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It's too cold to be at the beach.
Hongjoong is sure the others would ridicule him if they heard him say that. The app on his phone says that it's 15 degrees, and the rest of his friend group has been known to frequent the skatepark behind him until the snow covers it. San in particular usually runs around town in shorts and a cropped binder, maybe a tank top if he's feeling particularly modest, until the temperature drops into the single digits.
But it doesn't matter what his friends are capable of handling or what the reading on the digital thermometer is. Hongjoong is still cold under the pale blue sky of rapidly approaching dusk. He's wearing a thick maroon sweater that he knitted himself and black jeans, and he's wrapped himself in a massive blanket scarf, but even with all his layers, he can still feel the wind coming off the ocean and cutting right down to his bones.
He should have worn a hat too. Maybe even some gloves.
If he was waiting for almost anyone else, he would have already rescheduled or demanded that they meet him at Auntie's instead. If the invite had come from either Wooyoung or San, he would have convinced them to hang out at their place instead, bribing them with the promise of spending more time with their precious Byeol.
(It may be an underhanded tactic, but it works every time, so why mess with perfection?)
But he's not waiting for just anyone. The invitation had come in the form of an innocuous text message earlier in the day, when Hongjoong had been helping his mom with inventory at her children's clothing store, from no less than the person who holds him together, the thread to his needle, the muscle to his bones.
Seonghwa, 14:39
meet me at the beach tonight? I wanna hang out for a bit before I go home
just us, btw. the kids were here for three straight hours earlier, I need a break from them >.<
And cold or not, he was powerless to resist the chance to spend some time with Seonghwa, even as the thought also made him so terrified that he wanted to vibrate out of his skin with sheer anxiety.
Or maybe that's just the shivering.
He pulls his scarf tighter around himself and resists the urge to check his phone for the fifth time in as many minutes. Instead, he gazes out at the horizon, where the glass surface of the ocean meets the ceiling of the sky. The sun is hovering there, pale orange at this time of day, surrounded by mountains of light gray clouds that look like plumes of campfire smoke. They'll probably get rain later, but the clouds are distant enough that it should be after Hongjoong heads back home, probably filled with the unique swirl of sweet and sour emotions that always attack him after he spends any time alone with Seonghwa.
Sweet, because Seonghwa is his best friend, has been since they entered first grade and were paired together to work on their speaking skills by reading out loud to a flock of kindergartners (an event that also brought all of their kids, aside from the new addition of Jongho earlier in the summer, into their lives).
Sour, because Seonghwa is so much more than his best friend. Hongjoong doesn't have the proper words to describe the extent of his feelings - how would a fish describe the sea as anything other than home? - but sometimes, they make it nearly impossible for him to breathe. Speaking them aloud is absolutely out of the question.
“Joong-ah!”
Hongjoong is ripped from his reverie by the sound of Seonghwa's voice. He glances back over his shoulder so quickly that he gets tangled in the massive scarf and ends up tipping over onto his side. Cursing under his breath, he manages to get onto his stomach and looks up.
Just like that, the air explodes from his lungs.
It doesn't matter that it's only been two days since he last saw Seonghwa - they had an overlapping shift at the ice cream shop, something that's become increasingly less common as the weather has cooled and, consequently, the tide of tourists has slowed - familiarity never makes them any less striking. If anything, being so close to them so often, memorizing all of their different facets and traits, has only heightened their beauty.
They recently chopped their hair shorter than Hongjoong has seen it in years, and it's swooping over their forehead in an ink black fringe that’s just long enough to brush over their cheekbone caress the bridge of their nose (the way Hongjoong aches to do). If he wasn't so used to it, Hongjoong would be flabbergasted at how their makeup is still immaculate after their shift - full lips pink and glossy, every hair of their dark brows perfectly in position, their eyes surrounded by thick flakes of golden glitter. They've made a slight concession to the cooling temperature in the form of an oversized denim jacket adorned with hand-embroidered flowers (a present from Hongjoong for their birthday), but underneath that, they're wearing a dark purple v-neck blouse that dips halfway down their chest. There are multiple beaded necklaces dangling from the long line of their throat and skimming over their collarbones. Below that are black flared pants and combat boots that add at least five centimeters to their height.
