Archive of Our Own

Jake comes to the realization that he’s wasting his life in a rather unexpected place.

Or, well, it’s not that unexpected. He’s had many realizations on Sunghoon’s couch, both unsettling and freeing alike, and always at the very last second he can have them before it’s too late to reverse whatever decision had led him to this point.

This one, as far as Jake can tell, is all of the above.

He’s on Sunghoon’s couch, which he’d bought second-hand for their shared living room in their shared three bedroom apartment, and he’s twenty-two years old, and today, his other roommate Jay is twenty-three. They graduate in almost exactly one month. He’s holding a red solo cup full of water, but there’s a spilled puddle of beer on the floor in front of him, because their shared living room is so overwhelmingly full that it’s hard to breathe, let alone responsibly consume alcohol without incident.

When Sunghoon had suggested throwing a birthday party for Jay, Jake had agreed without any hesitation. He’s not really a fan of parties, because he treasures his early bedtime more than anything else, but – Jay has been on edge lately. They all have, with the looming prospect of exams putting a heavy weight on their shoulders, and contrary to popular belief, Jake actually does want his friends to be happy.

Besides, he’d justified to himself when the voice in his head tried to protest, Jay doesn’t really know that many people. Jake and Sunghoon are basically his only friends. They’re all each other’s only friends. Sunghoon could try to throw a small get-together with all five of Jay’s acquaintances from class, and Jake wouldn’t stop him. He could probably still be in bed by ten.

Except – now, he’s sitting on Sunghoon’s couch, in a room that he’s sure at this point contains more nicotine than oxygen from all the vapes being simultaneously hit by the countless amount of people streaming in and out of the apartment. There’s a deafeningly loud incorrect buzzer sounding inside of Jake’s skull, not helping the way it was already pounding from the thumping music in the slightest.

And, now, he’s wondering when exactly Jay had gaps of time to meet all these people over the last three and a half years, between his already busy schedule of hanging out with Jake and Sunghoon, or pretending to study, or giving up pretending entirely and watching anime with the volume up too high until Jake bangs on his door and tells him to keep it down. None of them are particularly social people, something that has long made Jake feel like slightly less of a loser. They were all losers, but they were losers together.

But Jay is greeting everyone that he passes by name with a grin and a half-hug. And Sunghoon is talking animatedly to a group of people that surround where he sits on the kitchen counter, more animated than Jake has maybe ever seen him. All while Jake sits alone, with nothing more than a glass of water and a tension headache.

He doesn’t know a single person here. He’d invited his one and only other friend, Sunoo – if he can be called that, if working on a single group project together and never bothering to move seats after that qualifies a friendship – but had been met with a myriad of excuses for why he couldn’t come, not one of which was ever consistent with the one he’d given the day before.

Sunoo loves a good party, and would probably love this, but Jake hadn’t proposed the idea to him like this at all. He’d described it the way he thought it would turn out – a small get-together. Sunoo’s far too in demand, too cool for small get-togethers.

So then, the only people he knows here are Sunghoon and Jay, and maybe a few faces he vaguely recognizes but can’t quite put a name to, and the realization, the important one, comes not long after he realizes that. He watches Sunghoon and Jay socialize, watches them slam back can after can of beer at a rate he didn’t even really know they were capable of, watches them take hits from random vapes and funny looking cigarettes and not even cough through the smoke, like they’re practiced, even though Jake has essentially spent every waking moment with them since they were in kindergarten and has never known them to have any interest in any of this.

Sure, they went to parties in high school. Jake would go with them, and he’d stick close and say hi to his peers and maybe have half of a disgusting, room temperature beer, and then he’d leave. Sunghoon and Jay would stay, but only because they didn’t share Jake’s determination to be a complete and total stick in the mud, but still. How was Jake supposed to know they were actually having fun?

He gave up partying completely when he got to university, because it suddenly felt far more optional. Sunghoon and Jay still went out together, but – truthfully, Jake never considered what they did while they were gone. And isn’t that kind of pathetic? Jake is such a loser he can’t even guess what happens at a college party.

He supposes, then, that that’s the realization. Jake is graduating in one month. He doesn’t go out, has only technically made one friend who doesn’t even like him enough to come to one small get-together, and his grades aren’t even good enough to justify all of that being the case. They’re fine. Good, even. But with the amount of time he spends alone in his room, listening to the same music he’s listened to since he was seventeen and staring down at a textbook, they should be a lot better.

So, Jake is a loser. He’s a complete and total loser, and he’s about to enter the real world as a loser, and that – well, Jake’s starting to feel a little nauseous.

He knows that these things are menial, in the grand scheme of life. He knows he’s lucky to have what he has, and he’s not trying to take that for granted. He knows it doesn’t matter if he’s never been drunk, or high, or if the furthest he’s ever gone is a few shy kisses exchanged with girls in high school and then one guy in college who tried to cop a feel only a few seconds into making out. But – he always meant to experience those things, while he’s still got his youth, which suddenly feels very much like sand slipping through his fingers even as he desperately tries to close his fist around it. He meant to, but somewhere along the way, he’d just – forgotten. He’d become complacent in his own loser-ification.

And now, he’s graduating in a month. He’s a little ahead of schedule for a quarter life crisis, and yet, it slams into him like a freight train, hard enough to make him a little dizzy, hard enough for him to momentarily have an out of body experience where he stands from the safe zone of Sunghoon’s couch and crosses the living room into the kitchen and can’t remember why or what he was planning on doing when he got there.

“Jakey,” Sunghoon greets him from his perch on the kitchen counter, which – if Jake were in his own body, he would likely be irritated about him putting his ass on the exact spot where Jake eats his cereal every morning before class. (The same cereal, every time, always Honey Nut Cheerios with just enough milk to soften them. Jake is too much of a loser to even take a risk on wasting milk or trying a new cereal.) “What’s up?”

But he’s not in his body. He’s floating somewhere outside of it, watching himself try to remedy the realization he’d only just had, watching himself do a poor imitation of someone who’s not freaking out in the slightest when he answers, “Uh – beer.”

His vocabulary has been reduced to that of a caveman. He truly has nothing left.

Nothing left to lose, some faint voice in his brain that sounds a lot like Sunoo helpfully provides, and Jake really can’t bring himself to disagree.

“Uh, beer?” Sunghoon repeats in a rather condescending question, hopping off the counter and abandoning the conversation he’d been wrapped up in until now. “You hate beer.”

Jake just shrugs – he can’t respond properly, because he’s already cracked open a can, and he’s already pinching his nose and trying to chug as much of the horrible beverage as his unpiloted body will allow.

“Alright, man,” Sunghoon shrugs after a moment. “Just, uh – pace yourself, yeah?”

Whatever that means. Jake gives him a thumbs up, expecting Sunghoon will go back to his apparent fanclub, the people who had been hanging off his every word instead of ignoring him and communicating only in the most primitive ways.

He doesn’t. He follows Jake around like he’s the lost puppy out of the two of them, even though that clearly isn’t the case. He follows Jake around like he’s monitoring him, counting under his breath every time Jake grabs another can of beer, putting on a ruse of wanting to idly chat with him about class or whether or not Jay looks like he’s having fun or what the result will be when his soccer team plays against Jake’s next week. Jake continues to do his best imitation of what he thinks someone who is enjoying this party would look like, and gives Sunghoon half-assed answers as they drift around the room, until eventually, he looks back and finds that Sunghoon is no longer alone in his crusade to make sure Jake paces himself.

“Hey, buddy,” Jay greets, a fake smile plastered on his already irritating face. “Getting kind of late, don’t you think?”

Jake opens his mouth to answer, but he’s interrupted by a hiccup or two, and then his head spinning from the force of them. But he’s fine. He’s having fun, and he’s not wasting his life anymore. Surely, Sunghoon and Jay will support that, even if it may seem more like a spiral of some kind to them right now.

He should correct the record. All that comes out is another hiccup.

“You should probably slow down on the drinks, there, buddy.”

“Since when am I buddy?” Jake manages, and it comes out slurred and with a severe lisp, but – he gets his point across. Jay is being nice. Way too nice. “M’just – having fun. Like normal.”

Sunghoon and Jay share a glance, and Jake wants to throw his can at their heads, but – alas, he only has one. Oh, well. He can remedy that easily –

“Jake, dude, seriously,” Sunghoon stops him with a hand wrapped around his wrist as he reaches for another beer from the cooler, making Jake feel like a misbehaving child, so – he might as well stomp his feet and let out a whine that rivals the one he gets from Sunoo when he tells him he can’t copy off of him during pop quizzes he forgot to study for. “You’re a total lightweight. You gotta slow down.”

“I don’t gotta do anything,” Jake mumbles. “I never do anything.”

Jay and Sunghoon share another glance, and this one is full of concern. Jake is going to pelt them with cans until they’re nothing more than bloodied remains on the beer-covered floor.

