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In the mornings, Wonbin looks pale, like all the blood’s been drained out of her just from the effort of waking up. She’s not lazy, no, Sungchan would never say that, but she gets tired. In this kind of world, who wouldn’t? Point is, she likes to sleep in.
On weekdays, she’s up by six thirty.
She lives alone in a goshiwon with only one neighbor. The university wouldn’t let her room with other girls so this space is all she’s got. Sungchan’s thought of ways around that, but they never panned out. It would be inappropriate for Sungchcan to suggest that she stay with him. And anyway, his parents don’t tolerate company.
Sungchan’s at her door at seven-thirty, but he almost didn’t come. It’s winter and the sun hasn’t fully risen and it’s cold. He wanted to sleep in. But it wouldn’t be fair to leave without her. She expects him. He likes to be needed, it’s reciprocal, that sort of thing.
She comes to the door already dressed in layers, already adorned with a backpack and a butterfly hair clip on the left side of her blunt cut bob. She looks childish, but Sungchan thinks it’s nice.
“Byeol,” Sungchan says as they take the salt-ridden path down to the station. He almost trips over a block of ice. Wonbin kicks it away with her sneaker.
“For a name?” Wonbin scoffs, “that’s too hipster. Too cocky. Poor little weirdo, she already thinks she’s a star, they’ll say.”
“I’ll kill them.”
Wonbin raises her brows. She’s wearing eyeliner that’s only noticeable when she makes a face like this. Her trench coat wrinkles around her shoulders when she shrugs.
“No you won’t.”
“Bitna,” Sungchan says quickly.
“Worse.”
“Seola.”
“That’s your cousin,” Wonbin reminds Sungchan.
The subway doors shut them into a train car with enough people that they have to stand. Wonbin’s antsy, shifting her weight on her feet. Sungchan grips the pole above where her fingers are, not sure if he’s ready to admit that he wants them to touch.
When they get down into the open air of Apgujeong, Wonbin lights a cigarette and Sungchan tries not to watch her smoke. It’s not good for her. Also, her mouth is pretty. Sungchan thinks her breath would smell like rot, and that would be too precious to absolve, or to forget.
Not that Sungchan is looking for absolution or thinks Wonbin is. Sungchan longs for something he hasn’t tasted. He doesn’t move anything but his feet.
Wonbin’s all feet. She keeps turning corners and Sungchan keeps up. She’s a dancer, mostly self taught. Those were the only times she’d leave the house when she was younger, she said. Sungchan wishes he knew her then. He could have done more. He could have seen more.
Though he knows, Wonbin wouldn’t have wanted him too.
They have two classes together today. Asian History and Literature. Both of those are electives for Sungchan. Wonbin’s taking history as part of her arts major. Literature isn’t her strong suit. She asks Sungchan to recap at the end of every lecture. It gives them something to talk about.
“But why?” Wonbin always asks when a character doesn’t do something she thinks they should, “why did she have to ruin herself just because someone else was sad.”
“Empathy,” Sungchan says, “or guilt.” He squeezes a yogurt pack into his mouth. It’s too sweet and he makes a face that Wonbin laughs at.
“That’s dumb.”
Wonbin fiddles with a package of turtle chips before Sungchan’s had enough of watching and takes it from her. He rips it open and hands it back. Wonbin crunches cautiously on the first chip like it’s the first time she’s ever had one. She doesn’t offer Sungchan any.
“It’s not dumb,” Sungchan sighs, “people have different capacities for feelings.”
“What’s yours?” Wonbin asks, “if I was sad, would you be sad?”
Her nails are clean and rounded. She manicures them herself in the winter, when it’s too cold to walk down to her usual salon. Lately, she’s painting them pale pink, like the colour of raw chicken.
Sungchan looks her in the face. She’s staring at him, probably unaware of the real answer.
“No,” Sungchan says, “I would just try to fix it.”
Wonbin chews carefully. “Byeol,” she says.
“Huh?”
“You tried to fix it with Byeol,” Wonbin reminds him with a short laugh, “but I’m not a star, Sungchan oppa. And I never will be.”
Before Sungchan can say anything, Wonbin pulls out a compact to fix her bangs. Her lip gloss is intact and needs no adjustment. Once she’s all in place, she shoulders her back and hands the unfinished bag of chips to Sungchan.
“Don’t get emotional about it, oppa,” she says, “I’m going to the studio.”
Wonbin goes to the studio between classes. Sometimes she skips classes to go to the studio. Most of the time, Sungchan tags along without being invited. He has an evaluation now though, so it’s not the time to watch Wonbin practice.
In the afternoon, Sungchan’s coming out of his physics lecture when he sees Wonbin being piggybacked down the quad.
Sungchan recognizes her carrier as Osaki Shotaro, the captain of the dance club. He attempts to be normal and walk the way he’s supposed to (down the stairs to his next economy lecture), but there’s no way, he decides, that he’s going to be able to focus on anything other than this.
He’s not a jerk. He doesn’t approach and break up their cute little friendship display. He just hides himself behind a pillar and watches them giggle down the hallway to Wonbin’s next class.
At the next door, Shotaro lets Wonbin down, and after a brief exchange, he’s on his way.
Sungchan tries not to feel annoyed. There’s nothing to be annoyed about. Everyone knows Shotaro is in a relationship with a girl from Osaka, so obviously he’s not hitting on Wonbin. Right? He’s not. He knows Sungchan. They’re friends even.
