Chapter Text
July 4, 1987
Junmyeon feels weightless, electric, watching the phantom glimmer of the fireworks explode over their heads.
“I love you,” Sehun whispers into his ear. “So much.”
Junmyeon’s heart explodes with the next firework’s crescendo. The crowd gasps at the bang of color. Junmyeon breaths in. The air tastes like sulfur and heat but his breaths are deep anyways, hoping that, maybe, some of Sehun’s words were caught in the ash.
“I love you too.” It feels like a revelation every time he says it. “I’ll always love you. I’ll always want you like this.”
“How long?”
“For as long as you’ll keep me. Forever.”
Junmyeon looks up, watching all the colors in the sky. It’s beautiful. So fucking beautiful.
January 30, 1988
“Umma!” Junmyeon calls out as he unlocks the front door. “Halmeoni!” He toes off his sneakers by the door and steps further inside.
“Umma?” he says again as he pokes his head into the kitchen. His mother is standing over the stove, stirring a pot. She looks the same as always: she’s wearing a faded green short-sleeve house dress and her feet are tucked into a worn pair of gray cloth house slippers. Her long silver streaked hair pulled back into a neat knot at the nape of her neck and she’s frowning down at whatever she’s stirring in the old silver soup pot. The old Sony TV is on in the corner behind her; its bunny-ear antenna bent at a wild angle. A Campbell’s Soup commercial blares out on the screen and Junmyeon’s mother hums along to the jingle.
“Umma.” Junmyeon goes over to the TV set and turns down the volume with a twist of the knob. “I’m here.”
“Didn’t hear you come in,” his mother says, not looking up from her cooking. Junmyeon watches as she adds a glug of sesame oil to the pot. “Can you put rice in the bowls and carry them to the table?”
Junmyeon retrieves three bowls from the cabinet and then goes over to the rice cooker, filling them to the brim.
“Is Halmeoni here?” Junmyeon asks as he places the bowls on the kitchen table.
“She’s upstairs resting.” His mother turns off the stove and then, finally, turns around to face him. She looks tired, Junmyeon realizes. More tired than he’s seen her, even after all the years that he’s seen her come home from seventeen hour shifts at the restaurant. There are dark shadows under her eyes, the delicate skin a bruised deep purple. She puts her hands on her hips and sighs. “Could you go get her? Dinner is just about ready.”
Junmyeon nods and then goes upstairs, knocking on the first door to the left.
“Yes?” His grandmother’s voice is muffled through the door and Junmyeon twists the door knob. His grandmother is sitting up in bed, a copy of The Korea Herald open across her lap.
“You’re here.” His grandmother says, a matter-of-factly.
Even sick, Junmyeon’s grandmother still looks regal; her mouth prim, her hands still long and slender; her permed hair still circling her head in a halo of white, silver and gray. She looks at him; at the way he hesitates in the doorway, at the way he refuses to make eye contact with her and Junmyeon grows hot.
“It’s dinner time,” he says, simply. “Umma told me to call you.”
His grandmother nods. “I’ll come out in a moment.”
“Ok.” Junmyeon doesn’t know what else to say so he leaves, fleeing to the kitchen where his mother is placing banchan--tiny bowls of kimchi and pickled radish and marinated spinach and seasoned bean sprouts-- on the table. Three bowls of steaming hot jjigae take up the rest of the space, waiting for them to sit down.
“She’s coming,” Junmyeon says.
“You didn’t wait for her?” His mother turns back to the stove, placing the lid back on the pot.
“She said that she’d be in in a second.”
His mother frowns and shakes her head. She doesn’t say anything else.
The Wheel of Fortune is on in the background. Pat Sajak’s voice plays from the television, filling in the empty air.
His mother sits down at the table, taking her usual seat to the left. Junmyeon follows her lead, sitting down to her right. They sit there in silence. Junmyeon can see the TV out of the corner of his eye and he watches Vanna White, blonde and glowing in a deep purple dress, parade in front of the giant green letter board.
His grandmother finally appears, slowly easing herself into the last chair across from Junmyeon. She picks up her spoon and begins to eat, blowing on the hot broth before bringing the food to her mouth.
As if on cue, Junmyeon and his mother start to eat as well. Junmyeon spoons some of his rice into his jjigae and takes a bite. It’s good; spicy and full bodied, the shreds of beef melt against his tongue. His mother’s cooking is always good.
“When are you moving back home?” his grandmother asks, suddenly. Junmyeon looks up from his bowl, surprised at the sound of her voice. “You’ve long since graduated. You should come back here.”
“Halmeoni, I already have a place to stay,” Junmyeon replies. “I’m happy there. And I have a roommate.” He thinks of Sehun, who’s probably still down in The Castro, at the clinic. Junmyeon hopes that Sehun is home by the time he leaves. He wants nothing more than to curl up in bed tonight, just the two of them, with the radio turned on low in the background. “I can’t just abandon him like that.”
“I don’t understand why.” His mother cuts in. She puts her spoon down on the table with a hard clink. “You can live here for free, save your money. Or even help out with the rent here.” She glances at Junmyeon’s grandmother, who's watching them both, her mouth in a thin line. “Imagine,” she says, “Your grandmother is here, sick, and you won’t even come home to help me take care of her. That I have to call you and beg you to come have dinner with us for the first time in two months.” She doesn’t raise her voice at him, but then again, Umma has never had to. Her words are always cold enough, clipped and frozen like ice, sharp enough to cut. “You’d rather waste your time and money in that house with that boy.” Junmyeon looks down into his jjigae, watching the way bits of green onion bob in the broth.
“What type of son are you?” His mother whispers. “What son treats his family like this? We came to this country so that we could do better, so that you could have better. It was hard. And we took a gamble on you. And this is how you repay us? By making a fool of me? And a fool of your grandmother by not taking care of us when we need you and running around with a degenerate.”
“Don’t say that about Sehun.” Junmyeon’s voice is tight, small. He doesn’t look up. He’s trying his hardest not to cry. “Don’t talk about him like that. He’s--” He breaks off. He wants to say that Sehun is the best person he’s ever known. That Sehun has a heart four sizes too big for his body and that Junmyeon feels so privileged, so fucking lucky to be loved by him. That being with Sehun is the closest he’s ever come to real, true happiness. That Sehun is his spring. And that he’s Sehun’s winter.
But his mother steals all the air from the room. And Junmyeon can’t find the words.
“He’s what?” His mother counters. “I’ve heard the whispers. I saw Minji Shin at the grocery store and she was saying how she saw that boy running around the hospital the other day, his arms around one of those men, the ones sick with AIDS. Like he’s asking for it.”
Junmyeon grips his spoon tightly, the thin metal handle cutting into his palm. He stares into his bowl. The jjigae is red like blood. The voice on the television in the corner announces the start of the 8 o’clock news. Junmyeon looks up. They’re replaying the Challenger footage. It’s all everyone has talked about for the last two days. Junmyeon has seen the images of the spaceship exploding against the deep blue Florida sky so many times that he’s memorized the command protocol.
We have main engines start. five-four-three-two-one. And, lift off! Lift off of the twenty-fifth space shuttle mission.
Engines at 65 percent, through engines running normally. . .Pretty good APUs. . .Velocity twenty-two hundred and fifty-seven feet per a second. . .altitude 4.9 nautical miles down-range distance just three nautical miles.
. . .Challenger, going throttle up.
The ship hits a high point in the sky, plumes of smoke and fire streaming beneath, powering it upwards. Junmyeon starts his own internal countdown.
ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one
There’s the explosion in a burst of fire and gray smoke, the entire shuttle consumed by its own heat. Junmyeon doesn’t flinch, not this time. The horror doesn’t hit him as hard, not when he’s already watched it all burn so many times before.
“It’s so awful,” Halmeoni says, with a shake of her head. It’s like she’s oblivious to the tension, thick in the room. “I don’t know why we’re still bothering with going into space anyways. It’s a waste of money.” She eats some jjigae, primly raising the spoon to her mouth. “We’ve already gone to the moon, what more do they want? To touch all of space?”
The sudden trill of the phone cuts her off. Junmyeon springs up and goes to where the phone is mounted to the kitchen wall.
“Hello?” Junmyeon says.
“I finally found you.” It’s Chanyeol. “I called your house and didn’t get an answer. Figured I’d try your mom’s.” His voice sounds strange, like he’s straining to speak. There’s noise in the background: music and voices. “You busy tonight?”
“Not really.” He glances at the dinner table, where his mother and grandmother are sitting, watching him over their bowls of soup.
“Come meet me for a drink? Down on Telegraph?”
Junmyeon looks away, focusing instead on the white plume of smoke still curling across the tv screen. It’s pretty, in a way. “Yeah. Alright. Where and when?”