They don't look like they just finished work at a small-town shop. They look like they stepped off a goddamn runway. There should be paparazzi standing nearby. They should be bathed in the stark white explosions of flashbulbs, not the faint peachy glow of a dying ocean dusk.
The whole country should know their name and every detail of their face.
Instead, there's just him, getting sand in his clothes and goggling at them like a fool.
“Hey,” he belatedly replies, the word coming out of his mouth so weakly that he wants to bury his face in the sand and stay there until nightfall.
Thankfully, Seonghwa doesn't seem to notice. Instead, they drop onto their back into the sand beside Hongjoong and open their mouth wide.
Even though Hongjoong knows it's coming, the scream that explodes from their lungs, an unholy crossover between a banshee screech and the glass shattering finale to an opera performance, still makes him jump.
Startling or not, Seonghwa's tendency to just make noise sometimes, to yelp or hum or outright bellow depending on the context, is just one of the reasons he’s so enamored of them. They are deeply strange - there's no denying that - but they are always entirely and wholly themself, no matter the occasion.
Hongjoong admires them for that. Envies them, frankly.
When the scream comes to an end, Seonghwa's entire body goes slack, as if the sound was coming from every centimeter of their body. With a tiny little groan, they sit up and drop their head down onto Hongjoong's shoulder. Their hair tickles the curve of his cheek, and he can smell their shampoo and perfume, orange woven together with strawberries.
“Bad day?” he asks quietly, trying his best not to stiffen up due to Seonghwa's sheer proximity. It's not that he hates it - far from it, especially with how warm they are - but if he allows himself to relax into it fully, there's a chance that he'll never be able to extract himself again.
“Not great,” Seonghwa sighs. “Boss was being a dick and the kids were just so loud today. I didn't think they were ever gonna leave.”
“You should have let me know,” Hongjoong says, patting Seonghwa's knee. The motion feels clumsy, and he pulls back before he can embarrass himself further. “I would have come and chased them away for you.”
“When has Wooyoung ever listened to you?” There's nothing but fond exasperation in Seonghwa's tone, and the worst part is that they're right - not even a spray bottle squirted directly into his face like a misbehaving cat would stop Wooyoung (and, consequently, San) from doing something if his mind was set to it - but Hongjoong still feels the need to defend himself.
But before he can do more than open his mouth, Seonghwa leans away and frowns. “You're shaking, Joongie.”
He'd been too distracted by Seonghwa to notice, but sure enough, he’s still shivering. It only makes him feel embarrassed. It's not new - there's an undertone of embarrassment in all of his interactions with Seonghwa, embarrassment that he can't be brave or overcome his fear or conquer the awkwardness that hits whenever he tries to reciprocate one of Seonghwa's touches - but that doesn't make it any less mortifying.
“Just a little cold,” he responds, tucking his chin down into the folds of his scarf. “Didn't think it would be this windy.”
Truthfully, the wind has lessened, transformed from something strong enough to cut through Hongjoong's bones to more of a breeze, but the sun has mostly disappeared, no more than a thin slice of orange at the very edge of the horizon, otherwise surrounded by a thick pile of lavender and grey clouds. The temperature probably hasn't even dropped a full degree yet, but Hongjoong body apparently doesn’t know that.
And then there's Seonghwa, who despite having the long line of their throat and a broad slice of their chest exposed, doesn't have so much as a single goosebump on their golden skin.
Seonghwa, who has shuffled away a little further, taking their remaining heat with them, but who is also opening their arms wide and saying, “Come here.”
Hongjoong's brain goes offline.
It shouldn't be a surprise. Seonghwa touches him all the time. They play with his braids or hair when they need to be grounded, they hold the back of his neck when he's being a little ornery, they lean against him when they're working together and the shop is empty.
