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After eighteen months of almost never being alone, it was a bracing experience to open a door to complete silence, the apartment void of light and life and sound. Sanghyuk was off somewhere doing something, his slippers empty and waiting, while Inseong stood there and tried to remind himself for the twentieth time in two weeks that this was real, that this wasn’t just a temporary reprieve. The phone rang almost as soon as the door closed behind him, vibrating in his pocket as he slipped off his shoes and stepped into a quiet, dark apartment. As the phone buzzed insistently against his thigh, Inseong stared into the stillness of what had been and was once again his space, wondering how long it would take to get used to this life that felt familiar and strange all at once, when it would stop feeling like he was pressing fast forward on a life that had been left on pause, resumed only in fits and starts between long staticky periods of army green and military band red.
Jaeyoon’s plaintive “Hyung?” was enough to snap him out of the weird liminal space he’d been in since discharge, trying to remember how the chords chords of his daily life. He brought the phone up to his cheek, and put Sanghyuk’s old slippers on his feet, finally bringing Jaeyoon close enough to be able to say:
“I’m here.”
He could almost hear the smile in Jaeyoon’s answering, “ Hyung! ”. Standing alone in the darkened entryway of his apartment, he could easily picture the way Jaeyoon’s expression would shift from anxious to his familiar gentle excitement as he listened to him laugh and say, “You finally came home.”
In the before times, Inseong would have teased him for thinking that 8:30pm was worthy of being called finally , but he knew all too well how it was to look at the clock every night and know that there were only so many minutes, so many seconds before the portal to the real world closed and there was no more time to say all of things that needed to be said to all the people out there who needed to hear them. He knew how it was to narrow down all the have you eaten well’s and I miss you’s into a few hours a night, forcing love to be spread too thinly – particularly for a man like Jaeyoon who only knew how to lay it on thick and slow, to take his time getting to any point.
“I’ve been working hard,” Inseong said, carrying Jaeyoon with him into a bedroom that still had yet to be used enough to turn into a familiar, lived in mess. “There’s not much time left, you know.”
“I know,” Jaeyoon answered, his wistfulness obvious to anyone who cared to listen, the little sigh as he said, “you’ll all be together so soon,” telling Inseong all he needed to know.
Inseong laid on the bed, staring up at a not-yet familiar ceiling and wished that there was a lie he could tell that was good enough to soothe the ache in Jaeyoon’s voice. “Not all together,” Inseong said, offering the truth instead. “There’s no all without you.”
“It’s okay, hyung. You don’t have to say that. You did your time, you and Youngbin. It’s your turn again,” Jaeyoon murmured, and Inseong knew that somewhere in some military base miles away, Jaeyoon was trying to smile, trying to make it better for them both. “I can be the one to watch, this time.”
Inseong closed his eyes and tried not to think about how many days there were left to go ( how many days had already been spent) until they were no longer apart, no longer catching glimpses of one another in the cramped spaces between civilian and soldier and idol. “Will you come, then?”
“If I can,” Jaeyoon said, the sound of other voices fading in and out of the call as other men moved in Jaeyoon’s space, trying to cram in their own last thoughts before it was phones away and lights out. “I want to. Even if all I can do is cheer. I want to be there. I want to hear hyung’s high notes again.”
“I can’t hit them anymore,” Inseong teased, wanting to make Jaeyoon smile again, needing to scratch the undeniable itch he always felt to lift the mood, to change the tension back to something light and easy. “The military made me too manly. I sound like Chani now.”
Jaeyoon’s laughter was warm and bright, filling up the dark, too quiet corners of Inseong’s room. “Liar! I saw Youngbin’s video on fancafe.”
“Youngbin needs so much attention these days,” Inseong complained, rolling over onto his stomach and into the sound of Jaeyoon’s amusement. “Posting dance challenges, selfies with me, selfies with the dog, selfies without the dog, selfies of the dog! What’s going on with him?”
“I don’t think dogs can take selfies, hyung.” Jaeyoon’s laughter bubbled over, loud enough now that Inseong knew there was no way everyone in a 10 meter radius wasn’t being blessed with the sound. Inseong wished he was within that radius, close enough to feel the ripples of Jaeyoon’s delight against his skin, close enough to taste it.
