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Monday 10, Tupelo, Mississippi
When Renjun makes it back home for Christmas, it isn’t Christmas anymore, neither is it home.
On the second week of January, he parks his car by his parents’ house. His windshield fogs up in record-time when he turns off the engine. It’s that time of the year where he’s got nothing to celebrate anymore—halfway between Christmas and Lunar New Year—the exact reason why he has enough time to grab his own car and drive 27 hours to his hometown.
The cut-short grass is damp and mushy under his soles when he steps out of the car, and wet grit dirties the tips of his shiny black shoes in just a couple of steps. His breath comes out in puffs of white when he snuffles, the insides of his nose itching at the cold breeze he’s grown unaccustomed to.
He checked the weather before taking the car—the app said it would be only a couple of degrees lower than Los Angeles. The thing about Tupelo is that it’s got the kind of dry cold that sneaks between the seams of your clothes and crawls in deeper than the bones, the kind of chill that not even a warm shower can get rid of.
Christmas lights are still wrapped around the naked trees that surround his parents’ house, they swing dark and lonely in the wind as if waiting to be taken down. Red socks hang from windowsills, empty and crumpled up and sorrowful, wet to the touch when Renjun squeezes one between pink-tipped fingers. Nothing can survive too long in this grey place, reason enough to drive away.
Renjun once read somewhere that homes got a distinct smell their occupants can’t notice—a mix of detergents, cooking smells, cleaning supplies, and the people’s own scent. He gets swallowed up by cheap mint air freshener and gingerbread as soon as he pushes the front door open. That same smell is threaded through his mother’s clothes when she comes slip-slap-running in her house slippers to engulf him in a cozy, welcome-back hug.
The scent doesn’t go unnoticed to him because this hasn’t been his home in way too many years, even if he always keeps the keys to the front door in the back pocket of his jeans, hanging from the same keychain as the keys to his odorless apartment in LA.
Tuesday 11, Tupelo, Mississippi
“Your mom told me you got here yesterday morning. You could’ve warned a guy so I would’ve come say hi sooner.”
It’s a stupid way to greet Renjun welcome-back. They’ve been doing this for three years now and he’s never given advance warning. He’s not about to start now.
Yangyang waits for him leaning against the closed door of his blue pickup truck with his arms crossed over his chest. The oversized, obnoxious red-and-white Christmas sweater he’s wearing crumples around his elbows, the woolen cloth covered in specks of white fur across his shoulders.
“I slept all day,” Renjun replies with a shrug. “You would’ve gotten bored around me.”
He sidesteps Yangyang, rounds the car, and goes straight to the shotgun door.
Yangyang’s car smells just like it did last winter: a mix of gasoline, Coca-Cola, and dollar-store cologne—the cheap chocolate kind Yangyang has been using since he was sixteen that smells nothing like chocolate.
Both hands curled on the edge of the rolled-down window, the car lets out a croaky whine when Yangyang leans into it. He ducks his head to look at Renjun through the window hole, tilting his chin up to nod toward the other car parked in the family property.
“Audi, huh? You get more expensive every year. Did you also get a boy to drive you around?”
With an eye-roll, Renjun leans across the console and reaches for the door handle. Yangyang trips backward when Renjun pushes the door open, complaining under his breath because mud gets splattered on his ankles.
“What would I get a new boy for when I got you?”
And Yangyang is as easy as he was last winter. He still fishes for cheesy lines like an inexperienced high-schooler trying to get first-crush attention, gets red on the back of his neck like he did the day Renjun first touched him under his shirt. He shuffles and jitters as he gets inside of the car, closes the door with too much strength, and gets tangled up in the seatbelt, his lips all peeled open and it’s not because of the cold.
Renjun watches him, leaning lazy on the backrest of his seat, seatbelt locked neatly across his waist and chest. “You’re late to work, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but Winwin is used to it.”
This isn’t any different, either. Yangyang always namedrops people he knows Renjun doesn’t know. Xiaojun last year, Ten the year before that, Kun three years ago. He also knows Renjun hates it, knows he remembers all of them, and he likes it that way.
“What, are you already getting jealous?” Yangyang says, wiggling his eyebrows and smiling gummy at Renjun. Yangyang is the one leaning across the console now, he tosses his twisted-up seatbelt to the side and hooks two fingers in the collar of Renjun’s hoodie. “C’mere. He won’t get mad if I’m a little late. Told him I had to pick up a friend.”
Yangyang also tastes like he did last winter. He tastes just like he did when he was sixteen and too nervous to kiss open-mouthed, back when Renjun had to dig fingers into his teen-spotty cheeks and sneak his way in with curious tongue and teeth.
Now, though, his mouth falls open the second his lips ghost Renjun’s. Tongue smoky and cold like the weather, moist and devastating like a wintry storm, Yangyang tugs Renjun closer until the seatbelt digs tight into his ribs, the seams of his hoodie creaking at the pull of impatient fingers.
“You’re so needy,” Renjun complains, but the words break into a sigh toward the end.
He slides his hands through Yangyang’s bleach-blond hair, curls his fists around straw-like strands when Yangyang travels down his neck. Renjun tries to press closer at the feeling of Yangyang’s tongue dipping into the hole of his exposed collarbone. Closed-eyed, he searches for his seatbelt by touch, clicks it open a second before Yangyang is hauling him upward and onto his lap.