But this, what Seonghwa is currently offering, is different. Maybe it's because of the blurry, soft light of dusk. Maybe it's the soft sound of the lapping waves and the faint cries of the gulls as they swoop down for late dinners. Maybe it's the empty expanse of sand surrounding them, the reminder that it's just the two of them - no kids, no customers, no parents.
Just them. Wrapped up in each other's arms like they're the last two people at the finale of the world.
It feels intimate. Impossible to survive.
But he is cold. And as unbearable as the thought of relaxing back into Seonghwa is, even more unbearable is saying no and then watching utter disappointment spread across their face, a chastisement both gentle and brutally sharp.
He can do this.
With a deep breath, he slips over into Seonghwa's arms.
Seonghwa pulls him in so that his back is to their chest, long legs resting on either side of his own. They fuss with their jacket and his scarf, plucking at the fabric and rearranging it, until Hongjoong feels fully wrapped in a cocoon. The feeling only intensifies when Seonghwa, with a happy hum, wraps their arms around him and pulls him in even closer, until he can feel their necklaces pressing into his back.
They smell so good. They're so close. If Hongjoong concentrated, he wonders if he'd be able to feel their heart beating.
He wonders if they can feel his. With how fast it's pounding against his ribs, surely they must be able to. Surely they must be able to feel the way it's screaming their name, like Morse code.
Seonghwa, Seonghwa, Seonghwa.
But he can't bring himself to scramble away. Not when he's finally warm and Seonghwa sounds so happy, humming again as they prop their chin on Hongjoong's shoulder.
“Better?” they murmur. The word brushes against Hongjoong’s ear softly enough to make goosebumps rise again.
“Yeah.” The word leaves his mouth in a rasp, but clearing his throat and trying again will only draw attention to how pathetic he sounds, so he leaves it at that. He keeps his eyes directed out at the distant horizon, tries to keep his breathing in check, and does his best to trick his muscles into calming down, rather than acting like a wild animal catching the scent of danger. “Much better.”
Seonghwa simply hums again. The tip of their nose brushes against the shell of Hongjoong’s ear, making the dangling chains hanging from his cartilage sway.
Hongjoong has to suck his bottom lip between his teeth to hold back the tiny noise that tries to leave him.
Minutes pass with the two of them entangled, only the sound of the gulls and the waves and the occasional hint of traffic behind them. Slowly, Hongjoong begins to relax. The shivering stops as Seonghwa’s warmth sinks below his skin and winds around his bones like vines climbing a building. He feels himself sinking into the sand below him, like the world’s most comfortable sofa. As the last slice of the sun disappears below the horizon, plunging the sky into swirling shades of navy blue and deep violet, he finds his eyes falling closed, the cold replaced by safety. Serenity.
Peace.
But before he can outright fall asleep, Seonghwa’s low voice brushes against his ear again.
“This is what I needed, after today.” They squeeze him lightly, swaying their joined bodies back and forth. “Thank you for not running away from me.”
Hongjoong stiffens up again.
He doesn’t think that Seonghwa means the words to cut so deeply. He knows their tone when they’re telling someone off. The no-nonsense sharpness to it is unmistakable, and there’s none of that now. Mostly, there’s contentment, but below that, there’s something almost sad, like a precursor to disappointment.
He should just ignore it. He should let the remark pass by and savor the moment. Engaging is only going to ruin the little bubble of calm that they’ve created, just the two of them, here on the shores of the ocean.
But the words still feel like an accusation. Even with Seonghwa thanking him, he still feels like he’s done something wrong. His hackles are up, like a street cat that’s been backed into a corner.
And, maybe thanks to the years he’s spent in proximity to Wooyoung, he simply can’t back down.
“I don’t run away from you,” he retorts. As soon as the words leave his mouth, he wants to flinch. They sound painfully defensive, childish even.
In response, Seonghwa lets out a quiet, resigned sigh.
It feels like a slap in the face.
