Chapter Text
It wasn't after strike three hundreds something that Gihun finally admitted his plan was failing.
Not just the average kind of failing; it was all spectacular, melodramatic, cartoonish level of failing, as if Hwang Inho and the cosmos had conspired to ensure Gihun’s heart would explode in a series of humiliating ways.
Two months after, Gihun started to suspect a few things:
One, Gihun had a natural-born talent for abominable, revolting, disaster-making flirting.
Two, there was a secret game with secret audience going on in this gosiwon, and the game was called how to make Seong Gihun's life miserable.
Or three, Hwang Inho was either a monk, a corpse from Joseon era or an alien pretending to be human. Who the fuck always had the exact amount of change for everything in their wallet and still knew how to write in cursive?
"Why can't he go back to his planet and leave me alone?" Gihun asked the stray cats he was feeding sometimes. They munched the food and told him, "Meow. Meow. Meow."
Damn, how come I have never thought of that? Gihun gave the cats more food for such excellent advice.
To be honest, he had tried everything. Subtle flirting, indirect teasing, casual nudges, high level embarrassing incidents which included, but not limited to: that one time Gihun made such a nice cassette mix tape of cheesy love songs to woo Inho, but the tape immediately tangled and died with a banshee screech when he played it in front of the landlord. And then another time when he planned to impress Inho with handyman skills just to fail instantly when the screwdriver slipped and he saluted his own forehead with it. And then that time when he really just wanted to start a casual conversation but panicked half way through when Inho suddenly brushed off an eyelash on Gihun's cheek, and to that he responded with a loud compliment of Inho’s… elbows? He wanted to change his name and leave the country after.
However, Gihun's stubbornness caused him to keep carrying out terrible plan, for example, to bond over laundry with his crush. And of course it failed because of an unforeseeable external force — the washing machine that ate his sock. Even when Gihun just tried to attempt a cool lean on the doorframe in front of Inho to show off his new jacket, he somehow slammed his elbow into the wall so hard it echoed.
After such failures, a normal person would give up. Or better yet, they would simply stop having a crush because the amount of embarrassment associated with said crush was too overwhelming. But no matter how many times Gihun failed, no matter how heavy the embarrassment was, he always felt like falling deeper.
Because.
When Gihun was about to cry watching the mix tape he made got all messed up and destroyed, Inho had knelt beside the cassette player and, in front of Gihun's teary eyes, gently pulled the tape free. His rough hands held Gihun's left palm as he untangle the black polyester tape, round by round, off Gihun's trembling fingers.
"Don't be upset, it can be fixed," Inho said, glancing at Gihun through his lashes with a look so soft it contradicted all known laws of his personality. "You put a lot of work into this, didn't you?"
And when he failed at impressing Inho and saluted his forehead with the screwdriver, Inho had thumb-checked the bump like it was routine and made an ice pack to help Gihun with the bruise. Inho even held it on Gihun's wound for him while the young man went off and whined about how he would look like a rhino for the whole week with this swelling in the middle of his forehead.
And when Gihun accidentally complimented Inho's elbow, the man just laughed and said, "Your aesthetic taste is rather weird, don't you think?"
Inho had so much fun watching Gihun fought the washing machine that ate his sock. His laugh restrained and muffled, like the older man was trying to hold it back. Plus when Gihun failed his casual doorframe leaning, Inho had lowered his newspaper just enough to check if he was okay, then raised it again, though the paper shook from him suppressing a laugh. And in some way, Gihun felt like a character in Inho's favorite sitcom. It was enchanted whenever he made Inho smile.
Now, when summer's gone and September breeze caressed his face as if trying to comfort, Gihun finally realized that it had been three months since the catastrophic yearning started, and he had not made any progress but getting himself to fall deeper into the rabbit hole.
It was the real kind of falling.
Around him, everyone was having brewing anticipation for the year 2000, crossing that little threshold to another millennium. Jiyeong teased Gihun about how he would walk into the 21st century with an unrequited crush. Something about that sentiment hit the sore spot and Gihun grew more frustrated as days gone by, so much that he decided to just… give up.
Well, kind of.
He had thought it through, laying on his tiny squeaky bed with a Walkman borrowed from Saebyeok and blasting To Heaven by Jo Sung Mo. Confessing his feeling before the New Year to avoid the misery sounded like a plan. But he could also forever hold his silence and not ruin the friendly landlord - tenant partnership they were having.
