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September smelled a specific way. Top notes of sunscreen, the bottle almost empty from constant use during the summer months. Middle notes of rice powder as dough is kneaded into songpyeon in preparation for celebrating Chuseok with loved ones. And base notes of the blossoming chrysanthemum trees, lining cobblestoned streets, delicate floral aroma laced hand in hand with its contrasting acidic bitterness. A perfect metaphor for leaving behind the summer in turn for welcoming autumn.
September also smelled like citrus, sandalwood, and the cheap dollar store shampoo that Euijoo insisted on using until the very last drop, traces of the fragrance engraved deep into the threads of Nicholas’s pillowcases.
September also smelled like vanilla frosting, and the acrid smoke from wishes being made on Euijoo’s seventeenth birthday.
Nicholas remembered it smelling exactly like this last year too, but he also recalled the sour trail of the unfamiliar miyeok-guk wafting from the porcelain bowl set before Euijoo by his mother. His mother had flitted about the house, fixing unnecessary crooked paintings and dusting invisible surfaces, all under the nervous pressure of having their foreign guest over.
It was the first time Nicholas stepped in Euijoo’s house.
Nicholas had never allowed himself to set foot in classmates’ houses before then. Abandoning his shoes at the front door—nothing but thin socks separating him from the well-loved linoleum tiles—meant leaving a piece of himself in a stranger’s home. Touching a doorknob, taking a glass of water, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror; it was all evidence that he had existed somewhere. Proof that Nicholas could be remembered where he went.
Possibly more terrifying than the prospect of being perceived, was the concept of having a space you could call your own. Nicholas didn’t know what that feeling was like, before he met Euijoo.
Nicholas liked to categorize his life before and after Byun Euijoo.
He couldn’t confidently remember much of the before. Before, his walls were always bare and surfaces left open; never enough time to put his belongings on display. His sheets were always too thin, too cheap, and too scratchy. Luxury exchanged for convenience.
Before, he was whisked left and right from city to city, such was the routine of a military family. By the time his eyes had begun adjusting to the light of a new bedroom, he was being pulled against the current to his next temporary home. Nicholas never found the time to become acquainted with his surroundings, let alone his classmates, terrified that the next friendly face he found solace in would become tomorrow’s latest stranger.
Setting foot in another’s home, to Nicholas, meant something.
That’s why his entire world was sent into a spiral when the scrawny underclassman with glasses crooked and too big for his face approached Nicholas after school. He was adorned with half of a fencing uniform, the material swallowing his gangly frame comically. A stark contrast to Nicholas’s scarce excuse for clothes that he wore to his own badminton practices.
Nicholas’s head was already halfway down to get a drink from the water fountain when the soft voice interrupted him.
“You’re new, right?” The boy had breached, hand extended weakly.
And Nicholas stared, unapologetically, eyes wide at the boy before him as the water fountain trickled out, thrumming against the metal of the basin beneath it. Round bowl cut, tanned skin, and smile so big it filled his cheeks out completely.
Nicholas felt like the wind got knocked out of him.
His family had landed in Goyang only weeks before the new school year. What little boxes they brought with them were still sitting half-unpacked and strewn about their apartment. Nicholas started his junior year shortly after, and was still learning the names of the neighboring streets, struggling with the new language.
He couldn’t find the words to respond, tongue heavy in his mouth and his Korean so amateur he was positive whatever came tumbling out would send the other retreating down the hall. But still, he wanted to try.
So Nicholas told him that, yes he is new. It came out lopsided and upside down, but the stranger seemed to get the point, if his beaming smile was any indication.
Euijoo, Nicholas learned, was in the class below him, despite the two being born in the same year. And he also discovered that he was easy to run into, even being in separate classes. They spend weeks passing one another in the hallway, and bumping into each other at their lockers.
Euijoo always had something to say to Nicholas. Nicholas never knew how to say anything back.
Slowly, but surely, they become entangled in each other’s routines. And yet, it still surprised Nicholas when Euijoo approached him in the hallways on a random September afternoon, and invited him to his sixteenth birthday party.
Maybe Euijoo was the kind of goody-two-shoes to invite the new kid over to his party out of pure pity. But Nicholas had been raised to not place those kinds of labels on somebody without properly knowing them first. Besides, it would be good practice for his Korean. So, he leapt.
And that was how Nicholas found himself pressed elbow to elbow with several of Euijoo’s friends and classmates around his pine kitchen table. He had been terrified to cross the threshold at first, barely knowing any of the other boys at the party. If Nicholas left his shoes at the front door, would he be able to go back? Would this be yet another friendship that he regretted making in this temporary refuge?
But the gourmand smell of artificial icing on Euijoo’s cake comforted him, in a weird way. It brought him back to a childhood memory of street food sweets in Taiwan. His eyes met Euijoo’s from across the kitchen, even though Euijoo had other people to entertain and give his attention to.
For a fleeting moment, Euijoo saw Nicholas. Whether it was simple sympathy for the stranger, or something deeper, Nicholas didn’t mind the way Euijoo’s caramel eyes warmed his entire body from the inside out.
