Chapter Text
The house is huge—sprawling, empty, impressive, and nothing Johnny would have thought to buy for himself. It sits in a neighborhood with a price bracket Johnny can hardly even fathom, overlooks the ocean (although maybe that’s not hard, given that it’s on an island), and boasts enough spare bedrooms to house his extended family and then some. According to his mom’s rather sporadic emails, it used to belong to his aunt slash grandmother—or someone he might have called aunt slash grandmother, had she still been alive. The house is only Johnny’s because no one else was on speaking terms with the woman, but it had “family value,” or something, and not even the fact that Johnny’s father was currently living in America was enough to keep them from calling him. Johnny knows he has other living family in South Korea, but despite having spent all of his undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate years in the country, Johnny has never made a point to search them out. He’s perfectly aware of the fact that he’s the odd child out—the son of parents who immigrated to Chicago with an English name and not nearly enough fluency. There’s no need for any more reminders.
But this . . . Johnny wouldn’t have expected this. When his mother first called him asking if he had any interest in spending a year on Jeju Island, Johnny had jumped at the chance to get away from the bustle of the city. He’d spent four years in college and two years getting his MBA, then two more years working his way up the corporate rungs at a company that specialized in corporate branding. The job had been good and Johnny had excelled in the sales department, but everyone else there had been much older, and Johnny hadn’t had many friends. Johnny had felt—still feels—like he’s floating through life. A big old house on Jeju Island had sounded exactly like the sort of getaway that Johnny had been looking for, and he’d wasted no time putting in his two weeks’ notice and cancelling his lease. He’d packed up his life into a depressingly small number of boxes, hopped the first plane out of Gimpo Airport, and arrived, one surprisingly crisp January morning several weeks later, to find . . . this.
The sort of house that should host family reunions, or at least great big indoor gatherings.
The sort of house that could be the backdrop for a movie.
The sort of house Johnny would never have dreamed of.
“Wow,” Johnny says in English, then in Korean. “Wow.”
He swallows.
Johnny knows very little about keeping a house, and this is much more than just a house. It has enough bedrooms to make his head spin and is way too large for one—admittedly taller than average—Korean-American male, but it’s better than a two bedroom with only the internet for company, so Johnny does his best to take it in. There’s a chimney. Two floors. He has neighbors. One of his new neighbors has a house that could rival Johnny’s in size, but where Johnny’s seems vintage and rustic and more like something he’d call an English cottage, the house directly to the right of his is sleeker, with a much more modern build. The only thing out of place among the glass and the metalwork are the flowers because Johnny’s new neighbor has . . . flowers.
There’s no other word for it; the emphasis is totally necessary.
Johnny’s new neighbor is cultivating a garden that honestly takes Johnny’s breath away, and from his vantage point—slightly to the left of the drive to his new house, holding only a carry on and a tiny wheeled suitcase, still not having paid the cab driver who took him all the way out to the edge of the island—he can only see parts of it. There’s something red—roses, maybe?—and something bright gold. The roses just peek over the fence and the yellow flowers are barely more than a brilliant speck, but their vibrancy is enough to make Johnny’s eyes hurt. They’re beautiful. They take Johnny’s breath away.
Johnny feels relieved, because at least he’ll have someone to beg advice off of, once he gets settled. The state of his own front yard is depressing to say the least, and while Johnny’s no stranger to basic lawn care—he was a teenager growing up middle class in suburban North America—he’s glad that at least one of them clearly knows what they’re doing when it comes to landscaping.
Johnny should get settled, though. Johnny should see the house. Johnny should—
“Hey, Ahjusshi, are you planning on paying any time soon? I should charge you for the wait—”
Johnny does his best not to be too bothered by the fact that a kid clearly fresh out of college and working as a cab driver had the audacity to call him “Ahjusshi,” but he fishes out his wallet and forks over the requested amount of won anyway.
“Thanks,” the kid says when he’s done. “Do you need help with the—” He doesn’t finish that sentence, just gestures towards the trunk.
“No need,” Johnny says, already having grabbed his one sorry excuse for a suitcase. “Thank you—”
“No problem.” The kid is already reversing, clearly eager to get back to the airport in search of more tourists to scam out of almost seventy USD.
Johnny just keeps smiling and pivots to better face his new home. Then he hoists his carry on onto one shoulder, tugs on his suitcase, and goes to let himself into the house.
Into his house. It’s Johnny’s house, now.
Wow.
The first day, Johnny mostly sleeps. He calls his mom twice and then Facetimes both his parents so that he can walk them around the empty mausoleum, which they both tell him he cannot call Grandma Suh’s house. Johnny tells them he can call Grandma Suh’s house whatever he wants given it is now Johnny Suh’s house, but that just earns him a disapproving head shake (his mom) and a subtle thumbs up (his dad). He orders take out from the first place he finds on Naver with his location turned on because he can’t be bothered to figure out the location of the nearest grocery store and eats in the too-large kitchen without even taking out plates and chopsticks. The place came fully furnished with all of Grandma Suh’s furniture and things, which Johnny is grateful for, because he’d hate to have to spend time and effort at a furniture store, or something. Although Grandma Suh clearly had a thing for stale tapestries, and Johnny draws the line at her princess canopy. Contrary to his current surroundings, Johnny is not the hero in a Victorian novel. He’ll just have to settle for sleeping under a hook in the ceiling.
The second day Johnny ventures out to find the essentials—the grocery store, the gym, and the nearest place where he can order tteokbokki and ramen so he doesn’t die, while the act of leaving the house affords him some illusion of adulthood. He goes running on the beach and marvels at the fact that it’s January and still kind of warm; warmer than Seoul at least, and Johnny would rather be caught dead than acknowledge that he’s lost his Chicago-bred hardiness for cold weather. He comes home and showers, then gets it over with and does an inventory of all the bedrooms, the kitchen, the dining room, and a room he decides has to be called a parlor despite that being something he can’t believe he now owns. He determines that Grandma Suh had no interest in joining the twenty-first century, then fights with himself about the potential idiocy of spending his last paycheck on cable and internet. But really, there is no other option—Johnny could never live without cable and internet. Grandma Suh may have been from the dark ages, but Johnny Suh is not. Besides, he’s always wanted to wire a house with Bluetooth—music from every angle: a veritable wet dream.
Those first two days he talks to nobody save his parents, and only posts two aesthetic beach shots and one post-run, half-naked selca on Instagram. It’s nice, if a bit too quiet, and Johnny thinks he might be able to get used to it. He’s not too lonely, plus the school year will start soon, and the island will be overrun with college kids. It’s a good first and second day in a new place, and Johnny isn’t complaining.