Heterosexual people were the majority, and Gihun's love life was a black hole of bad choices, bad luck and bad people. So the percentage of him having his feeling returned was rather low. Even if his landlord was available and liked men, there was a small to non-existent chance that he would be into Gihun. And even if he did like men and under some kind of ancient witchcraft, fell for Gihun, he still had to come to term with the fact that Inho's age was closer to his mother than him.
Ah. To be in a same-sex relationship with an age gap, Seong Gihun had never known peace a single day in his life.
And so, Gihun decided that until he could confess, he would simply approach Hwang Inho with annoyance. Pure, sustained, relentless, exasperating annoyance. Follow the older man around and narrate all that insignificant detail of his life. Stick his nose in everything Inho was doing. Crawl out of the washing machine along with Inho's underwear. Poke his head up from the kitchen sink drain when Inho was doing dishes. Float inside Inho's coffee cup and surround himself with the all black, no sugar bitterness. Be unavoidable. Be the first face his landlord saw everyday when he stepped into the gosiwon. Inho must have expected the same "good evening, ahjussi" every single day like some kind of clockwork from hell now.
And without trying, Gihun simply slipped back to just being himself — Seong Gihun the coolest, funniest, most miserable guy of Ssangmun-dong with potentially undiagnosed mental disorder. No more acting like a lovesick puppy hypnotized by the gravitational pull of a brooding, middle-aged man who was probably straight and therefore a public health hazard.
And, if Gihun was honest with himself (which was rare), being himself somehow worked better than he thought.
Inho tolerated him. Smoked with him. Cooked extra portion and share dinner with him. Allowed him to hang in his office all evening. Answered him in clipped sentences when he would have preferred silence. And sometimes — those rare, small, lethal sometimes, the older man even looked at him unprompted. Not like a landlord watching tenants, not even like an audience watching his favorite sitcom character tripping on nothing, but like someone simply noticing, and was curious about him. That was intimate. That was maddening. That kept his hope up. Hope that it was not all in his head. That the invisible force that kept pulling him toward the other man was not the result of his desperation and wild imagination.
In the blink of an eye, October arrived, and in only two months, a new millennial would start.
These days Gihun found himself frequently spending the evening with Inho in his office out of habit. Inho's presence calmed him. His presence entertained Inho (or stressed the shit out of the old man, same thing). He would talk non-stop while sneak subtle glance at Inho's focused face as the man listened to traffic updates on the radio. Boring old man habit. Gihun wondered if he'd suddenly find these news interesting when he got older. But then he watched the way Inho's glasses sat so beautiful on the bridge of his nose, and imagine himself sitting on it instead. Or how the slightly tight shirt stretched over Inho's board shoulder, and his rough, big, veiny hand held the pen so casually, fueling Gihun's brain with vivid mental images of what those hands could do, and suddenly traffic news sounded like angelic melodies from heaven.
After a while, Gihun started picking up things to busy himself with in Inho's office. Since he helped an ahjuma living on the second floor fix her broken fan, and words spread around, people started coming to him to have stuffs fixed. Gihun saw the demand and immediately started a business. He charged people a few thousands won per item, and of course, took Inho office as his company's headquarter.
The low-lit office always smelled faintly of metal, dust, and Inho’s aftershave. The smell used to linger long after Inho had passed by, making Gihun's knees feeble. But now he was surrounded by it, along with piles of paperwork, boxes of screws, spare light bulbs, and an old desk fan. The atmosphere resembled both a janitor’s closet and a mafia's den.
Next to Inho's desk, Gihun sat cross-legged on the floor like a kid at a sleepover, dismantling a rice cooker he absolutely did not know how to fix. Above him, Inho was filling out tax forms like the fully functioning adult he apparently insisted on being. He made paperwork so sexy to Gihun.
"Why is there… soup inside the wiring?" Gihun muttered.
"Mrs. Jang cooked kimchi jjigae in it." Inho informed, eyes never left the form.
"Knowing that doesn't help actually," Gihun said, peeling off a layer of duct tape. "Fuck, I'm really not qualified for this job."
"You said for ten thousand won, everything can be fixed." Inho said.
