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Funnily enough, everything starts with the worst day of Jake’s life. Actually statistically speaking, it probably won’t be the worst day of his life, but he’s willing to bet that it’ll be pretty high up there. It starts with ominous, heavy clouds gathering before soccer practice and ends with the athletic trainer telling him to stay off of his newly sprained ankle for the next five to six weeks.
“It’s the middle of the season,” Jake protests.
“Tough luck, bud.”
“The team needs me,” he pleads.
“I’m sure they’ll manage,” she tells him and hands him an ice pack.
“How am I supposed to stay in shape?” he asks mournfully, squeezing the ice pack in his hands.
With an exaggerated sigh, she grabs it from him and slaps it onto his ankle. “That’s not my problem.”
One thing leads to another, and Jake finds himself loitering around the entrance to the yoga room in the recreational center ten minutes before the beginning of class—he hadn’t even known that the recreational center had a yoga room. His coach had suggested that Jake find an “alternative training method,” which led to Jake skeptically registering for free Tuesday/Thursday beginner yoga classes offered by the university.
Jake readjusts the yoga mat slung over his shoulder (borrowed from Jay) and taps his thumb against the door handle. Might as well just go in. He lets out his breath and pushes through the door. To his relief, he isn’t the first one there. A handful of other students are scattered about the room, talking in groups of two or three. The instructor at the front of the room waves, and Jake manages a weak smile in return then makes his way towards the back of the room, where there’s a single guy standing by himself and messing with his phone.
“Hi,” Jake offers tentatively, setting down his yoga mat an appropriate distance away, and the guy’s head snaps up. “This is my first time taking a yoga class. Or doing yoga ever, really. Except for one time in my high school gym class.”
The guy’s face softens with something akin to relief, and he slides his phone into the pocket of his basketball shorts. “Yeah, me too. I’m only here because one of my friends signed me up. He’s super into this yoga stuff.”
Jake makes a sympathetic noise in the back of his throat. “I’m here because I sprained my ankle during soccer practice, so I’ve been relegated to yoga jail until it gets better. Also, I’m Jake.”
“Cool,” the guy says, and they stand together in silence for a beat. Jake rocks back on his heels. The guy pulls his bangs back frustratedly. “Fuck, sorry. I’m Sunghoon. I’m not so good with strangers.”
“Sunghoon,” Jake repeats. Something about the name sounds familiar, but he can’t quite place it.
“The figure skater,” Sunghoon explains automatically. And oh , that’s right, Jay had mentioned the figure skating pretty boy in his business classes. Jake’s also pretty sure the university has a fanclub dedicated to him. He opens his mouth to ask if Sunghoon knows Jay—
“Sunghoon, you actually came! And you’re even early!”
Jake spins around to find, well, a blond twink, for lack of a better phrase. A really cute blond twink. In baby blue leggings. Jake’s brain stutters to a stop, and he vigorously shoves it into horny jail. The guy tosses his mat onto Sunghoon’s other side and beams at them, eyes scrunching at the corners. Actually, he’s probably only smiling at Sunghoon, but Jake pretends for a moment that the guy is also smiling at him.
“Of course I came. You spent the entire weekend nagging me about it. ‘It’ll be good for your flexibility! Your split jumps are an atrocity!’” Sunghoon shoots back, pitching his voice higher for the latter two sentences. He bends over and T-rexes his hands in an imitation of the mocking Spongebob meme. Even with just a quick glance, Jake can tell that Sunghoon feels more at ease: the tension in his shoulders evaporating and his eyes brightening.
“Okay, yeah, like you weren’t whining all of yesterday about not wanting to come,” the guy teases back, stretching his arms across his chest and rolling his shoulders loose, then he glances at Jake.
“Who’s this?” He tilts his head and looks Jake over with narrowed eyes.
“I’m—”
“He’s—”
Jake and Sunghoon look at each other, and Jake bites into his lower lip and smiles at him, waving for Sunghoon to go ahead. Sunghoon breaks into a grin as well.
“This is Jake. Jake, Sunoo. He’s the friend we were talking about.” Sunghoon gestures from Sunoo to Jake then Jake to Sunoo.
“All nice things,” Jake assures Sunoo quickly. The corner of Sunoo’s mouth pulls up as he straightens his yoga mat.
“That’s new.” Sunoo’s eyes flicker to Sunghoon, who breaks out into an indignant scowl.
“I’ve never said anything mean to you ever . Stop slandering my good name,” Sunghoon grouses and reaches over to flip over half of Sunoo’s yoga mat. Giggling, Sunoo swats away Sunghoon’s hand and smooths his mat back down. Jake smiles faintly and feels hopelessly like a third wheel.
Things change, though, when the instructor calls them all to attention and begins the class. They start with deep breaths in mountain pose, “pulling the air all the way to the base of their lungs,” and Jake thinks, hey, maybe this won’t be too bad after all. Then they swan dive down to their toes, and Christsake, maybe his hamstrings are a little too tight after all. Turns out skipping out on stretching after workouts is detrimental. Who knew?
