Generically Speaking
A/N: To be honest, I don’t like the way Suho is always associated with the money-craze, naggy-ahjumma personality, or how Kris only cares about his look in most fanfictions, so maybe you’ll find them to be out of characters in this one-shot. As usual, no beta, no proofread. I wrote the first words that came to mind, so the words tend to be immature or weird since English is not my first language. Plus, wasn't really in the mood to freak over plots. Just love the theory.
Enjoy!
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A few years ago, during his first year of university, Junmyeon was dating a girl named Hae Ryung.
Physically, Hae Ryung was 5'3 tall, with single eyelids but small smiling eyes. She was a brunette and the last time they saw each other, she had her hair loosely curled at shoulder length. Her gum showed when she smiled, and Junmyeon still remembers the way her eyes disappeared behind her cheekbones as she beamed. Well, to be honest, it was because of her smile that Junmyeon couldn't let her out of his head for a few months before he mustered his courage to confess to her.
Junmyeon never tell Hae Ryung this, but she was the first relationship Junmyeon ever had, if it wasn't love, and he was very afraid of being alone back then. She was very cheerful and never knew when to stay still; really, he can't really pin down the numbers of night where he lose his sleep just because Hae Ryung wanted him to be her inspiration for her Renaissance-themed assignment (she was majoring in Historical Arts). She would drag him everywhere on Sundays and sometimes Junmyeon would find himself staring at his ecstatic girlfriend who was capturing every moments that she thought would fit in her photo albums with her Polaroid camera, thinking about what he would probably do if he was a single man right then. Most of their dates were decided with hae Ryung's spontaneous (maybe a little bit abstract) thinking, ('hey, hey! Let's do the beach today! Oh the mountains are calling, can you hear them baby?')
At first, Junmyeon thought of them as fun, although pretty unexpected road trips, and there were no harms in traveling around the country (though sometimes his student pocket wasn't that ready for it). After all, it was only him and Hae Ryung without any disruption. The road trips were memories made only for them lovers, and secretly, Junmyeon likes collecting small moments like these. Of all the things that people could have forcefully taken from you, memories are yours completely. Junmyeon would at least spent six days in a month just for Hae Ryung's antics, and he liked the way Hae Ryung's eyes lit up whenever he agreed without much question to wherever she decided to go.
But then, second year of university was violently approaching, and as a university student who was among the top scorer during the entrance examination, Junmyeon was trying his best to not to repeat any subject he was taking for the current semester, so his life became scheduled.
He counted the minutes before he needed to sleep, he took breakfast-lunch-dinner time seriously because those were the only times he had for rest, and if he happened to woke up earlier than his alarm clock, he quickly shut his eyes and subtly counted the seconds before the alarm clock start beeping like crazy. Naturally, the time he spent with Hae Ryung became lesser, and his girlfriend's joke about him becoming too boring to hang out with (at which he would usually laugh at and let go) finally was not funny anymore. A couple of weeks before they broke up, Hae Ryung went to Yudal Mountain to catch the sunrise with her other friends.
It was that day when Hae Ryung casually sent him photos of the sunrise and her friends, showing how happy she looked even without him there, that Junmyeon started to formulate the theory about love; that it is, maybe always have been - generic. There is nothing personal about love like the soap dramas or sappy love movies or romance literary are feeding us since forever. Yes it is unromantic, cold even, but the fact is we can only really love the person who fits our idiosyncrasies. And if that person somehow doesn’t, reasons will naturally emerge for us to deny the chemistry until one of us gives up.
Hae Ryung's style of expressing love manifested with the way she brought people who are special to her to places that she thought about randomly. Junmyeon was sure about this, because other than this slightly worrying habit of hers, Hae Ryung was actually a girl with a lot of things planned thoroughly before execution (he had the chance watching her planning an annual event for her faculty and it was perfect). So in a way, the first few months of their relationship when Junmyeon was brought almost half across the country by her proved that at a point, Hae Ryung was really in love with him (or believed to be in love with him), because he was reciprocating the generic love Hae Ryung was giving him with the way it should be. Junmyeon started to wonder if the love had begun diminishing if she finally went to the places she loved with someone else. Maybe it did. Maybe their generic love just didn't match. He could only deal with her way of expressing love for so long, and it seemed that the way he reciprocated it just wasn't enough.
He then spent the whole day thinking about Hae Ryung and her beautiful smile (and puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit together)
A couple of weeks later, Hae Ryung was apologising to him with another man by her side; a senior from her major. Junmyeon knew that guy; he was among the friends whom climbed the mountain with Hae Ryung in the pictures she sent him. Junmyeon wanted to be angry, but he felt as if he didn't have the right to do so. He wasn't able to reciprocate Hae Ryung's way of expressing her love (because he couldn't find in every bone inside him the importance of going on random road trips with his girlfriend better than getting the perfect results in university), and it wasn't anyone's fault that their relationship came to an end. To be honest, they might've been a couple just by the name since months ago, but his ego and his fear of being alone didn't allow him to say that out loud. Telling her “it’s okay,” and “I hope you’ll be happier than you were with me,” he patted Hae Ryung’s cheek; a habit he developed almost a year they were together, only to have his shoulders pulled forward and Hae Ryung’s lips on one side of his lips.
“I loved you, Junmyeon. I really loved you. So love someone too, okay?” she said, and Junmyeon was still trying to figure what she meant by that as he saw her back disappeared behind their apartment’s door.
It was a short but very interesting relationship with Hae Ryung, and even though he couldn't admit it, but with her missing from his bed at nights, the fear of being alone once again slowly crept on his skin. There will be no one like Hae Ryung after this, Junmyeon admits to that, but slowly, the theory he formulated towards the end of their relationship was stuck inside his mind, and his next relationships were analysed, deducted and determined naturally using this theory.
-
The basic idea of this theory is simple - your role is replaceable.
Take Junmyeon's third relationship for example. He was only a junior interior designer by contract at that time despite having been graduated for almost four years, still struggling to become a permanent employee in an incessantly growing development company. His girlfriend at that time, Ah Jung, worked at the front desk.
Ah Jung was a sweet girl in her early twenties who didn’t talk much (but very outspoken) and usually giggled instead of laughing. She was a 5’1, smaller than Hae Ryung, and definitely smaller than Junmyeon’s second lover (it was a man). Ah Jung’s hair was black, thick and shiny, and Junmyeon remembers helping her tying it up into a bun every night before they went to sleep because it almost reached her waist by then. With Ah Jung, Junmyeon developed a new habit of fiddling with the ends of her hair using the fingers on his right hand (because he usually slept on the left side of the bed) until he fell asleep.
Junmyeon was attracted to Ah Jung because of her big brown eyes that were glancing at him during the company’s dinner night which was held especially for the new recruits. Thinking that he might only have tonight to approach this girl, Junmyeon made a move (a piece of cake in one hand and a full beer bottle in another), but he was stopped midway when a sunbae walked past him and towards the same girl. Dejected, he turned on his heels, trying to find a quiet corner to eat his heart out on the cake he had on his hand. Stuffing his mouth with the cake while staring far out of the window, ignoring the crowd that started to get rowdy behind him, Junmyeon was startled when a soft voice greeted him.
“I thought that was for me. I guess I was wrong,” the girl said as the opened window let the night breeze blew her long hair softly. Junmyeon almost choked on the cream but he quickly gained his composure and held his breath in.
“Well...” he took a few seconds, memorising where he was and what he should say, when Ah Jung grabbed his spoon and took a bite of the unfinished cake.
“Not bad,” she commented, “although it’s a tad plain. I can do better.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So, what’s your name again?”
With Ah Jung, Junmyeon realised that her idea of affection was through food. It wasn’t in a sense that she was great in the kitchen or anything, although Junmyeon do acknowledge that she was above average in cooking. If Junmyeon has to come up with a title to describe Ah Jung, it would be ‘Great Scooper.’ Ah Jung portrayed her love towards someone with the portion of food she handed to them. Junmyeon figured this out during their third date when Ah Jung invited him for a dinner at her apartment. There were a lot of dishes and his plate was full, but he particularly remembers having a mountain of mashed potatoes as one of the menus. It was the start of an abundance of mashed potatoes or extra bowls of rice or a plentiful of grilled meats in his plate every dinner night when they started living together, actually. Ah Jung never asked whether he wanted more or was it enough (a third plate was already burdening, to be honest) and Junmyeon somehow didn’t remember to remind her to ask about it first. Because Ah Jung was a little sensitive and Junmyeon couldn’t risk another relationship after the first two failed.
The relationship started to move in a downward spiral when Junmyeon was finally a full-time employee and Ah Jung decided to continue her study. It was always in her plans, anyways. She wanted to become a journalist, and she couldn’t have that achieved if she was only a high school graduate. She mentioned about it the day Junmyeon moved his shoes and books into her apartment, and Junmyeon told her that he was cool with it.
