Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

With its whitewashed walls and high ceiling, Seungmin’s new bedroom gives the illusion of vastness, of a space that he has yet to claim, to make his own. An iron-framed double bed, wooden writing desk, a rickety rolling chair, some dried daisies in a jar: these are all of the things that make up his life now. On the far side of the room is a bay window that overlooks the front yard, so that when Seungmin is lying in bed at night, he can make out the glimmer of headlights as one of his roommates park in the driveway, returning home from a late shift, from a spontaneous movie night, from a significant other’s apartment, two flashes of light like glittery eyes appearing on his wall before vanishing just as quickly. 

Upon opening his door, Seungmin is abruptly reminded, of course, that there exists an entire world outside of his room, one that isn’t quite to his liking. Oftentimes he doesn’t even have to open the door. Most nights, well after the acceptable hour of being awake, he can hear Jisung slamming the kitchen cabinets, the refrigerator door, the pantry, scavenging around for food like some sort of insatiable squirrel. “You’ll have to excuse him,” his cousin Jeongin had said with a shrug, the first time that Seungmin had complained. They were at this nearby Mexican restaurant that did Dollar Taco nights once a week. The tacos were small and always seemed a little uncooked, but it was especially convenient for Jeongin, who was still in his final year of college and couldn’t fathom spending more than ten dollars on a meal. “Jisung is like a feral little animal with new people. He isn’t socialized.”

“There’s no need for him to be slamming doors at two in the morning,” Seungmin replied, stabbing his fork into his blackened tuna. He had forgone the Dollar Taco deal in favor of ordering from the regular menu, and Jeongin had been staring at Seungmin’s food all night with barely concealed envy. “I don’t like him.”

Jeongin sighed. “I know, hyung. You’re not exactly shy with your opinions.” A stilted silence had encased them then like a bubble, because while they had grown up together, it had also been years since those lazy days when they would lounge on the couch and play shooting games on the Xbox. They were older now, both very aware that Seungmin had only moved in with Jeongin and his roommates because there had been an open room, and because of the house’s proximity to Philadelphia; they didn’t have much to say to one another now. As something of a peace offering, Seungmin had feigned hunger and ordered a few more tacos for the table, most of which Jeongin devoured, grateful and oblivious. Just like when they were kids, Jeongin was perpetually hungry.

Now it has been about a month since Seungmin had moved into the house, and he can’t say that he loves it. This isn’t necessarily a problem with the house itself, which stands two stories tall on a culdesac on Tulip Avenue, with its white beaded siding and deep blue shutters and matching deep blue mailbox. There is even a backyard, tiny as it is—more like a narrow strip of grass, surrounded on three sides by a rundown picket fence, more brown than white now—where someone has set up a small grill, a small basketball hoop, a pair of small lawn chairs. No, the house isn’t the problem, and for the most part, neither are Jeongin’s roommates, who all have their own lives. There is Jisung, who doesn’t really leave his bedroom, apart from his noisy midnight snack runs; there is Hyunjin, who works long hours at an art gallery and sometimes takes the train into Philly with Seungmin if they’re leaving for work at the same time; and there is Felix, who is rather elusive, who Seungmin has only ever seen for brief snatches of time, like if he’s pulling into the driveway and Felix is just disappearing into his boyfriend’s car, eyes bleary from an afternoon nap, still halfway into a worn sweater.

The house is fine, and the roommates are fine. The main problem is Seungmin himself, or rather, his lack of patience with his surroundings. The suburbs of Pennsylvania are certainly no Los Angeles, where he’d spent most of his life. Everything is slower here in a way he doesn’t like, and it’s been a while since he’s had to drive a car so often. Each time Seungmin slips into the driver’s seat, he has to sit there for a moment, running his fingers along the steering wheel, feeling the sun-warmed leather underneath his touch. Thoughts take their time to form in his mind now, as if they’re moving through a sticky vat of jam.

Mostly he knows that this is just a temporary stage, that this is not what the rest of his life will look like, living with his baby cousin and his roommates so that he can work his entry-level publishing job in the city. Other times Seungmin feels like he has somehow failed at some unknown test that everyone else around him has managed to pass. He’d always had a vague vision of living alone after college, and now he is constantly measuring himself up against his peers, trying to judge his own standing. Is he any better than the people who had to move back in with their parents? When will his life finally begin to feel like his own?

It’s a random Friday night when Hyunjin knocks on his bedroom door. “Hey,” he calls in a singsong voice, and Seungmin jumps in surprise, banging his knee on the underside of his desk, where he has been reading a dog-eared mystery novel. When he finally opens the door, Hyunjin looks at the book with curiosity, but then he just shrugs, flicking his eyes back up to Seungmin’s face. “Jisung wants to go to a basement show tonight in Jersey,” he says. “Everyone’s going. Do you want to come?”

This invitation catches Seungmin off guard, not because of the rowdy nature of basement shows, which Jisung apparently loves, but because the invitation has been extended to him. The one time they grabbed lunch together, Jisung had tried pestering Seungmin into joining his band. “It’s sort of, like, an indie sound,” he’d said through a mouthful of sushi. “Like, Stereophonics meets Blossoms, but make it more like Catfish and the Bottlemen. What kind of music do you listen to, anyway?” Seungmin blinked several times before realizing that Jisung’s monologue was over, and then he admitted that he didn’t know those bands, he was more a fan of soft rock. “Oh,” Jisung said with something like disdain, and didn’t ask about the band again. It’s conversations like these that makes Seungmin think that Jisung doesn’t like him. That’s all good and fine, because given the midnight snacking situation, Seungmin doesn’t much like Jisung, either.

He still tells Hyunjin that he’ll come, because he has nothing better to do. “It’s just the four of us, then?” Seungmin asks as he follows Hyunjin down the stairs, still only one arm into his leather jacket. They’re leaving within the next ten minutes. He wishes he had more of a warning, but apparently this is a last-minute plan that Jisung had just told everyone about. 

“Well, six,” Hyunjin says, raising his eyebrows. “Jisung’s sort-of boyfriend is tagging along. Felix, too.”

Seungmin isn’t sure what startles him more: that Jisung has a sort-of boyfriend, or that the inscrutable Felix is coming to this basement show. Jeongin has mentioned once that Felix mostly stays with his boyfriend, who lives a couple towns over. He often forgets that they have another roommate—only the occasional half-empty bottle of cologne by the bathroom sink or takeout box of Chinese food in the refrigerator with F.L. scribbled sloppily on the side will alert him to Felix’s presence. In the month he’s been living here, Seungmin can’t think of a single conversation they’ve shared, just that Felix had placed a mason jar full of daisies in Seungmin’s room the week he’d arrived, which is still on his desk now, even though they’ve long wilted. 

When he voices this surprise aloud, Hyunjin just barks out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m surprised, too,” he mutters, glancing from left to right. They’re standing in the foyer now, so he keeps his voice down. “Felix and Adam are way worse than Jisung and Minho. They’re always fighting like cats and dogs, you know. It’s really bad. I’m not kidding.” Seungmin isn’t usually nosy, but his curiosity is piqued, and he asks Hyunjin why they’re still together, then. “Because Felix thinks Adam is the love of his life, I don’t know. Or maybe just because Jeongin and I haven’t fucked up Adam yet. Could be a mix of both.”

“Oh.” Seungmin can’t think of a single thing to say, but he can hear footsteps on the stairs, and he is saved by the arrival of their three other roommates, who are all laughing about something on Jisung’s phone. Then Jeongin is ushering them all out the door, into the driveway, where Seungmin is introduced to the sort-of boyfriend Minho before promptly being shoved into the backseat of Minho’s Kia Forte. They are squeezing four grown men into a space for three, and his elbow is digging into Felix’s side. “Sorry,” Seungmin says automatically, moving backwards, but Felix offers him a small smile, shaking his head.

“That’s okay,” he answers in a low voice that doesn't quite match his delicate features, almost girlish, with some sort of otherworldly quality, as if he had just stepped out from a silver screen. Seungmin blinks once, twice, but Felix just sticks out his hand, still smiling. “I should be the one saying sorry—we haven’t really spoken yet. I’m Felix, obviously. It’s nice to officially meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.” When his fingers close around Felix’s, it becomes apparent that Felix’s hand is a lot smaller than Seungmin’s, and they both laugh, their faces red, their eyes sliding away from one another. They are both faintly embarrassed, perhaps by the sudden closeness of their bodies, arms grazing as Minho backs out of the driveway, one hand on the back of the passenger seat, where Jisung sits fiddling with the car speaker, twisting the dial back and forth until an upbeat electronic track starts playing. Hyunjin asks if they can roll down the windows, and as Minho turns onto the main road, a dry breeze pushes back Seungmin’s hair, dancing across his skin like the light touch of a ghost. It’s a warm September evening, hardly autumnal at all, which contributes again to another otherworldly quality, as if they are moving through a collective dream.

Much to his chagrin, the basement show is in Asbury Park, about an hour away. Seungmin has never done well in confined spaces, no room to stretch out his arms and legs, and finds it impossible to even think properly, thoughts slippery and evasive. He just lets his head loll back against the headrest, letting the soft chatter wash over him, banalities like the groceries everyone needed to buy or whose turn it was to purchase paper towels. It almost feels like an invasion of privacy, listening to Jeongin complain about how Jisung never does the dishes, everyone laughing along, even Minho, as if this passionate rant was one they heard often. Like they’re standing on one side of a big metal door, and Seungmin is standing on the other. He closes his eyes, wondering if he can will himself to sleep.

At some point he hears Hyunjin say to Felix, “Hey,” his voice very soft. They’re already coasting through Jersey backroads, and up front, Jisung is trying to figure out the GPS. When Minho laughs at him, he just reaches across the console, brushing the back of his hand against Minho’s. The headlights from passing cars are bright against the asphalt, leaving white spots that obfuscate before Seungmin’s eyes. “You seem off.”

“I’m fine,” Felix whispers back, and there is a brief silence, during which Jisung’s electronic music is the only sound in the world. “Well, I didn’t tell Adam I was coming.”

“Who cares? Fuck Adam.”

“I care.” Felix sounds upset, moving his hands around as he talks. His elbow bumps against Seungmin’s again, and he shoots him a quick apologetic look, which Seungmin pretends not to see, turning his head to stare out the window. This is clearly a private conversation, one of which he shouldn’t be intruding on. “It’s just—I was mad at him yesterday, so I’ve been ignoring his texts, but if he checks my location, he’ll know where I am, and we’re not even in Pennsylvania, so—” Hyunjin shakes his head a few times and tells Felix that he just needs to break up with Adam. By then the entire car has gone quiet, and while everyone is fiddling with their phones, glancing out the window, it is obvious that they’re all listening. Felix doesn’t reply, though, his face going sullen and drawn, lips flattening into a thin line. He doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride, eyes slightly unfocused, as if his mind is somewhere else, as if he’s existing on another plane entirely.

This sudden mood change takes on a physical form that has Jeongin slouching his shoulders, Jisung absently fiddling with the speaker again. Up until now, Seungmin hasn’t witnessed all of his roommates interacting with one another at the same time, and he hadn’t known how close they were. Now it’s apparent that a faint glimmer of codependency runs through their friendship, like thin cracks on a fault line. He has never been able to fathom why people are always so concerned about romantic connections when friends rely on each other just as much, if not more. Weren’t close friendships more dangerous? People bound together day after day, not for the promise of sex or money or children, but simply because they want to be around each other? The dismal drip of one’s misery affecting the others? His roommates, Seungmin realizes, are close with each other in such a way. He isn’t sure what to make of this.

There is the distinct smell of the ocean as Minho navigates past stretches of houses, all white handrails and American flags strung over garage doors. Perhaps the proximity to the beach should remind him of Los Angeles, but the Jersey Shore is nothing like Los Angeles, and as he steps from the car, dry grass crunching underneath his sneakers, all Seungmin can think about is how far he is from home. “Hey,” Jeongin says, coming up beside him, nudging an elbow into Seungmin’s side. He is smiling slightly, holding up a six-pack that he’d retrieved from Minho’s trunk. “You want a beer? Basement shows are no fun if you’re sober.”