He attempts to get Sunghoon off of him, wildly shaking his hand until he releases his grip on his wrist, freeing Jake to grab another can, now fully loaded and ready to strike at the next sign of interference.

The thing is, though, he doesn’t like this feeling, the one that he’s been left with after – according to Sunghoon – six beers. He feels slow, and sluggish, like his bones are made of gelatin and someone has turned up the heat and left him to melt. He doesn’t like how loud his voice is getting without his permission, and the way his exaggerated movements as he attempts to fight Sunghoon off again draw attention from everyone in their vicinity, and the way he can’t quite get his words to come out the way he wants them to, stumbling through a mess of half-finished sentences that go nowhere and do nothing to help him make his point – which is that he’s fine, that he’s been watching Jay and Sunghoon all night and knows that they’ve each had six beers, too, that he’s just catching up with them.

But, Jake knows now, he has a lot of catching up to do. And if he doesn’t start doing so tonight, then he won’t make it in time to walk across the stage and get his diploma as the person he’s realized he wants to be, a person who is prepared for the real world, a person who can have a few beers at a party and not be cornered by his two idiot best friends and –

Jay is lifting him. Jake thrashes in his hold as his arms wrap tightly around his waist, letting out a truly inhuman screech, attempting to drive his elbow into the side of his face as his feet kick out to keep Sunghoon from grabbing them. Jake fails, and Sunghoon succeeds, and firm hands wrap around his ankles, both his opened and unopened cans of beer dropping to the ground beneath him as he’s fully lifted off of it.

“Jesus,” Jay hisses as they carry him down the hall, as Jake strains his neck and tries to bite his arm. “He’s rabid.”

“He’s going through something,” Sunghoon snaps, offended on Jake’s behalf, even though he doesn’t actually know that, because Jake is so clearly just a normal guy at a normal party, having fun, like normal. Neither of them know anything. Jake should have unleashed hell on them with those cans when he had the chance.

They drop him onto his bed without any preamble or consideration for his comfort, and despite the great fight he gave them on the way to it, he sinks into the mattress like he really has started to melt. Jay untangles his duvet from his legs and pulls it up to Jake’s chin, tucking it in around Jake’s outline like he thought the blanket would serve as a makeshift prison cell if he did. He thought right. Jake suddenly can’t remember why he would ever want to not be in bed.

“We have to brush his teeth,” he hears Sunghoon say, and it kind of sounds like they’re underwater, but – Jake knows that’s probably impossible.

“Fuck no,” Jay says automatically.

Sunghoon’s next words are whispered, but Jake manages to catch them anyway, just barely. “You know he’s weird about dental care. He’ll be so mad if he wakes up with dirty teeth and a hangover.”

God, Jake really is such a loser.

“He’ll learn the hard way not to overdo it, then,” Jay counters, and Jake has the passing thought that they sound like they’re his parents and he’s their perplexing teenage son, and then his stomach lurches uncomfortably, and he sits up, leans over the side of his bed, and throws up on Jay’s socked feet. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Huh. Jake feels a lot better, actually. He slumps back down onto his pillows, and manages to almost completely tune out the ensuing chaos.

“Now we have to brush his teeth,” Sunghoon sighs, and Jake giggles, although he’s not really sure what’s so funny.

“You do it,” Jay says, sounding suddenly distant, the room filling with the sound of the party in the other room as he seemingly opens the door. “I’ve got his puke on my feet, so you get to put your fingers in his mouth.”

A fair trade, Jake thinks. He feels great. This night – and his first venture into his new way of life – couldn’t have gone any better.

Jake is probably the biggest idiot in the world.

“I’m the biggest idiot in the world,” he groans, and then waits for Sunghoon to reassure him, to tell him he’s not.

Sunghoon just hands him a glass of water, and offers him a pitying smile, and Jake lets out a sigh of agony. “It wasn’t that bad,” he says eventually, far too late for it to be believable.

The ache in the back of his head has moved to the front of his skull, right between his eyes, and it’s practically screaming in protest to Sunghoon’s weak assurance. His mouth is uncomfortably dry – although, his teeth are actually relatively clean, to his surprise and mild curiosity – and his throat is raw, only slightly soothed by the room temperature water as he gulps it down ungracefully.

“Did I throw up on Jay?” He asks once he’s finished the entire glass, handing it back to Sunghoon, who is no longer meeting his eyes.

“A little,” he says gently. “He’s fine, though. He showered for two hours straight, but – I’m sure he’s fine. Physically fine, at least.”

“I ruined his birthday, didn’t I?” Jake asks meekly.

“Of course not,” Sunghoon assures him. “He thought it was kinda funny, actually, once he wasn’t – you know. Covered in your vomit.”

Jake sighs again, but this one is a little more relieved, unburdened.

“He is worried about you, though,” Sunghoon tells him, tactlessly steering the conversation to where he wants it to go, where Jake would rather it stay far away from. Normally, he doesn’t have to worry about being confronted with his flaws like this, because Sunghoon avoids difficult conversations like the plague. Normally. But Jake is trying to break out of his normal and into a new one, so it makes sense, he supposes. “We both are. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

The words aren’t meant to offend Jake, but he bristles anyways, although he’s not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s the use of the word we, the way it makes him feel like they’re against him, like they’re standing in the way of what he vaguely remembers being a plan to put the three of them on more equal footing. Whatever it is, it’s enough to tinge his next words with annoyance.

“I was just trying to have fun,” Jake says bitterly. “I’m allowed to drink if I want to.”

“Sure,” Sunghoon agrees. “But you don’t want to. Your idea of a fun night is playing FIFA until your eyes burn and passing out at nine thirty.”

“Well, what’s your idea of a fun night?” Jake asks, even though up until last night, he was sure he knew the answer to that. Sunghoon’s idea of a fun night is playing FIFA with Jake and then making fun of him when he goes to bed at nine thirty.

Sunghoon shrugs. “I dunno,” he says. “But it’s definitely not a night where I watch my best friend almost choke on his own puke.”

“I did not,” Jake says indignantly. “Did I?”

“No,” Sunghoon admits. “But you could have, if we weren’t there.”

“I’m not a baby,” Jake huffs. “I can take care of myself.”

Sunghoon doesn’t protest, but he does reach over and pinch Jake’s cheek, silently protesting the idea.

“Okay, well – just because I don’t like drinking, that doesn’t mean I can’t have…” he trails off, unsure of how to describe what it was that he’d been searching for last night. “Fun,” he settles on eventually, even though it’s definitely getting repetitive at this point.

As he says it, Jay appears in his doorway out of seemingly nowhere, fulfilling his role as the apartment's suspected cryptid. His hair is dripping water, and there’s a towel slung over his shoulder. He must have showered again.

“What’s this really about?” Jay asks, in an all-too-familiar tone.

“Fucking psych majors,” Jake mutters under his breath, pressing his palms into his eyes and holding them there for a few long seconds before dropping them back into his lap. “How often do you two have – have sex?”

Sunghoon blinks, jaw dropping open, and looks over his shoulder at Jay, who is gawking at Jake like he’d just spoken an alien language. “I – we –”

“Oh, jesus,” Jake interrupts frantically. “I didn’t mean with each other. I hope the answer to that would be never.”

“Oh,” Sunghoon says dumbly. “Yeah, duh.”

Jay just continues to stare at him, visibly confused and slightly distressed.

“I mean like, in general. How much sex is a normal amount of sex to have? Or, like, how much drinking am I supposed to be doing? Or weed? Am I late to that, too? Is everyone already doing weed?”

“I don’t…” Sunghoon starts helplessly, looking at Jay again, mouthing something at him that Jake can’t quite catch.

“There’s not like, a monthly quota. We don’t really keep track,” Jay answers eventually. “Why?”

“Because I’m a loser,” Jake groans, bringing his hands back up to cover his face. “And I’ve never done anything, and I’m running out of time to do these things for the first time, because everyone is going to expect that I already have and I’m going to look like a total idiot when I have no idea what I’m doing, and –”

“Dude,” Jay interrupts. “Take a breath, my god.”

Jake takes a gasping breath, his cheeks puffing out as he holds it and waits for it to calm him down. It doesn’t, not even a little bit. “I’m going to die a loser.”

“I’m so glad you’re not overreacting,” Sunghoon mutters.

“I’m not overreacting,” Jake says stubbornly. “I’m twenty-two. I’m practically bones. And some archaeologist is going to look at my bones in a hundred years and they’re going to put them all in a little bag and label it twenty-two year old virgin who never did anything.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Jay, who Jake has just remembered is now twenty-three, and therefore even closer to his death bed than Jake is, says with a venomous glare.

“Please do,” Jake begs. “Put me out of my misery.”

“You never learned how to react to stress normally,” Jay points out.