“Only puppies,” Inseong murmured, thinking of Jaeyoon’s boundless energy, the way almost everyone loved him and wanted to keep him the second they met him, the way Jaeyoon collected admirers without even trying. “Don’t let too many people pet you,” Inseong sighed, dragging a thumb over his bottom lip and regretting the fact that he’d left his chapstick in his bag. “They’ll get attached.”
Jaeyoon hummed, his answer soft and low, “Don’t worry, hyung. I’ll only let you rub my tummy and scratch my back.”
Inseong thought of how he must feel, their touchy-feely, cuddly Jaeyoon, so far away from all the hands he had held and cheeks he had kissed, from the arms in which he slept. “It’s alright,” Inseong said, as quietly as Jaeyoon, voice falling into the nighttime rhythms that had once been so familiar to them, “I don’t want you to be lonely.”
“Will you sing to me, then? Sing to me like you did for Youngbin.” Jaeyoon whisper-asked, no doubt trying to keep his secrets from his new friends, even though Inseong doubted he’d keep any of it a secret for long because there was very little that Jaeyoon really liked to keep to himself.
“Are you sure?” Inseong sat up on the bed, rubbing a hand over his face and wishing he could see Jaeyoon’s. It had been one thing to be in the military without him, in that strange world where nothing made sense, it made sense that they were apart. When they were in the military together, it was like an alien encounter – thrilling but bizarre and over so soon it only felt like a fever dream. But now they were apart where Inseong had only ever known them together – a new equation with a missing variable to struggle through and solve.
“What? Hyung having to be asked twice to sing?” Jaeyoon teased. “Are you feeling sick?”
“Lovesick, maybe,” Inseong tried to joke, even though he knew it was less of a lie than almost anything he had said all day when he was sitting there wearing Jaeyoon's old sweatshirt.
Jaeyoon went quiet for a moment, which was as unsettling as coming back to an empty apartment or trying to learn the choreography for seven when he had almost always been with nine. “Hyung,” Jaeyoon murmured at last, “if I can get out next week, let’s stay up together and talk all night.”
“Do you have a lot to say?” Inseong laid back down on the pillow, turning on his side and imagining Jaeyoon next to him, laughing at Inseong’s jokes and making the bed shake, lighting up the dark with his smile.
“Always. I want to tell hyung anything and everything,” Jaeyoon said, soothing and sweet, like he wanted to reach out to comfort Inseong with his voice, when Inseong was the one who should be comforting him because Jaeyoon was the one who had been left behind, left alone.
“Save all of that for next week,” Inseong said, trying to pull himself together, wanting to be stronger, wanting to be better. “Just tell me what song you want to hear. I’ll do it for you.”
“Whatever you want, hyung. Anything you sing will fill up my heart.”
“Is your heart empty, Jaeyoon-ah?" Inseong asked, even though he was mostly afraid of the answer.
Somewhere, out of sight, out of reach, somewhere that Inseong couldn’t hug him or make him laugh, Jaeyoon sighed and confessed, “A little less full since hyungs went home.”
“Come here as soon as you can,” Inseong said, assurances tumbling out without a second thought, making a hundred promises in a single breath. “Come here and we’ll talk all night and I’ll sing to you and hold your hand and kiss you and make you food –”
“Liar,” Jaeyoon laughed, the hiccup of swallowed tears doing horrible things to Inseong’s heart.
“Really! I mean it, I really will hold you and kiss you and stay up all night –”
“You won’t make me food,” Jaeyoon murmured, “but I’ll believe all the rest.”
Inseong closed his eyes and pressed the phone closer, the screen hot on his cheek in the way Jaeyoon’s mouth had been beneath his the last time they had kissed. “I’ll buy you a takeout.”
“I can’t wait,” Jaeyoon said and Inseong wanted to say that he knew the feeling, that it was a cruel twist of birth that had made it so they weren’t the same age, that had made it so they couldn’t be free at the same time, that now it was his turn to wait. “But for now, hyung,” Jaeyoon breathed out, “will you sing to me until I have to say goodbye?”
Tonight and every night , Inseong didn’t say, choosing instead to sing to Jaeyoon until he sighed, until he laughed, until he couldn’t help himself and joined in because since almost the day they had met he never really had been able to let Inseong sing alone, and Inseong let him carry their tune together until time ran out.