“An ambitious girlfriend is always a good thing,” he assured her, and Ah Jung promised she would still cook whenever she can. So three days after they celebrated their six-month anniversary, Ah Jung enrolled for her first semester in Journalism at a local community university, and Junmyeon got his first important project.
It was university and Hae Ryung all over again, if you asked him. Sleepless nights, outstations and meetings, weekends that he missed due to sponsorship-searching made them grew distant. Junmyeon’s life had once again become scheduled, and Junmyeon never tell anyone about this, but he probably likes it that way. There is always that sense of control when you are early for your meetings, as if you’ll be able to perform better and become more prepared. Junmyeon had this thought throughout the years he spent hunting for jobs; he’s just another typical white-collar employee produced by the country through the financial security and stable pay checks, and he prefers it that way.
Ah Jung on the other hand, was enjoying the busy life as a university student for the first time. Study nights, group assignments, and those gatherings to celebrate finished paper works were really keeping her plates full. The nights spent to cook were almost non-existent by the time she had her mid-term break, and even if she did, Junmyeon wasn’t able to come home anyways.
Junmyeon’s theory once again occupied his mind the last night they had their dinner together before the breakup. Ah Jung was, as always, scooping out big scoops of mashed potatoes into his plate and Junmyeon liked the way she put her hair up in a bun, cheerfully telling him about the psychology class she had that week (because she had been dying to tell Junmyeon about it since forever, and Junmyeon was never home). It was a rare moment to see Ah Jung getting so worked up in their conversations, so Junmyeon let her had her moments, until she scooped out another heap of mashed potatoes into his plate when she saw him finished the previous one. Without thinking, Junmyeon told her casually;
“Please don’t automatically give me more food without checking first to see if I want more.”
“Ah, sorry.”
Junmyeon was surprised to hear how old and controlling he was as he said that. Was he really comfortable enough with the relationship to be mentioning the obvious towards Ah Jung by then? Maybe he was, or maybe it was because of the times they were not together that pulled them apart. Maybe he was just losing his ability to sync in with Ah Jung’s idea of reciprocating affections. Ah Jung was quiet for the rest of the dinner, letting her story unfinished and till this day, Junmyeon can’t remember what she was talking about. Maybe he wasn’t even listening back then. There was no more dinner after that, and Junmyeon had his lunch and dinner outside most of the times. He didn’t even bother to have breakfast anymore.
Two months later, they both decided that there were no more strings to bind them together, so after their last kiss, Junmyeon moved out of Ah Jung’s apartment and wished her good luck. Ah Jung smiled and with a twinkle of tears inside her eyes, she told him to take a breath sometimes from his work, an advice at which Junmyeon nodded understandingly.
Three years later, Junmyeon received a wedding invitation from Ah Jung. He couldn’t attend it since it was on the same day as a conference he was apparently unable to avoid, so he phoned her instead to congratulate them. She was having dinner with her fiancé, so Junmyeon thought he would call another time but she said it’s alright, since Junmyeon might be too busy for another call after this anyways (somehow that word pricked his heart deeply). They were talking about Ah Jung’s profession (she was a columnist in a food magazine then) when Junmyeon heard her fiancé called out;
“Darling, another bowl of mashed potatoes!” and Ah Jung finally excused herself from the phone.
Again, Junmyeon got it: love is generic. True, there might be other charms on her fiancé that made her happy to be with him, but Junmyeon was sure that one of them was the fact that he was probably a potatophile. Just like how Hae Ryung needed someone to be dragged along to random places at random times without retaliating, Ah Jung needed someone who would accept her enormous pile of frenzy feeding and ask for more. It’s sad, and possibly pathetic of him to think about it this way, but maybe the next time he’s in love, he shouldn’t really take their ‘I love yous’ way too personally. They would probably love anybody in his position.
-
He didn’t deny it when people asked him about his relationships; yes he dated three times so far, yes the second one was with a man. But usually, if people were being vague about their questions, he left out the stories about his second relationship on purpose. Not because it would make the audience flinch and question his sexuality instead; hey he had always been comfortable with whichever ship he’s sailing. But it was hard to tell stories about the relationship that maybe, just maybe was the closest he could get with the idea of ‘true love.’
Junmyeon’s second relationship was more of an accident: unexpected, unwanted, a result of a reckless behaviour but hard to forget, unless you got knocked on the head.
Junmyeon was in his final year during the time he met Yifan; a young self-acclaimed, free-spirited cartoonist of some sort. He was struggling with internship and job-hunting and final projects by then, so falling asleep in a café where students from his university usually frequent was not much of a deal. Yifan was doing a part-time job waitressing at the said café while trying to get his comic strips compilation about a lanky alien from another galaxy who found the meaning of life with fried chicken (Junmyeon swears Yifan was one of the most eccentric people he ever met) published in paperbacks, so it was only natural to see each other on a daily basis.
Yifan was 6’2 tall, a giant when compared to Junmyeon (he is only 5’4). At first, Junmyeon hated the fact that he had to look up as Yifan was telling him the total amount of his coffee and breakfast over the counter whenever he was on cashier duty. Yifan’s eyes always looked like as if he was laughing at Junmyeon’s height while he waited for him to hand the cash. Junmyeon also envied his huge hands with perfect fingernails and slender fingers when he handed him the change. His hands were terribly inferior when compared to Yifan’s, and Junmyeon had always disliked how crooked his fingers looked like next to Yifan’s straight and perfect ones. Junmyeon would quickly grab the change and walked out from the café before Yifan had the chance to say ‘thank you and come again!’
Despite seeing each other almost every day at the café for several months, the first time they really talked was on the night of the last Saturday before the due date for Junmyeon’s final project, which was on Monday. He was all set with his laptop and Americano at his favourite table; the one in the corner near the huge window panel, just a few steps away from the cashier’s counter. Junmyeon liked the spot because it was near to the power source (because he could never trust his laptop’s battery), and no one would be sitting behind or beside him since the seat was attached to a wall; a perfect place to sit for anyone who wanted to avoid unnecessary social convention in crucial times like this. He also felt relaxed enough because Yifan wasn’t working on Saturdays, which meant he wasn’t going to be distracted by that particular waiter with superior height and look walking around the tables, enchanting everyone with his gummy smile (he did thought about Hae Ryung sometimes when he accidentally saw Yifan’s smile).
But boy was he wrong.
He was doodling in AutoCad, putting finishing touches on the final blueprint for his futuristic Victorian-themed café complete with laundry (he was still amazed that his supervising lecturer approved his initial design) when he heard the rustle of someone’s leather jacket squeaked against the seat in front of him. Without looking up from his screen, Junmyeon casually told the stranger;
“Seat’s taken. Go find another one,” while gesturing his free hand in the air, shooing the intruder away, only for it to be caught between two huge palms with pretty long fingers. Shocked, Junmyeon looked up, ready to yell at whoever that was disturbing his alone time, when he saw Yifan observing his hand with a great interest.
“What the hell? What are you doing, dude?” he said, trying hard to pull his hand away but failed. He didn’t know why but his eyes were involuntarily following the way Yifan’s fingers caressing the back of his hand, and it felt really hard for him to not to like it.
“Ssshh... I’ve been contemplating whether I should do this or not for a while now, so just give me a few seconds,” he said, eyes still on Junmyeon’s hand. When he put their palms together, comparing the obvious difference in size between them, Junmyeon felt even more inferior, especially when Yifan proceeded to slide his fingers in between Junmyeon’s.
“You have really small hands,” he finally said when Junmyeon forcefully pulled his hand away.
“Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. Now scram or I’ll report you to your manager for sexual harassment,” he threatened under his breath as the fingers on his right hand continued to dance on the cursor pad; really, he should’ve brought the mouse. AutoCad was always a bitch. Yifan laughed at his threat and raised a hand, calling his fellow colleague to order a drink - a short guy with chubby cheeks and round eyes slowly walked towards them with a mocking grin and Junmyeon started to regret coming here tonight. He just wanted to be left alone to finish his work, goddamn it!
“A Coke for me and since he already ordered a drink, just a powerful cheer for my hardworking date here, please,” he cavalierly ordered as if he owned the goddamn place. Slamming his laptop shut, Junmyeon started to pack as the waiter, Minseok - as written on his nametag - jot down their order with a knowing grin (which made Junmyeon felt even more confused and irritated at the same time). Yifan looked at him with his eyebrows raised questioningly.
“What are you doing? I just got here.”
“Leaving, because apparently I’m far too busy to deal with an anonymous freak right now,” he said as he strapped his knapsack on. Seeing him leaving, Yifan stood up to follow him with a smirk. He watched as Junmyeon paid for the Americano he had, and told Minseok to cancel his order earlier before continued tailing Junmyeon down the street like an obedient dog. Junmyeon wanted to turn around and tell Yifan to stop following him, but if he did so, he’d lose.
“I’m sure you know my name.” Yifan slowly suggested a conversation from behind. Junmyeon laughed sarcastically before he realised he had given Yifan the satisfaction by reacting to his words. Damn this sarcastic reflex.