Euijoo’s home was so comforting to Nicholas, in fact, that he kept returning even after the birthday party. The first time, Euijoo’s mother was ecstatic that their foreign guest had returned. She excitedly asked Nicholas about his hometown, and all the other places his family had lived.
The tenth time that Nicholas crossed the threshold, she didn’t even bat an eyelash anymore.
He talked about sports with Euijoo’s dad, and fashion with his older sister. Euijoo’s sister had taken a particular liking to asking Nicholas for advice on her outfits, trusting his opinion more than others. And through every interaction, Nicholas learned more and more Korean.
Nicholas learned that Euijoo was actually a lot more playful than he originally gave off. Nicholas had assumed Euijoo would be a stiff teacher’s pet. He didn’t expect the other to match his humor on levels so terrifyingly familiar it made his bones ache.
Euijoo understood Nicholas in a way he had only ever yearned to be understood before. He could catch when Nicholas’s mood shifted in the slightest direction. And he always knew how to make things better. Sometimes, when Nicholas looked at Euijoo’s face, or into his eyes, he swore he could feel a piece of his own soul staring back at him. When Euijoo moved left, Nicholas was pulled with him. When Euijoo moved right, Nicholas became a fool to follow suit.
Euijoo didn’t ever pressure him to go over to Nicholas’s place, but Nicholas knew he was thinking about it. It didn’t seem to bother Euijoo that they spent most of their time together at his own home, but Nicholas still felt a little silly at the prospect of being ashamed of his makeshift bedroom.
When they finally hung out there, Nicholas tried his hardest to lower Euijoo’s expectations. He didn’t know what expectations he could possibly have, but he knew that Euijoo couldn’t be let down or disappointed in him if he didn’t have high hopes to begin with.
“Watch your step,” Nicholas joked dryly as Euijoo tip-toed into his nearly barren bedroom. And yet, despite the mattress on the floor and the lamp on the overturned moving box being the centerpieces of the room, he still graced Nicholas with a bright smile. Like his joy was enough of a housewarming gift to fill every empty corner and bring the space alive.
Euijoo’s presence filled up Nicholas’s empty parts.
He found, with time, that he didn’t really care much about physical possessions when Euijoo was with him. Euijoo showed up unannounced, arms full of blankets and DVD cases, coloring Nicholas’s room with woven fibers and TV static. It doesn’t even bother Nicholas that the room feels emptier when Euijoo leaves, because having him there to begin with was enough.
Before long, with the rushing wave of fresh spring blossoms and invigorating breaths of clean April air, Nicholas realized he was in love with Euijoo.
It made sense. The way he felt when Euijoo was around was electrifying enough to dull the persistent terror he felt at the prospect of having to move away again and lose him. But when Nicholas’s dad got the notice that they would definitely be in Goyang for the next couple of years, Nicholas summoned the courage to take the leap.
The admission was simple, and sweet. Whispered confessions in the dark outside of Euijoo’s house, dropping him off after a movie. Something that definitely could have been classified as a date if Nicholas had been braver about 3 hours earlier.
The street lights cast beautiful, artistic strokes across Euijoo’s features, softening him even more than Nicholas thought was humanly possible. He whispered how beautiful Euijoo was, and then they kissed under the moonlight. Like it was something they were always meant to do.
Summer romance brought the smells of larkspur and lilies, bundled into delicate bouquets. Fresh laundry drifted in through the open windows of Nicholas’s apartment, now more decorated with possessions. Less terrified of the sudden uproot.
“Eujioo!” Maki, Nicholas’s little brother, enveloped Nicholas’s now boyfriend into a barreling hug, nearly knocking him off of his feet. Maki loved whenever Euijoo visited, turning all of his attention to him instead of his own brother.
Their family didn’t know they had started dating, but the way Maki followed Euijoo around like a lost puppy, and the way he would sneak glances to Nicholas’s face whenever he was over, Nicholas had a feeling Maki wouldn’t mind the truth all that much.
“Hey kid, ready to get your butt kicked?” Euijoo ruffled the younger’s hair, toeing his shoes off in the entryway and smiling at Nicholas.
They played round after round of Mario Kart, Euijoo silently letting Maki beat him even though Nicholas knew that Euijoo was better at video games than he let on. Euijoo was good at seemingly everything. Nicholas was constantly discovering new things about him to make his feelings grow stronger, like the sizzling embers nestled at the bottom of a June campfire.
When they weren’t alternating whose place they were inhabiting, they spent their days exploring Goyang, and eventually venturing to Seoul. Nicholas learned a lot about the city, and he learned he liked Euijoo’s face the most when he was explaining his favorite places.
Nicholas also liked Euijoo’s face the most when they were trying to keep quiet, bodies warm against each other under Euijoo’s sheets. The fan at full blast didn’t do much to help lower the summer heat bearing down in the small space between them. They fumbled, clashing against each other as they learned how each other’s bodies worked for the first time. For Euijoo, it was his first time doing anything of the sorts, especially with another boy. For Nicholas, it was the first time he had ever felt this in love.
Summer turned back into a new school year, and their cycle started all over again. Nicholas was a senior, and Euijoo was starting his junior year. There lived an unspoken question of what will Nicholas do after high school; where will he go? Both of them are too terrified to speak it out loud.