And then on the third day, Johnny meets his neighbor.
His neighbor with the flowers—a man shorter than Johnny with pretty, dyed brown hair, and dimples. Johnny first sees him on his way out for what’s becoming his early morning run, standing outside of his modern, sleek, oversized mansion next to a man in full police uniform, talking. Johnny trips over his too large feet and approximates something of a bow in their direction, but neither of them pause in their conversation, so he feels stupid to have tried to greet them. Never mind that his neighbor—tall, pretty, and young enough that Johnny wonders if he’s moved in next to an entire family—has clearly seen him and smiled back, all without letting the cop in on the fact that he’s no longer listening.
Johnny passes the cop car on his way out towards the beach but decides it’s probably nothing to worry about. Maybe someone broke in, or trespassed, or simply dared to step the wrong way on the impeccable lawn—Johnny doesn’t know, nor care. It’s later than he’d like and a Thursday, and Johnny is finally starting to learn the best streets to run on.
Who cares if he has an attractive, dimpled neighbor who’s currently talking with the cops?
Not Johnny.
Johnny only has thoughts for sun, sand, and sea.
And a shower.
Johnny will really need a shower after this. It might not get hotter than high forties on Jeju Island in January, but five kilometers at a brisk pace is brutal. After the shower, he forgets about his neighbor with the dimples.
Until his neighbor with the dimples is standing on his doorstep, letting Johnny get up close and personal with the incredibly distracting moon craters on either side of his very pretty mouth.
He’s brought Johnny a bottle of wine.
He leaned on the doorbell for longer than Johnny would have thought possible for someone so young—Johnny would put money on him still being in college, given enlistment—and doesn’t seem upset at the wait, even though Johnny spent more than a few seconds just squinting at him through the peephole.
“Hi,” he says, when Johnny pulls open the door. “I’m Jeong Jaehyun.” The dimples really are distracting, his skin really is shockingly pale, and his hair looks far too soft for something unnaturally colored. He’s—Johnny would hate to say pretty, but. He looks like he ought to be an idol. The wine is . . . out of place. Then he sticks out his hand in a gesture so solidly un-Korean, that Johnny can only stare. Has he . . . has he broadcasted his foreignness already? It’s been three days. Johnny’s seen the man once, and yeah, he did sort of stumble on his way past him, but the man was talking to the police—Johnny thinks he ought to be allowed. Maybe Grandma Suh mentioned him, or something, although why Grandma Suh would be talking about Johnny to Johnny’s—to this nice young man, is beyond Johnny at this point. Did Grandma Suh even know who Johnny was, when she was alive?
His neighbor is still smiling and holding his hand out.
“Johnny Suh,” Johnny says finally, when it becomes clear he’s made a complete fool of himself by not taking the man—Jaehyun’s hand. He ends up mixing the order of the names because he’s so startled, and immediately regrets doing so. Now there’s no way around the issue, though handshakes are not inherently un-Korean. Johnny’s just not used to doing them outside of business because for some reason his apartment complex in Seoul was predominantly inhabited by older women who liked to pinch his cheeks. Johnny is . . . a disaster. “Nice to meet you,” Johnny finishes up with, bowing his head quickly. “Uh—do you live next door?”
And—great.
Johnny’s not usually this much of a bumbling idiot. Jaehyun clearly lives next door, and he smiled at Johnny earlier, so he knows. Yes, he has dimples, good skin, and nice hair. He’s pretty. Johnny went to SMU; he was classmates with plenty of pretty people. Heck, Johnny would go so far to say that he is pretty people. This is just unfortunate, and kind of absurd.
But if Jaehyun is offended by any of it, he doesn’t let it show, letting his hand drop all the way back down to his side and smiling at Johnny with even more prominent dimples. “Yes,” he says. “I live just over there.” He points towards his house with a thumb like Johnny doesn’t know, because he’s nice on top of friendly, and perfectly willing to let Johnny get away with sticking his foot in his mouth. “I think you’re the youngest person in the entire neighborhood,” Jaehyun continues, like he’s imparting a great secret. “Well. Except for me, that is.” He shifts the wine bottle between both hands as he finishes speaking, the smile touching the corners of his mouth now much closer to a smirk.
Johnny takes that for the opportunity that it very clearly is, horrible first-week-in-the-country-as-a-foreigner lessons not easily unlearned. “I was born in 1995.”
Jaehyun’s dimples come back. “Like I said,” he says. “1997. Hyung.”
For some reason Johnny’s toes curl against the bare tile of Grandma Suh—of his foyer. “Did you bring me wine, Jaehyun-ah?”
Jaehyun’s eyes crinkle in the corners like he’s pleased that Johnny has caught on so quickly, but he readily produces the bottle for Johnny’s appraisal anyway. “Yes,” he says, clearing his throat. “A Seresin 2014 Sun & Moon Pinot Noir. Red. Younger than both of us—and the rest of our neighbors.” He really is breathtakingly attractive when he smiles, and Johnny doesn’t feel at all threatened by that fact.
“Did you bring me wine as a housewarming gift?” he says instead. “Isn’t that traditionally supposed to be food—a cake, maybe?” For a second Johnny worries he’s gone too far with the teasing—it is, after all, only minute five of day one—but then Jaehyun puts his head back and laughs.
“I’m not very good at baking,” he says.
For some reason Johnny would bet he’s lying.
“And I don’t cook on the first date.”
Johnny decides he likes his new neighbor. “You said the rest of the neighborhood is much older? What would you have done if I’d been a woman in my sixties?” Johnny shifts on his feet and tries on his best stern look.
Jaehyun just shifts on his own feet and raises an eyebrow right back. “I’d have brought two bottles and a corkscrew,” he says simply, and now Johnny is the one exposing his throat so that he can laugh.
“I yield,” he says. “You win—give me the wine.”
“The Seresin 2014,” says Jaehyun. “Sun. Moon. Red. Fruity, but pairs well with Korean food—”
Johnny takes hold of the bottle and totally thinks nothing of how their hands touch around the neck. “Yes, yes, the nice red, younger-than-both-of-us wine from New Zealand—are you a wine salesman, or something?”
Jaehyun releases the bottle with a grin. “You knew it was from New Zealand.”
“The guys I used to work with had a—never mind, it’s not important,” Johnny says, not keen to relive the weeks he spent pouring over wine magazines trying to fit in. “Thank you.” He dips his head again. “Would you—do you want to come in and try a glass?”