“Course ’m needy,” Yangyang speaks into Renjun’s neck, hungry hands trailing down his thighs to secure Renjun’s knees at either side of his waist. “I haven’t kissed anyone in a year. You owe me.”
And Renjun doesn’t owe him anything, because he’s asked for nothing.
Relief still tickles every nerve of his body at Yangyang’s words. It urges him to cradle the fever-hot back of Yangyang’s neck and pinch until he’s got Yangyang looking up at him—glossy-eyed and open-mouthed as he waits to be rewarded with another kiss.
It’s not fair, the relief.
It’s not fair because it hasn’t been a year for Renjun. It hasn’t even been a week.
Wednesday 12, Tupelo, Mississippi
“Jaemin is speaking to his mom again, but he refuses to move back in with her. Do you even remember why they fought? I swear their relationship was already a mess before you left, but I can’t remember properly.”
Yangyang’s been at it for two hours now, blabbering about everyone and no one as he pretends to be sorting out the money in the cash register.
It’s a slow day at his family’s hardware store, so slow that Yangyang’s new coworker—Winwin, Renjun hasn’t forgotten—walked out with a quick nod as a greeting the second they arrived. It’s always slow in this town, even if you work in the main downtown street.
Slow, boring, and invasive.
They keep the door to the store closed to lock out winter’s breath. It rings with a happy jingle whenever someone pushes it open, like a high-pitched chime announcing good news.
So far, only two people have come in today—people Renjun has known since he was a little kid, but doesn’t care enough about to remember their names. Both of them stared at him for too long with long-time-no-see eyes, both of them told him that he should drop by more often with we-know-better mouths, both of them implied he couldn’t possibly be that busy all year with that you-have-changed tone Renjun knows all too well.
“My life is none of your business, thank you,” Renjun told them, his feet bouncing against the side of the glass counter he was sitting on top of.
Both left empty-handed.
Yangyang has been rambling since it happened. And Renjun is used to this part, too—the panicked babbling as a desperate measure to get Renjun to forget why he doesn’t come over more often.
“Why would I remember Jaemin’s family problems?” Renjun asks now, wincing when he pinches his finger with an I ♡ Tupelo keychain. “I haven’t talked to him in a year.”
The cash register snaps closed at his back. Renjun jumps startled and the keychain slips from his fingers to clatter against the countertop.
“Maybe we should change that.” Yangyang walks from behind the counter and comes to stand in front of Renjun. “There’s a party this Friday night, the boys will be there. Maybe you can ask Jisung to give you a lift. Did you know he finally got a license? He still rides with Jaemin most of the time, though. Says driving alone gets lonely.”
Renjun offers him a half-hearted hum, only half-listening. His focus is all on Yangyang’s hands, on the way his fingers settle on Renjun’s legs to pull his knees apart just enough to step between them.
“You could also catch up with Mark and Hyuck. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Yangyang keeps talking, kneading at the flesh of Renjun’s thighs with the heels of his hands. “Did you know they finally made out? Took them long enough. Their entire lives, actually.”
Sliding across the counter, Renjun parts his legs wider. Yangyang walks fingers along the inner seams of his pants, leaning so close that Renjun’s nose brushes the bleached hair at the crown of Yangyang’s head when he tries to peek down at his hands.
“Did they?”
“Yeah, but they don’t have anything serious,” Yangyang keeps explaining with a nonchalant shrug. “They keep hooking up at every party when they get drunk, but Hyuck told me they haven’t talked about it. My guess is that Mark’s scared.”
Renjun sighs through his nose when Yangyang’s nails scratch dangerously close to the dip where his legs meet his hips. “Why?” he asks in a rough whisper, flopping back against the counter on his hands.
Yangyang finally looks up at him, blushing pink and shy across his nose and on the tip of his ears. It’s just like a winter flush, gentle and smooth all over his cheeks, but his face is summer-warm to the touch when Renjun cups him between steady hands.
Eyes heavy and hooded, Yangyang doesn’t reply. He licks at his bottom lip, his gaze on a free-fall from Renjun’s eyes to his lips, down to Renjun’s neck, landing on his own hands on Renjun’s lap.
Quiet, Yangyang drags closed knuckles to the hem of Renjun’s pants. His fingertips sneak underneath Renjun’s hoodie, nails scratching lightly at the tight muscle of Renjun’s belly for a split second before the door chimes open.
Yangyang slips away as fast as the sun in a winter afternoon sky. He puts on his costume-service smile, clasps his polite treacherous hands at his back, and greets the customer with a good-boy voice.
Renjun is left ashamed and open-legged on top of the counter, flaming from toes to ears when Yangyang gummy-smiles at him over the shoulder of another known stranger.
—
“Aren’t you gonna tell me about your famous friends?” Yangyang says as soon as the door clicks shut.
“You’re an asshole.”
“What’s got you all upset now?” Yangyang slides closer again, his hands reaching for Renjun’s thighs as if they never left. “You wanted more, is that it? You know you only have to ask. I can find us some time and—”
Renjun gets a leg up between them and shoves him away with his right foot. His muddy shoe leaves a sole-shaped stamp on Yangyang’s Christmas sweater. He’s wearing a green one today, tiny Christmas lights doodled all over his chest. “Fuck you.”
