They have stuck their words with three-month-old gum to the underside of the bench. Now they've still forgotten how to reach for them. The silence betrays Joohyoung's smile, stretching out the space between them into a wide, barren plane he can't cross. Somewhere along the way, he has swallowed his tongue along with the iced americano they got from Starbucks, the empty cups long tossed aside in the already over-spilling trashcan on the next streetlamp. The orange sunset light reflects off the garbage like it wants to burn holes into the plastic.
On the other side of his trapped voice, he himself is glued to the wood by sweat and a sinking feeling in his stomach that he can't place. It feels a bit like guilt and he knows he's not making any sense.
They've been sitting here for a while. Jungwoo's home is so far away from the busy city center that his bus comes every half an hour, and they've missed the previous one by two minutes. So Joohyoung waits with him, because he is a good...boyfriend? And he pretty much doesn't have anything better to do.
Which is a horrible thought. He shouldn't have to come up with excuses and explanations as to why he is staying with the guy he is on a date with, the guy he asked out five weeks ago in the first place. Thinking back, it was pretty random to strike up a conversation with the tattooed, cool-looking guy browsing through the headphones section in the electronics store, but it's not like he hasn't done worse things before.
He isn't sure, however, if he would do it again.
Joohyoung feels jittery. He needs something to do with his hands, needs to fill this awkward silence. He reaches into the bag on the ground, settled between his worn sneakers, and then begins to unpack the little plastic box Jungwoo bought him in his lap.
"Look! It's adorable." He holds the snorlax mood lamp in his hands. Jungwoo hums and slides his phone back into the pocket of the oversized dark green hoodie he's wearing, the one that Joohyoung wants to steal from him every time, because it looks so comfy and soft. But Jungwoo doesn't really do that, leaving his clothes around in his room, and glares daggers when his friends do as much as take his pencil to doodle on the edge of the paper while he does last minute homework during lunch break, so Joohyoung finds himself holding back a lot.
It's not his place to judge, anyway, even though it's the middle of July and it's getting ridiculous how Jungwoo absolutely refuses to wear a t-shirt in this impossible weather. The later hours of the day carry some cool winds, but Joohyoung could never do that himself; his body is running too hot, all the time, every day.
But hey, at least Jungwoo could find it in himself to push his sleeves up. Joohyoung sneaks glances at the tattoo that runs around his arm, loopy words written in English he can't quite decipher. They're super hot, that's for a fact. But when he had once asked what it meant, Jungwoo had clumsily switched the topic and then ignored every further attempt to get it out of him. It seems to be extremely personal to him, and while Joohyoung is nosy, he's not enough of an asshole to press on these kind of matters, so he hasn't brought it up again after that hazy summer day.
Now he's just staring at something he will never know, like he's torturing himself on purpose.
"Think of me when you put it on your desk or something." Jungwoo grins. But it doesn't reach his eyes, not even quite his voice. He sounds tired, almost.
"Y'know, I had fun today. It was good," he immediately follows up, as if he heard what Joohyoung was thinking. "I wouldn't have ever found the right moment to go there, if you hadn't dragged me."
Joohyoung pulls himself together and offers him a smile. "You're very welcome then. Even though your wallet probably hates me now."
"Nah, it's fine. Used to it."
"The day merch gets humanly affordable is the day I will finally lose my mind."
"Do I want to be there to see it?" Jungwoo raises an eyebrow.
Joohyoung refuses to listen to the voice in the back of his head that yells at him, telling him Jungwoo's comment sounds less like a joke and more like a genuinely wary suggestion. He shrugs. Partially just because his shoulders feel stiff and awkward.
"Probably not." He doesn't know what else to say, and if that's not strange, the ground might as well turn into quicksand any moment and swallow him up.
When he started dating Jungwoo, he would not shut up. Always making jokes, telling stories about fun things that have happened to him in middle school, because that was unironically the peak of his life so far — like when Minjun and him hid in a trash container for two hours to prove a point. He can't even remember the point anymore, just the long shower he took afterwards — or filling him in on the latest town gossip he's heard from Winnie, because this dude knows everyone. He liked the way Jungwoo laughed with him. He has a nice laugh, an even prettier smile, and he liked how Jungwoo made him laugh with his impossibly dry remarks that made him spit out his water. Joohyoung thinks it was around the third week when the exciting novelty and the glitter and giggles of being in his first relationship faded into something that awfully felt like—
Nothing.
