sorry for himself, but he didn’t think himself so lucky either. Hongik University hadn’t won the U-League since 2011.
Minseok stayed with him until the doctors gave Minho the all-clear and a pair of crutches to go home with, and stuffed a twenty-thousand won note into his hand for a taxi.
“I’m too old for pocket money, hyung.”
“Just get yourself home. I’m sorry that I can’t take you – I need to go back to work, but I wanted to see that you were alright.”
It’s early autumn, Minho thought, stepping out of the hospital and watching passers-by open their umbrellas as it started to rain. A long time to go until the flowers bloom again.
–
Minho’s bus on the way to the clinic was late. He waited at the shelter for twenty minutes, staring at a peeling student housing flier. The number on it had rubbed off. He had stayed awake for most of the night because the faucet in his kitchenette would not stop dripping. Maybe it was time to move once his lease ran out.
“Mister Choi Minho?” The pleasant voice of the receptionist rang out, snapping Minho out of his daydream.
“Yes,” he rose from his seat with his crutches, a sharp twinge searing down his leg.
“The physiotherapist is waiting for you in room 473. It’s just on your left.” She was scribbling something in her notes as she glanced at him. He must have made a sorry sight. “Are you sure you would not like any assistance in getting there, sir?”
Steeling his expression, he gave the receptionist a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine, thank you.” Dignity in hand, he slowly made his way to the room, shoes squeaking in the quiet afternoon. He gave a light knock, only for a shock of blonde hair to open the door.
“I’m the 12:15pm appointment,” said Minho, dipping into a quick bow. Could a guy who looked this young really be his therapist? He eyed the piercings decorating the guy’s ears warily.
The man opened the door wider, revealing a padded bed and a cluttered desk in the corner. The windowsills were lined with plants, some of which looked thirsty. The windows were frosted, letting in sheets of pale light. The space was small and warm, a welcome change to the chilly waiting room.
“Choi Minho-ssi, I’m Assistant Therapist Kim Kibum. I’ll be overseeing your treatment over the next few months, in line with the guidance of the Head Therapist.” His tone sounded like it invited no questions. He gestured towards the bed, to which Minho headed after leaving his shoes and crutches next to a small settee by the entrance.
“I was surprised to see someone so young working here,” Minho began, breaking the silence as he shuffled into his place.
“I hope you are not implying my incompetence.” The other man furrowed his brow. He had a small scar, Minho noticed, where hair wouldn’t grow. He didn’t look like the type to fight. Where could he have gotten it? As if feeling Minho’s gaze on him, Kim Kibum looked back. “I’ve read your file; a torn cartilage. Depends on the severity, but we’ll need weekly sessions for a while. Let’s see how much rotation you have.”
Minho leaned back on the bed, crinkling the thin sheet underneath him. The pressure of a warm, sure hand skirted up from his right knee towards his thigh. Minho watched the man purse his lips as he bent Minho’s leg further, an involuntary hiss of pain escaping at the ever-sharpening angle.
“Are you a student?” Minho asked, trying to put his mind away from the growing irritation of his discomfort. “I’m a physics major in my junior year at Hongik University. I play for their football team.” Obviously, Minho thought, he knows why you’re here. He just couldn’t stop himself from talking sometimes.
“Yes.” After a beat, Kibum continued, “I’m a junior too, studying physiotherapy at Yonsei. I’m doing my time on the wards as part of my credit.”
“Huh, we must be the same age. When did you enlist?”
“After my sophomore year.” Kibum’s reply was mild.
“Cool, me too. Can we speak comfortably with each other? If our universities are so close by, I wonder if we’ve ever met?” He chattered on, a sheen of sweat gathering at his hairline at the strain of continued movements. “Did you bring me here to torture me?”
“Minho, I’d like to remind you that this was your own doing, and that there’s almost ten million people in Seoul,” Kibum reprimanded ascetically. More quietly, he added, “And besides, I have my fun in other ways.”
“Like what?”
“I’m sure you’d like to know.” Minho tried to catch his gaze to no avail, until a particularly sharp twist of Kibum’s wrist made him screw his face up again.
“What made you take up physiotherapy?”
“My mother. Turn around on your left side, please.”
Minho now faced the wall. Was his mother ill, or in the medicine field herself? He felt like he had asked too many questions already. After Minho got twisted far more than he thought was necessary, Kibum finished his examination.
“If you’re lucky, we’ll be seeing each other for a month and a half.”
“Is that really luck?” Minho pushed. Kibum cocked a delicately manicured eyebrow at him, and turned his head to hide a small smile.
On the bus back home, Minho could barely see the city through the condensation on the windows; all the lights looked like they were melting. He drummed his hands on his thighs in an inaudible tune.
–
Maybe it was because Minho secretly loved it when people brushed him off, or perhaps it was because he hadn’t been able to stop replaying their first meeting in his head, but the following week, Minho had arrived at the hospital with a renewed vengeance to get to know Kim Kibum.
So Minho talked. He told Kibum about his mother’s cooking, his father’s football career, and his older brother and his best friend. His brother recently proposed to his girlfriend, and his parents were over the moon. At least Minho had a good few years left before his parents started making unsubtle remarks about meeting a nice girl and keeping her around.
“I guess you have a girlfriend, too?” Kibum asked evenly, as if he already knew the answer.
“No,” Minho replied, not elaborating.
There had been how he looked at other guys sometimes. That summer he followed his brother’s best friend everywhere. The way the grass felt beneath his fingers as he laid down in exertion on the ground after a game of football, a warm hand clapping his shoulder. A fire skittering on his skin when Minho glanced at him taking his sweat-soaked shirt off for a beat too long. That had been difficult to compartmentalize, so he chose to not think about it for most of his life instead.
He wanted to change the subject. “So what’s your favorite football team? Don’t say Chelsea, because I’ll have to walk out of here right now.”
“Good luck trying to walk out of here before you finish your rotations, I’ll drag you back here myself,” Kibum threatened. “But to be frank with you, I don’t care much for sports.”
“But you’re a sports physiotherapist?” Minho was confused.
“I wanted to go into the musculoskeletal department at first, but the only spot on the course they had left this semester was the sports therapy one.”
“And now you’re stuck with jocks like me?” At Minho’s words, Kibum gave him an exaggeratedly weary look, and they broke into laughter.
“Yeah, well. It’s funny where life takes you.”
Kibum had really long eyelashes, and Minho thought he looked the happiest when he thought no one was watching him. For an hour every week, they fell into the steady rhythm of each other’s lives, bickering like the push and pull of the tide.
–
As a general rule, Minho didn’t like needing people. He was self-sufficient, persistent, and stubborn, according to the girl he briefly dated in his first year of university. But what did she know?