“C’mon, tell me about your Hollywood sweetheart,” Yangyang insists with a giggle. He doesn’t dust away Renjun’s footprint. “You made it to the news, did you know?”
Yangyang walks back behind the cash register and Renjun jumps off the counter to face him, elbows resting against the glass top. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What was his name again? Jeno Lee? He accompanied you at that premiere. I’m guessing he’s an actor like you. Did you two meet on set or—”
“There’s nothing to tell, Yangyang.”
Yangyang pouts just like he used to do when he was a kid, lips puckered up and eyes low in disappointment. “But I told you about Mark and Hyuck’s dirty secrets.”
“I never asked you to.”
The childish pout slowly curls upward into a smile at Renjun’s harsh snap.
Yangyang has always smiled too much for his own good. He feels everything loud and obvious, has a smile for every one of his moods, and Renjun has known him long enough to memorize all of them.
He’s smiling tight-lipped now, gumless, so small that his cheeks don’t even puff out.
“You’re right,” Yangyang says, so gentle in his careful politeness that he sounds borderline sad. “You never ask.”
Thursday 13, Tupelo, Mississippi
In Renjun’s hometown, the sky is at its best when it’s dying out.
He spends the day at the park with his parents. He wears a hand-made woolen scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up to his nose as they walk from souvenir store to souvenir store.
His mom fiddles with the postcards, she unhooks souvenir shirts from its hangers, takes gift mugs from its shelves, and presses pins and keychains to Renjun’s empty hands. He trails after her and sorts it all out, puts the gifts back in their place because they’ll be better here than in a forgotten drawer at his LA apartment with no one to gift them to.
Yangyang comes to pick him up in his muddy truck after work. He parks in front of the city council and gets out of the car just so he can kiss Renjun’s mom on the cheek the way Renjun does when he sees her once a year. He offers his polite smile—tight-toothed and gummy, winter flush high on his cheekbones and lips cold-peeled—and he giggles when Renjun’s mom yells at them to have fun.
They drive off when the sun is falling and the streetlights are blinking awake, the horizon a gentle stroke of pink.
Every corner of this town as always looked the same to Renjun. He’s away too often to remember street names and road twists, so he buckles up and allows Yangyang to drive him through the deserted asphalt, following the faint tire marks of ghost cars.
They stop when the moon is scratching pastel colors off of the sky with a smooth nail.
Back in LA, the setting sun looks like a cloud made of light. On the best days, you’ll be able to steal a glance at a few stars. On the worst days, you’ll get to peek at the moon.
Here, on clear winter nights like today, the moon breaks a path between the scattered clouds and shines bright enough to dance on the water of a lake Renjun has forgotten the name of. It’s sweater weather, the middle of red-nose season, but stepping out of the car and allowing the breeze to numb your fingers white and paint your cheeks stiff is worth it if you get to see a sea of stars ballet-dancing across freshwater.
It’s dull, dark, and dry—just a small lake surrounded by iced fields and a ghosty road, piles of grit gathering on its sores. It’s not pretty, but it’s quiet and clear, the moon shining so loud that no streetlights are needed to light up Yangyang’s baggy eyes.
“So.” Yangyang bangs the driver’s door closed. He rounds the car and leans on the trunk, shoulder-to-shoulder with Renjun when he passes him a lukewarm can of Coca-Cola. “Are you coming to the party tomorrow or not?”
“I told you I have a family dinner.” Renjun presses the closed mouth of his can to Yangyang’s lips before he can get a complaint out, and he levels him with a hooded look. “Don’t start whining, you know we only get one dinner a year.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Renjun ignores the jab and busies himself with the soda can in his hands. A stream of bubbles comes bursting through the slit as soon as he pops it open. He curses under his breath, pulling the drink away from his clothes when it starts dripping down onto the winter-hard grass, soaking up Renjun’s hand and the cuff of his jacket.
The truck groans when Yangyang flops against the trunk, weak on the knees with the force of his laughter. He’s pink all over when Renjun looks at him, even under the dull silver of the moon.
“Is that what you brought me here for?” Renjun says, keeping his arm stretched away from his body so the dripping can won’t make a bigger mess. “To lecture me and laugh at me?”
Yangyang is still laughing open-mouthed when he inches closer, the corners of his eyes growing happy-wet even though there’s coke splattered on the front of his Christmas sweater, too.
He gummy-smiles when he pulls Renjun in by the wet sleeve of his jacket, his chest heaving under his fluffy sweater after his outburst. “C’mere.”
Slowly, Yangyang curls red-tipped fingers around Renjun’s soaked wrist and brings his hand to his face. Eyes on Renjun, the tip of Yangyang’s tongue breaches from between his lips and gives an experimental lick to Renjun’s sticky knuckles, the seams of his mouth still curled upward in the ghost of his laughter.
Grimacing, Renjun shoves him back with his elbow. Another spur of coke comes out of the can and splashes their shoes. “Ew, what the fuck. Can’t you offer me some tissues like normal people would do? You’re so gross.”
Yangyang is laughing again, slumped against the truck with his head turned up to the stars. His ragged breathing comes out in fluffy clouds, his words breaking in the middle when he says, “It’s not as if I haven’t licked worse, you prude.”
“Oh god, shut up. How can you still be this corny? You never change.”
“Why would I change?” Yangyang’s bleached fringe falls over his forehead when he rolls his head to look at Renjun. “You like me like this.”
