Chapter Text
Jaehyuk didn’t realize, at first, that anyone was talking to him. He had heard the “Hi” and “Hello” and ignored it, assuming it couldn’t possibly be for him. His mom had told him they were going to some charity event for kids, but there weren’t that many kids here, let alone any of his friends. He had spent the first hour of the event telling his mom’s friends that he was excited for first grade, even though that was a complete lie for the exact same reason he wasn’t having any fun here: he didn’t know anyone.
“Hello?” the voice asked, a little more insistently. Jaehyuk felt a tug on his shirt and finally turned to see two boys around his age, one definitely leading the other, trying to get his attention.
“Hi?”
“Hi! I’m Siwoo! And this is Kiin. We were wondering who you were.”
There’s some shuffling and too-loud whispers between them and Jaehyuk hears Kiin say “We? This was all your idea!”
Siwoo whispered back, “It’ll be fine,” before looking at Jaehyuk and waiting for something. Eventually Jaehyuk realized he was what he was waiting for.
“I’m Park Jaehyuk. It’s nice to meet you,” he said, sticking his hand out for Siwoo to shake, just how his dad had taught him to introduce himself.
Siwoo did try to shake his hand, but Kiin grabbed his arm and said, “I don’t know about this.”
This must have happened pretty frequently because Siwoo wasn’t phased in the slightest and ignored him to ask Jaehyuk, “Do you want to come play with us?” Jaehyuk hesitated for just a second before he nodded and, when he realized his mom was busy, turned to tell his nanny where he was heading.
Siwoo found an empty table for them and started teaching Jaehyuk how to play a game he called Sticks. Or, well, he told Jaehyuk he would be able to figure it out if he watched him and Kiin play a round or two. It involved a lot of tapping of fingers and math and he hadn’t really understood what was happening, but after one round Kiin decided he didn’t want to play anymore so now Jaehyuk just kept losing to Siwoo. Every time Siwoo would say, “That’s okay! We’ll play again and maybe you’ll win this time,” with a huge smile, so Jaehyuk didn’t really mind.
He was having a lot more fun than he usually did at these kind of events. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t met Siwoo or Kiin before but he was starting to think maybe he wouldn’t hate coming to these with his mom if it meant he could hang out with them again. But then, just as he was about to tap Siwoo’s hand and eliminate it from the game, Kiin pulled at Siwoo’s arm again and said “Siwoo, my mom is coming.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong, Kiin.”
But clearly Kiin’s mom didn’t agree with Siwoo’s assessment. As soon as she got to the table, she made Kiin get up and sent him away with his nanny. “I only agreed to let him go with you because I thought you knew better,” she told Siwoo when she turned back to him and Jaehyuk. She sounded really angry and Jaehyuk wasn’t sure what the three of them had done wrong. They’d been quiet. They’d been out of the way. They had stayed well within eyesight of the nannies. Those were all the things his parents warned him about when they went to these things, so what was the problem?
She turned to him, then. “I don’t want the likes of you near my son.” She had a lot more to say after that but Jaehyuk was trying really hard not to cry and he wasn’t hearing any of it. He was a little scared to look away from her but it did make him feel a bit better that out of the corner of his eye he could see that Siwoo was equally upset. Well, it wasn’t good that Siwoo was crying too, it was just good that he wasn’t the only person that thought this was crazy.
“That’s enough, Haerin,” Jaehyuk heard his mom say. She also sounded angry, but at least this time it wasn’t directed at him. She didn’t give Kiin’s mom a chance to respond before she crouched down next to Jaehyuk and gently turned him to face her. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly. He didn’t want Siwoo or Kiin’s mom to know that he wasn’t so he just barely shook his head no and then wiped at his eyes to try to clear away the evidence of tears. “Hey, I’m here now, right? Should we go home?”
As soon as he nodded, she stood up and grabbed his hand. He followed her towards the door without her saying goodbye to anyone, although one of her friends stopped her on the way out. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay, Yunseo? We could really use your help to make the charity auction successful today.”
“Then Haerin should have thought about that before she insulted me and my son,” she said before moving around her towards the door, holding Jaehyuk’s hand a little tighter as they walked by.