This is why Minho found himself on a run by the Han River with none other than Kim Kibum, who was currently swearing at Minho loudly. Kibum’s cheeks were red, and his hair wind-whipped. He was pretty even when he was pissed off, Minho thought.
“Can I remind you that you volunteered to come with me?”
“Yes, because I couldn’t stand the thought of you being so pathetic here by yourself, doing the exercises all wrong and messing up your knee more so that I’d have to keep seeing you. Now it’s eight in the morning on a Saturday and I’m so cold that I half wish I could break your leg to get it over and done with.” Unable to keep the biting wind from under his collar, Kibum tucked his chin into a thin jacket that was more fashion than sense.
“You have got to stop threatening me,” Minho laughed. The cold was biting his hands, and he stuffed them in his pockets.
“I haven’t taken the Hippocratic oath yet, so I can do anything I want to you.”
“I can’t take you seriously anyway,” Minho sped off along the path, with Kibum trailing behind him, hurling both abuse and encouragement.
Minho couldn’t say it outright, but he was grateful to Kibum, a begrudging volunteer though he was. Last week, Kibum told Minho that he would have to start building up his muscle endurance again if he wanted to rejoin his team at some point in the next semester. Minho didn’t want his teammates to see him like this – it was foolish, but he liked being someone the team could always rely on. The younger guys especially would flock around him with stars in their eyes. What would they think, seeing Minho unable to run for longer than a few minutes?
“Stop moping, you look like a weird, sad dog,” Kibum had told him last week as he folded Minho’s leg in half. “I’ve lived in Seoul for three years now and I’ve never gone on a run by the Han. I heard a lot of people are doing it these days.”
“By that, you mean you saw someone post about it on Instagram, and now you want to do it yourself?” Minho had asked him.
“Maybe.” Kibum’s expression became increasingly pinched at being questioned, and Minho tried not to laugh.
“Fine, I guess you can come with me,” he teased Kibum.
Now, Kibum was scowling across the grass from him, barking commands to stretch and run, putting Minho through the paces. It would have almost been intimidating if he didn’t look like a blonde hedgehog. His nose was pink from the cold.
After a final grueling round of sit ups, they sat down on a bench and looked out onto the river. The weather today would probably be too bad for any of the street vendors in Yeouido Park to gather. The silence stretched on, and Kibum’s lips were pursed.
“How am I doing?” asked Minho.
“You’ll be back to gallivanting around the pitch in no time, or whatever it is you do in college football.”
“You should have some pride, go to some matches. Yonsei’s team is totally better than ours. Those guys are all sharks, they’re all Physical Education majors,” Minho sulked.
“Well, they’re not as bad as the Sungkyunkwan kids who start training for football like they’re in the navy before they even enter university. Isn’t that basically cheating? Pitting teams like that against Hongik. It’s barbaric, you don’t even stand a chance.” Kibum was looking down at his nails nonchalantly.
“Wait, you know about that?”
“Well,” Kibum looked as if he had been caught. “I couldn’t stand it when you kept talking to me about something I had no understanding of, so I looked some stuff up online. And for the record, I still don’t care about football, so don’t gloat at me.”
“Why can’t you just be nice to me, hmm? Are you annoyed with me about something?” Minho poked Kibum’s side, after trying to get his attention back unsuccessfully. The idea of Kibum thinking about him when they were apart made him feel strange. His stomach swooped, like he was teetering on the edge of a tall building.
“Yes, but I haven’t thought of why yet. Give me time.” He was being baited, Minho realized. Damn it.
“You drive me a bit insane, you know.”
“Oh, believe me, I know,” Kibum replied, simply. “That’s why I do it.”
–
When Minho was in tenth grade, he received a love letter.
It wasn’t the first one he had ever gotten in his life, but it was the first one that had made him hope.
Choi Minho, I like you, the letter had said. I like watching you play football. You seem so self assured. I like your tan skin and the way you throw back your head when you laugh. I remember, on the day of the school entrance ceremony, you were a whole head taller than everyone else. It was the second of March, and it was still so cold that morning. Were your hands cold too? I watched you from afar. Isn’t it silly? I see you all the time, but I could never say these things to your face. Can you meet me at the bench by the tree opposite the bus stop after school? I’ll wait for you, even if you don’t come.
Could it have been Sungwoo? Minho’s heart raced. The week before, Minho, his brother Minseok, and his best friend, Jo Sungwoo, were kicking a ball around in their school field with the other upperclassmen taking a break from studying for final exams. That day, Sungwoo told Minho – I like watching you play. Minho had been sitting down on the grass for a moment, gulping down a can of Coolpis that had grown warm under the sun. The ball got kicked over to Minho’s side, and he made an aborted move to reach for it as Sungwoo barrelled towards him.
“Minho,” he called out, slowing down to a walk. He stopped and stood in front of Minho, casting a shadow over him. “We need you back on the field. We’re starting to lose big time.”
“Hyung,” Minho craned his neck to look up at Sungwoo. The sun behind Sungwoo’s head illuminated him like a halo, and Minho squinted harder. “Just give me a minute, I’m beat.”
Sungwoo crouched down, and plucked the canned drink from Minho’s hand, taking a cursory swig from where his own lips had been a second ago. Minho’s ears felt hot, and he closed his eyes. The sun was rising to its zenith. He could still see the damp stripe of Sungwoo’s throat in the back of his eyelids, and droplets of sweat in his close-cropped hair. He focused on the scent of mud, and counted to ten in his head.
“I like watching you out on the field, you know. You could play professionally one day. Don’t tell Minseok, but I think you’re better than him.”
Recalling the memory, Minho’s summer uniform shirt felt too tight around his collar. He waited anxiously, staring at the clock hanging on the wall in his homeroom class. It had seemingly slown to a complete stop, until the bell rang all too soon and it was time to go. He waited near the bus stop, out of sight of the crowd of chattering kids thick on his side of the road and the opposite. He stood and watched. The people started to dwindle, getting the bus, or heading off to the snack bar to split cups of tteokbokki between themselves. Only a few people circled the bench. He saw Sungwoo with one of his brother’s friends he didn’t know well chatting easily next to a girl who was sitting down, swaying her legs back and forth in the summer breeze. They must have opted to wait in the shade as the sun was beating down on the bus stop, even in the late afternoon.
Sungwoo eventually had to wave his friend goodbye, the arrival of the bus signaling his departure. He hadn’t even seen Minho standing there. Something sour curdled in his stomach. The place had emptied out, except for the girl who was still waiting. What had he even been hoping for?