He glances over to his left at Sunghoon, who’s suffering the same fate as Jake, then Sunoo, whose palms are flat against the ground. Jake swallows. Wow, he’s so flexible . And the way his leggings— Jake tamps down that line of thinking and is vaguely grateful in a Catholic sort of way that Sunghoon is partially blocking his view. Even so, he gets a full view of Sunoo’s leggings riding up to reveal the bones of his ankles, and he almost trips over his own feet despite standing still. His ankles. Jake mentally pens apology letters to every Victorian writer he made fun of in high school.
The instructor calls for them to step back into downward-facing dog, and fuck , Jake didn’t even know he had muscles there. You learn something new every day. And now they have to hold the position? Jake lets out a low groan and drops down to his hands and knees. Why is he sweating already?
Next to him, Sunghoon similarly collapses into himself with a muffled thump, hissing, “How is this a beginner’s class?”
Jake catches his eye, and they let out synchronized sighs and glance at Sunoo, whose form is fucking immaculate. Jake looks down at himself, then at Sunghoon, and finally over at Sunoo again, laughter bubbling up in his stomach. Somehow, he ends up hunched on the ground, giggling into his fist only five minutes into his first ever yoga class.
Sunghoon prods at him. “C’mon, get up. Stop laughing. People are looking at us.” But the squeaky noises that come out of his own mouth ruin the effect.
Jake crawls back up into a respectable position, but the giggling never ceases: tree pose (“Don’t you skate? Aren’t you on one foot all the time?” “Yeah, but I don’t ever have my foot tucked into my groin. ”), peaceful warrior pose (Jake’s back crunches so disgustingly loudly that the instructor turns around to make sure that he’s okay), and eagle pose (Jake sits this one out, instead pulling at Sunghoon’s mat to unbalance him).
Everything is made funnier by the fact that no matter what pose they’re in, Sunoo always looks picture-perfect next to them.
By the time that Jake sits up from corpse pose at the end of the hour, his joints thoroughly loosened, he and Sunghoon are still hiccuping up bits of laughter whenever they look at one another.
“Looks like you won’t need me to babysit you next time,” Sunoo says good-naturedly, rolling up his mat next to them. Jake’s stomach drops from both guilt and alarm. He hadn’t meant to leave Sunoo out of everything, and on a more selfish note, Jake wants to see him again.
“Ah, Sunoo,” Sunghoon begins ruefully, “I know you’re busy, and I don’t want to impose on any more of your time so—”
“No!” Jake yelps, and both Sunghoon and Sunoo turn to him with matching head tilts and wide eyes. They look startlingly like baby owls. “I’m sorry I stole your friend for the past hour, but you should totally come next time too! If you’ve got the time. I need help with my…” Jake combs his brain for the name of literally any yoga pose, gaze flitting desperately around the room. He comes up empty. Fuck. “Uh…updog?”
“You need help with your updog?” Sunoo repeats with a raised eyebrow and a small smile. Jake’s heart malfunctions. “Alright sure, I promise I’ll come next time and take a look—” Sunoo covers his mouth with his hand, eyes scrunching up, and Jake suspects that he’s being made fun of, “—at your updog.”
“He’s so cute, what do I do ?” Jake whines into his pillow and peeks up at his roommate.
Jay, who’s seated on the other side of their incredibly small dorm room, scribbles something down in his calculus notebook with a scowl. “Ask him out.”
“But he probably thinks that I’m stupid now.” He flips over onto his back and presses the pillow into his face. The mattress underneath him groans in protest.
“Good. That means that he won’t be in for a nasty surprise three months into your relationship.”
Jake hurls his pillow at him.
Sunoo keeps his promise and shows up to the next class. And the one after. And the one after that one. He also keeps wearing leggings, a different pastel pair each class. All Lululemon. Sunoo insists that they’re the only thing he splurges on because they’re comfortable and they feel like butter, here, try touching it, and what’s Jake supposed to do? Tell him no?
During those two weeks, Jake learns three important things. Firstly, it’s “upward facing dog,” not “updog.” Secondly, Sunoo’s gay, which was more of a confirmation than anything else. Lastly and most importantly, watching Sunoo move through the cat cow stretch is a religious experience, and Jake is ready to spread the gospel. And spread his legs.
Frankly, Jake’s a little surprised at how close the three of them have gotten. He and Sunghoon get along like a house on fire, bonding over their collective inability to hold yoga poses and the outcomes of international soccer tournaments and stories of their embarrassing social gaffs that keep them up at night. Whenever Jake gets a text notification, nine times out of ten, the text is from Sunghoon.
As for Sunoo, it’s not like Jake doesn’t get along with him, but Sunoo’s harder to read, unlike Sunghoon, who despite all his initial loner vibes, wears his heart on his sleeve. Jake doesn’t want to make it sound like Sunoo’s purposely hiding something because he doesn’t think that Sunoo is hiding anything. But compared to Sunghoon, there’s something a little more cautious about the way Sunoo approaches conversations and people, even if he’s all bright words and agreeable smiles. Jake only notices because, well, he acts the exact same way.