As they were stopped, another woman rushed up to them. Jaehyuk wasn’t sure who this woman was, but his mom clearly did. “I’m not sticking around after that stunt she pulled, Minji,” his mom said, her voice hushed.
“I know. I just, um, well, I heard Jaehyuk will be in Siwoo’s class this year.” Oh. So she was Siwoo’s mom. He was a little worried he was about to get scolded again, and clearly his mom was too since she stepped in front of him a bit. “I hope they can get along well,” she added when it was obvious his mom had nothing to say at first.
“We’ll see,” she added eventually, ending the conversation by turning and leading Jaehyuk outside.
—
Siwoo’s mom was waiting for him when he and his nanny came downstairs the morning of his first day of school. She knelt down in front of him and started messing with his uniform. “You look very dashing in this.” He nodded as she fixed this and that and then finally stood up. “Do you remember that boy you met a few weeks ago?”
Of course he remembered; it was not easy to forget getting scolded by Kiin’s mom. He still wasn’t sure what had made Kiin’s mom mad this time because they had played like that plenty of times and it had never been a problem before. He nodded. “He said he was Park Jaehyuk.”
“Exactly. He’s going to be in your class this year. I want you to look out for him today, okay?”
“Oh. Are we… not supposed to play together?”
“No! No, I meant to help him have a good day. I think you two should be friends. He went to a different school last year and he could probably use someone to show him around. Do you think you could do that for him?”
“Yes!” He was worried he wouldn’t be able to play with him again when he hadn’t been at the party his mom had taken him to last weekend. Jaehyuk had been funny; Kiin never let Siwoo win that many times in a row.
Siwoo had meant to ‘look out’ for Jaehyuk but it was hard to remember once he got to school and saw his friends again. He only remembered when he ran past him while playing a game with his friends at recess. Jaehyuk had been sitting alone at the edge of the playground watching some of the other kids play, so Siwoo told the rest of his friends to go on without him and went over to talk. “Why are you here alone?”
Jaehyuk looked at him for long enough that Siwoo was starting to feel a little awkward. Finally he pointed at the kids on the playground and said, “They said I couldn’t play with them.”
“Oh. Well that’s dumb. I’ll play with you if you don’t have any other friends.”
“I have plenty of friends!”
“Okay. Who are they? Do I know them?”
“How would I know who you know?”
“Well you can say their names and I can tell you.”
“Soojin.”
“There’s not a Soojin in our class. Are you sure they’re real?”
“Yes I’m sure they’re real. She just doesn’t go to school here. She goes to… I forgot what her school was called but it’s not this one.”
It wasn’t very convincing but Jaehyuk seemed like he was starting to get actually upset so Siwoo decided to change the subject. “Do you want to play Sticks with me again? You almost won last time.”
His offer didn’t really seem to help. Jaehyuk just looked at him skeptically and asked, “Won’t we get in trouble again?”
“That’s just Kiin’s mom, and she’s not even here. My mom said we could be friends if I wanted.”
He was still hesitant. “Do you want to?”
“Sure! Why not?”
— Nine Years Later —
Siwoo really tried when it came to Kiin’s mom. Selfishly, he wanted to spend as little time with her as possible, but he also recognized that doing so meant Kiin was stuck alone with her, so when they were at events like this he tended to stick around as long as he could bear. He’d been listening to her critiques for an hour, though, and at this point he was just as liable to say something snarky and make things worse for Kiin by staying as he was to insult her by leaving. “It was great talking to you, Mrs. Kim, but there were a few other people I was hoping to say hi to tonight.”
“Oh don’t tell me it’s that Park bo—“
“Mom!” Kiin interrupted. “I think he meant some of our friends from school.”
“Ah, well, in that case you better go with him.”
They said goodbye to her and walked through the crowd of the event together until they were out of eyesight. “Jaehyuk’s here?” Kiin asked.
“He’s been waiting for a while.” Siwoo nodded towards the side door of the venue where Jaehyuk was leaning against the wall, clearly watching the two of them.
“Have fun. Do you want me to cover for you if anyone asks?”