Which is why, when Wonbin rounds the pillar and comes face to face with Sungchan he says, “oh, there you are!”
Wonbin studies him, a music theory textbook pressed to her semi-flat chest.
“You were looking for me?”
“Yeah,” Sungchan lies, “I wanted to see if you wanted to skip your next class and go to the bingsu cafe with me.”
Wonbin pulls an annoyed face. “You’re a horrible liar. I would laugh but I’m really disappointed in you.”
She doesn’t say it with malice, but Sungchan still feels like his chest was struck by a fast moving motor vehicle.
“I’m sorry,” Sungchan says, “I didn’t mean to get stalkerish. I just didn’t know you two were so close.”
“It’s okay,” Wonbin says, “I liked it.”
Sungchan blinks.
“You liked what?’
“I liked you being weird and possessive,” Wonbin explains. She plays with her earring. Sungchan bought those for her last birthday. It’s been almost a year now that she’s been wearing them whenever she has time for jewellery.
Sungchan watches her earring, thinking he might be dizzy. He’s not quite sure of himself, of the way he’s standing or the way he’s orienting himself against the cement pillar. His shoulder hurts. This is the first time Wonbin’s said anything like this to him.
“You—”
The door to the lecture hall opens and shuts. Like a gust of pink shoujo wind, Wonbin is already gone.
After classes on Wednesdays and Fridays, Sungchan has a soccer team meet so he doesn’t always see Wonbin until the next day.
The next time he sees her, she’s quiet and guarded. When they’re ready to leave, all she does is shut off the bathroom light. She’s already smoking by the time they’re out the door of her goshiwon.
“I’m not going in today,” she announces, halting Sungchan in his tracks. They’re already at the subway entrance.
The walk was obviously for Sungchan’s benefit, unless she had been deciding the entire time. Sungchan can’t read her very well. But he wants to. He wants to get better at it. He’s known her for two years. He wonders how long it will take, wonders if it’s even possible to know her in her entirety.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
Wonbin’s already walking away. Sungchan follows, because it’s too strange, too cold, thinking of taking the train without her when they’re already spent the morning eating breakfast ramen from the same paper bowl. She cried through her shot this morning, told Sungchan to leave before she got off the edge of the tub. So sue him, Sungchan doesn’t know what else to do but not let her be alone.
Wonbin turns, surrounded by the smell. Sungchan inhales her smoke and coughs out, once, twice. When his throat is clear, he catches Wonbin smirking.
“Idiot,” she says.
“No you,” Sungchan says back.
Sungchan follows her to a bike rental station. Wonbin’s wearing a skirt and Sungchan tries not to look when she mounts her bike. He isn’t quick enough. Wonbin catches his stare, but she doesn’t say anything. She looks at him like she’s about to, but all Sungchan gets is her back, the arch of it sloping prettily under her thin blue cardigan and t-shirt.
Prettily, prettily. The word catches up in the spokes of Sungchan’s head and sends his insides spiralling as they drift along the bike lane.
Wonbins wearing red socks that stop above the ankles. Sungchan fixates on them like birds do with that colour, all the way to the shore of the river.
Sungchan pauses before he dismounts after Wonbin. He doesn’t really like this part of the Han. It’s too dark at night and reminds him of days he’d rather forget. But it’s daytime now, and he isn’t alone.
“Whoa,” Wonbin says, stumbling.
Sungchan forgets what he was thinking about. He reaches a hand out to the middle of Wonbin’s back, steadying her. Her body radiates warmth, even under two layers of clothing.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just nauseous,” Wonbin whispers. She sniffs. “I forgot to bring a blanket.”
Sungchan takes his coat off and places it on the pebbles. He holds Wonbin’s hand until she’s sitting with her legs out. Sungchan plants himself next to her and tries not to look at her knees. They’re small knees. Her ankles too. Her thighs are soft, blemished only with a bruise from dance practice.
“Did they up your dosage again?”
“Yeah, I asked,” Wonbin says, “20 mg for the past two weeks for my injection and 60 mg for my cyproterone acetate but it makes me feel sick sometimes. Nothing too severe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me before I put it in you?” Sungchan complains. “When’s your next appointment?”
“Next week,” Wonbin says, “but I’m fine with the shot. The oral meds are worse, but I’ll get used to it. Is my skin softer?”
Sungchan looks up at her face, her lip gloss, the way she’s tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. He thinks a question like that is an invitation touch, one he cannot possibly answer without touching.
But. Touch where? He folds his hands together.
Wonbin giggles. It’s cute the way scrunches her face. She reaches over before Sungchan can register the movement as something happening to him, and pulls his hand onto her thigh.
It’s soft. There’s no question about that. A soft thigh. But there’s nothing for Sungchan to compare it to because he doesn’t let himself think about the texture of her skin when he’s helping her with her shot.
His hand hovers there, uncertain. His heart races in a stream through his ears. His body is hot, some part of it must be red, he feels like he’s suffocating.
He takes his hand away. He touches Wonbin’s hand instead, just the top of it below her knuckles. This part he has touched before. He held Wonbin’s hand when they ran for the train, and sometimes when they watched movies and it got too late for him to go home.
It was a mistake, but it doesn’t feel like one. Touching Wonbin’s hand feels more intimate than touching her leg. It is noticeably softer, slightly, than it was the last time he held it. A month ago, the end credits of Okja.
Wonbin’s breath catches as Sungchan’s hand covers hers. The sound of her surprise is visible and loud in the silent hum of the water and distant sound of highway above them.
“It’s softer,” Sungchan remembers to answer.