And dismantling him is oh, so easy.
All Renjun needs to do to erase that cocky smile off of Yangyang’s face is press sticky fingers to his cold cheek, leaning closer to whisper between them, “Yeah, I do.”
Yangyang goes warm under his touch, eyes wide and glossy like the lake lying before them. Renjun is about to push him away and laugh it off when Yangyang holds onto his sleeve.
“Skip the family dinner and come to the party,” he says, his jumpy gaze dancing all over Renjun’s face. “Like that time we skipped prom, do you remember?”
“My mom got so mad at you for that.” Renjun laughs through his nose at the memory of their dirty fancy suits after a night out in the park under the rain. “She banned you from the house for an entire month. Do you want her to do that again?”
The sky is at its best when it’s dying out, the moon ballet-dancing in the dark of Yangyang’s eyes when he sad-smiles.
“I don’t really care. You won’t be here, anyway. No reason for me to come over.”
Friday 14, Tupelo, Mississippi
Renjun doesn’t skip the family dinner, but he drives his Audi to their old school right after.
What Yangyang called a party turns out to be a bunch of twenty-something-year-olds gathered in the vacant lot behind the high-school building. The temperature is in negative numbers today, but these people extended beach towels over the cold-hard soil and called it a night. Sitting down in their puffer jackets and flushed cheeks, they pass around red-solo-cups and brandless plastic bottles as broken club records play in the background.
The music comes from a pair of speakers on the right side of the frozen field that Renjun’s seen a million times before, always connected to the desktop computer in Yangyang’s bedroom. Usually, Yangyang likes to keep the volume almost all the way down even though he lives alone because his parents’ house is just next door. Renjun still remembers the sting on the back of his hand from that one time four years ago, when Yangyang kept smacking him whenever he tried to turn up the volume mid-Tokyo Ghoul marathon.
A headache starts to pinch the back of Renjun’s skull when he approaches the speakers, music turned up so loud that he finds himself wincing when he finally flops down on the white-washed towel.
Among the deafening songs, the loud laughter, and the slurred conversations, the guys don’t even realize he’s there until he taps on Mark’s shoulder to catch his attention.
“Oh my god, Renjunie!” Mark—wide-eyed-tipsy, half-drunk-happy, full-drunk-flushed Mark—throws his whole body on top of Renjun as soon as he sees him there, overly affectionate as he always gets when he has one too many drinks. “When did you get here? Man, I missed you so much.”
He smells of cheap vodka and lollipops, feels sticky with sweat where he settles into Renjun’s neck even though it’s a below-zero night.
“I arrived on Monday. Didn’t Yangyang tell you?”
“Oh, he did,” Jaemin says, lifting his red plastic cup toward Renjun in greeting. “Mark simply gets stupid when he drinks, you know how he is.”
“Not stupid,” Mark mumbles into Renjun’s neck. “Just happy.”
Renjun giggles at the feeling of Mark’s wet lips tickling his throat. He lets him rest on top of him for a little while, pats Mark’s heated back with open hands to the beat of the music.
“Where is Yangyang?”
“See, he only came for Yangyang,” Jisung says with a pout. He’s leaning into Jaemin’s shoulder as if it’s supposed to be a secret, but the music is so loud that he ends up yelling it to all of them. “I told you he didn’t miss us.”
Renjun is about to contradict him when Mark unsticks himself from his chest. “He went to buy more drinks with Hyuck.”
“With Hyuck, huh?” Renjun slides his eyes from Mark’s alcohol-blushed face to his neck. He reaches out to tug at the collar of Mark’s sweatshirt, stretching out the material to expose the purple bites that run from his throat to his collarbones. “I heard you’ve been having some fun with him.”
Mark’s blush deepens incredibly. He hiccups as he swats Renjun’s hand away, tries to hide his pink cheeks behind a half-empty bottle of some cheap supermarket alcohol.
Jisung pulls a face at Mark’s reaction. “Yeah, they are disgusting. But it’s not going anywhere.”
“And why’s that?” Renjun asks.
Jaemin talks before Mark can reply, leaning across the towel to pinch one of Mark’s red-tipped ears. “Because he’s a coward.”
Mark uncaps the bottle and complains slurred into it. “’m not a coward,” he says, his bottom lip fitting into the plastic rim when he pouts, wide eyes flickering around. “It’s just—He wants to leave. Just like Renjun did. Don’t think I can handle that shit. ‘m not like Yangyang.”
“You’re needy as fuck and jealous, you mean,” Jaemin says through a giggle, tugging at Mark’s ear again.
“‘M not fuckin’ needy. I just want something steady. I couldn’t handle that on-and-off shit.” He looks at Renjun over the rim of the bottle, a drunk-sloppy hand rubbing at the back of his neck. “Sorry. That’s jus’ not for me.”
“It’s not for Yangyang, either,” Jaemin says as an off-handed, nonchalant comment. He hasn’t changed one bit, has known how to jab right between the ribs since he was a kid. “And he does it anyway. So you’re a coward.”
When Renjun talks, he keeps his full attention on Mark.
“Donghyuck and I always wanted to get out of here, but that’s all we had in common, really. He’s nothing like me. You should talk to him, Mark. You won’t lose anything for trying, right?”
Jaemin giggles again. “That’s rich coming from you.”