“Stop psychoanalyzing me and help me,” he pleads with increasing desperation.

“How do you have this much energy when you’re hungover?” Sunghoon asks. “You’re a miracle of science.”

“No regular analyzing, either,” Jake snaps, silencing both of them and giving him a few seconds to think. “I just – I need you guys to help me have fun.”

“Jake,” Sunghoon starts, once again speaking to him like a petulant child, gently and condescendingly. “You know there’s no time limit, right? You have your whole life to do whatever you want forever, and you’re not a loser if you don’t. I think you’re cool.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Hey, the no psychoanalyzing rule goes both ways, okay?” Sunghoon says with a roll of his eyes. “What exactly are we supposed to do to help?”

“Well,” Jake starts, promptly realizing that he has no idea what the answer to that question is, that he has nothing resembling an actual plan. “Well – what are you guys doing tonight?”

Jay and Sunghoon share yet another glance, and this one comes with a silent conversation, one that lasts several seconds before their attention is back on Jake. They’re weird, lately. Jake’s never had an issue with feeling left out before, but now Jay and Sunghoon are acting weird, and suddenly he does. It’s something that would be worth dwelling on, if the no psychoanalyzing rule wasn’t currently in place.

“I mean, we were probably just going to watch a movie,” Jay says with an easy shrug.

“We do that every night,” Jake points out.

“We were going to smoke, and then watch a movie,” Sunghoon corrects. “Like we usually do.”

Jake frowns. “You don’t –”

“Jake,” Jay starts dryly. “You’re not very observant.”

“Hey,” Jake huffs, offended. “I am. I always know what’s going on with you guys.”

“Emotionally,” Sunghoon clarifies, “You always know what’s going on with us emotionally. But you – uh, you miss a lot of other stuff.”

And, as much as he hates to admit it, that is becoming increasingly clear to him as this conversation proceeds. He knew – has known, since high school – that Sunghoon and Jay were objectively more adventurous and, according to some, slightly cooler than Jake. He figured that out when they both spent all those weekends partying while Jake stayed home and hung out with his dog. He was all too aware of it when they both lost their respective virginities in their senior year of high school, while Jake stayed home and rewatched Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the third time. He knows that they can hold their liquor, that sometimes they come back from their evening walks to get snacks for movie night with red-rimmed eyes, a little more giggly than usual.

He also knows that, despite their differences in chosen lifestyle, they were his best friends in the world, and they would never leave Jake behind just because he preferred a quiet night in, just because he’d been raw-dogging life so far. And yet, it suddenly seems like a real possibility that they will – maybe not now, but one day, when Jake is too old to be this clueless, this boring.

He’s always known all of that. But he didn’t really know, not until last night, and now it feels like the most pressing issue to correct, more pressing than the exams he should definitely be focusing his energy on right now.

But, in a few years, what will he be more grateful for? The hours he’ll spend studying tonight only to barely manage a B+ instead of the C- he’ll get if he doesn’t crack open his textbook, or the time he spent with his two best friends, who feel increasingly distant these days but who Jake would really like to keep close, venturing into a new experience, a new feeling, one that he’ll surely look back on in a few years and be glad he got it over with back when life didn’t have nearly as many consequences?

The answer, to Jake, is crystal clear. He hopes it’s clear to Jay and Sunghoon, too, that when he says, “Count me in, then,” they still understand where he’s coming from and how he’d gotten there – even if he can’t quite keep track of it himself. It’s all still a bit of a blur.

“Dude, can you chill a bit?” Jay snaps, his irritation finally boiling over after only a few minutes of dealing with Jake’s anxious fussing. Really, Jake’s impressed that he lasted as long as he did before calling it out. “He’s going to think you’re a fucking narc, or something.”

“What?” Jake asks, panic seeping into his tone as Jay hand-delivers him a whole new reason to be on edge. “Why would he think that?”

Jay just gestures at him vaguely. Jake glances down at his hands, the torn and bloodied skin around his chewed fingernails, and sighs in defeat.

“I hate to agree with Jay, but – you are kind of giving off a weird vibe,” Sunghoon chimes in.

“Why do you hate to agree with me?” Jay asks, eyes narrowing as he reaches record levels of irritation.

“I said we should just go to the dispensary down the street,” Jake hisses, interrupting the inevitable argument before it has a chance to break out between the two of them, redirecting it to a whole different one, one that’s been ongoing since Sunghoon scribbled out the contents of the list that now hangs proudly displayed under two magnets on their fridge.

Speedrunning Jake’s Quarter Life Crisis

Step 1. Get drunk and throw up on Jay

Step 1.5. Throw up on Sunghoon next, see how he likes it (stricken from the record)

Step 2. Become a useless stoner like my Yodas

Step 2.5. Never ever refer to Sunghoon and Jay as your Yodas ever again

Step 3. Go to a party that isn’t taking place approximately five feet from your bedroom door

Step 4. Get laid!!

Step 5. Realize that none of this actually matters or is any metric of how fulfilled you’ll feel in life (stricken from the record) (Too depressing! No psychoanalyzing! Party time!!)

“I told you, I don’t have government weed money,” Sunghoon reminds him. “I have cheap, shady weed money, and you’re just going to have to take it for what it is.”

“Why is it shady?” Jake asks frantically.

“It’s not,” Jay interjects, before things can surely spiral out of control. “It’s just stronger, which means it might actually be strong enough to get you to chill for once.”

“I was kidding. We’ve known this guy for years,” Sunghoon says, more than a bit impatiently. “He doesn’t lace his shit.”

And, okay. Jake’s best friends are just complete and total strangers to him now, apparently. That’s fine. He’s totally chill.

Except he’s not, not at all. He’s standing in a children’s playground behind the elementary school he’s pretty sure his little cousin attends, and he can’t stop looking behind him to see if he can spot cameras on the outside of the building, and he’s shaking so violently that Sunghoon had offered him his gloves, thinking Jake was just experiencing hypothermia and not a debilitating panic attack.

He’d assumed, incorrectly, that Jay and Sunghoon would have taken care of this part without Jake needing to be present for it. He’d assumed, when he followed them out of their apartment, bundled up to combat the cool spring air with a long puffer jacket haphazardly pulled over his Batman logo printed pyjamas, that they were just going to find a relatively discreet park to smoke in, something that was only slightly illegal, something that Jake can dissociate his way through and later convince himself he was never apart of to begin with.

This, though – waiting for Sunghoon and Jay’s shady drug dealer friend whose name he doesn’t even know to sell them some potentially laced weed – he’ll find a little harder to untangle himself from when he tries to justify his actions to Future Jake, who will surely be dealing with the consequences, probably rotting in a jail cell somewhere and wondering where it all went wrong.

Here. It goes wrong here, and now, when Sunghoon mutters, “About fucking time,” and Jake’s eyes snap over to an approaching shadowy figure, tall and mostly shapeless due to his own jacket, ducking under the slide to reach them like he’s taking alternate routes to throw someone off his tail – maybe the cops, and Jake’s palms are sweating, he might be having a heart attack, he’s not sure – before finally being illuminated by the streetlight they were standing parallel with, just enough for Jake to make out some of his features, and – he’s definitely having a heart attack.

“Hey,” Weed Guy greets casually, one hand emerging from where it’d been in the pocket of the hoodie he’s wearing under his coat, so he can greet Sunghoon and Jay with one of those handshakes that turns into a half-hug that Jake never really understood the appeal of.

“Hey, man,” Jay says as they pull away, and Jake spots a bill sticking out of Weed Guy’s fist as he shoves it back inside his hoodie, and when he glances at Jay, he sees him shoving a plastic bag into his pocket. The hardest part is already over, and yet, Jake is still experiencing a coronary event. “How’ve you been?”

Weed Guy shrugs. “Can’t complain. Who’s this?”

Jake blinks. He’d kind of forgotten that Weed Guy would actually be able to perceive him, but he remembers all at once when he turns to look at him, one side of his mouth lifting into an amused smirk. Jake feels a little cornered, all of a sudden, trapped between this stranger and the swingset he’s standing in front of and Jay and Sunghoon at his side, also strangers, now.

He opens his mouth to attempt a response, but all that comes out is a squeaky, choked out, “Uh,” and then nothing, and he’s left to just stare at Weed Guy, abandoned by the one thing he’s supposed to always be able to rely on – his ability to talk his way out of uncomfortable situations.

“Jake,” Sunghoon answers for him. “Our roommate.”

Weed Guy’s smirk becomes a full fledged smile, toothy and blindingly white, his eyes wrinkling at the corners and his cheeks dimpling ever so slightly. Jake has sweat pouring out of every gland on his body. “Oh, the famous Jake. I’m Heeseung,” he tells him, then tacks on, with what Jake thinks is genuine concern in his voice and on his face, “Uh, you good?”