Gihun squinted his eyes and protested. "Ahjussi, it was just a tagline for my business. People are not supposed to take it literally. Red Bull said it gives you wings, but have you seen a single person airborne?"
Okay, maybe he had gotten a bit overconfident when he smelled money, but Gihun really expected people to bring him normal things. Like a remote with dead batteries. Not items that required an exorcism. And to that, Inho hummed unimpressively, pen tapping the page. He was pretending not to listen again, but Gihun knew the older man noticed and remembered everything he ever said.
Which was crazy. Making him delusional with the game of subtle caring.
Gihun tightened a random screw, and it popped off the nut because he was clumsy. He laughed nervously and tried to distract with chatter before the cooker sparked and embarrassed him more. "So anyway," he said, "I’m saving up money."
Inho finally looked over, "What for?"
"A new apartment!" Gihun announced proudly. "My own apartment. Where I have enough space to sleep comfortably, with my feet on the bed and not having to curl up like a shrimp. I saved, like, a lot last year. And then… uhm." He shrugged. "A friend borrowed it. Then disappeared. Without… you know. Giving it back."
Inho blinked slowly. "You were scammed."
"It wasn’t a scam," Gihun looked up, insisting. "He said he needed it for…"
"Disappearing forever," Inho finished.
Gihun scowled at him. "Are you faulting the victim right now? When I'm so hurt and betrayed?"
"I didn’t say you were a victim." Inho returned to his papers. "Maybe a bit naive."
"Ouch. So hurtful!"
"I know, life's full of pain." Inho shrugged and said in that as-a-matter-of-factually way of his.
A few minutes passed in the soft humming of the ceiling light and occasional clanks of metal. The rice cooker now looked worse than before.
Then, Inho said, "If you want, you can just give the money to me."
Gihun froze, a screw being held halfway in his mouth fell to the ground. "What?"
"I can keep it for you," Inho explained. "Every month. I’ll set it aside, and you won’t lose it to disappearing friends."
Gihun blinked once. Twice. Then jumped up from the floor and threw himself into Inho, arms wrapping around the other man's shoulders. "Really?" He grinned into Inho's neck. "You’d do that?"
"You act like I just offered to donate a kidney," Inho murmured. His body was stiffed for a second under Gihun's sudden hug attack, but then it slowly relaxed as he let Gihun snug his cheek onto his shoulder in pure joy and excitement.
"No, I just… I mean… that’s so nice of you." Warmth rose in Gihun's chest, ridiculous and embarrassing. Of course he said yes. Of course he trusted Inho already. He’d trust him with his life, let alone his pathetic savings. "You can keep it for me, ahjussi."
Inho paused his work, dropped the pen and looked at him fully. Gihun could feel the older man's breath ghost over his cheek, warm and smell of faint cigarette.
A ghostly smirk slowly grew over Inho's lips. "That," he said, "is exactly why you keep getting scammed."
Gihun’s smile fell. He dropped the arm and stepped back with a pout, "What?!"
"You’re too trusting." Inho leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. "You don’t even know me."
"Well…" Gihun scrambled for dignity. "I do know you!"
Inho raised both eyebrows, the deck chair angled toward him. "Know me how?"
Gihun glanced at Inho’s face, oh on that hung a mildly challenging expression, then at the older man's thighs. All empty, open and inviting. As if silently told him to go on, sit. Then, he took a deep breath and launched to… the edge of Inho's desk. "You only ever listen to jazz or traffic news on the radio. You divide everything into three columns in your planner. You solely drink red Maxim. You eat dinner at exactly seven-thirty or you get grumpy. You—" He kept going until he ran out of breath.
When he looked back up, Inho’s lips had parted in genuine surprise.
Gihun cleared his throat. "I know, those are just things that everyone can grasp if they pay attention. You made a great point, though. So, let me know you more then, tell me about you. Tell me something not many people know."
"No." Inho immediately said.
Gihun wanted to maul him like a bear. "What do you mean, no?"
"You’ll find out eventually."
"When is eventually?"
Inho went silent and back to writing as if he hadn’t just stabbed Gihun in the heart.
"I didn't mean to be nosy," Gihun blew a strand of long hair out of his eye, whining. "It's just that I told you so much about me—"
"I never ask." Inho shrugged.
"You did ask. Sometimes." Gihun refused to lose this round.