The girl – her name was Jieun, she told Minho after he approached her, was in a different homeroom class to him, but the same grade. He had seen her around, but he had never given her existence a second thought. She wouldn’t meet his gaze. It felt strange to be the object of someone else’s thoughts to such an extent. How could she think she liked him that much if they had never spoken?
“I know everything I wrote in that letter was so brazen, but it was true,” she insisted. “You’re the first boy I’ve ever confessed to.”
A few weeks later, he had his first kiss with her in the jungle gym by her apartment complex. Nobody knew where he was – his parents and brother thought he was still at the after school cram class, and the sky had dipped past the flame-blue color of late twilight. Jieun’s hair was so long. Minho was fine with it. She pulled back a few seconds after, and giggled into her hands, which were small, and smelled like peaches because of the moisturizer she would always put on like a nervous habit.
By the time he graduated high school and finished his entrance exams, he didn’t think about Jieun, or the whole incident at all anymore. They had stopped seeing each other after a few months, when her parents found out and scolded her for not focusing on her studies. Minho felt a vague pang at the thought of not being able to see her again, and then everything was exactly as it had been before – his routine went back to normal, as if he had imagined the whole thing. He would take the bus past her house, he would study, and he would play football. They passed each other in the school corridor like perfect strangers. Was this love? People in dramas cried, the poets wrote, singers sang of it. It didn’t feel that way to him.
Sungwoo had gone to see Minho off when he went to the army after his first year at university. They were alone in the car together, as his brother, who had already finished his service, was consoling their mother who was surreptitiously crying into a tissue, not wanting to upset Minho. His father was stood next to her, looking out into the distance, stoic as ever with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Keep your head down when you’re in there,” Sungwoo said to Minho. His hair was long enough to get into his eyes now, while Minho’s was shorn more closely than ever before.
“What do you mean, hyung?” A shiver ran through him. Surely, Sungwoo wasn’t implying anything untoward. The ghosts of their high school days stood between them. Surely, he had not noticed anything then.
“You’re too nice, too trusting. You have a face that’s too kind, and you’re quick to anger. Don’t let people take advantage of you. Keep people at bay, and it will go by faster than you think.”
“Can you write to me?” It was a brazen request. Minho suddenly felt young and small, sixteen again.
“I’ll write,” Sungwoo agreed, a little uneasily. “But just promise you’ll be careful.”
Minho didn’t ask what he meant.
–
“Choi Minho, is this a date?”
“I don’t know. Do you want it to be?”
“Everyone had always expected us two to get together, but I don’t know. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of being right. I don’t even think I want to get married.” Yoona laughed, seemingly startled by the gravity of her own admission.
The noise of the room swirled around them. Minho and Yoona were at an exhibition in some hanok-style Samcheong-dong gallery, in which her older sister’s photography was featured. It was the sort of place full of people holding the delicate stems of their glasses filled with fizz, arguing on the defining moments of post-modernist art. Minho loved the exhibition, but he stayed mostly silent in fear of contributing something non-intelligent to the conversation.
Yoona’s sister was something of an outlier, dropping out of her degree at the prestigious Goryo-dae to do an arts course, and from what Minho had heard, was not on good terms with the rest of her family for pursuing non-academic interests. Maybe her parents would change her mind if they saw how many people were here to see her work, Minho mused.
He knew better than to think that was true. She was in the best art school in the country, and they still didn’t care.
“You know,” Yoona confided, “My childhood dream was to become an actress. Isn’t that funny? I saw Kim Taehee, and I thought I want to be just like her. Cosmetics adverts and all.”
They stood close together to be able to hear each other, Yoona’s breath warm on Minho’s skin as she continued. “I don’t think anyone dreams of pushing paper at some desk job at a medium-sized company, but getting to do that after graduation will be a culmination of everything we’ve worked for over the past few years.”
“You could still be an actress.” It was just a fact, Minho thought. Yoona had the sort of easy radiance that made her stand out in a crowd.
“But I couldn’t be someone’s wife.”
He didn’t want to be like the others and tell her that she might change her mind later down the line. He loved kids, but the idea of marriage always felt like a big, yawning emptiness in his mind – a roll of string that was unspooling itself, which abruptly stopped.
Minho thought Yoona was lovely the first time he saw her, mascara smudged as she was shivering outside of their freshman year dorm in the middle of the night. They both got locked out after going out drinking and missing the curfew. With nowhere else to crash, they sat inside the 24-hour convenience store until their dorm opened at five in the morning, as the cashier grumbled empty threats to kick them out if they fell asleep. Their friends seemed to think it was some fated meeting – and sure, it was. She was his best friend. Minho just didn’t know if he could live up to everyone’s expectations. He felt a vague sense of relief at the line she had finally drawn between them.
A beat of knowing silence passed, and she put her slender hand over his.
“I’m just going to do the rounds for a moment. I can see my sister is getting cornered by some guy who looks like he’s about to start explaining the whole exhibition to her, not knowing she’s the brains behind it.”
“Please go, that sounds pretty urgent.” Minho nodded as Yoona walked away, and continued to observe the photo in front of him. A black-and-white portrait shot of a girl wrapped in tulle, mid-twirl in a field of flowers. Her line of vision was fixed somewhere behind the lens, and she sported a small, secret smile. A lover’s gaze. The plaque by the photo said it was taken by Yoona’s sister, and Minho had not asked anything further about it.
“I didn’t take you to be a patron of the arts,” a familiar voice sounded next to Minho, snapping him out of his momentary reverie. It was Kim Kibum, dressed immaculately, wearing a purposefully distressed, oversized pinstripe suit covered in safety pins. It was cut nicely around his shoulders and waist. He looked like he belonged here, among these glittery people, while Minho felt like he was about to be shown the door.
“I’m more than just a pretty face,” Minho retorted, in a bid to mask his surprise. Kibum threw his head back and laughed, his hand landing on Minho’s shoulder. He showed no telltale signs of drinking other than his red ears. He must have gotten here a while ago already, if the nearly empty glass of wine he was holding was anything to go by. His hand was warm, and Minho liked the feeling of it seeping through his jacket.
“No, seriously, what are you doing here?” Kibum asked. “My friend, Taeyeon-noona, is featured in this exhibition. I’ll come introduce you.” Why was Kibum a physiotherapist, he wondered? People seemed to just swirl around him. And who was this Taeyeon that Kibum spoke so familiarly of?
“I’m here for my friend’s sister. She’s about to graduate from K-Arts.” Minho wasn’t sure what made him want to say it, but – ”I had a place there once.”
“Really?”
He wasn’t offended by Kibum’s surprise. Something about him made Minho want to be honest, to spill out his secrets in a teacup and dish it out to him.