Aside from that, though, Jake could listen to Sunoo talk all day, whether that be a scathing review of Chanel’s newest couture collection or complaining about having to read Beowulf for English Lit or giving a deep dive into Jihyo from TWICE’s birth chart. And he’s a great listener too, quick with a smile, offering impressively sensible advice, and adding a pinch of sympathy when needed.
Point being, he and Sunoo get along great if left on their own, but having Sunghoon present makes the conversation flow more easily. Which is why Jake doesn’t know what possesses him to offer to help Sunoo with calculus when Sunoo announces that he can’t make it to the next class because if he doesn’t sit down and properly learn u-substitution, he’s “majorly fucked” for his test next Wednesday.
Sunoo looks just as surprised as Jake feels when Jake offers his help, but he must genuinely need it because he doesn’t make a show of insisting really, it’s fine and you probably have more important things to do.
Jake props open the library door with one hand, shuffling around the two cups of coffee he had gotten at a painfully generic cafe down the street: a caffe latte for himself and an iced americano for Sunoo, which Sunghoon had told him was Sunoo’s usual order. He had also sent Jake the eyes emoji right afterwards, but that’s a problem for later.
He scans the room for blond hair but only finds a gaggle of sorority girls in the corner, so he hefts his backpack higher up onto his shoulder and makes his way over to the nearest empty table to set down everything he’s holding.
Jake
are you here yet?
Sunoo
no!!! give me 5
Jake
no worries take your time :)
i’m at a table near the front of the library
Worrying the inside of his lip, Jake sets down his phone (face-up so he can immediately see if Sunoo replies), sits in a chair, and pulls out his quantum mechanics problem set to pass the time. He gets through half of the first problem, trying to calculate the de Broglie wavelength and fringe spacing of an electron, when Sunoo drops down into the chair adjacent to his with a small wave.
“Hi!” Jake winces as soon as the word comes out of his mouth. The sorority girls throw him dirty looks.
“Hi,” he repeats in a lower voice.
“What’s that?” Sunoo asks in-lieu-of a greeting, stretching over the table to examine Jake’s problem set.
“Huh? Oh this? It’s just my quantum homework.” Jake flaps the packet in Sunoo’s direction, and his pencil flies off the table and over five feet away. Well. He’s off to a good start. “Whoops, uh, sorry, let me go grab that.”
When Jake sits back down, he pushes the iced americano and a wrapped straw towards Sunoo. “Here, figured we’d need a little caffeine to get through u-substitution.”
“Really? That one’s for me? Wow, thanks.” Sunoo peels the wrapper off the straw and taps it against the logo on the cup. “I actually work here part-time.”
Jake busies himself with his own cup then immediately feels stupid. He doesn’t even need a straw for his drink. What the fuck is he doing? “Is it any fun?”
“Which part? The part where it feels like I’m selling my soul to capitalism to get an education so I can continue selling my soul to capitalism? Or the part where white suburban soccer moms come in and think I have a personal vendetta against them when I tell them that we’re out of oat milk? It’s pretty much just like any other service job. You know how it goes.”
Jake does not tell Sunoo that actually, he does not know how it goes, on account of his very wealthy parents, but he hums along in agreement. Sunoo sighs, punches the straw through the opening, and takes a long sip. “Oh, this is my favorite!”
Jake barely stops himself from telling Sunoo that he knows. Instead, he juts his chin at Sunoo’s backpack. “So, calculus?”
Sunoo pouts but bends to unzip his backpack, pulling out a hefty textbook and a notebook. He rifles through the pages until he lands on the right one and jabs at the practice problems like they’ve personally offended him. Jake resists the completely irrational urge to tell the calculus textbook to square up.
“Starting with the first one?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how to start. Or anything, really.” Sunoo pushes his lower lip even further out. Jake stares determinedly at the textbook problems, doing the first one in his head instead of focusing on the shiny pink inside of Sunoo’s lip. Alas, Jake has always been a good multitasker.
Something bumps into his leg under the table, and Jake jumps, peeking under the table to find the bare skin of Sunoo’s shin pressing into the bare skin of Jake’s own calf.
“Sorry,” Sunoo says, not sounding very sorry at all. He doesn’t move his leg away either.
Clearing his throat, Jake copies the first problem onto his own paper and delves into an explanation of the chain rule and how to identify u and the derivative of u .
Ninety minutes and roughly thirty problems later, Sunoo throws his head back. “If I have to do another one, I will cry. ”
Jake grins and gently shuts the textbook. For all of Sunoo’s complaining, he clearly knew what he had been doing for the last ten questions. “For someone who claims to be shit at math, you picked it up pretty quick.”
Sunoo tilts his chin down by a fraction, looking at Jake through half-lidded eyes. “Maybe you’re just a good teacher, Mr. Physics Major.”
“Both can be true,” Jake says, shrugging. “And hey, don’t knock it till you try it.”
Sunoo scrunches his nose. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”
“You’ve already got u-sub down pat. I’m sure you could learn Bernoulli's principle in no time,” Jake teases.
“Uh huh, watch me forget everything by next week.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to reteach it to you.” Fuck, is that too forward?