The only thing that stops Renjun from picking up a fight is a sudden pair of arms around his shoulders. Bony knees dig into his lower back and a nose nuzzles the back of his neck as the familiar scent of chocolate cologne surrounds him.
“I knew you’d make it,” Yangyang says into Renjun’s nape. He smacks a wet kiss on the side of Renjun’s neck just because he can, his cheeks growing fever-hot against Renjun’s skin when Yangyang’s friends start gagging around them.
Renjun doesn’t push him away. They only get a week a year, Yangyang deserves this much.
—
“Are you taking care of him?”
Donghyuck scoffs at the question, eyes rolling white at Renjun. “Always.”
“Donghyuck—”
“Always, Jun,” he snaps, his hand white-knuckled around the neck of a bottle of beer. “I’ve known what I wanted since I was sixteen and I’m gonna fight for it. I’m gonna get out of this shithole and I’m gonna keep Mark. I can do both. You should know I will do both.”
Renjun lifts open hands in peace-offering, mouth curling upward in a fond smile. “Alright, alright. Steadfast as always, jeez.”
“Maybe you should take some notes,” Donghyuck says. He pushes the beer against Renjun’s chest and sneaks a look at the other boys over his shoulder. “If you put in some work, you’d get to keep what you want, too.”
“I already have what I want.”
Donghyuck sad-smiles—a bittersweet grimace he must’ve picked up from Yangyang in the time Renjun hasn’t been there to see them get closer.
It’s still a little weird, having Yangyang fill up the best-friend-big spot Renjun carved in Donghyuck’s chest when he packed his bags and walked out of his life without looking back. He wonders what it would’ve been like if Donghyuck hadn’t decided to stay and finish college here last minute.
Wonders if Mark would’ve forgiven him, had he managed to persuade Donghyuck into boarding that plane with him just like he had planned to.
“Yeah, you do,” Donghyuck says. “For a week, you do.”
—
Yangyang tastes like cheap vodka and smells like cold sweat when he kisses Renjun under the bleachers later that night.
They are giggling, trembling ribs-against-ribs from laughter and the chilly midnight breeze. They are also red on the face like they used to get when they were high-schoolers skipping the important soccer games because they’d rather make out where no one could see them. It’s the same sugar rush, it never wears off no matter how many years go by.
“I think I broke a toe,” Yangyang says against Renjun’s lips, tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. “I swear to god I broke a toe.”
Renjun leans in again and kisses a happy tear away from Yangyang’s cheekbone. The old aluminum frames creak under Yangyang’s back when Renjun pushes him further into the shadows.
“I told you sneaking in wasn’t a good idea. You’re an old man now.”
Through a renewed burst of laughter, Yangyang smacks his head against the underside of the stands. He bends forward, his hands laced on the crown of his skull, forehead pressed to Renjun’s shoulder.
“See? You don’t even fit in here anymore.” Renjun peels Yangyang’s fingers off of his head so he can press a light kiss to where he thinks the bruise is. “I’ll admit I didn’t remember this being so uncomfortable.”
Yangyang’s lips are pursed into a pout when he peers up at Renjun, ears tinted red with that flush he gets when he’s about to say something embarrassing.
“You know I’ve got a house for myself. I mean, if you wanna go somewhere more comfortable…”
He says it blushing like he hasn’t been making the same proposition for three years in a row now. He says it stammering as if he doesn’t know Renjun’s got his travel bag perfectly packed in the truck of his Audi.
Yangyang says it shy and tongue-tied like he truly thinks Renjun would ever say no to him.
Renjun has said no to him before, but never here—not in this desert of a town where Yangyang’s mouth against his is the only thing reliable, ever-lasting, never-changing.
Saturday 15, Tupelo, Mississippi
Somewhere through the last spring, Renjun got asked in an interview why he’s always been single.
It’s not that he’s been single his entire life, it’s simply that Hollywood only cares about you from the moment you’re put under its spotlight onwards. Nobody wants to talk about the gummy-smiling sweetheart you left back in your hometown—his chest filled with a half-broken heart and the naive hope of you visiting soon, even though you’ve warned him one too many times not to wait for you.
Hollywood wants to hear about the pretty promising stargirl you made out with in the fancy bathrooms of your first Met Gala. They want you to tell them if you’ve ever fucked the hot Chinese basketball player that accompanied you to the Tony Awards last year. They want to know if the moon-eyed Oscar nominee that held your hand in your last three movie premieres has the keys to your house.
So Renjun smiled into a rolling camera and took the easy way out. “I like being single because it’s fun and freeing. That’s really it.”
And he didn’t lie.
Exploring someone new is always exhilarating. Renjun likes to dive into unknown territory to press and pull and peer, take and touch and tear, rubbing everywhere with curious fingers until he tickles the right spots. It’s fun and freeing, the quest of discovering what makes someone roll their eyes or buckle up, what has them sighing or whining. How far they are willing to go—willing to take him.
But nothing compares to the feeling of being known. When you put yourself in hands that know you inside-out. Hands that know where you touch you, how to touch you, how much and how often and how hard.
They make it to Yangyang’s house after midnight. Half-drunk and barely dressed, Renjun flops down on a mattress that smells like the perfect mix of winter and Coca-Cola, thighs spread open in their wait for Yangyang to settle back home.