Jaehyun’s eyes flick somewhere over Johnny’s head, but Johnny doesn’t have a clock hanging in the house yet, so he can’t be looking at much of anything. Johnny throws his own glance at his watch and finds that it’s just after one in the afternoon.
“It’s not after five,” Jaehyun says.
“It is somewhere,” Johnny retorts, with ease. “Er—”
“I’ve got—uh—things—” For some reason Jaehyun’s ears are blushing, and Johnny thinks that’s adorable. “Welcome to the neighborhood, Johnny Suh.” Jaehyun bows as well, and the Western order of Johnny’s name doesn’t seem to trip him up at him at all—the pronunciation of Johnny’s English first name near perfect. Jaehyun turns and starts heading back the way he’d come. “Don’t be a stranger, Hyung!” he calls over his shoulder, one hand raised. “You’re the only person close to my age, although you are still ancient—”
“Hey,” Johnny yells back. “I’m only two years older!”
Jaehyun just laughs, hand lowering to this side. He disappears back inside his house and is gone.
Johnny is left staring after him, holding the bottle of wine. That’s—his new neighbor is a little strange, if not shy. Charming. Born in 1997. Dimpled. Johnny decides he likes him, this Jeong Jaehyun.
The power goes out early next week. There’s a storm—Johnny is aware that he’s becoming a walking, talking, living-alone-in-a-big-scary-mansion cliché—but the power goes out and Johnny is abruptly thrust into darkness. The only person he knows on the island is Jaehyun, who gave Johnny his cellphone number just the other day, so he calls him. He doesn’t text him, which—maybe Johnny’s sentimental, or something.
Maybe he just misses hearing someone else’s voice.
“Hello?” Jaehyun says.
“Jaehyun, hi,” Johnny says. “Look. My power’s out.”
There’s a pause. “Yes, I had noticed that you seemed to be very suddenly living in darkness,” Jaehyun says. “Why are you calling me? I can’t fix it. You should call an electrician.”
Johnny whirls to squint pointlessly out the kitchen windows before Jaehyun finishes his sentence, like he’ll somehow be able to see much of anything, let alone Jeong Jaehyun, more than a few feet away, in his own mammoth sized house. “Right,” he agrees after the pause has clearly gone on for far too long. “So . . .”
“Mine’s out too,” Jaehyun offers suddenly. “Sorry.” There’s another pause, but Johnny swears he’s smiling. “Shall I come over and hold your hand, Johnny-hyung?”
Johnny barks out a startled laugh. “Fuck you!” he says. “You’re the only other person I know! I just wanted to know if you had heat.”
“It’s not that cold,” Jaehyun says. “Aren’t you from Chicago?”
Johnny doesn’t remember telling Jaehyun that, but he must have. They’ve small talked more than once, outside their houses. Johnny knows Jaehyun lived in New England for four years when he was a kid—in Connecticut; it’s why he supports the Patriots, the fucker. Johnny’s proud of where he comes from. Surely him being Windy City bred had come up. “Fuck you,” he says again.
“Anyway, I don’t have heat either,” Jaehyun says. “I could come over and we could huddle for warmth, though.”
Johnny narrows his eyes. If this were anyone else . . . if it were any other time . . . “What’s wrong with you?” Johnny says, which isn’t, are you flirting with me?, so he’s counting it as a win.
Jaehyun makes an odd noise—a cough, maybe, or just honest embarrassment.
“Jaehyun-ah,” Johnny says. “Are you afraid of the dark?”
This time the silence is definitely punctuated by coughing, and a lot of it.
Johnny grins. He’s always had that effect on people, and he loves it.
“What?” Jaehyun says. “No.”
Johnny grins hard. “You are,” he says. “It’s okay. I was afraid of the dark too . . . when I was six.”
Jaehyun sputters. “I’m not afraid of the dark!”
“You don’t have to make up an excuse to come over,” Johnny continues, pleased. “I’ll even hold your hand free of charge.”
“Look—I’m not—I’m coming over to murder you,” Jaehyun says, sounding like his ears are turning that wonderful red again. “You wait. I’ll be there. Murder.”
“I’ll be here with open arms,” Johnny tells him happily since he can’t hear a dial tone. “I give very good hugs—everybody says so.”
There’s a growl, and then Jaehyun finally hangs up, but Johnny just grins, pleased.
Jaehyun arrives on his doorstep a few moments later, dripping wet and pissed, clearly not having thought through his quest to commit neighbor-cide and having gone right out into the storm.
Johnny makes a huge show of handing him one of the godawful umbrellas Grandma Suh had right next to the door, laughing, as Jaehyun scowls at him and shakes water all over the foyer. He doesn’t get Johnny because Johnny is taller and bigger and much too fast. “Were you that afraid?” Johnny says when Jaehyun is done shaking like a dog. “Did you forget your shoes? Come here.” He opens his arms.
“I’ll forget your shoes,” Jaehyun mutters darkly, but lets Johnny bundle him into a towel a few moments later anyway, rubbing despondently at his ankle with the ball of one foot. “I—”
“Panicked,” Johnny finishes for him, giving in and giving his head a good scrub with a bare hand—his hair is exactly as soft as he’d expected. “Now come on. It’s dark—”
“It’s dark in all of your house,” Jaehyun tells him grudgingly, as Johnny starts leading him further into the place in search of spare clothes. Jaehyun wasn’t out in the rain for that long, but Johnny would be remiss as a host if he let him lounge about dripping. “And creepy.” Jaehyun seems to feel as charitable as Johnny does towards some of Grandma Suh’s choices in interior decorating—the large, heavily endowed ox statue they just walked by case in point. “You should have come over to mine.”
Johnny tries not to let that sentence make him shudder—it’s been five days and Jaehyun is just Johnny’s new neighbor, but Johnny has been without human contact and is going nearly mad because of it.
“It’s cold and dark in my house too, but it’s much less creepy.” Jaehyun follows Johnny quietly up the rest of the stairs and into the master bedroom, taking the clothes Johnny hands him with one hand, and holding the towel wrapped around his shoulders with the other.
Johnny fights the urge to hug him—or kiss him—because that would be stupid, and too-soon. He’s going nearly mad.
“What the fuck is that?” Jaehyun blurts, staring down at the pile of fabric that Johnny knows is Grandma Suh’s cursed princess canopy.
“We can’t talk about that,” Johnny tells him quickly. “I don’t know what to do with it—I should burn it, but I’d feel bad about burning it.”