He's always been physically affectionate and Minjun was thankful that he had found someone else to bother. But while his best friend just whines and half-heartedly attempts to push him off, Jungwoo just freezes.
Joohyoung has asked him multiple times, told him to just say so when he hates it. But Jungwoo always denies and flinches away anyway. It makes Joohyoung feel like a stupid little boy trying to pet a cat with sharp claws. He doesn't stop, because he doesn't want Jungwoo to think there's something wrong.
But maybe there is.
"Thank you. For the charmander plushie." Jungwoo smiles, and it's still pretty and makes Joohyoung want to squish his cheeks, but Jungwoo would absolutely hate him for that. It feels like something he's practiced in front of the mirror, too. Going through the motions, trying to get this over with as smoothly as he can.
"Always very welcome. Put it on your bedside table and think of me." Joohyoung is doing the same. Reading off a script for the end of a date that was supposed to be one of the best days of his life, or something. Where has his pair of rose-tinted glasses gone?
Maybe there are a lot of things wrong with what they're doing and they're just too awkward to talk about it.
But hell, Jungwoo is never going to acknowledge it for sure. He doesn't talk about his feelings like that, doesn't dare to disrupt whatever they have going on and can't tell him what his tattoos mean. Will Jungwoo ever let him in? Will he ever say what he means and show what he doesn't say? Is there any way to know?
Four minutes, the LED screen installed above the trashcan notifies him. He still has some time.
He's such a hypocrite. He chose to wait with him, stay for a little longer. He isn't supposed to be doing this. But Joohyoung is a cat with an affection towards the curiosity that kills it and can't leave without an answer.
"Jungwoo." His fingers are buzzing with electricity. He turns over the mood lamp in his hands. There is a tiny light switch on the bottom, but it wouldn't be of any use out here, with the remaining sunlight peeking over the horizon. "Do you think this is working?"
"Have fun writing the complaint if it doesn't. Or ask Jaewon to do it, he's good at formulating this shit in a socially acceptable way."
"Wh—" Joohyoung inhales. "I'm not talking about the lamp."
"Huh?" Jungwoo blinks at him. Joohyoung can't even tell if he's merely pretending to be clueless.
Despite it all, they really don't know each other all that well.
"I mean — I mean you and me. Do you think this is working?"
Silence. Thick like disgustingly sweet gum spit out onto the sidewalk. It sticks to Jungwoo's teeth and Joohyoung hears him chewing on it, uselessly trying to get whatever flavor there is left.
He knows he is right when Jungwoo doesn't laugh, doesn't grin — doesn't disagree.
He just pulls down his sleeves again.
Maybe Joohyoung has been staring at a dead end all along.
ㅡ•ㅡ☆ㅡ•ㅡ
The problem is not breaking up. The problem is not even the money he spent on the charmander plushie or the occasional coffee he got him. The money will come back.
His feelings, however, won't.
At first, he thinks he's avoiding the pain by playing video games, which isn't his usual way of things in the first place. He plays when he already is in a bad mood to create distance between him and whatever has happened, to sort out his thoughts afterwards with a clear mind. He manages to procrastinate on every possible variation of school work, sure, but it would be difficult for even him to push away the crash after something like a breakup.
So this means the pain is avoiding him, for some reason. When will it settle in? Tomorrow? In a month? Tonight at half past two, when Jungwoo doesn't text him good night anymore?
"So, breaking news: as of seven p.m. this sunny afternoon slash evening, I'm single again. But that's fine." Joohyoung laughs over the deafening speechlessness on the other end of the line. "Honestly, it wasn't that deep. This just wasn't going anywhere. And it was me who brought it up."
"Yeah no shit, that dude's as emotionally constipated as they get," Minjun scoffs. But he doesn't say anything else.
For the next few minutes, only the noise of frantic mouse clicking and keyboard tapping comes through the voice chat and Joohyoung focuses his senses back on the round they've just started.
It's been a few hours since he broke up with his sort-of-but-not-really-boyfriend of a glorious five weeks, and it's pretty sad that this is still the longest relationship Joohyoung has ever had.
He thirdwheeled through all those awkward years of middle school, when his classmates started having crushes on each other and, mostly the girls and the gays, made up ridiculous codenames like pineapple or teddy bear when they whispered to their friends behind closed classroom doors. He's watched it happen from the sidelines when Minjun got asked out by a different girl at the end of every year and munched on imaginary popcorn at the drama that unfolded when he turned them down, because obviously that would mean that he had someone else already, and people were stirring up the wildest rumors, overanalyzing his social media for any hint of a female voice, couple items and so on. A full comedy Joohyoung had the privilege to enjoy for free, considering Minjun is just not straight enough to entertain any of these theories. Middle school was truly the time of his life.