So, they tried their best to live their lives normally. They kept their usual routines, and Nicholas pushed any thoughts of potentially leaving Euijoo behind to the furthest corner of his already vacant closet.
His plan was working out perfectly, until his badminton coach presented Nicholas with the opportunity to go to University in Taipei. Full ride.
The more that Nicholas tossed the proposition around in his head, the more he liked the sound of it. After all, he was someone who had been conditioned his entire life to never stay nestled in one place for too long. He was feeling the tell-tale itch of needing to stretch his legs and move. Even if it was a habit that he didn’t even want. Even if the desire to flee was engrained in him from birth.
And it would be the opportunity to finally return home that he had been yearning for. He could finally try and make up for all of the lost time that he spent in other countries his whole life. So, he bravely told Euijoo as much.
He half-expected Euijoo to get upset with him, betrayed by the sudden proposition at spending the next few years so far apart. But Nicholas was shocked at Euijoo’s support instead. Sweet Euijoo: the type of person to always put other’s feelings before his own. Even if it hurt him inside, you would never know it. The type of forgiving that Nicholas could never be.
He balanced out Nicholas’s desires to go to Taiwan with his own dreams of studying abroad. Nicholas learned that Euijoo had been thinking about college abroad since freshman year, a conversation that had never come up between the two of them. And Nicholas felt shame burn hot in the back of his neck that he never bothered to ask before. That he so selfishly assumed his own future would steer Euijoo’s, when Euijoo had an entire life of his own to live.
Euijoo was smart, could probably get a scholarship anywhere he wanted, could probably learn any language in the world. When Nicholas proposed he follow him to Taiwan, Eujioo had kissed his lips apologetically.
“We’ll see,” was all he had said.
And they tried to pass the time of the semester normally. Euijoo showed up to Nicholas’s house more and more. Nicholas felt his heart strings pull tighter, threatening to snap, at the image of Maki growing more attached to Euijoo every time. He didn’t have the heart to remind the kid that he probably wouldn’t be seeing Euijoo around much after he leaves for college.
He still had months, and he was being melodramatic about the whole thing. He knew that. But at least it fueled the time that he spent with Euijoo; romance and desire etched into every corner of days spent with one another. Every time Nicholas kissed Euijoo, he treated it like it was the last time. Just in case.
There was a school dance in the winter time. They didn’t go as each other’s dates, at least not openly. But they still dressed up and hovered around each other as their friends tried to make moves on the girls they had been crushing on. The boys’ hands brushed every so often like they were afraid of confessing their feelings. Like everything was new; like they weren’t already the most intimately familiar with one another that they could possibly be. They made up for the event later in Euijoo’s kitchen, slow dancing gently under the soft lighting. And Euijoo made it up to him even more in the dead of night, pressing apologies into Nicholas’s skin, into his mattress.
Euijoo didn’t seem worried about college. If anything, Nicholas could swear Euijoo was a little too excited for the both of them. He tried not to let it get to him. He didn’t want to sour his own mood and bring Euijoo down with made up scenarios and a version of an evil Euijoo who just wanted to get rid of him; one that didn’t actually exist.
Euijoo, like always, could sense something was off with him. He didn’t allow for Nicholas to spiral into the tidal wave of his own nasty, volatile thoughts.
“It’s going to be okay,” he would whisper. He pressed sweet kisses infused with promises into Nicholas’s pouting lips. “We love each other, right? Whatever happens, we’ll make it work.” Nicholas envied his confidence. Where Nicholas tried his best to fake a personality that was cool and collected, Euijoo was all of those things without even trying.
And they did love each other. They said it all the time. They said it in between classes, whispered in the hollow of their lockers like a secret. They said it over the phone, when they didn’t have time to see one another face to face. They said it through text messages, cute emoticons tacked on at the end. And they said it tangled up in their bedsheets, panted out through labored breaths into each other’s open, beckoning mouths.
Nicholas loved Euijoo like he was a most treasured, sacred artifact. No, a deity; too precious and important to be compared to an object. The eighth wonder of the world. And he hoped with everything within him that Euijoo loved him back just as much. Just like he said he did.
Nicholas didn’t know he would fall in love like this, in the middle of Goyang, in a language he still tripped and stumbled over. In a school with gray hallways and a water fountain that sputtered pathetically and uncertain. In a bedroom with more cardboard boxes than memories.
The first time that Euijoo brought up Japan, Nicholas’s dam finally broke. All of the walls he had been building up to protect himself from hypothetical disaster came crumbling down in one fell swoop. He knew that Euijoo had been heavily considering going abroad to a different country than him, but he had selfishly prayed Euijoo would change his mind and follow him to Taiwan. They fought, and Nicholas said things he couldn’t take back even if he jabbed a screwdriver into his soul and spun it pathetically like a VHS tape.
But eventually, Euijoo forgave him. He always did. It made Nicholas sick to his stomach, upsetting someone so kind and patient; someone who would forgive Nicholas even if he held a knife against his throat. Euijoo would probably find a way to justify why Nicholas would ever do such a thing.
