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Hansol might know what they’re doing, but Minghao knows what Hansol is doing too.
Jihoon and Mingyu come back together like an inevitability. Nobody bats an eye when they leave Soonyoung’s party together, no one questions it when they pop into the next hangout holding hands, bodies molded together like they were made for each other. It’s not surprising, and it shouldn’t be– even if it makes Minghao’s eyes sting.
Seungkwan and Chan come together by complete happenstance, and it’s all Hansol’s fault, really. At least, that’s what he tells them.
“I just thought they’d get along,” Hansol’s head is in his hands and his hair is wild, sticking up in every direction from the force of his fingers pulling at his scalp. “but this is horrible. How the fuck did you deal with it?”
Minghao just shrugs, no advice to offer him, “I mean, I wasn’t dealing with it. Quite literally. I was drowning, majorly drowning.” Minghao is still drowning, if they’re being honest. They’re trying their damndest to be happy, supportive, normal– but whenever Jihoon invites them out and Mingyu is in tow, their chest burns, aches with a quiet sort of resentment that fills them with guilt.
“Fuck, man. Fuck.” Hansol tries his best to smooth his hair down, compose himself. It’s so out of the ordinary to see him like this: absolutely disheveled, absolutely losing his mind. Hansol is usually remarkably neutral, almost calm to a fault. It seems though, he’s also not immune to the Boo Seungkwan effect. “Sorry. This is so stupid.”
“It’s… fine.” Minghao honestly doesn’t know what to say. It’s not stupid, not exactly. Hansol has been playing the long game with Seungkwan since they met– but all his efforts have culminated in his crush of three years getting with his roommate of all people. Minghao knows it hurts. Minghao knows they can’t really help him, that there’s nothing they can say, except: “Wanna watch a movie?”
Hansol’s smile is soft, a little bit of light returning to his eyes, “Yeah, I do.”
They watch a lot of movies together these days. It’s like a soothing remedy for Hansol’s sore heart. Usually, Minghao lets him pick, usually, they end up on a rotating catalog of American dramas that Hansol silently cries over from his side of the couch. Minghao has learned he has a penchant for movies about family, about love and loss and grief. They wonder if this is a good avenue of psychoanalysis. Wonders if Hansol sees himself reflected in the characters of Minari – in the way David runs after his grandmother, set free of his fears through his love for her, his desire to protect what he holds dear. They wonder what Hansol looks like, in love. How it must feel to be loved by him, and their palms start to itch. They don’t quite catch the end of the film, but Hansol is crying. They’ll have to look it up later.
“God,” Hansol says, wiping his eyes, “I think that might be my favorite movie of all time.”
“I can see why.” Minghao shakes their head, fighting away their sleepiness trying to think of something intelligent to say about the film. All that comes out is, “Wow. Yeah.”
Hansol laughs, “Yeah, that’s about all I have to say too.” He sniffles and turns to Minghao, “Did you want to watch another?”
“I don’t think I can. You need to sit with this one.”
“I’ll drink to that.” He smiles, standing to walk into the kitchenette and take a cursory glance at the contents of the fridge. “Do you want to help me finish this wine? Jihoon told me it’ll go bad if I let it sit for too long.”
“Did he now…” Minghao scoffs, “wonder where he learned that from…”
Hansol winces, “Shit, sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m being bitter. I’d love to drink some wine with you.”
He nods, doesn’t prod any more, just digs two coffee mugs out of the cabinet and pours them each a full cup. “Sorry,” he says as he makes his way back to the couch holding out the mug for Minghao to take, “I’m far less classy than you are.”
“I don’t mind.” Minghao cradles the cup in their hands, chipped on the handle and covered in a faded graphic that reads I’d Rather Be Drinking Tequila! in big green font. It makes them smile, even if the pinot grigio in the mug is a little too sweet for their taste and a little bit below the proper serving temperature, Hansol’s shitty fridge blasting it with so much cool air that it’s making their teeth hurt. Hansol fiddles with his little hi-fi setup in the corner, tuning the receiver to the proper settings before scrolling through his phone to put on some music. It’s soft, R&B tinged with jazz, dreamy vocals pouring out of the speakers. They sip their wine and Hansol hums along to the track, closing his eyes.