He wonders if he’s using an alias. Jake certainly wouldn’t go around giving out his real name, if he was a drug dealer. Not that Heeseung isn’t a perfectly normal name – it’s nice, actually – although Jake’s tongue feels a little too thick in his mouth to attempt to do an impression of a normal person and repeat it back to him and say nice to meet you, Heeseung.

“He’s fine,” Jay assures him. “We don’t let him out much.”

“Ah,” Heeseung nods in understanding. “First time?”

Jake tries to lick his lips, but his tongue is now so dry that it feels like he’s rubbing sandpaper against sandpaper, so he just nods, and presses his mouth into a thin line until it ideally resembles a smile. He’s chill. He’s so chill.

“I almost feel bad sending you off with these two dipshits, then,” Heeseung jokes, getting only a half-hearted protest from Jay and Sunghoon in response, who are self aware enough to know that they are, in fact, dipshits. “They’re terrible babysitters.”

Jake knows that. They were on the shit list of every mom in the area they grew up in for providing less-than-ideal care to various neighbourhood kids over the years.

Actually – why did he think this was a good idea? Why did he think these two idiots could help him be chill, and calm, and cool, when they’ve only ever been able to raise his blood pressure and give him stress headaches, historically? Why is he trusting them with any of this, at all? Has he lost his mind?

Probably. And if he’s already lost his mind, the last thing he should be doing is clouding his senses even further, especially not with this shady, back-alley weed, that’s stronger, that comes from a guy he barely knows – even though he’s a guy with a nice smile and a nice fake name and apparently with no intentions of lacing his shit, whatever that means.

“I, uh – I –” Jake starts, stammering his way through the simple syllable. “I have to go feed my cat.”

Heeseung’s eyes go a little round in surprise, and that’s the last glimpse Jake gets of his would-be provider of weed before he’s turning on his heel and bolting in the general direction of the safe haven that is their apartment. Jake doesn’t have a cat, but he does have another panic attack on the horizon, one he’d much rather have with a clear head, in the comfort of his own bedroom, playing FIFA until he passes out at nine thirty – the perfect night. He can’t believe he ever let himself doubt that.

And if Heeseung didn’t think he was a narc before, he probably does now. Jake’s fine with that. It’s not like he’s ever going to see him again.

Jake is wrenched out of the fugue state he’d just gotten comfortable in, kicking and screaming, by incessant fingers snapping mere inches away from his nose.

“Are you even hearing me right now, dude?” Jay asks, his tone overflowing with irritation.

“What?” Jake looks over at him, tearing his eyes away from the partially covered piece of paper he’d been boring his eyes into for the last fifteen minutes or so.

“I said, you’re paying the electricity bill this month,” Jay repeats, swatting Jake’s hand away from where it’s still holding the fridge door open and shoving it closed with only minor resistance – the resistance in question being the door slamming into Jake’s hip, but he hardly even reacts, just steps out of the way to let it shut and seal all the cold air he’d been wasting back where it belongs. “Do I need to, like, call someone?”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know. A professional,” Jay says vaguely.

“You’re a professional.”

“I’m on year four of a bachelor’s degree. I’m not qualified to give you the help you need.”

“Which is…?”

Jay shrugs. “A lobotomy?”

“He’s already basically lobotomized,” Sunghoon chimes in from where he’s stretched out on the couch, an abandoned textbook on the floor beside him, his phone propped up on his chin like he’d just dropped it in favour of joining in on criticizing Jake. “Like I said, he’s a miracle of science. He can still talk and everything.”

“You guys always know what to say,” Jake mumbles, opening the fridge door one more time to grab what he actually opened it for. Ketchup, for his – fuck. His chicken tenders, which were supposed to be taken out of the oven approximately fifteen minutes ago.

Jake darts over to the oven, and opens the door only to fill the kitchen with the smell of burnt breadcrumbs. He groans, and resists the urge to make a nihilistic proclamation about how badly he wants to end his life. It would only upset Sunghoon, he reasons.

Sunghoon laughs, loud and mean, finding joy in Jake’s suffering.

“Okay, just for trying to burn the place down and kill us both, you’re paying extra rent this month, too,” Jay declares.

“I’m going to go take a nap on the highway,” Jake replies, taking his ruined chicken tenders out of the oven and unceremoniously dropping them into the trash.

“Dude,” Sunghoon sighs, sitting up, surely doing what he always does, and coming to Jake’s metaphorical rescue just when he finds himself sure that everything in the world is hell-bent on his destruction. “Just finish the list.”

Nevermind. Jake shoots him a glare – a mistake, because the action has his gaze gliding past the fridge behind him again, and the list, the same list that’s been taunting him for the last two weeks, reminding him of his failure to turn around his boring, predictable life every time he has to get the milk for his boring, predictable Honey Nut Cheerios.

In one week, Jake’s exams will begin. One week after that, he’ll graduate, and officially fail at having even a small sliver of the university experience. And Jake’s grades may not be great, but he’s still not crazy about the idea of failing anything.

His procrastination has left him with only a week to pull himself together and live a little, and now it feels like an impossible task. There’s just not enough time. Between all the time he spends studying, and all the time he spends zoning out, and all the time he spends trying to figure out why Jay and Sunghoon are acting so weird lately, he’d have to knock the other three steps of his quarter life crisis management course tonight, or it’ll be a total bust.

It’s impossible. Jake’s made his peace with that.

Unless, of course –

“What are you guys doing tonight?” He asks, his question instantly met with a chorus of agonized groans from Sunghoon and Jay.

“Nope,” Jay answers after his small tantrum. “Absolutely not. We’re not doing this again.”

“You know, Heeseung is still asking about you. You freaked him out. I thought we were going to have to find a new plug.”

Jake wrinkles his nose in disgust. “What the fuck is a plug?” He asks, then pauses, and realizes he doesn’t actually want to know the answer to that. “Heeseung’s asking about me?”

Jay and Sunghoon share another one of their loaded glances. Jake doesn’t even want to try to interpret it. He’s not sure he actually wants the answer to his second question, either. He’s not even sure why he asked it, because it doesn’t matter, not really. He’s never going to see Heeseung again.

“We’re going to a party,” Jay finally answers. “You can come if you want, but if you do anything weird this time, you’re getting that lobotomy and we're raising your rent permanently.”

“I’ll be so normal,” Jake assures them, even though they all know by now that he’s not capable of making such promises. “This is perfect. I’m gonna set a speedrunning record.”

This time, he’s the one on the receiving end of one of Jay and Sunghoon’s communicative stares, but – he’s not so sure they speak the same language anymore. He just stares back.

“Jake, the list was a joke, you know that, right? You don’t actually have to do all of that tonight,” Sunghoon says slowly, deliberately. “It might be a little much for you.”

“Nothing is too much for me,” Jake says confidently, even though his burnt chicken tenders had almost sent him into a full-fledged spiral. Everything is too much for him.

But not tonight. Tonight, Jake is leaving his cocoon, and he’s going to spread his wings, and Jay and Sunghoon will have no choice but to admit defeat when he becomes the most beautiful, normal, chill butterfly the world has ever seen.

“Jake!” Sunoo exclaims, appearing in front of Jake in a way that makes him flinch in surprise – which, he probably shouldn’t be walking into a party on full alert like this, like he’s anticipating an attack and not just a friendly encounter with a group of his peers, but oh well. He’s trying. “What are you doing here?”

He resents the confusion evident in Sunoo’s tone, but tries not to dwell on it. “Uh, partying?”

“Since when!” Sunoo has to yell to be heard over the thumping music.

“Since he had a mental breakdown,” Jay helpfully supplies before Jake gets a chance to answer.

“A quarter life crisis,” Sunghoon corrects. “It’s very serious. It might be terminal.”

“Oh, no,” Sunoo says, pressing a hand to his chest in sympathy. “How can I help?”

“Well, we have this list,” Jay starts, ignoring Jake’s attempts to silence him by slapping a hand over his mouth, shoving him away with ease. “Like a bucket list. And the only two things left for him to try are weed and sex, so –”

“Dude,” Jake hisses, his hands briefly wrapping around Jay’s neck in what he hopes is a sufficient threat. “He doesn’t need to know about the list.”

“That’s cute,” Sunoo coos. “But I can’t help with either of those. I’m broke, and Jungwon and I are back on as of last night, so. I’ll cheer you on?”

“That’s, what, the fifth time you two have gotten back together this year?” Jake asks, trying to keep the judgment out of his voice.

“I think so,” Sunoo hums in consideration.

“It’s only May,” Sunghoon points out, voicing what Jake wasn’t going to in the name of not judging. At least Sunoo has a romantic life of some kind.

“Actually,” Sunoo continues, unphased by their criticism of his situationship from hell, his gaze moving to somewhere just past them, an almost wicked smile growing on his face. “Maybe I can help with both.”

