The intercom is answered quickly. He hugs his coat around himself and waits for the buzzer to go. An old woman waddles up behind him, prompting him to hold the door open for her. She passes him wordlessly.
In the lift, he makes use of the mirror to check his appearance, inviting the woman’s judgmental glances. When he walks out of the lift a few floors before her, he makes sure to offer a respectful bow in her direction, as if out of guilt. She simply looks away as the doors slide shut.
Must be special, this building, Han muses. All the residents are hard to please.
“You can eat, right?” he lifts a bag up between them, then walks past his host without waiting for an answer. He’s too hungry and too tired to be polite.
“I mean,” Kim snorts, following a few surprised seconds. “Do I have a choice?”
“No,” Han calls out. He serves each of them a piece of fried chicken, setting down a large bottle of coke to share. Work has been shit. The weather has been shit. And as if that weren’t enough, his mother’s nagging for a daughter-in-law has taken on a new intensity in recent weeks. All thanks to his “successful” cousins.
Before either of them takes a seat, he turns to Kim with pleading eyes. “Tell me you have beer.”
Kim’s face is sympathetic for a moment before changing into something wilier. “Tell me you’ll stay the night,” he demands with the confidence of someone who knows he’ll get his way no matter what. The last time Han had tried to go against that edict he’d suffered cold shoulders and blue balls for three whole months.
“Do I have a choice?” he counters, projecting a boldness he does not possess.
Kim tilts his head in a what do you think way, before heading to his fridge.
Past this point, there are only two outcomes to the night: Kim getting blind drunk and forcing Han to stay up watching him overnight, or Kim bawling his eyes out and forcing Han to stay up watching him overnight.
As much as he wishes it were the case, there is no conclusion where they sit down for a nice meal and an intellectual conversation. Candlelit dinners of steak and wine are a faraway dream. They always eat in silence, then drink in silence.
A k-pop show of some kind plays on TV, idols crooning, fangirls chanting. Neither of them pays it any mind, it’s just background noise. Kim scrolls through updates on his insta, Han tries not to think of the presentation he needs to lead tomorrow morning.
The large greasy box of chicken is gradually emptied. The beer bottles start to accumulate to one side of the kitchen island. Once or twice, the sonic boom of a flight is heard from the direction of Gimpo. Once or twice, an ambulance snakes through the streets twenty storeys below. A newsreader temporarily occupies the screen for an update on the election.
“Oh, right. I heard they might start the air-raid drills again,” one of them mutters.
“Hmm, really?” the other answers. “I didn’t even realise they’d stopped. I should find a shelter close to my work.”
With that, their short exchange comes to a quick uneventful end. Han whistles while doing the dishes. Kim wipes the table clean. A bowl of fruits is produced, another pack of beers is offered. They take turns brushing their teeth and showering, walking out to the balcony for a smoke or just to stare at traffic. One wonders aloud if it’ll snow soon, the other answers with a noncommittal hum. The night continues to roll forward, unimpeded by either man.
Han has no one else to blame when he wilfully steps in shit.
“Is this what being married feels like?”
Kim is suddenly on guard. “What?” he frowns.
“I keep thinking. If all my friends are doing it there must be something really special about all that. But if it’s just… this,” he gestures around them. “Then I don’t get it. What’s the appeal?”
“Some people actually like just this,” Kim replies. His tone is oddly sharp, almost annoyed. On occasion he jokingly calls Han silly names but anger is a rare emotion between them. Sure, they argue—over what to eat or where to park or who’s going to win the National Song Competition. They argue over meaningless things, inconsequential things. Kim has never shown Han any form of ill temper. Perhaps because, as Han guesses, to direct any real emotion at a person one must care about them. And what does Kim reserve for him except a passing thought or two?
“Well. I’m not one of them,” he stretches and slides lower on the sofa, turning his attention to the TV. In the corner of his vision Kim is watching him. Studying him. The stare is a pair of obsidian fires branding a trail along Han’s limbs. Sometimes, when this apartment falls completely silent; when there’s no trace of sound except the occasional buzz of the fridge condenser, Kim’s wordless gaze rings aloud. It takes all of Han’s self-restraint to not meet its path.
The sight of a girl group eager to hear voting results is suddenly obscured by Kim’s waist. He stands, just a few inches away, a tower built from quiet demands.
“What?”
A sip of beer. An indifferent shrug. “Nothing.”
“So why’re you blocking the view?”
Kim moves closer in response. He smells like he always does—of room freshener and sesame oil. The first time Han had woken up with his nose buried in the other’s hair, he’d been surprised at how ordinary the man smelled. Considering the amount of time Kim spends grooming himself one would expect him to hold a more elegant fragrance.