It takes a few mugfulls to make them get chatty. They get through the opened bottle quickly, moving on to a rich cabernet that Minghao recognizes immediately.
“Oh…” they whisper as they turn the bottle around in their hand, “Did Jihoon give you this one too?”
“Uhm, yeah. I think so. He gave me a lot of liquor recently.”
“Damn.” Minghao laughs, and it comes out more venomous than they mean it to. “He’s really cleaning house. Clearing me out.”
“You bought it for him?” he asks, and Minghao nods.
“We drank a lot of wine. This was one of his favorites.”
Hansol sets his mug onto the table, smacking his lips together like the wine has suddenly gone sour. “You never really told me. What all happened with him. I mean, I can make assumptions, but I don’t really know.”
“There’s not much to tell.” They say, “Mingyu was gone and I was there. He needed comfort and I gave it to him. I just got lost on the way.” They punctuate their sentence with a shrug, “They’re in love. What can I do about that?” It’s not a question, really, or a call for advice. It’s a statement. It’s the way things are, and Minghao is powerless. To do nothing but accept it. To watch. “I just wish Mingyu wasn’t so nice. He just treats me as if nothing happened. I don’t know if he knows anything happened.”
“You guys were hooking up though?”
Minghao shakes their head, spit going thick in their throat. They can almost feel Jihoon under them, still, “God. We hooked up so much. It was borderline gross. Like, every day for two months. He practically lived at my house.”
Hansol sucks his teeth, “Jesus.”
Minghao nods. They know it sounds worse out loud than it actually was. Jihoon is not a bad person. Jihoon is their best friend, really. Things are just more complicated now.
“Doesn’t it ever, like, make you sick? To see them together?” Hansol asks, his eyes trained on the text of Minghao’s mug that they’re white-knuckling. “It does for me, sometimes. I feel bad about it, because it’s not like they’re doing anything wrong, but I still feel wronged, somehow.” He laughs, shakes his head like what he’s feeling is ridiculous instead of perfectly reasonable. Like it’s absurd to be upset that the person you like loves someone else. “I like them both so much. They’re my best friends. I don’t want to be angry anymore.”
Minghao giggles, “Hey, I’ll drink to that.” They hold their mug out and Hansol grabs his, clinking them together across the couch. “It does get easier though. I promise. They don't mean anything by it, but it’s hard. Not letting it bother you so much.”
“Thanks, Hao.”
They move on, talking more about the music playing than anything else. Hansol fills their Spotify with a new playlist of recommendations, flips between genres on his speakers like a DJ. They’re in the middle of wheezing at some dumb joke Hansol told when their phone alarm goes off.
“Ah, shit.” Minghao says, silencing it, “I gotta head out.”
Hansol tilts his head, “Are you sure? You can stay. Chan’s gonna be gone tonight.” Minghao doesn’t have to ask the reason why. Minghao shakes their head.
“I have to do my shot tonight. It’s stupid, but I have to do this whole ritual beforehand ‘cus I always freak out.”
“Haven’t you been on T for like, three years?” Hansol grins.
Minghao scoffs at him, “You try shoving a two inch needle into your own thigh every week. It never gets easier. Your brain actively thinks you’re trying to kill yourself.”
“Okay, yeah. I don’t envy you.” Hansol sets his mug down again, cracks his knuckles. “I mean, do you have your stuff? I can try, if you want.”
Minghao’s eyebrows shoot up, “Aren’t you terrified of needles?”
“I can try.”
“Is this your roundabout way of asking me to stay?”
“I want you to stay. Do you have the stuff?”