When spring finally arrived again, they took a long walk through Yeouido. Nicholas scooped up the scattered sakura petals, and stuffed them into his pockets, to Euijoo’s confusion. But later, under the dim kitchen light in Euijoo’s home, Nicholas pressed the petals in between the pages of Euijoo’s textbooks.
“The ones in Japan will probably be a lot prettier,” Nicholas mumbled.
Euijoo only stared at him with those doe eyes, impossibly warmer when overflowing with affection. He said, “but these are better. They’re the only ones pressed by you.”
An olive branch.
They tried their best to make the most of the remaining months. It was difficult: Euijoo caught up with student council duties, and Nicholas too busy preparing to graduate. But they would still find the time for little things. Movie dates at home, even though Nicholas needed to be studying. Walks through the neighborhood. Euijoo tossing a baseball to Maki in the front yard. Nicholas’s throat closed up at the implications of all of it.
To love this hard, to cherish everything he was terrified of losing, only to know the inevitable end was near anyways.
Graduation felt like being asleep. Nicholas floated across the stage, and accepted his diploma without ever feeling its weight in his hand. When Nicholas took pictures with his friends and family, he had to keep things platonic with Euijoo. There was no grand romantic gesture of flowers, only the weight of Euijoo’s shaking hand slung over his shoulder for the camera. If Euijoo had cried during the ceremony, all traces of it were already wiped clean.
Nicholas hated seeing Euijoo like this. He hated how Euijoo was only putting on about 25% of his real personality in favor of putting Nicholas’s feelings first. How all of the tears he had shed leading up to the end of the school year suddenly ran dry, just for today. But there was still so much unspoken emotion buzzing between the two of them. Fear, uncertainty, anxiety, all mixed together in one big explosive pot waiting to blow.
Nicholas knew that he wouldn’t be breaking up with Euijoo when he graduated, but he was still sick with the knowledge that things would never be the same again. He would never be the seventeen-year-old version of himself that he was watching Spirited Away with Euijoo for the first time. He would never be able to experience the way Euijoo’s eyes lit up, reflections of paper lanterns dancing in his irises, for the first time ever again.
He would never be able to re-experience turning eighteen that summer, only weeks away from his departure to Taiwan, with Euijoo’s limbs wrapped around his in determination. They both tried to press purple bruises into each other’s skin; like if they bit hard enough the marks would stay there permanently, a tattoo of their time together. Euijoo cried when they finished, his tears finally returned. “Don’t go,” whined over and over like a plea into the crook of Nicholas’s neck. Maybe Euijoo thought if he said it enough times, it would convince both of them that Nicholas didn’t have a plane ticket haphazardly stuffed into his backpack in the corner of the room.
But the plane was always going to come, and Nicholas was always going to get on board.
The flight to Taipei that summer felt like days, instead of a measly couple of hours. As soon as Nicholas had landed, he called Euijoo. They talked for hours. Euijoo asked Nicholas questions like he had already been settled into the country for months.
“How’s the weather? Have you eaten anything delicious yet? Do you recognize any places?” It was sweet, the way that Euijoo cared. The way he was obviously trying to calm the storms raging in both of their heads, and support Nicholas despite being obviously sad. It made Nicholas want to forget all about college. To swim across the East China Sea, and come home to Euijoo.
“I don’t know how to do this without you,” Nicholas whispered into the speaker. His single dorm felt even colder and more empty than his room back in Goyang. At least there, he had Euijoo whose warmth could reach from each corner and illuminate the middle. At least in Goyang, he had security. Here, even in a place full of people who spoke his first language, he felt completely out of his skin.
“You’re going to do great, I’m sure you’ll make friends fast,” Euijoo reassured him. “Everyone is going to love you. I know I do.”
Nicholas knew that Euijoo’s smile probably wasn’t quite reaching his eyes as he said it. He didn’t have the strength to admit out loud that it didn’t matter to him that other people loved him as much as it mattered that Euijoo did.
But of course, because Euijoo at the end of the day still knew Nicholas better than he knew himself, he was right. Nicholas made friends faster than he anticipated. Some on the badminton team, some in his major, some randomly on the street. People naturally flocked to him, even if he couldn’t understand why. When he started to get in his head about it, he closed his eyes, and forced himself to imagine a Nicholas through Euijoo’s eyes. A Nicholas that was loveable. A Nicholas that was loved.
“Let me see!” Rui, one of Nicholas’s friends in his photography class, tried to snatch his phone out of his hand. “I need to see exactly who is giving you such heart eyes.” And Nicholas wasn’t embarrassed of his boyfriend, but more shy to hand over the vulnerable memories he left behind. Looking at Euijoo through his screen, instead of through his own eyes, was torture.
A low whistle fluttered across the table. “He’s so cute, I get why you’re sighing all the time now,” said Ricky, another student from abroad just like Nicholas. He felt comfort in these people. They helped him feel less alone. And it was so nice to dust off his rusty Mandarin. But swapping out a language he wasn’t particularly fluent in for another language he hadn’t practiced in years was less than ideal. Like Nicholas’s entire life moving around, nothing ever felt like it truly belonged to him: a familiar bedroom, a comfortable language, a stable relationship. He struggled sometimes to even understand who he really was.