Inho inhaled sharply. Oh? A sign of defeat.
"Hm. Something simple then? You live close by right?" Gihun decided not to push.
Inho gave in and nodded. "Two blocks away."
Gihun immediately took the golden, one in a lifetime chance to ask, "Do you live with anyone?" Or have someone waiting for you? At home? Are you taken? Should I jump out the window? Gihun stopped himself just in time.
"I used to live with my brother, but he's doing military service this year, so I'm by myself now." Inho said, covering a yawn with the back of his hand.
Did that mean…?
Gihun’s soul left his body for a victory lap.
HWANG INHO IS SINGLE!!! SINGLE! SINGLE! SINGLE! WOO HOOOOO!!!
"Okay, okay, good! Wait I mean, not good that you’re lonely… unless you’re not lonely… I mean, I don’t know… you look lonely… wait, sorry, ignore that—"
Inho’s sigh sounded like the end of civilization. But Gihun wasn’t done. His legs kicked like an excited puppy, hands gripping the edge of desk for emotional support. "Do you enjoy living alone then?"
Inho turned to the clock on the wall, checking. It was half past 10 already.
"Or do you prefer to have someone?" Gihun kept shooting question.
Inho closed the folder, spinning his pen slowly between his fingers. He was weighting the pros and cons of revealing the mystery of his life to Gihun.
Finally, "Do you want a smoke?"Inho asked, pulling a crumpled Arirang pack from his jacket.
Gihun shot to his feet. "Yes! Always."
Smoking with Hwang Inho on a rooftop reminded Gihun of the time when he was sixteen, he used to hide in the school bathroom lighting joints of Marlboro Red, skipping class to play video games at the internet cafe and napping under the afternoon sun on school's rooftop. The memories were charming, stupid and rebellious in all their youthful glory.
Right now Gihun was on another rooftop, with his favorite person in the whole world, and that nostalgic rebel hit him once more. He was no longer sixteen, and yet those years of longing and running away from making sense of what he was rushed back like a drug that never left his veins.
He shivered in the thin sweater as late autumn’s chill, crisp and clean on his skin, glimmered beneath a dark sky full of little stars. The city sprawled below them in strips of neon and taxi headlights, casting a romantic spell on the rather hideous arrangement of buildings and rooftops.
Inho lit the first cigarette for him, holding it out between two fingers. Gihun leaned in, cupped Inho’s hand without thinking, feeling like being handed a small wounded bird, and inhaled.
The two men smoked in synchronized silence, and Gihun started fidgeting, eager to ask Inho more personal, follow-ups questions. But now the silence had stretched out too long, and Hwang Inho probably expected him to say something weird any moment now.
And so Gihun delivered.
"Ahjussi, do you believe in homosexuality?"
At that, Inho choke on invisible smoke and started coughing his lungs out. Cough, cough, COUGH! Gihun watched it with concern. He reached out and stroked Inho's back, up and down, feeling the muscles tense up where his hand was.
"Is that a no?" He frowned.
Inho dragged a hand down his face, the other pounded on his chest, trying to reboot it. After a while, the older man stood straight back up and glared at Gihun's fraudulent innocent face. "I'm not that close-minded?" Inho sighed, "Of course men can like other men in that way."
A pause, as Inho softened his gaze at Gihun's guilty face, and said, "Trust me, I know."
Gihun felt his chest burned and his eyes grew impossibly wide as he choked out trembling words, "Um… what do… what do you mean… you know?" The air was cold and yet Gihun's palms were dripping with sweat. He thought he had made peace with whatever sexuality that Hwang Inho had, and yet…
Inho regained his composure and grounded the completely burnt cigarette into the ashtray with meticulous accuracy. "One of my close friend works in sales, he…is like that. We shared an apartment for two years back when I was in the police academy. He brought home everyone — men and women, almost every week a different one. You would think he had dated the whole Seoul."
Gihun stared at him, mouth slacking with disappointment. His friend. Inho had a queer best friend. In another world, it could have been great news and yet, just this time, it was not what Gihun was hoping, begging, crying, wanting to rearrange all the atoms of the universe for. He inhaled deeply, then said, "Do you..uh… do you think that is a problem?"
Inho tilted his head. The lights from the bright city nightlife below reflected off his short brown strands, freely blown in the wind, tangled like Gihun's heart.