Seungmin has never been to a basement show. It’s not something he’s ever considered attending before. Minho had parked down the block, and as they approach the small house on the corner, beers in hand, Seungmin suddenly wonders if there’s a certain etiquette he must follow, some way he should or shouldn’t be carrying himself. His eyes drift to a small circle of girls standing on the lawn, wearing ripped fishnets and Doc Martens, passing around a cigarette. The dim glow from the porch light illuminates only one side of their faces, casting a shadow over the other so that they look like something from a television screen. They move out of the way when Jisung starts up the steps, but one girl calls out to Hyunjin, the corners of her painted lips fluttering into a vague smile. It’s clear that she finds him attractive. Hyunjin greets her back, but it’s clear, too, that he’s still distracted from the car ride, his voice cold and distant. The girl’s smile slides from her face; they file in behind Jisung, making their way through the foyer and into the basement.

Downstairs, it isn’t packed, just clusters of friends waiting for the show to start. Jisung says that this is more spacious than other basements he’s been to. As the first band is sitting up, the six of them stand around in a semi-circle, taking swigs of their Bud Light and talking about music. Seungmin finds himself next to Minho, who hasn’t been participating in the conversation as much as he has been observing, his eyes oddly sharp. He likes the Arctic Monkeys shirt Minho’s wearing, and tells him as much. “Oh, this,” Minho says, glancing down. He has a soft voice, and Seungmin has to lean in to hear him over the dim basement chatter. “Yeah, me and Jisung went to their Philadelphia show a few months ago. We’re big on music.”

“Are you in his band?”

“Huh?”

“You know, his band.” Seungmin lifts his shoulder in a shrug, tipping his chin toward the band still setting up. “Stereophonics and Blossoms and Catfish. Something like that.”

Minho suddenly laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “No way,” he answers, still laughing. “Is he trying to get you to join? I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen—see, he and his friends didn’t form the band yet. Jisung always picks up these random hobbies and drops them after a couple months. It was soccer before this, and painting before that.”

Out of everyone he came with, Minho is the easiest to talk to, and they go through all the ordinary questions of getting to know someone, like where they grew up and where they work and if they went to college. Minho grew up in the city, specifically Old City, and he still lives there now, teaching dance classes in a local studio. He met Jisung through Felix, who had dragged Jisung along to a hip-hop class. It’s a relief to fall back into this easy line of questioning that helps Seungmin through conversations with his new co-workers, people he runs into while waiting for the elevator or the coffee machine—relief that he still knows how to navigate the world, to be human. He isn’t sure what it is about living in that house that makes him feel so off-kilter, as if he has lost the ability to function normally. Seungmin is usually good with people. It’s just strange that he knows what shampoo his roommates use, how long they leave their plates in the sink, all the mundane aspects that make up a person’s life, yet he doesn’t know who they are or what they do for work.

Seungmin is just explaining his job at the publishing company when a flash of bright green crosses his vision. “You want a hit?” Jisung asks suddenly, waving a vape in front of his face, and Seungmin almost goes cross-eyed looking at it. When he just shakes his head, Jisung lifts his shoulder in a careless shrug. “Suit yourself,” he says before passing it to Minho instead, who raises it to his lips. The way that Jisung has an arm tight around Minho’s waist makes Seungmin feel awkward, as if he’s pressing in on a private moment, so he turns away, taking another swig of his beer and checking the time on his phone. It’s only a little past ten o’clock.

The show itself is somewhat a drag. Each band performs a handful of songs that all sound exactly the same, complaining about their hometowns and the system and how everyday looks the same. They’re loud and not exactly good. Seungmin leans back against the wall with Jeongin, taking small sips of his beer to make the bottle last as long as possible, just for something to do with his hands. There are a few times when, during a particularly upbeat song, Jisung will jump up and start shoving Hyunjin, and Hyunjin will start shoving Felix, and the three of them will start jumping around together and shoving one another, heads tossed back in laughter, teeth glinting white in the dark. It seems like a lot of work, expending that much energy, and none of them are even that drunk. Jeongin snorts and turns to say something to Seungmin, but the music is too noisy, all drums clattering and distorted guitar sounds, and it’s impossible to hear anything unless you’re shouting. Seungmin pretends to understand, nodding his head before raising his beer and taking another swig.

Afterward, everyone spills back out onto the lawn, talking and laughing. There is a small patch of brightness on the dead grass from where the porch light is set up, and they stand there for a few minutes, debating where to grab food. Minho says that Applebee’s is the only place open now, but Hyunjin argues that they should just go to the convenience store and get snacks. As they bicker back and forth, Seungmin sighs and turns to check the time again, but he bumps into Felix, who’d been standing behind him. “Sorry,” he says again, touching Felix’s shoulder briefly to steady him. It seems that this is all they can say to each other.

“You’re good, mate.” Felix sounds distracted, his eyes darting up from his phone to Seungmin’s. He offers him another absent smile before looking down again. Seungmin glances down, too, purely on instinct, catching a flash of the name Baby at the top of a text message thread. Felix hurries to shut off his phone before Seungmin can read any further, slipping it into his back pocket, and then he just exhales, stretching his arms out over his head. Seungmin watches him. He feels like he is watching a mirage that’s only half-there. “I’m starving, Seungmin. Are you starving?”

He blinks a few times. “Uh. Yeah, I could eat.”

“Do you want Applebee’s or snacks?”

“I guess I’d rather have Applebee’s.”

Felix nods, turning to the rest of the group. “Seungmin wants Applebee’s,” he shouts, cupping his hands over his mouth, and then everyone nods at once and they’re filing back into the car, Seungmin squeezed against the door again as Jisung and Hyunjin pile in. As they pull out onto the main road, Felix looks at Seungmin and laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s a private, fleeting thing, his happiness. He has to wonder which is the truer face: the Felix who often stares so blankly into the distance, nothing behind his eyes, or the Felix that laughs like this. “There you go,” he says easily, nudging Seungmin. “The half-apps are good there. You can get so many buffalo wings for, like, less than ten dollars.”

“Yeah, I know.” All his roommates are very good at talking about nothing. Seungmin turns, too, so that he’s looking back at Felix. It’s very dark in the car, but he can make out the whites of Felix’s eyes, the soft upturn to the corners of his lips. “Do you guys go to basement shows often?”

Felix furrows his brow for a moment, mulling this over. “I wish,” he says. “It’s rare to find times when we’re all free. Everyone works such different hours.” When Seungmin asks him what he does for work, Felix just rubs the back of his flushed neck and says he’s a barista at a small café. He almost seems embarrassed, shaking his head slightly, explaining that it’s a part-time gig. “It’s just for now, though. I’ve been, like—acting, sort of. Some of my friends do these indie films. We’re trying to submit them to local film festivals.”

“That’s cool. I’d love to see one.”

Felix’s smile is wobbly and uncertain, but his eyes crinkle at the corners again when they look at each other. “Thanks,” he says haltingly, as if testing the word out on his tongue. He looks like he’s going to say more, but then he just reaches up, pats Seungmin on the arm, and pulls out his phone again. The blue light illuminates his angular face as his fingers fly over the keys, presumably texting Adam. He’d done this throughout the show, too, just checking his phone over and over again. Privately, Seungmin wonders what the fuck could be so important on Felix’s phone, but he keeps his mouth shut, turning to look out the window again. Felix’s elbow keeps bumping against his as he sends text after text.

They pull into the Applebee’s parking lot, grab some half-apps, and get back on the road to Pennsylvania. By then, everyone is rather drowsy, heads lolling back against the headrests, Hyunjin asleep on Jeongin’s shoulder. Soft acoustic music fills the car. “Hey,” Felix whispers to Minho, leaning forward. “Do you mind dropping me off at Adam’s? It’s on the way.” Minho looks at him in the rearview mirror and nods once, very curtly. He, too, seems on the verge of saying something, but his eyes return to the road, and the moment passes. They continue on the road in silence.

Seungmin is almost asleep when they pull up to a small, decrepit apartment complex. Darkness is pressing in on the outside world like a thick woolen blanket, but he can just make out cracked railings, cracked sidewalks, windows in desperate need of repair. Felix does his best to extract himself from the car without moving Seungmin, but there is hardly any space, so Seungmin wordlessly unbuckles his seatbelt and gets out, holding the door open for Felix.

“Thanks,” Felix whispers to him again, his cheeks a little pink. He keeps glancing toward one of the doors, where a man sits on the steps, smoking a cigarette. The man stands as soon as Felix approaches, saying something that Seungmin can’t make out, and then he reaches forward, kissing Felix hard on the mouth. It’s hard to see any distinguishing features, but there’s a flash of movement as Felix winds his arms around the man’s neck, dragging him closer, their bodies pressed flush together. It’s as if they have entered their own little world, as if they’re some sort of four-legged, four-armed beast, trying to eat itself on the sidewalk. Seungmin turns and gets back in the car. As he’s putting his seatbelt on, he makes eye contact with Jisung, who is now awake and looking at him.

“Yeah, it’s just like that with them,” he says, his voice very low. “Fucking obsessed with each other. You don’t have to worry, though. Felix is a big boy, he can take care of himself.” 

Does Seungmin look worried? He’s pretty sure he doesn’t. He doesn’t even know Felix. Just in case, he rearranges his expression into something neutral and makes himself shrug, and Jisung finally looks away. As they head back, Seungmin can feel himself growing weary again, his eyelids very heavy. It’s as if he’s moving through a dream again. It’s far too late to be awake, and he just needs to be in his bed. He feels like this night has stretched on forever.

Back at the house, he stumbles out of the car and hurries up the steps without waiting for anyone. Minho and Jisung are leaning on each other as Seungmin unlocks the door; Hyunjin and Jeongin are still struggling to get out of the car. Inside, the foyer is cool and dark. “Thanks for tonight,” Seungmin makes himself say. He can’t say he had a good time, but at least it was something to do. Everyone choruses a goodnight back, sounding half-asleep themselves, and Seungmin makes his way up the stairs without flicking the light on, fingers grazing the banister. It’s so late that nothing feels real. He brushes his teeth, washes his teeth, and falls into bed, slipping into a dreamless sleep, the blackness of his bedroom the same as the blackness behind his eyelids.

———

Even before Jisung opens his eyes, he can tell it’s far too early. Squinting against the pale sunlight that filters in through his curtains, he pushes himself up onto one elbow, watching the curve of Minho’s strong shoulders, the steady line of his spine as he pulls on a shirt. For a moment, that’s all it is—watching—but then Minho turns, startling when he sees that Jisung is awake, his eyes going wide. “I have to teach a class at noon,” he says in greeting. Mornings after sleeping over are always weird for both of them. 

“I know,” Jisung answers, his voice gravelly with sleep. “It’s Saturday. I remember.” Minho takes a few steps closer, leaning down to press a kiss to Jisung’s mouth. This goes on for a few moments before Minho pulls back, his nose crinkling, and he says that Jisung needs to brush his teeth. “Well, you’re the one who kissed me,” Jisung complains, but he’s too tired to put any heat behind it, and Minho just half-smiles before grabbing his phone on the nightstand. He is out of the door like a shot from a warm gun—within moments, there is the sound of his engine starting in the driveway—and then he’s gone.

Jisung lays back down and closes his eyes, trying to will himself asleep again. When that doesn’t work, he groans and stumbles out of bed, rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands. He knows he’s being loud as he bangs into the walls, the cabinets, his body feeling clumsy and heavy, but he can’t bring himself to care. He just brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face, and then makes his way downstairs to scrounge up some breakfast, still trying to comb his fingers through his hair.

At the counter, Seungmin is already sitting with a dog-eared novel and a bowl of cereal, idly flipping a page. “Hey,” he says when he spots Jisung, his expression unreadable. Sometimes Seungmin really reminds Jisung of a stone wall. “I’ve never seen you up this early.”

“Well, fancy seeing you here,” Jisung grunts back, turning to open the pantry. He isn’t sure what it is about his new roommate that brings out his animosity. He just doesn’t like it when Seungmin acts all high or mighty, even though this hasn’t even been his house for long, or when he says things like that in such a neutral expression that he might either be complimenting Jisung or punching him in the face. “Don’t you look all spiffy for eight o’clock. Going somewhere?”

Seungmin is silent for a moment, which Jisung counts as a win. “I was going grocery shopping,” he finally says, a boring and predictable answer. He doesn’t extend an invite, which Jisung suspects would make both of them happy. Again, he grunts in return. After toasting a few slices of bread, he slides onto the stool beside Seungmin and starts buttering them up. They sit together in absolute silence, Seungmin reading his book, Jisung wolfing down his breakfast. “Minho’s cool,” Seungmin says after a while, without looking up. His eyes are still tracing over his page. “You guys been together long?”

“What’s it to you?” Seungmin just scoffs, flipping over another page, but the silence finally becomes too invasive to bear, so Jisung sighs, wiping crumbs from his mouth with the back of his hand. “Well, yeah. Few months.”

He isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing with Minho. Felix had dragged him along to some random hip-hop class in Philly, and they’d gotten to talking and exchanged numbers—Jisung had asked him out for drinks—and they’d been hooking up ever since then. That was back in March, and now it is September, and sometimes when Jisung thinks about it too deeply, he realizes that time has flown by. Mid-spring flurries had melted into green lawns and flowers sprouting up in the cracks in the pavement, and then the sun had become scorching hot overhead, days dragging into other days, shirt collars damp with sweat, hair sticking to the side of his neck. Those summer days, Minho had taken every Friday off to drive over to the Jisung’s, and they’d spent long weekends together in the suburbs, washing fresh strawberries in the sink and feeding them to one another while sitting on plastic lawn chairs, watching Hyunjin and Jeongin shoot hoops in the backyard. Now it is autumn, a season they’ve never spent together before. Minho is busy teaching more dance classes; Jisung is still making his music, as he always does, locking himself away in his room for hours at a time, headphones pressed over his ears, only coming out late at night for snacks.

Jisung privately thinks that Minho deserves better, but he also suspects that Minho doesn’t know what he’s doing, either. They enjoy spending time together, that much is true, but there's a lot that they talk about and a lot that they don’t. More often than not, they talk in circles, and it expends so much of Jisung’s energy that he can’t bring himself to decipher the riddles later.

“What about you?” Jisung asks, pulling his plate closer, getting crumbs on the counter, which he wipes onto the floor with a flick of his wrist. He flicks his eyes up to Seungmin, who is watching him carefully, his mouth set in a thin line. “You seeing anyone?”

“Nope.” Once again, a boring and predictable answer. “It’s a lot of work to be in a relationship.”

He snorts. “Tell me about it. Well, maybe you should go on Hinge or Tinder or something.” Seungmin raises his eyebrows and says, in a completely deadpan voice, that he would rather die. Jisung laughs a little, a real laugh, for the first time all morning. “That’s funny. Yeah, me too. I’m just saying, that’s how Felix met Adam. Not that their relationship is anything, like, special. It’s not even good, actually. But yeah, I guess if you wanted something quick, you could download some dating apps.”

There is a sudden pause. Seungmin shuts his book, folding over a corner of the page to mark his place. “None of you guys speak very highly of Adam,” he says, his voice back to neutral. Jisung can’t understand him. “He’s not a good guy?”

“He’s just a white guy, I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, he’s Causcian.” He catches the look Seungmin gives him, both unimpressed and probing. “Well, okay. We don’t think he’s a terrible guy, necessarily, but Adam just, like—I guess the two of them are into some weird shit, that’s all. Like, Felix needs Adam to tell him what to do. All the time. Like, what he’s wearing, where he’s going, what he should eat, shit like that.” Seungmin is still staring at him, frowning a little, and his heavy gaze makes Jisung want to curl in on himself. It’s still too fucking early for this. “Like I said, they’re just weird,” he finishes, getting up to put his plate in the sink. “I tend to stay out of it.”

“Don’t you think that’s pretty—I don’t know, unhealthy?”

With his back turned, Jisung considers this word, fingers still on the faucet. He doesn’t like Adam much—none of them do—but he doesn’t know if his relationship with Felix is unhealthy or not. The two of them definitely love each other, in their own strange way, and unhealthy sounds like such a stringent label, as if Adam was hitting Felix or something worse, which he knows isn’t happening. Jisung hasn’t really thought about it, but when he says as much aloud, Seungmin just makes a faint sound, as if he’s deep in thought. It’s this sound that brings him back into reality, and Jisung turns back toward the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. The clock on the wall tells him that it’s time to go back to sleep. “Well, as nice as this was, I’m heading back to bed. Babysitting later today.”

Seungmin raises his eyebrows, mouth opening around a laugh. “You,” he says, disbelieving. “Babysitting.”

“Yup.” Jisung pops the p, already heading back towards the stairs. “Felix’s brother’s kid. We’re taking her to the mall.”

“Have fun, I guess.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung calls over his shoulder, and starts up the steps. Before he falls back into bed, he checks his phone, but there are no new messages. tell me when you get back safe, he decides to send Minho, who is still on the road, and then promptly rolls over onto his side, mashing his face into his pillow and letting himself drift off to sleep.

When he wakes again, it’s past noon. Chris has already dropped by the house, and Felix is back home, too, playing with Lena in the living room. Jisung tramps down the stairs, stifling a yawn with his hand, and ruffles Lena’s little head, plopping down beside her. “Hey, baby,” he coos to her, and she laughs, nuzzling into his arm. “Missed me, huh?” Seungmin is on the couch now, still reading his book, but he looks amused at the way Lena starts tugging on Jisung’s hair. Jisung tries not to glower at Seungmin, suddenly feeling self-conscious. He’s hanging around a four-year-old, of course he’s going to use his baby voice.

“Are you gonna say hi to Uncle Jisung?” Felix asks her, his fingers still tangled in Lena’s. He’s laughing, loud and uncomplicated, and when he looks at Jisung, his eyes are very bright. “She still won’t say hi to Seungmin. I think she likes him.” From the couch, Seungmin chokes, but Felix doesn’t notice, too busy defending himself from Lena’s little fists pummeling his arms. “Hey, hey, I’m just kidding! Mostly.” He looks so happy like this, open and alive in a way he hasn’t been in the past few months, as if someone had flicked on a switch behind his eyes. The word unhealthy comes to mind again, drifting in from the corners of Jisung’s subconscious, but he pushes it away before it can take too strong a hold. They’ve been roommates, good friends, practically brothers, for so long now. He would’ve known if Felix was unhealthy.

He helps Felix wrestle Lena into her jacket, a complex affair that takes much longer than it should, and waving goodbye to Seungmin, they walk to the bus stop at the end of the road. It’s a warm day outside, the sun winking above them like a brilliant candle, and once again, it doesn’t feel like autumn. Jisung jokes about how they should both really learn how to drive, and when they sit down on the bench to wait, he pulls Lena into his lap, letting her pretend to steer a car. “Beep, beep,” he says, laughing, and when he looks up, Felix is watching him, laughing too. He’s in a good mood. Jisung reaches out and elbows Felix in the side. “Had a good night?”

“Yeah,” Felix answers, his mouth fluttering into a lazy grin. He tugs the collar of his shirt down, and on the base of his neck are faint teeth marks from where Adam had sucked hickeys into his skin. He looks like he was mauled and then put back together. Jisung wolf-whistles, reaching out to touch, but Felix just laughs, batting his hand away. “What about you? Minho stayed over, right?”

“He did. It was fine.” It’s always fine, with the two of them. They don’t really have anything to fight about. “Ran out of here as usual, like I’d set his clothes on fire or something. I swear he likes spending time with my roommates more than he likes me.”

“Oh, come on, Minho’s obsessed with you. He wouldn’t be driving from Philly to see you if he wasn’t obsessed with you.”

Jisung just hums, looking down at little Lena, reaching to adjust the little bows Chris had tied in her hair. He’s always astounded by Felix’s unwavering confidence in his friends, his certainty that they will always choose the right path in life, even though Jisung never really knows what he’s doing. Jisung often has the feeling that things will go right for him through sheer force of will, just because he wants them to, and for the most part, this has proven true. He only made it through community college and doesn’t use his degree, instead opting to make music and upload it onto the internet. This could’ve gone horribly wrong, yet people like his music, they like listening to the different albums he makes, and he makes decent money. Sometimes Jisung thinks about Minho this way, like everything will work out just because he wants it to work out, without him even doing anything.

He slides his phone out of his back pocket. When you get back safe, is all that Minho texted back. Jisung stares at this for a moment, his brow furrowing, until he finally gets the joke, and then he barks out a short laugh. very funny, Jisung types back. A second later, another message from Minho: Yeah, I know. Minho is funny. He likes exchanging fire with Minho this way, the two of them batting words back and forth at each other until they’ve even confused themselves, all meaning ceasing to exist.

They make their way onto the bus; Jisung settles Lena back into his lap and lets her pull the string when their stop is coming up. Inside, the mall is cool and spacious, their laughter echoing back to them. Lena drags them into the toy store, and then the bookstore, and then the Build-A-Bear Workshop, where she begs Felix to buy her a stuffed bear. Felix pretends to think about it for a moment, but it’s obvious that his will is already crumbling, that he’ll give Lena whatever she wants. “If I buy you a bear, you can’t give your dad any trouble for the next month, okay,” he finally says, already leading Lena deeper into the store. Jisung knows that it’s not just the bear, that Lena will want clothes and accessories for it, too, but Felix is too nice, and he loves his niece more than anything. If she asked for the moon, he would do his best to give it to her.

As Felix and Lena browse the bears, hand in hand, Jisung loiters by the entrance, scrolling on social media. He is contemplating posting something stupid on his story when one of the employees, a girl that looks like she’s in high school, approaches him. “Your daughter’s cute,” she says, nodding towards Lena.

For a moment, Jisung’s mouth just hangs open, like a fish out of water. It’s very possible that she thinks he and Felix are a young couple, that this is their daughter they’re raising together, which couldn’t be further from the truth, but it’s too much trouble to correct her. “Thanks,” he manages.

She offers him a smile, nodding. “I was just gonna say, everything today is thirty percent off, so just let me know if you have any questions.”

The comment sticks in the back of his throat like honey long after they’ve left the store, Lena hugging her new teddy bear to her chest, the three of them heading in the direction of the bookstore. Your daughter’s cute. Jisung knows he’s still young, and in fact most people he knows aren’t married yet, but it still rubs him wrong, the implication that he is, or at the very least, that he should be. He still doesn’t know if he ever will be married, or if he even wants to be. He thinks about sharing his space with another person, arguing about filing taxes and who will pick up the kids from school or who will make dinner, and it makes him cringe. It isn’t that he doesn’t like the idea of finding true love—though the probability of that seems rather small—but he also lacks all the basic skills to get through life. He’s lucky that Jeongin or Hyunjin will even make him eggs in the mornings, otherwise he’d be starving, surviving off takeout alone.

He clings to his friends instead, who never tire of his antics, because they’re clinging to Jisung, too. Everything is so much easier with them, because they don’t expect anything from Jisung that he can’t provide. He and Felix do almost everything together—at least, they used to, when Felix wasn’t always wrapped up with Adam—and in fact they even made a drunken pact once, a year ago, that if they were both single by the time they were forty, they would get married to each other. Life would’ve been so easy, Jisung realizes, if he’d just liked Felix all along. It wasn’t like they hadn’t tried, making out a few times while tipsy, laughing at themselves all the while. If they’d just fallen in love the moment Jisung had moved into the house, then maybe he’d be better at, like, cooking or doing the laundry—

But no, probably not. It takes a lot to change a man. That’s what Hyunjin had told him once, complaining about how Felix was never around anymore, how things were always Adam this and Adam that, but Jisung thinks that saying would apply to himself, too.

In the bookstore, Felix helps Lena pick out a few books, pointing out ones that she might like. She is particularly drawn to the ones about ballerinas, demonstrating a few twirls for the two of them in the aisle. “We’ll have to talk to your daddy about signing you up for lessons,” Jisung says with a laugh. He crouches down beside her, nuzzling into her hair, which makes her giggle, throwing her arms around his neck. When he looks up, Felix is snapping a picture, grinning from ear to ear.

“God, you guys are so cute,” he says, somewhat wistfully, pocketing his phone again. “I can’t wait to have kids.”

“I mean, not anytime soon, right?” Jisung says after a pause. It wasn’t like Felix had a stable job, just picking up part-time shifts at the café. He straightens up, slipping his hand into Lena’s, and they all continue down the aisle. “You’d make a good mom, though.” He pokes at Felix’s stomach as a joke, and Felix huffs at him, but he’s smiling.

“No, not soon. But I think—like, Adam wants to get married.”

This makes Jisung freeze in his tracks, his hand falling from Lena’s. He turns to Felix, eyes blown wide, his mouth opening and closing around a few choice words. In the end he settles on, “You’re fucking kidding, right?” Felix just sighs, moving to cover Lena’s ears, but Jisung soldiers on. “You haven’t been dating all that long.” Perhaps it’s selfish, but his first thought is of their marriage pact, how they’d conjured up some elaborate fantasies of slow dancing on a Sydney beach in the pale moonlight, surrounded by all their friends and families, almost pissing themselves with laughter at the imagery. There’d even been a joke about Jeongin being their ring bearer. It’s not even that Jisung wants to go through with their pact, but it’s just way too soon to decide something like that, when they’re not even twenty-four yet. Besides, Felix would be leaving Jisung all alone. 