He wonders if it means something, the way Wonbin is reacting to him. He wonders if she’s scared.
Sungchan is scared. He’s never really had a crush on anyone he was close to. Most of the girls he’s liked have been acquaintances or mere classmates. Never a friend. He knows this is different in other ways too. He’s not naive enough to think that being with Wonbin like this is the same as being with his past girlfriends.
He remembers the first conversation they had about it, Wonbin scratching red lines into her arm and telling him he didn’t have to talk to her in public if he didn’t want to. He was already thinking about kissing her pink mouth. But he would have been a creep back then, it was too early to say something like that. Instead he said they should work on the next assignment together too, and why wouldn’t he talk to her in public, if they were friends.
He can’t remember what Wonbin said. Probably not much. She just let him stick around.
Wonbin turns her hand, palm up, to hold Sungchan’s. She isn’t looking at him. Her gaze follows the cars on the overpass, and Sungchan stares at her exposed ear.
Sungchan’s hand is so hot it must not feel comfortable to hold at all, but he grips her anyway, their fingers lacing around each other in a way they never have before.
“Maybe…” Sungchan starts. He doesn’t know what he was going to say. Maybe we should kiss? Maybe I should ask you how you feel about me?
“Maybe you should eat something,” he ends with. He’s about to take his phone out to look for places to eat around here.
“Not hungry,” Wonbin mumbles, still staring at the overpass.
She thumbs over Sungchan’s hand, and Sungchan’s stomach flips over and over. At home, Wonbin practices guitar. If dancing is a career, guitar is a hobby. She bought a classical Hofner secondhand in Gangnam for a price a little above fair. Her fingers are calloused from playing as much as she tries to moisturize them with aloe vera.
“Oppa, my dance crew is doing another show in Hongdae next weekend. Do you want to come again?”
Sungchan loves watching her dance shows. She’s in a mixed gender crew led by Osaki Shotaro who moved from Japan to Korea just to teach. Despite last week’s incident, Sungchan likes hanging out with him too. Sungchan loves watching Wonbin dance with Shotaro. They choreograph together sometimes. Sungchan fixates on the way she moves, graceful and detailed and bold. He thinks about it when he’s brushing his teeth.
Right now, he loves the sound of her voice and the way it gets caught up in the wind. Loves the way she looks sideways at him and then full on when he answers affirmatively. Loves her. Can’t remember a time when he didn’t, and suddenly that’s the most important thing in the world.
“I love you.”
Sungchan no longer sees a reason why he shouldn’t say it. It’s been two years.
Wonbin squeezes Sungchan’s hand like she’s checking the solidity of his body and the fact that it exists. It exists, Sungchan wants to scream, and it carries a mouth that finally said the thing it was meant to say.
Her eyes are rounded in surprise. She can’t be that surprised. She must have known, even a little.
“Wait, let me get it right,” Wonbin whispers, “you love me like… that?”
Sungchan swallows the lump of affection in his throat in order to speak like a proper gentleman.
“I’m in love with you. I love you. I want to—“
He leaves it there, but of course to Wonbin, that’s the most interesting part.
“You want to what?”
Sungchan’s silence leaves a thick tension hanging in the air. Wonbin, never one to draw things out in fear of awkwardness, works to break it.
“Stalk me at more of my dance practices?” she adds, putting effort into sounding amused.
“To be fair,” Sungchan notes, “I did not stalk you at dance practice. I happened to see you two in the quad. I happened upon you.”
“And oppa got jealous.”
Sungchan is a lot of things, but he’s not brave. He’s not brave, and still, Wonbin is helping him along like this. Giving him ins. All he has to do is take them.
“Yeah,” he says.
Wonbin turns her body toward him, tucking her knees up. He can see up her thighs like this. He tries not to stare at the flash of black undershorts.
“Why?” she asks. “Answer honestly.”
She’s looking at him so earnestly, it lowers his inhibitions. He feels drunk. Sleep-drunk, maybe. Though it’s still daylight, the sun hidden behind layers of cloud and the slow wind dancing over them both.
“Because you were so close to him,” Sungchan says, “and I want you to be close to me. I want your body to be close to mine like that.”
“Why?”
Sungchan’s face burns. His gut coils enough for him to feel winded.
“Why what?”
Wonbin twists her mouth, untwists it. She’s nervous too.
“Why do you want my body to be close to yours?”
“Because I,” Sungchan breathes, “because I like it when you’re close to me. I like touching you. I like when you—when the train’s really full and you’re pressed up against me.”
Both their hands are warm enough to burn, palms slipping against each other as they start to sweat.
“What parts?” Wonbin asks, sounding choked, “what parts do you like?”
Sungchan can’t bear the eye contact. He watches the river, flowing, unknowing, unfamiliar suddenly. It feels like the first time Sungchan’s seen anything at all.
“I like your back,” Sungchan tells her, “I like the way it’s shaped. Sometimes your shirt rides up and I can see your skin and I feel like I’m going crazy. And when you’re backed up against me I can feel your waist, I can feel your hair. Your hair smells so good even when you haven’t washed it in a week.”
The river makes Sungchan too honest. He shuts his eyes.
He can’t believe he’s saying these things, next to Wonbin, in public, holding her hand.
“It does?” Wonbin asks.
“Yeah.”
“I like when you touch my back too.”
“I felt the hook of your bra last week, when I rubbed your back.”
Wonbin had failed a literature practice exam and she was upset, cross-legged on her bed and Sungchan next to her, telling her it was only practice and that he’d help her study for the next one.