The contrast isn’t off-putting, not in the least. If anything, Han had pressed himself closer, hoping some of the odour would rub off on him. It didn’t, it never does. But he continues to hope.
“Ah, what…?” he demands.
With perfectly calculated movements, Kim proceeds to straddle him. It’s not a sexual advance. It seems more like… a detective leaning in for a closer look at an important clue. As if Han is a strange mystery that must be solved.
I wish, he thinks to himself. There’s nothing remotely riveting going on inside him at the moment. There are no wild thoughts or abrupt fantasies. He just wants to cuddle and fall asleep. Really, there’s no other reason why he visits so often. If they fuck, they fuck. But what he looks forward to most is the peace of having Kim lie next to him, watchful and silent.
A hand slowly winds its way up his side, sliding over his arm, turning corners at his shoulder and neck and jaw. When Kim is at his temple, a thumb traces slow arcs on Han’s eyebrow. “So what do you like?” he finally asks, followed by another sip from his bottle.
Han cups his hands under the other’s elbows. This temperature, he wants to say. This proximity. This calm. This certainty of not wanting to go anywhere else, of wanting to stay as long as I’m welcome. He wants to speak his mind, wants to say how much he likes when Kim’s attention is for no one else, or when Kim’s hands rest on no one but him. Instead, he closes his eyes and leans his head back in submission.
“Doesn’t matter,” he murmurs, then chuckles. “I’ll just end up doing what you want, anyway.”
“Is that right?” Kim challenges, setting his beer aside. Long fingers cradle Han’s face. Bow lips descend and leave a kiss against his teeth, a recently developed habit. “You won’t regret saying that will you?”
“That’s up to you, isn’t it?”
“Hmm,” Kim nods slowly, combing through Han’s hair. “So…”
“So?”
“If I say, marry me. Could you do it?”
A rush climbs the length of Han’s front, starting at his stomach and covering several miles to reach his face. He blinks in worry, trying to find any trace of mischief in the other’s expression. When he’s really drunk, Kim can be cruel. He can say things that hurt his closest friends. He can sever any tie with a few swipes of his sharp tongue. Han tends to avoid being in the crossfire when the other is in that kind of mood. But tonight there’s nowhere to hide.
“Stop joking around,” he frowns.
“So you do care about that stuff,” Kim concludes, shifting positions to dump his weight a few cushions away.
“No, that’s…” Han struggles. “That’s not the point. What you’re talking about is impossible. Look at where we live.”
“So if we lived somewhere else,” the other counters. “Are you saying you’d do it then?”
A huff of breath answers the challenge. “Listen. It’s late. Can we please—”
“If I say we can’t sleep in the same bed anymore. Not until you marry me. Would you do it then?”
“Man,” Han groans tiredly. “Why are you being like this today?”
Kim shrugs. “I just want to know what you think.” He crosses his legs and arms. This is definitely not the evening of intellectual conversation Han had envisaged them having. This is Kim pushing buttons he shouldn’t push. This is Kim playing games he shouldn’t play. This is Kim assessing just how far he can take something until the other person reaches a breaking point and decides to walk away from him. He’s not doing this to entertain himself, no. He’s subjecting Han to a difficult test.
On his part, Han has never been smart enough to ace anything in his life. This won’t be an exception. “OK,” he admits, attempting to back away from the shit he has knowingly stepped in. “I’m sorry I said anything. I’ll keep my mouth shut from now on. Alright?”
“You.” Kim’s face takes on a surprisingly hurt expression. “If you think that’s what I want, I won’t see you again,” he warns.
“OK, OK,” Han raises his hands between them. “I’m sorry.”
There’s a fragile pause in the air before Kim sticks his arms out between them. Han finally allows himself to relax, moving into the offered embrace. As he settles his hips between a ring of the other’s legs it dawns on him: he doesn’t need to marry Kim. They don’t need to be living different lives in a different country. What they have is already enough. And he knows he’ll feel the same way tomorrow, when he wakes up smothered in Kim’s smell, when he asks if they can shower together, when he orders them a large serving of hangover soup. He knows he’ll be satisfied with just this for years, maybe even decades.
(But if Kim asks again, he might just say yes.)
“Are you going to keep drinking?” he asks between kisses to the side of Kim’s face.
“I don’t know. Are we fucking?”
Han lifts himself up a little, raising his eyebrows in question. “Mr. Kim. Are you telling me what you want to do?”
Kim makes a fed-up face. “I don’t know why I like your dumb ass so much.”
“I’m cool, aren’t I?” Han prompts, playfully nipping at the other. “Tell me I’m the coolest.”
“You’re the worst.”