“Now? At White Horse.”
“Alright,” Junmyeon says. “See you.” He hangs up. “I’m leaving,” he announces to his mother and grandmother.
“Already?” Halmeoni says, surprised. “You’ve barely eaten anything.”
“Sorry, Halmeoni.” He doesn’t feel guilty.
His mother doesn’t say anything as he walks towards the front door. She just watches him as he turns away, an unreadable look on her face.
He’s walking away, he thinks as he laces up his shoes. He’s always walking away from his family.
He steps out into the January night. The early evening’s darkness holds him close.
----
He spots Chanyeol immediately. He’s sitting at the bar, a glass of whiskey clutched in one hand, a cigarette burning out in his other. The bar has the TV on and tuned to MTV, Michael Jackson dance battling above the bar.
“Hey,” he says, sliding into the empty barstool next to Chanyeol. Chanyeol nods at him and stubs his cigarette out in an ashtray.
“Took you long enough,” Chanyeol says, too loudly. He takes a sip of his whiskey, the ice cubes rattling against each other in the glass. Chanyeol looks rough, his hair clinging to the sweat on his forehead, his face flushed and eyes glazed from all the alcohol he’s had.
“Had to come over here from my mom’s place.” Junmyeon motions to the bartender, ordering a whiskey for himself. White Horse is surprisingly empty for a Saturday night, only a few people playing pool at the table in the back.
The bartender comes back and places a glass of whiskey in front of Junmyeon. Junmyeon takes a sip. The whiskey burns as it makes it way down.
“How’s your mom?” Chanyeol asks. “It’s been a while since you mentioned going over there. I was surprised when you answered the phone there, to be honest.”
Junmyeon remembers the ice in his mother’s words, the anger and the disdain in her voice as she spat out Sehun’s name.
“She’s fine,” Junmyeon says. He takes a large sip of his drink, wincing as he swallows. The burn starts to warm his stomach. “She’s the same as always. She’s doing really well.”
“She still bugging you about moving back in with her?”
“She’s never going to stop.” Junmyeon tightens his grip around his glass. The cold of the condensation feels good against his hot palm. “But I’m not going to. I won’t leave Sehun.”
Chanyeol smiles at him. It looks wrong--it’s watery and weak in the bar’s dim lighting. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You and Sehun,” Chanyeol says. He takes a big gulp of his drink, some of it messy dripping down his chin. He wipes it away. “I’m so fucking jealous of you guys.”
Junmyeon eyes his friend carefully. He’s not used to seeing Chanyeol like this. Chanyeol is known to drink; in the four years that they’ve known each other, the two of them have gone out and gotten completely shit faced together more times than Junmyeon can count. But Junmyeon has never seen him like this. Never drunk like this, not with the thick sting of bitterness laced in with the whiskey. Chanyeol looks lost, like he’s been swimming in his sadness, like a devastated ship lost at sea, begging to wreck itself on the nearest shore.
“Chanyeol?” Junmyeon whispers. He puts a hand on Chanyeol’s arm, gently, his own earlier misery sinking down to the bottom of his heart for him to dreg up later. “Are you ok?”
Chanyeol bites his lip and shakes his head. “He’s your forever kinda love, you know?” he says, rasping. “You and Sehun. It’s like he’s your everything. I’m jealous of you guys. It’s hard right now, you know?”
Junmyeon frowns. “What do you mean?”
“It’s scary to love a man the way I love Jongin,” Chanyeol continues. “Love is fucking killing us off now. Touch feels like a fucking death sentence.” Chanyeol drains his glass and sets it down hard, too hard, on the wooden bartop. “I finally told him, you know?” Chanyeol’s slurring, his words gone mushy. “I told Jongin how I feel last Saturday night, after you and Sehun left the party. It was just the two of us left in Baekhyun’s living room and we were just sitting there on the couch and I just fucking told him that I was in love with him.” Chanyeol hiccups. “Like a goddamn fool.”
Junmyeon freezes and then moves his hand to Chanyeol’s back, rubbing between his shoulder blades. “Oh, Chanyeol,” he whispers.
Chanyeol looks down at the bartop, his eyes rimmed red.
“He kissed me, you know,” he continues. “After I told him. He kissed me and it felt so good that I thought I was dreaming. And then he put his hands in my hair and ran them down my neck and I felt like my skin was on fucking fire and I wanted to put my hands on him, like really put them on him and--” Chanyeol chokes back a sob. “He wouldn’t let me,” he whispers. “He said it was too risky and that we shouldn’t even try until we both could get tested.”
“Oh Chanyeol,” Junmyeon says again, his heart huge and heavy in his chest.
“And he was right,” Chanyeol continues. Both of his hands have made their way up to the bartop, and they’re gripping the ledge so tightly that Junmyeon is almost afraid that it’ll break off in Chanyeol’s hands. “It is too risky. You know what we fucking did instead?”
Junmyeon just shakes his head.
“We pulled down our pants and fucking jacked off in front of each other.” Chanyeol smiles to himself, a small bitter grin. “I watched him get himself off and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I wanted to touch him so badly but I couldn’t. We couldn’t.” Chanyeol starts to cry, heaving sobs that make his whole body tremble. “What kind of life is this, Junmyeon? What kind of fucked up love is this?”
Junmyeon feels tears well up in his own eyes. His throat grows hot, tight. Chanyeol is right. What kind of love is this? A love that threatens to kill you, a love that seems like poison, like a death sentence. A love that his family refuses to name, a love that he can’t shout out. Junmyeon looks at his own hands, the hands that have touched and held and loved Sehun for so many years and he wonders. How much more can he hold? Is this love too big for him to carry? Is it too heavy for his soul?
But for now, he takes a deep breath and draws Chanyeol close to him, trying to keep his friend from shaking apart.
“It’s not so bad, Chanyeol,” he says. “You and Jongin are both gonna be ok. You can go get tested, Sehun can help. You know that he works at that clinic down in The Castro. It’ll be ok.”
“Is it worth it though?” Chanyeol slurs into his shoulder. “Is it even worth all of that?”
Is it? Junmyeon falls silent for a moment, Chanyeol’s question flinging open the door to his chest and letting the cold tear-soaked night into his heart. He closes his eyes. All he can see is the ice in his mother’s words and the ghostly outline of his grandmother’s aging face.
“It is worth it,” he says finally. “Even if it doesn’t seem like it is, it’s all worth it.”
Junmyeon isn’t sure if he believes it himself.
September 4, 1991, Take Fourteen.
Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.
Junmyeon curls his fingers into his seat’s rough upholstery. He wishes he could find a way to claw his way out.
April 27, 1988
It’s pitch black when Junmyeon wakes up. Their bedside clock glows red. 1:21 am.
They’d gone to bed about three hours ago, after he’d gotten off the phone with his mother. She’d called late, her voice dull with panic. It still echoes in his head.
“I want you to know that your grandmother is sick,” she’d said, flat, matter-of-fact. “We just got back from the hospital. She has cancer. In her blood.”
“Oh.” Junmyeon hadn’t known where to look. His eyes had darted between the striped-blue and white print on the bedspread, the carpet’s gray pile, the white wall.
“I want you to come home,” his mother had said. “Your grandmother deserves to have you nearby. You need to come and help us at home and at the restaurant.”
“Oh.”
“Junmyeon. Come back home.”
“I don’t know, Umma,” he’d said, trying his hardest to not swallow his tongue. “I need. . .to think.”
“What is there to think about? Your grandmother is sick, I need you here. It’s not a question.”
Sehun had walked back into the bedroom then, towel tied around his waist, his hair wet from the shower. He’d frowned at Junmyeon in confusion, seeing him on the phone with what was probably a stricken look on his face.
“I know, Umma.” Sehun sat down next to him, snaking his hand around Junmyeon’s waist. It felt good to have Sehun there, solid and sure next to him and Junmyeon had sighed. “I just . . .please give me some time.”
“Fine,” she’d said, her voice clipped. She hung up, not saying goodbye.
Sehun had looked at him with concern painting over his face. Junmyeon had just smiled at him and shook his head, telling him not to worry.
But it’s hard, really. To not feel anxiety wash over him, especially now that the room is dark and silent, save for Sehun’s soft breaths. Junmyeon stares off into the corners of their bedroom, cast in dark shadows, and he feels the cold fear hit him. Four years ago, it would have been easy to answer his mother’s call. He would have packed up his apartment and moved back in to his childhood home, helped out around the house, tried his best to carry his Halmeoni through the worst of her illness. Four years ago, the trajectory of Junmyeon’s life had always bent back towards his mother and grandmother, back to their tiny house off of Telegraph Avenue. Then, he’d still been afraid of the dark. But the dark corners of his life had been lit by the low light of the kitchen lights in his family’s home. Four years ago, Junmyeon hadn’t known how bright the light could be. He hadn’t opened himself to that possibility. He hadn’t let himself be open to everything that he’d ever wanted to see.