“I might actually take you up on that. We’re starting integration by parts next week, and I’m this close to dropping out and becoming a scallion farmer in some far corner of the world,” Sunoo sighs, staring forlornly at his empty cup. Jake winces sympathetically. Integration by parts is kind of ass.
“Oh, in that case—” Jake hesitates, rolling in his lips. “Do you want to do this again next week? Or maybe we could make it a weekly thing? But only if you want to.”
Sunoo leans forwards, propping his cheek against his palm. “I’d love to.”
“Awesome. Cool. Great,” Jake croaks out and gets a head tilt and a smile in response.
“Ugh, Jay. He’s just so,” Jake pants and makes a hrrngk sound as he pushes the barbell away from his chest.
Jay furrows his brow. “Is that a good thing?”
“Yeah, fuck. You wouldn’t get it unless you met him, but he’s so funny and sweet and gorgeous and his legs and fuck, help me rack this stupid thing.”
Jay guides the barbell back onto the rack with a metal clack . “So just ask him out.”
Jake stares at the ceiling, his sweaty hands still grasping weakly at the bar. “I can’t.”
“Then I’ll ask him out for you.”
Jake jolts up, barely dodging the bar. “ Don’t. ”
“Then ask him out. Shoot your shot before I shoot you. Budge over, ’s my turn.”
Before Jake knows it, five weeks have flown by, and the athletic trainer has given him the okay to go back to practice along with a roll of athletic tape.
“Be careful and keep in mind that you’ve done very little cardio the past several weeks, so ease yourself into it,” she warns him on his way out, and he’s in such a good mood that he agrees brightly without a second thought.
On his way back to the dorms, he texts Sunghoon.
Jake
guess who’s finally allowed back on the field!
Sunghoon
congrats
also Sunoo says hi and yay
Jake
tell him i say hi!!
Sunghoon
he also wants to know if that means you’re not coming to yoga anymore
aasdkfjwoej329m,vn;392
sorry, *i wanted to know if that means you’re not coming to yoga anymore
Jake shakes his head with a small smile and types out a quick probably not but we can hang out and get lunch or something :) .
It’s only when he’s hunched over in the middle of the field on his first day back, his ankle twinging and his chest painfully heaving, that he fully registers what the athletic trainer had told him.
“Fucking hell,” he wheezes, and one of his teammates pats him on the back as they jog by.
After that practice, Jake does his best to take the advice to heart, but it’s difficult because he needs to improve, preferably quickly. At the risk of sounding like a complete douchebag, the team needs him. He’s no Cristiano Ronaldo, but before the whole situation with his ankle, he pretty much had a guaranteed position on the starting lineup.
By the end of the week, he can only shuffle miserably up the stairs to his dorm if he clutches at the handrail. He has never been so grateful that he and Jay live on the second floor.
Jake heaves himself onto his bed and scrolls through his texts. Sunghoon, Sunoo, and Jay have all been recipients of his nonstop complaints about feeling woefully out of shape, with varying levels of patience. He opens his text exchanges with Sunoo, the most sympathetic of the three, and imagines Sunoo's texts in his voice. Jake’s too tired to even feel weird about it.
Jake absentmindedly swipes back to his list of messages and opens his one with Jay to ask him when he’ll get back. He sends when are you getting back loser? come home and kiss me better >:((, then locks his phone, fully expecting Jay to send him back the vomiting emoji or some variant of go away pissbaby and a time estimate.
Instead, he gets a text from Sunoo saying :( what’s wrong? Which means, oh fuck , that Jake did not send that text to Jay. Hurriedly, he navigates back to his texts with Sunoo. And when are you getting back loser? come home and kiss me better >:(( stares him straight in the face.
Jake
when are you getting back loser?
come home and kiss me better >:((
Sunoo
:( what’s wrong?
Jake
SORRY I MEANT TO SEND THAT TO JAY
AS A JOKE
and practice is still kicking my ass :(((((((
Sunoo
ohhh okay that sucks :(((
i’m sure things will get better quickly!
i’ve been meaning to ask
when are your practices?
Jake blinks, caught off guard, then sends his practice times, to which Sunoo replies with a thumbs up and nothing else. Huh, so that happened.
Jake finds out why Sunoo had asked at the end of practice on Monday, when Sunoo comes trotting by the bleachers with a white tote bag in hand. At the sight of Sunoo, Jake looks down at his old, ratty, sweat-drenched t-shirt in horror.
“Jake,” one of his teammates yells across the field, “you’ve got a person looking for you.” Eric, the teammate, waves both arms over his head, as if he didn’t already have Jake’s full attention, pats Sunoo’s shoulder twice, and jogs off.
Jake’s rabbit-quick pulse has nothing to do with soccer practice, and he wills it to slow down as he approaches Sunoo.
“Hey, what are you doing here? Not that I don’t want you here. It’s great that you’re here!” He clamps his mouth shut before he can say anything else damning.
Sunoo shakes his bag. “You sounded upset about soccer all of last week, so I brought snacks.”