“Jesus, I didn’t mean now, I just mean eventually.” Felix laughs, somewhat embarrassed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Come on, Jisung, you think I would get married next week? I don’t even have, like, a proper job.”

“No, you don’t.” It comes out sharper than Jisung intended, and Felix shrinks back, his face falling. He immediately backtracks. “You know what I mean, alright? Don’t take it personally.” Jisung isn’t even really sure what he means, just that irritation has overtaken him like a hot flash, crawling underneath his skin. He wants Felix to be happy, of course he wants Felix to be happy, but all this talk about marriage is a step too far. Jesus, Jisung doesn’t even know how to make pasta, and Felix and Adam are out here talking about having kids.

“Okay,” Felix says, sounding wounded. He has never not taken anything personally in his entire life. As they walk through the rest of the bookstore in silence, watching Lena run around and pull different books off the shelves, Jisung is once again struck by the distinct feeling that he has fucked up, without even the faintest idea how to solve anything.

Over the past year, as Felix had quietly withdrawn from their usual roommate hangouts at the bar, at basement shows, at trivia nights, Jisung had wrestled with whether or not his own life was meaningless, since he didn’t have someone special to share it with. There were his friends and family members, but everyone was always looking for love in dim streetlights, in rain streaking across car windows, in the ocean tide as it rolled to shore. Love made things exciting, like how Felix was always talking about his relationship, because he just wanted to hold Adam’s name in his mouth, rolling the syllables over on his tongue, letting them take shape behind his teeth. A world without love seemed so dull, like Jisung was just taking up space.

“Uh, hello,” Hyunjin had said when Jisung brought this up to him. They were sitting at a diner with Jeongin, picking at their plates of cinnamon swirl pancakes as they waited for the bill. It was one of those old-fashioned American places with peeling red leather stools and checkered tiles on the floor, black-and-white posters of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe hung up on the walls. “Are you implying that me and Jeongin are just taking up space, too? It’s not my fault I’m single.”

“Maybe a little bit of your fault, hyung,” Jeongin said under his breath, flicking his straw wrapper at Hyunjin. “Seriously, though, that’s not true. Being single doesn’t make our lives meaningless. There’s a lot more to living than just falling in love with someone.”

Jisung had snorted. “Like what?”

“You know, like finding a favorite movie, or listening to a new song on the radio and knowing you’ll love it.”

“But those are all about love,” Jisung shot back, shaking his head. “When’s the last time you watched a movie or listened to a song that wasn’t about love, in some shape or form? I’m sure there are examples, but they’re so few and far between. Everything is about love, guys! We can’t escape it. Love is, like, an endless fucking cycle, and if our names aren’t Felix and fucking Adam, we’re all bound to be alone.”

Hyunjin’s face went pale. “Speak for yourself,” he’d said, but he did look a little afraid, his eyes very wide. For all of his bravado, how much he talked about never giving a fuck about anything, the truth was that Hyunjin was perhaps the most lovesick of them all, with his abstract paintings of movie couples and famous couples and couples on the street and any fucking couple imaginable. Despite his outwardly nonchalant attitude, he really did care a lot about things like that, which was in direct contrast to Jisung, who cared too little about everything.

On the bus ride back home, Jisung and Felix don’t speak much, hardly even looking at each other. Lena is none the wiser, paging through one of her shiny new ballerina books, showing them the illustrations she likes the best. Seungmin, on the other hand, raises his eyebrows when they come in, but he doesn’t say anything, turning back to his novel, which he is somehow still reading, even though it’s been a couple hours. Felix carries Lena into the living room, huffing from the weight, depositing her beside Seungmin on the couch, and the three of them start talking about their mall adventures, Lena showing off her new teddy bear. Seungmin smiles one of his rare smiles, the one where he isn’t covering his mouth, and reaches out to pat the top of her head, which makes Lena giggle and hide her face in Felix’s chest. She definitely likes Seungmin.

Jisung hovers in the doorway, crossing his arms, watching them for a few moments. Felix knows he’s there, he’s sure, but Felix keeps his eyes resolutely away. Another hot flash of annoyance crosses his mind, which Jisung already recognizes as unfair, but he can’t help it. It’ll be fine, though, because Jisung knows that Felix will forgive him before the night is over, even if Jisung doesn’t apologize, because that’s just what Felix does. He forgives and forgives. He’s made of love, even when others don’t deserve it. It’s both beautiful and a little sad. Giving yourself away so much like that.

Instead of joining them and saying sorry, Jisung turns and heads up the stairs, making his footsteps as light as possible. He checks his phone once he’s in his bedroom, and there’s another text from Minho: Craving a sweet treat. Should we go sometime? For all the time they spend together, he doesn’t know much about Minho’s life, just that he moved to Philadelphia alone and has three cats and talks to his parents on the phone everyday, despite the time difference from Korea. Minho has a lot of friends, he knows that. Minho should probably be going for a sweet treat with them, not Jisung, who doesn’t even know what he’s doing with Minho.

yea why not, he finds himself texting back anyway. Then, do u ever feel like u colossally fucked up

He isn’t really sure what he means by that, but he waits, and sure enough, Minho answers very quickly. Yes. That’s all he says. No explanations, no niceties. He never prods Jisung beneath the surface level.

Jisung sets his phone down with a sigh. Thinks about returning downstairs, but he doesn’t. Thinks about crawling back into bed, which he does without changing into different clothes, throwing his pillow over his face again. He thinks that, if he isn’t careful, the rest of his life could pass him by this way, with him laying on his bed, pillow over his face, pretending that nothing else exists, that nothing else matters.

———

September had been the month of birthdays. First Jisung, who Felix bakes a cake for, and then Felix himself, who Hyunjin and Jeongin try to bake a cake for, and then Seungmin makes the mistake of saying that his birthday is the following week, so Felix bakes another cake, presenting it to him with his wobbly smile, eyes crinkled at the corners, saying, “Sorry this was so last minute, it might taste really bad.” In fact, it might’ve been the best cake Seungmin’s ever had, but with all their birthdays combined, there is so much cake in the refrigerator that there isn’t room for much else. Seungmin spends a long time cutting up the cakes and dividing them into smaller containers, making more space for their cartons of milk and boxes of Chinese takeout.

It slowly rolls into October which, while being notably warmer than previous Octobers, still brings about its bouts of cold, a chilly breeze that has Seungmin rummaging around for his flannels and corduroy jackets. He still goes into the city three weekdays for his job, working at home for the other two, but now he is more prone to accepting an invitation from one of his roommates to go out to the bar, to catch a show in Philly, to watch an open mic. These invitations are still rather sparse, because everyone is so busy, but whenever Seungmin works from home, he will catch himself chatting with Jeongin, who only has classes in the afternoons, or with Jisung, who works on his music from his bedroom. Felix has been home more often, too, something about Adam picking up more shifts, so sometimes he and Seungmin will go on walks around the neighborhood, talking about nothing in particular. He learns that Felix doesn’t drive, and that he is too lazy to go through the entire process of getting his permit, even when Seungmin offers to teach him. “Nah, that’s okay,” Felix says, shaking his head, but he’s smiling. “I’m a master at public transit.”

“Not sure that’s something to be proud of,” Seungmin says, smiling too, and has to dodge Felix’s hand shooting out to smack his shoulder.

He also learns that his roommates make a big deal out of Halloween, a holiday that Seungmin has never cared much for. On the train to work one day, Hyunjin tells him that he’s planning a costume party. “You have to be there,” he pleads, showing Seungmin a screenshot of the invite he’s putting together. To his credit, it does look very nice, perhaps due to Hyunjin’s artistic flair. “I mean, it’s literally at our house, so you might as well go, anyway. But be in costume.”

Seungmin’s amused by his theatrics, even as he pushes Hyunjin’s arm aside. “What sort of costume?” Hyunjin looks shocked that he doesn’t have a Halloween costume planned already, his eyes going wide. “Well, I’ll come out of my bedroom if I can find something,” Seungmin concedes, shaking his head. He forgets all about it until he gets back from work, and he realizes that Hyunjin must’ve called in reinforcements, because there is a pile of clothes on his bed, complete with accessories ranging from cowboy hats to plastic guns. Jeongin has left a little note saying come on, hyung with a tiny smiley face drawn in the corner. It reminds him of the times he used to go out to restaurants and color on the children’s menus with Jeongin, both of them very young, tongue poking out of the corner of their mouths as they tried to color in the lines.

It’s perhaps this smiley face that finds Seungmin, a week later, sighing at his reflection as he fixes his sailor cap. Out of all the costumes that had been dumped onto his bed, which apparently all his roommates had worked together to compile, this was the least embarrassing option. He comes out of the bathroom and almost crashes headfirst into Minho, who is leaning against the wall, fiddling with a set of aviator sunglasses. He’s also wearing a tuxedo. “Don’t ask,” Minho says, before Seungmin can even comment. “I didn’t want to be a spy, but here we are.”

“Jisung wouldn’t make a good spy,” Seungmin says offhandedly, hearing a squawk of protest from Jisung’s bedroom. Jisung himself emerges a moment later in a matching tuxedo, a pair of aviators pushed to the top of his head. He looks mildly ridiculous, and Seungmin tells him so, which earns him a kick in the shins. He lets Jisung chase him down the stairs, both of them panting and laughing by the time they reach the kitchen, where Felix and Jeongin are mixing some sort of concoction in a big punch bowl.

Jisung laughs even harder, saying that it looks disgusting. “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” Felix says with a huff. He turns around, holding out a tasting spoon in their direction, and Seungmin can’t help but blink a few times. Felix’s shorts are really short. He’s wearing this black tank top and combat boots and the front pieces of his hair are braided back. There are these black straps going around his thighs, where he’s shoved two plastic guns. “Oh, I’m Lara Croft,” Felix says when he sees Seungmin looking, his smile soft and almost nervous, “I might’ve fucked up the costume, though, I don’t know,” and Seungmin finally tears his eyes away, clearing his throat a few times. He reaches for the tasting spoon, just for something to do with his hands.

Hyunjin has no such qualms, swooping in from the living room to grab Felix by the shoulders, shaking him a few times. “You look hot as fuck,” he says, “Happy fucking Halloween, baby, I love you,” and presses a noisy, smacking kiss to Felix’s forehead. The two of them burst out laughing, clutching onto one another. It appears that they’re both already tipsy. 

“Jesus,” Jeongin says, wrinkling his nose. He sets the punch bowl out by the chips and beer bottles. “Can you not do that in front of me?”

“Don’t be jealous, Innie, you can kiss me if you want.” Hyunjin leans toward him, puckering his lips in an exaggerated fashion, but Jeongin just shoves him away, the tips of his ears bright red. He comes to stand next to Seungmin instead, the two of them leaning back against the wall, watching as Jisung cajoles Minho into taking a few selfies. Time seems to slow down for a moment, as if they’re all moving underwater, and Seungmin takes in the wide grin on Hyunjin’s face, the way Felix tosses his head back to laugh, how Minho stares at Jisung when he’s singing along to the Kendrick song blasting from a speaker. Then someone rings the doorbell—the moment is over—and everything moves in regular speed again, the world returning to normal, coming back to Seungmin in bits and pieces.

The turnout is mostly Hyunjin’s friends from the art gallery, who are a little pretentious for Seungmin’s taste, with a few of Jeongin’s college friends sprinkled in, holding court by the drinks. For the most part, Seungmin sticks with Jisung and Minho, the three of them sidestepping around a cluster of men locked in some debate about Wes Anderson. They are just laughing about how gaudy and ostentatious it all is when Felix emerges from the foyer, a brilliant smile on his face, holding hands with a tall, bearded man, who appears to be dressed as Indiana Jones. Seungmin has seen Adam in pictures before, sometimes catching a glimpse of his face when his car pulls up in the driveway, but it’s his first time really seeing Adam. His first thought is that, while Adam is attractive in a rugged way, he also looks a bit older, maybe pushing thirty. He certainly looks older than Felix, who is currently hanging off his neck, kissing him on the mouth.

Seungmin turns to Jisung, chewing at the inside of his cheek. “Adam looks old,” he says. He’s had a few drinks, and he can’t quite control his mouth.

“He is old,” Jisung says, nodding his head vigorously. On the other hand, he’s only had two beers, but he’s already giggling, his cheeks somewhat flushed. “He’s, like, thirty.”