Sometimes, Nicholas wondered if all he boiled down to was belonging to Euijoo. That was where he felt the most at home anyways. The most like himself.
His friends continued to ooh and ahh over lunch, while Nicholas’s thoughts drifted somewhere far away. To an Euijoo-shaped island.
“You should have him visit during Christmas break,” Rui suggested. Nicholas thought it would be nice to show Euijoo around Taipei much like he did with Goyang. Nicholas would have to re-learn the terrain for himself first. He thought about scoping out all of the best restaurants for food he thought Euijoo would enjoy. He even got giddy at the idea of Euijoo staying over in his solo dorm room. It would be their first time sleeping in the same bed without the stress of either of their parents overhearing them. They wouldn’t have to be a secret, for once in their lives.
Nicholas suggested it to Euijoo late in October. “I wanted to put it out there now, so you’d have time to prepare and pack, and stuff,” he said half-minded, twirling his pencil between two fingers. Euijoo was quiet for a long time on the other end.
“I don’t know if my parents would want me going over there during my winter break, Nico.” The silence drags out deafening. It wasn’t the first time Euijoo hadn’t sounded himself, since he left. In the weeks before, every time Nicholas tried to set aside time for them to talk, Euijoo had an excuse. He seemed exhausted, but Nicholas didn’t push.
“Well…” he stopped himself. Twisted, black shadows crawled up his walls. They distorted the posters Nicholas had finally been allowed to plaster there. They taunted him. They made him want to say so many things. He wanted to reach his arms through the phone screen and grab Euijoo’s shoulders. He wanted to shake him and scream, “don’t you want to see me? Don’t you love me anymore?!”
“Just think about it, okay?” Is what he settled on instead. “If you’re worried about money, I can cover it. I just want to see you.”
He heard Eujioo swallow over the phone. “Sure.”
Euijoo didn’t come for Christmas. He didn’t come for Valentine’s Day either. Nicholas tried to go to Korea. Whenever there was a break in classes, a spare weekend, a spring break, he was prepared to dump all of his life savings onto his filthy carpet and count every penny like a pathetic beggar. He would drag his hopeless body through the salty black sea if it meant Euijoo would be waiting at the shoreline to dry him off and carry him home. He would do anything to taste Euijoo’s mother’s seaweed soup again.
But the calls became more scarce. The excuses stopped making any sense. And soon, everything stopped.
“We should end this.” There was no fighting. There was no crying, begging, pleading, yelling. None of it. Nicholas’s body slumped over in his bed, exhausted from school, exhausted from loving too hard. Too much. Too much, too much, too much. Everything always too much. Everything never enough at the same time.
“Yeah. I guess we should,” Euijoo agreed. Both of them sounded tired, neither of their hearts in it anymore. And by the time Nicholas’s nineteenth birthday rolled around, Euijoo didn’t call him.
Nicholas had never dated before, and therefore, had never gone through a breakup in his life. He thought if he ever lost Euijoo, it would be explosive. He imagined thick, torrent tears, ugly sobbing, and fighting every day tooth and nail to get him back. The reality looked more like staying in bed all day, neglecting all other responsibilities. It looked like Nicholas staring out of the subway window at the concrete walls flashing by, numbness filling his insides.
It was because Nicholas loved Euijoo so much, because he valued Euijoo’s feelings, that he didn’t try to contact him back. Things had been amicable; maybe Euijoo needed time alone to focus on school. Maybe Euijoo was growing up, changing into a new person who needed to be by himself to figure things out. Maybe Euijoo lost interest, hated him even, found someone new…
The fake, imaginary, evil Euijoo twisted alive behind Nicholas’s eyelids. Sharper features adorned with devil horns and spewing ideology Nicholas knew deep down was made up. If Nicholas had originally wanted to spend his life growing alongside Euijoo, why couldn’t Euijoo want the same with him? Wasn’t he good enough? Every time he thought about it more, the flames grew higher, hotter, stronger.
His friends tried their best to carry him through the fire. They took him out partying and clubbing more often to distract him, but Nicholas was hardly mentally present for any of it. He didn’t even enjoy drinking that much, couldn’t hold any of it the way his friends could. He wondered if Euijoo enjoyed drinking. He wondered if Euijoo would be stronger than him. He wondered if Euijoo would carry him home from a night out, and tuck him safely into bed.
Instead, Nicholas returned to his dorm alone every time. He never even went home with anyone. He couldn’t. None of them were Euijoo.
Everything reminded him of Euijoo. Vanilla cake. Cherry blossoms. Citrus. A dog chasing a stray cat down cobblestone roads. Building Legos with his friends. A Mario Kart tournament in his dormitory. A fencing match on television. Movies, any movie, every movie. The empty space next to his pillow. The entire month of September.
Nicholas wondered if every person going through a breakup felt like they were slowly dying with each passing day. He bet Euijoo would know the answer to that too. Euijoo knew everything.
Whenever he got the itch to call or text him, he replaced his number with Maki’s instead. It was nice, hearing his brother’s voice and catching up on his life instead of the dramatic failures of Nicholas’s own. But of course, because the universe is cruel, Maki would still always ask how Euijoo was doing. And because Nicholas was sick, and a horrible older brother, he lied.