Holy shit, Sunoo is genuinely Jake’s favorite person, and Jake tells him as much, which earns him a bright smile. Sunoo holds open the bag towards Jake and rifles through. “Here, I don’t know what you like, but I brought chips and pretzels, and Sunghoon told me to bring beef jerky, and I think I’ve got fruit snacks if you want something sweeter, but they’re the kind that stick to your teeth.”
Jake fishes out the bag of pretzels, tears it open, and offers the first one to Sunoo, who waves him off.
“Thank you for dropping by and bringing—” Jake gestures at Sunoo’s bag. “You really didn’t have to.”
“You willingly spend two hours every Saturday trying to teach me calc, so consider this payment. Plus, I wanted to,” Sunoo says firmly. Then he shuffles his feet. “Anyways, I should probably get going.”
“Let me go grab my bag, and I’ll walk you back to your dorm,” Jake says quickly, and when Sunoo opens his mouth to protest, he insists, “Really, it’s the least that I could do. And I want to.”
Jake convinces himself that Sunoo showing up to practice was just a one-off, but he’s swiftly proven wrong when he comes again on Friday with the same tote bag in tow.
The fifth time that Sunoo drops by, he arrives earlier than usual, just a little over halfway through practice. So during a water break, Jake joins him on the first row of the bleachers, hitching one leg over the bench in a straddle to fully face Sunoo.
“I don’t have anything with me today,” Sunoo tells Jake apologetically as soon as he’s seated. Jake blinks.
“What? You don’t need to bring me anything. Just having you here is more than enough. How was your day? Calc’s still going okay?” He pats Sunoo’s thigh as reassurance and lets his hand linger. Sunoo doesn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, he hardly seems to notice it at all.
“Calc’s never going okay. We started sequences and series,” Sunoo grouses with a pout. “But other than that, my day was good. I outlined my essay for English Lit, and my professor looked it over and said that it was a good start, and I talked Sunghoon into buying coffee for me. We were assigned Sixteen Candles for Film Studies, and I’m so excited that I have an excuse to watch it again! Also, I found this bakery that I really want to go to, but I’ll tell you about it later. The only bad part was that there was this fly in my dorm, and I spent almost twenty minutes trying to—”
“Sim, break’s over. Say bye to your boyfriend and come join us,” the captain hollers.
Jake ducks his head and yanks his hand away from Sunoo’s thigh. Standing up, he yells back, “He’s not my boyfriend.” Then he looks back down at Sunoo, an apology on his tongue, but at the thoughtfully amused look on Sunoo’s face, the words die in his mouth. Instead he ruffles Sunoo’s hair and says, “You can finish telling me about the fly later, yeah?”
To his surprise, Sunoo stays on the bleachers all the way through practice, pulling out his laptop soon after Jake returned to practice.
After finishing up his stretches and changing back into his sneakers, Jake jogs over to Sunoo, who's still engrossed with his laptop. He braces his upper body over the handrail, the bar of metal digging into his armpits, and gazes at Sunoo for a quiet moment. Sunoo’s bangs flutter in the mid-April breeze, and he looks unbearably cozy and soft in his yellow hoodie, almost melting into the hazy golden sunset behind him. Jake rests his left cheek against his own shoulder and asks, “What are you working on?”
“My essay on The Bell Jar .” Sunoo smiles up at Jake and closes the lid of his laptop, sliding it back into his backpack. He slings the backpack over one shoulder and draws closer to Jake until they’re an arm’s length apart, still separated by the railing.
“Do you want me to carry that for you?” Jake offers, nodding at Sunoo's backpack. Sunoo looks doubtfully at Jake’s soccer backpack, and he quickly adds, “I just have clothes and a soccer ball in there. It’s really light.”
Sunoo purses his lips but hands Jake his backpack over the railing. “Don’t drop it. My laptop’s in there.”
“Ye of little faith.” Jake smiles and hooks his arms into the straps so that he has his own soccer bag on his back and Sunoo’s backpack on his front. Once he’s made sure that everything is secure, he plants his hands on his hips and poses for Sunoo. “So what do you think? Gonna be the next big thing?”
Sunoo snorts. “Oh, for sure. This is the height of fashion. Donatella Versace’s quaking in her gold boots. Schiaparelli’s taking notes.” He swings himself over the railing, dropping down next to Jake, and dusts off his hands. Maybe Jake’s a little bit in love.
“Parkour,” Jake’s mouth automatically says, and Sunoo lets out a breathless, light laugh, eyes bright. They start walking around the edge of the field at a slow, ambling pace.
“You look a lot more flexible than you were two months ago,” Sunoo mentions offhandedly, and Jake groans into his hands.
“I’m so glad I met you and Sunghoon, but my god, I wish you guys hadn’t witnessed that mess.”
“I’m glad we met too.” Sunoo bumps their shoulders together with a sweet smile, and Jake pretends to stumble, flailing his arms around. There’s no way he doesn’t look ridiculous right now, but the giggle that he draws out of Sunoo is worth it.
After a brief period of comfortable silence, Jake blurts, “There’s a game next Saturday. In the afternoon. Do you— Would you be interested in coming? Also there’s going to be a party at Jeremy’s afterwards, if you’re free.” He thumbs into the hem of his shirt, picking free a thread.