“You did?”
“I keep thinking about it.” It’s so easy to admit once he’s started. He can’t shut up.
“What about it?”
“Unhooking it.”
Through their connected hands, Sungchan feels Wonbin shudder.
“What else?” Wonbin asks, begs almost, strangled and urgent, “did you like it when I put your hand on my thigh?”
“So much it scared me,” Sungchan says, “your legs are so pretty.”
“I want you to touch me there again,” Wonbin whispers, “not just to help me. I want you to want it.” Her voice is closer now, her hand shifting when she moves closer. Sungchan can’t open his eyes. He can’t. Not when he can feel himself, painfully hard in his pants. If Wonbin’s looking, he’s sure she sees it.
“I do want it,” is all he gets out.
Wonbin’s other hand touches him, a small palm over the bulge in his jeans, and it’s so, so, so hard not to thrust up into it, that Sungchan does. He shouldn’t, but he does.
Sungchan’s eyes dart open into Wonbin’s shocked ones.
“Wonbin-ah.”
His voice cracks into a whimper.
“Fuck, sorry.”
“No—it’s. Fuck. It’s okay.”
“Oh my god.”
Sungchan isn’t sure which one of them says it. His head is spinning. He’s sticky in his pants. It’s uncomfortable, he can’t think. Wonbin’s still holding his hand. Wonbin’s still holding in his hand and he just came in his pants by the Han river.
It’s a lucky thing he’s tucked in. It’s a lucky thing his jeans are black.
That night is restless. Sungchan paces in his kitchen while he waits for his ramen to boil. Toward midnight, when Sungchan is post-shower and feeling cold and raw, his phone vibrates against the counter.
park wonbin [11:55]
i’m still thinking about it
i feel crazy
i can’t believe you
jung sungchan [11:55]
me too
i took a shower as soon as i got home
but i wish i didn’t
park wonbin [11:55]
what?
didn’t it feel gross?
jung sungchan [11:56]
yeah but i miss you so much
park wonbin [11:56]
stop
it’s only been a few hours
i already got off to you twice
Sungchan types out three different messages and deletes all of them. His collar feels too tight. He’s not even wearing a collared shirt.
park wonbin [11:59]
are all cis guys cowards?
whatever
call me
“Sungchan oppa,” Wonbin answers. Not even hello.
“I miss you,” Sungchan blurts. He’s in bed now, curled up onto his side without a shirt, his knees tucked toward his chest.
“Need me to talk until you get off again?” Wonbin laughs.
“No, no,” Sungchan whines, “I’m embarrassed. Just—are we dating? Can we date now?”
There’s a pause on the other end.
“You want to date me?”
Sungchan’s surprised at Wonbin’s surprise. But anyway, “I love you.”
“Sungchan oppa.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know about this,” Wonbin says, “I don’t know if I love you. You’re my best friend. I want to have sex with you one day. I want to date you too. Is that okay?”
“That’s okay,” Sungchan says. He isn’t disappointed. If they’re meant to be together, Wonbin will fall in love with him. He’ll work hard. He could really make it happen. The other stuff is enough. The other stuff is still more trust than Sunghan could ask for. It’s more than enough, for now.
After he hangs up, Sungchan opens his fridge and pulls up a recipe for soondubu-jjigae.
Kissing Wonbin tastes like cherry every time. It doesn’t make sense, because Wonbin doesn’t even eat cherries. The pits are too bothersome. Wonbin should taste like smoke, and she does a little, but mostly she is sweet.
Sungchan imagines Wonbin eating a cherry and tries to keep his erection down. He doesn’t mean to be this horny, really. They’ve been kissing like this for almost twenty minutes. Wonbin said she wasn’t ready to do anything else today. So Sungchan needs to calm down.
He pulls back, groaning a little and licking Wonbin’s saliva from his lips.
They’re on Wonbin’s twin bed, which is the only piece of furniture in her place aside from a couple of kitchen chairs.
Wonbin’s in pyjamas, a huge sweater and thin knitted pants that Sungchan can only kind of feel her skin through. Her neck smells like body wash when Sungchan noses along her collarbone.
“Hm?” Wonbin asks. Her eyes are watery, the corner of her mouth red.
“You’re so beautiful,” Sungchan says, slightly dazed, “you’re like the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
Wonbin giggles and Sungchan wonders what’s so funny. He’s completely serious.
“Is this your way of getting into my pants?”
Sungchan shakes his head. He fixes Wonbin’s hair around her face before she can do it herself. “I could die looking at you.”
“Don’t say that,” Wonbin whispers, suddenly hoarse.
“Why not?”
Sungchan kisses her again, inhaling through his nose.
Wonbin speaks against his mouth.
“Wait, oppa, just wait a minute.”
Sungchan pulls himself away again. Wonbin puts distance between them on the tiny bed but keeps their hands connected.
“Have you been okay?” Wonbin asks.
Sungchan thumbs over Wonbin’s shiny pink nail. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing. You know I hate when you say stuff like that,” Wonbin says, and Sungchan nods, aware. When they met, they were both different people. Sungchan was nowhere near as content as he is now. There were a lot of things he couldn’t like, a lot of classes he couldn’t get through. Wonbin’s still sensitive from it. She keeps one eye on him, even when they barely talk about it.
Wincing, Wonbin finishes, “that’s all. But you seem happy.”
“I am happy. I don’t actually want to die.”
Wonbin laughs when Sungchan does.