Jaehyun keeps staring.
“I couldn’t sleep under it,” Johnny continues, for some reason going over to poke at the thing with his foot, then bending so he can hold part of it up for Jaehyun to see. It’s a horrible shade of chartreuse that doesn’t match the room at all, has got some sort of ruffle near the seams that maybe was supposed to be a statement, and it’s garish. It’s fucking garish; that’s the only word Johnny can come up with, and he feels valid.
“Why can’t you burn it?” says Jaehyun. “It obviously needs to be burned.”
“Hey,” Johnny says. “It belonged to my grandma.” Never mind he was the one who brought up burning it, never mind she might not have really been his grandma, never mind he’d never met her when she was alive.
“Your grandmother had appalling taste,” Jaehyun says, finally walking to set the clothes down on Johnny’s unmade bed and pulling the towel up to try to dry his hair. “You should burn it.”
“I can’t do that—she might haunt me,” Johnny says. “And she was my grandma—”
Jaehyun pulls the towel away from his face and squints at Johnny, who can’t help but think it’s amazing how good human vision can get in the dark, after a while. “Hang on. I thought you said you weren’t sure how she was related to you?”
Johnny doesn’t remember saying that either, but clearly he must have. And Grandma Suh . . . Johnny knows the women in his family, even if he didn’t know her. She’d have talked about him . . . maybe. Assuming she knew who he was. He doesn’t say any of that to Jaehyun. “She was hopefully my grandma. So, I can’t burn it because she might haunt me.”
Jaehyun seems frozen staring at him with the towel still on his head and his eyes squinted into slits. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, Hyung.”
Johnny decides the shiver that goes through him is only because of the cold; there’s no heat, after all.
“You believe in ghosts.” Jaehyun says the word like Johnny has said he believes the earth is flat, or something—not just in the existence of some life after death.
“You don’t believe in ghosts?” Johnny says. “Jaehyun-ah!”
Jaehyun pulls the towel away from his head and drops it on the ground, wrapping his arms around himself to grab the hem of his shirt and pull it up and over his face. He pauses once he’s got it there and twists to get one arm out of the sleeve.
Johnny feels heat fill his face and turns abruptly back around, staring at the expanse of wall instead of the expanse of muscled chest and six pack. Fuck, if Jaehyun isn’t ripped, though. Ripped and perfect, even including the stretch of shiny scar tissue just under his left pectoral. Johnny is—Johnny should find out what gym Jaehyun uses.
“I believe in things I can see,” Jaehyun says, muffled through the fabric of the shirt. Johnny keeps staring at the wall, starting to whistle in his head. “And aliens—because it’s arrogant to think we’re the only life in the universe—the universe is fucking big—”
“It’s arrogant—it’s arrogant to think there’s no afterlife!” Johnny protests. “Why do like all religions talk about it, then? Things you can see—things you can see—what about all those people who’ve experienced things?”
“Humans are obsessed with death,” Jaehyun says promptly. “Self-fulfilling prophecy—”
Johnny is tempted to turn around just so that he can shake him—what?
“—anyway, why did your hopefully grandmother collect board games?”
Johnny does turn around finally, but mostly out of surprise. “What—”
Jaehyun’s not standing by the bed anymore, but he’s left his wet clothes neatly folded on top of the towel. He’s also gone further into Johnny’s bedroom, wandered into the impressive walk-in closet, and when Johnny follows, appears to be staring up at an—admittedly—grandiose expanse of board games. Johnny looks at them and finds he doesn’t have an answer.
“Well,” he says finally. “Maybe she needed something to do when the power went out?” He nudges Jaehyun in the side with an elbow. “I did call an electrician,” he adds. “He said it happens all the time, and they’ll send someone to look at it in the morning.” He nudges him again. “Shouldn’t you know this? You’ve lived here longer than I have.”
“My power doesn’t go out all the time,” Jaehyun says, nudging him back with no small amount of glee. The shirt Johnny lent him is a little big on him, but Johnny is doing his best not to notice the frankly indecent gape of fabric around his neck. “And neither does yours, if I’m remembering correctly. You should fire your electrician. Get someone else to fix it for you.”
“I thought you said you can’t fix it?” Johnny says, nudging him again because he can’t help himself. “And he’s not my electrician he’s just—some guy—the first—”
“—name that came up on Naver? Millennials,” Jaehyun says disparagingly.
Johnny narrows his eyes at him and slaps a hand up onto the shelf without looking. “Gen Z,” he counters as he does so, pulling out—North American Monopoly; Johnny can work with North American Monopoly; if it had been British Monopoly, he might have lost his mind. “Here.” He thrusts the game into Jaehyun’s chest. “As long as you’re in my house, you might as well entertain me.”
Jaehyun’s entire face lights up like Johnny’s given him the winning set of lottery numbers, but he takes the board game (and none of the opportunity for innuendo) eagerly, then follows Johnny back down to the kitchen in search of candles.
He’s shockingly bad at Monopoly, but perfectly able to match Johnny drink for drink on that bottle of New Zealand wine.
“Fruity,” Johnny says, clinking their glasses together and watching Jaehyun tighten his jaw after ending up in jail again. “Would pair well with Korean food—versatile.”
“Yes, Hyung—are you cheating?” Jaehyun says, sipping from his own glass and frowning at the spread of money between them. Johnny is doing well, but Jaehyun is still holding on, despite that fact.
Johnny just grins, pleased. “We can’t all be good at everything, Jaehyun-ah,” he says. “Not even you.”
Jaehyun just stares at him with his mouth open. His face is cast into shadow by the flickering candlelight, yet is somehow no less captivating. “You don’t even know me,” he says finally. “It has been five days.”
Johnny feels his cheeks heat but holds Jaehyun’s gaze. “No, but . . . I’d like to think I’m starting to get to know you,” he says finally. “I could one day know you, if you’d like?” For some reason he feels like this is more than just two neighbors caught on the precipice of friendship, or acquaintance. But that’s all it is, surely. Maybe Johnny’s just drunk on the wine, or not used to making new friends, anymore. It has been a while since he’s had to.
Jaehyun stares at Johnny for a long, long time, and then his whole face breaks out into a wide, dimpled smile. “Yeah,” he says. “Of course.” He’s the one clinking their glasses, now. “To our budding friendship—now roll the dice, you cheater.”
Johnny laughs, but does.
He doesn’t forget about the ghost thing. On Wednesday, he runs into Jaehyun in the grocery store, and follows him around well after he’s finished stocking up on his essentials, running down a mental list of all manner of make believe.