Minghao isn’t sure what happens in their heart at that moment, a shallow pain in their chest. It’s been hard to keep themselves in check these past months with Hansol, post-Jihoon. They’ve always been close, but now they’re so intertwined it makes them dizzy. It feels a little too close to their past. To their mistakes. But Hansol is sweet, and Minghao is weak. “Yeah, I have it. I’ll show you how.”
Hansol’s bathroom is harshly lit and all beige. Minghao digs through their bag compartment for their med pouch and lays out all their supplies: vial, syringe, needle tips, alcohol wipes. They turn to Hansol, who already looks pale. “Don’t worry,” they say, “I’ll do all the work. You just have to do the stabbing.”
Hansol nods and sits on the edge of the bathtub, watching them work as he tries to settle his nerves. Minghao settles their own breathing, too, long breaths filling them as they clean the vial, draw up the liquid, and flick out the air bubbles. Hansol stares as they switch needle gauges, in a way that only he can: heavy and intense like he’s studying them and committing it to memory. Like he’s gonna be tested.
They sit on the lid of the toilet and tear open another alcohol pad, swiping down their hairy thighs and trying to release the tension from their muscles. “C’mere.” they beckon to him, and he does, dropping to his knees between their legs. They ruck up the hem of their shorts as far as it can go, exposing their hip tattoo and stick and pokes littering their pelvis. “Okay, so there’s this big muscle that runs along the side of your thigh. You have a lot of area to work with, so don’t worry too much.” They uncap the syringe in one smooth motion, orienting it before handing it off to Hansol. “Make sure the point is facing down. Pick a spot, and pull the skin tight, then just drive it in.”
“This is crazy.” Hansol shakes his head, but positions himself over a spot on their mid-thigh, pulling the skin to the sides with one hand and holding the needle with the other. “You do this every week?”
Minghao smiles, “‘Til the end of time. Or at least until I get sick of it. Make sure you go in at a 90 degree angle.”
“Alright, shit.” Hansol cracks his neck, like he’s the one getting the shot. “You ready?”
“Fire at will.”
Hansol pushes the needle into their leg, all the way in as opposed to the stop-and-go bullshit hack job Minghao usually does on themselves. They hiss, but it doesn’t hurt too bad. Everything in the bathroom is still when the syringe rests into their muscle, Hansol looking up at Minghao from the floor. They realize there’s flecks of amber in his eyes, looking at him this close.
“Good. Now just push the plunger down. It’ll be slow, T is thick.”
Hansol nods and follows their instructions, pushing until all the liquid is drained out of the syringe. Minghao sighs as he pulls it out, handing it back to them to re-cap and put back into their pouch to be discarded later. They let Hansol place a little Hello Kitty bandage over the pinprick of blood coming from the injection site, and his hands rest on their thighs, warm and big and pale against their skin.
“All done.” He smiles, and Minghao pets his hair.
“Well done. You didn’t pass out.”
They giggle and sit static in their position, Hansol’s fingers massaging their sore muscle and Minghao’s nails on his scalp. It’s comfortable, like they’ve done it a million times.
“Can I ask you something that might be… a little crazy?” Hansol breaks as Minghao’s hands move to the back of his hair, spiky from a fresh cut.
“Depends. Does it involve anything illegal?”
Hansol laughs, pats their thigh, “Nothing like that. Just maybe out of line.”
“Well, I’m curious now. Indulge me.”
“Do you, I dunno,” Hansol swallows, he looks so fucking nervous, and Minghao feels giddy with it, “would you wanna go out for real? I mean, us? I’ll… buy you dinner?”
Minghao’s brain short circuits, their fingers stopped dead behind Hansol’s ears. They think they must be dreaming. “Are you– are you serious?” They ask, and Hansol nods enthusiastically, and their stomach flips in their abdomen. Minghao should feel bad, stepping over the dead bodies of their friends, of their friend’s relationships, their past relationships like this, but still they say, “Yeah. I’d love that.”
Hansol smiles, “Cool.”