Oh well, what the hell. Junmyeon finally decided to just play along until Yifan gives up.
“Unfortunately I don’t, but I’m already thinking about the other name for penis.” Yifan stopped walking and gasped, as if Junmyeon had just said the unthinkable. Rolling his eyes, Junmyeon turned around to see Yifan palming his mouth as his eyes turned superficially glassy.
“Oh my God! We’re a match made in heaven! How’d you know I was called Putz?” Yifan squealed, and ran towards Junmyeon to pull him into an embrace, only to be rejected blatantly when Junmyeon swung his thick textbook directly onto his face. It was a relief that the street was quiet that night. Only a few other passers-by present a few metres away, and they didn’t seem to be concerned enough to care about the two grown guys who were bickering on the street.
“Dick!”
“Whoa, you’re obscenely attractive; did you know that, Kim Junmyeon?” Yifan said while checking whether his nose was still intact, and smiled towards Junmyeon with his red nose, flashing his gummy smile and this time, Junmyeon felt weird because he didn’t thought of Hae Ryung anymore.
“How’d you know my name?”
“You used cards to pay the bills sometimes.”
“Why would you remember my name?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. Why would I follow you around at night on my day off?” Yifan said, and the confidence on his face suddenly dimmed out. Junmyeon’s thought about a lot of things the moment he saw Yifan’s peeking eyes and reddened cheeks. He thought about how he didn’t like Yifan’s height from the first time he saw him picking up the broken cup that he knocked down on his first day at work. He thought about how for the past few weeks, Yifan was always the one who served his table. He remembered seeing uniformed dots on Yifan’s right wrist a few days ago; he didn’t know Yifan was a cartoonist then, and that the dots were a part of the tone shades he used for his comic. Slowly, Junmyeon started to realise that the smug look on Yifan’s face every time he was at the counter, paying for his meal was probably just Yifan concealing words he would like to let out but couldn’t. He also reminded of the smirks he got from Minseok just now when Yifan decided to sit and talk to him tonight.
He must’ve missed a lot of signs that Yifan was waving at his face.
“You... like me?”
“Seriously dude, have I really been that subtle?”
“I don’t know man, why didn’t you just write me a note on napkins or something instead of doing all these Ahern’s shits?”
“You read Cecelia Ahern?”
“Dude!”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. So, what do you think?” Yifan finally asked, suddenly getting ready for Junmyeon’s answer when even Junmyeon himself was trying to really digest the whole situation inside his head. Yifan’s hands were on the sides of his head, getting ready to cover his face just in case he got rejected. He told Junmyeon to don’t mind it, but his face was too obvious that every word spoken by Junmyeon would affect him a lot. Junmyeon’s eyes then traced the outline of Yifan’s hands; how perfect they looked like no matter how stupid their owner was. He remembered being touched by those fingers earlier, and how hot they felt.
“I think you’ve gone mad and you’re an idiot. I’m so pissed at you right now because you make me waste my precious time to be bothered with your confession instead of doing my work, and I’m still confused as to why you were observing my hand at the café.” Junmyeon told him directly, and Yifan flinched momentarily, before he regained his composure and stood straight.
“Weirdly, I cannot sense any disgust or rejection from your words.”
“That’s because you’re an utter idiot.” Junmyeon sighed, and turned on his heels back towards the café. Yifan smiled as he offered to carry his knapsack, which Junmyeon gladly threw into his arms. When they reached the café, Minseok was grinning ear to ear as Yifan made a peace sign at him and Junmyeon rolled his eyes. Yifan kept his company the whole night through, and when Junmyeon told him that he should head home first, he awed at the concern and Junmyeon felt like killing himself by biting his tongue and bleed to death.
“It’s okay; I’m on the morning shift so I can just start immediately while waiting for you. I’m far too hype to sleep right now anyways. Just to be sure, you didn’t reject me, right?” he asked again, face concerned, and Junmyeon just felt the urge to tease him by saying ‘yes.’ Instead of answering him, Junmyeon asked him another question.
“Why did you look at my hand?”
“Because it’s smaller than mine.”
“You have a fetish, don’t you? Admit it, you like me because of the size of my hands,” Junmyeon asked him with eyes squinted in suspicion. Yifan laughed heartily before he shook his head and smiled before he turned to look at his face. It took Junmyeon off guard seeing him gazing into his eyes like that.
“No, just you.”
He didn’t know why, but Junmyeon felt as if his theory about love was being ripped one by one when he heard Yifan’s low voice vibrating in the air and hovering just in the small space they had between them. But it was too early for any assumption anyways, so Junmyeon shook his head and chuckled.
“Oh, what’s your name by the way?” he finally remembered to ask, and Yifan mouth cartoony went into an ‘O’ state.
“Dude, you’re heartless.”
-
Being in a relationship with Yifan, Junmyeon discovered a lot of things about himself. For instance, he cursed a lot whenever he was gaming. There was one time when they were playing Gran Turismo and Yifan made a bet that if Junmyeon cursed more than five times during one lap of race, he would have to kiss him once for every five curses. Yifan ended up being kissed 45 times that weekend.
He also discovered that he hates, really hates horror movies when Yifan brought his whole collection of Freddy Krueger when they celebrated Junmyeon’s employment at a major home-designing company (which only lasted for four months before the economy depleted and Junmyeon was jobless once again). It took him weeks to recover from being paranoid of the bulges he saw under his comforter.
With Yifan, he developed the habit of palming their hands together whenever he could, but usually it was before sleep. Lying in bed next to each other while talking about Yifan’s comic that was rising in popularity; he would listen to Yifan’s creative ideas for the next volume while knitting his fingers in between Yifan’s, secretly counting the seconds before Yifan curled his palm and wrapped Junmyeon’s hand softly inside his. When he did that, the talk was usually over and Junmyeon was already on his way to dreamland as he felt a kiss planted at the top of his head.
“You stink,” Yifan usually told him in a whisper, and he would pinch his waist and kicked him in the shin before he reached for the switch to the lights.
“You snore like a pig,” he would whisper and they both would laugh until Yifan started to snore, and really, Junmyeon wished to buy him a ‘Breathe Right’ plaster (he didn’t have the chance to do so until they broke up).
Junmyeon discovered that his personal idiosyncrasy in love is to call each other stupid names for a good laugh; names that only they understood of. Once, he called Yifan ‘Green Hog’ for a few weeks because his boyfriend was obsessed with Angry Birds. He even asked for an official permission from the game developer’s company to dedicate an episode in his comic especially for the game (in which the green pigs were the real heroes who saved a bunch of suicidal-maniac birdies). In return, Yifan called him a ‘Hamburglar’ for almost a month when he won an eating contest held in their neighbourhood against the other Shrek-looking contestants. It didn’t even feel like an insult when you had a belt with your name on it hanging on the wall, though.
Maybe he was still too young when he was with Hae Ryung, so he felt the need to restrain himself from saying the things he wanted to say or do the things he wanted to do. For that, Junmyeon blamed his innocence. But it was different with Yifan. Even years after that when he was in a relationship with Ah Jung, Junmyeon couldn’t find the same serenity he felt when he was watching Yifan sketching his ideas onto dirty papers or the back of a book he was reading, face excited and mind probably light years away from the current universe. There was something special with the way his fingers enthusiastically created something out of nothing, and Junmyeon was mesmerised with the faith he had in Yifan to see that he was always waiting for the ideas on the dirty papers to be published in paperbacks the next month.
Just like how his faith in Yifan was endless, Junmyeon found the same faith was in Yifan’s eyes whenever he came to the office to send him the leftover cakes and coffee from the café after his shift ended because Junmyeon hated to bring his work home.
“One day you’re going to design a house for the President, and I want to be the first one to brag about it, like, ‘You see that big mansion? Yeah that’s where the President lives and my boyfriend designed it,’” he would say while grinning idiotically over the dividers between the worker’s desk, and Junmyeon usually shook his head trying to avoid the red tint that was surfacing across his cheeks.
For a while, Junmyeon abandoned his theory of love. Maybe real love is unconditional. Maybe loving someone means supporting them and thinking about them in every little thing you do. Who knows? Maybe Yifan is the right person all along. And even if he wanted to analyse this relationship generically, then he’ll be damned - maybe their generic love styles were the perfect match.
But Yifan wasn’t the one back then.
Again, it was university and Hae Ryung, only this time Junmyeon felt a bit much worse that before. Junmyeon was still struggling for another job after the first company declared their bankruptcy, and Yifan’s comics were now selling on the international level. He used to follow him for fanmeeting events around Korea, but it was tougher when it got over the international borders. Sometimes Yifan would be in China for a few days, and then Japan before he was back in Seoul. Forums on the internet were discussing how good looking the cartoonist for the comic strip is, and girls were being fans of Yifan instead of his comics.