“Yeah,” Minho traced the rim of his wine glass with his finger, which Kibum’s gaze followed. “I really loved photography growing up.”
“You must have been damn good to get a place there.”
The memory ached faintly like an old injury on a rainy day – vaguely, in the shape of something he never had.
“Yeah, well.” Minho found it hard to elaborate further.
“Your parents against it? I know how it is.”
“You could say that.” It was more implied than anything, but he’d understood he and his father would not have much of a relationship if he was to choose anything else but a straightforward path to getting a job at some medium-sized company. He applied to K-Arts secretly, and when the acceptance letter came, he tucked it inside his desk. Not getting stuck on childish fantasies was for his own good.
In another world, this could have been Minho’s exhibition. With Kibum by his side, the taste of loss was less bitter on his tongue.
“This one isn’t even that good. What do they teach these posh K-Arts kids?” Kibum tutted, nudging his chin in an incredulous gesture towards a questionable, out of focus shot of a leaf in a puddle.
“They have to justify that tuition somehow,” Minho laughed, feeling a little warmer inside.
–
Minho saw Kibum arrive at the soondae-guk restaurant he worked at from afar. His blonde hair stuck out from under a black beanie, and a delicate-looking guy trailed behind him as the door swung shut.
“I’m going on my break, so don’t disturb me. I haven’t had a cigarette in like, twelve hours. Take that table by the window that just came in.” His fellow waiter, Jaehwan, pulled off his apron over his head and clapped Minho on the shoulder, heading out of the door before Minho could even answer. Well, that was just great. He made his way over to them.
“Somehow, I took you for a guy who eats morsels of Italian food rather than blood sausage and chicken feet, but maybe I’m just prejudiced.”
“Why are you out here?” Startled, Kibum squawked indignantly at being addressed so directly.
“You need to stop saying that to me whenever we see each other,” Minho let out a long-suffering sigh. “I got tired of peeling garlic in the back, so I came out here to torment you.”
“Should you even be doing shifts like this with your leg?”
The other guy stifled a silent laugh, biting his plump lip with his teeth. Minho gave him a quick once-over. He had small wrists, and his and Kibum’s hands were vaguely near each other’s as he ran a finger across the edge of the menu. Minho looked down at his notepad, and at his own tan and veiny hands smattered in cuts and nicks. He hadn’t been joking about peeling garlic in the back – the auntie who owned the restaurant wasn’t happy about Minho doing long shifts again, saying that he should rest, but he had to make rent somehow.
Kibum and his friend stayed at the restaurant for a good portion of the afternoon. The sun falling through the glass door started to slant, illuminating them both like a perfect picture. Some twisted thing inside Minho hated it.
On the bus home from his shift, he caught glimmers of the people who were spilling in and out of pojangmachas and vendor stalls in the distance. The smell of smoke clung to his hair. Late autumn had truly given way to winter. A pit settled heavily in his stomach.
At the therapy session later that week, Minho asked Kibum about the time he came to the restaurant.
“With Taeminnie?” Kibum hummed thoughtfully, but did not elaborate any further.
“Yes,” Minho swallowed, looking at the dip between Kibum’s clavicles as he stretched Minho’s leg. “Who is he?”
“Are you always this curious?”
“Are you always this evasive?” Minho countered.
The tension between them rose, a dam ready to overspill. Sometimes, trying to get answers out of Kibum felt like trying to hold water in his hands, and Minho wanted too much from him.
Minho expected Kibum to dig his fingers painfully into his thigh, but Kibum’s touch became soothing, more gentle. The moment washed over them. Minho apologized with a squeeze to Kibum’s shoulder on his way out, and was rewarded with a quirk of a smile.
“Taemin is just a guy from my college dance club. He helps run some of the classes, and I’m taking a lead on the end-of-semester performance. Although I don’t know why you got so weird about it. You’ll obviously come, right?” Kibum was at his desk as Minho’s hand was on the doorknob, but his words stopped him in his tracks.
“Right.”
That evening, Minho ran brutal laps around Hongik University’s meager sports grounds, swallowed by the big sprawling emptiness of the night, save for the floodlights that would flick back on as he finished another circuit.
He lied down on the grass and looked at the dark sky, which seemed to stretch limitlessly. His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out. It was a message from his brother.
[20:03 Minseok] Where did you disappear to?
Minho couldn’t be bothered to type, so he just pressed call.
“Hyung.”
“Minho, how have you been? How’s the leg? How’s university?”
“One question at a time.”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry.” Minho heard some shuffling, and the dull thud of a door shutting. “I just stepped out onto the balcony so that Yoojung wouldn’t overhear. How are you, really?”
“I’m good, hyung. Kibummie’s been helping me a lot these days.”
“Kibummie, huh?” His brother sounded suspicious. “Whenever I manage to get a response from you these days, you’re with him.”
“Yeah, well. We just hang out sometimes.”
What started as sessions once a week had turned into occasional jogs (with a lot more physical exertion on Minho’s side), impromptu arthouse cinema trips (Kibum said he thought they were pretentious, but he still watched them, enraptured), and even one pottery and painting class that Kibum mysteriously had two tickets for. Minho’s crooked vase cracked in the kiln, but they glued some of the pieces together with resin. They went with Kibum’s color choice – a bright, shocking pink. That’s a horrible shade of pink, Minho had argued. Kibum shot right back – well, do you want a vase that just looks like any other piece of crap you can get from Daiso for ten thousand won? They went back and forth, but Kibum won, of course.
Kibum’s own vase was meticulously sculpted and glazed a deep black, dappled with white star and moon motifs. Totally unlike him, Minho had thought, right until they were about to part ways and Kibum swapped their ceramics, taking Minho’s for himself, and thrusting his own into Minho’s hands. With little more than a word goodbye, he stalked off in a straight line, storming down the stairs of Hapjeong Station. He got swallowed up by the mass of commuters as if he had never been there in the first place. If Minho had known, he would have put a little more effort into the vase, he thought with regret. But maybe Kibum preferred it that way.
The beautiful black vase lived on Minho’s nightstand now.
In the sports grounds, Minho’s skin was cooling from the flush of exertion, and the late night started to make him shiver. Feeling a little on edge, he stood up, dusted himself off and started to walk along the gravelly path. Minseok was telling some story about his fianceé's parents turning up to their apartment uninvited with side dishes every few days.
“I’m one tupperware dish of radish kimchi away from just outright being told to hurry the hell up with the marriage,” Minseok complained. “I’m barely dragging myself out of the office by 9pm most days, what kind of husband am I going to make? I feel bad for Yoojung.”
“She adores you, hyung, I wouldn’t worry about it. You should take what decision is right for you, and not because you feel cornered into it,” Minho told him.