Siwoo shrugged. “I think your mom cares more than my parents do at this point.” As they were talking, he watched Jaehyuk slip out the side door. “Alright, I’m going.”
Siwoo found Jaehyuk sitting on the steps on the side of the building. It was quiet out here and the only light came from the windows into the venue. Combined with the cool fall air, it made for a better ambiance than Siwoo was expecting. He joined Jaehyuk on the steps and asked, “School going okay?”
“Yeah, it’s fine. I was starting to think I wasn’t going to get to see you at all this week with how long you were talking to Mrs. Kim.”
“Sorry, you know how she gets.” He could swear he saw Jaehyuk roll his eyes. “I missed you this week. It’s so weird not seeing you at all during the day; I really wish you had gotten in with me and Kiin.”
“I wasn’t expecting to.”
“Your new school is nice, though, right? Isn’t it a new building?”
“It’s good, I guess. People are nice and everything but, I don’t know, I thought it would be different. Soojin basically ditches me for the art room the whole day, plus,” he paused for just long enough to turn to look at Siwoo. “You’re not there.”
They were so close. Siwoo’s eyes dropped to Jaehyuk’s lips for just a second and he realized he would really like to kiss him. It wasn’t the first time he had thought about it, but it was the first time it had felt like it might be a good idea to try. He raised a hand to Jaehyuk’s cheek like he’d seen in the movies, and he could have sworn he felt Jaehyuk lean into it.
He could not have been more wrong. He leaned forward and half a beat later Jaehyuk jumped back. “Woah, Siwoo. What are you doing?” He looked concerned for just a second, and that was bad enough, but then he actually sat back a little more and laughed. It wasn’t happy and light, the way he always laughed. It was awkward and… devastating. A little terrifying. Siwoo had to get out of there.
“Okay,” he said, and hated how clipped it sounded. “I have to go.” He bolted up and fumbled with the door back into the venue, the latch sticking a little and slowing him down. He couldn’t cry in front of Jaehyuk. After all of that he just couldn’t.
“Hang on Siwoo,” Jaehyuk said, having caught up to him. His hand reached out to stop the door. “Let’s—“
“Just let me go!” Siwoo grabbed Jaehyuk’s wrist with one hand, pulling it out of the way, so he could yank the door open. As soon as he slipped inside and tugged the door shut behind him, he realized this wasn’t any better. He had walked right back into the crowded venue.
He scanned the room for options and found only one; he rushed over to Kiin, who hadn’t made it very far away from his mother while Siwoo and Jaehyuk had been outside. For once he was glad to see her, she would keep Jaehyuk far, far away. “Siwoo?” Kiin asked as he approached. “Bored with Jaehyuk already?”
“Just not in the mood tonight.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have to spend time with him.”
“I didn’t say you did,” he said, clearly confused by Siwoo’s sudden change. “Everything alright, Siwoo?”
“Everything is fine.” It had to be. He had to assume that Jaehyuk wouldn’t do anything that could really cause him trouble over one mistake like that. If he thought about what Jaehyuk could do, if he wanted, he was going to lose his mind in the middle of all these people, so he just had to assume he wouldn’t. If he kept telling himself things were still okay, then maybe they were. “I’m fine.”
But the more he thought about it, the more nervous he was getting. He hadn’t told anyone about that part of himself before. Jaehyuk wouldn’t, right? After years of friendship surely he wouldn’t. But when he looked over and saw the way Jaehyuk was looking at him… he was starting to feel a little sick, honestly.
“Actually, come with me,” he said, grabbing Kiin’s wrist and pulling him through the crowd. He ignored Kiin’s questions as he guided them towards a quiet service hallway towards the back of the venue and finally dropped his wrist.
“Seriously, Siwoo, you’re freaking me out.”
“I’m gay.” It was easier just to put it out there. If he had paused for even a second longer before he said it, he wasn’t sure he would have actually gotten the words out.
Kiin stared at him for a second. “O— Okay.” He sounded like he didn’t quite know what to make of it, and he definitely didn’t know what to say in response. “Thank you for telling me, but—“
“I just… I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else first.”
“Siwoo?” Kiin asked, the confusion gone, replaced by concern. “What happened?”
“It was nothing.”