“Yes, you do.” Their arms go slack around him, and cold immediately starts seeping back into Hongjoong’s chest. “You run away from me all the time. Anytime that I get close, anytime I think that you… that we…”
Realistically, only a couple of silent seconds pass between when they trail off and when they speak up again, voice tinged with something akin to weariness, but to Hongjoong, it feels like years, as if the nearly decade and a half that they’ve known each other have been compressed into only a handful of moments.
“It’s like you’re scared of me, Hongjoong.” Their voice grows watery on his name, like they’ve slipped beneath the waves brushing against the sand meters away from their feet. “And I just wish you would tell me why.”
Even if it would only serve to give credence to Seonghwa’s words, the safest thing to do, the action that would maintain the status quo, would be for Hongjoong to run. It would be cowardly, but it would at least give him a chance at saving their friendship.
But instead, the dam that he’s tried so hard to maintain over the years, messily mended every time that his feelings come close to breaking through, snaps in one swift moment, and he’s swept away by the tumultuous flood that follows.
“You want the truth?” He scrambles out of the protective circle of Seonghwa’s arms. As soon as he spins around, placing his back to the ocean, the light wind seems to cut right through him, but he ignores it. He can’t bring himself to look directly at Seonghwa’s face, so instead, he stares over their shoulder, keeping his unfocused gaze on the shape of the unoccupied skatepark in the middle distance. “I am scared of you, Hwa. I’m terrified!”
“But why?” Seonghwa lurches up onto their knees, arms lifting halfway up, as if they’re thinking of grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Because I’m in love with you!”
Around them, the world seems to go silent. As if it’s the end of the world, beyond the time where the sun has faded away into darkness, Hongjoong can’t hear anything beyond the pounding of his own heartbeat in his ears. No steady lapping of the waves, no sharp shrieks of the gulls, no faint thrum of a horn as the last fishing vessels come home over by the bridge.
There’s just his heart and the click of Seonghwa’s breath as they gasp.
Something convulses deep inside of him, and for a moment, Hongjoong fears that he’s going to throw up. But what flies out of his mouth is just more words, words that he’s been trying desperately to hold back for so, so long.
“I’m in love with you. I have been for years, and it’s fucking terrifying, because you’re my world, and I don’t know what life looks like without you in it. But you deserve everything. You deserve to get out of this town and have your name in lights and…” Hongjoong’s voice hitches, and he has to swallow around a lump the size of a small planet before he can speak again. “I don’t know if I could ever give you that.”
He wants to. He wishes with all of his heart that he could give Seonghwa the world that they deserve. He wishes that he could see Seonghwa shining under the lights of Seoul, glimmering like the brightest jewel in any city bigger than Jinju.
But Namhae’s roots are wound so deep into him that tearing them away would feel like self-mutiliation. Someone is going to have to take over his mother’s business one day, and he can’t imagine the disappointment that would wash over her face if he turned down the opportunity, an opportunity that he also wants. When he thinks of a peaceful future that would simultaneously give him a purpose, it’s in Namhae - running the boutique, creating his own clothing to sell in his free time, surrounded by both familiarity and the slow changes that always come with time.
But try as he might, he simply can’t picture Seonghwa being satisfied with that. And now that he’s blurted out his feelings, is he going to lose what limited time they may have had together? Is he going to have to see pity on the faces of their friends when they have to bear witness to the awkwardness permeating every future interaction he has with Seonghwa?
Is he-
“You’re an idiot.”
The blunt words immediately pull him out of his spiral.
Automatically, his eyes snap to Seonghwa’s face. Their fingers are curled tight into their palms at their sides, and while their fringe hides one eye, the other is peeking out and gleaming like stars reflected in the dark surface of the ocean. Their lips are set in a firm line, and as Hongjoong stares, they huff out a frustrated breath, almost sounding like a predator warning that they’re about to lunge.
They look beautiful when they’re mad.
But even with his dam broken, Hongjoong knows better than to say that aloud. Doing so would probably lead to him being drowned in the water brushing against the shores a couple of meters away.