But now, even lying awake in the midnight darkness, Junmyeon doesn’t think that his life has ever been brighter. He’s found light in another person--another person who’d come crashing into his life with slow smiles, a tenaciously giving heart, and a relentless urgency to be loved. Sehun has shown Junmyeon that it’s okay: okay to want things, okay to say yes to his deepest desires, okay to want something for himself. Okay to want someone as badly as he wants Sehun. Okay to want another man in the way that he’d been hiding for 26 years.
Junmyeon’s mother and grandmother had given him a better chance at life. They’d given up so much, just to give him a shot at having the world. But Sehun had shown him the promise of the universe. Sehun had lit every corner of his life with all of the brilliance of every galaxy’s brightest stars.
So Junmyeon’s mother is wrong. It is a question. A question of what light Junmyeon wants to stand in. A question of what light he thinks he can live without.
Because if Junmyeon knows anything, it’s that he can’t have both. These two sides of his life, these two needs, these two obligations, can’t exist on the same side of the same coin. A good safe, stable son doesn’t fall hopelessly, indelibly, in love with another man. No matter how much light he brings into his life.
Junmyeon’s breath catches and he closes his eyes. He rolls over and seeks out the warm solidity of Sehun’s body, pressing his face in between Sehun’s shoulder blades and working an arm around his boyfriend’s middle.
Sehun stirs in Junmyeon’s embrace.
“Junmyeon?” Sehun says, sleepily. “You alright?”
Junmyeon doesn’t move to say anything, keeping his face buried in Sehun’s soft skin. He tightens his hold around Sehun’s middle, not ever wanting to let go.
“Baby?” Sehun says, “What’s wrong?” Sehun twists around so that they’re facing each other. He puts one hand on Junmyeon’s face, rubbing gentle circles on his cheek. “Junmyeon?”
Junmyeon takes one deep breath and then another. He opens his eyes on the exhale, staring into Sehun’s face, which even in the darkness, shines with worry.
“My grandmother has cancer,” Junmyeon whispers. “Leukemia, probably. That’s what my mom said, when I was on the phone earlier.”
“Shit,” Sehun swears under his breath. He pulls Junmyeon close. “Oh Junmyeon. I’m so sorry.”
Junmyeon doesn’t know what to say. He just buries his face in the crook of Sehun’s neck and closes his eyes. And breathes.
“I know how much your family means to you.” Sehun strokes at his back. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” Junmyeon’s voice cracks. “I have no fucking clue.”
“That’s ok,” Sehun whispers. “You don’t need to have an answer right now.”
But, doesn’t he?
September 4, 1991, Take Fifteen.
This time, Junmyeon waits, standing underneath the marquee lights.
This time, when Sehun steps out, the theatre doors swinging and banging behind him, Junmyeon looks at him and smiles.
And just as Sehun’s face starts to morph, dawning with recognition, Junmyeon turns away heading to the curb.
He hails a cab.
December 20, 1987
For You, Christmas 1987 Edition
- Last Christmas - Wham!
- Another Lonely Christmas - Prince
- Silent Night - The Temptations
- Thank God It’s Christmas - Queen
- River - Joni Mitchell
Junmyeon,
I know you’re Buddhist and don’t really celebrate Christmas but I like Christmas and I love you so you’re getting a festive mixtape. If nothing else, this will give you something to sing along to in the car every December. And yeah, I snuck Joni’s River on here. It is, in my opinion, one of the best Christmas songs to exist. If you don’t agree, we can fight over it.
Ho ho ho, Merry fucking Christmas.
Your favorite elf,
Sehun
February 14, 1989
For You, Part 23
- Lovesong - The Cure
- Sweet Thing - Van Morrison
- The Beautiful Ones - Prince
Happy Valentine’s Day, baby. Love you.
-Sehun
“My mother called me at work this afternoon.” Junmyeon looks down into his pasta. The cheese in the sauce has started to congeal, globs of pesto sticking to the plate. He drags his fork through them, the tines clearing tiny paths on the plate. “Sounds like my grandmother has taken a turn for the worse. She probably only has a few more months to live, a year, max. At least that’s what the doctors are saying.”
“What do you think you’re gonna do?” Sehun asks, gently. They’d decided to go out for dinner tonight, in an attempt to actually celebrate Valentine’s Day. They’d never done it before, not even in nearly five years of dating; Sehun always whining about how the holiday was deeply stupid and capitalist and Junmyeon not really caring much either way. But tonight, for whatever reason, neither of them had felt like cooking so they’d decided to venture out, ending up at the slightly better than decent 24-hour Italian place that they used to frequent back when they were students.
It’s pretty packed tonight, nearly every table packed with undergrads, coupled up and over dressed, trying their very best to not splash red sauce on their shirts.
“I don’t know,” Junmyeon says, quietly. “My mom still really wants me to come home and I just don’t want to. I don’t want to leave you.”
“You wouldn’t really be leaving me,” Sehun says, reaching across the table to take his hand. “It would just be you taking care of your family. It’s fine.” He smiles at him, softly. “It’s fine, Junmyeon. Sometimes family needs you.”
But you’re my family. Junmyeon wants to shout. I can be every part of myself near you. I don’t feel like I’m trapped in a cage when I’m with you.
“I don’t know if it’s that simple,” Junmyeon murmurs.
“Can’t it be?” Sehun asks. “I’ll still be here. The apartment will always be there for you when you need it again. It’s not like you have to pick one over the other.”
Junmyeon doesn’t know how to tell him that, yes, it does. Junmyeon hasn’t told him about the other calls--the ones that he gets in the middle of the day at work or the ones that sometimes come late at night. The way that his mother sounds when she whispers her disappointment into his ear, telling him about the shame that she feels, about how betrayed she’s felt.
“I’ve never told you this but. . .I feel like I have to now,” Junmyeon says. He puts his fork down. “My mother. . .she found out. About us.”
Sehun goes very, very still.
“How?”
“She’d kinda worked it out on her own,” Junmyeon says. He’s sweating, his shirt sticking in between his shoulder blades. “We moved in together which she thought was weird because I was always supposed to move back in with them when I graduated. And then one of her friends from Temple knows you.”
“Knows me?”
“Well, not really knows you, but she’s seen you around the hospital. She’s a nurse at SF General and she sees you when you come in with people from Coalition Care. You’ll remember her--Minji Shin? She came by our apartment once, running an errand for my mom. You answered the door.”
Realization dawns on Sehun’s face. “Oh,” he says.
“Well, Minji knows that you’re. . .gay.” It’s so hard to say it out loud. “And she asked my mom what I was doing, living with you.” Junmyeon takes a shaky breath. “My mom pieced it together, I guess. It wasn’t that hard, after all. I’ve never really done a good job of hiding how I feel about you.” Junmyeon offers Sehun a tiny smile. It’s the most that he can offer.
“Oh.” Sehun says. He frowns, picks up his fork, pushing some of his ravioli around his plate. “What are we gonna do?” He asks. He doesn’t look up.
“Nothing,” Junmyeon says. “There’s nothing that we can really do. It’s just a fact now. A part of my life.”
“And you’re okay with that?” Sehun doesn’t sound mad, just curious. “Are you okay with these two parts of your life intersecting like this?”
No. Junmyeon smiles at him weakly. “I have to be, don’t I?”
September 4, 1991, Take Sixteen.
Gooooood morning, Portland! It’s 7:15 on September 4, 1991! Happy Wednesday! It’s another wet one out there, so grab your umbrellas and raincoats!
Junmyeon gets out of bed. Stretches.
The rain beats steady against his window. That’s the thing with Portland: the rain never leaves.
He goes through his morning routine. Cereal for breakfast, Pops this time. Showers. Shaves. Brushes his teeth. Gets dressed. White button down, black sweater, navy blue slacks, brown shoes. He grabs his umbrella and his Walkman. Slips his headphones over his ears. Steps out into the gray morning.
He presses play as he waits for his bus. It’s an old cassette, one of the first. For You, Part 7. Junmyeon watches the cars drive past, their tires spitting along on the slick road in time to The Police. The bus comes at 8:30, just like it always does. It’s just about half full when it reaches his stop, like it usually is. He nods to the bus driver as he pays his fare. Seventy-five cents. The ride to his office takes the same 25 minutes, the bus navigating its way from the suburbs into downtown Portland. His office is the same--cubicles just starting to fill as the clock strikes 9. He doesn’t take his headphones off as he makes his way to his desk. But he still says hello to Nick and Angie as he makes his coffee. Nods in acknowledgment to Susan. He settles at his desk, boots up his Gateway modem. The code he’d been working on last night flickers to life in front of him, the complex strings of numbers and letters blinking at him in green. He scrolls through, looking over his work from last night.