“Thirty isn’t old,” Minho argues, nudging Jisung in the side. “You think anyone over the age of twenty-five is old.”

“Yeah, just like you, hyung! Twenty-six is so old.”

“Only two years older than you.”

Jisung opens his mouth to protest, but he shuts it just as quickly, his teeth clacking together. Felix has suddenly materialized in front of them, his eyes bright, hair a little messy. “Hey,” he says over the music, and turns to look at Seungmin, who flicks his eyes back up to meet Felix’s, his neck feeling warm. “I wanted to introduce you guys! Adam, this is Seungmin, my new roommate. Seungmin, this is my boyfriend, the one I told you about.”

He wants to laugh at the one I told you about, as if Felix has more than one boyfriend, but Seungmin keeps his mouth shut, because Adam is already moving forward, sticking out his hand. “Nice to meet you,” he says, and his voice is very gruff, a smoker’s voice. They shake hands. He has a very strong grip, but he’s rather built in general, all broad shoulders and muscular arms. “So you’re from Los Angeles, huh?”

“Uh,” Seungmin says, blinking. Words stick to the back of his throat like a fly to a web. “Yes.”

“That’s cool. I have family out there.”

There is an immediate lull in the conversation, in which both of them are just looking at each other, but Felix doesn’t seem to notice, squeezing Adam’s arm. “Hey, baby, I’m gonna grab us some drinks,” he says, and then he’s gone, elbowing his way through the sea of people. Seungmin looks around, but Minho and Jisung are somehow now standing in the living room, dancing along to the music that seems to rattle the floorboards. It’s just him and Adam, then, standing awkwardly by the wall, staring out at the partygoers, with absolutely nothing to talk about.

He can’t help but think of everything he’s heard about Adam, ranging from good to bad. According to Felix, Adam Molson is the love of his life, someone he can tell anything to, someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with. According to Hyunjin, Adam should be buried six feet under, an extreme act that he would revel in. According to Jisung, Felix needs Adam to tell him what to do, and isn’t that strange to think about, that people crave that sort of control in their relationships, the dominance to dictate a life, the submission to defer to someone else. Besides, maybe it’s the beard, but Adam really does seem older, and isn’t that a little strange, too, that he’s hanging around Felix, who could easily pass as a college student, who is too nice to tell anyone no?

The silence is so deafening that it sinks into Seungmin’s bones, but he stays quiet, lifting his beer bottle to his lips. After a while, Adam says, “You know, this isn’t usually my scene.” He laughs a little, rubbing the back of his neck, as if embarrassed. “I’m just here because Felix wanted me to dress up with him.”

“Oh—well, you guys look nice.” They both glance over to the kitchen at the same time, where Felix has stopped to talk to one of Jeongin’s college friends. He is smiling so wide that it’s a bit like staring into the sun. “I know Felix was really excited about tonight. Hyunjin, too.”

Adam shrugs, a dismissive motion. “Yeah, well. I’m actually surprised so many people showed up. I feel like we’re all a bit old for Halloween parties.” This almost stuns Seungmin into silence yet again, but Adam is grinning slightly, like they’re sharing some sort of inside joke, so Seungmin makes himself smile back, very weakly, just to be polite. He isn’t sure if that was a backhanded compliment or a blatant dig. “So, what, Seungmin, are you liking the house?”

“Yeah—yes. Everyone’s been super nice. Like, Felix and I—we go on, like. Walks and stuff.” Stop talking about Felix, Seungmin’s brain screams at him. Even if Felix is the only thing they have in common, he’s almost certain that Adam wouldn’t appreciate someone talking so much about his boyfriend. “Uh. I feel like most of us are pretty busy with our own shit, so I don’t, like, see everyone a lot of the time.”

“Yeah,” Adam says, too, but he’s looking at Seungmin curiously now, as if seeing him for the first time, his eyebrows raised. Probably wondering why the fuck Seungmin keeps bringing up his boyfriend.

Seungmin is about two seconds away from jumping out a nearby window when he sees Jeongin motioning him from across the room, waving his hand. “Excuse me a minute,” he says to Adam, who nods, and makes his way through the crowd of people and into the hallway, where Jeongin is picking up scattered solo cups. As Seungmin leans down to help him, he finds himself saying over the music, “I met Adam.” He’s drunker than he’d thought, because now he’s just saying whatever comes to mind.

“I know,” Jeongin says dryly, grabbing the last of the cups before straightening up. He drops them into Seungmin’s arms. “That’s why I called you over.”

“I don’t like him, Jeongin.” The sharpness of his own tone surprises him. Seungmin hadn’t even known that he was so passionate about this, but now that he’s started, he can’t stop babbling as he follows Jeongin down the hallway, where the garage is. “He’s so, like—I don’t know, arrogant. He stands in the corner like he’s judging everyone, and he looks so old, and I feel like he and Felix would have absolutely nothing to talk about.”

“They don’t, hyung. That’s why they just, like, fuck all the time.” Seungmin makes a face and tells him not to put it like that. “Well, it’s true. You think Felix likes Adam for his conversation skills? They just talk about themselves and their lives, and then they fuck. They’re in their own little bubble, yeah? You have to just leave them be.”

Jeongin sounds more bitter than expected, shoving his shoulder against the door to force it open. It’s cooler in the garage, away from all the sweaty bodies packed together in the kitchen and living room, and they throw out the cups in the recycling can. “But you do think it’s weird, right,” Seungmin pushes, but Jeongin doesn’t answer, just looking at him in the dark. “Seriously, I’m not the only one besides Hyunjin who thinks this is weird, am I?” He can feel his face getting hot, the way it does when he knows he’s talking too much. He should really shut up. Like Jisung said, Felix is an adult, and he can handle himself.

“Of course I think it’s weird,” Jeongin says plainly, like he’s explaining something to a young child. It’s probably a technique he picked up in his college classes while studying to become an elementary school teacher. “It is weird. But there’s really nothing we can do about it, okay? It’s Felix’s relationship, not ours.”

He’s right. Seungmin knows he’s right. But knowing is different than believing, and as they make their way back to the party, he finds himself tucking himself away in a far corner of the living room, mingling with Hyunjin’s friends instead of returning to where Adam and Felix are now standing together, beers in their hands, touching one another’s arms and wearing flirty little smiles. They aren’t looking anywhere else, only at each other, and one of Adam’s hands is curved around Felix’s hip. 

The rest of the night passes by in a blur of dim lights and alcohol, warmth pressing in on Seungmin like it’s trying to eat him alive. He’s glad when Hyunjin finally begins shooing everyone out, because it’s rather late and now he just wants to sleep, his eyelids very heavy, the world swaying underneath his feet.

He finds Minho wiping down the kitchen counter and takes the paper towel to do it for him. “Where’s Jisung?” he asks, and Minho frowns, his eyebrows knitting together. He says that Jisung probably went upstairs already, he isn’t good at social functions like these, and Seungmin just nods. He feels a little bad for Minho, being left all alone like this, so as they clean the kitchen they make small talk about Hyunjin’s friends, who had the most ridiculous costume, which one of Jeongin’s college friends was getting way too drunk. The darkness outside the windows looms like a living entity, and Seungmin’s head hurts so much that he can feel his pulse behind his eyes.

Hyunjin is still wide awake, however, and he sways along to the acoustic music that he’d queued over the speaker, humming as he picks up the last of the vodka bottles. “Anyone wanna take another shot?” he asks, but when everyone grunts at him, he just shrugs. “Probably for the best,” he agrees, shoving them into the nearest drawer. Seungmin makes a mental note to organize it later, leaning back against the counter. “Hey, you know what I’m thinking about?”

Minho rubs his eyes. “What?”

“Jisung asked me a few months ago if I thought that a life alone was, like, a meaningless life. Sometimes life feels so dull, I don’t know, but does that make it meaningless? Maybe—but then again, maybe not.” Hyunjin is making grand gestures with his hands as he talks, eyes slightly glazed over, and it’s obvious that he’s going to have a horrible hangover in the morning. His words are slurred, running together so that Seungmin has to use all his brainpower to comprehend. “I don’t like the idea of that. Being alone forever. And these days it seems like that’s all that matters—finding someone. I mean, look at high school homecoming dances and proms. Isn’t that basically, like, a practice run for proposing?”

For a moment, everyone considers this, in their various stages of tipsy and drunk. “Well, yeah,” Minho finally says, more to himself than anyone else. He’s studying the kitchen tiles as if he’s never seen them before. “But I do most things alone, anyway.”

Seungmin thinks he can understand what Minho means. Minho is the sort of person who doesn’t need anyone. He wakes up alone, he goes running alone, he gets his groceries alone, and he falls asleep alone. He is so independent, almost detached, from the rest of the world and it seems he’d be happy continuing on this way forever, but then again, isn’t that part of human nature, wanting to reach out to others, to connect with them on some deeper level? Is there a reason that humans struggle so hard to forge bonds with others, whether romantic or platonic, when life is already so short?

Jisung, however, is another story entirely. He’s rather alone, too, but in a way that seems lonely and isolating, not independent. Hyunjin has his art friends and Jeongin has his college friends, but as far as Seungmin can tell, Jisung doesn’t have very many friends, spending most of his time in his bedroom with headphones shoved haphazardly over his ears. He almost is defiant in the face of societal norms, preferring to keep his life separate from the rest of the world. He and Minho are about as similar as night and day. Seungmin wonders what they even have to talk about, when they’re not joking around with one another, conversations that are so twisted that they become as meaningless as life itself.

“Seriously, Hyunjin hyung,” Jeongin says, sounding tired, “we are not gonna be alone forever. At least you’re not. You’re not one of those people who are gonna, like, be single at forty.” Hyunjin raises his eyebrows and asks what that’s supposed to mean. “Like—okay, you could say that I would be single at forty, but you wouldn’t be single at forty.”

“No way,” Hyunjin bursts out, shaking his head several times. He moves towards Jeongin, eyes wild, putting both his hands on his shoulders. “Listen to me, you’re not one of those people, either! Are you kidding me?” 

“What’re you guys talking about?” This is coming from Felix, who has just wandered in from the hallway, Adam in tow. Now Felix comes to stand across the counter, chin propped up in his hands as he rests his elbows against the table. He has such a wide, easy smile on his face that it hurts to look at. “Hyunjin, why are you shaking Innie like that?”

Hyunjin glances over at him, his face brightening. “Hey, wait, I need to ask you this,” he says, dropping Jeongin’s shoulders. By then Adam has wrapped his arms around Felix’s waist, burying his face into Felix’s neck, and it’s obvious that Felix’s attention is already drifting, but Hyunjin soldiers on. “Is life meaningless if you can’t share it with someone you love? What do you think?”

Felix takes a moment to answer, his eyes already unfocused as he reaches up to thread a hand through Adam’s hair. “What? No, obviously not.” Everyone is surprised by this answer, coming from the man who tries to insert Adam’s name into every conversation like it’s a competition, and Jeongin asks him why. There’s a slight pause. “Being a good friend,” Felix finally says. There is a small smile on his face as he looks at them. “If I want to be remembered for anything after I die, it would be for being a good friend.”

For a long moment, everyone is quiet, just looking at each other. It’s hard to peel his gaze away from the counter, but then Seungmin looks up—for a brief second, his eyes meet Felix’s—and then Hyunjin pretends to lift an imaginary cup, saying, “To Felix,” and Jeongin laughs and says, “To Felix,” and they are all laughing and cheering Felix’s name, Felix shaking his head with a bashful smile, the tips of his ears bright red. He and Adam are standing on one side of the counter, everyone is standing on the other, and time is moving in slow motion again, as if underwater, the flash of Felix’s wrist as he puts his hand on the side of Adam’s face, pulling him down for a quick kiss, the sudden press of their mouths together, so easy as if they’d done it a million times before. It’s a reality that suddenly feels so unreachable, so far from the realm of possibility, that for a moment Seungmin just has to lean back against the cabinets, closing his eyes, breathing hard. He lets several seconds pass this way, not participating in the conversation, until he hears a burst of familiar sounds—Hyunjin’s snickering laugh, Jeongin’s snort, Minho’s soft voice as he begins talking to Adam—and only then is he able to open his eyes, taking breath after breath, letting the world roll right off his back, as he always does.

At first, the noise is so quiet that Seungmin thinks he’s imagining it.