So instead, feeling rather like he’s been smacked upside the head by a very heavy object, he stammers out a single word.
“What?”
Seonghwa lets out another one of those huffing breaths before they speak.
“I said, you’re an idiot, Kim Hongjoong.” They shuffle forward a couple of centimeters and flick their hair out of their face so that Hongjoong can see both of their eyes, see how their gaze is levelled on him with all the intensity of a spotlight. “Has it ever occurred to you to actually ask me what I want, rather than making assumptions based on this version of me that apparently exists in your head?”
Hongjoong blinks and nearly falls over as the whole foundation of his existence shakes underneath him.
When Seonghwa lays it out in such clear, stark terms, it seems like the most obvious thing in the world. And yet not once has he actually put the question to them, even in a casual way. That would have required him to actually engage with the concept, admit that the version of the future in his head possibly didn’t match what was actually going to come to pass.
“I…I’m sorry.” He can feel molten heat flooding through his face, embarrassment pooling in his cheeks. But he’s already come this far, so after clearing his throat again, he asks, “What do you want?”
“You!”
It’s only a single word, but it hits as hard as a punch to the stomach.
As Hongjoong tries to get his breath back, sitting back on his heels so that he doesn’t tumble over into the sand, Seonghwa continues talking.
“All I’ve ever wanted is you!” They move even closer, and their hands rise halfway again, fingers clenching like they’re biting back the impulse to sink into his lapels like fishing hooks. “Even before I knew what it meant to want someone, it was always you. It’s been you since we were five!”
“Oh,” Hongjoong whispers, truly feeling like the stupidest man that has ever walked the earth.
“It doesn’t matter if we end up in Seoul or if we stay in Namhae or go overseas,” they continue, chest heaving for breath. Even in the low light, Hongjoong can see the flush illuminating their cheeks and bleeding down their neck, the way it does sometimes when they’ve been outside for too long and even their UV umbrella can’t stop the sun. “What I want is for us to figure it out together. You can’t make that decision for me.”
Despite their frustration, there’s no meanness to their words, but all the same, Hongjoong has never felt so painfully small.
“You’re right,” he says quietly. On instinct, his eyes drift away from Seonghwa’s face again, and he forces himself to look back. It makes his stomach churn even harder, but he forces himself to look, to prove that he’s still here, that he’s listening to them, the way he should have been listening this entire time. “I shouldn’t have assumed.” He slides forward ever so slightly, so that they’re nearly close enough for their knees to touch. “I should have asked.”
“Yes, you should have,” Seonghwa echoes. Some of the frustration has bled out of their voice, but Hongjoong is sure he hasn’t heard the end of it. “And I want to talk more about this later. For now though, I have something to ask you.”
“Anything.” Hongjoong nods, perhaps a little frantically, as he tries to read Seonghwa’s expression. Is that a smile playing at the corner of their glossy lips? Have their eyes softened a modicum? Is their tongue darting out automatically or is it a deliberate choice on their part? “Anything, Hwa. I promise I’ll be honest.”
Seonghwa closes the remaining space between them. They slide closer and drop their long fingers to Hongjoong’s blanket scarf, twisting into where the material is bunched against his chest. It has the effect of pulling him forward, until they’re so close that he can smell Seonghwa’s perfume again, see the sparkles on the bridge of their nose and fanned out along their cheeks, glimmering like a jellyfish hiding just below the surface.
“Can I kiss you?” Their voice is lower now, not pitched up with exasperation. It’s an unfamiliar tone, and one that he hopes to become very accustomed to, if he manages to play his cards right and not fuck up this incredible, lifeshattering opportunity that has landed in his lap.
And step one to not doing that is to actually answer Seonghwa’s question, not just stare at them with equal parts giddy rapture and utter disbelief.
“Only if I can kiss you back.”
Seonghwa rolls their eyes, even as their mouth turns up into what is unmistakably a smile.
“I’ll be pissed if you don’t,” they murmur, tilting their head to the side, fringe brushing against Hongjoong’s forehead.