“Good,” Wonbin says, and then with more weight, “good.”
Now that he’s sure of that, Sungchan doesn’t want to leave. He sinks down into Wonbin’s pillows and runs a hand over her pants.
“Kissing makes me sleepy,” Wonbin says.
Sungchan isn’t sure if he should take that as a compliment. A lot of things make Wonbin sleepy. A boring movie, a long car ride, eating rice, weekends, comfortable pants. Sungchan hopes he falls more on the side of comfortable pants than boring movies.
Wonbin slides down next to him and shuts her eyes.
“Minjoo,” Sungchan tries.
“No.”
“Wonah.”
“Sungah unnie,” Wonbin jokes, her cheek quivering.
Sungchan doesn’t hate it, but he doesn’t unpack that for now. He reaches over to touch the sharp corner of Wonbin’s mouth.
“You need to eat something.”
Wonbin opens one eye to peer at Sungchan under his hand, disgruntled, a bothered cat woken too early.
“I brought soondubu-jjigae,” Sungchan says, and climbs out of bed.
The jiggae is intact inside its stainless steel dish, inside its plastic bag. Sungchan transfers it into a bowl and puts it into the microwave.
The kitchen tile is cold. Sungchan slides his feet into Wonbin’s bunny slippers. They’re three sizes too small. His toes curve over the edge when he tries to walk, so he slides them across the tile instead.
“Did you buy that?” Wonbin asks, eyes half closed and body turned over on the bed.
“I made it.”
“I didn’t know you could.”
Wonbin’s eyes are fully open now. She’s on her back, shirt carelessly ridden up over her toned stomach.
“What if it’s no good?” she worries.
Sungchan tasted it. It was good, by his standards. But he and Wonbin are not the same, and Wonbin has very little faith in him.
The microwave beeps, unaware of this predicament, and Sungchan has no choice but to prepare two bowls on the small table between the bed and the counter.
He trips over the slipper as he’s preparing his own, spilling a minor bit of broth onto the floor.
Wonbin gets herself out of bed and dangles her cold feet off the side. She pops one of the round blue tablets in her mouth and swallows it dry, wincing at the mess on the tile.
“Uh.”
So as not to stain the synthetic hardwood, Sungchan multitasks. He wipes the floor with a piece of paper towel under the slippers and toes the slippers off over the mess, nudging them over to Wonbin. He stays in his socks.
Wonbin smells her spoon before she eats.
“It’s good.”
“It is?”
Wonbin’s eyes seem honest. She even smiles. Sungchan wonders if she thinks of this as the first meal her boyfriend cooked for her.
No, too fast.
He needs to be better at listening. What did they tell him at outpatient counselling? Listening to understand, not just to consume. You need to digest too. Wonbin hasn’t told him much, but he can understand enough about what he means to her.
She’s not his girlfriend.
Sungchan watches Wonbin eat until she complains about it. He finishes his bowl before she’s even halfway through the broth.
When Sungchan puts his spoon down, he finds Wonbin scrolling through TikTok instead of eating. Audios from various choreography challenges cut through their settled silence, unsettling it.
“What are you doing?” Sungchan chides, “you aren’t done.”
Wonbin makes a whining noise that isn’t an answer.
“Should I?”
Sungchan picks up Wonbin’s spoon and scoops a piece of a tofu in with the broth.
“Ah,” Sungchan says.
Wonbin holds her phone in one hand and looks at Sungchan with genuine disgust.
“Come on,” Sungchan insists, “you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday.”
“I haven’t—“
“Been hungry,” Sungchan finishes, “I know. You’ve said that every day since I’ve known you.”
Wonbin sighs, resigned, her cheek against her bent wrist.
“It’s since I started dancing,” she admits, “it’s second nature to be like this.”
Sungchan already knows that too. Osaki Shotaro’s like that too. But it’s different because Shotaro is a guy and the standards are different. No one has to say it out loud for it to be true.
“I’m okay with forcing you,” Sungchan admits back, “and feeding you too. Let me do this. I love you.”
“You’re very liberal with that love stuff now.”
“Well, I figure you should know,” Sungchan says, “you should understand.”
Wonbin parts her lips and leans forward. Sungchan thinks of kissing her instead. But if he does that she won’t eat, so he fits the spoon inside her mouth instead until she’s finished almost all of it.
”Tastes good?”
Wonbin nods and keeps leaning in for more. Sungchan scrapes the excess off her lips with the spoon.
“What?” Sungchan asks, when he catches Wonbin staring.
“I thought you were going to say something embarrassing.”
Sungchan looks over his shoulder even as he clears the dishes. By the sink, “Like what?”
“Love stuff,” Wonbin muses, “‘good girl’ or something.”
Sungchan almost drops the bowl he’s washing. He turns the tap off and dries his hands. The dishes can wait.
“You—would you want that?”
Wonbin turns her head, hair hiding her face, and pushes her chair away. Soon she’s back in bed, like nothing ever happened. She’s so good at that, reeling him in, pretending whatever they both feel is his to bear alone.
Sungchan takes a few quick steps until he’s able to wrap an arm around her waist.
“No, that's corny,” Wonbin whines.
“Why?” Sungchan asks, “you are a good girl.”
“Ewww,” Wonbin groans, but laughs all the same.
“The best girl,” Sungchan adds, his face buried in her clothes, “number one girl? Girl number one? The only girl in the world.”
“That’s logically not true.”
“It is to me!”
“Oppa, you’re so stupid.”
