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Seokjin hadn’t seen anyone as bright as Jeongguk in a long, long time. The Strip, for all its gleaming lights, sounds, and smells, was a far way off from the comfort and warmth of the Mars capital, or the hominess of his parents’ store in the outpost he grew up in. He had made a new home here, but the shadows are still darker, more desolate in a way that feels less human the farther one goes from the sun.
(It’s hard to feel human, sometimes, when the sky outside the observation decks is that deep, cosmic black, endless and all-consuming.)
(Jeongguk helps with that, with the longing of a true blue sky above you and soft, green grass beneath your feet. It’s easier to feel alive around him.)
☆
“Ah, Seokjin-ssi, I’m starving.” Jeongguk whines playfully, in a way that has Seokjin rolling his eyes. Their friendship has always been like this: affectionately combative. A love language meant to tease. It’s nice. Like an inside joke from a private conversation, just between them. “Is hyung waiting for the rice cakes to cook themselves?”
Seokjin scoffs. “Quality takes time. I dare you to find better tteokbokki anywhere on this side of the asteroid belt. Go on; I’ll wait.”
“Hyung,” Jeongguk whines again. “I didn’t mean it. You have the best tteokbokki on both sides of the asteroid belt. The whole circle, all the way around, even. No competition.”
“Now you just sound like you’re buttering me up for something,” Seokjin says with a suspicious squint in Jeongguk’s direction. “What is it? Be honest. Hyung can always tell when you’re angling.”
“I’m not angling—”
“That is exactly what an angler would say.”
Jeongguk sighs, exasperated, but turns a pleading eye to Seokjin. “I worked eighteen hours in a row; I’m tired and I’m hungry and there’s absolutely nothing like the food from my favorite pojangmacha.”
“Ah—well,” Seokjin stammers, feeling unbalanced, “I’ll just—do you want hotteok first? They’re just about done.”
“I’d love some,” Jeongguk says a little too quickly, jumping at the chance. “Please. Thank you very much.”
“Ha, I knew it! You were angling.” Seokjin accuses, tone scandalized, but he plates the hotteok without further complaint.
“I’ll eat well.” Jeongguk promises, ignoring Seokjin’s comment entirely. He tucks in almost immediately, brows deeply furrowed and mouth dipped in a frown, in that way Seokjin knows means he approves. Of course he approves; Seokjin’s food stall was in the top ten shortlist for Best Hidden Gems in the Asteroid Belt last year. He has a plaque and everything. Very official. Jeongguk even baked him a cake that said, “congratulations on your baby!”
“Ah, how can something be this delicious,” Jeongguk murmurs reverently to himself and then to the food, “you did well.”
“Yah,” Seokjin points a ladle at him, “who cooked that? Did it cook itself? We just discussed this.”
“Oh, Seokjin-nim, I would like to apologize sincerely,” Jeongguk says with as deep a bow as one can give while seated. “You’re such a great cook.”
Even though Jeongguk is, more often than not, the most painfully sincere person from here to the nebulous edge of Oort Cloud, Seokjin purses his lips. “Better. I’ll give it a seven out of ten for sincerity.”
“Only seven? I’ll practice hard for next time.”
“Sure you will.”
“Ah, hyung, you know I always keep my word, especially for you.” Jeongguk promises, charmingly honest in a way that has Seokjin fighting back a smile.
“Especially for me, huh?” Seokjin asks, more amused than anything else, and rolls his eyes again when Jeongguk winks at him over the counter.
☆
The thing of it is: Seokjin hadn’t ever really thought about going to interplanetary space.
Not anything more than, for example, a cruise around Saturn’s rings, or a tour of Jupiter’s moons, or a hike through the botanic garden city on the other side of the asteroid belt. A vacation. Something temporary. Fun. An opportunity to get a little wild and then go home with a fond memory to match.
Not anything permanent.
But their community on Mars was small enough, and his ex was around every corner, and his heart was still broken, and—getting away, for a long, long time, had just seemed like the thing to do. His parents were already selling the general store and making plans to spend their retirement in South Korea back on Earth where his grandparents were born.
It was just—there wasn’t anything keeping him there, anyway.