“I mean, I’m – I’m flattered, but –” Jake starts, quickly cut off by Sunoo grabbing him by the shoulders and forcibly turning him around, giving him a small shove that sends him a few stumbling steps forward. “Oh,” he says dumbly. “Uh, that’s not – I’m not –”

“Hey, Jake,” Heeseung says coolly, closing the front door behind him just in time to catch the tail end of Jake’s panicked rambling. He doesn’t seem phased by it, pulling Jake in like they’re old friends for one of those half-hug things that he suddenly completely understands the appeal of, greeted by Heeseung’s impossible warmth even after coming in from the cold, the lingering smell of smoke poorly concealed by a cologne that makes Jake a little dizzy. “Didn’t think I’d see you here. How’s your cat?”

“Ha,” Jake manages after a moment of confusion, remembering his past self’s excuse, taking a step away from Heeseung as soon as he’s released in the hopes of rejoining the safety of standing with his friends, only – they’re all gone. Of course they are. Jake is standing alone, face to face with Heeseung the Weed Guy, and he’s smiling at him again, and – another heart attack? Really? “Um, my cat is – fine. Totally not starving anymore,” he answers, then adds, “I uh, didn’t think I’d see you, either. Do you even go to school here?”

Jake might just have the worst case of foot-in-mouth syndrome in documented human history.

Heeseung laughs with his whole body, tossing his head back and clutching at his stomach like Jake had just executed a stand-up routine with flawless form instead of just being kind of rude. “Uh, no, I don’t,” he tells him when he recovers. “But, you know – no one dishes out more cash for mediocre weed than drunk college students.”

“Sunghoon and Jay said your – your stuff is good, though.”

“The stuff I gave you is good,” Heeseung clarifies. “Only the best, for your first time.”

Jake blinks. He’s no expert – god, he wishes Sunoo had stuck around, to whisper in his ear like his fairy godmother, to tell him what exactly he meant by being able to help Jake with both of his remaining tasks when he shoved him – but he thinks Heeseung might be flirting with him. Maybe. “Oh,” he says dumbly, and can’t manage to come up with anything more eloquent than that.

“How was it, by the way?”

“Um,” Jake starts, thinking back to that night, to the way he’d gone straight to bed upon his early arrival at his apartment, completely sober and completely humiliated. “It was great. A super, uh – chill time.”

“Cool,” Heeseung says easily, looking a little amused by Jake again. He’s sure he’s already managed to fumble this, and yet – Heeseung doesn’t make any effort to remove himself from the painful conversation, staying firmly planted in their chosen spot near the door, hands in his pockets, looking completely in his element. “I would have brought more, if I knew you were going to be here.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Jake says quickly, waving a dismissive hand and forcing a small laugh. “I’ll – I’m good with the mediocre stuff. I’m not picky.”

Heeseung tilts his head, a strange expression overtaking his face – it’s similar to the one Jake saw on Sunghoon’s face when they were making their way across campus earlier that night, when Jay tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and promptly spent nearly a minute cursing at it until Jake reminded him that the sidewalk was incapable of understanding him and learning from its mistakes.

It’s fondness. Endearment, even. Jake’s good at reading people’s emotions. The problem, of course, is that he never knows what he’s supposed to do with them.

“Someone like you shouldn’t have to settle for mediocrity,” Heeseung says, and – okay, he’s definitely flirting with him. Either that, or he’s been reading Jay’s psychology books and is using their contents to give him unsolicited advice. “Actually, uh – I don’t live too far from here, and I have more at home, if you wanted to…?”

He trails off, as if Jake is supposed to be able to piece together what exactly he was offering. He does, but only after several long, painful seconds. Heeseung the Weed Guy, a practical stranger, is asking if he wants to go to his house. His drug den. To do drugs together.

And, the thing is, Jake is considering it. Or, he’s not not considering it, at the very least.

“I don’t want to, like, interfere with your business, or anything,” he says, vaguely gesturing over his shoulder at the party in full swing, the one he’d barely stepped foot into, the one he was not not considering leaving already. After all, leaving parties comically early is his specialty. This is, when he thinks about it, perfectly in line with that – except for all the ways it isn’t, all the ways it’s completely insane for him to be not not considering it.

“I’ll live,” Heeseung assures him. “They’ll all live, too. I really did only bring my worst.”

Jake laughs, feeling suspiciously calm, uncharacteristically chill. Maybe Heeseung can just do that, simultaneously with his ability to give Jake a heart attack. Either way – it’s so rare that the idea of doing anything slightly risky doesn’t make Jake want to flee, and he definitely doesn’t want to flee right now. He wants to flee this party, perhaps, and go wherever Heeseung is going, but that doesn’t feel much like running away at all. It feels more like running towards something, maybe the thing he’s been working towards this whole time, the person he wants to be, the life he wants to lead.

Jake is out of his cocoon. And this chance, with Heeseung, opening the front door for Jake and nodding once in question, looks a whole lot like light at the end of a rather pathetic tunnel. Butterflies follow the light. So Jake follows Heeseung.

Jake peers over Heeseung’s shoulder, unable to fight his curiosity as he opens a plastic bag that fills the air around them with the strong smell of weed. Actually, he hasn’t even tried to fight his curiosity at any point in the night, not since Heeseung held the back door to his parents’ house open and let Jake into his basement dwelling.

He’d investigated every nook and cranny of Heeseung’s bedroom, staring hard at the posters lining the wood panel walls and the piles of clothing on the floor like they would reveal some hidden truth about him. But Heeseung seemed like a perfectly normal twenty-something-year-old drug dealer, and Jake hadn’t managed to come up with any reason to flee, so. He’d stayed. And he’d sat down on Heeseung’s sofa bed, which was more sofa than bed at the moment, and he’d made himself at home, which Heeseung had instructed him to do after welcoming him to his humble abode.

Heeseung has a whole set-up, a whole operation going, which Jake shouldn’t be surprised by, all things considered. Out of a box with an unused lock on it, he’d pulled out a small, cylindrical object, and a bag of the dried green-ish plant that Jake had only ever gotten a glimpse of when Jay took it from Heeseung and shoved it in his pocket the first night they met, and a few slightly translucent squares of paper, and Jake watched with fascination as he opened the cylindrical object – a grinder, of some kind – and put a few small buds of weed into it before closing it and giving it a few twists.

Heeseung glances over his shoulder, and laughs a bit, and Jake flinches away on instinct, cheeks heating ever so slightly as he slumps into the cushion of the sofa bed and makes himself small. “It’s fine,” Heeseung assures him. “Jay and Sunghoon didn’t show you this part?”

“Uh,” Jake starts, taking a moment to try to come up with an explanation for his surely obvious cluelessness, and then quickly realizing that he’d only be making things more difficult for himself if he did. And, contrary to popular belief, Jake’s not in the business of making his life difficult on purpose. “I didn’t actually… uh, I just went home and went to bed, honestly. I kind of chickened out.”

Heeseung smiles knowingly, making it clear that he’d already suspected as much. “Well, don’t let me pressure you,” he says easily. “You can chicken out this time, too.”

“No, I can’t,” Jake says automatically. It’s a little too easy to talk to Heeseung now, compared to the first time he tried to. “I’m on a time limit.”

Heeseung looks at him again, eyebrows raised in interest. “A time limit?”

“I’m speedrunning my quarter life crisis,” Jake explains simply. “It was Sunghoon and Jay’s idea.”

Heeseung pauses for a moment, processing Jake’s words, and then he laughs, and shakes his head. “They would think of some dumb shit like that,” he sighs. “I guess that’s why they work so well together, though, right?”

And Jake doesn’t know what he means by that, so he just laughs too. “I guess so,” he agrees, even though he kind of thinks Jay and Sunghoon only work well together when it comes to the field of ruining Jake’s life.

“So, what exactly does speedrunning a quarter life crisis entail?” Heeseung asks, still absentmindedly twisting the grinder.

“Well,” Jake starts, not even considering leaving out some of the more embarrassing details of the predicament he’d found himself in, “Basically, I’m a total loser, and I’ve never actually done anything, so – we made a list. And I have to finish the list before I graduate, or else I’ll be doomed to a whole entire lifetime of being a loser.”

Heeseung just stares at him for a moment, brows drawing together in something like confusion, or maybe just consideration. “Like what?”

“What?”

“What’s on the list?”

“Uh, just – stupid stuff. You know.”

“Getting high?” He asks, waving around the grinder in his hand.

“Yeah,” Jake admits. “And getting drunk, and going to a party – I’ve already done those two now, technically. And then, uh…” he trails off, pausing for a long moment and waiting for Heeseung to avert his gaze somewhere else, to free Jake from the cycle of endless humiliation he’d positioned himself in the middle of. He never does. Jake swallows, and drops his gaze to the fabric of the couch in between them, picking at it mindlessly, and adds, “And then losing my virginity.”