It was all about publicity, so there’s nothing Junmyeon could do about it.
But slowly, he was getting a little bit unhappy by each day that passed by.
Thinking back about it, maybe it wasn’t even Yifan’s fault. Perhaps it was ego. Yes, it was ego that made Junmyeon felt uncomfortable when Yifan invited him to live together in his new and bigger apartment when he was back from China that day. Yifan did nothing wrong - he was just being the same Yifan that Junmyeon was attracted to. Idiotic, careless and eccentric. Planning about turning a room into a gaming room, picking out the curtains’ colour and the furniture, saying things like;
“Better use my boyfriend’s talent for a place that we’re going to live in together, yeah?” without even seeing Junmyeon’s glassy eyes or the veins that started to appear on his face. Quickly, Junmyeon wiped his face and faked a smile; something that he hadn’t use for a while.
“Sure,” he said, crashing his small built into Yifan’s chest while biting his lip.
A month later, after signing the last invoice for the set of sofa they chose together (it was white cream and Yifan said he couldn’t wait to have a deep slumber on it) and arranging it in the living room as they planned, Junmyeon left the keys inside the bowl next to the door, and never look back.
Maybe Yifan was the one for him back then, and their generic love styles undeniably matched, but he wasn’t the right one for Yifan. He chose to leave, because sooner or later, Yifan would see it, and it would be too late to back away without any of them getting hurt in the end.
So yes, his second relationship was the closest he came with ‘true love.’
-
Today, Junmyeon doesn’t really talk about his theory of love to anyone. He had two to three other relationships after Ah Jung, but they were all too needy, too fake, and too suffocating and Junmyeon could only stay just for a while. He is too overgrown for an innocent relationship like how he was his Hae Ryung. He is too old for an ambitious lover like Ah Jung, and he has been too stuck up and hardened to have a relaxed, carefree and fulfilling relationship like how being with Yifan was. Junmyeon decided that he is just simply not suitable for a love life anymore. And that’s okay, because look where he is now.
Years working under ignorant people had trained him to become better at managing his own business. After he said goodbye to his last company, Junmyeon decided that he’s had enough trimming and modifying his creativity into something so common and overused - generic - and he wasn’t going to waste anymore raw ideas after this. Together with a fellow colleague from his old workplace, Yixing, they opened their own home-design company and displayed their own ideas. Maybe they were doing it at the right time, because the business bloomed and they had to hire another architect and interior designer; so came along a trio - Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Sehun - three fresh graduates from his old university with abstract minds and adequate eyes for beauty.
So yeah, business is great. Sometimes he still feels lonely at nights, and of all people, he is reminded of Yifan’s pretty fingers dribbling on his back while he was trying to fall asleep inside his arms. But it’s okay, Junmyeon can manage it well so far.
-
“Kim Junmyeon? Is that really you?” a woman calls out his name as Junmyeon walks towards the counter to pay for his bills. Turning to his left, Junmyeon sees a brunette in plain white shirt and straight cut jeans is walking hastily towards his direction, one hand holding a baby in her arm and the other is full with shopping bags - shoes, baby clothes, decoration flowers - you name it.
“Hae Ryung? Hae Ryung! Wow, you look -”
“Old but still cute, right? I know, I know. Don’t fall in love with me again.” She laughs and Junmyeon still remembers the day he fell in love with someone who had a gummy smile like that (funny, he used to be reminded of Hae Ryung when he saw Yifan’s smile). Taking the bags off her hand, Junmyeon follows as Hae Ryung pulls his hand and forces him to sit down once again. Junmyeon checks the time on his wristwatch; still got half an hour before the weekly report meeting with the staff.
“So, you got a kid,” he casually states with a chuckle. Hae Ryung rolls her eyes and coos her baby when he starts to wriggle.
“And you still don’t. Surprise, surprise. Oh right, I heard you opened your own home-décor company, right?”
“Yeah, it’s been six years now. Why?” he asks and Hae Ryung’s eyes are lighting up, just like they used to years ago. What a thing memory is, what was once seemed like an unnoticeable trait now is the only thing that reminds someone of something out of nowhere.
“Okay, so me and my husband, we’ve just moved back here from Busan last week, and we got a hold on this apartment, not so big but cosy enough for a family of three like us. Speaking of which, you didn’t come to my wedding!”
“I was busy! Hae Ryung, I’ve got a meeting after this so you better be fast!” Junmyeon threatens her, and she huffs desperately. Her baby giggles as he sees her mother makes a funny face.
“Okay, okay. So I was wondering if you could come and see what you can do to make it safe for a family with a kid like mine? And I was hoping for a friendly price too,” she finally admits with a huge grin, and Junmyeon rolls his eyes jokingly.
“I’ll see what I can do. Is this Saturday okay? It’s the only free time I got so far,” he finally agrees, and Hae Ryung nods excitedly.
“I have a dental appointment in the morning, but my husband will be home. I’ll let him know, okay? And we have a lot to catch up, dude. Ex-lovers or not, we didn’t break up in a bad way so I’m obliged to be a busybody about your life,” Hae Ryung warns him, and Junmyeon slowly starts to regret his decision.
-
It was probably nine years ago, but Junmyeon can still recognise the building like it was yesterday. The walls have been repainted several times, but the number of stairs and the elevator’s sound is still so familiar inside his head.
“Oh, Junmyeon! Come on in!” Hae Ryung’s husband, the senior from her mountain climbing pictures greets him as soon as he presses the bell after a few minutes of hesitating.
The same house. The same curtain. The same sofa. They all look a little bit washed out and overused, but they’re still in the perfect condition just like how he left them.
“It’s great, isn’t it? A friend of mine leased it for me. Oh and this friend, his story was so sad. He’s been waiting for his lover to return so that’s why he’s been keeping this house, saying they’re going to live here together once she comes back, but I guess she has really dumped him. So right now he’s giving up, but he’s taking all the furniture though. A memory, he said,” Hae Ryung’s husband keeps on talking while handing him a can of beer, and Junmyeon politely accepts it.
“I mean, isn’t that stupid? But I guess, men in love are idiots, aren’t we? I’ve been Hae Ryung’s idiot for years now.” He continues and laughs heartily, not seeing the tears that start to brim on Junmyeon’s eyes. Wiping them away, he excuses himself for bathroom before he starts to measure the house away (but he doesn’t really have to, he remembers everything about the crooks and the corners). Splashing the cold water from the tap onto his face, Junmyeon wants to tell himself that this is just all a coincidence, that friend isn’t the person he thinks he is. But he can’t, because he knows it is Yifan.
Drying his face with the towel on the wall, Junmyeon then proceeds to walk towards the kitchen, only to hear Hae Ryung’s husband bickering with someone about the sofa in the living room. He did hear someone rang the bell a few minutes ago.
“You’re not going to be in Korea anyways! Just let me have the sofa. I’ll pay extra from the three first months of the rent, okay?”
“I’m taking them with me. I told you, it’s a memory. I can’t just throw it away. What if we meet somewhere while I’m in Paris? Who knows, maybe if I’m alone and my lover’s still alone, then... maybe...” Yifan’s voice suddenly stops, and he lets out a deep sigh.
“Who am I kidding? Fine, just take it. I won’t put in any charge. It’s a housewarming gift,” he smiles sadly as Hae Ryung’s husband pats his shoulder. Junmyeon wants to walks out from the house right away, because he can’t stand seeing Yifan’s sad face, but he also wants to wipe away that sadness and tells him that he’s sorry, that Yifan never really left his mind. That he was being an idiot, because an idiot is what he is being best at so far. Stuck with two thoughts, he can’t move forward and he can’t run away.
“Junmyeon? What are you doing there? My appointment was cancelled, so I guess I’ll give you a tour around the hou-” Hae Ryung appears from behind and grabs his arm, bringing him into the kitchen where everyone else is when Yifan dashes towards them and pulls Junmyeon away from Hae Ryung.
“Yifan?”
“I’m going to borrow him for today! Sorry!” he yells, and Junmyeon can’t really say anything because the next thing he knows, the door is already closed behind them and he is being kissed hungrily inside a black Jeep in the rooftop parking lot.
“You’ve got nine-year worth of explanation, mister. I don’t care if you’re married or engaged or in a relationship right now, so start explaining!” he yells in between their kisses, and Junmyeon can see his eyes turn cloudy with a lot of questions instead of relief.
“I... I still haven’t design the President’s mansion-” Junmyeon finally takes his chance to speak, and Yifan looks at him, amazingly stupefied. But he knows that Yifan knows, it means more than that. Yifan knows how scared and proud he was, and he knows Yifan understands him. Yifan waited for nine years, goddamn it.
What’s so generic about love if someone could wait for an incompetent man like him? Theories be damned.
“You are amazingly idiotic, Kim Junmyeon,” Yifan breathes in between their kisses, and Junmyeon nods, agreeing.
Their fingers intertwined almost naturally, and isn’t it amazing how old habits resurfacing just because of the small things you remember about the people associated with it?