He could build a life somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
☆
“Ahjussi, what’s today’s special?” Jeongguk sings, sliding up to the counter and fitting himself in his space in the corner. He’s a little later than usual, but he frequents Seokjin’s stall often enough that the seat remains open for him even without Seokjin’s intervention nowadays. (And if Seokjin happens to keep an eye on both the time and Jeongguk’s seat throughout the day, well… Jeongguk isn’t there to see it.)
“Ahjus—” Seokjin gasps, affronted. He’s twenty years short of ahjussi. “Bindaetteok. You’ll take it and like it, or else.”
Jeongguk laughs, a high sparkling little sound that might look like a meteor shower if given shape. Without bothering to argue, he agrees easily, “Of course. I consider everything you serve to be nothing less than a gift.”
“As you should,” Seokjin sniffs. With a dramatic flourish, he garnishes the bindaetteok with strips of dried, red chili pepper and adds, “Eat well.”
“Seokjin-ssi,” Jeongguk says with a deep inhale, very seriously, before he’s even taken a single bite of his meal, “I’m considering asking you for your hand in marriage.”
“That’s very kind,” Seokjin replies, “but I’ve already been proposed to twice today and it’s tiring to be this alluring.”
Jeongguk nods solemnly. “I understand completely.”
Seokjin leaves him to it, stepping away to ready a container for another regular waiting nearby. Perhaps too regular, given the way the other man wiggles his eyebrows pointedly in Jeongguk’s direction. (He’s employed by a different mining company than Jeongguk, but their schedules line up more often than not.) Seokjin scowls. “You keep moving your eyebrows all weird and they might get stuck that way.”
The man chuckles and holds his hands up placatingly. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Your eyebrows said it for you.”
He shrugs. “What can I say? I’m an expressive guy.”
“Can you express it somewhere else?” Seokjin says darkly, even as he carefully packs away as much food as the container can handle.
“And have you lose your second favorite customer? Jeongguk being first, of course.”
“Aish—off with you, then.” Seokjin clucks his tongue and shoos him away, eyes darting over to where Jeongguk sits on the opposite end of the counter, blissfully unaware of Seokjin and his minor internal crisis.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk calls then, almost like he knew Seokjin was thinking about him.
It’s humiliating, actually, how quickly Seokjin’s attention is drawn back to Jeongguk’s orbit. How quickly his ears pick up on Jeongguk’s voice amidst the loud, cacophonous noise of the Strip’s ever-bustling night market. How quickly his eyes find Jeongguk’s through the crowd. How easily he let Jeongguk become part of his routine.
“Hyung,” Jeongguk says again, “can you please give me two more servings?”
“Sure,” Seokjin replies, shutting off the part of himself that feels like running away. “Heading back out?”
Jeongguk sighs, patting his chest pockets until he lands on the one that contains his wallet. “Sort of. Not right away, but I’ve got an early shift near Ceres tomorrow and those guys are always stingy about the company rations. Not that the rations are any good, anyway.”
“Anything for a growing boy.” Seokjin packs extra into the box out of Jeongguk’s sight and firmly closes the lid.
☆
He’d started small.
Just a little red tent on the outskirts of the Strip, so far from the center that his first customers were drunken asteroid miners that had only accidentally wandered too far in one direction. They were fresh off a long shift and Seokjin had enticed them closer with the smell of cooking meat, a friendly drink on the house, and a personality too cheerful for the late hour.
Those two had been his only customers all day. They’d been his only customers all week, in fact, and Seokjin had been fraying at the seams. Stressed, anxious, and so, so tired. So afraid of failure.
But he’d joked and laughed and established comradery, because, if he was going to drown, he might as well do it with a smile.
“Tomorrow, I’ll have hangover soup,” he’d said, “and you’ll be back.”
☆
(They had come back.
And then, they had come back with their friends, who had come back with their friends, too.
Months later, after finally doing more than just barely breaking even, Seokjin had sat on the floor of his tiny apartment in the station’s housing district and cried into a bowl of instant noodles.)