The air around them suddenly fills with silence, so thick he’s a little worried he’s about to choke on it, holding his breath and keeping perfectly still as he waits for Heeseung to respond, to give any sort of reaction at all. But Heeseung has gone perfectly still, has ceased spinning the grinder in his hands, and he’s just staring at Jake, but Jake can’t bring himself to meet his eyes.

“That doesn’t make you a loser,” Heeseung says eventually, and Jake lifts his head quickly enough to strain the muscles of his neck and cause a brief moment of pain. He ignores it. “All of that stuff is, like – meaningless, you know?”

“It means something to me,” Jake says stubbornly. “I don’t… I don’t want to be the only one that hasn’t done anything. It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not embarrassing,” Heeseung insists. “You’re just – going at your own pace.”

Jake scoffs out a small laugh. “Well, not anymore. I’m speedrunning it, now.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” Jake agrees without thought. “That’s why I’m here. I never would have done something like this before.”

Heeseung grins, but doesn’t say anything, and a moment later, the implication of Jake’s words sink in, and he feels every inch of his skin flush with embarrassment.

“I mean, that’s not the only reason I’m here,” Jake clarifies quickly. “Or, well, I guess I did come here for the drugs, but not for – for the other thing.”

“Sure,” Heeseung agrees easily, accepting Jake’s explanation at face value, and yet – Jake still feels the urge to keep explaining himself.

“Not that I wouldn’t have sex with you,” he says, knowing full well that he’s making a fool of himself, yet seemingly unable to stop, “I mean – I’m sure it’d be, uh, nice and all. But I’m just here for the drugs. And – to hang out. As friends,” he finishes lamely.

“Okay,” Heeseung says, his tone perfectly even, his expression neutral – if not a little amused. “We should probably get you those drugs, then, yeah?” He finally looks back at his grinder contraption and peeks inside, as if checking on the quality of his work. He clearly isn’t satisfied by what he finds. He shuts it again, and continues his efforts to make the plant finer and finer.

“Probably,” Jake sighs. “Although I doubt they’ll make me any less…” he gestures vaguely at the air around him, the air he’d already once again filled with useless, anxious chattering. “Sunghoon says I’m a miracle of science. My determination to be the most high-strung person in the room is more powerful than any substance.”

Heeseung laughs, his eyes wrinkling at the corners, his cheeks puffing out. He’s cute. Really cute. Jake should not have come here. “I don’t know,” he says, almost absentmindedly. “I think you’re pretty cool.”

“You’re the only one,” Jake snorts, his face heating right alongside the warmth suddenly blooming in his chest.

“Jay and Sunghoon think you’re cool,” Heeseung assures him, glancing over at him every other second, even as he opens the grinder again and unceremoniously dumps some of the finely-ground weed onto the square of paper in front of him. “They talk about you all the time.”

“They think I’m a mess,” Jake corrects. “They think I wouldn’t be able to take two steps out of the house without them there to remind me how to put one foot in front of the other.”

“Is that why you’re doing all of this?” He asks, looking over his shoulder properly at him. “You’re trying to prove them wrong?”

“I guess so,” Jake shrugs, sitting up a bit where he’d sunken into the rather uncomfortable sofa bed, until he can peer over Heeseung’s shoulder, watching him carefully arrange the ground weed into a line in the middle of the paper. For a moment, he’s concerned that he’s going to be expected to snort it, but then Heeseung starts deftly rolling it into something that looks more like a cigarette with practiced ease. His hands are nice. “But I think it’s more like… I don’t want to fall behind, you know what I mean?”

Heeseung nods, giving no other acknowledgement, giving Jake the space to continue if he so chooses.

Jake, for once, is going to choose the option that doesn’t involve oversharing and embarrassing himself even more than he already has. “Anyways,” he manages after a long moment of watching Heeseung’s fingers twist the paper closed, “Is that one for me?”

“Nope,” Heeseung says automatically, taking the apparently finished product and putting it between his lips, slumping against the back of the couch and digging his lighter out of his pocket. Jake tries very hard not to blatantly stare at his mouth. “You get two hits,” he adds, the words slightly mumbled now that his mouth is otherwise occupied.

“That’s it?” Jake frowns.

“That’s it,” Heeseung confirms. “Like I said, it’s strong. And I’m not going to let you green out your first time.”

And Jake doesn’t know what that means, but he thinks that this is Heeseung being considerate. He seems to do that a lot. “Okay,” Jake agrees with no attempt at an argument, distracted by watching Heeseung light the rolled up paper between his lips, fascinated by the way the small flame eats at the paper and the plant inside, definitely not fascinated by Heeseung’s mouth wrapped around it.

Heeseung takes a long drag, and then takes it between his thumb and index finger, holding it out to Jake in offering.

“I don’t…” he trails off, swallowing back the sudden build-up of spit in his mouth. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

Heeseung sits up, his knee bumping Jake’s as he does, and then he’s holding the still-lit paper so it’s level with Jake’s face. “Just put it between your lips,” Heeseung instructs, his eyes flickering down to his mouth as he does. Jake is sure that the normal thing to do would be to take it between his fingers and then put it in his mouth, but that’s not what he does. He leans forward, his bottom lip brushing Heeseung’s thumb as he wraps his lips around where Heeseung’s lips had just been moments prior. An indirect kiss. Jake’s having another heart attack. “And then just take a breath. Not too deep, and go slow.”

Jake tries his best to follow Heeseung’s instructions. Really, he does. But Heeseung is so close, mere inches from his face, close enough to see every small acne scar and blackhead dotting his honey-toned skin, close enough to see the wrinkles around his eyes up close as he smiles, because he’s smiling at Jake, with that same fond look from earlier, and –

Smoke enters Jake’s lungs in the very same moment that he decides to try and cough one of them up, pulling away from Heeseung and surely covering him in spit as he goes, doubling over as he wheezes and hacks his way through his first attempt.

Heeseung is patting his back, and Jake can’t tell if he’s doing it to comfort him, or out of concern that he’s actually managed to choke on something, but either way, his near-death experience comes to an end a moment later.

“Sorry,” Jake gasps out, still fighting his way through a few lingering coughs. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re good,” Heeseung says with an easy laugh. “I’d be more concerned if that didn’t happen.”

“Can I try again?” Jake asks, even though his lungs are still burning. He wants to be good at this.

“Give it a minute,” Heeseung answers gently. “There’s no rush.”

Jake certainly feels like there is. That’s his whole problem. But he doesn’t want to get into his problems again, not right now at least, so he just swallows them all back, and nods.

He watches Heeseung smoke for a while, and then watches him roll another joint – as he’d explained to Jake they were called, as well as breaking down exactly how he rolls them, in case you ever want to show off in front of Jay and Sunghoon – and after a few minutes, he clears his throat, and declares, “I don’t think I feel any different.”

Heeseung laughs a bit, shaking his head. “I think you do.”

“Why?” Jake asks, tilting his head in curiosity.

“Because that’s the first time you’ve spoken in ten minutes.”

Jake blinks, and then feels every inch of his skin flush in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I’m – I talk a lot, I know.”

“I like it,” Heeseung assures him. “Really. I was worried I’d lost you there, for a second.”

“Ha,” Jake forces out, but it’s not nearly as light or humorous as he means it to be.

“You wanna try again?” Heeseung asks, breezing right past Jake’s awkwardness, something he’s thankful for, something he seems to not even think twice about before doing.

Jake nods, and then the new joint is positioned in front of his lips again. He takes it between his fingers this time, just like Heeseung had, and his eyes go a little crossed as he tries to watch Heeseung light it, his lightly calloused thumb flicking his lighter on with ease.

He still coughs, but it’s far less violent this time, and far less embarrassing. Heeseung laughs at him, but it doesn’t feel cruel, and Jake finds himself laughing too, even as he sputters and smacks his fist against his chest in his attempt to clear his airways.

“How do you not cough?” Jake asks.

“Practice,” Heeseung answers simply. “You should hear me in the mornings, though. Smoker’s lung is no joke.”

Jake would very much like to hear Heeseung in the morning. He’d like to spend the night with him, and wake up beside him, even if it’s on this shitty sofa bed in this stuffy basement, even if Heeseung wakes him up coughing, even if Sunghoon and Jay would surely make fun of him when he’s dropped off after breakfast – because he thinks Heeseung would be the type to make him breakfast and drive him home and treat him with the same care that he’s treating him with now.

Jake’s never felt like this before. He’s felt the urge to hook up with people, sure – but only because he thought he was supposed to, that it was expected of him. And those reasons were never enough to build his nerve and have him follow through on his interest, but this, whatever this is, might just be.