Sungchan doesn’t care. He agrees, even.
One month, they skip class for three days in a row. On the first day, Wonbin says she isn’t feeling up to it when Sungchan’s at her door in the morning, and Sungchan doesn’t need details. He can see it in the way she’s dressed in clothes two sizes too big and a hood draped over her head.
He makes breakfast.
On the second day, Wonbin changes her clothes and puts on lip gloss. Sungchan tries to be funny. He puts on an Apink song and fumbles through the choreography.
A still giggling Wonbin pulls him into bed until they’re rolled up together inside the sheets. Sungchan kisses her forehead, her eyelashes. They’re not very long but they’re soft, she’s soft from head to toe. Even her hair feels softer. Sungchan tells her so, but Wonbin doesn’t light up the way she has before.
“Do you feel sick?” Sungchan asks, their mouths brushing.
“No,” Wonbin says, “I’ve gotten used to it. I feel better on the inside too. I just can’t face anyone.”
“Can you face me?”
Wonbin kisses him once. She pulls back to look into his eyes as an unspoken answer.
Wonbin’s wearing black slacks today, a tank top inside of a purple cardigan. She gets on top of Sungchan to kiss him again, and the cardigan tugs to reveal her collarbone. A bra strap sits neatly over it. Sungchan kisses it, taking the adjustment plastic into his mouth and Wonbin misses his mouth, scolding him quietly.
Sungchan apologizes with a proper kiss, one that slides their lips together and makes Wonbin tug at his hair, at his sweater. Sungchan can feel it in his gut, the burning, sloshing feeling that makes him moan into Wonbin’s mouth.
The room is drafty. Shirtless in seconds, Sungchan shivers under Wonbin’s touch. Her hands are warm and can’t span the width of his back, girl’s hands. Sungchan loves girl’s hands.
They’re on his neck now, as Wonbin looks like she’s about to say something and doesn’t. Her cheeks are darkened with a heated blush Sungchan has never seen before.
“Tell me,” Sungchan encourages.
Wonbin doesn’t tell. She undoes the buttons on her cardigan and lets it slip off her shoulders. Sungchan touches the collection of bones there. Wonbin bites her lip. That alone feels obscene.
Sungchan kisses her mouth again, tries to be steady and affectionate instead of messy and intense, which are all things he feels. He has to pick and choose. Wonbin relaxes into him and he knows he’s chosen right.
Wonbin pulls away again. She raises her tank top until it’s off her torso and looks away, arms crossed over her stomach, lip gloss smeared shiny and wet over her mouth.
“Pretty,” Sungchan says.
Her bra is a deep purple like the cardigan. Sungchan’s fingers graze the hooks when they’re kissing again. Unhooking it, he’d told her.
God, it must be too much. Sungchan shouldn’t be rash. He skirts his hands over it but doesn’t do anything until Wonbin, tugging his head to kiss at her neck, says, “do it.”
Sungchan’s practiced this before. He undoes the clasps without breaking the ensuing kiss. The bra falls open at the back, and Sungchan feels the space with his touch. Wonbin’s back is slender and toned under his hands.
He slides up to Wonbin’s straps, tugs them gently off her shoulders as Wonbin hisses.
“Mm, cold,” Wonbin says, but it doesn’t sound like a complaint. The bra falls between them and Wonbin tosses it to the end of the bed. She climbs full into Sungchan’s lap and presses their chests together.
The softness feels good, delicate. Sungchan looks down at their nipples rubbing together. Wonbin’s breasts are perky and small, the areolas a darker shade of brown than Sungchan imagined. His thoughts short circuit and play like a loop, in time with the motions of Wonbin’s body on top of his.
Wonbin’s face is pressed against Sungchan’s neck. The heat from her face radiates, and Sungchan’s giddy from it, warm and emboldened.
“Did you know I think it’s sexy when a hot girl is shy?” Sungchan asks. His voice comes out like he wants it to. Low and breathy inside the shell of Wonbin’s ear.
Wonbin laughs again. It’s nervous and drawn up and Sungchan needs to fix that.
Sungchan moves himself forward until Wonbin is on her back, head near the foot of the bed.
Her ribs are tough under Sungchan’s teeth, her sides are forgiving and easy. Sungchan kisses up between her breasts and she starts to smell like sweat and the body powder she must have put on this morning.
Heavy-lidded eyes look up at Sungchan when he appraises the expression on her face.
“Okay?”
Wonbin nods, a dumb smile stretching her cheeks. “You’re wearing my lip gloss. You’re getting it all over me.”
Sungchan bends his head, embarrassed, and sucks on her nipple, on her neck, on the middle of her stomach. The area around her hips and anything in between is sensitive, pulls reactions from Wonbin that make Sungchan’s eyes cloud up with a new kind of pleasure. He didn’t know he could feel this way.
It’s more than just being in love. It gets him aroused just touching her, and he doesn’t need to get off about it. Or maybe that is what being in love and he got it wrong before.
Whatever it is, Sungchan paints it all over Wonbin’s torso with his tongue. Her skin tastes poisonous, like a variety of bath chemicals. It’s too delicate to bruise but she lets him anyway, even seems to like it when it stings. Sungchan kisses all over it, feeling sorry.
Wonbin touches his back and his hair, sometimes at the same time, sometimes in response to a particular sensation. When she tugs, when Sungchcan feels her nails, he knows it’s good, and he comes back to it later, after he’s gone somewhere else (behind her ear, under her chin) and kept her waiting.
It isn’t really teasing. He gives in far too easily for it to be that.