By then, it’s very late, the darkness inside his bedroom covering his eyes like a thick wad of wool. He’s still a little drunk as he finally gets ready for bed, hair damp against the side of his neck as he rolls over onto his other side, sheets pooling around his waist. It’s always been difficult for Seungmin to fall asleep after a night of drinking. The shadows on the opposite wall seem to be moving. His head is pounding to an uneven rhythm, and his blanket feels too scratchy against his skin. He fights the sudden urge to itch at himself until the feeling goes away. 

It takes him a long moment to realize that the thudding is happening outside his brain. It’s a disjointed beat, like something rocking against the wall by his head. Seungmin shifts back onto his other side, blinking several times, but it’s only when he hears a soft sound like a sigh when he realizes that it’s just Felix and Adam in the next room over, having sex.

That’s—well. It’s none of his business.

He’s known for a while that, if there hadn’t been a wall, the headboard of his own bed and Felix’s headboard would be touching. The first time Felix had entered Seungmin’s room, the two of them debating whether or not they should take another walk around the neighborhood or drive out to a nearby park, the first thing Felix had done was grin and say, “You know, if there was a hole right above our headboards, we could literally pass goodnight notes through it.” Sometimes, just before falling asleep, Seungmin had pictured an aerial view of he and Felix laying in their beds, only separated by a thin wall, scrolling on their phones as the blue light washed across their faces. Now the image comes unbidden to his mind of Felix laying on his back, face flushed and damp as Adam thrusts into him, the two of them moving with the familiarity and ease of, once again, having done this a million times before. It’s an unwelcome thought, not only because Seungmin doesn’t like Adam, but because Felix is his roommate. A friend, even. Color rising to his cheeks, Seungmin buries himself further into his pillow, hoping that he had just misheard.

He can hear low murmurs, however, words that he cannot quite make out, which take a physical shape in Seungmin’s mind, lodging themselves into his brain. Felix is making these little sounds, breathless and gasping, which contributes to the dreamlike quality of the night, as if Seungmin is watching a movie of his life instead of living through it. Felix is really fucking noisy. It would be so much easier to ignore what’s happening if he wasn’t.

There is a low grunt—a sharp sound as the headboard slams against the wall again—and there is silence for a long moment, as if this moment is hanging suspended in the air. Then there is the sound of Adam’s gravelly voice saying something like, “Hey, I’m gonna pull out,” and Felix makes a humming sound, and then no other words are exchanged between them. Silence returns, pressing into his skin, sinking into his bones. It’s as if nothing had even happened at all.

Seungmin rolls over again and tries to fall asleep, ignoring his heart thudding in his chest.

———

It’s two on a Monday afternoon when Seungmin checks his phone and sees a notification that Felix has liked one of his Instagram posts.

He’s sitting in his cubicle at work, wearing his glasses, but he takes them off to bring the screen closer to his face. The post is an older one, dating back to about two years ago, when Seungmin had once visited a farmer’s market in Los Angeles. He’d snapped a picture of all the vendors, their colorful tents and arrays of fruits and vegetables, captioning it Sunday morning. Seungmin himself hadn’t even been in the picture, but he must’ve still been in college at the time. There’s been nothing particularly special about it, but here Felix is, liking his post, even though they’ve never exchanged usernames. 

Seungmin finds himself clicking on Felix’s profile, just out of curiosity. He’s surprised not only to find that Felix’s account is also public, or that he has over two hundred posts, but Felix has about five thousand followers. Hyunjin has told him that, before becoming engrossed in his relationship with Adam, Felix used to be incredibly extroverted, but Seungmin has a difficult time believing this when, the first time they’d spoken on their way to the basement show, Felix had seemed very faraway, almost like he was just half of a person, hardly looking Seungmin in the eye.

It’s surprising, too, that most of Felix’s posts are selfies. Seungmin hasn’t ever seen Felix take a selfie before, hasn’t assumed that Felix was into broadcasting himself on social media—but then again, Felix is rather attractive in a rare, feminine way, his features sharp and angular, giving an androgynous quality to his face. There are photos of what he recognizes as Felix’s bedroom, the café where he works part-time, his outfits, which are the most popular posts by far. From three months ago, there is a photo of the back of Adam’s head, the two of them apparently at some beach in South Jersey. There’s no caption for that one.

Seungmin keeps scrolling, getting further and further away from the recent posts. In his captions and comments, Felix makes plenty of jokes that Seungmin can’t understand, references to memes and trends that are too far out of his reach. Under the comment section of one post, three years ago, in which Felix is snapping a mirror selfie, wearing a worn sweatshirt and a backwards cap, one of his friends said, you look like a frat boy. Felix had commented back, i seriously need a frat boy to rail me rn lolll.

His face on fire, Seungmin swipes out of the app and puts his phone back down on his desk. Time to get back to work, he thinks.

———

A notification from Felix flashes on Hyunjin’s phone just as he gets out of the shower, warm beads of water dripping from his hair. hey i need to talk to u about smth. That’s all there is. Hyunjin frowns, wiping away the steam that had collected on the small screen as he presses on the notification, but when his message app opens a second later, he sees that Felix has unsent the text. WTF, Hyunjin writes back, but there is no response.

He doesn’t really know what to think. For all that he can be chatty, Felix is a surprisingly private person, skilled at talking a lot without actually saying anything. He can be careful with his words when he wants to be, at withdrawing them from the conversation, holding them out of arm’s reach. If Felix doesn’t want someone to know some piece of information, there’s a good chance they’ll never find out, something that has never failed to infuriate Hyunjin, who considers Felix one of his best friends.

It’s a Sunday morning in mid-November, and as Hyunjin meanders down the driveway, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, he’s suddenly wishing that he thought to check the weather beforehand. It’s cool outside, the sharp wind whistling past his face, but if he’d known it was going to be cold, he would’ve done a better job of drying his hair. It’s always been this way, though—wishing he had done something differently, lamenting an impulsive decision he’s made—and he isn’t quite sure how to change that. Of course, he could start by just checking the weather, but little things like that always slip his mind, no matter how much he tells himself he should try to be a better adult.

Felix’s workplace is only a couple blocks away by foot. He works close to the house because he doesn’t know how to drive, doesn't have any interest in learning. It’s a small café, tucked away on the corner of the street, with brightly colored walls and plush armchairs, soft jazz music playing over the speakers. In the corner, shelves are dedicated to what a handwritten sign details as a Living Library, where patrons are encouraged to leave used books for others to read. The lighting is dim and warm, providing a certain coziness like curling up by a fireplace as Hyunjin pushes open the door, a bell jangling to announce his arrival. 

Felix is standing at the cash register, but he’s leaning against the counter, immersed in his phone. There is a little frown on his face. He doesn’t notice Hyunjin is there until he clears his throat, and then Felix jumps, slamming his phone back down onto the counter. His eyes are blown wide, but he relaxes once he realizes it’s just Hyunjin, shoulders slumping. “Holy shit, you fucking scared me,” Felix says, and then covers his mouth, glancing around. There aren’t many people inside, however, just a few college students typing away at their laptops, clunky headphones pressed over their ears. Felix himself is the only one behind the counter. “You want your usual?”

Don’t play dumb, Hyunjin wants to say, but there is a jittery energy about Felix today, the way he keeps fidgeting with his rings as he looks just past Hyunjin, eyes blinking rapidly. Whatever Felix had wanted to talk about, it’s clear that this isn’t the place to do it. “Yeah, sure,” Hyunjin says instead, but when he goes to pull out his credit card, Felix just presses a button on the register, shaking his head.

“On the house,” he says, as always.

“Thanks, babe.” They just look at each other for a second, Felix opening and closing his mouth a few times, before he seems to remember that he’s supposed to be making Hyunjin’s iced americano. He springs into action, grabbing for a plastic cup. Hyunjin leans against the counter to wait, picking up one of the business cards set out by the register. “Have you guys been busy today?” he asks, turning the card over in his hand before setting it back down.

“No, not really. Just—you know. It’s always the same.”

“Huh.” Hyunjin pauses, and then he says, “When does your shift end?”

“At twelve.”

That’s only forty minutes away. “We’re going out for lunch after, okay? Bella’s Place, on me.” Felix shakes his head, starting to protest, but Hyunjin just shrugs. It’s not like working at the art gallery makes him rich by any means, but he also knows that Felix rarely ever goes out to eat, that he doesn’t make enough money to afford luxuries like that. He only eats out at nice places when Adam or Hyunjin or sometimes Seungmin takes him. “Come on, Lix, it’ll be fun.”

Felix looks at him for a long moment, and then he sighs. “Okay,” he says, sounding resigned. He snaps a lid onto Hyunjin’s drink and hands it over to him, but they’re both lingering there at the counter, unmoving. “Isn’t Bella’s Place a little expensive?”

It’s this small, trendy restaurant in the Rittenhouse area of Philadelphia that notoriously doesn’t take reservations. The tables are always taken, however, and the place is so cramped that the back of your chair is always pressed up against some stranger’s, but the food is really good—that is, it looks pretty, presented nicely on delicate plates. It’s the sort of place that Felix would love, and probably the sort of place that Seungmin would scoff at, saying that the portions are too small to be paying that much. “I mean, it’s worth it,” Hyunjin says, lifting his shoulder. He takes a sip of his coffee and hums. “I can take cute pictures of you, if you want.”

Felix finally laughs. “Okay, but only if you let me take cute pictures of you, too.”

“Deal.”

The bell over the door jangles, signalling another customer, and Hyunjin wanders over to one of the armchairs, plopping down to scroll on social media. His eyes keep drifting back to Felix, however, how he’s moving robotically as he starts making another drink, his shoulders very tense, the smile falling from his face as he turns away. Felix is a good actor, he already knows, but the contrast between his easy smiles and the distant look in his eyes is so stark that it makes Hyunjin feel a little dizzy.

What could possibly be going on? It has to do with Adam, that much is obvious, because as unfortunate as it is, Felix wouldn’t care this much about something non-Adam related. 

It’s jarring, to say the least. Hyunjin still remembers when Felix had been getting ready for his first date with Adam, all giggly and flushed in the face, showing everyone pictures on his phone from Adam’s dating app profile. “Look, he likes working out,” he’d said, shoving the screen in Hyunjin’s face. So do, like, a million other guys in Pennsylvania, Hyunjin wanted to argue, but then he’d seen the pictures and had to fight the urge to wolf-whistle. It isn’t like Adam is the most attractive guy on the planet—he has these sharp eyes like flint, which always makes him look like he’s perpetually on the verge of getting annoyed, and with his beard, he looks sort of older, even though he’s only twenty-eight—but he definitely is built, which is exactly Felix’s type. One of the only things that Felix had cared about, in fact, when he was swiping left and right all over these dating apps.

That date had caused a stir in the house, because Felix hadn’t texted that he arrived at the restaurant, like he usually did, and then he’d never come home. At first, Hyunjin was insisting that Felix was fine, he was probably just off having a grand old time, but Jeongin had shaken his head, his brow furrowed. “This is a stranger, hyung,” he snapped. “From the internet! Felix could be, like, trapped in a basement somewhere, or abandoned on the backroads of Pennsylvania, or dumped in some manhole.” Then Hyunjin had really thought about it and was ashamed that he hadn’t considered it sooner, the possibility that Felix was really in danger. They had even dragged Jisung into it, even though he was half-asleep from staying up all night to work on his music, and then Jeongin had shoved everyone into his car, tearing out of the driveway, tires squealing against the asphalt.

They were halfway to the restaurant when Felix finally texted: sorry just realized i forgot to text lmao im good ab to get dicked down hahahah. prob not coming home tn. Hyunjin had never seen Jeongin so angry before, pulling the road onto the side of the road so that he could take deep breaths. “I don’t know why I bother worrying so much,” he kept muttering, pressing the heels of his hands hard into his eyes. It wouldn't have been so troubling if Jeongin was the sort of person who got upset often, but in fact it was the one of the only times Hyunjin had ever seen Jeongin lose his temper, and he and Jisung had no idea what to say in reply.

Jisung had looked at Hyunjin, and Hyunjin twisted around in his seat to look back at him, the two of them blinking at one another. “Uh, Innie,” Jisung finally said, leaning forward to touch Jeongin’s shoulder. He wasn’t very good at comforting people, but at the very least, Jeongin seemed to relax a little, letting his hands fall back into his lap. “Let’s just go home, okay? Should we get some ice cream? We can stop by the grocery store.”

“That sounds good,” Hyunjin said right away, because he never passed up the chance to eat ice cream. Jeongin had sighed but started the car up again, pulling back onto the main road, and that was that. Between the three of them, they’ve never talked about that night, and they probably never will, because there isn’t anything left to say: Adam had dropped Felix off the next morning, picked him up again for dinner that same night, and a week later, Felix had told Hyunjin that he and Adam were boyfriends. The rest was history.