He said that Euijoo was doing great. He didn’t know why, but he asked if Euijoo still came around the house after he left for school. He hates that he gets more upset when Maki obviously says no. But Maki at least didn’t push it further, even though they both knew there was something darker underlying every conversation surrounding Nicholas’s “friend.”
“Hang in there,” was the courage that Maki offered to him. And Nicholas cradled it like a firefly, tiny light illuminating a jar of hope in the corner of his room.
The rest of university felt like moving through molasses. Months and semesters crawled by, but eventually, through some miracle, Nicholas was able to salvage a pathetic scrap pile of his own sense of self. He found a sense of humor, a passion for dancing, a found family of a friend group, and refined his taste in fashion.
Fashion, he would come to find out, was a lot more important than anyone could have ever prepared him for. To some, fashion was a way of expressing yourself. To Nicholas, fashion took the form of a full-time job in Tokyo.
When his photography professor approached him with the proposition, Nicholas could only stare at the job listing with his jaw swung open. An editorial photographer for a major fashion brand in Tokyo. Because when you’re an art major, and you have the type of outgoing personality that Nicholas did, your professors could hook you up with those sorts of connections, apparently.
The whole conversation felt eerily familiar to when his high school badminton coach handed him a full-ride scholarship on a silver platter. Nicholas kept being graced with good luck, even when he felt like he didn’t deserve it. How could he deserve for things to keep coming so easily to him, when he had abandoned Euijoo? When he had broken apart the only relationship that had ever meant anything to him. When he was the monster he saw behind his eyelids the entire time.
He accepted the job. Because, in his own reasoning, it was just another fresh start. It wouldn’t be living for Nicholas if it wasn’t in a new city. Besides, Japan was a country his family had yet to set foot in when he was moving around as a kid. It would be a new adventure. If he kept telling himself that, he could convince himself (and Rui) that he wasn’t going for nefarious purposes. Like locating an ex that you broke up with.
Nicholas didn’t even know if Euijoo actually ended up in Japan; had no way of knowing. He didn’t torture himself with keeping tabs on his social media, or hounding any of their mutual friends after they ended things. Nicholas might have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t strong enough to take in the images of Euijoo being happy without him. It made him cynical and selfish, but it kept his heart safe.
Besides, even if Euijoo was in Japan, what if he wasn’t in Tokyo? What if Nicholas never found him again? Why was he even going? If he found Euijoo, what was the end goal? They were broken up. Amicably. Maybe Euijoo had truly become someone unrecognizable. He wouldn’t be the same Euijoo that he was when Nicholas left him behind.
However, now, he would be a grown-up version of Euijoo that Nicholas could re-learn and map out. That small possibility alone was what lit the fire in his belly.
Adjusting to another new country with another new language had been less than ideal for Nicholas. Japanese was far more difficult than anyone could have prepared him for. His tongue wrapped awkwardly around the syllables, and the alphabets mocked him as they danced circles around each other on his textbook pages. He didn’t remember English or Korean being this hard, but he figured the part of learning Korean was so easy thanks to Euijoo. He imagined it was Euijoo scolding him instead of the Japanese tutor he paid to go to twice a week.
He also practiced with his coworkers, and the models and celebrities that they photographed. Nicholas was told the way he spoke was charming in a way, and it made people feel more inclined to talk to him. The Nicholas that was loveable was approached by their clients, invited to exclusive parties. Another gift of luck from the universe, just to make Nicholas sure that he wasn’t actually crazy.
One of them in particular was after a red carpet event, hosted by one of the models. Koga Yudai was a celebrity, a famous dancer with a huge reputation across the whole country. But the guy was also earnest, and warm, and wanted everyone in the crew to feel appreciated. He approached Nicholas like an old friend, messaging him the address to the underground club.
Inside, Nicholas was reminded how much he hated partying. The lights were too bright, the music was too loud, and he felt out of his skin as bodies unfamiliar to him tried to brush against his own. He wished Rui or Ricky were there instead. He really wished it was Euijoo more than anything, but he forced that desire out of his head with another swig of his drink.
Eventually, it got to be too much, and Nicholas made his way to dip out of the club. He wasn’t raised to not thank the person who invited him, so he tried to find Yudai to say goodbye. When he spotted the head of blonde hair, the dancer was leaning across the bar, laughing far too hard at whatever joke the bartender was telling him. And beside Yudai, was another man.
Nicholas’s body knew what was happening before his brain was able to catch up. But everything felt like watching a car crash in slow motion.
The man slowly turned at the feeling of a stranger approaching. Eventually, his eyes locked onto Nicholas, and took him in like a creature with three heads. His round eyes widened to an impossible size, mouth dropped open agape, and Nicholas watched as the wind was physically knocked out of him. Nicholas wanted to run away, but his feet felt bolted to the floor. He never expected this would happen at all, let alone so soon. Only months into living in Japan, here he was. The very reason he even came here in the first place.
Byun Euijoo.
He somehow had gotten even taller than when Nicholas left him. His hair was dyed lighter, and styled in neat, loose curls. He was dressed nicely, like a grown up. He was unbelievably, unbearably handsome. He was different now, yet still the same Euijoo that Nicholas had been in love with since he was sixteen.