“Ever the optimist, are you?” Minseok laughed, not unkindly.
Minho was well aware that as the eldest brother, Minseok had it a hell of a lot harder than him sometimes. Maybe that was the reason why Minho tried to please his parents so much. Take some of the burden off Minseok. Chip away at the pieces of himself that didn’t quite fit.
“How’s mom and dad?” Minho tried to circumvent the subjects of marriage, Kibum, and his injury. His brother knew him better than that, but he didn’t push.
“They’re fine, they’re more concerned about you,” Minseok replied, as if reading in between the lines. “You know, dad’s not what he was like a few years ago. You don’t need to tiptoe around him like you always have anymore. I think getting sick has mellowed him out. He asked me to send some of the photos you took, but I told him I didn’t have anything recent of yours.”
“He only wanted what was best for me,” replied Minho. Which was true. And really, Minho had made all of his own choices in the end. Somewhere along the way, he settled into the routine of preparing for a rather ordinary future. At least, until he met Kibum. He heard what he thought was the flick of a lighter on the other side of the phone. “You better not be smoking.”
“Okay, now you’re really starting to sound like mom. Fine, fine, I think Yoojung will refuse to kiss me and say I stink like an ashtray again,” Minseok grumbled, most likely stubbing the cigarette and leaving the ash everywhere like he used to when he would come back on leave from the army, only to get shouted at and chased with a broom by mom the next morning. “So are you dating anyone again? Unless you’re just focusing on your studies, in which case, I really need to intervene.”
Minho just laughed, a carefree thing that came from within him.
“Something like that.”
–
Inevitably, Minho invited Kibum to come out for some food and drinks with his friends. Stop being difficult, just come so the others stop asking questions about where I’m always going, had been his argument. Surprisingly, Kibum acquiesced pretty easily, taking his artist friend from the gallery, Kim Taeyeon, with him. Their large group took up a corner of a barbecue restaurant, made up of a motley crew of half of the football team, girlfriends and something-in-betweens, Kibum, Taeyeon, and inexplicably, Jinki’s roommate Jonghyun, who somehow had better abs than all of them despite not being on the team. It was all vanity, Minho teased him. Jinki replied saying he liked it because it made Jonghyun really good at putting together flat-pack furniture for their new apartment. Minho didn’t think one really needed all those muscles for that, but who was he to argue.
He had more pressing problems right now. Yoona sat across the table looking at Minho and Kibum, gaze brimming with curiosity.
“So Kibum, who are you, and why are you always stealing Minho away? It’s hard to get a word in edgewise with him these days.”
“I’m a physiotherapist, assisting with Minho’s treatment.” Kibum wrung his hands together under the table, and it was the first time Minho saw him look unsure of himself. Kibum had clearly made an effort tonight too – his blonde hair fell in delicate waves across his forehead, and his hands were adorned with rings. Minho felt a little bit pleased about it.
“A physiotherapist!” Yoona went on, clapping her hands in delight, as if she had not already wheedled nearly every detail out of Minho over text when he let it slip that Kibum will come join them. She was unwavering as Minho shot her a pleading look. Everyone’s eyes were on Kibum, who had just aborted his attempt in wrapping a piece of meat in a perilla leaf. Some ssamjang dripped from his chopsticks, which Minho surreptitiously wiped up.
“Do people take their physiotherapists out drinking?” Kibum pondered out loud. “I think this guy just doesn’t know how to leave me alone. His treatment is over from next week, anyway.”
“Well, we’ve never had a typical doctor-patient relationship with how prone you are to cursing me out.” Minho retorted, and Kibum shrugged, as if to say, you’ve got me there.
“Every other person in Hongdae seems to be a part-time DJ, artist, or a tattooer these days,” Jonghyun mused from the other end of the table, as if he probably wasn’t at least two of those things at any given time.
“It’s refreshing to meet someone who isn’t,” Minho agreed.
“Honey, stop it,” Kibum quipped back. “If you boost my ego any more…” The table burst into laughter. Minho’s heart skipped a beat at the word honey, his smile growing tight on his face.
Hyoyeon raised her soju and beer cocktail. “Well, let’s toast to everyone with normal jobs, and to Minho being back on the pitch. Here’s to defying the odds!” They clinked glasses together and cheered, until Changmin noticed the meat was starting to blacken, after which everyone broke into an argument about whose fault it was.
In the chaos, lightly enough to be written off as an accident, Kibum’s fingertips brushed Minho’s thigh. The feeling was entirely different from the methodical touches of their therapy sessions. The moment was over in a flash, but Minho thrummed with want.
By the end of the dinner, Kibum had all of the girls’ contacts on Kakaotalk, and was cajoled into promising to come again.
“I like you when you’re with Kim Kibum, bring him around again,” Hyoyeon told Minho at a study session in the library a few days later. Minho had been spacing out, putting off writing a paper. Something about what she said made him a little embarrassed. It was strange to be changed by someone else.
–
A mere week later, Minho was waiting for Kibum by the escalators at the subway station, scrolling away mindlessly on his phone as the hum of the rising Friday crowd swarmed around him. They headed to Hongik Cultural Park. Due to its unfortunate location on the clubbing street, it seemed to serve the only purpose of being a place where people chugged bottles of soju from the convenience store before heading out for the night.
Usually, when Minho got drunk, he just felt lonely. One time, when his parents were visiting universities with his brother, Minho and Sungwoo stole fermented liquor from the Chois’ storage cabinet. They spat it out because it was so disgusting, and laughed until their stomachs hurt. Sungwoo got so drunk that Minho had to stop him from running out of the house in the middle of the night to confess to the girl he liked. He didn’t remember anything the next day, and it made Minho feel as if he'd imagined it all.
When he and Kibum eventually found the others, the air inside the club was stuffy, with throngs of moving people swaying to the low beat.
Minho had just finished spinning Yoona around on the dancefloor to some hip-hop song. Somehow, Taeyeon was also with them, absorbed into the fabric of the group as if she had always been there. She stood side by side with a frowning Kibum, deep in conversation.
Taeyeon and Yoona gathered the rest of the girls with a conspiratorial look to go to the bathroom. Minho had a feeling that Kim Taeyeon was as much of a sly fox as Im Yoona when she wanted to meddle, although he wasn’t sure what their intention was. His football teammates were somewhere near the DJ booth, and now, it was just him and Kibum. They stood by the bar, and they were close enough to each other for Minho to see the sweat that lingered in between Kibum’s clavicles – he was wearing a top with a deep neckline, and Minho wasn’t sober enough to stop his gaze from catching on it. He had a sneaking feeling he wasn’t all that surreptitious. Lifting his gaze, he saw Yoona in the crowd again, and she waved both of them over.