“So, you don’t believe in ghosts,” he leads with, as Jaehyun spends a shocking amount of time feeling up apples. He’s already got quite a lot more food than Johnny, but Johnny supposes that’s to be expected. Jaehyun lives alone, but in March he’ll be starting his second year of medical school at Jeju University, so he’s not alone all the time in his big house like Johnny is. But Jaehyun also knows how to cook, hence the careful inspection of his fruit selection. Johnny thinks if he could cook, he’d get a lot more food too. Experiment. Have fun. Live a little. Open himself up enough to believe in more than just what he can see. “What about like . . . Bigfoot?” Johnny says.
Jaehyun puts three apples into his bag and goes to weigh them, not looking up at Johnny. “He’s standing right in front of me, so yes,” he says mildly as he does so. “Are you done—”
“Haha, very funny—The Loch Ness Monster—Nessie? Do you believe in Nessie?”
Jaehyun finishes with his apples and moves on in search of more produce, not commenting. Johnny follows.
“No? How can you not believe in Nessie—aliens? Do you believe in aliens?”
“I believe I said I believed in aliens—”
“How can you believe in aliens but not ghosts?” Johnny interrupts him. “What kind of person are you—”
“A reasonable one,” Jaehyun says, thrusting a tomato in Johnny’s face and making him go nearly cross eyed. “What do you think?”
Johnny fights the urge to stick out his tongue and lick the thing. “Uh, fine,” he says. “It’s fine”—Jaehyun’s expression is almost disappointed—“I mean, um, yum?” He hopes that’s the right answer. Rather suddenly, he realizes he’s been following Jaehyun for quite a while. He thinks he put ice cream in his basket before he found Jaehyun near the cereal. Maybe he should run it back into the freezer and grab it later.
Jaehyun pulls the tomato closer to himself and nods, humming. “As I said, it’s arrogant to think—”
“—we’re the only life in the universe, I know,” Johnny finishes, grumbling. “You’re weird,” he says. “I’m leaving.”
Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “You’re the one who’s following me,” he says.
“Yeah, well, you have dimples,” Johnny replies, then feels like an idiot and turns on his heel in search of the registers.
Thursday and Friday pass much of the same, with Johnny running into Jaehyun at the ice cream parlor, one department store, and outside the gym. Jaehyun doesn’t believe in astrology and he seems particularly unimpressed to find out Johnny is an Aquarius born in the year of the boar. He likes pistachio ice cream and buys beanies in forty degree weather—because it’s still January, and he likes hats. He’s sarcastic and he makes Johnny laugh, and he convinces him not to sign up for a gym membership.
“Just come over to my place instead,” he says, with his hair pushed out of his hair by a headband and a whole lot of skin on display. “My equipment is better.”
Your equipment is something, Johnny doesn’t say, because he does have a filter after all.
“I can spot you—there’s no down payment.”
Johnny is too distracted by how fucking pale he is without sleeves to do more than nod along.
On Saturday, Jaehyun makes good on his offer and Johnny ends up working out next to him, trying desperately not to say something stupid like, “I wish you’d worked at Swing with me; things would have been so much more fun,” or “wouldn’t it have been great if we met when we both lived in North America?”
On Sunday, Jaehyun takes Johnny down to see the best part of the beach, hounding him for having “douche sunglasses,” and then quite seriously trying to leave Johnny’s house in a t-shirt that says bullshit like “my other shirt is short.”
“You’re really making fun of my sunglasses when you’re wearing that?” Johnny says once they hit the sand, digging his toes into the heat of it and feeling grateful he took Jaehyun’s advice and got flip flops.
“It could have been worse,” Jaehyun says happily, swinging his shoes in one hand as he walks. “I once saw someone walking around with a shirt that said, ‘Sorry girls, I only date models.’”
Johnny barks out a laugh, and Jaehyun grins. “You’re joking,” Johnny says.
“Am not,” Jaehyun says. “I think it was a set, too, because I also saw him in one that said ‘#Handsome’—with the hashtag like the SNS thing.”
Johnny kicks sand at him. “Yes, I’m not ancient, Jaehyun-ah.”
Jaehyun grins. “I don’t know,” he says. “You’re a different generation.”
Johnny wonders if it would be possible to pick him up and run him close enough to toss into the ocean, but ultimately decides he ought to wait until they’re better friends; it feels like they’ve known each other for forever, but it has only been a little over a week. “Two years,” he says again.
“Different generation,” Jaehyun says again. “Anyway—” He’s interrupted by a woman, rushing past the two of them and nearly taking Jaehyun out in her wake.
Johnny reaches out a hand to steady them both, mouth open to start swearing, but Jaehyun cuts him off by reaching out his own hand to take hers, pulling her to her feet with a wide smile. “Ajumeoni,” he says, bending to pick up the sun hat that’s fallen into the sand off the woman’s gray head. “You dropped this.”
The woman takes the headwear with a wide smile, putting it back on her head without looking away from Jaehyun. “Thank you, Yuno-yah,” she says, patting his hand excessively. “Thank you—”
“Yuno?” Johnny hears himself say, even as Jaehyun steps pointedly on his foot and speaks pointedly out of the side of his mouth.
“My legal name—it’s a long story—I’ll tell you later—”
“And who’s this?” the woman says, still clutching Jaehyun’s hand but turning to face Johnny, now. Johnny wants to take a step back when he sees her eyes—massive behind her own sunglasses and seemingly staring into Johnny’s soul. “Have you found another young man? Yuno-yah.” The woman laughs, booming and quite like how Johnny likes to picture Grandma Suh. She does it right into Johnny’s face, though, so he takes a stumbling step backwards before he can help himself.
“Uh, Johnny Suh, ma’am,” he says, name coming out in almost a stutter. “Nice to meet you—”
“Johnny Suh.” The woman says Johnny’s name with careful over enunciation. “What a nice name. You’re a nice boy. You should keep him, Yuno-yah.”
Jaehyun gives the woman’s hands another quick shake, before pulling away from the hold she has on him, still smiling, although it’s a little brittle now. “Yes—I mean—I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ajumeoni—”
“Oh Yuno-yah,” the woman says. “How many times do I have to tell you? You don’t have to speak so formally with me. Call me Sungmi-noona—”
“Imo,” Jaehyun says instead, ears blushing at the very tips now. “It was good to see you.” He pats her on the hand one last time, and then reaches out to take Johnny by his. “Come on,” he says out of the side of his mouth as he does so, still smiling very, very wide. “Walk faster. Quick. Before she has time to realize she could catch us—”
“Another young man,” Johnny says, as he lets Jaehyun drag him away. “Another young man.” He grins. “How many young men do you have, Jaehyun-ah?”