The forty minutes pass by as if in slow motion, Hyunjin scrolling through his contacts to find random people to text, Felix also distracted by his phone, the two of them making eye contact every so often. When Felix finally comes out from behind the counter, combing a hand through his hair, Hyunjin stands and envelops him into a crushing hug, for no reason other than that he can. “Such a hard little worker,” he coos, patting his head, and Felix swats at him while rolling his eyes. He does seem to lighten up, however, and as they walk back to the house, where Hyunjin starts his car, he asks all these questions about how Hyunjin’s day is going, gasping in all the right places, laughing at Hyunjin’s jokes.

“I’m—fine,” Felix says when Hyunjin asks him the same thing, and then the silence becomes stilted, the two of them just looking out the windshield. They’re stopped at a red light. They hadn’t turned any music on, and now Hyunjin regrets it, digging around for his phone and holding it out so that Felix can queue up some songs. Moments later, lo-fi music starts playing, and Felix sets the phone back down in the cup holder.

“You don’t seem very fine,” Hyunjin says at last. He is drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, not looking up from the road. “You wanna tell me what’s going on or what? I got your text, you know. Obviously.”

“Yeah, that was—I mean, I really don’t know. What to do, I mean.”

“About what?” There is a long silence. Felix has turned his face away. When Hyunjin speaks again, his voice is dangerously low. “About what, Felix?”

Another pause, but it’s shorter this time. “Well, me and Adam are in a fight,” Felix mutters. This is no big surprise, since they’re always fighting, but then he says, “It’s because he doesn’t want to meet my mom.” This makes Hyunjin stop for a second, raising his eyebrows. He’d had no idea that Felix’s mother was coming to visit from Australia, but as soon as he voices this aloud, Felix is shaking his head. “No, we were thinking about going over there, but Adam is, like—he’s just not interested, I guess.”

Not interested? He hadn’t been aware that a boyfriend or girlfriend could just not be interested in meeting someone’s family. “Shit,” Hyunjin says, laughing more out of disbelief than anything. He signals a left as he merges into the fast lane. “I won’t lie to you, that’s pretty fucking weird. You guys have been dating for like, what, almost a year now?”

“But it’s not—like, I think it’s more that he’s not ready. He just doesn’t want her to think that he’s not gonna, like, support me financially. Since we both don’t have really stable jobs. I don’t know.” Hyunjin thinks about agreeing and pointing out the fact that Adam is literally a bartender, but chooses not to answer. “But sometimes Adam just says things without thinking, and I know that he doesn’t mean them, so it’s just, well—I don’t think he means that he’s actually not interested in meeting my mom. Right?” Felix is looking at Hyunjin now, his eyes wide, face a little red. He’s biting the inside of his cheek. “You think Adam’s a good guy, don’t you?”

“I—” Hyunjin flounders for a response, and then wonders why the fuck he’s floundering. Out of all their roommates, he probably hates Adam the most. He can’t fucking stand to even look at Adam’s face. But Felix has never asked him outright if he agreed that Adam was a good guy, or for any reassurance that he was doing the right thing, and in the face of this question, Hyunjin finds himself at a loss. “Like, I—”

Felix just sighs, rubbing his eyes. “Never mind, that was a stupid question,” he says. “I love Adam. I shouldn’t be saying any of this, I’m sorry.” Hyunjin says his name, but then Felix just shrugs, looking back down at his phone. His face is a mask of complete neutrality. “It’s not a big deal, anyway.”

They’ve hit afternoon traffic on the highway. Hyunjin sighs, shaking his head. “It’s a big deal if it’s bothering you,” he says, reaching across the middle console to put his hand on Felix’s arm. That’s when he sees it: the little recoil that Felix does right before Hyunjin touches him, like an electric shock is passing through his body. It’s barely perceptible, but Hyunjin has known him for a while, and he sees it.

For a moment, he doesn’t know what else to say, but then Felix just offers him a weak smile, lacing his fingers with Hyunjin’s. He hadn’t even realized that his hand was still just hovering over Felix’s arm. “I’m fine,” Felix whispers. “Seriously, you don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. Okay?”

“Okay,” Hyunjin murmurs, and takes his hand back. 

Finding parking spaces in the city is a bitch, but Hyunjin manages to pull into a spot just as a white Jeep is leaving, and they walk a couple blocks to Bella’s Place’s, shoulders hunched against the cold. Inside, it’s warm and toasty, with an open table for two in the far corner. They take off their jackets, admiring the restaurant. Hyunjin has been here a few times for work lunches, but it’s different coming here with Felix, who is so openly admiring of his surroundings, snapping pictures of this and that, touching the large leaves of the plant next to their table and wondering aloud if it’s real or plastic.

For a moment, Hyunjin’s heart is throbbing, just looking at him. He wonders if he should bring up Adam again, or if he should just fess up to despising his best friend’s boyfriend, but it’s not like Felix ever listens. Stupidly, he wishes that Seungmin was here to say what everyone was thinking, because as much as Hyunjin talks, he doesn’t know how to tell a bare truth, he doesn’t want to hurt Felix’s feelings—so in the end, Hyunjin says nothing. He just passes Felix a menu and does his best to smile.

“What are you gonna order?” he ends up saying, eyes wandering across the menu options. The salmon looks especially good. “I told you, it’s on me.” Not that Hyunjin can really afford to be spending like this, but whatever, it’ll be fine.

“Uh.” Felix pushes the menu aside, wrinkling his nose. “The toast and the scrambled eggs.”

Hyunjin knows for a fact that that’s the cheapest thing on the menu. “Felix,” he says, almost warningly.

“Okay! I guess—the crab macaroni and cheese looks pretty good.”

He finally smiles. “It does,” Hyunjin agrees, nodding his head, secretly pleased when Felix smiles, too. “It looks really good.”

When their food comes, they both spend some time taking pictures of their meals, the delicate plates, their surroundings. The sun is filtering in through the windows just right, and Felix insists on snapping a shot of Hyunjin smiling at the camera, gesturing to the watercolor painting of an elephant that hangs above their table. “So cute,” Felix is saying, holding out his phone to show Hyunjin the pictures, when he suddenly freezes, eyes flicking to the entrance of the restaurant. Hyunjin is on high alert, straightening up, but before he can turn around, Felix whispers, “It’s Chris and Lena. Don’t mention anything, okay? He doesn’t know how serious my relationship is with Adam yet.” Hyunjin opens his mouth to respond, at a loss, but the next thing he knows, Lena is toddling over in their direction, burying her face in Felix’s arm. In a flash, Felix transforms into a bright and bubbly version of himself, and he scoops her up into his lap, planting kisses on her face. “Hi, baby! I didn’t know I was gonna see you today.”

“Shit, she walks so fast now,” says a familiar voice, laughing, and Hyunjin looks up with a grunt. Chris is standing beside their table, smiling at the sight of his brother and Lena. He turns to Hyunjin, patting him on the shoulder, though his smile becomes a little more reserved. “This is so funny. What are you guys doing here?”

“Just—getting lunch,” Hyunjin says after a pause, gesturing to their table, where their lunch still remains untouched. He’s never really known how to act around Chris, because he’s pretty sure that Chris hates him. Over the summer, he and Felix had been wandering around Rittenhouse Square, smoking a joint that Hyunjin had expertly rolled, and they’d run into Chris, who’d been holding Lena with one hand and his dog in the other. That conversation had been the most awkward moment of Hyunjin’s entire life, Chris’ disapproving eyes constantly flicking from the joint to their faces, his mouth set in a hard line. He probably thought that Hyunjin was corrupting Felix, as if Felix didn’t make the best weed cookies known to man.

There’s another pause. “That’s cool,” Chris says with a shrug. He’s already looking away, his eyes drifting back to Lena once again, who is now, for some unfathomable reason, tugging at Felix’s hair. “How’s the art gallery, then?”

Hyunjin raises his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected Chris to remember his profession, not when he’d only mentioned it in passing. “It’s going well,” he says. “We have a new exhibition that we’re setting up for—it’s opening to the general public in a couple weeks. There’s a focus on Asian art. You and Lena should check it out.”

“Oh, yeah, I heard about that. Maybe we’ll go. We’re always trying to find new things to do around Philly.” Chris shifts his weight from foot to foot, still not looking at Hyunjin. “I’ll have to check when my weekends with Lena are first.”

He can’t remember much about what Felix told him about Chris, just that he has a daughter but that he was never married. Lena was an accidental baby, Hyunjin knows, possibly between Chris and his longtime college girlfriend at the time, but they’re still on good terms now. Now Chris lives somewhere in the city, but he swings by the house if he needs a babysitter, which is why Felix is always asking everyone if they want to come along to the mall, to the toy store, to the bookstore, anywhere he can take Lena. She really is a cute four-year-old, but Hyunjin doesn’t gravitate towards children, doesn’t know what to do with them. Kids are never amused by his antics.

As for Chris, Hyunjin doesn’t know what to do about him, either. Felix always insists that Chris likes everyone, that he’s just awkward, but if that’s really true, would Chris be glaring every time Hyunjin answered the door?

Felix is now calling over one of the waiters, asking if Chris can be seated next to them. Hyunjin wants to protest, and he really almost does, but that would just hurt Felix’s feelings, and he can’t bring himself to do that. In the end, Chris and Lena wind up at the table beside them, and since the restaurant is so cramped anyway, all Hyunjin has to do is turn slightly to the left and they’re within talking distance. He keeps making accidental eye contact with Chris, whose gaze is sharp and arresting, so in the end, he just stares on his food, picking at his grilled salmon, suddenly not hungry.

At some point, Chris turns to Felix and asks, “So, have you been seeing anyone recently?” The question is innocuous enough, but Felix just straightens up, shaking his head. The tips of his ears are red, but he still says no, not glancing in Hyunjin’s direction even once. It’s so seamless, the transition from his usual faraway self to this inexplicable ray of sunshine, that just looking at him, Hyunjin can feel his heart sinking.

Sometimes, he feels like he doesn’t know Felix at all.

———

The call comes a little past midnight.

Seungmin is reading in his bed, wearing his glasses again, idly flipping through another mystery novel. Most of these novels have similar twists, but as predictable as they are, they’re still Seungmin’s guilty pleasure. Even though he has work the next day, he finds himself sitting up against the headboard, turning page after page, humming softly under his breath.

He’s just reaching for the glass of water on his nightstand when it occurs to him that his phone is ringing—and probably has been for a while, judging from the two missed notifications flashing on the screen. These days, people never call him. Seungmin frowns, lifting his phone to his ear without looking. “Hello?” It’s pretty late. He’s working from home tomorrow, but still, he really should be asleep.

There’s a long pause, in which Seungmin can’t hear anything, not even the sound of anyone’s breathing. Then there is suddenly a familiar voice, very soft, a little crackly through the line: “Seungmin?”

The first thing Seungmin does is frown, pull the phone away from his ear, and check the caller ID. Sure enough, he’s talking to Felix, who has never called him on the phone before. They’re in a roommate group chat together, but Seungmin still only has his contact saved as Felix (Roommate), and in fact they don’t really text at all unless it’s something house-related. The last thing he’d texted Felix was, Takeout in the fridge if you want any, a message that Felix had simply liked.

“Uh, yeah, it’s me.” Another pause. There is faint music drifting in the background of the call, something with an electronic beat. “Everything okay?” For a long time, the silence wanes on, no answer except for that infuriating electronic drumbeat, the distant chatter of a crowd. Felix remains quiet, but his breathing has become ragged and uneven, as if he’s manually focusing taking one breath after another. “Felix,” Seungmin suddenly says, sharper this time, sitting straight up. It’s so late that everything feels hazy, his bedroom swimming before his eyes—the papery thin curtains, the wooden bookshelf, the closet door, still left ajar—but he still tries to gather his thoughts. “Felix, where are you?”

Felix is with Adam, that much Seungmin knows. Felix is with Adam, because Felix is always with Adam. Felix is with Adam, because Seungmin had just come back from work earlier and was struggling to find his keys when Adam’s car had pulled up to the curb, blasting music that sounded suspiciously like country pop. Felix had burst out of the house, struggling into an oversized sweater, his hair still damp from a shower, water drying like pearls against the side of his neck. They had practically collided on the porch. “Shit, sorry, I didn’t see you,” Felix said, his eyes wild, reaching out to pat Seungmin’s arm. Then he’d managed a vague smile before hurrying down the stairs, down the driveway, all the way to Adam’s car, where he slid into the passenger seat with an audible huff. It wasn’t anything new, but Felix had appeared to be in an extraordinarily terrible mood, and even after Adam had pulled away, Seungmin stood there on the porch steps, watching the car disappear around the corner, chewing at the inside of his cheek.