"Yes." Inho casually nodded.
Gihun's stomach sank. He inhaled, a trembling breath. "Oh…"
"I think, a person should not break that many hearts. Or constantly disturb my sleep with crazy, filthy, loud bedroom activity. You would not want to know any of the things I've heard coming out of his bedroom every Friday," In Inho's eyes, which locked squarely to Gihun's widening gaze, there was a knowing look. "Other than that, I don't think there is any problem with who he falls in love with."
"You don't?" Gihun muttered. For a split second, his chest warmed up and the tension evaporated. Of course the person he liked couldn’t possibly be homophobic. What was he thinking? A wide, silly grin spread across Gihun's face, and he started dancing around Inho, flicking the nearly burnt-out cigarette between his fingers. "Ahjussi, ahjussi," he said, wrapping an arm around Inho's. "What… about you?" Gihun had chose to chase the thread of his own delusional hope like a balloon and dropped the million won question. "Do you ever look at your best friend and think of trying to date both genders as well?"
Inho didn’t even blink. The single word rolled off the man's tongue cleanly, brutally, and ever annoyingly. "No."
Gihun stared at him, affronted. "No?"
"No."
"Absolutely not?"
"You heard me."
"Are you sure? Because sometimes people say things they don’t mean."
The soft, knowing look Inho gave him ten seconds ago disappeared and was replaced with one that said he was five seconds away from pushing Gihun off the roof. "I’m sure. I am not interested in men." Inho repeated and sighed loudly, which often signaled that the old man was fed up with Gihun's endless buffoonery and troublemaking.
Gihun took a dramatic drag of his barely existed cigarette and squinted through the barely existed smoke like he was examining the lie under a microscope. "You're always so full of surprise, ahjussi. So interesting to me."
Inho leaned his back on the fence, his face was now hidden in the dark. "I'm not interesting."
"Oh, you're fascinating." Gihun quickly replied, tapping his feet constantly on the floor. He's so stressed out he felt like the distance between where they stood and the ground seven floors below was not that high anymore.
"I'm not." Came a head shake.
Gihun's breath was loud. "You're such an interesting person that I’m going to ask more questions—"
"Seong Gihun." Came a warning.
So Gihun paused. The smile did not leave his face, and his cheek felt tired and painful, "Okay, okay." The young man raised his hands in defeat. "You’re straight. Congratulations."
Inho snorted. "It’s not an award."
"No? I feel like it is. I wish that I am."
Inho turned and looked at him, but before the landlord opened his mouth, Gihun immediately flipped the conversation like his own hope had not just crashed in a split second. "So you’re straight. That explains why you are so good at…uh, tax." Gihun fake a silly laugh, leaning on the fence next to Inho and bending his back backward. Looking up at the sky, he stretched his arms out, mimicking a pair of wings and secretly wishing that he could fly away from his doomed love story and, preferably from being born into this world.
Inho watched the way Gihun's half body was hanging dangerously off the fence, mid-way in the air. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Nothing! Nothing, ahjussi. I'm just really good at noticing."
"Stop noticing nonsense." Inho rolled his eyes as he reached for Gihun's waist and held it, trying to pull Gihun toward him. "You're clumsy sometimes, Gihun, I don't want you to accidentally fall off so can you stop—"
Inho' sentence was cut off half way as Gihun grabbed the arm on his waist to gain momentum and launched himself perfectly in Inho's embrace. The older man stumbled backward at the sudden attack, but holding onto Gihun like a second instinct. They stood there for a moment as Gihun clung on him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck, face buried on his shoulder, and mumbling nonsense into the soft, cool fabric of Inho's shirt and smiled dumbly.
Dejectedly.
"I know that you know… that I like men, ahjussi." Gihun said, waiting for the moment to pass and Inho to push him away because he was annoyed with Gihun's clinginess. But Inho did not. He just went still.
The rooftop wind softened, and the sound of the city quite down.
"My parent were so mad when I told them that I like men as much as I like women," Gihun whispered, "They think of it like a sickness."
Gihun could feel the way Inho's body shifted and somehow the older man relaxed into the embrace, letting their bodies tighten even more. "That must be difficult."