Minghao tries really hard to be normal about the whole thing, but they’re excited. They spend most of their time in class daydreaming, sketching little doodles of Hansol in the margins of their notebook. He’s easy to draw, to break down into shapes and planes and angles. It feels good, until Junhui calls them, and then they start getting nervous.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” He asks. Minghao spent the last ten minutes babbling about Hansol, about their crush on Hansol, about their date with Hansol. Junhui doesn’t sound convinced. “I mean, you’re over Jihoon?”
“I… don’t really know. But I’m having fun with him.” Minghao breathes out, “He’s kind of in a similar situation. You know.”
“You guys are rebounding with each other?” And, ouch. Okay. It does sound bad when he puts it like that.
“It’s not like that.” They deny, but their face is heating up. “He’s nice. And I like him.”
“Well, you liked Jihoon too. We saw how that went for you.” Junhui sighs into the speaker, and Minghao’s cheeks are tingling with embarrassment. “I’m not trying to be mean, but why do you only fall in love with people you know you can’t have? It makes me crazy. Eight billion people in the world and you choose all these disasters who use you as a stand in for someone else. You’re so much better than that.”
Minghao isn’t really sure what to say. Junhui’s words hit them like a knife, twisting into their guts. “I can’t help it.” They try not to take it personally, because he does have a point, and he worries about them too much, but they say, “I didn’t call you so you could talk me out of it. I wanted you to be happy for me.”
“Please don’t be like that. I’m happy for you, and he seems nice, but you have to understand how it looks.”
Minghao sniffles, “I know.” And again, “I just want to see. I want something good.”
“And that’s what you deserve. It’ll work out for you. I just want you to take your time.”
A pause, a long breath, “I’m lonely, Junnie.”
“I know, xiaoba. But you need to slow down.”
Minghao has never been good at taking their time, but they still tell him, “Okay. I will.”
Minghao lets their conversation with Junhui fester in their chest until the weekend rolls around. It’s not Junhui’s fault, but as the date gets closer and closer, his words rattle around in their head constantly. Minghao has never had luck in relationships, that much is true. Every girl they’ve ever dated was crazy and every guy they’ve loved was in love with someone else. Maybe it’s masochism, or their crippling need to mold themselves into an ideal partner, but a part of Minghao always believes that their love can conquer anything. That with enough time, patience, and reshaping themselves, someone will be happy to be with them, to love them without consequence or conditions. Junhui wasn’t it, and Jihoon wasn’t either, but maybe, maybe.
The evening is creeping in when Hansol shows up at Minghao’s door. He smiles softly at them, “You look nice” and gestures his head towards the sidewalk. “Ready to go?”
Minghao nods and follows him out, letting him lead the way. It’s windy today and Minghao’s pants are loose linen, ruffling in the wind the same way as their hair. The walk seems kind of aimless at first, passing nondescript restaurants, a park full of older men playing chess. It’s nice, and Hansol is holding their hand, even if it’s starting to sweat a little bit. They try not to lose their nerve, to just go with Hansol’s flow, but their curiosity gets the best of them when they pass City Hall.
“Any hints on where we’re going?” It’s the middle of August but Hansol is still in this ugly little Adidas jacket that he loves, his hair soft and unstyled. He’s so much of a boy that Minghao almost feels a little jealous. He sits well in his skin, in his clothes.
“Oh, yeah.” Hansol pats around his endless number of pants pockets and pulls out a little brochure, handing it to them. Minghao stops dead in their tracks. The pamphlet is getting all crumpled from the sheer force of their grip on it. Suddenly, everything feels all swirly in their head again. Hansol stops too, his eyebrows raising. “Is it… okay? We can do something else.”
“No, no.” Minghao is staring down at the paper, a promotional material for Duson Gallery, Yeesookyung’s Intimate Sisters. They’re not sure why their eyes start to burn like they’re gonna cry. “How did you— how’d you know I wanted to go to this?”
“Uhm,” Hansol shrugs, like it’s no big deal at all. Like this isn’t the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for them. “you follow the gallery on Instagram. I know you like sculpture and… I dunno. I like art too. I thought it’d be fun.”