☆
“Jeon Jeongguk, what are you doing here so late?” Seokjin asks over his shoulder as Jeongguk approaches. (He doesn’t need to look. Not really. He knows the pattern of Jeongguk’s stride the same way he knows his recipes: by heart.) “Had to see hyung’s beautiful face one last time before bed?”
“Call it dream insurance.” Jeongguk replies, settling into his usual seat at the counter. Like this, they’re sitting next to each other, so close Seokjin can feel the heat of Jeongguk’s body. “I’m hungry.”
Technically, Seokjin’s stall is already closed. Everything is packed away for the night, except for the leftovers that can’t be reintegrated into tomorrow’s menu, but Seokjin is still eating his dinner and Jeongguk has always had a different set of rules applied to him anyway. Without thinking too much about it, he lifts a bite-sized portion of noodles in Jeongguk’s direction and nods in invitation. “Go on then.”
Jeongguk shifts closer, their arms brushing, but not quite near enough to take a bite of the noodles twisted around the chopsticks Seokjin is offering. “I can pay for it.”
Seokjin scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I know it’s late—”
“Are you trying to insult me?” Seokjin ducks his head, lowering his chopsticks, stiff-shouldered. “It’s just leftovers anyway.”
Jeongguk hums, knocking their shoulders together a little harder, until Seokjin relaxes and responds in kind. “Sorry, hyung. Can I have a bite now?”
“Only because you’re being so formal and polite this time,” Seokjin relents, bringing the chopsticks to meet Jeongguk’s mouth, his hand cupped beneath to catch anything that could fall. It feels more intimate than it should, more intimate than Seokjin has ever truly allowed their relationship to be to him. He doesn’t know if it’s the ingrained instinct of taking care of those younger than him, or if it’s just the way he feels about Jeongguk in particular, but it feels good, too, to be able to take care of Jeongguk like this.
It feels right.
☆
Jeongguk looks grungier this time, somehow even more tired than the night before, with grease smeared across the curve of his cheekbone and a reddened scratch near his temple. There’s a stain on his worn gray sweatshirt around the collar, a small tear through the faded mining logo on the left side of his chest. Sleepless eyes, weary breaths, heavy shoulders.
It isn’t the norm for Jeongguk, but Seokjin knows that bone-deep weariness well.
Yet, despite it all, Jeongguk is still devastatingly handsome, shining like sunlight in the cold, lonely expanse of this solar system.
“Jeongguk-ah.” Seokjin says once Jeongguk nearly collapses onto the red, plastic stool in front of the counter. “Looks like you could use a drink.” There’s a long pause after he says it, like Jeongguk is weighing his options, so Seokjin adds gently, “I’ll even put it on your tab—you know, the one that’s invisible and I have no intention of ever collecting on even though it’s bad for business?”
Jeongguk hesitates, but then dips his head in acknowledgment.
Seokjin pours soju into a small glass for him. “Now, tell hyung what’s bothering you.”
Taking the glass carefully with both hands, Jeongguk turns to the side and downs its contents. He sighs, “Some days are just pointless, yeah?”
“Sure,” Seokjin agrees. He isn’t good at this. Isn’t good at reassurances or advice—he’s always been the type to laugh it off, has always embodied fake it til you make it, but—he wants to be there for him. Needs Jeongguk to know that he can listen, at least. “Anything that makes this one particularly so?”
Jeongguk rubs his hand across his face. “No, it’s just—what am I doing here, you know? Every day on my secondhand junkheap of a ship is exactly the same as the one before. It’ll be the same tomorrow, and the day after. It doesn’t mean anything. What am I doing each day that matters?”
Seokjin sets a plate of tteokbokki on the counter in front of Jeongguk and turns away, busying himself with stirring a pot of haejangguk. “I’m—I don’t think it’s what you want to hear, but significance is what we make it, Jeongguk-ah. We’re all just dimly flickering specks in the glittering void of the cosmos. Maybe none of it matters. Maybe—maybe all of it matters.” He clears his throat. “My tteokbokki, though? Universal constant. Now eat, hyung wants to see you enjoy the food he made just for you.”
Jeongguk pulls the plate closer with a little laugh and the shadow of a smile in the corner of his mouth, and Seokjin feels the keen satisfaction of a job well done. “Thank you, hyung.”