Winter sun crawls slowly through Wonbin’s window, slanting over their tangled bodies and warming Sungchan’s back, though he’s already damp and burning up.
Sungchan raises his head to check the bedside digital clock. It’s close to noon. It’s been nearly two hours, which doesn’t feel true.
“Can you?” Wonbin asks, as the room is bathed in yellowish light, “take your pants off?”
Sungchan undoes his zipper, and then the button, trying to keep his hands steady, trying not to look like a fool when the zipper catches and the button won’t wrest itself from the fabric. His pants get tangled down his ankles but Wonbin doesn’t laugh. She just stares at him.
Wonbin’s breath hitches when Sunghcan’s down to his underwear.
She finds his hand and tugs him back over her.
“You’re wet,” she says, a cautious hand on Sungchan’s crotch.
Sungchan’s ears go numb. His jaw is so tense he feels like he’s drooling.
“A-are you?” he asks.
Wonbin tugs her zipper down too, shuffles her pants halfway down her legs and then laughs in Sungchan’s face when he doesn’t make a move.
“Am I?” she asks.
Sungchan slides an aching palm between her legs. He doesn’t look down, just looks at her face. Her lips part, but she bites down to close them.
“Yeah,” Sungchan answers. He doesn’t say, “even more than I am.”
Wonbin grabs his wrist and moves it back onto her hip like that’s enough of that. Sungchan touches her face and watches her lean into it. Her thumb strokes the bone of his wrist.
Without pants, it’s different. Sungchan’s allowed to touch the skin of her legs. His head spins uselessly but he keeps it place. He touches under her thigh and up to the smooth lasered curve of her ass, slotting himself between her knees.
Her underwear is thin, purple like the bra, and Sungchan takes to tugging on the hem of it, figures out the angle where it brushes against her perineum and uses it until Wonbin moans out a breathless, “fuck.”
Wonbin tilts her hips up and Sungchan presses his own down to meet her once he realizes what she’s asking for, and they set a slow pace like that, breathing into each other’s mouths.
They’re both making pained little noises but Sungchan doesn’t try to hide it. The more he expresses, the more Wonbin gives back. It keeps him honest. He doesn’t think too hard, just lets the sensations wash over him.
Wonbin keeps eye contact a lot steadier than Sungchan expected, and it’s sort of mind-numbingly perfect and insane, watching the things her face does when she’s turned on like this.
He kisses her again. Wonbin bites him, bites his bottom lip, not enough to draw blood. It’s more like a drawn out nibble. Their hips grind quicker against each other. Wonbin’s underwear floods first, warm and damp against Sungchan’s.
Sungchan is a close second. He rests his face against Wonbin’s hair and breathes too hard, making choked off dog noises until Wonbin says she wants to clean up.
On the third day, Wonbin takes pictures of Sungchan with a Christmas gift from Shotaro, a blue Instax Mini camera.
“That’s just my eye,” Sungchan complains.
Bended up in Sungchan’s lap, Wonbin shoves the camera into his face. “Yes, I like it.”
The picture comes out grainy and pupil-filled. Wonbin shakes it past development, hitting Sungchan on the face with it.
“Oppa, didn't you have a soccer meet today?”
Wonbin looks gorgeous looking down at him with a curious stare. Her small hoop earrings catch the light and Sungchan fixates on them and the way they frame the angles of her face, hidden only slightly by her hair.
“I don’t know.”
“Oppa,” laughs Wonbin, “it’s in your phone. Soccer practice at four thirty. And some guy named Soccer Team Captain Silver Stone texted you a reminder.”
“It’s not like I’m going to make the national team,” Sungchan shrugs, his arms around Wonbin’s body, keeping her in place on his thighs. He leans up for a kiss and Wonbin crinkles her nose.
“Have you ever dreamed about it?” Wonbin asks, pecking at him, “have you ever dreamed anything besides graduating?”
“I don’t know,” Sungchan says, “have you?”
“You know I have,” Wonbin says, “even if it’s just as a backup dancer, I really want to be a professional.”
“You will,” Sungchan notes easily, “you’re already halfway there. All your showcases have been good. Everyone we know thinks the same. Plus, everyone on your Instagram page thinks you’re hot too. So really, you have it all going for you.”
“You’re allowed to say that,” Wonbin says, “but you’re not allowed to assume things will work out for me. There are a lot of bad people in the industry.”
Sungchan bites the inside of his cheek. He grimaces, he knows he does, because a flicker of temporary disappointment crosses Wonbin’s face.
“Not all of them,” Sungchan lands on, “and I’ll kill the ones who look at you wrong. And besides, Shotaro loves you. He keeps telling me he’ll stick around.”
“Stop saying you’ll kill people,” Wonbin sighs, “we both know you’ll just get mad at them.”
“I’ll kill them in my head.”
Wonbin laughs, half-hearted, and squeezes Sungchan’s shoulders.
“I think we should get Shotaro oppa something nice for Seollal,” she says, “he’s really always there for me.”
“We should?” Sungchan asks, “like, together?”
As a couple? Sungchan leans in to make sure he’s hearing right.
“Yeah,” Wonbin says, “aren't you dying to be my boyfriend?”
Whatever answer Sungchan could muster is suffocated with the warm, eager pucker of Wonbin’s lips against his.
“Younghee. No, Youngah.”
Wonbin turns her head from where it’s resting against the subway door, pulling her cheekbone out of the light. There aren’t a lot of people on the train, but Sungchan is pressed to Wonbin’s other side away. They do that now.