Gihun shrugged one shoulder. "It’s fine. I mean, they don’t approve, but whatever. I’m used to being the disappointment. My mom keeps giving me phone numbers of girls with piano degrees to make sure that I swing more on the 'right' side, though."
Inho's fingers tightened on his waist. Gihun thought of it as a comforting gesture, but a part of him believed that Hwang Inho just pitied him. He huffed and let go of Inho. "It's so annoying because the girls are very good at piano. But you'd know how wonderful women are already. Since you are very, extremely, aggressively straight."
Inho inhaled sharply, staring at the distance between them. "Gihun."
"Yes?"
"Drop it." Inho said. There was a hesitation there, as if for a second, Inho was unraveling. Then, the older man just deliberately walked to the door.
Gihun's shoulders fell. It was pathetic, but he couldn’t resist one last poke, "You know, straight guys don’t usually react that hard when asked if they ever consider liking men."
Inho slowly turned around. "Do you want me to throw you off the roof?"
Gihun grinned, skipping fast toward the door and running down the stairs. "I won this round, ahjussi." He yelped proudly, even if he just lost the whole game.
"I don't recall we're in a competition." Inho exhaled the deepest, most exhausted sigh in human history. Yet his gaze was gentle around the edges as he watched Gihun leave.
Before disappearing completely, Gihun flashed a smile at the older man. Then, he sprinted to his room, finally letting tears stream down his face.
A heterosexual Hwang Inho was the worst creature Gihun could imagine exist in this universe. The heterosexual creature haunted Gihun in his sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the phrase "I'm not interested in men" echoed behind his eyelids like a terrible song, worsen than Jungbae doing karaoke and Sangwoo's attempt at writing poetry.
Laying on Jiyeong's sofa with her hand stroking his hair gently, Gihun sulked like baby as she stabbed him with honesty, "Don't be sad, Gihun. This is not the first time you have a crush on a straight guy."
Gihun huffed, "But, but, but this is the first time a crush takes care of me, feeds me, laughs at my terrible joke, gives me great advice, asks me if I have eaten enough meals, never tells me to go away even if I'm being annoying, compliments my outfit even if he does not understand youth fashion—"
"Sounds like he's being a good father figure to you." Jiyeong said.
"Excuse me??!!" Gihun sat up so fast he almost knocked his friend on the nose. "Mr. Hwang would never think of me as his son! He didn't even have children!"
Jiyeong just shrugged and left the sofa to grab her new a glitter platinum nail paint. "Maybe that's exactly why he treat you as one."
Gihun felt like a deflated balloon, laying flat on the floor, so stupid. All the puzzles came together. The dots were connecting like drawing a map of Gihun's haunting misery. Oh my god he thinks of me like a son. He actually treats me like his fucking son? What the actual fuck?
While Jiyeong painted his nails, Gihun reflected on the life he had led, the people had met, how he should continue living despite all odds and how he only had two choices when it came to Hwang Inho now:
One, accept the truth and moved on like all the hopeless romantic in the world.
Or two, become unbearably snappy and petty toward Inho.
And of course, as a honest and kind-hearted man, Gihun chose the mature option. (The second one.)
So for the next few weeks, when Inho greeted him with his usual, "Good evening, Gihun," Gihun would responded with a casual grimace, "Good evening? What do straight people know to assume that my evening is good?"
When Inho handed him mails, passed a cup or accidentally made physical contact, Gihun hissed, "Don’t touch me with your heterosexual hands."
When Inho told him to stop leaving instant ramen bowls in the sink, Gihun muttered under his breath, "Tsk, straight men are so controlling."
It was unhinged. And he was completely aware of how unreasonable and annoying he had become. The effect of a broken heart. He just confused as why Inho did not snap and kick him out of the gosiwon right the first time. Instead, the older man endured it with a contemplating look in his eyes watching Gihun's every moves and swallowing his every words like a man undergoing Buddhist training.
One night, his mother called.
Standing in the hallway by the phone booth with a whole line of gosiwon residents pretending not to eavesdrop while his mother listed every single one of his shortcomings was never a pleasant experience. But Gihun liked to think he was numb to it by now. Or so he told himself, very confidently and very incorrectly. There was something about family expectations that pressed down like a thumb on wounds he didn’t even know were still there. He believed that he had healed and learned his lesson after joining Saturday's meditation sessions with Jungbae and his mom. Turn out, his wounds were absolutely still there. And they hurt like hell.