Yangyang asks if Renjun wants it to hurt tonight, doesn’t bat an eye when he gets a slurred yes as an answer. He wraps gentle fingers firm around Renjun’s throat, knows exactly what to do to get him all sticky and squirmy until he’s begging for it.
Afterward, worn-out and naked, Yangyang still has it in him to blush shy pink when he asks Renjun if he wants to have dinner. Even when he knows Renjun loses the ability to deny anything around him.
—
Dinner goes like this:
Yangyang doesn’t complain when Renjun ignores the kitchen chairs to sit on the counter instead. He gets two matching Christmas-themed mugs and sits right next to Renjun, socked feet crossed on top of the cold marble top.
They eat Renjun’s favorite cereal with soup spoons at 4 in the morning, and Renjun acts like he doesn’t notice the extra boxes of cereal stocked in the pantry—way too many for a single weekend.
—
The next morning isn’t even morning.
They sleep in half the day and wake up to an overcast sky and white trees, feet so cold that Renjun has to steal Yangyang’s dog-shaped house slippers even if they are loose on him.
“I feel like you do it on purpose.” Yangyang hooks a hand around the back of Renjun’s knee, lifting his leg off the couch so he can press himself to Renjun’s side. “I would swear you check the weather to make sure it snows while you’re here.”
Renjun twists on the couch to sit sideways and drape his legs over Yangyang’s thighs. Yangyang balances a plate of his trademark toasts on Renjun’s knees. The bottom of the porcelain seeps warmth through Renjun’s borrowed pajama pants, the smell of butter so strong that Renjun can taste the bread without even taking a bite.
It’s too late for breakfast, but Renjun still opens up when Yangyang feeds him an oily slice. The toast is soggy and sticky on the tongue—some people would call it disgusting, but it’s how Renjun likes it best.
“I do check the weather,” Renjun confesses, a mouthful of bread tucked into his right cheek. “I miss snow so much back in LA. Where I live, it hasn’t snowed since—”
“—since 1962.” Yangyang gives him a contented toothy smile, one of his hands squeezing lightly around Rnejun’s ankle. “You tell me every year, baby.”
There’s something devastating about someone saving room for you in their thoughts forever when you only ever save them a weekend of your time. Renjun can’t stop himself from blurting out a slurred, buttery apology.
And it’s a tragedy, the way a long-overdue hushed sorry freezes Yangyang’s gummy smile.
It’s a movie-pretty setting. It’s still snowing softly outside, grey clouds painting this dry town pearly white, the sun lighting up the snowflakes on the trees to make it look like are covered in glitter.
It’s a picture-perfect scene. It’s quiet, with no cars running by to disturb the chirping sound of the few birds brave enough to stick around when it gets below zero. Yangyang’s living room is warm even in the middle of winter, his pajamas are soft over Renjun’s tired muscles, his fluffy slippers cozy around his feet. And Yangyang is as lovely as ever, rubbing the tension away from Renjun’s legs with familiar buttery fingers.
And here goes Renjun ruining it.
There’s a reason why he never sticks around for too long. He can only give Yangyang a single weekend, and he can’t even get it right.
—
In Yangyang’s bathroom, inside of the cupboard that hangs over the sink, a toothbrush waits for Renjun stored in a pretty glass. On the shower shelf, there’s a bottle of Renjun’s go-to vanilla shampoo standing beside Yangyang’s peach body soap. An identical pair of Yangyang’s oversized dog-shaped slippers lie under the bedstead, ready to be stolen. There are too many boxes of cereal in the pantry, scented candles on the living room table, a Christmas patterned sweater Renjun will never wear folded neatly on top of his travel bag.
When the sky gets dark, Yangyang puts sweaty palms over Renjun’s eyes and leads him to the window in tiny steps. And Christmas has been over for weeks now, but he still takes the time to light up the trees around his house only for Renjun’s eyes, yellow little lights because that’s been Renjun’s favorite color since he turned 8.
There’s something devastating about someone making room for you in their home when you rarely come around.
—
Renjun’s words paint foggy circles in the window when he speaks. “Christmas was weeks ago.”
“Did you get to celebrate this year?” Yangyang asks warm into his ear.
Renjun’s mind momentarily flies to his past self getting ready for a late-night show on Christmas night, only to come past 3 in the morning tipsy and tired to a cold, odorless, empty apartment.
He shakes his head no.
Yangyang’s fingertips tap at Renjun’s waist bone, warm underneath the cloth of his borrowed pajama shirt.
“Christmas is never over ‘till you come around.”
Sunday 16, Tupelo, Mississippi
Renjun doesn’t owe Yangyang anything. He’s never made any promises.
“When do you leave?”
“At 6 in the morning. I need to drop by my parents’ house before driving off.”
“We’ve got 5 hours left,” Yangyang whispers hot against Renjun’s throat. He slips clever hands between Renjun’s pajama pants and underwear, hooks his fingers right below the swell of Renjun’s ass to pull him flush against his body. “Let’s make the most out of it.”
Renjun doesn’t owe Yangyang anything. He would still let him take everything if Yangyang asked.
—
Melted snow splashing under his winter boots, Renjun walks out of the house when the sky is just starting to light up.
Once he makes it to his Audi, he turns around to find Yangyang standing right behind him. Yangyang is still wearing his pajamas, an oversized, hand-made Christmas robe wrapped around his shaking body.