“I love this song! Dance with me, Kibum!” she laughed in delight, pulling Kibum towards her by the hand.
They danced far too gracefully for whatever chart song was playing in the club, Kibum holding Yoona as he tipped her back in a final flourish. She pinched both of their cheeks, and told them Taeyeon owed her a tequila shot.
“All these people smoking inside are making me nauseous,” Kibum complained, standing up on his tiptoes and cupping his hand to speak to Minho’s ear. He continued to hover close after he finished speaking.
“And the three shots you did right before this aren’t?” he quipped back, feeling the ghost of Kibum’s touch on his ears and neck. His heartbeat roared in his ears, louder than the music.
“Shut up, let’s just go outside for a moment.” Kibum turned around, grabbing Minho by the wrist as they wormed their way through the crowd, up the stairs, and past the bouncers into the cold, dark night. It was past midnight, and the masses were really starting to move in. Their breath was coming out in puffs, the temperature drop always sneaking up in winter. Minho thought about how it may have looked to his friends, with him and Kibum always in each other’s space. He thought about it some more, and realized he didn’t care.
“So,” Kibum began. “Yoona is pretty.”
“She is,” Minho agreed distractedly. Kibum gleamed under the streetlight. A tinny speaker outside of a barbecue restaurant blared some idol song in the distance.
“When you invited me to hang out with your friends, I didn’t know I was signing up to hang out with footballers and their girlfriends.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Oh?” Kibum seemed a little surprised at that. “I suppose you haven’t asked yet. She looks at you like she likes you.”
“I hadn’t been paying attention.” Minho was starting to feel increasingly frustrated. Braced for a fight, he told himself to let it go. “But you’re not the first person to say that.”
Minho looked at Kibum, who was looking past him, unfocused on some point in the distance.
“So why did you really…” Minho had a false start. “I’m not saying sports physiotherapy doesn’t seem to suit you, but that time we were in the gallery, it’s like you came alive. And afterwards, Taeyeon-noona told me you like to make clothes and sew.”
“I guess I can tell you. I was already,” Kibum waved weakly at himself, “the way that I was. And I’m an only child. I didn’t want it to make it harder for my parents. So I thought following in my mother’s footsteps might soften the blow.”
“You were like what?” Minho had an inkling, but he wanted to push. The fluttering in his heart got worse. It was the moment before a fall, the rising crescendo of an orchestra. He felt a buzzing in his veins.
“Well, you might know. Or I suppose you wouldn’t know, would you?” Kibum laughed, baring his teeth, then settled into the quiet for a moment. “I have a respectable life on the outside, and I fuck who I want in private. I don’t think the double whammy of gay and an artistic libertine would go over well with them, or with the church wives my mother meets up with for lunch at the Hyundai department store every Saturday.”
Minho liked the way Kibum sounded when he swore. They had been dancing around the shape of the wordless thing that was growing between them, but now, it inched ever closer to becoming tangible.
“I know what that’s like. For people to always expect you to act a certain way, and then get pissed off with you when it doesn’t align with their view of you.” Minho had an uncanny ability to be the center of attention, but to be looked right through.
“Oh, because straight people’s problems are just like mine,” Kibum sniped. He immediately balked with regret when he saw Minho’s expression. He didn't know what his face was doing, but he hated that Kibum could tell. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not saying it was easy for you either.”
That’s not why Minho was upset. For a while, he felt as if Kibum looked at him, really looked at him and saw him. For Kibum to say that… Everybody always seemed so sure of what Minho wanted, but no one ever bothered to ask.
“It’s fine. I just thought you might know me better than that by now.”
“What does that mean?” Kibum looked at him with alarm.
“You might already know?” Minho echoed Kibum’s words.
“Well, are you asking?” Me, out, was implied.
“No,” he replied, with some hesitation. “I don’t know.”
“Well, find out.” Kibum kicked at nothing. The ground was black and slick from rain that fell earlier.
Minho stayed in the dark for several more beats, then stepped closer. Kibum’s eyelashes cast shadows on his cheeks from the overhead lights, and Minho felt the tethers of his resolve snap. The moment stretched between them. Suddenly, they jumped at the slam of a heavy metal door behind them, drunk people spilling out of the club in a burst of laughter and cigarette smoke. The moment was broken.
“Let’s go home.”
“I thought it might be good for you to get some space to figure things out,” Kibum said.
“I don’t want any space between us, though.” Minho was sure of what he wanted. He saw a million versions unfold in front of him, lives where Kibum was in love with someone else, and they just passed each other by. Perfect strangers once again. It made him feel sick.
“Yeah, I’ve never been very good at distance either,” Kibum replied with a weak laugh.
Minho’s heart was set in motion. It was too late to pull it back.
–
Under a flimsy excuse of it being too late for Kibum to go back to his place on the other end of Seodaemun and wake up his roommate, they crowded into a taxi together. Minho could barely type out his keypad passcode before they got into his tiny apartment and he had Kibum crowded against the wall. His eyes glinted in the dark – they hadn’t even turned the light on yet. Minho had forgotten to draw the curtains before he left.
“Why are you always so… earnest?” Kibum was frowning up at him. The silence of the apartment felt deafening compared to the noise of the city around them. There was nowhere left to hide. “You’re all,” Kibum waved his hand around. “Warm. Understanding. Too fucking nice. The opposite of me.”
“That’s not true.” Minho thought Kibum was not one to bother with unnecessary falsities, but he was fiercely protective of the people he cared about – he’d give everything to them if they asked. He was kind down to his bones. “Stop trying to push me away. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You know I only do it to get a rise out of you.” Kibum’s gaze was unnervingly level. He pointed accusingly at the platform sneakers Minho had hurriedly taken off and placed by the door. “Why do you even wear such high shoes? What about the rest of us normal folk? It pisses me off.”
Minho just smiled wordlessly, tracing a line with his thumb down Kibum’s neck, whose arms broke out in goosebumps, words trailing off into the deep silence of the night. Their faces were only a breath away from each other’s. Kibum raised his hand to card it through Minho’s hair.
And Minho – he couldn’t hold it in anymore. Gently cradling Kibum’s face as if it was something precious, he tilted his head down to meet Kibum’s lips, tentatively at first, and then – with the force of a dam that had burst through the cracks, like he was parched with thirst. His heartbeat might have been loud enough to wake the neighbors.
“Fucking finally,” Kibum breathed. He tugged on Minho’s hair and twisted, deepening the kiss. His other hand found Minho’s waist, slipping beneath his t-shirt. It was cold, shocking on Minho’s overheated skin.