He thinks that Felix and Adam might end up rushing into marriage one day, a thought that makes a knot in his gut pull too tight. Seungmin will never pretend to know Felix, because even if he were to reach out and put his hand on Felix’s cheek, it would still be as though his hand was passing through air—and besides, he’s almost certain that no one truly understands Felix, not Jisung, not Jeongin, not even Hyunjin. But Seungmin knows what Felix deserves, and it’s more than Adam, who is gruff and too serious, who doesn’t laugh at Felix’s jokes, who is the reason why Felix is constantly on his phone, only half-present in any conversation, like a walking optical illusion.

Sometimes, Seungmin will search his camera roll for the few pictures he has of Felix, most of them group shots from roommate outings. Felix is always smiling faintly at the camera, possibly at Seungmin through the screen. There is a strange quality to his eyes that makes one feel they’re being seen entirely, as if Felix is only looking at them. All Seungmin can do is stare, in a way he can never bring himself to stare in person. Felix has a beautiful face, his sharp cheekbones, the long turn of his eyelashes. Looking at these photos, he is always gripped by a sudden, panicky fear: tomorrow will come, and Felix won’t return to the house. Days will pass, then a week, then a month, and Felix will just be gone, as if he’d never existed. Then Felix will show up at Seungmin’s bedroom, smiling, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, asking him about work and the books he’s reading, and Seungmin will realize that it was stupid to worry, that everything is fine. He doesn’t quite know why he worries, or what it is that he fears so much.

The silence is becoming unbearable. He thinks he might start yelling. “Seungmin,” Felix finally says again, the name sounding thick in his mouth, like he’s talking through a wad of cotton. His voice is barely audible. “Seungmin, I’m fine, everything’s fine, I just—I want you to talk to me.”

Something’s wrong. Felix doesn’t sound like his usual self, his words somewhat slurred. “Okay,” Seungmin whispers, his voice steadier than he feels. He’s already swinging his legs off the side of the bed, grabbing blindly for a jacket that he’s slung over the back of his desk chair. Fucking Adam, he thinks. “Can you tell me where you are?” Felix hesitates, then says he doesn’t know. His breathing has picked up exponentially. “Okay. Okay. Fuck.” He grabs for his car keys, shoving himself into his nearest pair of sneakers, even though he never wears shoes inside the house. “Can you share your location with me?”

There’s a burst of noise, people laughing in the background. A party of some sort. “No, you don’t have to come,” Felix says quickly, and in that moment, he sounds more lucid than ever. “Seriously, don’t. I just—I’m really high off an edible, alright, and I know—that you’re real. Like, I’m not making you up. And I just—I need to hear your voice. Because you’re real.” There’s a slight pause, and then Felix echoes, “You’re real,” but it’s different this time, more uncertain than before, a question instead of a statement. 

Seungmin’s heart is thudding hard against his ribcage. “Yes, I’m real,” he manages into the phone, slamming his bedroom door shut behind him. “I’m real, okay, and you’re real, too. It’s gonna be okay.” A thin strip of light is visible under Jisung’s door, but something tells him to keep moving, that Felix doesn’t want anyone else to know. He makes it all the way to his car and starts the engine, letting the car warm up in the late November chill, rubbing his hands together for warmth. It’s cold outside. He should’ve brought another sweatshirt, just in case Felix needed one. “Where’s Adam?”

Felix breathes in, breathes out. “I don’t know,” he says again, sounding panicky. This was the wrong question to ask. “He just—he drove off. He doesn’t want to talk to me, and he’s not answering his phone, and I just needed to talk to someone, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me.” Seungmin pauses, but he doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s past midnight and he’s fucking tired, but he asks for Felix’s location again. Finally, there are rustling sounds, like Felix is fumbling with his phone. “I don’t know where Adam is, I’m sorry,” he repeats, as if that isn’t obvious, sounding mournful.

His phone dings with a location, and Seungmin’s eyebrows shoot up. Felix is all the way across the bridge in New Jersey on a Thursday night. He adjusts his rearview mirror, starts backing up the car. “It’s fine, I’m coming,” he says, and when Felix begins to protest, Seungmin just snaps, “Stop fucking apologizing. I’m not Adam. I already told you I was coming, alright, so I’m coming.” There is a long, long silence. Felix’s breath is hitching wet in the back of his throat. Seungmin thinks about apologizing, too, but shakes his head, signaling onto the main road. He needs to relax. As much as he thinks otherwise, Felix is not a rare, delicate bird. Felix is an adult. “Just stay where you are. Are there other people around?”

“Yeah, there’s other people.” Through the line, Felix’s voice sounds distorted, as if he’s speaking from the bottom of a well, or as if he’s close to tears. “Seungmin, am I gonna be okay?”

Seungmin’s breath catches. Felix sounds so forlorn, like a little child. He wants to ask Felix what’s wrong. He wants to break through all of their hurdles, to ask him why he can be so lifeless one moment and smiling the next. But who could have dared such a question? “Yes,” he whispers instead. “Yes, you’re gonna be okay, I’m real, you’re real, just keep listening to my voice. I’m coming to get you, alright, I’ll be there, I’m coming, I’m coming for you.” There is so much he wants to say, that he isn’t Adam, that he’ll never be Adam, that he fucking hates Adam, that everyone fucking hates Adam, that he wishes Felix had never met Adam. But he doesn’t want to talk about Adam, yet it seems like they’re only ever talking about Adam, even when Adam isn’t there. Between Seungmin and Felix, everything is intolerably, unspeakably about Adam.

On the drive over, Seungmin keeps talking into his phone. He’s certain that he’s never talked this much in his entire life. He talks about his work at the publishing company, how he’s been writing press releases for the internal network, how his co-workers like the way he makes coffee. He talks about the autumn weather in Pennsylvania, how it can drop from fifty degrees to thirty so spectacularly within a week that it gives him whiplash. He even talks about a conversation he’s had recently with Jeongin, how he’d tried to help him write a paper, how Jeongin hadn’t even known what APA citations were, even though he’s a college senior now. All the while, Felix is quiet, but he hums every so often, sometimes speaking with stilted bursts of energy, though his voice always trails off, unfinished sentences petering out. Seungmin has never been high before, he doesn’t know what’s normal and what isn’t, and Felix is frightening him. He talks faster instead, about a cat he recently spotted on the side of the road, about a funny joke Minho had told him, about this song Jisung is working on, which he’d said that Seungmin could sing on.

He talks about nothing, which is what they usually talk about, because they don’t talk about anything real. Felix says that Seungmin is real, but Felix often doesn’t seem real himself, a mirage of sorts, and the clock is steadily ticking toward an hour where nothing seems real. Seungmin doesn’t know Felix. Seungmin doesn’t know anything.

When he eventually pulls up to a small house in South Jersey, where Felix is sitting on the porch steps, huddling in his oversized sweatshirt, Seungmin kills the engine and hurries up the driveway, sticking out his hands to help Felix up. It’s so cold that his teeth are chattering. “Hey, come on,” he urges, but Felix just blinks at him, his eyes vacant, mouth drawn into a neutral line. He looks from Seungmin’s hands, back to his face, phone still pressed to his ear, even though Seungmin had hung up before exiting the car. Backlit by the flickering light, it’s as if Seungmin is looking at Felix through museum glass. “Lix,” he tries again. There are a few people loitering in the doorway, sharing a cigarette, watching the two of them curiously, probably wondering who they are to one another.

“Hi,” Felix says. He still hasn’t moved an inch, just blinking up at Seungmin, holding the phone to his ear. “You’re here.”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Seungmin huffs, grabbing Felix’s hands himself. They stumble together, and his fingers slip around Felix’s waist to steady him. He hadn’t quite realized how thin Felix is, has never touched him like this before, his hand accidentally grazing against the bare strip of skin where Felix’s sweater has ridden up. Seungmin immediately stiffens, but Felix doesn’t seem to notice, his body loose and languid, leaning all his weight on Seungmin. He lets Seungmin pry the phone from his hand, slipping it into his own jacket pocket. “Let’s go home, alright?”

“Okay.” They start toward the car, but it’s a struggle, because Felix is dragging his feet. He keeps squeezing Seungmin’s hand, as if to make sure he’s still there. Seungmin is pretty sure that Felix is both drunk and high, a dangerous combination, and as he wrestles him into the passenger seat, he asks Felix whether or not he has any water. “No,” Felix says, frowning. His head is lolling back against the seat, eyes blinking open and shut very rapidly. “I can’t—I just don’t feel too good.”

Seungmin tries to keep his breathing steady. “Yeah, I know,” he says, sighing. He slips into the driver’s seat but doesn’t start the car, just looks at Felix, who is already looking back at him in the dark. Seungmin lifts a hand to the side of Felix’s neck, feeling for his uneven pulse, clattering just beneath his skin like it’s trying to escape. “I can—help you throw up. If you want.” He really doesn’t want to stick his fingers down Felix’s throat, but he’ll do it, if it’ll make Felix feel better. “Do you want me to?” Felix looks startled, like a deer in headlights, eyes blown wide, and says that he doesn’t know. “Well—it’s up to you. I can do it. You might feel better.”

Felix doesn’t say anything, just looks away. It occurs to Seungmin suddenly that, over the entire course of them living together, he can’t think of a single time Felix has ever made a decision for himself. He is always asking other people what they want to do, or asking Adam what he should do, or waiting for someone else to speak up first. For some reason, this makes Seungmin inexplicably upset, Felix’s reticence to participate in his own life.

“Tell me yes or no,” he snaps, his voice suddenly sharp. He’s still touching the side of Felix’s neck, but Felix won’t meet his eye. “Just tell me yes or no, Felix, come on, it’s okay, I got you.” But there is still no response—Felix is breathing heavily—and just like that, Seungmin’s anger deflates as if it’s a popped balloon. All that remains is burning shame in the pit of his stomach. It’s one in the morning, he has to work in eight hours, and he shouldn’t be shouting at Felix right now. “Sorry,” Seungmin whispers into the pressing silence, hand falling away from Felix’s neck. He feels like a total asshole. “I’m just gonna drive, okay? Let me know if you want me to stop the car.”

“Okay,” Felix answers, his voice dull, like metal that is no longer sharp. He doesn’t look up, so Seungmin eventually starts the car, pulling back onto the road.

He knows why Felix had called him, not the others. Felix couldn’t have called Hyunjin, who would’ve made a big scene, and he couldn’t have called Jeongin, who would’ve worried too much. He certainly couldn’t have called Jisung, who doesn’t care about anything happening outside of his own little sphere of life. That left Seungmin, for no other reason than that he was the leftover option, the one who wouldn’t have made a fuss. This thought sours his mood further, his chest feeling completely hollow, as if someone had reached inside his body and was stroking his heart with cold fingers. 

They’re almost back to the house, stopped at a red light, when Seungmin becomes aware of a buzzing in his pocket. He fumbles around and pulls out Felix’s phone, where an incoming call from Baby is flashing across the screen. “Hey, Felix,” Seungmin manages, thrusting the phone in his direction, his chest very tight. Felix opens his eyes slightly, blinks at the screen a couple times, then just shakes his head. He has been silent the entire ride, but now he says that he doesn’t feel like answering it now, he’ll call Adam back in the morning. Seungmin nods, just once, and moves to decline the call, but as he does, the screen flashes with yet another notification, the icon of a popular dating app.

george_c76: yeah baby wanna see you all wet for me

george_c76: i can tell you’re good at taking it like a whore

For a moment, all Seungmin can do is blink dumbly at the screen, the world swimming before his eyes. Then it hits him what he’s seeing, and all he hears is the blood rushing in his ears, so loud that it drowns out all other sounds, the honking of a car down the road, the faint music coming from the truck beside them.

“Hey,” Felix’s voice is soft, and he’s gesturing at the traffic light in front of them, which has suddenly turned green. They’ve been sitting there for a while. “You okay?”

Seungmin swallows, looking at him. In the dark, it’s hard to make out any of Felix’s features except for the whites of his eyes, his teeth. “Yes,” he says at last. Then, breathing hard, he shuts off Felix’s phone and slides it into the cup holder before pressing the gas, the world growing blurry and indistinct as they speed up, like wet paint running across a canvas, like a sea tide crashing over their heads.