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“You have a motorcycle license?”
Sungchan stops fidgeting with the keychains displayed at the counter of the rental shop. “Yeah? I got one the summer of second year.” They’re the garishly colored, tourist-trap type, the kind Eunseok’s mom would expect him to bring home after a holiday. Love From Jeju, Oh-range, and other sugary catchphrases embossed on enamel tangerines of all shapes and sizes. “Weren’t you home when I came back with it?”
“I don’t exactly keep track of all the things you come home with.” Sungchan’s brought many unexpected things back to their apartment, some welcome, most not so. One Chuseok had witnessed the addition of an industrial-grade barbecue grill to their living room (“Now you can cook pajeon with those cool grill mark-thingies on them.”). Eunseok still trips over the faux fur carpet shaped like a carrot in their already-cramped living room (“Someone left it out on the curb, it would have been a waste! It doesn’t look like it has lice…”). Sometimes, he’ll come out of their room to pee at 1 AM and find Sohee snoring on their couch (“Our engineering society thing had a mixer, I’ll bring him home in the morning.”).
“You don’t even own a motorcycle.”
Sungchan shrugs. He’s standing close enough in the tiny shop that Eunseok can smell the salt on him from when they’d gotten sprayed walking along the beach. It’s mixed in with the scent of fabric softener that he always uses too much of. The clerk quietly clears her throat, and he snaps to attention like a startled puppy. “How much will two hours cost us?”
She points to a printed chart on the wall behind her, the text faded from years of damp ocean air. “It’s 50,000 won for the rest of the afternoon.”
Sungchan grins before Eunseok can react. “We’ll take it!”
“We?” Eunseok isn’t particularly thrilled at the idea of driving in circles for the next four hours, with or without the looming possibility of vehicular manslaughter. The groceries they’d hastily purchased the night before are sitting unused in the refrigerator of the Airbnb, and it’s become his God-given role as the friend with a culinary degree to take charge of cooking meals during trips like these.
“Come on, Eunseok. We won’t be having dinner until six.” He kind of hates it when Sungchan reads him like this, preempts his excuses. It feels invasive, almost. Then again, Wonbin is somewhere halfway across the island studying some kind of fish for his marine biology dissertation. Shotaro had chosen to go with him, presumably to continue the Wonbin dissertation he’s been writing for the past six months (“Don’t even try to justify it, just go.” Shotaro had grinned and practically waltzed out the door at that.). Neither will be back for a few hours.
“Fine. But you’re helping me with the galbi later.”
Sungchan’s eyes crinkle, and he cups his hands in the direction of the clerk, motioning for her to toss him the keys. They promptly bounce off his thumbs and land on the floor.
--
Eunseok’s scalp itches. The helmets they’d rented—for an additional fee, no less—pinches in all the wrong places and smells like sweat. “How am I supposed to get on the bike when you keep moving it like that?”
There’s an awful creaking noise as Sungchan awkwardly backpedals to a stop beside him. He’s beginning to consider drafting a letter to the Seoul government on overly lax licensing policies. “I was just getting a feel for the bike. You can get on now.”
He steps off the curb onto the weathered asphalt and gingerly swings a leg over the motorcycle, sinking onto the peeling leather. Sungchan shifts his weight forward, giving him ample space to adjust to the seat. He’s always been good at that, Eunseok thinks, so quick to accommodate, ready to understand. And it isn’t because he’s a pushover, or unintelligent, or anything to that effect. There’s always been an ease in how Sungchan handles the world, an honesty that doesn’t overcomplicate, doesn’t keep score or prickle in self-defense the way Eunseok almost certainly would. It sort of scares him, unnerves him when they bicker over rent, over laundry and the temperature of the air conditioning during the summer, and Sungchan lets him have his way without need for compensation or reparation. Just gives.
“You set?” The upholstery of the bike is slippery, and Eunseok has to brace himself with his palms to keep from sliding off the seat. He’s fairly sure that the helmet has cut off all blood flow to and from his head by now. Sungchan finds his eyes in the side mirror—he nods anyway.
The engine roars to life, and they’re moving, the road sloping gently uphill as they follow the coast. Sungchan slowly accelerates, adjusting gently to the elevation. He’d been the passenger back in Seoul, backpack hugged to his chest as Eunseok quietly fumed at traffic. Once, he’d blocked the side mirror while leaning forward to point out an idol billboard in Gangnam, and they’d almost been T-boned at a busy intersection. He’d yelled at Sungchan then, given him the silent treatment all the way back to their apartment, and felt like shit the entire night as a result. (“I was out of line yesterday.” Sungchan took the eggs off the heat, spooned them into a bowl along with some rice and furikake. “It’s okay. I made you breakfast.”).