“It obviously wasn’t nothing. Are you okay?”
He paused. He wanted to be, and maybe if he said he was then it would be true. “I don’t know.”
—
“Alright, Jaehyuk, you can’t keep doing this,” Soojin said, standing over him where he was laying on the floor of her bedroom. Her parents had invited people over and after a few hours of hearing everyone’s opinions on what he should do for university, despite the fact he had just started high school, he couldn’t take it anymore. Normally his strategy would have been to stick next to Soojin and let her concern everyone with her plans for art school and travel, but she had been on his case about something else these days and he really just wanted to be alone. In hindsight, her room was probably not the best place to hide from her.
“I told you I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“And I told you that you had one more week to fix it before I made you tell me what was up.”
“I don’t think I should say.”
“Come on, I’m your best friend. Surely you can tell me of all people,” she insisted, laying down next to him. He didn’t respond, leaving the two of them staring at her ceiling for a moment. It still had some cheap glow in the dark stars stuck to it that the two of them had found at a convenience store when they were in middle school. He still wasn’t sure what his parents had been more upset about when they got caught that day: that he had ditched his tutor or that he had done so in order to eat cheap snacks in a park with Soojin.
“I knew it!” she said after a moment and Jaehyuk realized he had made another mistake. “This is about Siwoo. No ‘come on, Soojin, you know you’re both my best friend’? You are seriously such a bad liar.”
“I wasn’t lying about not wanting to talk about it,” he mumbled.
“Jaehyuk, it’s been weeks. You’re miserable. Please let me try to help.”
He considered keeping it to himself still but she was right. It was killing him that Siwoo hadn’t spoken to him since that night at the event and he had already tried everything he could think of to get him to talk to him again. His texts had gone unanswered, his phone calls were sent to voicemail, and it was like Kiin’s mother had become Siwoo’s best friend the way he refused to leave her side at events. Quietly, he caved. “You can’t tell anyone. You have to promise.”
“Promise.”
He took a few breaths and then whispered, “Siwoo tried to kiss me.”
Soojin sat up immediately and stared at him. When he didn’t elaborate, she asked, “He tried to kiss you?”
“Yeah, I… I didn’t respond very well.”
“What does that mean?”
“I laughed,” he admitted.
She didn’t respond to that for a moment so Jaehyuk took the opportunity to sit up as well. “… Why would you do that?” she finally asked.
“Well obviously I didn’t mean to! He really surprised me! And then he left before he let me say anything else and he’s been avoiding me ever since.”
“Would you have kissed him if he had stayed?”
“No,” he said on instinct. When he thought about it for a second, though, the answer was less sure. “I don’t think so. Probably not. Maybe.” Soojin seemed to be waiting for his answer to change yet again. “I’d never thought about it before but I can’t stop thinking about it now. I think, if I had a chance to do it over, I would, probably.”
“You have to tell him that.”
“I’ve tried! Look!” He unlocked his phone and pulled up his ten unanswered texts to Siwoo for her to see. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s actually a good thing that it didn’t work out.”
“How could that possibly be a good thing? You’ve been depressed for weeks about this.”
“You know about my parents’ expectations. Maybe it’s better that I fucked it up with Siwoo from the start. Hurts less that way.”
“That is such bullshit. For one, it obviously hurts this way too. But also… don’t let your parents do that to you. Don’t ignore what you want because of them. I already decided I’m never getting married, there’s nothing my parents can do to change that.”
It would be nice, if things could work like that, but Jaehyuk knew if his parents really didn’t want him with Siwoo then he would listen to them. Not that Siwoo was talking to him anymore. He was pretty sure he was right; it was better to just remove him as an option than to get his heart broken by things outside of his control down the line.
He didn’t want to dwell on it anymore so he attempted to change the subject. “Never? What if you meet the perfect person.”
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Well, I do.”
“Is this… Do you—“
“I don’t like girls, Jaehyuk. I don’t like anyone. Not like that. I’m done talking about this; do you think the caterer would make us something to eat that’s more than one bite and isn’t French?” she asked, standing up.
“Maybe if you ask nicely,” he laughed, letting her grab his arm and pull him up from the floor.