After hanging up, Gihun walked straight out of the building and into the night. The world blurred past him. Of warm lights from the family restaurant across the street (the one full of people who actually loved each other), of laughter from groups he was definitely not a part of, of couples strolling hand-in-hand discussing futures he couldn’t imagine for himself. He kept walking, not realizing how cold it was or how aggressively the weather was about to betray him.
Warm water ran down his cheeks just as cold raindrops fell. A joke that landed with perfect timing. Damn, even the sky was joining in. Gihun sprinted under the awning of some random building, blowing into his palms and shivering like a damp chihuahua.
"Shibal," he muttered. He’d walked so far in this ridiculous weather that he figured he might as well set up a picnic tent right here on the sidewalk. He sat down, face buried between his knees, and cursing the universe for keep writing his name in the list of "God's strongest soldier."
After a while, he heard footsteps, and because the universe had decided to throw its next punch, the footsteps sounded oddly familiar. Gihun did not look up right away. He already knew, with the kind of certainty reserved for his permanent bad luck, that Hwang Inho would somehow look unfairly good in the rain. Probably holding that beautiful transparent umbrella hanging on his office door, just to complete the look of a male lead stepping straight out of a classic romance movie specifically to ruin Gihun’s sanity like it was a sport he’d win Olympic gold for.
"Gihun-ah," Inho said, "Let's go home."
Gihun's hands tightened around his knees. The rain was loud but could not drown out the frantic sound of his heartbeats. What the fuck is wrong with this old man? Why the fuck would he phrase that sentence like that? Let's go home? Home? Like I'm his controversial young wife that just got into a fight with him and now he had to give in to me?
Gihun did not look up, nor make any move. He could not.
After a long beat, he heard shuffling sound, a long sigh following by an umbrella being closed, and then the faint warm heat of another body pressing closer as Inho took a seat on the side walk. The rain tapped the glistening street, wetting Gihun's socks. Car honking and heart pounding, sitting painfully still in place.
"Did I do something wrong lately?" Inho tried again.
Still no answer.
"Well, I'd consider that a no then. But uh, as of what happened today, do you want to talk about it?" Another attempt. Gihun hated him so much.
"I see," Inho said, evenly. "Well, you're not the only one with a mother who wants to see you walking down the aisle so much that it became the only thing she cares about when she thinks of you."
Gihun shifted his head slightly so that one of his eyes peaked out from under the tousled, damped black hair. "What do you mean?"
Inho's face was closer than Gihun thought, a gentle look landed on him. Damn, he really did look so hot in the rain.
"I lost my wife a long time ago. My mother thought it is long enough to forget about her and move on with someone else. She wants grandchildren. Now that Junho has a girlfriend that she is more hopeful, but she never really let me off the hook. Especially with my age. I'm not so young anymore."
"I'm… sorry about your wife." Gihun said softly. New tragic backstory unlocked. Usually Gihun got overly excited with any new piece of information Inho gave him like a starved man, but the sadness washed over him like ocean waves met the shore this time.
Inho shrugged, looking away. " It's alright. It was a long time ago. What I'm saying is, I get it. It’s harder for you, though. If you ever fell for a man, then your mother—"
"Oh she knows."
"Sorry?"
"She knows was head over heels for a guy recently," Gihun groaned. "I didn’t even tell her. I think I just… lit up too much, heart eyes all over the place when I talked about him. She is super stressed out about it."
Inho nearly dislocated his neck whipping around as Gihun's words landed. His mouth hung open but nothing came out. Gihun watched him closely, sitting straight up as he sensed the odd, sudden change in the air.
"You have someone you like?" When Inho spoke again, his voice muffled and strangely low.
"Yeah," Gihun muttered, eyes fixed on Inho's indecipherable face, trying to solve an inscrutable puzzle. "But I shouldn’t be. He doesn’t like men."
And because Gihun still felt sore from the truth, he added, pointing a dramatic finger at Inho, "Like you! Mr. Hwang. You're so straight I think about you every time I want to fix my sitting posture."
Inho let out a strangled noise, rolling his eyes at Gihun's poor joke as he rubbed the back of his neck real hard. Then he stood up, opening the umbrella again and gave Gihun a hand. "Enough chit chat. Let's go, we will both catch a cold if we stay here."