Hongjoong manages to mirror the movement just in time for Seonghwa’s lips to brush against his own.
Their lips are a little sticky from gloss, but even with that layer, Hongjoong can tell that they’re soft, that the sugar scrubs and masks they do (and foist off upon him) have worked well. They taste like strawberries and bubble gum ice cream, and while the combination would normally give him a toothache, now, he wants to gorge himself on it. With his heart pounding hard enough to crack bone, he lifts his trembling hands and slowly extends them out, letting them land where fate takes them.
Which, as it turns out, is on Seonghwa’s waist.
He can feel one of the flowers that he embroidered on their jacket scratching against his palm as he presses a little firmer, head swimming with the fact that he’s allowed to do this. He’s allowed to be here, under the blossoming stars of the night, kissing the person that he’s been in love with for so, so long.
Despite his best attempts to resist tumbling into his imagination, he’s pictured what it would be like to kiss Seonghwa more than a few times, but now, those half-baked mental pictures have been fully wiped away.
Not one of them could prepare him for the reality.
They sigh quietly against his mouth before they pull back, palms flattening against his chest. They stay close enough to keep their forehead braced against Hongjoong’s, and while the kiss was lovely, having them still so close makes him crave more, like a child who refuses to be sated with half a cookie when the entire box is within reach.
“Can I kiss you again?” he asks, trying to ignore how the heat in his cheeks has only intensified, like a flash burn.
Seonghwa rolls their eyes again, but the soft little laugh that follows makes Hongjoong feel like he could run across the world and not even take a breath.
“Oh, so now you’re willing to ask me questions.” The tip of their nose bumps against his. “Yes, Hongjoong. You can kiss me again.”
Hongjoong wastes no time in doing so.
The night grows fully dark around them as they kiss. They kiss until Hongjoong can feel Seonghwa’s lip gloss drying on his upper lip. They kiss until his mouth feels raw and his tongue has become intimately familiar with the sensation of tangling with Seonghwa’s. They kiss until there’s sweat trickling down the line of his spine and slicking his palms, which have ended up underneath Seonghwa’s jacket, sandwiched between abrasive denim and velvet.
And then, it starts to rain.
Hongjoong ignores the first couple of drops when they spatter him on the back of the head. He has more important things to think about, like the way Seonghwa shudders gently when he nips at their swollen lower lip.
But in short order, the rain becomes impossible to ignore. The stray droplets come down faster, transitioning from a light sprinkle to a proper rain shower. His ears fill with a faint roar as the rain hits the ocean, water returning to water in a grand cycle. As it slicks his nape and strikes the bare curves of his ear, all of the heat that was building inside of him fizzles out, replaced by another round of shivering even more brutal than what plagued him when Seonghwa arrived.
Before he can maybe try to do something foolhardy, like push through and risk hypothermia if it means getting to kiss Seonghwa for a little longer, Seonghwa pulls away with one last kiss that stings sweetly against Hongjoong’s sore mouth.
“Come home with me.” With effortless grace, they get to their feet and extend a hand, which Hongjoong eagerly takes. As soon as he’s upright, they pull off their coat and wrap it around him. As they turn up the collar, they say, “There’s leftovers from last night, and I’ll make us some tea to warm up. And we can talk about this.” They squeeze his hand tightly. “Okay?”
Frankly, Hongjoong isn’t exactly sure if he relishes the idea of actually talking, of confronting the fact that he was an absolute idiot in great detail and coming up with some kind of redemption plan. But that’s almost certainly the residual fear speaking, along with the lightheadedness brought about by Seonghwa’s warm mouth and long tongue.
Regardless of how the evening goes, whether they end up talking deep into the night or end up wound together on Seonghwa’s bed, either curled up or kissing until Hongjoong remembers what it’s like to be warm again, what matters is that they’ll be together.
“Yeah,” he replies, returning the squeeze and burying his other hand into the pocket of Seonghwa’s jacket, which is still holding the last remnants of their body heat. “That sounds perfect.”