Only now is Joohyoung wondering why no one before Jungwoo ever caught his eye.
And he's starting to doubt he really liked him that much after all, because ending things with him didn't hurt like he thought it would. In a way, this pains him more. Like he's tripping on a second, bigger pothole he hasn't seen until now and is falling face first onto the rough asphalt driving bruises into his skin.
His lame character, a severely pixelated soldier, gets a headshot. Joohyoung frowns and leans back in his chair while he waits to respawn.
"I don't know how to feel," he sighs, "I'm not sad — not really. Not yet."
"So you're saying it's a good thing you're outta there? Wow, I didn't know he was that much of an ass."
"He wasn't," Joohyoung defends him. "You're jumping to conclusions." His eyes flicker to the snorlax mood lamp sitting peacefully next to his bottle of water on the table, and briefly wonders how much time will pass until Jungwoo decides he doesn't want the charmander watching over his sleep. An hour? Less, or more? Will he ever free it from the plastic wrap in the first place?
"We got along fine, and it was nice while it lasted." He chuckles, but it sounds weak to his own ears. "He's like, one of the coolest people I've ever met. Aesthetically. Vibe-ally."
"You're slandering the dictionary you've never touched. And I get it, his tattoos are hot. You've told me. Like sixty times."
"And I'll keep saying that because it's true."
He wants to ask Minjun how he sounds. If he thinks he is obsessively hung up or really just a bit too casual about this. He doesn't even sound heartbroken. He can talk about him like they're friends, like it wasn't Jungwoo he kissed under flickering hallway lights after school and like it wasn't him who he texted until way into the nights because they both couldn't sleep. Was it all a just lie, a made-up story?
He could probably ask Jungwoo and he wouldn't be able to give him a clear answer either.
His character comes back to life again, and he hurries back to Minjun's side. But his mind isn't really there with him, he keeps running into sloppily modeled trees and glitchy house walls and it becomes obvious that he can't just shake off what happened, or rather not happened between— oh, wow. He isn't even sure if he can call Jungwoo his ex, because they've never clarified if they were official boyfriends or just in that trial phase of dating a stranger you found hot one not-so faithful day and said fuck it, let's kiss.
"Sorry. Give me a week, three tubs of melon ice cream and netflix and I'll be back on my feet in no time," Joohyoung apologizes when he dies for the sixth time and leaves Minjun fighting alone on the battlefield. He hears a loud sigh on the other end of the line that is so clearly exaggerated that he has to laugh.
"You're not fun when you're newly single," Minjun whines and gives him his version of throwing a fit by filling the voice call with aggressive mouse clicking. "Either get over it or find yourself another boy, honestly. Or a girl, whatever."
"Oh, I'm so sorry I extrovert-adopted you in middle school and forced you into this friendship where you have to witness my disaster of a love life. Would you like a refund?"
Minjun gasps. "Nooo I need someone to play this trashy game with me."
Joohyoung grins at his utterly offended tone. "Thought so."
They keep playing for another hour and something and Minjun roasting the hell out of his slow fingers is distraction enough to not fall into his thoughts again. But after he has made Minjun agree to let him copy his math homework in exchange for a filled out biology worksheet and takes his headphones off, the silence pouring in through the window weighs heavy in his lungs.
It's too quiet in here. His brain is too quiet. There's nothing to see on his black screen, his blank walls.
He reaches for the snorlax lamp. It's cold against his skin and the triangular ears are poking his palm. Apart from that, it fits nicely in his hand, like a well-meaning promise that has been forgotten and buried in a clumsy ball of snow. He turns it over in his hand a few times. Runs his thumb over the light switch, hesitating, wondering.
But then his phone lights up, a message from Winnie asking if he wants to join him in the PC room this Saturday, and he puts the snorlax back to its place.
Sure! he types back with an animated sticker of the messenger app mascot, a cute brown bear character throwing it back under funky disco lights. Joohyoung stares at it for a while after sending it off. The absurdity of it all starts to sink in and he feels a bit crazy for letting out the giggle that has been building in his chest for a while now.
Nothing has changed. He feels like always, texts like always. Winnie probably couldn't even guess he just went through a breakup.
He just doesn't know if that's a good thing or not.