It’s all there. It all saved.
Junmyeon double and triple checks it. But no, all the code is there, arranged on the screen in neat green numbers. He glances down at the date in the corner of the screen.
9/4/91.
“Enjoying the rain yet, grumpy?” Junmyeon looks up over the lip of his cubicle wall. Amber is hanging over the edge, smirking down at him, her bangs hanging into her eyes. He pauses his music and slides the headphones off his head.
“Happy Wednesday to you too, Amber,” he says. He picks up his coffee and takes a sip. It’s still warm. “The rain is treating me just fine, thanks.”
“How’s your code?” Amber asks. She comes around to the entrance, and peers over his shoulder. “Hold on,” she says, noticing his headphones and Walkman, “are you listening to music?”
Junmyeon covers the front of the Walkman with his hand, blocking the clear plastic gap so that she can’t see the cassette inside.
“I am,” Junmyeon says.
“I’ve literally never seen you listen to music before.” Amber looks shell-shocked. “What type of music do you even like?”
“I like lots of stuff,” Junmyeon shrugs. “Rock, RnB, pop. Funk.”
Amber’s eyebrows disappear into her bangs. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard,” she says, gleefully. “It’s like learning that there’s water on Mars.”
“Mars? Why Mars?”
“Because you’re basically an alien,” Amber explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “It’s like you were just beamed down from the spaceship when you got to Portland. You’re basically like Mork--you’re sweet and harmless but it’s like you know nothing about pop culture. It’s weird.”
Junmyeon rolls his eyes and flips Amber off. She gasps.
“And you’re giving me the finger?” She places her hands over her heart in mock anguish. “Who are you and what have you done with Junmyeon?”
“Oh my god, Amber, stop this.” Junmyeon swivels back around in his seat. “I still have work to do and you’re distracting me.”
“It’s what I’m here for,” Amber says. “But I get it, I’ll go. But do you want to go to the movies tonight? Purple Rain is playing.”
“Sure.” Junmyeon takes a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”
“Awesome,” Amber replies. “Meet you in the lobby at six?”
“Deal.”
Junmyeon slides his headphones back over his ears and presses play.
-----
“So have you ever seen Purple Rain before?” Amber asks as the movie theatre marquee comes into view.
NOW PLAYING
CHILD’S PLAY 3 1:15 4:00 7:30
DEAD AGAIN 3:00 5:25 8:40
BEASTMASTER 2 12:15 3:40 7:15 9:20
TONIGHT ONLY!
PURPLE RAIN 6:45
“I have,” Junmyeon admits. “A few times. My ex-boyfriend loved Prince.” It feels good to finally say it out loud to say it all out loud. “So we watched it a ton of times together. We even had it on VHS.”
Amber whistles. “Did you just admit to having had a boyfriend?” She pokes him in the ribs. “Did you just tell me something personal? Again: who are you and what have you done with Junmyeon?”
Junmyeon shrugs. “Maybe I’m finally ok with letting you in. Maybe you’ve finally earned my trust.”
Amber scowls at him. “About goddamn time. We’ve been friends for over a year now, you’d think that you’d finally tell me things. I’m basically your work wife.”
“Stick around a little bit longer and maybe I’ll reveal even more of my secrets,” Junmyeon says. He feels lighter than he ever has when they walk through the theatre’s door with a bang.
The buy tickets and popcorn and make their way into their theatre, sitting in their same seats in the middle.
Junmyeon is filled with a strange sense of excitement when the lights finally go down and the Warner Brothers logo appears on the screen.
Ladies and Gentlemen. . .The Revolution!
His breath catches when the Kid appears on the screen, backlit in deep purple.
Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life.
Junmyeon mouths along to the words, each line and lyric so deeply embedded in his brain that they may as well be wired in with his synapses.
Purple Rain was the soundtrack to his first taste at self-discovery. This movie has played backbeat to every part of Junmyeon’s own love story, his journey with Sehun running parallel to the Kid and Apollonia’s push and pull attempts at true intimacy. Every scene of this movie; every song, every note, is so saturated with memories of his time with Sehun--with his smile, with his tears, with his voice--that if Junmyeon listens carefully enough, he swears he can hear Sehun singing along.
And then, there it is. The sudden burst of yellow light from the hallway streaks into the theatre, making Junmyeon and Amber turn their attention from the scene playing out in front of them.
Junmyeon watches as Sehun makes his way to his seat, his heartbeat speeding up at the way that Sehun walks--straight-back and lanky--heading down the aisle.
Amber elbows him in the ribs. “Pay attention!” she hisses. “Did you come here to watch the movie or to watch some random guy interrupt the movie?”
Junmyeon shakes his head. “Sorry.”
Electric word, life, it means forever and that’s a mighty long time.
He redirects his attention to the movie.
----
“So how did it live up this time around?” Amber asks as they leave the theatre.
“Good.” Junmyeon dumps the empty popcorn container into a trashcan as they pass by. “It was better than I remember it being. You?”
Amber shrugs. “It was fine. Pretty much just one long music video. But the music itself was great. I haven’t listened to that album in years. I should go back to it. It’s so good.”
Junmyeon nods as they head through the main doors, letting them bang behind them.
“How are you going to get home?” Amber asks as they step out into the rain. “I think I’m going to get a cab. We can split it if you want.”
Junmyeon glances over his shoulder and then shakes his head. “Go on without me,” he says. His heart has started racing again and he takes a deep breath. “I think I’m just gonna take the bus. It’s cheaper.”
Amber shrugs. “Whatever then. Your loss.”
She steps towards the curb and sticks her hand out, hailing the taxi heading down the block. It flashes its lights in recognition and then pulls up.
“Lunch tomorrow,” Amber says as she gets in. “I want to hear all about your mysterious past relationships.”
Junmyeon smiles and nods at her. “Deal. We can get sandwiches.”
“Promise!”
“I promise!”
“Good.” Amber shuts the car door and the taxi speeds off.
Junmyeon takes another deep breath and then turns back towards the theatre to stand under the marquee. His hair is damp from the rain and he shivers as a light wind curls through the air. He shoves his hands in his coat pockets and he waits, rocking back and forth on the balls of this feet, watching the cars whiz past on the road in front of him.
He doesn’t have to wait long. The bang of the main doors cuts through the nighttime hum and Junmyeon turns around.
Sehun has looked the same every time; same height, same black leather jacket, same flannel shirt. But Junmyeon still feels his skin tighten around his bones, still feels the breath in his lungs go cold. There are somethings that will always shake his core.
Sehun notices him right away, stopping in his tracks, his mouth open in surprise. They look at each other for a moment until Junmyeon takes a deep breath and steps forward.
“Hi, Sehun,” he says, softly.
Sehun blinks at him and then recovers, surprise still splashed across his face.
“Junmyeon?” he says. He comes in closer, close enough that they’re standing shoulder to shoulder. “Fuck, is that you?”
Junmyeon nods. And fuck he’s so nervous, his heart is racing and his palms are sweaty. He rubs his hands against the pants, trying to quell the dampness. Baekhyun’s voice comes to him, travelling across time and space: Focus on what you can control, Junmyeon.
“Yeah, it’s me.” He offers Sehun a tiny smile.
Sehun keeps staring, looking at Junmyeon like he’s a ghost. He shakes his head in disbelief and then he exhales. “Fuck,” he swears again, under his breath. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he says, louder this time.
Junmyeon has to fight the urge to laugh. “Yeah,” he says instead. “Me neither.”
Sehun looks around; at the ground, at the sky, at the road. He finally settles on Junmyeon’s face. Junmyeon can see the unease and surprise on Sehun’s face. It’s an expression that throws him back into the past.
“What are you doing up here?” Sehun asks. “Rumor back home is that you went to Seattle or something. No one expected you to be here.”
“Didn’t make it all the way to Seattle,” Junmyeon says. “Ended up here instead. Guess you could say that I’m here to start over. But what about you? I could easily ask you the same question.”
“And I guess I could give you the same answer.” Sehun pats his pockets down, probably searching for his cigarettes. He reaches into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and Junmyeon, for the first time, spots a familiar glimmer of gold around his neck. Junmyeon inhales sharply as Sehun finally finds his cigarettes, opening up the pack. He takes one out and lights it with the lighter tucked into the cardboard box and then offers it to Junmyeon. Junmyeon keeps his eyes at Sehun’s neck as he takes the cigarettes from his hand, searching for another glint of gold.