Hansol makes it sound so simple. Easy. Over the last few months, Minghao has grown so sick of things feeling easy. It’s a trap, for things to go a little too well, to feel a little too comfortable too quickly. Like with Jihoon, like with Seungkwan, it can only mean one thing: big, ugly, empty promises. Their heart shattered on the floor, bleeding all over the tile. Hansol’s still picking up pieces of his own. Minghao can’t add to the mess. “Hansol.” It comes out of their mouth shaky and stilted, struggling to properly translate when their brain feels like a supermassive black hole. All of their feelings, their insecurities, pulled and crushed inside their chest until their body becomes a singularity. Hansol just looks at them, tilts his head. Hansol is so handsome. Endearing, attentive, thoughtful, and Seungkwan is such an idiot. Minghao is too. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”
Hansol looks taken aback, “Okay? I’m not asking you to.”
“I just mean, if those were your intentions with me, you didn’t have to try so hard.”
“Okay. But my intentions are to take you to this gallery, and then get dinner.” Hansol looks so confused, and Minghao’s hands twitch. With the need to hit him, to kiss him, they can’t tell. “I know everything is like, really fucked up lately. For both of us. But I really do just like you.”
Something bursts inside Minghao, a nuclear plume in their throat. They bite their lip so hard they start to taste iron. “I was just saying.”
“So am I. Now let’s go. I wanna see some eldritch ceramics.”
Minghao nods, falls back into step with him. They try not to let it bother them too much, that they spoke out of turn, that they keep projecting their own insecurities onto Hansol, their own fears surrounding their tendency to fall too fast. He doesn’t seem to dwell, though, relinking their fingers and pointing out the stems of epiphytic orchids growing out of the trunks of trees. Minghao wonders if this is representative of something, too, the way they’re leeching off his affection to keep their heart beating.
Duson is beautiful inside, so much nicer than any gallery Minghao has ever been showcased in. The lighting is perfectly blended to compliment the tones of the pieces, the floor a light wood that makes their dress shoes click against the surface. All the words, all the breath leaves their body as they take it all in, surrounded by priceless pieces of art, consumed by their need to take.
They move straight to the middle of the gallery, a large white and blue amalgamation of vases formed into a larger-than-life sculpture that seems to flow out of the ground, bubbling up like a hot spring. Minghao is stunned to be standing in front of it.
“She’s always been one of my favorites.”
Hansol hums, focuses his eyes on the sculpture, “Any reason why?”
Minghao crouches down, tilts their head, resists the urge to reach out and stroke the gold fault lines in the pottery with their fingers, “Her pieces remind me of myself, in a way.”
“You’re not broken, if that’s what you’re implying.” He furrows his eyebrows, discontent.
“They’re not either, but they’ve changed.” Minghao breathes, lets the air sit in their lungs. They think about the shards of ceramic, once priceless and precious, now destroyed, jointed together and encased in gold. How many hands have they passed through, to get to this point? What has been the impact on their value? “What is change, really? What is transition? Does the person you were before have to be smashed into pieces and discarded? Or can you reform yourself into something beautiful, despite the damage?”
“You’re beautiful. Of course you are.” Hansol replies, and it’s earnest, coming out of his mouth. Not an addition to their thoughts, but a reaction. An obvious truth. Minghao looks at him, tries to find any sort of pity written across his features, but Hansol’s eyes are still on the sculpture, neutral as ever. Minghao does feel broken, most of the time. Ground to dust to be recycled into slip. Used up and choked out with nothing left to give.
“You think so?” They hope it doesn’t come out weak, like they’re fishing for compliments, even if they are. He doesn’t seem to take it that way.
“You always have been. From the moment I saw you.” He says, “You’re the loveliest person I’ve ever met.”
Minghao has to swallow hard to keep themselves from blurting out I love you. They’ve been down that road before. It won’t happen again. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t make their head spin. They stand up in a daze. “I want to see some paintings now.”