The dawn sky spreads impossibly wide behind him, cutting him small and gentle against the horizon. Pink highlights dance over the strands of his bleached hair, making him look as soft on the eyes as he is to the touch.
“You look ridiculous with this,” Renjun says as he leans his back on the closed door of his car. He grips the lapels of Yangyang’s robe and rubs the mushy thread between his fingers. “How many Christmassy pieces of clothing do you own?”
Yangyang pouts at him, but he allows Renjun to lead him into the space between his parted legs. “I need to wear them or else my mom will get mad at me.”
Slowly, Yangyang takes Renjun by the wrists and pulls his arms up around his shoulders. He ignores Renjun’s confused gaze and sneaks his hands between Renjun’s waist and the car, leaning down and closer until he can hide his cold nose in Renjun’s neck.
“You don’t have to admit it,” Yangyang says soft into the crook of Renjun’s shoulder, eyelids fluttering ticklish against the kissed-tender skin of Renjun’s throat. “But I know you think I’m cute.”
Renjun allows himself to hug Yangyang closer. His eyes drift shut as he breathes him in until his chest swells.
Yangyang smells like a perfect mix of Renjun’s favorite vanilla shampoo and his own dollar-store cheap chocolate cologne. Renjun slips his fingers through Yangyang’s bleach-dry hair, closes a white-knuckled fist at the base of his skull, and forces himself to pull away before he gets used to the smell enough to call it home.
When they pull away, Yangyang’s got this glassy-eyed look on his face. The pastel pinks of the sky highlight the blush on his cheeks, the deep red of his bitten lips, the loaded question hidden in the seam of his mouth.
Renjun traces his fingers over the heated shell of Yangyang’s ears, draws his jaw with his tips, thumbs at his lips before he pleas, “Please, don’t ask me to stay.”
And it’s heartbreaking, the way Yangyang’s mouth curls up into his sad, sad smile.
He clenches his hands around Renjun’s hips, puckers up his lips under Renjun’s hand to give a soft peck to his thumb. “You know I’d never do that to you.”
It isn’t snowing anymore, but the wind is colder than ice when it picks up. Renjun’s teeth chatter through a shuddering breath, and Yangyang takes his hands off of his hips to rub Renjun’s arms up and down in an attempt at keeping him warm.
“You should go,” Yangyang says, but his feet don’t step away. “You’re gonna catch a cold if we stand out here for too long.”
He’s so sweet, Renjun is almost selfish enough to ask him to leave his family, his job, his friends behind and jump into the car with him. Almost.
“You don’t have to wait for me,” Renjun blurts out. “I never asked you to. You don’t have to—”
“Hey.” Yangyang’s smile only widens, pearly teeth and pink gums on display. “That’s my decision to make, not yours.”
Yangyang does walk away now. His hands linger on Renjun’s shoulders for a second, squeezing lightly before he finally lets go. He tightens his oversized rob, wraps his arms around his middle as if he’s trying to stop himself from hugging Renjun again.
“Go now,” he says with a chirpy giggle, nodding to Renjun’s car with a tilt of his chin. “Seriously, go before I say something I’ll regret.”
If only Yangyang asked. Too bad he loves Renjun better than he deserves.
Just one more day, Los Angeles, California
Renjun wakes up to an empty bed, a too-quiet room, a too-warm apartment.
He gets up and doesn’t bother to stuff his feet into house slippers, his bare soles meeting the warmth of his electric underfloor heating.
His hangover only acts up when he opens the too-wide windows of his apartment and the noise of rush hour meets him like a slap on the face. Renjun lives on a 10th floor, but the noise of car honks and anxious people still finds its way into his house, through his skulls, settling around his temples to set his head on fire.
Ankles clacking like rusty machines, he makes his way to the kitchen where he finds a dirty mug on the sink—the coffee stains in the shape of Chenle’s lips as the only trace of another person spending the night with him.
Renjun opens his too-many cabinets, pantries way too big to store food for one. He rummages through all of his drawers and still can’t manage to find anything worth-eating for breakfast. It’s not as if he’s got the motivation to cook, anyway.
In the end, he sits on a too-tall kitchen stool and drinks black coffee in a plain white mug. On top of the counter, his phone keeps lighting up with missed calls from his manager, the pop-up notifications screaming about some nomination for actor of the year.
Renjun unlocks his phone, scrolls through the excited messages of his manager with a lazy finger, and sinks into himself when he realizes there’s only one person he wants to call and share this with—someone who should be smart enough not to pick up.
Here is the most devastating thing: when someone makes room for themselves in your thoughts with no warning. When someone settles in the back of your mind without permission. When it’s been months since the last time you’ve seen each other and you can still feel them all over you, but there’s no visible trace of them in your house, in your life.
And Yangyang should be smart enough not to pick up, but Renjun doesn’t even have to wait for a full second to hear his voice.
“What do you want?”
Renjun scoffs a laugh into his half-drunk mug of coffee. “Wow, such a warm greeting. Can’t I ring my best friend to catch up?”
“Well, I mean, considering this is the first time you’ve ever called me since you moved away three years ago…” Yangyang trails off, sounding icier than Renjun expected—not as icy as he deserves, though. He thaws instantly, sighing at the other end of the line when he asks softly, “What’s going on, Renjun? Did something happen? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m okay. Everything’s good. I just—”
“Spit it out, Jun. You’re freaking me out.”