Sehun blows out a plume of smoke. “I got a job up here and decided to come up here, to try to start over.” He twists the cigarette between his index and middle finger, restlessly. “It was about time that I moved on, I figured.”
Junmyeon lights his cigarette and takes a puff. “Yeah,” he says, exhaling. “Sometimes you just feel like you need to start over.”
They fall silent after that, just smoking their cigarettes, the smell of the menthol mixing with the scent of the night's rain. Junmyeon struggles to find the words, to figure out how to condense the weeks of almost-meetings, to figure out how to tell Sehun that he’s sorry, that he wants to talk to him, and that standing here--next to him--for the seventeenth-first time fills him with a bottomless yearning that he wants nothing more than to fill.
So he starts here: “Did Purple Rain hold up?” Junmyeon asks. “After all this time?”
Sehun looks at him through his bangs, startled. “It was about the same,” he replies, carefully. “But it didn’t hit me in the same way, not this time.”
“Why not?”
Sehun opens his mouth to respond and then brings his cigarette to his lips instead, like he thought better of it. He exhales in a sigh. “Because. . .I was watching it in a different place, I guess,” he says, pensively. “It’s a movie that I associate with the Bay, you know? Since I’d only ever watched it there. And I. . .” he trails off and then shakes his head. “And this was the first time that I watched it alone,” he finishes. “It’s not really the same.”
There’s a sudden pang in Junmyeon’s stomach, sharp and molten. He takes another drag off his cigarette, trying to quell the sensation.
“Yeah,” he says. “I know what you mean. I didn’t come alone but it was different. Than it had been before.”
“Good different or bad different?” Sehun asks, an unreadable expression on his face.
“I don’t know,” Junmyeon says. He looks down at the pavement, soaked dark gray with the rain. ”It’s just different.”
He looks back up to see Sehun nod. “It is different,” Sehun replies. There’s something strange in his voice, something that Junmyeon has never heard before. “And I don’t know if it’s good or bad either.”
There’s the screech and release of breaks and they look down the street. The bus is three lights down, working its way towards the stop.
“I gotta take that home,” Sehun says. He stubs out his cigarette on the side of the theatre and drops it in the ashtray attached to the trash can. “I should probably get going.”
“I’m going that way too.” Junmyeon takes one last puff and then does the same with his cigarette.
Sehun bites his lip and then nods. “Shall we, then?”
Junmyeon pauses and then smiles, taken aback. “Ok.”
They hurry over to the bus stop, making it just as it pulls up. Junmyeon follows Sehun up the steps, paying his fare. It’s not too crowded--only a few people on their way home from work and a few teenagers, clearly on their way home from a concert filling the seats. They easily find two seats near the middle. Sehun sits down first. Junmyeon remains standing next to the open seat, unsure of what to do.
“Don’t you want to sit?” Sehun asks, noticing his hesitation.
“I. . .” It all feels too soon but Sehun is looking at him with cautious expectancy so he sits down.
And it’s almost too much. Their shoulders brush together and Junmyeon can feel the warmth radiating off of Sehun.
“Where’s your stop?” Sehun asks.
“Hawthorne. Not too far from here. It’s only four stops away.”
“Oh.” Sehun quirks his mouth to the side. “I’m down in Beaverton. So I basically have to ride this to the end of the line.”
Junmyeon just nods.
The bus lurches forward as it pulls away from the curb and they fall silent, running out of words.
Junmyeon looks out the window, watching the glare from the streetlights and headlights wink at him in the rain splattered glass, all the colors bleeding together into an explosion of light.
The teenagers at the front of the bus have started playing music from one of their Walkman’s on full volume and a slow marching rhythm floats over towards them, the sound tinny through the headphones.
Sehun starts humming along, mouthing the words.
“You know this song?” Junmyeon asks.
“Yeah,” Sehun says, like it’s no big deal. “It’s Halah by Mazzy Star. I think it came out last year or something. I really like it--I have the band’s entire album.”
The pang is back in Junmyeon’s stomach. It’s probably a song that would have ended up on one of Sehun’s mixtapes, a song that Junmyeon also would have known by heart by now. But he tries to swallow down the ache and focus on the now.
“Looks like you still know every song in the world,” Junmyeon says, trying to keep the tone light.
Sehun smiles sheepishly and shrugs. “Music is still one of my favorite things in the world,” he says. “That definitely hasn’t changed.”
Junmyeon smiles back at him. “What else have you been listening to?” he asks.
And that makes Sehun light up. He launches into an animated summary of the Pearl Jam album he’d just bought, his eyes wide and his hands flailing. Sehun is so open, so excited that Junmyeon almost feels like it’s 1990 again and that they’re at home at their apartment in the Berkeley; both of them in the kitchen after dinner, music on while they wash the dishes together and Sehun tells Junmyeon exactly why the band on the radio is brillant.
The bus pulls up to a red light and Junmyeon looks out the window, noticing that his stop is next.
“I’m up next,” he says, interrupting Sehun. Sehun’s face noticeably falls but he nods.
“Oh,” Sehun says. “Alright. That was fast.”
“Yeah, like I said, I live really close to here.” Junmyeon hesitates. He takes a breath. “Can I. . .can we?”
Sehun raises one eyebrow at him.
“I’m really glad that I got to see you tonight. And since you’re here and I’m here. . .could we maybe try to stay in touch? I might not have been here all that long but I do know some places around here that are worth seeing.” Junmyeon pauses. “I mean, if you want.”
Sehun nods, slowly. “Yeah. That might be. . . nice. It’s hard to be alone in a new place.”
Junmyeon offers him a smile. “Yeah. I remember when I first moved. It was hard then. It’s still kinda hard now.”
“Should we try, then?” Sehun asks, tentatively. “To make it a little bit easier on both of us?”
Junmyeon’s heart jumps. “It’s maybe worth a try.” He holds out a hand. “Give me your hand?”
Sehun eyes him suspiciously but takes his left hand out of his jacket pocket, placing it in Junmyeon’s own. Junmyeon reaches into his coat and pulls out the pen that he knows is there.
He uncaps it with his teeth and then draws Sehun’s hand closer to his face. Their palms are warm against each other, and Sehun’s fingers are as long and graceful as Junmyeon remembers. Pianist hands, that’s what Junmyeon used to whisper when they’d be laying in bed, twisting their fingers together. You have hands for the piano. Now though, Junmyeon just writes all ten digits of his phone number as carefully as he can across the back of Sehun’s hand.
“There,” he says, letting go. “Now you have my number.”
Sehun stares at his hand for a moment, an unfamiliar expression on his face. “Alright,” he says, “I’ll call you.”
The bus comes to a stop.
Junmyeon gets up from the seat and hurries down the steps. His heart feels lighter.
September 5, 1991, Take Two
Goooooooooddddd morning, Portland!
It’s 7:15 on Thursday, September 5, 1991. It’s a cool 64 degrees out there today and, of course, rainy. So pack those umbrellas and settle in for another wet and beautiful day in the Rose City!
Junmyeon gropes around on his nightstand and hits snooze. He gets out of bed and starts his day. He showers and shaves. Eats breakfast, brushes his teeth. Gets dressed. He takes his time, picking out a burgundy sweater with a white button down underneath and black slacks. He lingers at the mirror after he finishes brushing his hair. There’s something new in his eyes; a spark of determination that had dimmed over the past month, a nervous glint of love and anticipation that had winked out a year ago. Maybe he feels a little bit reckless, a little bit like he did when he was 22 and falling in love for the first time. Maybe.
He grabs his keys and Walkman from his dresser, tucking two extra cassettes into his pocket. He puts on his raincoat, slips on his shoes. He heads out into the morning.
------
“I need to borrow your radio.” Junmyeon knocks on the side of Amber’s cubicle, announcing himself. “Just for tonight.”
Amber looks up from her computer in surprise. She’s wearing her glasses and the oversized black frames make her look owlish.
“My radio?” she asks. “Why?”
“Because it’s small and battery-powered and can play cassettes,” Junmyeon explains. He walks into Amber’s space, sitting down in the spare chair she keeps in the corner. “Please?” He looks at her hopefully.
“I mean. . .sure?” Amber reaches over to the side of her desk and picks up the small blue Sony boombox by its handle. “Is this a continuation of your new found love for music?”
“You could maybe call it that.” Junmyeon takes the tiny radio from her. “But thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll bring it back tomorrow.” He stands to leave.
Amber raises an eyebrow at him, clearly wanting to know more but she doesn’t ask.
“Alright,” she says instead. “I’ll hold you to that. That’s my only source of music throughout the day and you’re stealing it from me.” She points at him menacingly. “Fuck it up and I’ll end you.”
“I’ll bring it back in one piece,” Junmyeon promises, putting his hand over his heart. “Boy Scouts’ honor.”