“Euijoo,” Nicholas choked it out before he could stop himself, voice barely heard above the thrum of the bass. Euijoo looked like he wanted to say something back, but Yudai swung around, lanky arms nearly knocking him over, clearly drunk. Nicholas wished he was drunk enough to deal with this. Wished he was positively wasted. Maybe then he wouldn’t have had to face the adult, more handsome version of his ex lover.
He learned that night that Euijoo had become a journalist after college. It’s strange, Euijoo wanted to go to college for teaching, he wondered how his life had led him down this path instead. Nicholas wanted to peel him like a human tangerine; dig into every layer of Euijoo’s life since he had been gone and learn what changed, when, why? Who are you now? What did you get up to while we were apart?
Did you think of me? Do you still love me? I still love you.
It was strange. Nicholas had always imagined reuniting with Euijoo to feel like fireworks. He fantasized of a crushing embrace, happy tears streaked down their cheeks, and forgiveness pressed into their lips. Instead, it looked more like a spark struggling to catch onto the wick.
They kept running into each other; similar lines of work and mutual acquaintances continuing to tighten the invisible string tied around the two of them. Every time, one of them lingered a little longer. The glances turned into multiple. The words exchanged between them turned into full sentences. Months passed slowly like that, Nicholas too terrified to push Euijoo any further.
Until, the building pressure couldn’t be contained any longer.
It was Euijoo who finally broke the seal. He caught the sleeve of Nicholas’s jacket as he was leaving one of Yudai’s after parties. Nicholas had tried to sneak out unnoticed; he had been distracted by Euijoo’s devastating looks that night, somehow glowing even more than he normally did. Nicholas had also had one too many glasses of wine pressed into his hands that evening, and knew he would let something slip past his lips he would end up regretting if he hovered around Euijoo any longer.
But Euijoo could probably sense something had to give between them. His Euijoo, the stranger that he no longer knew, but also still had memorized like the back of his hand. His Euijoo who could probably still pick up on Nicholas’s emotional shifts like a devoted service dog.
Euijoo grabbed his jacket sleeve, and pulled him aside, into the dimly lit alleyway. The streetlights reminded Nicholas of their first kiss many, many moons ago.
“Hi,” Euijoo whispered. Like if he was any louder, their voices would echo down the alley and alert the whole city what they were up to.
“Hi.” Nicholas was too stupidly enamored to think of anything clever back. “What’s this about?” He continued, voice only slightly tinted with inebriation.
“Let’s talk,” said Euijoo. Talk about… what? About the two of them? About the party? About how they broke up about 4 years ago and Nicholas hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him a single day since?
He wanted to voice all of these things out loud. Instead, all Nicholas is able to muster out is a simple, “okay.” And they talked, but about nothing in particular. Like no time had passed, like it was a normal meeting between two people who don’t have years of history between them. Euijoo asked Nicholas where he was living now, and they found out their neighborhoods weren’t too far apart.
When Euijoo also asked him if Japan was going to be his home for a while, or only a temporary stepping stone, Nicholas didn’t allow his brain to linger on the implications for long. Instead, he quickly reassured Euijoo that he had no plans to leave Japan as long as he had this job, which he loved. He tried not to hyperfocus on the way Euijoo seemingly sagged with relief at his words.
Euijoo asked if he could call him a cab. “I have a better suggestion,” Nicholas proposed, guided by the slightest courage from his wine. Instead, he asked Euijoo on a date. It was stupid and reckless, but Nicholas had already lost him once. What’s meant to be is meant to be after all.
To his surprise, Euijoo had agreed, and they met up the next day at a cafe. In the daylight, without the distraction of club lights and flashing cameras, Nicholas could really study Euijoo’s face up close. He still looked like his Euijoo, but his face had been smoothed out from his early twenties. He still had his beautiful, round eyes. He still had his stupid, perfect teeth. The only thing that betrayed familiarity were the dark circles peeking out ever-so-slightly under his eyes. They looked out of place on him. He hated the thought of Euijoo losing sleep, he prayed he was never the reason for it.
There, in the quiet corner of a Tokyo cafe, Nicholas and Euijoo finally properly talked for the first time in four years. They talked about college, what majors they ended up graduating with, and the friends they had made. Hints of freshly baked pastries wafted through the air and filled the space between them with a comforting aroma as they reminisced on old times.
They apologized, because it was natural for Euijoo to do so. And for Nicholas, it came vomited out in the form of guilt wound tightly inside him for so many years. They both realized that they really had no idea why they even broke up, aside from the distance being too much.
“Maybe we just needed to do some growing on our own, so we could find ourselves here, now,” Euijoo said. Nicholas hated how smart and how well-read he was. He should have fallen in love with someone who wouldn’t be so logical all the damn time. He hated that Euijoo was always right.
In reality, they were what the other needed the most during high school: Nicholas needed someone by his side while he navigated a new country, to help him with learning the language and to comfort him in unfamiliarity. And Euijoo, unbeknownst to Nicholas, needed someone who could help him break out of his shell. Someone who could make you be a truer, cooler version of yourself, simply by existing.