It doesn't hurt when he turns off the lights and plugs the charger into his phone without texting Jungwoo good night, and he doesn't feel empty when he falls into bed without the scent of Jungwoo's coconut shampoo lingering in the corners of his mind. But as he stares into the new darkness of his room, he can't help but ponder about what went wrong.
He had always thought catching and keeping feelings couldn't be that much harder than playing school basketball, and saying I think I like you and we should try dating was one of the easier decisions he made in life.
Part of him feels like this is all an elaborate TV prank. He faintly wonders if Jungwoo is going through a similar crisis in his bed on the other side of town. Maybe he should ask him tomorrow, at school.
Real exes don't ask each other how they are holding up after a breakup, you psycho.
"Fuck!" he whisper-yells and throws the blanket over his face.
Screw romance, honestly. Nobody needs that complicated shit, anyway.
ㅡ•ㅡ☆ㅡ•ㅡ
If Jungwoo is fazed by their breakup at all, he deserves an entire armful of Oscars for not showing it.
On his way through the science hallway to his first class — biology, ew, especially without a coffee to keep him alive, but at least Minjun will be there to suffer with him — Joohyoung spots him and his friend group leaning against the wall, talking. Winnie, the poor guy, looks like he's just been punched in the gut while Jaehyun frantically gestures images into the air along to whatever he's saying, a rapid waterfall of words Joohyoung can't hear from where he is. Jaewon puts a hand on his shoulder. Jungwoo immediately shrugs it off, as if the gesture was more an offense than an attempt at comfort.
Jaewon's hand crumbles into an awkward fist mid-air. For some reason, Joohyoung finds himself doing the same in the secrecy of the pocket of his jeans.
"It just didn't work out," he hears Jungwoo say when he walks past. "And there's not much else to it. Calm down."
"That came so sudden though," Jaehyun protests in his high-pitched voice. "Wasn't it just yesterday when you went to that pokémon store together—"
He cuts himself off. Joohyoung feels his gaze prickling on his neck.
Deciding it's probably better to pretend he hasn't noticed them, he keeps walking and breathes a sigh of relief once he's turned around the corner. Nobody has called after him, and he can faintly hear Jaehyun picking up the conversation again.
Like he was never there.
Did he ever truly matter, does his brief presence in Jungwoo's life matter in the grand scheme of things? They've only been doing this for five weeks after all, and what are five weeks compared to the five years of friendship he has with Minjun, the seventeen and eighteen years of his and Jungwoo's respective lives, and all that is left to come — they'll meet other people, better people, and they are bound to forget what has been before. Their time will fade away into one big blurry image he can try to remember when he's older, but never to reach and never to hold.
The little pokémon gifts are all that's left. A small reminder that mumbles to him late at night that hey, there used to be that one guy in high school. That dude from a grade above you who you thought was super cool for like, a few weeks. It was all over so fast that it felt like it didn't even happen in the first place.
Hushed chatter and an impatient Minjun waving a copy of his completed worksheet pulls him out of his thoughts, but not quite back into his body. He feels like a ghost when he slides onto the seat next to him. Still hours until he can get his first coffee of the day. What a nightmare.
"I assume you didn't have your three tubs of ice cream yet," Minjun comments.
Great, Joohyoung faintly thinks. At least he looks like he's actually going through something. Minjun doesn't have to know it's his head that's aching and the ground underneath him slipping away, when Joohyoung himself doesn't know why his heart is perfectly fine.
It's pretty cruel to think of someone as a waste of time. If Jungwoo considers him one, Joohyoung doesn't blame him.
It hurts in all the wrong places when his mind wanders to him over and over again. After replaying the moment where he watched Jungwoo drive away in that bus without looking back for the trillionth time, a certain thought takes form in him. He doesn't like it very much.
It feels unfair to the Joohyoung from twenty-four hours ago, but had he known they would end up like this, he thinks he wouldn't have kissed Jungwoo that day in the electronics shop at all.
.
Yeahhh welcome to whatever massive thing this has become, hope you're ready to sit through the most plotless and go-with-the-flow-thing I've ever written xD
This is catering to an audience of like. Two people. And one of them is myself, so I don't even know what exactly I'm doing here screaming into the void about my aspec agenda😭 the human need to be heard and seen and understood, you get the gist;;;
Comments and votes are always greatly appreciated, so if you want, let me know what you think! Have a cookie and thank you for coming along with me onto this ride🍪💛 (though it's really not a ride, more like a little jog through the park skwhzshzw)
~ Mona