☆
Jeongguk hadn’t come to his stall until Seokjin had been well into his second year on the Strip, until he’d already been able to move to a better location that was closer to the docks, with more space to spread out and more people to see.
By then, Seokjin had been what he could confidently call “established.” “Successful,” maybe, if he squinted hard enough. He’d even managed to build a new community of sorts, a stable clientele built of frequent returning customers, word-of-mouth first-timers, and supportive neighboring vendors. He had friends, a comfortable home, a life. One that he was proud of. One that mattered to him, even if it didn’t mean anything to anyone else.
The loneliness at the heart of him hadn’t disappeared. Not entirely. But now, at least, he had something to do that felt worthwhile, something he had to look forward to every day, something wasn’t just restocking the shelves of his parents’ general store ad nauseam or studiously avoiding the penetrating looks of their overly nosy neighbors and their sons who thought they knew all about Kim Seokjin.
And then—and then Jeongguk had shown up.
Had followed the smell of tteokbokki straight to Seokjin’s big, red tent, sat down in his corner—although it hadn’t been his quite yet—and moaned about how much better it smelled than the food they served in the company canteen.
How much it smelled like home.
☆
It sticks with him though, what Jeongguk said.
Jeongguk matters. Of course he does.
He’d be a bad hyung if he didn’t really let Jeongguk know that.
(And he knows how Jeongguk feels, knows the worn down nature of a stagnant, unchanging routine. How unfulfilling it can feel when your heart isn’t in it. Even now, with everything he has going for him, he knows that some days do feel particularly pointless.)
(Some days, seeing Jeongguk is the only reason he gets out of bed. Some days, Jeongguk is the only one that makes him feel like he’s allowed to stay home when he’s tired. Some days, Jeongguk is the only thing that matters.)
“Jeongguk-ah,” Seokjin greets when Jeongguk arrives. There’s a curtain of white steam billowing between them, rising from a boiling pot of eomukguk.
Jeongguk dips his head politely as he sits down. “Hyung.”
Seokjin clears his throat. “Listen, about yesterday—”
“It was nothing,” Jeongguk cuts in, flashing Seokjin a brittle smile. “Don’t worry about it. It was just one of those days, you know?”
“I’ll worry about whoever I want to,” Seokjin grouches. “I just—you should know that you do matter. To—to, well—”
“To?” Jeongguk asks, without really asking.
“To me. You matter to me.” The words don’t come out the way he wants them to. Of course they don’t. Not when he desperately wants to be confident and eloquent and prettily sincere, not this awkward, stumbling mess. “Obviously.”
“Oh, really? What a ‘cosmically significant’ thing for you to say,” Jeongguk teases, nose scrunching as his smile widens, more easy and genuine than before, and something tight in Seokjin’s chest eases just a little. It’s easy, teasing each other the way they do. Reassuring in its normalcy. “How ‘existentially vulnerable’ of you.”
“Ah, seriously,” Seokjin groans, “you’re just putting words together at random for a joke while hyung’s trying to have a heartfelt moment here. To—to let you know I care.”
“I know you care.” Jeongguk ducks his head, fingers fiddling with the zipper of his jumpsuit.
“Do you?” Seokjin asks, skeptical.
Jeongguk laughs, a small, breathy little noise that makes Seokjin’s stomach churn with—with—he doesn’t even know what. “You think I don’t notice all the extra servings you put in my meals? Or how my favorite seat at the counter is always open for me no matter how busy it is? Or the way you look at me like you want to kiss me, but won’t let yourself think I want it, too?”
Seokjin grimaces, ears turning beet red. “Well, now I’m just embarrassed that I’ve been so obvious.”
“It’s not obvious. It’s more that—between the two of us, you aren’t the only one that’s looking, you know? You hide a lot of what you feel, but I see that, too. I see you.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh,’” Jeongguk says, a softness to his tone that wasn’t there before, a looseness in his shoulders so different from the tension only a day or so ago. “I like seeing you.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Seokjin asks, with a high-pitched, nervous little laugh that he immediately cuts off. And then, softer, “Me too.”