They fell into each other’s orbit so naturally without ever realizing it. Forever destined to spin in eternally linked gravity. No escape. Not that either of them would want that anyways.
They decided to take things slowly. Whatever turn things took, Nicholas just knew he wanted to take his time re-learning the new Euijoo. He wanted to see how all of the gears turned, and all of the bells and whistles clicked into place. Maybe the new Euijoo wasn’t someone he would still be in love with. After all, he could have grown and changed so much in four years, into a completely different person.
Nicholas ended up being completely wrong.
He was more in love with Euijoo now than he ever thought was possible. Euijoo dressed differently, but it was obvious that he felt more comfortable in his skin. He filled out the shoulders of his shirts nicely, and carried himself with a confidence that Nicholas didn’t recognize. He threw his head back and laughed wholeheartedly at every terrible joke Nicholas threw his way. He drove them around with one hand on the steering wheel. And, most of all, Euijoo looked at Nicholas with just as much love in his eyes as he did when he stepped on that plane all of those years ago.
Nicholas tried to take things slow, he really, really did. But he only made it a handful of dates with the new, grown-up, handsome, confident Euijoo before he found himself pushing the other down onto the mattress in his studio apartment.
There were no explosions, no fireworks splattering across the sky. It just felt natural. Like they were always meant to do this. Like they were always meant to find each other again. They just needed the time apart, to make it that much sweeter again.
Re-learning Euijoo’s body was a fun challenge for Nicholas. Before, all of the times they fooled around had been under the guise of anxiety; fear of being caught by their parents. Or insecurities of everything being firsts for the two of them. Now, the two of them are older. They were finally in a private apartment, where they could have full power to finally let go. In a silly way, it almost felt like a first for Nicholas all over again.
He made a game out of seeing if Euijoo was still sensitive in the places he was before. He was successful in pulling gasps from Euijoo’s lips when he licked and nipped the crevices in his neck. Familiar. But he was stunned when Euijoo squirmed being touched in places Nicholas distinctly remembers he never touched in the past. He dug his fingertips into Euijoo’s hips, right above the bone, and earned a particularly whiney moan.
“Didn’t know you liked being touched there,” Nicholas grunted out, trying his best to mask his jealousy.
“I just found out too,” Euijoo replied, trailing off as his eyes glazed over. He thrashed his head around on the pillow and Nicholas tested the waters, touching him everywhere he could.
Euijoo managed to flip their positions, and ran his own hands over Nicholas’s torso. His thumbs traced the hard lines of muscle there, and grazed against his soft nipples. Nicholas cried out at the sensation, electric shocks and goosebumps tearing across his skin. He could barely look at Euijoo; the sight of his love straddling his hips, dim lighting illuminating a halo behind his head, it all made him too beautiful to bear. Nicholas was afraid if he stared for much longer, he might ruin the whole moment before it even began. He forced himself to swallow down the rising bile taking the shape of “I love you,” that he knew he couldn’t spew out.
But Euijoo always knew. He knew that Nicholas loved him. He knew the effect he was having on him. He ground his hips down onto Nicholas, the contact of their cocks rubbing against each other through the thin layer of their pants wasn’t enough and yet so much at the same time. It wasn’t long before all of their layers were shed, nothing else in the way of their skin finally fusing into one. Where one began, it wasn’t clear where the other ended. Euijoo and Nicholas. Nicholas and Euijoo.
However much time passed didn’t seem to matter as the two made love to one another in ways they had only ever dreamed of. They learned how they fit together, properly, like it really was the first time.
As they both grew tired, with Euijoo losing momentum drilling into Nicholas like he was permanently trying to make a home under his skin, Nicholas allowed himself to stare. He looked up at Euijoo through long eyelashes, and realized he didn’t think he could ever grow tired of the sight above him. His Euijoo, flushed from emotion and exhaustion, tanned skin radiating, existing only in the space between the two of them. The words don’t slip out, but he was sure Euijoo could sense what he meant as he bit through flesh, trying to push everything he couldn’t say past his teeth.
“Only you, only you, only you,” Euijoo panted out, hysterical. Nicholas got what he probably meant; he hadn’t been with anyone else since their breakup too. It filled him with a sense of pride, and possession.
“It was only ever you too, Juju,” Nicholas said. That was enough for Euijoo’s tidal wave to come crashing onto the shore, shaking and spilling inside of Nicholas.
When they lie in the aftermath, the moonlight through Nicholas’s window soaked them in security. And Nicholas let himself ask a question that had always been swimming around in the back of his mind.
“Do you believe in soulmates?” He whispered. He was still so scared, terrified that maybe Euijoo would suddenly disappear, turning back into the monster from his fantasies.
“Hmmm,” Euijoo hummed, carding delicate fingers through Nicholas’s hair. “I guess I have to, since you came back to me. Why, do you?”
He’s not that Euijoo, he’s this Euijoo. The Euijoo who invited a stranger to his sixteenth birthday party, with glasses askew on his nose and a uniform a hair too big for him. The Euijoo who gave Nicholas a chance all those years ago. The Euijoo who taught Nicholas how to love.
“Yeah, I do,” said Nicholas.