Sunoo hesitates, and Jake hastily adds, “You can bring Sunghoon, if he’s free. And Jay’s coming too. I think you guys would get along.” Then he blanches at his own words. Why the fuck had he said that? The last thing he wants is for Sunoo to meet Jay, who has unwillingly spent several hours listening to Jake simp over Sunoo.
“Yeah, I’d love to come.” Sunoo reaches across and casually interlaces his fingers with Jake’s, as if this is something that they do all the time, nothing out of the ordinary. Jake swallows thickly, incredibly grateful that Sunoo is looking ahead and not at the blush spreading across his face.
“So, what happened with the fly?” he asks. Sunoo brightens, and Jake sinks himself into the lull of Sunoo’s voice for the rest of the walk to their dorms.
On the morning of game day, Jake troops out to the practice field ten minutes before their scheduled arrival time, and he finds Sunoo already on the bleachers, sitting a couple rows up with his laptop and a textbook.
“What are you doing here?” Jake asks on his way up.
“I needed some fresh air. I couldn’t concentrate in the library,” Sunoo replies with a bite of something in his voice that Jake can’t identify and sets aside his biology textbook. Instead of pointing out that the field is a solid fifteen minute walk away from Sunoo’s dorm and that there are definitely nicer places on campus, Jake plops down next to him and drops his soccer backpack down. Kicking off his left shoe and sock, he digs around his bag for a roll of athletic tape and a pair of scissors.
“Ah ha, found 'em,” he mutters and props his heel on the bench. Picking at the tape is always a pain in the ass, and it doesn’t help that Jake had clipped his nails yesterday.
“Here, let me.” Sunoo plucks the roll from his hand. He manages to peel the tape in just two tries. Jake waits for him to hand the roll back over, but he just looks at Jake with a raised eyebrow. “Give me your foot.”
Does Sunoo even know how to tape an ankle? Jake appreciates the effort, but—
“I taped Sunghoon’s ankle for a month when he sprained it doing off-ice rotation exercises,” Sunoo explains as Jake gingerly rests his foot on Sunoo’s thigh. Jake lets out a shaky breath when Sunoo cups the back of his ankle with a soft, warm palm. He makes quick work of Jake’s ankle, his hands firm and deft.
“I might have to leave a bit early before the end of your game.” Sunoo snips the tape and smooths the end down with the side of his thumb.
“Oh. That’s okay! It’s great that you’re even coming in the first place. Are you doing anything exciting?”
“No, just work.” Sunoo juts his lower lip out, wrapping another line of tape around Jake’s ankle. “One of my coworkers canceled last minute, and apparently, no one else can fill in. I’ll be at the party, though.”
Jake hums in acknowledgement. “Speaking of, I’ve been meaning to drop by to see you at work. And I think Sunghoon is tired of me asking about y—” He chomps into his bottom lip. “Anyways, you should let me know what time you’re there. But only if you’re comfortable with that.”
“I’ll send you my schedule later! If you come in after seven, the manager won’t be there, so I can probably get away with giving you a free drink.” With one last rub to smooth out the tape over Jake’s inner ankle bump, Sunoo rests his foot back on the bench. Jake rolls his ankle around a few times.
“Good?” Sunoo asks, handing over the tape and scissors. He’s smiling like he already knows the answer. Jake looks up at him, breath hitching at how close their faces are, and breaks into a matching grin.
“Perfect.”
Jeremy and Dylan simultaneously whoop and barrel into Jake, the rest of the team not far behind. Their sweaty bodies and flailing arms enclose him in a tight hug, and he grabs onto his teammates’ arms, shirts, whatever he can reach, wishing he had more hands.
“Jake Sim, you absolute motherfucker, ” Dylan hollers in his ear. All Jake can do is laugh and cheer himself hoarse alongside everyone else, heart full.
Finally, their coach breaks them up but not without passing out a few one-armed hugs and pats on the back. “Alright, alright, go pack your stuff up and we’ll meet in the locker rooms in fifteen minutes to talk about the game. Don’t forget to stretch. Good job on that last goal, Sim. Real proud of y’all. ”
Jake shoves his cleats and shin guards into his bag and beelines towards the bleachers, scanning the rows and rows of people for Sunoo. And Sunghoon and Jay, of course. He’s searched through the top half of the bleachers, still no sign of his friends, when someone grabs him around the waist and hoists him up into the air, and he can’t help letting out a loud yelp.
“Holy shit, congrats on the fucking goal!” Jay ungracefully drops him back down onto the ground, and Jake knocks into Sunghoon, who grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. It feels like Jake is getting shot around a pinball machine, and he laughs through it. He discreetly glances around and doesn’t see Sunoo anywhere. So he had to leave early after all, then.
“Sunoo had to go to work,” Sunghoon says, grinning knowingly, and Jake internally winces. He hadn’t meant to be so obvious about it. “But I texted him live updates.”
“Cool,” Jake mumbles, “did he, uh, say anything? About me?” God, Sunoo has him feeling like he’s in high school all over again.