-
Hae Ryung looks at her husband questioningly, and the man shrugs.
“Well at least we got the sofa.”
-End-
Enjoy!
---
A few years ago, during his first year of university, Junmyeon was dating a girl named Hae Ryung.
Physically, Hae Ryung was 5'3 tall, with single eyelids but small smiling eyes. She was a brunette and the last time they saw each other, she had her hair loosely curled at shoulder length. Her gum showed when she smiled, and Junmyeon still remembers the way her eyes disappeared behind her cheekbones as she beamed. Well, to be honest, it was because of her smile that Junmyeon couldn't let her out of his head for a few months before he mustered his courage to confess to her.
Junmyeon never tell Hae Ryung this, but she was the first relationship Junmyeon ever had, if it wasn't love, and he was very afraid of being alone back then. She was very cheerful and never knew when to stay still; really, he can't really pin down the numbers of night where he lose his sleep just because Hae Ryung wanted him to be her inspiration for her Renaissance-themed assignment (she was majoring in Historical Arts). She would drag him everywhere on Sundays and sometimes Junmyeon would find himself staring at his ecstatic girlfriend who was capturing every moments that she thought would fit in her photo albums with her Polaroid camera, thinking about what he would probably do if he was a single man right then. Most of their dates were decided with hae Ryung's spontaneous (maybe a little bit abstract) thinking, ('hey, hey! Let's do the beach today! Oh the mountains are calling, can you hear them baby?')
At first, Junmyeon thought of them as fun, although pretty unexpected road trips, and there were no harms in traveling around the country (though sometimes his student pocket wasn't that ready for it). After all, it was only him and Hae Ryung without any disruption. The road trips were memories made only for them lovers, and secretly, Junmyeon likes collecting small moments like these. Of all the things that people could have forcefully taken from you, memories are yours completely. Junmyeon would at least spent six days in a month just for Hae Ryung's antics, and he liked the way Hae Ryung's eyes lit up whenever he agreed without much question to wherever she decided to go.
But then, second year of university was violently approaching, and as a university student who was among the top scorer during the entrance examination, Junmyeon was trying his best to not to repeat any subject he was taking for the current semester, so his life became scheduled.
He counted the minutes before he needed to sleep, he took breakfast-lunch-dinner time seriously because those were the only times he had for rest, and if he happened to woke up earlier than his alarm clock, he quickly shut his eyes and subtly counted the seconds before the alarm clock start beeping like crazy. Naturally, the time he spent with Hae Ryung became lesser, and his girlfriend's joke about him becoming too boring to hang out with (at which he would usually laugh at and let go) finally was not funny anymore. A couple of weeks before they broke up, Hae Ryung went to Yudal Mountain to catch the sunrise with her other friends.
It was that day when Hae Ryung casually sent him photos of the sunrise and her friends, showing how happy she looked even without him there, that Junmyeon started to formulate the theory about love; that it is, maybe always have been - generic. There is nothing personal about love like the soap dramas or sappy love movies or romance literary are feeding us since forever. Yes it is unromantic, cold even, but the fact is we can only really love the person who fits our idiosyncrasies. And if that person somehow doesn’t, reasons will naturally emerge for us to deny the chemistry until one of us gives up.
Hae Ryung's style of expressing love manifested with the way she brought people who are special to her to places that she thought about randomly. Junmyeon was sure about this, because other than this slightly worrying habit of hers, Hae Ryung was actually a girl with a lot of things planned thoroughly before execution (he had the chance watching her planning an annual event for her faculty and it was perfect). So in a way, the first few months of their relationship when Junmyeon was brought almost half across the country by her proved that at a point, Hae Ryung was really in love with him (or believed to be in love with him), because he was reciprocating the generic love Hae Ryung was giving him with the way it should be. Junmyeon started to wonder if the love had begun diminishing if she finally went to the places she loved with someone else. Maybe it did. Maybe their generic love just didn't match. He could only deal with her way of expressing love for so long, and it seemed that the way he reciprocated it just wasn't enough.
He then spent the whole day thinking about Hae Ryung and her beautiful smile (and puzzle pieces that didn’t quite fit together)
A couple of weeks later, Hae Ryung was apologising to him with another man by her side; a senior from her major. Junmyeon knew that guy; he was among the friends whom climbed the mountain with Hae Ryung in the pictures she sent him. Junmyeon wanted to be angry, but he felt as if he didn't have the right to do so. He wasn't able to reciprocate Hae Ryung's way of expressing her love (because he couldn't find in every bone inside him the importance of going on random road trips with his girlfriend better than getting the perfect results in university), and it wasn't anyone's fault that their relationship came to an end. To be honest, they might've been a couple just by the name since months ago, but his ego and his fear of being alone didn't allow him to say that out loud. Telling her “it’s okay,” and “I hope you’ll be happier than you were with me,” he patted Hae Ryung’s cheek; a habit he developed almost a year they were together, only to have his shoulders pulled forward and Hae Ryung’s lips on one side of his lips.
“I loved you, Junmyeon. I really loved you. So love someone too, okay?” she said, and Junmyeon was still trying to figure what she meant by that as he saw her back disappeared behind their apartment’s door.
It was a short but very interesting relationship with Hae Ryung, and even though he couldn't admit it, but with her missing from his bed at nights, the fear of being alone once again slowly crept on his skin. There will be no one like Hae Ryung after this, Junmyeon admits to that, but slowly, the theory he formulated towards the end of their relationship was stuck inside his mind, and his next relationships were analysed, deducted and determined naturally using this theory.
-
The basic idea of this theory is simple - your role is replaceable.
Take Junmyeon's third relationship for example. He was only a junior interior designer by contract at that time despite having been graduated for almost four years, still struggling to become a permanent employee in an incessantly growing development company. His girlfriend at that time, Ah Jung, worked at the front desk.
Ah Jung was a sweet girl in her early twenties who didn’t talk much (but very outspoken) and usually giggled instead of laughing. She was a 5’1, smaller than Hae Ryung, and definitely smaller than Junmyeon’s second lover (it was a man). Ah Jung’s hair was black, thick and shiny, and Junmyeon remembers helping her tying it up into a bun every night before they went to sleep because it almost reached her waist by then. With Ah Jung, Junmyeon developed a new habit of fiddling with the ends of her hair using the fingers on his right hand (because he usually slept on the left side of the bed) until he fell asleep.
Junmyeon was attracted to Ah Jung because of her big brown eyes that were glancing at him during the company’s dinner night which was held especially for the new recruits. Thinking that he might only have tonight to approach this girl, Junmyeon made a move (a piece of cake in one hand and a full beer bottle in another), but he was stopped midway when a sunbae walked past him and towards the same girl. Dejected, he turned on his heels, trying to find a quiet corner to eat his heart out on the cake he had on his hand. Stuffing his mouth with the cake while staring far out of the window, ignoring the crowd that started to get rowdy behind him, Junmyeon was startled when a soft voice greeted him.
“I thought that was for me. I guess I was wrong,” the girl said as the opened window let the night breeze blew her long hair softly. Junmyeon almost choked on the cream but he quickly gained his composure and held his breath in.
“Well...” he took a few seconds, memorising where he was and what he should say, when Ah Jung grabbed his spoon and took a bite of the unfinished cake.
“Not bad,” she commented, “although it’s a tad plain. I can do better.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So, what’s your name again?”
With Ah Jung, Junmyeon realised that her idea of affection was through food. It wasn’t in a sense that she was great in the kitchen or anything, although Junmyeon do acknowledge that she was above average in cooking. If Junmyeon has to come up with a title to describe Ah Jung, it would be ‘Great Scooper.’ Ah Jung portrayed her love towards someone with the portion of food she handed to them. Junmyeon figured this out during their third date when Ah Jung invited him for a dinner at her apartment. There were a lot of dishes and his plate was full, but he particularly remembers having a mountain of mashed potatoes as one of the menus. It was the start of an abundance of mashed potatoes or extra bowls of rice or a plentiful of grilled meats in his plate every dinner night when they started living together, actually. Ah Jung never asked whether he wanted more or was it enough (a third plate was already burdening, to be honest) and Junmyeon somehow didn’t remember to remind her to ask about it first. Because Ah Jung was a little sensitive and Junmyeon couldn’t risk another relationship after the first two failed.
The relationship started to move in a downward spiral when Junmyeon was finally a full-time employee and Ah Jung decided to continue her study. It was always in her plans, anyways. She wanted to become a journalist, and she couldn’t have that achieved if she was only a high school graduate. She mentioned about it the day Junmyeon moved his shoes and books into her apartment, and Junmyeon told her that he was cool with it.
“An ambitious girlfriend is always a good thing,” he assured her, and Ah Jung promised she would still cook whenever she can. So three days after they celebrated their six-month anniversary, Ah Jung enrolled for her first semester in Journalism at a local community university, and Junmyeon got his first important project.