So Gihun took his hand and walked with him through the rain, trying very hard to act like a normal human being who definitely had gotten over his crush while Inho angled the umbrella almost entirely over his side. Gihun caught a glimpse of the landlord’s soaked shoulder, absolutely sacrificed to the cursed weather, while his own side was bone dry. He tried not to melt on the spot.
What he wanted to say to Hwang Inho in that moment was not fun, but the thoughts were loud in his head. "I know it is not gonna be us in the end. I know that you will never fit in my terrible messy life and I can never be yours. I know that you don't care about me the way that I want you to. I'm not made for great luck and success. I understood that if it never meant to be, it'll never be. So ahjussi, please let me out of this 'crushing on straight old man' hell hole as soon as possible! Please stop being so caring and considerate. Please just be like all of them. Please let me down, tell me I'm bad at everything and you're so disappointed in me. Please never laugh at my jokes and never look at me with that puzzling look ever again, like you want to know me, like you truly see me, like you are happy around me and want to make me happy. Please stop me from falling in love with you."
But instead of all that, Gihun just said, "Wow, I see you went all the way to pick me up, how about you go all the way to lower the rent for me, ahjussi?"
To that, Inho, predictably, just groaned, "Gihun, shut up."
Gihun's laugh lightened up the night.
Time flew, and next week would be Gihun’s birthday.
The swirling cocktail of sadness-annoyance-hopelessness made it impossible for him to plan anything extravagant—not that he ever did. Birthdays weren't really his thing until he found Homo Hill at nineteen, and after that, every birthday just turned into another weekend of sweaty, drunk club dancing. Luckily, this time his friend group was feeling both loving and extra sorry for his recent heartbreak, so they decided to plan a small party at a new queer hotel bar called The Pink Motel.
Meanwhile, Gihun was drowning in internal tension over whether he should invite Inho.
Having a middle-aged man at a party full of twenty-something kids was one thing. Having a middle-aged straight man who also happened to be the birthday boy’s hopeless crush at a queer bar full of twenty-something queer kids? That was… a bold choice. A disastrous combination. A potential fire hazard.
At dinner, Inho tried to start a conversation while Gihun stabbed his chopsticks into his rice so hard it almost turned into porridge. He wasn't even listening, at least not until Inho poked him.
"Oops, right. Sorry. What were you saying?" Gihun blinked himself back into consciousness.
"I asked what your type is," Inho repeated, sounding like this was the third attempt.
"My type of what? Blood?" Gihun frowned.
"Men or women you like," Inho clarified, vague irritation creeping in. "For example, the guy you had a crush on recently. What was he like?"
The chopsticks slipped from Gihun’s fingers and hit the table with a dramatic clang. "My type!?" he echoed, scandalized. "Why would you ask such a thing? You planning to set me up with someone Or or or —oh! Are you trying to be progressive now? Trying to be a cool straight landlord who asks thoughtful questions about bisexual people now?"
Inho shook his head. "You know what? Forget I ask."
Gihun scoffed and ducked under the table to retrieve his chopsticks. "Apparently, I’m very into people I can’t have."
"Right…" Inho murmured, and the table fell into an uncomfortable silence. It didn’t help that they were alone in the kitchen at an hour way past Inho’s usual dinnertime. Gihun had no idea why the landlord postponed his meal just to eat with him. And for the first time in forever, things felt… awkward between them.
Inho cleared his throat, seemingly sensing the same tension. He changed the subject. "I haven’t seen you filming lately. Gave up on your director career already?"
"Why? Do you miss having your own personal paparazzi?" Gihun grinned.
"No, I just miss being an unpaid, accidental actor. That’s all."
"Well, Jungbae’s dad found out the camcorder was missing, so I had to return it. If you want to keep acting, you’ll have to fight him for it."
Inho’s gaze lingered a second too long, and before Gihun could stop himself, words tumbled out, "You should come to my birthday party. Jungbae will be there! Maybe you can bribe him so I can borrow the camcorder again."
"Yeah, maybe I can come," Inho said after a moment, his voice faltered, the uncertainty in his tone made something in Gihun's stomach drop.
"Maybe." Gihun smiled. He knew Inho would not come to his birthday, but it was a nice thought.