Jaehyun’s eyes are tight and his mouth is a thin line. “None,” he says sharply, before softening when Johnny must suck in a breath. “I mean—there’s nothing wrong—I just don’t—Sungmi-ajumeoni is, erm.” He looks around, clearly searching for the right word. “Strange,” he settles for. “Half the time I think she thinks I’m her grandson. No, his name isn’t Yuno—mine is,” he adds, before Johnny can think too much about it. “My legal name, anyway. It’s a long story—”
Johnny gives his hand a squeeze, and Jaehyun seems to realize that they’re still holding hands, because his ears go even more red, and he very abruptly lets go.
“Oh, um,” he says. “Anyway—so my favorite stretch of beach—”
“Jaehyun-ah,” Johnny says carefully, because it really has only been several days, but he thinks . . . he wonders . . . maybe. “I’d have no problem if you had many ‘young men.’” He affords the words air quotes and waits.
Jaehyun’s ears blush even harder, but he meets Johnny’s eyes. “Well, good,” he says. “I mean. We should come out here sometime at night. It’s better. You can’t skinny dip in broad daylight.” He turns away from Johnny and starts walking.
Johnny jogs to keep up with him. “Skinny dipping?” he says loudly, laughing when a woman grabs her child by a hand and starts power walking away from them. “Skinny dipping?” He switches into English because he can; Jaehyun can keep up with him, even when he’s talking way too fast. “Jaehyun-ah.” He swaps back to Korean. “Are you sure my ailing heart could take it?”
Jaehyun snorts and walks closer to Johnny so that their sides brush. “Haven’t you been insisting that it’s only two years?”
Johnny purposefully knocks their shoulders together, and grins.
Johnny turns twenty-six one month into his stay on Jeju Island and feels . . . alone. He gets cable and internet and picks up more than a few job applications for things he is more than qualified for on and around the island, but more often than not he spends that month with Jaehyun, whose house is far cheaper than any gym and whose equipment is far nicer. Jaehyun’s still refusing to cook for Johnny, but Johnny likes spending time with Jaehyun, so he doesn’t care. Jaehyun seems to have no qualms about bringing ingredients over for Johnny to mess up, so it’s not like Johnny’s all that strapped for cash, or in desperate need of a paycheck. It’s nice. Johnny feels nice. Until his birthday, when he just feels all alone.
He has a screaming argument with his mother the morning of the ninth itself, ending with Johnny hanging up the phone near tears, and his mother—Johnny doesn’t know why he started yelling at her, only that once he’d started he’d been unable to stop, and a lot of the things he’d said were things he’d been feeling and thinking, but knew better than ever to say.
Why didn’t you give me any siblings?
Why didn’t you fight harder to make me stay in Chicago?
Why did you send me all by myself to this stupid house on Jeju Island, instead of coming with me, and helping me make it a home?
Johnny sets down the phone and covers his face with both hands and yells, doing his best not to be loud enough to attract attention from his neighbors—from Jaehyun—before going to put his phone on silent and leave it unattended on his bed.
He’s twenty-six.
Johnny is twenty-six.
He’s officially closer to thirty than twenty, and that’s using international age. In Korea, Johnny is twenty-seven. Johnny feels stretched thin and miserable.
The doorbell rings.
Johnny blinks.
It’s Jaehyun, because of course it is. His friend doesn’t seem to have noticed he’s come at a bad time, barging into Johnny’s house and taking off his shoes, already talking a mile a minute—he bought a record player, he’ll show Johnny a proper parlor, for dinner tonight Johnny should come over and let him cook and show him his favorite records, my treat.
Johnny looks at him and kind of wants to cry, he’s suddenly so emotional. He says nothing. He stands in the middle of the entryway of his massive mansion holding onto the door and says nothing, only looks at Jaehyun, who’s very rapidly growing concerned, and stops talking.
“Johnny-hyung?” he says finally. “Are you okay?”
“It’s my birthday,” Johnny gets out. “You—I—I thought you said you didn’t cook on the first date?”
Jaehyun blinks but doesn’t wish Johnny happy birthday like a normal person would. “Or the second,” he says. “Or the third—but—Johnny—what?” He drops the “hyung” off that iteration of Johnny’s name, and Johnny wonders how Jaehyun thinks of him—how formally. He swallows.
“Never mind,” he says. “You were telling me about the record player—”
“Johnny-hyung,” Jaehyun says.
Johnny just stares.
“Fine,” Jaehyun says. “Fine—I found it at that secondhand shop by the sandwich shop—you know the one.”
Johnny does, and he’s shocked to realize it; Jeju Island isn’t quite so foreign anymore after all. He wants very suddenly to hug Jaehyun, and it’s stupid. It’s not like Jaehyun brought it up on purpose.
“Hyung.” Jaehyun is staring at him with surprisingly knowing eyes. “You’re not listening to me. Listen. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know a little about messed up birthdays. Mine is on Valentine’s Day.”
Johnny blinks at him, thoughts suddenly in disarray. “Your birthday is on Valentine’s Day?” he says. “Jaehyunnie. That’s this Sunday. That’s so soon.”
Jaehyun rubs at the back of his neck with one hand, clearly embarrassed. “Look, Johnny-hyung, it’s not a big deal. You didn’t know—I don’t like to advertise it. I don’t really celebrate it—”
“Jaehyun-ah,” Johnny says. “Your birthday is on Sunday.”
Jaehyun freezes with his hand still clutching the back of his neck. “You’re going to make this a big deal,” he says finally.
“On Sunday,” Johnny reiterates, with puppy dog eyes, and downturned lips, and his best attempt at aegyo.
Jaehyun sighs. “Fine,” he says. “But only if you let me cook for you tonight, and”—he jabs a finger directly into the center of Johnny’s chest and pokes—“you tell me why you’re upset.”
Johnny opens his mouth to argue, not wanting to get into it, but also not wanting to ruin the mood.
“No buts,” Jaehyun says quickly, still stabbing a finger into Johnny’s sternum. “Come on, Hyung. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I am cooking for you on the fourth date.”
Johnny narrows his eyes. “What were the first three?”
Jaehyun finally stops poking him and begins counting them off on his fingers. “Monopoly. The beach. That time you came over to use my gym and fucking showed off like a fucker—”
Johnny can’t help but grin, thinking fondly of the look on Jaehyun’s face when Johnny had finished his usual set of core exercises.