Renjun looks into the back bottom of his cold mug, eyes drifting shut before he sighs with coffee-bitter breath. “Would you wait for me?”
Yangyang goes completely quiet for a while, dead-silence in Tupelo in comparison to the loud city noises that are still crawling through Renjun’s open windows.
“What?”
“If I asked you to, would you do it?” Renjun asks again. His phone beeps mid-sentence with a new awaiting call, probably his manager trying to reach him again. “Would you wait for me even if I’m away most of the time?”
The laughter he gets as a reply is a chirpy noise, something stuck halfway between confusion and amusement.
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Yangyang says. “I’ve always been waiting for you, dude. I’m waiting even if you tell me not to, baby.”
And it’s such a Yangyang thing to do, switching off the best friend mode just to throw an offhanded baby at Renjun mid-conversation as if it means nothing.
“Well, I’m asking you to.”
It’s a nonsensical urgency that talks through Renjun now, this desperately warm feeling that bubbles up in the bottom of his stomach whenever Yangyang goes all sweet and mellow on him. It’s the first time he feels warm inside since he left his hometown months ago, even though LA never gets as cold as Tupelo.
“I promise it’ll be worth it if you wait. I’ll make it worth it for you.” Renjun keeps gripping his mug tightly, eyes still closed as his selfish tongue spits out everything he’s kept bottled up inside since the day he jumped on a plane without looking back, over three years ago. “I can go over there more often. I can visit during the summer, too. I can even try to make it between movies if you want me to. I’ll, listen, I’ll pay for your plane tickets so you can come over some time, too—”
“Renjun.”
“—hear me out. I know, okay? I know you don’t like it when people pay for your stuff. I know you don’t like me paying for your stuff. But I’d be doing it for myself, alright? It’d be for me too because I’m so lonely all the time and cold and tired of missing you and I need—”
Yangyang is giggling when he cuts him off again. “Jun, baby.”
Renjun sighs ragged through his nose. He blinks his eyes open, swallows tight when he palms his heated cheeks. “Yeah?”
“You’ve been bottling all that up for a long time, huh, baby?” Yangyang says, his voice still ringing with laughter. “Do you feel better now? Lighter? Are you relieved?”
“You’re an asshole.” Renjun drops his forehead on his forearm, his voice coming out muffled against the countertop when he speaks. “I’m nervous. Stop laughing at me, dickhead.”
A brand new silence settles between them, but it’s not tense and awkward this time around.
Renjun wiggles on his stool. He’s still leaning on the counter, one of his cheeks squeezed against his arm. He presses the phone further into his ear and lets his eyes drift closed one more time. Yangyang is breathing hard on the other end, and Renjun swears he can feel his breath in his ear when Yangyang speaks again.
“What does this mean?”
“I just wanna be with you,” Renjun says. He’s surprisingly shy, reduced to a blushing mess even though Yangyang is somewhere on the other side of the country. “Officially, I mean. A real relationship. Even if I’m away most of the time.”
“Why now?”
Renjun rubs his lips together, straightening his back as he thinks of a way to put it into words without it coming off disgustingly cheesy.
Truth is, Renjun’s life in LA has felt lonely and cold since the second his plane landed in this dream-made city.
First, he thought he only had to get used to it. Then, he was convinced it would get better once he earned enough money to move out of the rathole studio he used to call home. Now, his apartment is too big and too clean, too grey and too quiet in the middle of this bursting city built out of neon light.
Every morning, he wants to wake up to overly buttered toasts. He wants to have matching toothbrushes in the bathroom. He wants to be able to steal someone else’s fluffy slippers. He wants to get so used to the scent of cheap chocolate cologne that he won’t even notice once his apartment, his clothes, his hair, his skin start to smell like it.
Whenever something good happens, I just want to tell you about it. It’s been three years, and I still turn around to laugh with you whenever I find something funny. That’s what Renjun means to say. He breathes in deep, keeps his eyes open, and tries to confess: no one knows me like you do.
Yangyang cuts him off before a single word has the chance to roll off of Renjun’s tongue.
“Wait. Wait, don't say it. I know you’re gonna come up with something cheesy as hell and I don’t wanna throw up this early in the morning.”
Renjun scoffs into the speaker. “Okay. Alright, mister I’ve-always-been-waiting.”
“That’s not cheesy, that’s just the truth!” Yangyang practically yells at the other end. Renjun can almost picture him, phone hooked between his shoulder and ear as he drags his feet across the kitchen to prepare breakfast for two. “If you think about it, I’ve been practically forced to wait for you! I know, like, four people around my age in this town. Who was I supposed to get over you with? Donghyuck? I don’t want Mark to kill me, thank you very much.”
There is no stopping Yangyang once he jumps head-first into a rant. If Renjun was there, he’d take him by the cheeks and kiss him quiet, long enough to get him flushed and sweaty on the back of his neck.
Sadly, he isn’t there right now, so he closes his eyes and listens.
“Speaking of Mark and Hyuck, I think they are figuring it out! We could go on a double date with them next time you come around. ‘Cause, dude, you owe me so many dates. Three years' worth of dates. You’re gonna get sick of me.”
Eyes closed, Yangyang’s voice ringing happy in his ear, Renjun swears he can already smell the buttery scent of his morning toasts. He can’t wait for his home to permanently smell like that.