“Good.” Amber turns back to her computer. “You’re distracting me.” Junmyeon can hear the smile in her voice. “I gotta finish this assignment, so you have to go. Lunch at 12:30?”
“On my way out.” Junmyeon backs towards the entrance. “And yes, lunch at 12:30. I promised, didn’t I? I’ll pick up the sandwiches.”
“Deal,” Amber says. “Now go. Don’t you have work to do?”
Junmyeon heads back to his own cubicle with a smile on his face.
------
Junmyeon leaves the office early, ducking out at 4:45. He hurries down the street, the tiny radio tucked under his raincoat to shield it from the rain, going past his bus stop to the Radio Shack around the corner. The store is empty, the clerk behind the counter is the only person there. She smiles at him when he comes in.
“Hi,” she calls out cheerfully. “Can I help you find something?”
Junmyeon returns her smile and goes up to the counter. “Hi.” He reads the silver name badge pinned to her chest. Melissa. “I’m looking for a tape deck?”
Melissa nods. “Of course. We have a couple different options, follow me.”
She leads him to a display at the back of the store where tape decks of varying levels of complexity are arranged.
“What do you need it for?” Melissa asks. “If you’re just looking for the standard set of functions, then I’d recommend this Revox model.” She points to a medium sized model on the middle shelf. “If you want more than that, then maybe the most recent Nakamichi?”
“Which one will let me make my own mixtapes?” Junmyeon asks. “And rip songs off of other cassettes?”
“The Revox will let you do that pretty easily,” Melissa says. “It’s really user friendly.”
“Then I’ll take that one,” he says.
Melissa smiles and takes it down from the shelf.
“I’ll ring you up.”
Junmyeon ends up getting the Revox and a set of 30 blank cassette tapes.
“Here you go,” Melissa says as she bags everything up. “I hope whoever you’re making the mixtapes for enjoys them.”
“Was it that obvious?” Junmyeon asks.
Melissa winks at him. “First time mixtape-makers all have a certain look.”
-----
He hurries home, dropping his raincoat and the tiny radio by the door.
He goes to his room and sits down on the floor with his old shoebox of cassettes and the new Revox. He unwraps it from its packaging, skimming over the instructions. It seems easy enough; put one cassette in one drive and the blank cassette in the other. Press record, press stop. He can do that.
He digs through the box, selecting the first cassette. For You, Part 4. He puts it into the Play drive and puts a blank cassette in the other. He plugs his headphones into the jack and gets started.
----
As it turns out, making a mixtape is a lot harder than it looks. It takes Junmyeon multiple tries before he figures out how to get the timing right, finally pressing the Record button just as the song starts and not cutting the song off too soon.
And then there’s the whole issue of the tracklist. For some reason, Junmyeon had never given much thought to exactly how the songs needed to arranged on the mixtape. He’d never really thought about flow or continuity so even after figuring out how to actually operate the tape deck properly, he still has to start over. Out of frustration, he gets up from the floor in search of a notepad and pen and attempts to map out the song list. It takes him a bunch of tries to get it right--he crosses out and rearranges the songs over and over, his left hand tugging at his hair, his bottom lip between his teeth as he worries it in concentration. It takes three crumpled sheets of paper and an hour and a half before he finally gets it right.
Junmyeon holds his makeshift track list up to the light of his bedside lamp. He reads it over again and then, finally, nods in satisfaction. He puts his headphones back over his ears, pops a new cassette into the tape deck and starts again.
----
It’s just past 9:30 when Junmyeon finally takes the completed mixtape out of the tape deck. The plastic is warm from it’s time whirring in the console and it seems to pulse in the palm of his hand with the same rhythm as the beating of Junmyeon’s heart.
He slides it into a jewel case and then gets up, his back aching from sitting on the hard floor for so many hours. He looks down at the mess he left behind--the tape deck out, balled up sheets of paper thrown about, cassettes left scattered around--and figures that he’ll just deal with it later.
Junmyeon goes to the kitchen instead, turning on the overhead light. It flickers for a moment as it settles in, washing the small space in an orange glow and illuminating the stack of dishes piled in the sink and the counter that he desperately needs to wipe down. Junmyeon winces. It’s been way too long since he’d taken the time to really clean up.
He goes to the cabinet and takes out a bowl, pouring himself a big bowl of Chex. Hunger pangs are crawling through his stomach but he can’t bring himself to cook anything. Cereal is always better than nothing.
The call comes just as he opens the fridge to get the milk.
“Hello?”
“Junmyeon? It’s Sehun.”
Junmyeon stills and then breathes out, slowly.
“Hi,” he says. “I wasn’t really expecting you to call so soon.” Or at all, really.
“I just. . .” he trails off. “I just wanted to let you know that it was really good to see you yesterday. And that I’d like to see you again. Maybe sometime soon. If you’re free.” He hears Sehun sigh. “The thing is, it is really lonely up here. And I don’t really know anyone and it’s hard. You’ve always known that I don’t do well on my own.”
“Yeah, Sehun. Of course.” Junmyeon shuts the fridge and leans his back against the fridge’s cold exterior. “We can meet up whenever.”
“How about now?” Sehun asks. “Are you doing anything?”
“No.” Junmyeon’s heart starts pounding again. He looks at the time on the microwave. It’s 9:45. “I’m free.”
“Can we. . .meet somewhere?”
“Yeah--of course,” Junmyeon closes his eyes, thinking. “Do you have a car?” he asks after a pause. “Can you meet me at Mount Tabor?”
“I do have a car, but I’m not sure that I know where that is,” Sehun says.
“It’s in Southeast. In between Hawthorne and Division and Burnside.”
“Okay,” Sehun says. “I can drive over now, but it might take me a little while--maybe forty-five minutes? I’ll all the way out in Beaverton. But I guess I’ll see you then?”
“Yes,” Junmyeon says. “See you then.”
Sehun hangs up without saying goodbye.
Junmyeon exhales hard. He opens the fridge again, taking out the milk. He pours it in his bowl. Takes a bite. It’s cold on his tongue.
----
Junmyeon makes it to Mount Tabor Park at just shy of 10:15. The buses had stopped running on his street at 9:30, so he’d walked, his umbrella shielding him from the worst of the rain. He stands under a streetlamp by the entrance, facing the parking, his umbrella held over his head, his backpack slung over his left shoulder. It’s cold tonight and he shivers, the thin jacket he’d shrugged on before leaving his apartment doing almost nothing to shield him from the late night chill.
The parking lot is completely empty except for the falling rain, puddling in the potholes and divets in the cracked concrete. It’s a little eerie like this, with no sounds around him except for the falling rain and Junmyeon shivers again, though this time he’s not sure if it’s from the cold or from the loneliness.
There’s a flash of headlights on the road and then the sound of the rain is cut through by the low rumble of an engine as a silver car turns into the lot. It pulls into the spot right in front of where Junmyeon is standing. The driver side door opens and Sehun gets out, looking around quizzically.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Sehun says as he walks over to Junmyeon. He’s wearing a yellow raincoat and he’s pulled the hood up over his head. It makes him look like a little kid. “It took me a while to find this place.”
“It’s alright,” Junmyeon says. “I really did pick somewhere out of the way.”
“Interesting place,” Sehun says, looking around. “It’s so high up above the city.”
“It’s an extinct volcano,” Junmyeon says, “and it’s one of the few places in Portland where there’s very little light pollution. I came here, once, when I first moved here. I kinda just stumbled upon it when I was walking around my neighborhood one evening. But I fell in love with it--it has some of the best views in the city.”
“So you didn’t bring me out here just so you could kill me and bury the body where no one would ever find it?” Sehun raises an eyebrow at him, his voice soft with teasing.
“No guarantees,” Junmyeon retorts.
“Then my life is in your hands.” Sehun takes out his cigarettes and lights one. “So, lead the way?”
They set off down the narrow trail, shoulder to shoulder. Junmyeon holds his umbrella higher, trying to shield them both from the rain.
“Here, let me.” Sehun takes the umbrella from him, holding it up high. He’s tall enough that the umbrella seems to stretch further, covering both of their heads easily. “Better?”
Junmyeon nods. “Yeah. thanks.”
The trail narrows as the trees grow thicker, their branches stretching high above them, the leaves like open hands catching the raindrops on their palms. The path is unlit and their eyes strain to hold onto the glow of the streetlamp, fading out as they venture further in. The darkness pulls in close, crowding them closer together, their shoulders brushing against each other. Junmyeon can almost feel the warmth of Sehun’s body through their layers and his body trembles, like his bones are yearning for a closer touch.
“Are you cold?” Sehun asks, noticing.
“A bit.”