Hansol trails behind them as they move to the corner of the installation, big canvases in watercolor style blotches stark against the white walls. Soft pastels, flowing lines, still flecked with gold, like everything else. It looks like what they might find if they cracked open Hansol’s chest cavity, took a good long look at the shape of his soul. Their nostrils burn the way they always do when they try to hold back their tears in public. Even now, Hansol gives them space. Views the painting from behind their form, letting them take it all in. He says they’re lovely , does he even know how precious he is?
They don’t talk much on the walk home. Hansol hums under his breath, still holds their hand. Minghao focuses on the movement of their feet. Heel-toe, heel-toe, until they approach the stairs of their apartment. A breath punches out of them, a deep sigh they didn’t mean to release so audibly.
“You’re acting weird.” Hansol says. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything. Or feel like I was just trying to get at you. I meant what I said.”
“It’s not that.” Minghao leans into the railing on the stairs, their brain so exhausted from overthinking that it’s starting to affect their physical stamina. “It’s not you. It’s hard to explain.”
“Do you want to try?” Hansol crosses back into their space, resting his back into the metal.
“Stuff like this… like today. It’s hard for me to accept.” Minghao breathes, shoves their hands into their pockets. The glossy paper of the gallery brochure is still crumpled in one of them, and it makes their heart lurch. At least when this is over, they’ll still have the memories. “You’re so nice to me. You just… know. What I like, the things I want to hear.”
“Of course I do,” Hansol seems confused, “I like you. I’m interested in you. It’s not hard, even if you try to make it that way.”
“I don’t mean that I’m trying to be closed off, mysterious or whatever. It’s not something I intend to do. I just mean that no one’s ever actually been interested in me.” Minghao shakes their head, trying to gather their thoughts into something even a little coherent instead of worthless, self-pitying babble. “When I was with Jihoon, when I was with people before him, they never actually intended to date me. They wanted everything that went along with it. Sex, comfort, intimacy. But they never wanted me. I was just filling in the gaps.” They blink, hard, holding their eyelids shut until their vision goes gray and then white. They’re not going to cry over this. “I loved them all anyway. Even when they hated me, hurt me, I loved them. Nothing about love makes sense to me anymore. But it feels so easy, with you. You like what I like. You listen to me when I talk. It’s too much.”
Hansol whistles, low, like he just heard the staggering death toll of a natural disaster. “Hyung did a number on you. That’s the bare minimum.”
“Is it hard?” Minghao asks.
“What?” Hansol replies.
“Liking me.”
“It’s nothing at all.” He shrugs, “It’s the easiest thing in the world.”
Minghao is biting into their lips again, sawing off dead skin with the backs of their teeth. “But you love someone else, too.”
“He was never mine. Not really. I’d like you to be, if you’ll let me try.”
Minghao turns to look at him. The wind is sweeping his hair back, messing it up, and they can see his widow's peak, all the pores on his nose under the dingy street lights. Everything about Hansol is heart-shaped. His smile, his hairline, the birthmark on his hand. It’s quiet, but he bleeds with it, his love. Dripping out of his eyes with every look in Minghao’s direction, buzzing between their fingertips as he laces their fingers together. He’s full up to the top, a steady river where Minghao is barren, arid. They want to drown in him.
“Hansol.”
“Minghao.”
They take another step into his space, two. Minghao gives into him, scratching their nails into his scalp and pulling him forward until their lips meet. Hansol doesn’t kiss like Jihoon. He’s not hungry. He’s syrupy and languid, holding Minghao by the waist like he’s trying to fuse them together. Minghao can feel his heartbeat from where their chests are touching, perfectly in time with their own. They sigh into his mouth, relief steadying their shaking hands. Everything falls into place for them, with Hansol in their arms. Ixion laying at rest, Tantalus allowed to drink, to feast.
“I lied before.” They say between kisses.
“About which part?” Hansol smiles, and Minghao does too.
“I want you to take me upstairs. Show me how easy it is to like me.”
“I told you already, it’s nothing at all.”