Heeseung is so close, even now that he’s not holding the joint for Jake, even now that he’s taken it back and taken another few drags of it for himself. He’s so close, and his gaze keeps flickering down to his mouth, and Jake could just lean in and close the distance, and he doesn’t think Heeseung would stop him. He thinks Heeseung might want him to.

And then Heeseung turns away from Jake, and he taps the joint against the side of the ashtray, extinguishing it. Jake feels the moment, his moment, slip out of his reach. He’d waited too long. He’d wasted too much time, wasted his chance, like he always does.

“So,” Heeseung starts, leaning back and stretching his legs out in front of him, “How are you feeling?”

Bad, Jake thinks. Terrible. Like a complete and total loser.

“Good,” he answers. “Um, I think, at least. I don’t really know what I’m feeling, honestly.”

“It’s weird,” Heeseung agrees, “To actually feel yourself relax for the first time.”

“Like you would know,” Jake says automatically, hoping it doesn’t come off as rude, sure that it probably does. “You seem like you’re always relaxed.”

Heeseung shrugs, unphased as usual. “Not always,” he answers vaguely. “Why do you think I like this shit so much?” He gestures to the table in front of him.

Jake hums, moving to make himself more comfortable, too, making sure he’s still facing Heeseung as he pulls his legs up onto the couch and leans the side of his head against the back of it, where the padding is still thick, not worn down from years of Heeseung sleeping on it. He’s starting to feel a little warm all over, but it’s far more pleasant than the sticky, uncomfortable warmth that drinking brought. He just feels like someone’s wrapped him in a blanket, like he’s pulled it over his head, safe from the world yet still able to observe it through a vellum-like haze.

“I think I like it, too,” Jake says quietly.

Heeseung smiles, turning his head to look at him again, not saying anything for a long moment. “Well, I’m glad I could be of service,” he says. “And I’m glad you didn’t have to go through this for the first time with Jay and Sunghoon. Like I said, they’re terrible babysitters.”

Jake hums again, but this one doesn’t sound nearly as convincing. “They don’t understand,” he sighs after a moment. “They have their shit together. They’re great,” Jake clarifies. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re my best friends, and they’re really…”

“The best?” Heeseung offers.

“The best,” Jake agrees. “But – I don’t know. It’s not their fault they figured their shit out and I didn’t, but… sometimes I blame them anyways. Or I blame myself, maybe, for not catching up with them faster. It’s like, one day we were all just kids, and nothing really mattered, and we didn’t have to worry about any of this shit, and then – and then one day, we’re adults, and no one ever told me that this shit was going to feel like a marathon, like everyone’s just doing laps around me before I ever even realized I’d fallen behind. You know what I mean?”

Heeseung snorts, and nods, leaning back even more, until his head is almost fully tilted towards the ceiling. “Yeah,” he admits. “I know what you mean. But – you’ve got all the time in the world. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

And again, the crux of the problem, of Jake’s behaviour over the last few weeks, is that he doesn’t believe that at all. The problem is that Jake can feel time as it breezes past him, whisked away by a force of nature he has no control over. But right now – maybe because of the weed, making everything feel a little slowed down in a way he actually kind of likes, or maybe because of Heeseung, the calm aura he radiates, the pause he always takes before speaking like he knows he has the time to choose the right words in the right order – he really feels like he has all the time he could ever need.

Maybe he does have all the time in the world. But, still – he doesn’t want to waste it.

“Can I ask you something?” Jake asks, and Heeseung turns his head to face him, a slightly dopey smile on his lips that Jake has a hard time looking away from.

“Shoot,” Heeseung says easily.

“I – I only have one thing left on my list now,” he says, barely able to bring his voice above a whisper.

“That’s not a question,” Heeseung teases, even though Jake can tell he knows exactly what he’s trying to say.

“I know,” Jake says, biting down on his bottom lip for a few long seconds, watching Heeseung trace the movement with his own gaze. “I think I’m going to chicken out again.”

“That’s okay,” Heeseung says. “There’s no rush.”

Jake nods, pressing his teeth a little harder into the slightly raw skin of his lip.

“Or,” Heeseung starts, slowly, drawing out the vowel, taking his time. “I can ask, if you want.”

Jake nods again. He realizes that he’s been leaning in without realizing, drawn to Heeseung like a magnet, because their noses are almost brushing, because he can smell his cologne again, and the smoke that it’s attempting to disguise.

“Can I kiss you?” Heeseung asks, but – he never gets an answer. Because Jake kisses him first, closing the miniscule amount of distance between them, slotting their mouths together and letting out a shaky breath through his nose when he instantly feels a little dizzy – maybe because he’s definitely a little high, or maybe because he’s just a little high on Heeseung, on this moment, on the relief that finally kissing him after waiting what feels like an eternity, but in reality has only been an hour or so. Maybe he’s just high on that feeling, of the way time has seemingly slowed around them, like they have as much of it as they could ever want.

And Jake wants.

Heeseung pulls away, and Jake resists the urge to whine, because the kiss he’d been waiting an eternity for had only lasted a few seconds, had barely gone anywhere at all.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Heeseung asks, and Jake blinks, his eyes taking a moment to properly focus on the fingers now inches from his face.

“Two,” Jake answers automatically. “Wait – what?”

“I don’t know how else to make sure that you’re sober enough for this,” Heeseung admits. “Uh, say the alphabet backwards.”

“I couldn’t even do that sober,” Jake says. “But – I’m good. I don’t even feel that different, just – good. I just feel good.”

Heeseung doesn’t stop him when he leans in again. He doesn’t stop him when he connects their mouths, this time with a bit more enthusiasm, a bit more purpose behind every small movement, the steadying hand that lands on Heeseung’s chest, the way Jake scoots closer to Heeseung until his knees bump against his thigh, a small thrill shooting through him when his closeness is accepted, and encouraged. Heeseung takes him by the small of his waist and pulls him in, until he’s practically sitting on his lap.

Heeseung’s lips are chapped. His mouth tastes like weed, but then again, Jake’s probably does, too. He’s a good kisser – not that Jake has much to compare him to. He just knows that he likes this, every swap of spit and coy brush of tongue against lip, every puff of air he feels on his cheeks as they kiss like they’re trying to devour each other. Jake thinks he’s heard before that weed makes people hungry, and he can definitely attest to there being truth in that.

“If you’d told me,” Heeseung starts, pulling away just enough to speak before moving to press his mouth to the underside of Jake’s jaw, earning a small gasp from him and making it very difficult to focus on what he’s saying. “I would have put a little more effort in.”

“Hm?” Jake manages, tilting his head back to allow Heeseung access to his neck, which he takes full advantage of, dragging his mouth down to the junction of his neck and shoulder and nipping at the skin there. Jake shudders, and Heeseung chuckles, clearly pleased with the way he’s already rendered him speechless.

“I would have cleaned up, at least,” Heeseung clarifies, using Jake’s momentary distraction to manhandle him with ease, maneuvering him properly onto his lap. Jake goes without a fight, and wraps his arms around Heeseung’s shoulders, trying to keep him as close as possible even when he seems set on putting space between them. “Or I would have – gotten a hotel room. Something fancy.”

“I don’t need fancy.”

“You shouldn’t settle,” Heeseung says, echoing his words from earlier that night.

“I’m not,” Jake assures him. “I – I like you.”

Heeseung grins, and Jake has one last small heart attack. “I like you, too.”

“Then kiss me already,” Jake huffs.

“You need to exercise some patience,” Heeseung scolds, and then kisses him anyway.

Jake has to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from saying you need to exercise this dick, his instinctual retort to every instance of Sunghoon or Jay trying to tell him what to do. There’s truth to Heeseung’s words, after all – he does need to learn to be more patient, to not let himself be gripped by panic every time he thinks he’s moving at too slow of a pace. But it’s not a lesson he’s going to learn right now, when Heeseung’s hands are on his waist and his tongue is in his mouth and he’s already touching him but he just wants more.

He’s warm all over, every nerve ending lit up and hyperaware, every brush of skin against skin and every miniscule sound he can draw from Heeseung sending him into even more of a frenzy. He’d told Heeseung he doesn’t feel any different, but he’s pretty sure he was lying. He has nothing to compare it to, but he’s sure it doesn’t always feel like this. Maybe it’s the weed. Or maybe it’s just Heeseung.

“What do you –” Heeseung attempts to break away again, but Jake chases his lips and crashes back into him before he gets a chance to finish. “Jake, slow down,” he manages, although the words come out mostly muffled, because he’s essentially forced to speak them directly into Jake’s mouth.

“I want everything,” Jake finally answers, but only when he realizes Heeseung isn’t going to let this go any further until he does, taking an educated guess at what Heeseung was trying to say. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’m doing, but – anything. Everything.”

Heeseung pauses for a moment, his eyes boring into Jake’s like he’s searching for any traces of hesitation. Jake, for once, knows he has none, and knows he won’t find any. And then he swallows, Jake’s eyes following the movement of his throat like he’s in a trance, and he says, “Okay. I'll uh, I'll do my best.”