“Of course he did, you dumbass. You’re the only reason we’re all here,” Jay snorts. Jake feels a rush of affection, throat thick with gratitude for his friends.
“I love you guys,” he tells them without a second thought. Sunghoon gently nudges their shoulders together, and Jay throws an arm around Jake in a single-armed hug, and even though they don’t say anything, Jake can hear their replies.
Jake curls his hand protectively around his solo cup filled with room-temperature Sprite and squints through the low lighting of the room. Sunoo's still nowhere to be found.
"Let's do shotsss," Jeremy slurs against Jake's ear, and Eric cheers somewhere in the distance. Jake really does not want to do shots, so he gently pries himself out of Jeremy's sweaty, sweaty grip with a tight smile and muttered apologies.
"I'm gonna..." Jake trails off and raises his half-filled cup as an excuse.
"Go get your boy!" Eric jeers, sitting up sloppily with a toothy smile, and the rest of his teammates holler in agreement. Jake’s face heats, and he can't help but laugh along with everyone else.
Armed with the drunken confidence of his teammates, Jake presses onward into the sticky swarm of bodies, searching for a blond head. A group of guys that he doesn't recognize but thinks might be on the swim team beckon him over for beer pong, but he waves at them good-naturedly and calls over something about 'maybe next time.'
There's a flash of blond, which he catches just out of the corner of his eye, and Jake stumbles forward. He gets about two meters away only to realize that it's Jay. Making out with someone against the wall. Jake immediately stumbles back. What god did he piss off for this to happen to him?
Half of him wants to hurl into the nearest trash can, but the other half desperately wants to know who the hell Jay has pressed up against the wall, if only to make fun of Jay tomorrow. Curiosity wins the battle in the end, and Jake inches a half-step closer. And Jesus fucking Christ, he sure as hell wishes he hadn't because the other mouth definitely belongs to one Park Sunghoon. What entire pantheon of gods did he piss off for this to happen to him?
He pushes back the other way and squeezes between the back of a ratty couch and the suspiciously stained wall, feeling simultaneously too drunk and far too sober for the whole situation.
Sunoo Sunoo Sunoo, Jake chants in his head, trying to eviscerate the memory of Jay and Sunghoon sucking face.
Just as Jake is about to head up the stairs, he recognizes Sunoo by his posture, tucked away in a corner and talking with a girl. Jake’s heart thrums against his sternum as he picks his way through the throng of people.
As soon as he's in range, Jake throws an arm around Sunoo's shoulders. "Heya, I was looking for you."
Sunoo hunches down a little to accommodate Jake’s arm, and the curling smile and head tilt that he gives Jake do funny things to Jake’s poor gay heart. The fairy lights taped to the wall throw half of Sunoo’s face in sharp relief, one cheekbone and half of his nose glowing in the dim room, a ring of molten honey brown around his pupil. Oh , Jake thinks helplessly. His lashes cast a faint shadow over the smooth skin under his eye when he blinks, and Jake’s close enough to count them individually. Close enough to feel Sunoo’s amused puff of breath glance against his face. “The star soccer player was looking for little ol’ me?”
Jake gently squeezes Sunoo’s shoulders. “Of course I was.” His voice comes out more hopelessly fond than he expects, and Sunoo angles him with an indecipherable look.
It’s a miracle that they can hear each other at all over the heavy, rumbling bass. The atmosphere is charming in its own way, but for the conversation that Jake wants to have, it’s the wrong place. He stretches forward to get closer to Sunoo’s ear. “Do you want to go outside for a bit?”
“Oh, uh.” Sunoo looks up at the girl he’d been talking to, who Jake had completely forgotten about, whoops. The girl’s eyes sweep from Jake to Sunoo back to Jake, and she waves them off with an amused look. “Go ahead, I don’t mind.”
“Have fun,” she calls after them. Jake pulls his arm back and immediately misses Sunoo’s warmth, so he hooks their arms together. They jostle their way to the front door, Sunoo’s elbow digging into his ribs a few times, but Jake doesn’t mind at all.
The air outside isn’t much cooler than the air in the house, but Jake appreciates the slight breeze. Good air circulation is sorely underrated.
He leads Sunoo towards the street so they can sit on the curb, a bit farther from the house. Jake didn’t notice when they were in the dimly-lit close quarters of the party, but Sunoo’s wearing a loose silk button up with the top two buttons left undone. Jake determinedly keeps his mind off of the way that the slippery dark fabric frames Sunoo’s collarbones. He clears his throat quietly. “So what’d you think of the game?”
Sunoo gingerly sits down and brushes his hands off on his jeans. Jake mirrors his position, rubbing his hands up and down his own calves. If he were to scoot a few inches over, he would be pressed thigh-to-thigh with Sunoo, and the possibility makes his breath catch.
But Sunoo does him one better and leans his entire torso into Jake, who instinctively wraps an arm around Sunoo to stabilize him. Jake breathes in Sunoo’s scent, a blend of fruity shampoo and light cologne, and instinctively relaxes, hoping that Sunoo can’t feel his hammering heart.