Junmyeon can just make out Sehun’s nod. “Me too,” Sehun says.“It’s colder than I thought it would be. It gets so much colder here than it does in the Bay.”
“It does,” Junmyeon agrees. He adjusts his backpack.
“How much further are we going?” Sehun asks.
“Not much further. We’re gonna take a left right here.” Junmyeon points at the point where the path forks.
The trees grow thicker and then they part, as if in an exultant sigh, revealing a wide clearing easing into an overlook. Right over the edge is Portland, tiny and glowing like a thousand stars trapped beneath them. Their own private, rain-soaked galaxy.
“Oh wow,” Sehun whispers, taking in the view. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” Junmyeon says. “It took my breath away the first time I saw it. It almost makes Portland worth it.”
They stand there for a moment, side-by-side, taking in the fallen city lights. Sehun’s face reflects Portland, each dip and curve holding the dim light. He’s still so beautiful.
“Do you want to sit?” Junmyeon asks, his voice scraping as he forces the words out of his throat.
“Where? On the grass?”
“No.” Junmyeon shakes his head. “There’s a covered bench right over there.”
They go over to the wooden bench, dry from the moss covered awning erected above it. They sit, Junmyeon, taking off his backpack and setting it on his lap.
“Are you gonna tell me what you’re lugging around in your backpack now?” Sehun asks. He’s pulled his hood down. His hair is curling at the ends, damp from the rain. Again, Junmyeon has to stop himself from reaching out to smooth them straight.
“Sure,” he says, instead. He unzips his bag, taking out a bag of Haribo brand gummy bears, four cans of beers, Amber’s tiny radio, and a cassette tape, placing them in the stretch of bench between them.
“Gummy bears?” Sehun picks up the bag.
“You like them,” Junmyeon says with a shrug.
“I do,” Sehun says quietly.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Junmyeon asks, aiming for teasing but his voice not quite getting him there. “Or are you just going to stare at the package?”
Sehun gives him a tired look and then pulls at the plastic wrapping, opening the package. He takes out two gummies and pops them in his mouth, chewing slowly.
Junmyeon pops two of the beers open, taking a sip of his own before passing the other over to Sehun. The cans had stayed cold during the walk over and the beer is cool and crisp on his tongue. Sehun lights another cigarette, the smell of the nicotine turning sweet as it mixes with the smell of the rain.
“This is nice,” Sehun says in a plume of smoke. He’s looking ahead, staring off at the city lights. “This deep in the woods, it kinda smells like the redwoods in the Bay. It reminds me of home.”
Junmyeon takes the cigarettes and lighter from where Sehun left them in the gap between them on the bench. He lights his own.
“Yeah,” Junmyeon says on an exhale. “A lot of these trees are redwoods and aspens. Portland and the Bay area have a lot of the same trees. I think that’s why I like Mount Tabor so much. It smells a little like home.” Junmyeon takes another sip of his beer. “When I first found this place, I’d been feeling really lonely,” he says. “It was my third week here and I hadn’t found a job yet and I was scared. I’d just moved into my apartment after staying at a YMCA for the first few days and I was afraid that I’d made a huge mistake by moving here. It had rained everyday since I’d been here and I was feeling antsy and frantic after staying inside so I left and went for a walk in the middle of the night.” Junmyeon can remember the clawing tightness shredding through his chest as he’d wandered up and down the sidewalks, trying his best to not cry out. It had been hard--Portland’s damp-darkness had weighed in on him and made him feel like he was suffocating, like his lungs were filling with water. He’d never felt loneliness quite like that.
He takes a pull on his cigarette and blows out the smoke, long and low. Even in the dark, Junmyeon can see the way that it curls in front of him, the pale gray cloud glowing in the twinkle of the lights below. It was the lights that saved him that night. The lights of the universe spread out beneath him, small enough to cup in the palm of his hands.
“When I found this place, even though it’s tucked away from everything, it finally kinda felt like home.” Junmyeon looks at Sehun. He’s still looking out over the edge, staring at the lights through the downpour, his face tense in its thoughtfulness. “When I came up here, I thought I was finally going to live on my own. I didn’t know it would be so hard.”
They fall into silence again, only the sounds of the rain on the awning filling the quiet air.
“You know they finally solved the mystery of the sky jellyfish?” Sehun says abruptly.
“The what?” Junmyeon looks at him, confused.
“You don’t remember?” Sehun takes a sip of his beer. “The red glowing jellyfish in the sky. They took a picture of them two years ago, in 1989. They’re called sprites. The pilots weren’t lying after all.”
Junmyeon looks up to the sky, imagines what it would look like to actually see a sprite for himself. What the red lightning would look like all mixed in with the rain. “Sprites? Like the fairy?”
Sehun shrugs. “Guess so.”
Junmyeon starts laughing, his head thrown back as he sends his laughter into the night.
“Is it really that funny?” Sehun says, humor curving into his own words. He’s looking at Junmyeon now, his face lifting as he smiles.
“It’s a little funny,” Junmyeon says, catching his breath. “I’m glad that you still love space as much as you always have.”
Sehun smiles at him, looking down at the ground. “I guess somethings don’t ever change.”
They fall quiet again. Junmyeon reaches over to the radio, bringing it into his lap.
“I--uh. I made a mixtape,” he says. Just saying it out loud makes him feel so nervous. He holds up the radio. “I’ve never made one before but I decided to try it out. And then you called me and you said you were having a hard time so . . . I thought that it might be . . . nice.” He swallows. “Since you were always making them for people back home, I thought that if I showed you one that I made, maybe it’ll make things a little easier for you. You know? That it might remind you a little bit of home.”
Sehun looks at him with wide eyes and then nods. “Oh!” he says surprised. “Wow, I never thought I’d see the day that you’d make a mixtape.”
Junmyeon feels his face grow hot. “I mean, it wasn’t easy. It took me a thousand different tries to get it right. I don’t think I ever really showed you enough gratitude back when you were making them.”
“It takes practice to get it right,” Sehun agrees. “The first one is always the hardest.”
“What was your first mixtape like?” Junmyeon asks.
Sehun leans back against the bench, puffing his cheeks out in thought.
“Wow, I haven’t thought about that in so long,” he says. “I think I made it when I was like 16 or so?” he frowns, thinking. “Yeah, I think that’s right. I made it for a boy in my art class. I had the biggest crush on him.” Sehun smiles to himself. “His name was Connor and all I wanted was for him to notice me. So I made him a tape with, like, a thousand songs by Joni Mitchell and the Cure. I used my brother’s tape deck and it took me all night to just figure out how to use it. Must have gone through like fifteen tapes before I got it right.” He laughs. “I guess I’m nothing if I’m not consistent.”
“Did he like it?” Junmyeon takes his cassette out of the case. He doesn’t put it in the player, not yet.
Sehun shrugs. He brings his cigarette to his lips. “I don’t know,” he says on his exhale. “I never actually gave it to him. I chickened out at the last second. I kept it in my locker all year.”
“Oh.” Junmyeon says. “That’s kind of sad, don’t you think? To go through all that trouble only to never actually give it to him.”
“It is kind of sad,” Sehun says. “And that’s why you’re going to play your mixtape for me. Just so that your first mixtape doesn’t suffer the same fate as mine.” He looks pointedly at the cassette clutched in Junmyeon’s hand. “Don’t make me pry it out of your hand.”
Junmyeon presses the Eject button on the player and loads his cassette. He closes it with unsteady fingers and presses Play.
The first chords of Lovesong play out into the night.
“The Cure?” Sehun asks.
“It’s a good song,” Junmyeon says as nonchalantly as he can muster.
It’s hard; to share a mixtape like this. It’s so personal, so intimate. Junmyeon had recorded parts of his own soul, cutting and pasting songs that Sehun had carefully selected over the years and fashioning them into a tiny memoriam of the six years of their relationship. Songs that had given voice to their time together; to their triumphs, to their fears, to their losses. To their love. Sehun had said that he had felt alone. Junmyeon wants to show Sehun that he’s not alone, that despite the past year, that Junmyeon is still here for him. Junmyeon wants to tell him that he’s never forgotten that promise--that he’ll always answer if Sehun calls, that he’ll always try to make it better if Sehun needs him.
Junmyeon wants to remind him that there was a home here, maybe not the same as the one they built in Berkeley, but another home, a different home with different rafters and different colored walls but with the same songs playing through the rooms.
They sit in silence, listening to the cassette play.
“Thank you,” Sehun says once the last notes of Side One have faded out. “This helped a lot. All of this--the music, the gummy bears, the park.”
“I hoped it would.” Junmyeon finishes his beer and opens another. “I know what it feels like to be lonely. I just don’t want you to feel that way, too.” He opens the cassette player and flips the tape, starting Side Two.