Jake can’t fight the laugh that bubbles out of his throat at Heeseung's words, and he leans in, knocking their foreheads together gently, their noses bumping as he says, “Good. Because I shouldn't settle for less than your best, right?”

Heeseung smiles too, and then, without any warning, Jake is jostled to the side, carefully guided by Heeseung's steady hands until he's laying flat on his back on the sofa bed.

“Now you're getting it,” Heeseung mutters, positioning himself between Jake's easily-spread legs, hovering over him, the dim light surrounding them from the LED strips on Heeseung's wall enough to keep his face from being all shadows, giving Jake a moment to really look at him.

He's handsome. Jake, believe it or not, would not have just slept with the first person available to him in the name of finishing his list. He's not that desperate. But Heeseung is handsome, and nice, and Jake likes him. He's never been overly concerned with the idea of losing his virginity to someone he loves – at least, not since he was a teenager, and a little more of a dreamer than he is now. It's a wonder then, he supposes, that it took him this long to get here.

“You have to tell me if you don't like something,” Heeseung says.

“I'll like it all,” Jake assures him.

“It might – it would hurt,” Heeseung tells him. “If we go that far. I'm not exactly small.”

“Oh, I'm sure,” Jake says teasingly, even though he suspects that Heeseung isn't exaggerating. Sunoo would probably say he has big dick energy, or some other ridiculous sentiment that Jake thought was made up until this very moment.

Heeseung doesn't get defensive, further proving Jake's point. He just laughs, and shakes his head in something like fondness, and drops himself down to his elbows, so they’re pressed together in just about every way possible. He disguises his intentions by pretending he's only getting this close so he can resume his attack on Jake's neck, but the way something is digging into Jake's thigh is telling him otherwise.

And, alright. Yeah. He's pretty big, at least, bigger than Jake. Which might not be saying much. Again, he doesn't have a lot to compare it to. He just knows that he’s suddenly desperate to see it properly, to touch it, to feel the weight of it in his hand. Purely for educational purposes. Or science. Whatever.

He attempts to slide his hand in between them, but there's very little space to do so, and Heeseung seems determined to stay right where he is, sucking marks into Jake's neck – a strange sensation, but one that he definitely likes – and apparently taking no interest in getting Jake's hand on his dick.

“Move,” Jake instructs through an impatient huff. It's the wrong thing to say.

Heeseung moves, but only very slightly, until his dick is no longer pressed against Jake's thigh, but rather – huh. Okay. That's –

“Wait,” Jake pants out. Heeseung freezes, and then promptly wrenches himself away from Jake, stopped from flinging himself fully across the room only by Jake’s hand wrapping around his arm and gripping tight. “No, it’s fine, just – be careful with… with that. I don’t want to, uh, arrive early.”

At his own words, Jake cringes hard enough that he swears he feels himself pull another muscle. But Heeseung laughs, poorly restraining his giggles behind his free hand.

“Nevermind,” Jake says quickly, “I’m leaving. Get off of me.”

“Hey, no,” Heeseung practically coos, dropping back down to his elbows so they’re pressed against each other again. “You’re cute, you know that?”

Jake stares at him for a moment, waiting for him to reveal that he’s making fun of him. Heeseung just holds his gaze. “I’ve… I’ve been told.”

“Yeah?” Heeseung asks with a small, fond laugh. “Good.”

Jake opens his mouth – to say what, exactly, he’s not sure – but all that comes out is a keening whine, because Heeseung’s mouth is back on his neck, and he’s pressing himself against Jake’s dick in a way that feels very much on purpose, clearly unconcerned with his warning.

And Jake should stop him. He wants to stop him, because he wants this to last. But, then again – it feels good. Heeseung is shifting his hips forward ever so slightly with every kiss and nip at Jake’s neck, and Jake can feel heat filling his gut, spreading through him like molten lava, and – he’s never really felt this before, definitely not since he grew out of grinding against pillows in his sleep and waking up with a mess in his boxers and maybe not ever.

They’re both still fully dressed. Jake is wearing jeans, for god’s sake. It shouldn’t feel this good, just having Heeseung on top of him, but it does. He’s pretty sure he’s drawing blood where his nails are digging into Heeseung’s back, and he doesn’t even remember when he started clinging to him like his life depends on it, but suddenly it does, suddenly he can’t even fathom letting go of him, even if it meant making what was supposed to be him losing his virginity last a little longer.

Jake’s pretty sure they’ve hurtled past that particular opportunity at this point. But then again, he’s not entirely sure whether or not what they’re doing right now counts. He’ll have to ask Sunghoon, once his brain is functioning as intended again.

That won’t be any time soon, he fears. Heeseung lifts his head from his neck and crashes their mouths together again, and every inch of Jake’s skin is unbearably hot and getting impossibly hotter, every touch feeling simultaneously intensified and a bit fuzzy, almost like he’s watching himself be touched by Heeseung, out of his body once again and watching his hands smooth up and down Jake’s sides, almost like he’s soothing him. And Jake doesn’t fully understand why that would be necessary – until he hears, through his slight fog, that he’s being so loud, whining and crying out into Heeseung’s mouth with every rock of his hips forward.

He should be concerned that he’s being too loud, that Heeseung is kissing him in an attempt to quiet him down – he should remember that Heeseung hadn’t specified whether or not his parents were home when he sheepishly admitted that he lives with them – but again, his brain isn’t really working right now.

He thinks it’s all just Heeseung. He thinks that, even if he was stone cold sober right now – which he might be, he’s still not actually sure if he’s feeling anything – he would still be this reactive, this sensitive, this overwhelmed, this –

“I’m – I’m –” Jake gasps out against Heeseung’s lips, moving one of his hands to cradle the back of his head just in case he tries to pull away from him again. “I think I’m – Heeseung –”

“It’s okay,” Heeseung mutters, gently biting Jake’s bottom lip once, as if to make sure he’s paying attention. And, really, Jake wouldn’t know how to not pay attention to Heeseung right now, his cock pressed against Jake’s own, his hands circling Jake’s waist to keep him still, his lips dragging along the side of Jake’s face before settling on his jaw. “It’s okay, Jake.”

The thing is – it’s not okay, not really. Jake had started this night convinced that if he doesn’t go all the way with someone before the sun rises tomorrow, his whole life will be a failure. He hadn’t felt okay about that in the slightest.

But when Heeseung says it, he believes it. Maybe it’s the drugs – but it probably isn’t.

When Heeseung says it, when he tells Jake it’s okay, he believes it, and he comes. A cry rips from his throat and surely deafens Heeseung a bit, but he doesn’t pull away, holding Jake through it and whispering praises in his ear, and for a moment, as he shakes through an orgasm that was simultaneously far too soon and right on time, Jake allows himself to believe all of them.

He’s ruined his boxers – the ones that he’d picked out specifically because they were the cleanest, and the least hole-ridden out of all of them, because he’d thought someone was going to see them tonight – and probably his jeans, too, along with making a complete fool of himself, and Heeseung doesn’t hesitate. He pulls away, giving Jake one last kiss, chaste and fleeting in a way that makes Jake start to wonder if he’s being pitied, if that’s all this was.

And then Heeseung gets up, and yanks open a drawer of his half-broken dresser, and pulls out a pair of grey sweatpants, holding them out to Jake in offering with a polite grin. “How’re you feeling?”

“Are – is that it?” He asks, even though he’s pretty sure it has to be, because he’s not sure he’s ever felt more drained in his life. He’s completely boneless, and it shows when he attempts to take the clean pair of pants from Heeseung and misses more than once, his arm flopping uselessly back to his side until he manages to muster the strength to take them.

“For now,” Heeseung says simply. “We’ve got time.”

“But you didn’t –”

“It’s all good,” Heeseung assures him, smiling like he really means it, sitting down beside where Jake is laying, patting his thigh in a comforting manner. “We can finish that list of yours some other time.”

Jake raises his eyebrows, staring at Heeseung for a long moment, anxiously gnawing on his bottom lip. But our speedrunning record, a voice in his head sulks. Jake ignores it. He has more pressing matters to attend to. “Can we?”

“Sure,” he says easily, without any hesitation whatsoever. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” Jake says softly. “And – and do you want me to go? Or… can I stay?”

Heeseung’s smile gets a little brighter. “Yeah, Jake. You can stay. I want you to stay.”

Jake’s heart will just have to get used to the endless barrage of attacks. It should be fine – after all, it’s had many, many years of absolutely nothing to prepare for what happens in his chest when Heeseung smiles at him. They’re both going to have to get used to it, because Jake has no plans of losing what this stupid list and this stupid crisis have led him to. He’s not a loser.

In fact, Jake never loses – not even his virginity.