It was university and Hae Ryung all over again, if you asked him. Sleepless nights, outstations and meetings, weekends that he missed due to sponsorship-searching made them grew distant. Junmyeon’s life had once again become scheduled, and Junmyeon never tell anyone about this, but he probably likes it that way. There is always that sense of control when you are early for your meetings, as if you’ll be able to perform better and become more prepared. Junmyeon had this thought throughout the years he spent hunting for jobs; he’s just another typical white-collar employee produced by the country through the financial security and stable pay checks, and he prefers it that way.
Ah Jung on the other hand, was enjoying the busy life as a university student for the first time. Study nights, group assignments, and those gatherings to celebrate finished paper works were really keeping her plates full. The nights spent to cook were almost non-existent by the time she had her mid-term break, and even if she did, Junmyeon wasn’t able to come home anyways.
Junmyeon’s theory once again occupied his mind the last night they had their dinner together before the breakup. Ah Jung was, as always, scooping out big scoops of mashed potatoes into his plate and Junmyeon liked the way she put her hair up in a bun, cheerfully telling him about the psychology class she had that week (because she had been dying to tell Junmyeon about it since forever, and Junmyeon was never home). It was a rare moment to see Ah Jung getting so worked up in their conversations, so Junmyeon let her had her moments, until she scooped out another heap of mashed potatoes into his plate when she saw him finished the previous one. Without thinking, Junmyeon told her casually;
“Please don’t automatically give me more food without checking first to see if I want more.”
“Ah, sorry.”
Junmyeon was surprised to hear how old and controlling he was as he said that. Was he really comfortable enough with the relationship to be mentioning the obvious towards Ah Jung by then? Maybe he was, or maybe it was because of the times they were not together that pulled them apart. Maybe he was just losing his ability to sync in with Ah Jung’s idea of reciprocating affections. Ah Jung was quiet for the rest of the dinner, letting her story unfinished and till this day, Junmyeon can’t remember what she was talking about. Maybe he wasn’t even listening back then. There was no more dinner after that, and Junmyeon had his lunch and dinner outside most of the times. He didn’t even bother to have breakfast anymore.
Two months later, they both decided that there were no more strings to bind them together, so after their last kiss, Junmyeon moved out of Ah Jung’s apartment and wished her good luck. Ah Jung smiled and with a twinkle of tears inside her eyes, she told him to take a breath sometimes from his work, an advice at which Junmyeon nodded understandingly.
Three years later, Junmyeon received a wedding invitation from Ah Jung. He couldn’t attend it since it was on the same day as a conference he was apparently unable to avoid, so he phoned her instead to congratulate them. She was having dinner with her fiancé, so Junmyeon thought he would call another time but she said it’s alright, since Junmyeon might be too busy for another call after this anyways (somehow that word pricked his heart deeply). They were talking about Ah Jung’s profession (she was a columnist in a food magazine then) when Junmyeon heard her fiancé called out;
“Darling, another bowl of mashed potatoes!” and Ah Jung finally excused herself from the phone.
Again, Junmyeon got it: love is generic. True, there might be other charms on her fiancé that made her happy to be with him, but Junmyeon was sure that one of them was the fact that he was probably a potatophile. Just like how Hae Ryung needed someone to be dragged along to random places at random times without retaliating, Ah Jung needed someone who would accept her enormous pile of frenzy feeding and ask for more. It’s sad, and possibly pathetic of him to think about it this way, but maybe the next time he’s in love, he shouldn’t really take their ‘I love yous’ way too personally. They would probably love anybody in his position.
-
He didn’t deny it when people asked him about his relationships; yes he dated three times so far, yes the second one was with a man. But usually, if people were being vague about their questions, he left out the stories about his second relationship on purpose. Not because it would make the audience flinch and question his sexuality instead; hey he had always been comfortable with whichever ship he’s sailing. But it was hard to tell stories about the relationship that maybe, just maybe was the closest he could get with the idea of ‘true love.’
Junmyeon’s second relationship was more of an accident: unexpected, unwanted, a result of a reckless behaviour but hard to forget, unless you got knocked on the head.
Junmyeon was in his final year during the time he met Yifan; a young self-acclaimed, free-spirited cartoonist of some sort. He was struggling with internship and job-hunting and final projects by then, so falling asleep in a café where students from his university usually frequent was not much of a deal. Yifan was doing a part-time job waitressing at the said café while trying to get his comic strips compilation about a lanky alien from another galaxy who found the meaning of life with fried chicken (Junmyeon swears Yifan was one of the most eccentric people he ever met) published in paperbacks, so it was only natural to see each other on a daily basis.
Yifan was 6’2 tall, a giant when compared to Junmyeon (he is only 5’4). At first, Junmyeon hated the fact that he had to look up as Yifan was telling him the total amount of his coffee and breakfast over the counter whenever he was on cashier duty. Yifan’s eyes always looked like as if he was laughing at Junmyeon’s height while he waited for him to hand the cash. Junmyeon also envied his huge hands with perfect fingernails and slender fingers when he handed him the change. His hands were terribly inferior when compared to Yifan’s, and Junmyeon had always disliked how crooked his fingers looked like next to Yifan’s straight and perfect ones. Junmyeon would quickly grab the change and walked out from the café before Yifan had the chance to say ‘thank you and come again!’
Despite seeing each other almost every day at the café for several months, the first time they really talked was on the night of the last Saturday before the due date for Junmyeon’s final project, which was on Monday. He was all set with his laptop and Americano at his favourite table; the one in the corner near the huge window panel, just a few steps away from the cashier’s counter. Junmyeon liked the spot because it was near to the power source (because he could never trust his laptop’s battery), and no one would be sitting behind or beside him since the seat was attached to a wall; a perfect place to sit for anyone who wanted to avoid unnecessary social convention in crucial times like this. He also felt relaxed enough because Yifan wasn’t working on Saturdays, which meant he wasn’t going to be distracted by that particular waiter with superior height and look walking around the tables, enchanting everyone with his gummy smile (he did thought about Hae Ryung sometimes when he accidentally saw Yifan’s smile).
But boy was he wrong.
He was doodling in AutoCad, putting finishing touches on the final blueprint for his futuristic Victorian-themed café complete with laundry (he was still amazed that his supervising lecturer approved his initial design) when he heard the rustle of someone’s leather jacket squeaked against the seat in front of him. Without looking up from his screen, Junmyeon casually told the stranger;
“Seat’s taken. Go find another one,” while gesturing his free hand in the air, shooing the intruder away, only for it to be caught between two huge palms with pretty long fingers. Shocked, Junmyeon looked up, ready to yell at whoever that was disturbing his alone time, when he saw Yifan observing his hand with a great interest.
“What the hell? What are you doing, dude?” he said, trying hard to pull his hand away but failed. He didn’t know why but his eyes were involuntarily following the way Yifan’s fingers caressing the back of his hand, and it felt really hard for him to not to like it.
“Ssshh... I’ve been contemplating whether I should do this or not for a while now, so just give me a few seconds,” he said, eyes still on Junmyeon’s hand. When he put their palms together, comparing the obvious difference in size between them, Junmyeon felt even more inferior, especially when Yifan proceeded to slide his fingers in between Junmyeon’s.
“You have really small hands,” he finally said when Junmyeon forcefully pulled his hand away.
“Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious. Now scram or I’ll report you to your manager for sexual harassment,” he threatened under his breath as the fingers on his right hand continued to dance on the cursor pad; really, he should’ve brought the mouse. AutoCad was always a bitch. Yifan laughed at his threat and raised a hand, calling his fellow colleague to order a drink - a short guy with chubby cheeks and round eyes slowly walked towards them with a mocking grin and Junmyeon started to regret coming here tonight. He just wanted to be left alone to finish his work, goddamn it!
“A Coke for me and since he already ordered a drink, just a powerful cheer for my hardworking date here, please,” he cavalierly ordered as if he owned the goddamn place. Slamming his laptop shut, Junmyeon started to pack as the waiter, Minseok - as written on his nametag - jot down their order with a knowing grin (which made Junmyeon felt even more confused and irritated at the same time). Yifan looked at him with his eyebrows raised questioningly.
“What are you doing? I just got here.”
“Leaving, because apparently I’m far too busy to deal with an anonymous freak right now,” he said as he strapped his knapsack on. Seeing him leaving, Yifan stood up to follow him with a smirk. He watched as Junmyeon paid for the Americano he had, and told Minseok to cancel his order earlier before continued tailing Junmyeon down the street like an obedient dog. Junmyeon wanted to turn around and tell Yifan to stop following him, but if he did so, he’d lose.
“I’m sure you know my name.” Yifan slowly suggested a conversation from behind. Junmyeon laughed sarcastically before he realised he had given Yifan the satisfaction by reacting to his words. Damn this sarcastic reflex.
Oh well, what the hell. Junmyeon finally decided to just play along until Yifan gives up.