Jaehyun is still listing—well past three now but seemingly uncaring. “—the wine shit—more fast food than I can possibly work off, no you are not right and ramyun will never be better than a home cooked meal—skinny dipping.”
Johnny gets all shuddery thinking about how he ended up naked in the ocean with a guy he’s known for almost four weeks, but he doesn’t regret the experience. Jaehyun was something in the moonlight and Johnny had fun. “Are you sure you’re a real medical student?” Johnny says. “You seem terribly bad at math.”
Jaehyun just sticks his tongue at him, pleased. “Whatever,” he says. “I’m cooking. Tell me your damage.”
“I miss my mom, is all,” Johnny says badly, unable to help himself. “Sorry—fuck—sorry—”
“Hyung.” Jaehyun puts a hand on Johnny’s arm, stilling him. “Don’t apologize. I get it. I miss my mom too.”
That’s the first bit of real information that Jaehyun has offered about himself, and Johnny can’t help but latch onto the scrap like a man possessed. “Where is—”
“Seoul,” Jaehyun offers immediately. “With my dad. It’s not North America, but.”
“It’s still a flight,” Johnny says. “It’s still a huge empty mansion.”
Jaehyun smiles at him, pretty and shy. “Yeah,” he says. “So, you’ll come over and let me cook?”
“Only if you let me spoil you on Sunday,” Johnny says.
“Deal,” Jaehyun says, sticking out his hand for Johnny to shake. Then he goes beautifully shy and drags Johnny in for the world’s quickest hug. “Uh, sorry, Johnny-hyung. I’m sure your mom misses you too—you should call her and tell her. She’ll understand.”
He’s out the door and back to his own house before Johnny can do more than digest that sentence, but Johnny still feels his own ears start to burn, and when he goes to splash water on his face in the guest bathroom, there are twin spots of color on the highs of both cheeks.
Oh.
Well.
So that’s. That’s a thing, then.
Jaehyun’s birthday ends up being pretty similar to Johnny’s birthday. Jaehyun cooks both times, Johnny laughs so hard he nearly snorts beer up his nose both times, but afterwards on Valentine’s Day, Jaehyun shows Johnny to a guest room, grinning, and warns him not to get lost in the bathroom.
Johnny says, “Very funny,” and slams the door in his way too pretty face. Then he takes a shower. He feels warm, and happy, and—fuck—a little bit in love, so a shower is the best solution. A long one, with more than a few rounds of body wash, and maybe a little bit of self-love—just to take the edge off. When he gets out his fingers have started to go a touch pruney, but Johnny just wraps a towel around his waist and stands in front of the mirror with his shaving kit. He’s glad that he had the foresight to bring a change of clothes, said shaving kit, and a toothbrush. He’s not about to shave now, certainly, but standing in front of the mirror laying out the tools lets him feel more than a little in control. He thinks he’s justified in needing control, giving the circumstances.
Jaehyun is . . . funny. And pretty. Good company. Nice.
Johnny is . . . warm. And happy. Clumsy. Drunk. More than a little bit in love—
He lays out the razor, then sets down the bottle of shaving cream. He closes his eyes. He opens his eyes. He looks in the mirror. He almost shrieks. There is a man in the mirror, staring straight back at him with his lips pulled up into a snarl. He has coal dark hair and coal dark eyes and a scar under one eye that kind of looks like a rose. In the two seconds it takes for Johnny to see him and almost bite through his own tongue to keep from outright screaming, he’s gone, and then it’s just Johnny in the bathroom, looking terribly frightened, but alone. He doesn’t turn around to make sure, because he isn’t that much of a cliché, but he does spend more time than necessary smoothing serum and moisturizer into his freshly washed skin, before leaving the bathroom and changing into pajamas.
He texts Jaehyun, lounging in the bed with one leg bent, because he’s clearly still a little drunk, and making shadows out of nothing—there’s a painting, hung on the wall by the window and angled just so it shows up in the mirror, and Johnny’s brain is playing drunk tricks on him, clearly.
Birthday boy-yah, he says. Your house is creepy.
Your house is creepy, Jaehyun replies immediately, with far fewer spelling errors. My house is an aesthetic.
Johnny has to input that into Naver dictionary, and when he’s done, he finds himself snorting with laughter. Aesthetically creepy, he says, sticking with English. And you bought it like this. I inherited mine from my Grand—he fumbles the keyboard and hits send—from grand—and again, which is embarrassing, because Johnny isn’t really that drunk, just happy—from a relative, Johnny ends up with. I’m allowed.
Burn the princess canopy, Johnny-hyung, Jaehyun says. You know you want to. I’ll go with you. We can make it a true illegal bonfire on the beach.
We’ve got to do something about your thing for breaking the law on beaches late at night, Johnny says.
If you wanted to see my naked ass again you just had to ask, Jaehyun says.
Johnny throws his head back and laughs. Go to bed, you idiot, he says. And then, tugging the covers up to his chin and turning off the bedside lamp, Happy birthday, Jaehyunnie-yah. I’m so glad that I got to know you.
He tries to go to sleep before he can see what it is Jaehyun’s said in response, but still manages to see when Jaehyun sends him four emoji—a peach (Johnny’s standing by what he said; the man’s ass is like a peach), popping champagne, the beach, and fire. Johnny goes to sleep grinning, utterly content.
He wakes up standing in complete darkness in a bedroom. There’s a bed and a TV, and a canopy that’s even uglier than the monstrosity hiding in a broom closet on the first floor of his own place. Everything is bathed in moonlight, but it’s not the room Johnny went to sleep in, so he must have sleep-walked. Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever sleep-walked before, but the room is completely foreign, so.
He takes a few steps towards the window, pulls open the curtain, and confirms that his house is still across the way. Past the rose bushes and the mountain laurel—Johnny doesn’t remember Jaehyun telling him that was what those were, but he knows, very suddenly, that they are. That’s Johnny’s house, so this must be Jaehyun’s. Although something about the house is off, now that Johnny looks at it. Or the sky? The sky is wrong. The season. Isn’t it . . . winter?
“Oh great, another one,” says a voice suddenly, and Johnny practically falls over in his haste to turn around. “A new one,” the voice continues, attached to a man—a boy—with dark hair and glasses. He’s not as tall as Johnny and gangly, wearing jean shorts and an oversized t-shirt, and scowling. The more shocking thing is the shoes he’s wearing—red Converse so worn they look like they’re barely hanging on—but inside the house—on Jaehyun’s nice wood floors.