They smile at each other, a beat of silence between them that lasts a moment too long.
“Look, I know you’re busy right now,” Jeongguk pauses, drumming his fingers against the counter, “but I think it would be good for us to have some time alone to talk, yeah?”
Seokjin nods, suddenly shy. “Later?”
“Later,” Jeongguk promises.
☆
“Can’t believe I’ve never been in here before.”
“Yes, yes, welcome to the inner sanctum,” Seokjin gestures grandly to the low-lit interior of his apartment as they step past the entryway. “Don’t forget to sign the NDA on the counter.”
“Too late,” Jeongguk says with an exaggerated sigh. “Should’ve made me sign it in the elevator. I’m not signing anything now.”
For a short moment, Seokjin tries to see his home the way Jeongguk might.
Small, but nice enough. Homey despite the cool, metal plating of the walls found in every living space on the station. The orange glow of the station lights passing through the unshuttered window by his sleeping area. The unmade bed, the messy, opened closet, the meticulously organized shelf of retro game figurines.
It isn’t the biggest or most updated apartment in the area, but it’s his. It’s—he hopes Jeongguk likes it. Hopes Jeongguk really likes him.
Before Seokjin can start overthinking, Jeongguk nudges him gently with an elbow. “I like it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s very ‘you.’”
Seokjin breathes out a laugh. “And what’s ‘very me’?”
“Warm,” Jeongguk answers, more earnestly than Seokjin knows what to do with. “Cozy. You know?”
Instead of answering, Seokjin knocks hip against Jeongguk’s just to be obnoxious. “You’ll have to show me your secondhand junkheap of a ship next time. Make us even.”
Jeongguk winces and covers his heart with a hand. “Ah, I shouldn’t have called her that. That ship has been nothing but good to me.”
“She’ll forgive you, I’m sure.”
“Oh, yeah? You think so?”
Seokjin hums. “Nothing your puppy dog eyes couldn’t cure with a look or two.”
“Oh, you’d know all about those,” Jeongguk says, sidling closer.
Because Seokjin does know all about those, he huffs out a laugh, but chooses not to respond. Instead, Jeongguk leans in and kisses him quickly, like he’s been waiting for the opportunity to have Seokjin close enough. Then again, slower, deeper, lazier, and Seokjin sinks into it easily, familiar in a way that feels like he’s been kissing Jeongguk for years. Reluctantly, Seokjin pulls away. “Not a lot of talking going on here.”
Jeongguk just smiles. “No, I guess not. But we have time for that.”
And the truth was: Seokjin hadn’t allowed himself to be vulnerable again after leaving Mars. It’s harder to be vulnerable than it is to build walls, but—he could be brave, and maybe they did have time for that, after all.
☆
“Tired?” Jeongguk asks sleepily, after they’ve both relocated to the bed for the night. He’s redressed in a set of loose, gray sleep sweats of Seokjin’s that have seen better days, but he fills them out differently than Seokjin does and Seokjin can’t help but think he must have done something good in a past life to see Jeongguk comfortable and relaxed like this.
“I think I’m dead,” Seokjin groans, trying not to think about the press of Jeongguk against him. “I feel like I haven’t slept in days.”
“Rest in peace, Kim Seokjin.” Jeongguk says, solemn. “Your tteokbokki will be missed.”
And just like that, any reservations Seokjin might have had disappear between one breath and the next. “I will haunt you.”
Jeongguk waggles his eyebrows. “Poltergeists are sexy.”
“Seriously, this kid,” Seokjin complains, loudly to no one in particular, but his hands are gentle on the dip of Jeongguk’s waist.
“What about me, huh?” Jeongguk asks, lowering his voice to a whisper. He reaches out, tucking a lock of Seokjin’s hair behind his ear. Seokjin closes his eyes and leans into it.
“This log entry is temporarily locked. Please check back in five to ten business days.”
Jeongguk laughs then, loud and uninhibited. “Alright. Count on it.”
Tomorrow, they’ll finish their talk.
But tonight, they’ll sleep.
☆
☆
☆
“Seokjin-ssi,” Jeongguk sings, loud enough that his voice carries across the platform.
Seokjin smiles.