“Unfortunately I don’t, but I’m already thinking about the other name for penis.” Yifan stopped walking and gasped, as if Junmyeon had just said the unthinkable. Rolling his eyes, Junmyeon turned around to see Yifan palming his mouth as his eyes turned superficially glassy.
“Oh my God! We’re a match made in heaven! How’d you know I was called Putz?” Yifan squealed, and ran towards Junmyeon to pull him into an embrace, only to be rejected blatantly when Junmyeon swung his thick textbook directly onto his face. It was a relief that the street was quiet that night. Only a few other passers-by present a few metres away, and they didn’t seem to be concerned enough to care about the two grown guys who were bickering on the street.
“Dick!”
“Whoa, you’re obscenely attractive; did you know that, Kim Junmyeon?” Yifan said while checking whether his nose was still intact, and smiled towards Junmyeon with his red nose, flashing his gummy smile and this time, Junmyeon felt weird because he didn’t thought of Hae Ryung anymore.
“How’d you know my name?”
“You used cards to pay the bills sometimes.”
“Why would you remember my name?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. Why would I follow you around at night on my day off?” Yifan said, and the confidence on his face suddenly dimmed out. Junmyeon’s thought about a lot of things the moment he saw Yifan’s peeking eyes and reddened cheeks. He thought about how he didn’t like Yifan’s height from the first time he saw him picking up the broken cup that he knocked down on his first day at work. He thought about how for the past few weeks, Yifan was always the one who served his table. He remembered seeing uniformed dots on Yifan’s right wrist a few days ago; he didn’t know Yifan was a cartoonist then, and that the dots were a part of the tone shades he used for his comic. Slowly, Junmyeon started to realise that the smug look on Yifan’s face every time he was at the counter, paying for his meal was probably just Yifan concealing words he would like to let out but couldn’t. He also reminded of the smirks he got from Minseok just now when Yifan decided to sit and talk to him tonight.
He must’ve missed a lot of signs that Yifan was waving at his face.
“You... like me?”
“Seriously dude, have I really been that subtle?”
“I don’t know man, why didn’t you just write me a note on napkins or something instead of doing all these Ahern’s shits?”
“You read Cecelia Ahern?”
“Dude!”
“Yeah, okay, sorry. So, what do you think?” Yifan finally asked, suddenly getting ready for Junmyeon’s answer when even Junmyeon himself was trying to really digest the whole situation inside his head. Yifan’s hands were on the sides of his head, getting ready to cover his face just in case he got rejected. He told Junmyeon to don’t mind it, but his face was too obvious that every word spoken by Junmyeon would affect him a lot. Junmyeon’s eyes then traced the outline of Yifan’s hands; how perfect they looked like no matter how stupid their owner was. He remembered being touched by those fingers earlier, and how hot they felt.
“I think you’ve gone mad and you’re an idiot. I’m so pissed at you right now because you make me waste my precious time to be bothered with your confession instead of doing my work, and I’m still confused as to why you were observing my hand at the café.” Junmyeon told him directly, and Yifan flinched momentarily, before he regained his composure and stood straight.
“Weirdly, I cannot sense any disgust or rejection from your words.”
“That’s because you’re an utter idiot.” Junmyeon sighed, and turned on his heels back towards the café. Yifan smiled as he offered to carry his knapsack, which Junmyeon gladly threw into his arms. When they reached the café, Minseok was grinning ear to ear as Yifan made a peace sign at him and Junmyeon rolled his eyes. Yifan kept his company the whole night through, and when Junmyeon told him that he should head home first, he awed at the concern and Junmyeon felt like killing himself by biting his tongue and bleed to death.
“It’s okay; I’m on the morning shift so I can just start immediately while waiting for you. I’m far too hype to sleep right now anyways. Just to be sure, you didn’t reject me, right?” he asked again, face concerned, and Junmyeon just felt the urge to tease him by saying ‘yes.’ Instead of answering him, Junmyeon asked him another question.
“Why did you look at my hand?”
“Because it’s smaller than mine.”
“You have a fetish, don’t you? Admit it, you like me because of the size of my hands,” Junmyeon asked him with eyes squinted in suspicion. Yifan laughed heartily before he shook his head and smiled before he turned to look at his face. It took Junmyeon off guard seeing him gazing into his eyes like that.
“No, just you.”
He didn’t know why, but Junmyeon felt as if his theory about love was being ripped one by one when he heard Yifan’s low voice vibrating in the air and hovering just in the small space they had between them. But it was too early for any assumption anyways, so Junmyeon shook his head and chuckled.
“Oh, what’s your name by the way?” he finally remembered to ask, and Yifan mouth cartoony went into an ‘O’ state.
“Dude, you’re heartless.”
-
Being in a relationship with Yifan, Junmyeon discovered a lot of things about himself. For instance, he cursed a lot whenever he was gaming. There was one time when they were playing Gran Turismo and Yifan made a bet that if Junmyeon cursed more than five times during one lap of race, he would have to kiss him once for every five curses. Yifan ended up being kissed 45 times that weekend.
He also discovered that he hates, really hates horror movies when Yifan brought his whole collection of Freddy Krueger when they celebrated Junmyeon’s employment at a major home-designing company (which only lasted for four months before the economy depleted and Junmyeon was jobless once again). It took him weeks to recover from being paranoid of the bulges he saw under his comforter.
With Yifan, he developed the habit of palming their hands together whenever he could, but usually it was before sleep. Lying in bed next to each other while talking about Yifan’s comic that was rising in popularity; he would listen to Yifan’s creative ideas for the next volume while knitting his fingers in between Yifan’s, secretly counting the seconds before Yifan curled his palm and wrapped Junmyeon’s hand softly inside his. When he did that, the talk was usually over and Junmyeon was already on his way to dreamland as he felt a kiss planted at the top of his head.
“You stink,” Yifan usually told him in a whisper, and he would pinch his waist and kicked him in the shin before he reached for the switch to the lights.
“You snore like a pig,” he would whisper and they both would laugh until Yifan started to snore, and really, Junmyeon wished to buy him a ‘Breathe Right’ plaster (he didn’t have the chance to do so until they broke up).
Junmyeon discovered that his personal idiosyncrasy in love is to call each other stupid names for a good laugh; names that only they understood of. Once, he called Yifan ‘Green Hog’ for a few weeks because his boyfriend was obsessed with Angry Birds. He even asked for an official permission from the game developer’s company to dedicate an episode in his comic especially for the game (in which the green pigs were the real heroes who saved a bunch of suicidal-maniac birdies). In return, Yifan called him a ‘Hamburglar’ for almost a month when he won an eating contest held in their neighbourhood against the other Shrek-looking contestants. It didn’t even feel like an insult when you had a belt with your name on it hanging on the wall, though.
Maybe he was still too young when he was with Hae Ryung, so he felt the need to restrain himself from saying the things he wanted to say or do the things he wanted to do. For that, Junmyeon blamed his innocence. But it was different with Yifan. Even years after that when he was in a relationship with Ah Jung, Junmyeon couldn’t find the same serenity he felt when he was watching Yifan sketching his ideas onto dirty papers or the back of a book he was reading, face excited and mind probably light years away from the current universe. There was something special with the way his fingers enthusiastically created something out of nothing, and Junmyeon was mesmerised with the faith he had in Yifan to see that he was always waiting for the ideas on the dirty papers to be published in paperbacks the next month.
Just like how his faith in Yifan was endless, Junmyeon found the same faith was in Yifan’s eyes whenever he came to the office to send him the leftover cakes and coffee from the café after his shift ended because Junmyeon hated to bring his work home.
“One day you’re going to design a house for the President, and I want to be the first one to brag about it, like, ‘You see that big mansion? Yeah that’s where the President lives and my boyfriend designed it,’” he would say while grinning idiotically over the dividers between the worker’s desk, and Junmyeon usually shook his head trying to avoid the red tint that was surfacing across his cheeks.
For a while, Junmyeon abandoned his theory of love. Maybe real love is unconditional. Maybe loving someone means supporting them and thinking about them in every little thing you do. Who knows? Maybe Yifan is the right person all along. And even if he wanted to analyse this relationship generically, then he’ll be damned - maybe their generic love styles were the perfect match.
But Yifan wasn’t the one back then.
Again, it was university and Hae Ryung, only this time Junmyeon felt a bit much worse that before. Junmyeon was still struggling for another job after the first company declared their bankruptcy, and Yifan’s comics were now selling on the international level. He used to follow him for fanmeeting events around Korea, but it was tougher when it got over the international borders. Sometimes Yifan would be in China for a few days, and then Japan before he was back in Seoul. Forums on the internet were discussing how good looking the cartoonist for the comic strip is, and girls were being fans of Yifan instead of his comics.
It was all about publicity, so there’s nothing Junmyeon could do about it.
But slowly, he was getting a little bit unhappy by each day that passed by.