“You’re aware that I don’t know a single thing about soccer other than the fact that there are two teams trying to kick a ball into a goal, right?” Sunoo tilts his head back on Jake’s shoulder, and Jake resists the urge to drop a kiss into his hair. In a compromise, he rests his cheek against the top of Sunoo’s head.
“That’s pretty much all you need to know. Plus, you sat through half of a practice, so there’s no way you didn’t pick up something .”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Sunoo laughs softly. “I was a bit preoccupied.” The way his back shakes with laughter against Jake’s chest makes Jake feel overheated. Maybe he should take off his jacket, but he doesn’t want to dislodge Sunoo.
“Preoccupied with what? Homework?” he asks, curious.
Sunoo sighs, and Jake feels like he has missed something important.
Instead of answering, Sunoo points a finger up and aimlessly traces the stars. “Do you know any constellations?”
Jake internally heaves a sigh of relief. This is something he knows a thing or two about. He readjusts his arm around Sunoo’s waist and points out Ursa Major, Leo, and Canes Venatici in the space of ten minutes. Sunoo squints at the last one and cranes up. “Isn’t that just a line connecting two stars?”
“Yeah,” Jake admits. “They’re supposed to represent the two hunting dogs of Boötes, the herdsman.”
“Bow-oh-tees,” Sunoo repeats slowly, as if he’s testing the way the word tastes against his tongue. Jake nods absentmindedly, wondering if Sunoo would like to taste his tongue.
“The dogs are named ‘Joy’ and ‘Little Star’ but in Greek,” Jake continues, gesturing at each star respectively. Panic fills him when Sunoo pulls away.
“‘Joy’ and ‘Little Star’?” Sunoo repeats with a wide grin. His delight is palpable, and Jake can’t help but smile back dopily. “Yeah, Chara and Asterion.”
Sunoo settles back against him, nestling and wiggling to get back into his previous position. Once Sunoo deems himself comfortable enough, Jake traces out Boötes and Cancer. He glances down at Sunoo, and the angle is terribly awkward, with his chin grazing the side of Sunoo’s head. Sunoo’s finger is still in the air, repeatedly connecting the stars that form Cancer over and over again. A breeze ruffles Sunoo’s hair, and it tickles the side of Jake’s face. Anticipation simmers in the space under Jake’s lungs, and his skin itches, and he’s uncomfortably aware of his internal organs. Fuck, if he doesn’t say it now, he won’t ever be able to say it.
“So hypothetically speaking, what if.” Jake inhales a smidge too quickly and chokes through a coughing fit. Sunoo sits back up and hurriedly pats at his back, which Jake would have found cute if he hadn’t been preoccupied with not choking to death on his own spit.
When Jake’s lungs stop malfunctioning, he starts again, staring determinedly at one of Sunoo’s ears and burning on the inside. His ears are so cute. I’m so fucked. “What if— what if instead of coming to my practices as my friend, you came as my boyfriend? But only if you want to come to my practices. I know they can be a little boring, and it actually gets super nasty in May because of the humidity and temperature. Anyways, fuck, what I’m trying to say is that I like you a lot and I really want to date you but only if that’s something you want. Will you go out with me?”
“Yeah, okay,” Sunoo agrees immediately. Oh. Well. That was anticlimactic. Jake deflates and curls into Sunoo’s side, the adrenaline bleeding out of his body.
“Okay,” Jake says weakly and stares at the dark line of trees across the street with disbelief. Did that actually just happen?
“Hypothetically,” Sunoo starts teasingly, “what if I were to kiss you right now?” Jake jerks back up with wide eyes.
“Well, hypothetically, if you were to kiss me right now, I guess I’d kiss you back.” Jake catches his lower lip with his teeth then corrects himself, “I would kiss you back. No guessing about it.”
“In that case,” Sunoo begins, and he finishes his sentence by leaning in, and oh, they’re kissing.
When they part, Jake needs to shake his head a few times to unscramble his brain and tries to focus his eyes on Sunoo’s face. Sunoo’s radiant under the waxy light of the streetlamp, brimming with joy. It’s a good look on him. And everything around Sunoo, the spring air, the trees, the houses, the asphalt under their shoes, has shifted by a miniscule but significant degree, like someone has twisted the kaleidoscope of Jake’s world. And at the center of it all: Sunoo.
Jake bites down on his lower lip in an ineffective attempt at reeling in his stupidly broad smile.
“Hi,” he breathes and boops Sunoo’s nose with his. Sunoo giggles. Jake’s such a goner.
“Hey stranger.” Sunoo drops another kiss against the corner of Jake’s lip, his own mouth curved in a smile. “I’ve wanted to do that forever.” His thumb grazes where his lips just were: the ghost of a touch. Jake parts his lips, but he can’t conjure up a single word. Eyes narrowing in amusement at Jake’s speechlessness, Sunoo tugs gently at one of Jake’s earlobes.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asks fondly.
“Date me?” Jake rasps out, miraculously regaining control over his vocal cords.
Sunoo leans in yet again, and when their lips are less than a centimeter apart, he murmurs, “Yeah, that’s the plan.”