They lost themselves in each other for an indefinite amount of time until Minho gently pulled away. Kibum tried to inch back closer, his dazed gaze chasing Minho’s. His delicate lips were bruised a slick cherry-red. As their chests fell into sync with each other and they caught their breaths, Minho leaned forward to rest his forehead on Kibum’s shoulder.
“Are you sure you want this?” Minho couldn’t stop his voice from sounding a little small.
“Now it’s you asking me if I know what I want.” He couldn’t see his face, but Kibum sounded amused. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“You’re not just saying yes because you’ve been drinking?”
“You idiot,” Kibum said softly, stroking Minho’s cheek with the back of his knuckles. “I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me all night. And I sobered up on the way home in the taxi. I purposefully didn’t drink much because I knew I wanted you to take me home.”
Minho pulled back to look at Kibum, unable to wipe the dumbfounded grin from his own face.
“So you had it all figured out, huh?”
“Yup,” Kibum replied, almost matter-of-factly if it weren’t for the matching grin he was trying to fight off.
“Okay, well, I won’t let you win this one. Can I at least get changed out of these clothes? I feel gross and I think someone spilled their drink on me earlier.”
With a chuckle, Kibum gave Minho a gentle shove to the chest, and the tension between them could finally ease, just for a while. They stepped away from each other, and started to get ready for bed. Minho got a spare pair of pajamas from the drawer by his bed, and snickered to himself when Kibum’s voice carried over from the bathroom complaining about how big they were, and what did Minho mean he didn’t own toner, did he live like an animal? A strip of light fell on the bed through the door that was left slightly ajar as Kibum brushed his teeth. Probably with Minho’s toothbrush. Fucker.
They fell into opposite sides of the bed, with the room now in a dim glow cast by the street lights. Minho’s studio apartment was tiny, and the kitchen tap still kept dripping, barely drowned out by the faint hiss of the humidifier. Minseok had offered to try and fix the tap once, but Minho said it was fine. He had a suspicion he would lie awake for a different reason tonight.
Kibum twisted his body towards Minho and inched closer, looking past him at the vase next to his bed. It felt like Minho had left his heart out bare on the street for just anyone to see. But it was alright, because it was Kibum, and Minho thought he might treat it with kindness, just like the way he treated other things in his care. In a way, that vase was a part of their own little universe – something that would have never been made had they never met.
“Would you ever go to space? Sometimes, I think I’d like to go somewhere where no one knows me.” Minho wondered out loud, tracing circles into Kibum’s skin.
“But that wouldn’t work. I’ll still know you. Even if you were in space.” Kibum murmured into his shoulder, his lips moving across the fabric of the material of Minho’s top.
Minho turned to give Kibum a kiss, which quickly turned into five, and ten, and then it was impossible to keep track.
Getting carried away, they found each other’s hands in the darkness. Minho carefully unbuttoned Kibum’s pajama shirt – or rather, his own. It slipped down to reveal too much of Kibum’s neck, and helplessly, Minho moved down to delicately kiss and bite at the milky skin, leaving a faint trail of marks behind. Kibum snaked his hands up the t-shirt Minho was wearing, pulling it over his head. For a moment, they hovered above each other, suspended in the thick molasses of want.
“Do you know how much I’ve thought about this?” Minho couldn’t help but ask. His heart was beating wildly in his chest, like a thrashing bird in a cage waiting to be set free.
“You could help me figure it out,” Kibum tried to play it off as coy, but Minho could see something pleading and painfully honest lingering in his gaze. Inclining his head, Minho reached down to kiss him again, as if trying to say – have all of me. Kibum gave as good as he got, giving Minho’s lips gentle nips and bites as their hands slipped past their waistbands, until they got a firm hold of one another. Kibum was already hard and more than sweat-slick, swearing under his breath as Minho moved his hand.
Minho pulled back from capturing Kibum’s shallow breaths and noises with his mouth, a thin trail of saliva connecting their mouths snapping in an instant. Kibum was looking back at him slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, a flush creeping up his jaw. Minho had never seen anyone he wanted so much in his life. Fighting to keep his focus through the haze of desire, he promised.
“I’ll make it good, Kibum.”
–
The next morning, it rained, so the natural answer was for them to eat jeon. Minho turned up the underfloor heating, and they watched films on the laptop in bed. Kibum rested his head on Minho’s shoulder without saying anything. He looked different in the cold light of morning, his hair strewn across Minho’s pillow. After last night, something in the corners of Kibum’s smile softened – it was a sweet, unguarded thing now. Minho leaned in and faintly smelled the remnants of Kibum’s shampoo, aftershave, and the lingering sweet tang of alcohol.
Checking his phone that he forgot to plug in to charge overnight, there was a text from Yoona from the night before.
[01:24 Yoona] We wanted to say bye but you already left!!
[09:13 Minho] Sorry, headed out with Bummie last night but couldn’t find you guys, didn’t want it to be a late one
To his surprise, her reply came almost instantly.
[9:14 Yoona] My head hurts like hell. Don’t ever let me take tequila shots again. Kim Taeyeon is the devil…
[9:14 Yoona] Btw, me and the girls totally went away to scheme about you two. You’ll have to give me the low down
[9:15 Minho] Is there even one to give?
[9:15 Yoona] I know you, Choi Minho. You just wait until I catch you in the library
“I need to make some changes here,” Kibum complained, whisking an egg in a bowl with scallion. “Why are your knives in a different cupboard to your forks? I didn’t realize I’ve been cozying up with a serial killer.”
“You plan to stay, then?”
“I thought that was implied,” Kibum replied, simply, as if that was that.
They ate their food in silence, kicking at each other’s feet at the small table that barely fit their side dishes.
“Can I go for a shower?” Kibum hung out in the doorway after they'd cleared up, as if he was waiting for something. Minho looked up. “Well, are you coming?”
Minho slammed the book he was absentmindedly carding through shut in an instant. In two strides, he pushed Kibum against the wall. Capturing Kibum’s lips in a searing kiss, he was met with a tidal wave of force. Kibum just laughed into Minho’s mouth, and pulled him closer by the collar of his t-shirt.
–
When Minho was nineteen, he took a trip by himself to Sokcho. It was cold then, and he filled up three rolls of film taking photos of fishermen and market stalls. No one but the admissions department at K-Arts was supposed to see them, until his parents found them in his room years later when his mom was tidying.
Now, just before the new year, he was staying at his parents’ house with his brother for a few days. One late evening, he couldn’t sleep. The sky was black and blank without stars from pollution. Feeling strange and off-kilter, he went to sit out on the veranda to text Kibum after everyone had gone to bed. It had only been a short while, but he missed him with a fierceness that both thrilled and terrified him in its novelty.