“You,” Johnny manages. “Shoes.”
The boy glances down at his feet briefly, before shaking his head and coming closer to Johnny. “He probably won’t hear me anyway,” he says, which seems weird, since obviously Johnny can hear him—they even just had an exchange! “And if he does . . . no English!” That last bit comes out at a volume that makes Johnny’s ears hurt and he claps both hands over them. The kid seems to freeze, eyes darting between Johnny’s face, to his shoes again, then to Johnny’s hands, still covering his ears. “Wait,” he says. “Wait—can you—can you hear me?”
“Uh,” Johnny says, eyes darting around the kid in search of the nearest exit, trying to decide if it’s worth shouting for Jaehyun so that they can call the police or something. This kid must be trying to burgle Jaehyun. Johnny can’t have that. Johnny ought to tackle him. He doesn’t seem to have any weapons—and can’t be more than like twenty, honestly—but Johnny ought to—tackle? “I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about but, yes, English,” is what Johnny ends up saying, in English. It does absolutely nothing to help the situation.
The burglar kid’s mouth drops open and he stares. “Wait,” he says again. “Wait. You can hear me. You can see me.”
Johnny keeps staring at the burglar kid. “Yeah?” he says finally. “Why wouldn’t I be able to see you? Or hear you?” Maybe he should shout for Jaehyun so that they can call the police and an ambulance; the kid seems incredibly confused.
“Dude,” the burglar kid says. “Dude—Hyung.” He switches languages so quickly Johnny’s brain throbs, and Johnny is bilingual. “What day is it? What season—are you—are you here with Jaehyun-hyung?”
Johnny blinks. The burglar kid knows Jaehyun? Maybe he’s one of Jaehyun’s friends. “Uh,” he says. “February fourteenth? Valentine’s Day?”
“Jaehyun-hyung’s birthday,” the burglar kid says. Clearly, he’s not a burglar, if he knows that much. “Wow.”
“Yeah, um, who are you again—”
“It doesn’t matter.” The kid puts both hands on Johnny’s biceps and stares deep into Johnny’s eyes. Then he takes a deep, purposeful breath and steps closer and closer until Johnny has no choice but to let him get almost nose to nose because there’s nowhere for him to go—only the itch of curtains at his back, and a slice of moonlight coming in the window, making the tips of the kid’s hair almost start to glow. “Hyung,” the kid says. “Hyung. Hyung. Hyung.”
Johnny wonders if he’s just putting off a vibe that says he’s old, or something, because on second thought, the kid can’t be that young. “Yes?” he manages, pressing further into the curtain. “Look, nice to meet you, but maybe you should step back—”
“You need to leave, Johnny-hyung,” interrupts the kid and Johnny’s too busy noticing the kid is kind of pretty behind the glasses and the sickly pallor, to notice that he’s called him by his first name.
“What?” he tries to say, and then very suddenly, he’s back in the guestroom he went to sleep in, and the sun is in his eyes. Jaehyun is leaning in the doorway smirking at him with what looks like a full English breakfast balanced on the tray in his hands. Johnny blinks, feeling a little bit like he’s downed several tablespoons of Nyquil, and stares. There’s drool gathering in the corner of Johnny’s mouth. He very quickly wipes at it, clearing his throat. “What—yes—Jaehyun—” That’s . . . Johnny’s awake, clearly, and back in bed—that was a dream, wasn’t it, a weird, alcohol induced dream about . . . gosh . . . Converses? Johnny can’t remember, and his head hurts. He settles for smiling up at Jaehyun. “Good morning,” he tries.
Jaehyun’s lips curve into a much less devious smile. Then he tosses a dishtowel directly into Johnny’s face with his right hand. “Get up, loser, we’re going shopping.”
Johnny can only reach for the terry cloth, too disoriented for the sudden English. “What—”
“You heard me.” Jaehyun’s back to speaking Korean now, and when Johnny drags the towel off his face, he gets to see how Jaehyun is able to keep the tray balanced on one palm with what has to be practiced ease, while he grabs an apple off of it and takes a large, crunching bite with the other. “You clearly need new pajamas,” Jaehyun says. “You’re missing half of yours.”
Johnny looks down at his clearly exposed bare chest and squeaks, dragging the blanket up to his chin again and—fuck—blushing—fuck—he’s. Fuck. What was he doing, before this? Sleeping? Johnny was just—Jaehyun is still smirking at him and chewing happily on his perfectly red apple. Johnny throws the towel back at him and misses horribly. “You—shut up,” he says. “You—haven’t you heard of knocking—”
“It’s my house, Johnny-hyung,” Jaehyun says, although he does retreat out of the doorway a little in case Johnny decides to throw something else at him. There’s only a lamp and his cellphone, and while only one of those things seems like overkill, the other cost way too much for Johnny to risk breaking it open on Jaehyun’s very pretty head.
“Your creepy house,” Johnny says, pointing wildly at him while still holding the blankets up to cover his—well, not his modesty because Johnny is not a hero in a Victorian novel thank you very much—just. It’s too early in this friendship for—okay that would have held more water if they hadn’t already gone skinny dipping. What is . . . what is Johnny saying? Why does his head hurt?
“You said that already,” Jaehyun tells him happily, just poking his head in this time. “Now come on. Breakfast. And we really should go shopping. You only wear like three shirts.”
Johnny is appalled and insulted; he brought five shirts when he packed up and moved house and the rest of his wardrobe is just in storage because it was too much of a hassle to fly it to Jeju. “How dare you—”
“Breakfast, Johnny-hyung. And pocari sweat—do you need painkillers? That thing on your arm looks painful. I told you not to get lost in the bathroom, but I really should have said don’t trip and fall in the bathroom.” Jaehyun’s voice tapers off, but Johnny just keeps blinking at the empty doorway, more than a little confused.
“That thing on my arm?” As soon as he asks he feels it, and Johnny hisses and reaches up to rub the skin of his right bicep. The bruise there is purple and ugly and certainly the sort of thing that might have been the product of tripping in Jaehyun’s extremely fancy guest bathroom. Johnny doesn’t remember doing that, but Johnny also doesn’t remember making nearly so many typos when texting Jaehyun the night before. And clearly he did that, since they’re the first thing Johnny sees when he unlocks his phone. He called Jaehyun “Birthday Boy-yah.” Johnny will never live this down.
“Hyung!” Jaehyun shouts. “Breakfast!”
Johnny stops thinking about the bruise on his arm, and goes to put on clothes.