Thinking back about it, maybe it wasn’t even Yifan’s fault. Perhaps it was ego. Yes, it was ego that made Junmyeon felt uncomfortable when Yifan invited him to live together in his new and bigger apartment when he was back from China that day. Yifan did nothing wrong - he was just being the same Yifan that Junmyeon was attracted to. Idiotic, careless and eccentric. Planning about turning a room into a gaming room, picking out the curtains’ colour and the furniture, saying things like;
“Better use my boyfriend’s talent for a place that we’re going to live in together, yeah?” without even seeing Junmyeon’s glassy eyes or the veins that started to appear on his face. Quickly, Junmyeon wiped his face and faked a smile; something that he hadn’t use for a while.
“Sure,” he said, crashing his small built into Yifan’s chest while biting his lip.
A month later, after signing the last invoice for the set of sofa they chose together (it was white cream and Yifan said he couldn’t wait to have a deep slumber on it) and arranging it in the living room as they planned, Junmyeon left the keys inside the bowl next to the door, and never look back.
Maybe Yifan was the one for him back then, and their generic love styles undeniably matched, but he wasn’t the right one for Yifan. He chose to leave, because sooner or later, Yifan would see it, and it would be too late to back away without any of them getting hurt in the end.
So yes, his second relationship was the closest he came with ‘true love.’
-
Today, Junmyeon doesn’t really talk about his theory of love to anyone. He had two to three other relationships after Ah Jung, but they were all too needy, too fake, and too suffocating and Junmyeon could only stay just for a while. He is too overgrown for an innocent relationship like how he was his Hae Ryung. He is too old for an ambitious lover like Ah Jung, and he has been too stuck up and hardened to have a relaxed, carefree and fulfilling relationship like how being with Yifan was. Junmyeon decided that he is just simply not suitable for a love life anymore. And that’s okay, because look where he is now.
Years working under ignorant people had trained him to become better at managing his own business. After he said goodbye to his last company, Junmyeon decided that he’s had enough trimming and modifying his creativity into something so common and overused - generic - and he wasn’t going to waste anymore raw ideas after this. Together with a fellow colleague from his old workplace, Yixing, they opened their own home-design company and displayed their own ideas. Maybe they were doing it at the right time, because the business bloomed and they had to hire another architect and interior designer; so came along a trio - Baekhyun, Chanyeol and Sehun - three fresh graduates from his old university with abstract minds and adequate eyes for beauty.
So yeah, business is great. Sometimes he still feels lonely at nights, and of all people, he is reminded of Yifan’s pretty fingers dribbling on his back while he was trying to fall asleep inside his arms. But it’s okay, Junmyeon can manage it well so far.
-
“Kim Junmyeon? Is that really you?” a woman calls out his name as Junmyeon walks towards the counter to pay for his bills. Turning to his left, Junmyeon sees a brunette in plain white shirt and straight cut jeans is walking hastily towards his direction, one hand holding a baby in her arm and the other is full with shopping bags - shoes, baby clothes, decoration flowers - you name it.
“Hae Ryung? Hae Ryung! Wow, you look -”
“Old but still cute, right? I know, I know. Don’t fall in love with me again.” She laughs and Junmyeon still remembers the day he fell in love with someone who had a gummy smile like that (funny, he used to be reminded of Hae Ryung when he saw Yifan’s smile). Taking the bags off her hand, Junmyeon follows as Hae Ryung pulls his hand and forces him to sit down once again. Junmyeon checks the time on his wristwatch; still got half an hour before the weekly report meeting with the staff.
“So, you got a kid,” he casually states with a chuckle. Hae Ryung rolls her eyes and coos her baby when he starts to wriggle.
“And you still don’t. Surprise, surprise. Oh right, I heard you opened your own home-décor company, right?”
“Yeah, it’s been six years now. Why?” he asks and Hae Ryung’s eyes are lighting up, just like they used to years ago. What a thing memory is, what was once seemed like an unnoticeable trait now is the only thing that reminds someone of something out of nowhere.
“Okay, so me and my husband, we’ve just moved back here from Busan last week, and we got a hold on this apartment, not so big but cosy enough for a family of three like us. Speaking of which, you didn’t come to my wedding!”
“I was busy! Hae Ryung, I’ve got a meeting after this so you better be fast!” Junmyeon threatens her, and she huffs desperately. Her baby giggles as he sees her mother makes a funny face.
“Okay, okay. So I was wondering if you could come and see what you can do to make it safe for a family with a kid like mine? And I was hoping for a friendly price too,” she finally admits with a huge grin, and Junmyeon rolls his eyes jokingly.
“I’ll see what I can do. Is this Saturday okay? It’s the only free time I got so far,” he finally agrees, and Hae Ryung nods excitedly.
“I have a dental appointment in the morning, but my husband will be home. I’ll let him know, okay? And we have a lot to catch up, dude. Ex-lovers or not, we didn’t break up in a bad way so I’m obliged to be a busybody about your life,” Hae Ryung warns him, and Junmyeon slowly starts to regret his decision.
-
It was probably nine years ago, but Junmyeon can still recognise the building like it was yesterday. The walls have been repainted several times, but the number of stairs and the elevator’s sound is still so familiar inside his head.
“Oh, Junmyeon! Come on in!” Hae Ryung’s husband, the senior from her mountain climbing pictures greets him as soon as he presses the bell after a few minutes of hesitating.
The same house. The same curtain. The same sofa. They all look a little bit washed out and overused, but they’re still in the perfect condition just like how he left them.
“It’s great, isn’t it? A friend of mine leased it for me. Oh and this friend, his story was so sad. He’s been waiting for his lover to return so that’s why he’s been keeping this house, saying they’re going to live here together once she comes back, but I guess she has really dumped him. So right now he’s giving up, but he’s taking all the furniture though. A memory, he said,” Hae Ryung’s husband keeps on talking while handing him a can of beer, and Junmyeon politely accepts it.
“I mean, isn’t that stupid? But I guess, men in love are idiots, aren’t we? I’ve been Hae Ryung’s idiot for years now.” He continues and laughs heartily, not seeing the tears that start to brim on Junmyeon’s eyes. Wiping them away, he excuses himself for bathroom before he starts to measure the house away (but he doesn’t really have to, he remembers everything about the crooks and the corners). Splashing the cold water from the tap onto his face, Junmyeon wants to tell himself that this is just all a coincidence, that friend isn’t the person he thinks he is. But he can’t, because he knows it is Yifan.
Drying his face with the towel on the wall, Junmyeon then proceeds to walk towards the kitchen, only to hear Hae Ryung’s husband bickering with someone about the sofa in the living room. He did hear someone rang the bell a few minutes ago.
“You’re not going to be in Korea anyways! Just let me have the sofa. I’ll pay extra from the three first months of the rent, okay?”
“I’m taking them with me. I told you, it’s a memory. I can’t just throw it away. What if we meet somewhere while I’m in Paris? Who knows, maybe if I’m alone and my lover’s still alone, then... maybe...” Yifan’s voice suddenly stops, and he lets out a deep sigh.
“Who am I kidding? Fine, just take it. I won’t put in any charge. It’s a housewarming gift,” he smiles sadly as Hae Ryung’s husband pats his shoulder. Junmyeon wants to walks out from the house right away, because he can’t stand seeing Yifan’s sad face, but he also wants to wipe away that sadness and tells him that he’s sorry, that Yifan never really left his mind. That he was being an idiot, because an idiot is what he is being best at so far. Stuck with two thoughts, he can’t move forward and he can’t run away.
“Junmyeon? What are you doing there? My appointment was cancelled, so I guess I’ll give you a tour around the hou-” Hae Ryung appears from behind and grabs his arm, bringing him into the kitchen where everyone else is when Yifan dashes towards them and pulls Junmyeon away from Hae Ryung.
“Yifan?”
“I’m going to borrow him for today! Sorry!” he yells, and Junmyeon can’t really say anything because the next thing he knows, the door is already closed behind them and he is being kissed hungrily inside a black Jeep in the rooftop parking lot.
“You’ve got nine-year worth of explanation, mister. I don’t care if you’re married or engaged or in a relationship right now, so start explaining!” he yells in between their kisses, and Junmyeon can see his eyes turn cloudy with a lot of questions instead of relief.
“I... I still haven’t design the President’s mansion-” Junmyeon finally takes his chance to speak, and Yifan looks at him, amazingly stupefied. But he knows that Yifan knows, it means more than that. Yifan knows how scared and proud he was, and he knows Yifan understands him. Yifan waited for nine years, goddamn it.
What’s so generic about love if someone could wait for an incompetent man like him? Theories be damned.
“You are amazingly idiotic, Kim Junmyeon,” Yifan breathes in between their kisses, and Junmyeon nods, agreeing.
Their fingers intertwined almost naturally, and isn’t it amazing how old habits resurfacing just because of the small things you remember about the people associated with it?
-
Hae Ryung looks at her husband questioningly, and the man shrugs.
“Well at least we got the sofa.”
-End-