“You know what I like?” Wonbin asks.
Sungchan tucks her hair behind her hair. A new pair of earrings Wonbin bought last week sparkle at him in the evening sun.
“I like when you talk to me.”
“Huh?” Sungchan asks, not sure if he heard right. “When I talk to you?”
“Yeah, like,” Wonbin mutters, drawing Sungchan closer, their arms leaning against the glass divider, “I like my name in your mouth. Wonbin-ah, what do you want for dinner. Wonbin-ah, what time is your rehearsal should I pick you up later. Shotaro hyung, doesn’t our Wonbinnie look nice today. It means something to me, oppa. So you can stop memorizing the giant book of baby names for girls.”
It feels like the most Wonbin has said to Sungchan in a long time. His heart jackrabbits as the train enters the tunnel again, sealing them away.
They get off the train at Banpo and attempt to follow Shotaro’s screenshotted Naver maps directions of how to get to the noraebang.
Thankfully, it only takes a few minutes, because the sky starts to look like rain.
“There,” Wonbin says, when they almost pass it.
At the entrance, Wonbin stalls, looking suddenly interested in a fake plastic spider plant.
”Nervous?” Sungchan asks, which is a silly question. They’re going to hang out with Shotaro, which is fine, but Shotaro’s friends from his old dance school will also be there, and that uncertainty always feels like a gamble.
Sungchan rests his hand against Wonbin’s back until they’re upstairs.
A cheery Shotaro greets them by the door of the noraebang.
”Wow, you look so pretty,” he says to Wonbin. She’s in a new black dress and a denim jacket layered on top. Anyone who sees her would think so.
“Don’t I look pretty, hyung?” Sungchan asks, fluttering his eyelashes.
Shotaro only giggles cutely at Wonbin, shoving Sungchan away. He makes up for it in the next second by patting Sungchan’s arm.
Behind him, a second head appears. The guy is handsome, with sharp features, an undercut, and one earring. His lips shine with a gloss similar to Wonbin’s when he talks.
”Hi,” he says, “I’m Hong Seunghan.” A third head appears under his arm.
”I’m Lee Sohee,” the shorter guy announces. He’s cute in a childish way, sticking close to Seunghan’s side.
Wonbin nods at them, her eyes darting all over like they do when she’s shy.
“I’m Park Wonbin.”
Sungchan introduces himself with what he thinks is a normal level of awkwardness as they let themselves inside. The lights are floating in colourful swirls that dazzle Sungchan’s eyes when he looks directly at them, but besides that it’s dark in a way that strains his eyes.
It’s good though, Wonbin likes noraebang, likes singing, though her voice doesn’t always hold.
They sing a couple of pop songs they all know. Seunghan and Sohee are nice, they’re fun, hanging off each other and dancing together in an effort to lower Shotaro’s score. It takes Sungchan five songs and a dramatic duet to “Love is an Open Door” that could hardly be called singing, to realize Seunghan and Sohee are dating.
“You’re so late to that party,” Wonbin scolds when Sungchan whispers it to her over a snack break. Which seems unfair. It’s not Sungchan’s fault he’s obvious and straight.
“Is that why you’re more relaxed?” Sungchan realizes, “because they’re gay?”
”Hey,” Seunghan says suddenly, sidling up to Sungchan, “is that a problem? Are you a homophobe? Because if so, I’ll tell you exactly where you should go.”
“He’s kidding, by the way,” Shotaro chuckles into the mic.
“No, oppa was just saying I’m more relaxed knowing you guys are, you know,” Wonbin says, leaning over Sungchan with a hand on the inner seam of his pants, “part of the community.”
“Cool,” Seunghan grins, “I’m glad, noona. Oops—ah, Wonbin-ssi, can I call you noona? You already feel like family because you’re so close to Taro hyung.”
”Yeah, of course,” Wonbin agrees.
The ensuing smile changes Seunghan’s whole face, from something sharp and cocky to something soft and friendly. He’s kind. It undoes a knot of tension in Sungchan’s chest.
“Call me hyung,” Sungchan adds, and Seunghan winks at him.
It’s been a while since Sungchan has had a good time around other people. In the middle of a loud EDM track, he looks around and feels the pressure of all the moving, happy bodies. He’d been isolating himself for years. It’s not something he confronts often, because he has Wonbin and he doesn’t feel alone when he’s with her.
One step at a time. Loving Wonbin is one. Being here with her is another.
A turtle breaking through its shell. That’s what he is now.
He focuses on the warm sensual weight of Wonbin’s dancing fingers on his leg. His head spins from sensory input but he’s grounded at the same time, probably because he knows what it means for both of them.
This rare Friday night outing is the same leap of faith for Wonbin.
Wonbin sees it all in Sungchan’s eyes, watching him studiously while Seunghan starts the next SHINee song in Sohee’s lap. She had always seen it, had always taken his little insecurities and made them inconsequential, which is why they were such good friends.
Now though, Sungchan is allowed to reach over and hold her hand.
When he mouths, “are you okay, Wonbin-ah?” it’s as her boyfriend. It’s as someone who wants to keep asking her innocuous, mundane questions for as long as she’ll let him.
Wonbin does more than answer. She leans over and kisses the soft underside of Sungchan’s ear. Her newly bought glittering lip gloss imprints over his skin, and Sungchan never wants to wash it off.
“I’m perfect, jagi-yah,” Wonbin whispers, and then, “let’s sing a love song, shall we?”