“Has it been that bad?” Sehun asks as the next song starts. He looks at Junmyeon, finally. “Being alone?”
Junmyeon takes a long sip of his beer, stalling. He doesn’t know what to say, how to tell Sehun that being alone has been the hardest thing he’s ever done. When, after spending his entire life surrounded by other people, being wrapped in love of so many kinds---from the hard blunt care given to him by his mother and grandmother to the slow soft love that Sehun had shown him---that being alone feels like the greatest void, like Junmyeon’s been tossed to the bottom of the darkest cavern, left to grope his way out.
“It hasn’t been easy,” Junmyeon says. “I didn’t know that anything could be this hard. It’s hard to not have anyone filling the space next to you, it’s hard to wake up alone. It’s hard to not have anyone to share my life with.” He smiles to himself. “I don’t think I ever really realized how much more my life means when I’m not alone. I’m not a . . .great person, you know?” Junmyeon finishes his cigarette and bends down to stub it out on the wet earth. “There’s nothing great about me. I’m uncertain and I’m easily scared and I barely know how to love myself.”
Sehun opens his mouth to say something but Junmyeon shakes his head.
“No--wait, let me finish,” Junmyeon says. “I’m no good on my own. Being around other people--friends, family--that’s what makes me good. I’m only good when I have someone else to be good for.” He sticks his hands in the pockets of his raincoat, trying to keep them warm.
“My life has never been mine to decide on. You know that. I’ve always been working to give myself meaning through other people. And then when I failed. . .when I couldn’t be who I wanted to be at the same time as being who I needed to be. . .I freaked out. I feel like I ran away because I couldn’t be true to you,” he says in a rush. “And I couldn’t be true to myself. When you asked me to make a decision, I. . .I panicked. But with you, I felt like I had more life than I’d ever had before. I felt more alive, more in control. You had been my biggest, greatest decision for so long.” He looks at Sehun, pleadingly.
“You need to understand, Sehun. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. But. . .I was afraid of what that decision meant. When my grandmother was dying. . .it felt like my mother was telling me that I couldn’t have both. I couldn’t say goodbye to Halmoeni while I was still with you. My mother treated me like a disease. She saw you as something that had infected me, as something that had eaten away at her perfect kid, at her stability and safety. And she used my grandmother to manipulate me out of you. But I can’t blame her, not really. I can only really blame myself. I made the choice to not really choose you. I could have walked away then, I mean, fuck, look at me. I’ve walked away now. I left the Bay, the only real home I’ve ever known. I left Baekhyun, my first real friend. And fuck, I left you. The closest thing to unconditional love that I’ve ever known.” He shakes his head again.
“The family that I had then was no real family. And I miss my mother, and my grandmother. How could I not? They raised me, they risked everything for me. But I needed to find my own family. I needed to decide what love looked like for me. What unconditional caring looked like for me.”
“You’re different now,” Sehun says, interrupting. “You’ve changed.” He blows out his final thread of smoke and then stubs out his cigarette on the damp wood. “I don’t know if I would have ever heard the old Junmyeon say this much about love before. I don’t know if he’d have been this introspective.”
Junmyeon bites his lip. Nods. “I know I have,” he admits. “I don’t feel the same. I feel like I’ve changed so much in the past year. I’m not sure that I know who I am anymore.”
“Change can be a good thing,” Sehun says. “It’s kind of part of growing up, isn’t it?”
“I’m 28. Aren’t I finished growing?”
“Are any of us ever done?” Sehun leans forward, resting his elbows on his thighs. “I don’t think so. I feel like I’m still growing up. I feel like there’s still so much for me to figure out.”
“I feel that way too.” Junmyeon looks up at the awning. Even in the dark, he can make out the remnants of a thousand old spiderwebs, the silver floss fragile and elegant as it blows in the wind. “I feel like I had to change after I came up here. I didn’t feel like the same person after I left home. I felt like I couldn’t still be the same person, not after everything I’d done. Not after everything I’d been through.” He takes a deep breath. He can taste the rain on this tongue. “I feel like I had to shave off all the parts of myself that made me hurt you. Made me hurt myself. Become someone who couldn’t hurt anyone again. I had to try to make myself as distant as possible so that no one else would want to love me again. . .not like the way you loved me. I. . .I didn’t want to risk it again.”
“Risk what?” Sehun asks. He sits up straight and turns to Junmyeon, looking him in the eyes. “Risk what?”
“Risk feeling all of that again.” Junmyeon looks at Sehun, desperately. “You need to understand, Sehun. I loved you so desperately. Like I needed you. I loved you like I needed air. And I think, no fuck that, I know that you loved me like that too. If you showed me anything, it’s that you loved me so completely, so fully. If you’re anything, you’re honest. And I fucked that all up. I didn’t show you the love that you deserved, not at the end. And I hurt you. It’s always going to be my biggest regret.”
“You keep saying ‘loved’ like I’ve forgotten about you.” Sehun shakes his head. “Like all it took was a year for me to get over you. I thought you said I was transparent? Junmyeon, I still love you. Didn’t I tell you all that time ago? You have all of my twenties. You’re so tangled up in me. . .I spent the past year trying to pry you out of my bones, I ran away from California because the entire state is soaked with your memory only to run right into you in the middle of Portland.” He laughs, tiny and rough. “I just can’t quit you. It’s like I’m always going to love you, it’s like the universe is conspiring to make sure that we’re always breathing the same air.”
“Sehun---”
“Nah, stop that.” Sehun cuts him off. “I don’t know what any of this means, Junmyeon. I’m sitting here, right next to you, right now, and my whole body aches.” He stops, takes a breath. “But at the same time I just want to scream and cry and laugh because I’m so fucking happy that I’m close to you again. You’re the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me, but I still only want to be close to you.”
“So what do we do?” Junmyeon says. “Because I’m looking at you right now and for the first time in almost two years I’m not seeing fear. I don’t feel like I’m stuck in between two shards of broken glass. I’ve never felt more alone than I have in the time that I’ve been living in this fucking city but right now I feel so safe, so warm because I’m near you. I look at you and I don’t feel alone. What does any of this mean?”
“There he is,” Sehun murmurs.
“What?”
“There he is,” he says again. “There’s that tiny spark of the old Junmyeon.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“I don’t know,” Sehun says. “But I do know that the old Junmyeon is someone that I loved with my entire body. I think I could stand to get to know the new Junmyeon. Maybe there’s something in there to build something new on top of.” Sehun’s voice runs ragged, and he shakes his head. “I’m here and you’re here and I don’t really have what I had before, but I still, sort of, have you. And something tells me that it’s worth a shot?” Sehun takes Junmyeon’s beer out of his hand and takes a sip.
“I’m not the same person either, you know,” he continues. “Losing you. . .and then losing Chanyeol and Jongin and then leaving the clinic. . .it’s like it all cut parts of my heart out of me. It’s like I lost so much of myself in the process. Part of me moving up here was to figure out a way to fill in everything that I’d lost. In a way, I guess I’m just like you. So whatever we do from here out, whatever relationship we have--friends or something else--is gonna be different. We’re two different people, trying to navigate a whole different world. The one we had before, those six years in the Bay. . .it almost feels like that world ended. We’re trying to make a new one, up here.”
Junmyeon nods, his throat tight. He doesn’t know why he feels like crying.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re right.” Maybe this isn’t a second chance, after all. Maybe this is just a new beginning. Maybe, sitting out here barely sheltered from the pouring late night rain, Junmyeon’s really just been brought back to where he started, not six years ago, but all the way back to when he was 17 and peering out his window at Minho and Kibum, kissing in the rain, stuck wishing that he could be them, that he could live their lives. Maybe this is his chance now, eleven years later. To be the type of person who takes chances in the rain. Who looks up at the sky and finally sees all the colors splattered across its expanse.
“Maybe this is us trying to figuring it out. All over again.” Junmyeon can almost hear Baekhyun’s voice coming towards him through the night.
“Places and people change. It doesn’t mean that they disappear forever. You’ve changed too, Junmyeon. Doesn’t mean that you’ve faded away.” He and Sehun have both changed. But maybe, maybe, this thing between them hasn’t completely disappeared.
Sehun grins. “Maybe. And you know what? I think I’d really like that.”
Sehun reaches over and turns up the music.
Honey, I know, I know
I know times are changing
It's time we all reach out
For something new, that means you too
There’s a timid touch and Junmyeon looks down to see where Sehun has reached over, placing his hand on top of Junmyeon’s own. Junmyeon looks back up at Sehun. Sehun holds his gaze for a moment before looking away, staring straight ahead. Junmyeon follows his gaze. The city glimmers back at them-- each light its own bright star.
It’s stopped raining.