The sound of a sliding door opening behind him was startling. His father came to sit next to him. Handing him a new camera strap, he wished Minho a happy birthday. Albeit a belated one, he scolded, saying his mother wanted him to come home more often. Minho wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. His father still didn’t say much, and they never broached any uncomfortable subjects, but somehow, things felt like they could change. In between small gestures, they would find a new path to tread one day.
Now, he was back in Seoul, and it was late winter, thawing into spring, and Minho thought, this is it. This is what being in love must be like. His and Kibum’s eyes would always find each other’s in a busy room, and everything would fall into place.
Until Kibum came up to him and pinched him in the neck.
“Ow! What the hell was that for?” Minho tried to give Kibum his best hurt look, only to be met with an impassive face. Kibum took off the fuzzy hat he was wearing; it was getting warmer in the mornings nowadays.
“You bought the express bus ticket for the wrong time, you idiot. I just had to beg the clerk to let us on this one so we don’t have to wait for two hours.”
Suddenly, the moment felt a lot less romantic, until Kibum found his pinky sticking out from the long sleeve of his coat and squeezed it. Minho smiled into his scarf. It was just under three hours to Sokcho on the bus, and they sat side by side, thighs touching.
After a while, Minho felt his headphones being plucked out of his ears.
“Don’t be mad, but I need to tell you something,” Kibum started.
“Well, that’s a little ominous.” Minho tried to joke, but worry started to creep like a vine towards the back of his mind. Was it something serious?
“Just… don’t get freaked out. But I showed Taeyeon-noona some of your photography,” Kibum was watching Minho’s face carefully. He was a little alarmed, but nodded silently, signaling for Kibum to go on. “It’s damn good, Minho, and you know it. She knows it too. She showed it to a sunbae in her Arts department. They’re gearing up for a spring exhibition right now.”
“And what does this mean?” Minho had an inkling about Kibum and Taeyeon’s machinations, being witness to their scheming these past few months. Not long after he and Kibum got together, they all fell into a routine of group dinners, followed by overly-competitive rounds of noraebang. On one of those nights, she cornered him outside of a twenty-four hour photobooth that they were all taking turns squeezing into. Taeyeon, even when wearing bunny ears, and probably standing at half his height, had some pretty terrifying threats about what she would do if he ever hurt Kibum.
“They want to exhibit some fresh material, though, and it can’t be something from your existing portfolio.”
Minho wanted to be offended by them going behind his back, but he didn’t have it in him – his heart squeezed at the thought of other people thinking his photography was worth an audience, and Kibum’s praise was the most important. Kibum and Taeyeon must have gone through a lot for this.
“I brought my film camera and tripod with me anyway.”
“So is that a yes?” Kibum could barely fight the smile off his face.
“It’s a yes if you let me take photos of you dancing,” Minho bargained, countering back.
“Damn it, Choi Minho, you fox.” Screwing up his face, Kibum laughed.
Minho just shrugged, feeling like he had won. “I learned that from you.”
The first time Minho saw Kibum dance was at his end-of-winter semester showcase. It was a short solo piece to open the show which Taemin helped him choreograph. Kibum had told Minho about it before, but it was strictly off-limits for him to see before the night of the performance. Bad luck, apparently, but Taemin once told him it was because Kibum was obsessed with making it perfect.
Minho turned down the offer to watch it from backstage; he wanted to sit in the front row. Their group of friends was sitting a few rows behind, hollering whenever he turned around to look at them. He was impatient, but at the moment the lights dimmed, he understood. On stage, Kibum was beautiful — shining, even. His twisting, fluid body was a vivid thing of grace. It was over before Minho knew it, the stage lights catching the sloping line of Kibum’s neck, his fingers poised in extension. He was wearing an outfit he had sewn himself, and it fell in beautiful drapes across his slender limbs.
It caught him unaware, as if he hadn’t already looked at Kibum a thousand times before. He loved filing away moments like this – new images of Kibum, making up a mosaic of things that culminated in the full picture in his mind. He could barely sit still until the end of the group performances that concluded the show, before joining in with the rapturous applause. Breaking out into a half-run to find Kibum, he stopped when he saw him in a hallway on the way backstage. He didn’t want to make a huge scene, so he pulled out a single wrapped flower he had tucked inside his coat and thrust it into Kibum’s hands.
“Are you about to cry?” Minho had asked, incredulously, as Kibum blinked furiously. His skin had a sheen of sweat, and even hair spray couldn’t hold his hair back from looking tousled. He was beautiful.
“No!” Kibum kept punching Minho in the shoulder, eyes suspiciously red. “I look too good to cry right now.”
Emerging from an emergency exit door somewhere behind Kibum, Taemin scuttled past them with an apologetic half-bow.
“Get out,” Kibum barked after him. “We’re trying to have a moment here!”
Laughing to himself, Taemin just gave them a nod of comprehension. They were alone again for a moment. Minho leaned over and kissed the heart-shaped curl of Kibum’s mouth before he could react.
Now, Minho watched the landscape change as they arrived in Sokcho, the gray of passing cities giving way to rolling hills. After getting to their accommodation to drop their bags off, they tried going to a cafe but had to leave because Kibum kept sneezing after the owner’s cat wandered over to their table. Kibum couldn’t hold himself back from petting it. They settled on eating some crab ramyeon near the port, until Kibum said he wanted to see the sunset at the beach while they still had time. He was right — it was already late afternoon, the light streaming through the window of the restaurant in long, unbroken lines.
They got to the beach, which was deserted given the time of the year, and suddenly, Kibum looked a little anxious.
“What if I mess up and you can’t re-shoot it because you’ll run out of film?”
“Kibum.” The taste of his name was sweet in Minho’s mouth, an endearment and admonishment in itself. He put a hand to the back of Kibum’s nape for a momentary touch of comfort. “You won’t mess up.”
Adjusting the camera’s aperture to the lighting, he started to shoot as Kibum moved, outlined by the gentle light of dusk around him. He twirled and jumped as his long coat flapped in the wind, tension winding out of him like the tide. As he finished with a theatrical flourish, Minho burst into applause.
He set the camera to self-timer, and bounded over to Kibum to grab him by both hands and spin him around in a circle as he shrieked in surprise. They tried to slow dance, until they laughed so hard they collapsed in the sand. The seagulls cried out overhead, beneath a cloudless sky.
“Your clothes will get ruined,” Minho tried to dust off Kibum’s trousers, but Kibum just waved weakly to leave them.
“It’s alright. I don’t mind.”
After feeling like he had been adrift at sea for most of his life, Minho’s heart now felt so full and large in his chest that he wondered how his lungs could even breathe around it. He reached out to grasp Kibum’s hand.