It takes him a while to get used to how fast they’re going, the rusted barricade along the road blurring into a continuous streak of grey. Beyond it, the ocean and afternoon sky meet in a line almost too clean to be real, blue and bluer streaked with seafoam and cloud. He wonders which direction home is in, and a small part of him considers whether the question is worth asking.
Sungchan peeks over his shoulder at him, eyes visible through a gap in the visor. Baby hairs peek out from beneath the helmet, tickling at the collar of his polo shirt. “You wanna hold on to me? Your arms are shaking.”
Eunseok glances down. His knuckles are white with effort, clinging to the rim of the seat. He brings his arms up slowly, finds a place to rest his fingers on Sungchan’s shoulders. There is a hollow between his neck and clavicle that he’s never noticed before, and he resists the urge to run a finger along its outline.
“This okay?” Sungchan doesn’t answer, focusing on a particularly sharp turn up ahead. As the motorcycle banks left, Eunseok feels his body tipping, his weight on Sungchan’s shoulders pushing the bike even further off balance. Sungchan steers them steadily in the opposite direction, neck tense beneath Eunseok’s fingers. They clear the bend onto more even terrain, and Eunseok exhales too loudly.
“Maybe hold on at the waist instead.” He can hear the grin in Sungchan’s voice, the playful half-tilt that comes out when he decides to indulge Eunseok’s teasing. “They taught us that in motorcycle driving school.”
“You don’t say.” His voice cracks on the last syllable, and Sungchan is kind enough to let it slide. He shifts his hands down beneath Sungchan’s polo, just below his lowest rib. He can feel the lines of his torso through the thin undershirt he’s got on. An absurd thought returns to him from culinary school: their professor standing next to a chart that described the various cuts of pork and beef. A methodology laid out for breaking sinew and muscle and bone into neat portions, chosen for their purpose, flavor, tenderness. The loin, comprising much of the upper back. Spare ribs and side, around the stomach and up towards the chest.
And really, Eunseok sometimes wishes that people could be broken down into bits and pieces in this way. Distinguishing between a ham and a shoulder is trivial to the trained eye, night and day down to the marrow. He’s been studying Sungchan for years now. For all his openness and easy laughter and kindness, much of it still seems like blood and guts in the poor light of their apartment. It’s difficult, unfathomable, to make sense of the spaces between breaths, the small pauses and half-smiles.
Once, Eunseok had brought something unexpected back to their apartment. Even he had been surprised—too many beers as he’d parked his ass on a couch at some house party Wonbin had dragged him to, barely audible conversation about booking an Uber back to his place. Sungchan’s room had been separate from his back then, not quite the office slash storage space slash cupboard it’s been converted into. The morning after, while dealing with dirty sheets and an awful hangover, Sungchan had walked into the living room with a strange look on his face.
You had someone over last night? It wasn’t anything. Okay. Just okay? That weird space between breaths that he can’t explain. I think I’d prefer if you didn’t sleep with other people. Well, do you get to tell me what to do? The half-smile, a short pause. No, it’s just a preference. Okay. Later that evening, Eunseok had cooked for him. Kimbap, spicy kalguksu, everything labor-intensive and prep-heavy that he hated preparing. He hasn’t brought anyone home since.
(Sungchan has brought many unexpected things back to their apartment. Once, before the kimbap and kalguksu, it was too many shots of soju after a PhD candidacy seminar. Eunseok had been on the couch, half-heartedly scrolling through TikTok while waiting for him to get home so he could lock the door. Sungchan had stumbled through the doorway, locked it himself with clumsy fingers.
“You know, that’s why I could never be…as good a cook as you.” He stares at Eunseok from just beyond the carrot-shaped rug, collar crooked.
He looks up from his phone. There’s a flush high on Sungchan’s cheeks, climbing slightly up towards his brow. The top button of his shirt is undone. “Why’s that?”
“My fingers don’t work like yours. They get all jumbled.” He slurs, two steps towards the couch to press his hand against Eunseok’s. Then his chest, nose, lips. “You’re so cool.” He mumbles.)
They ride over a poorly painted speed bump, the yellow faded into a suggestion of a warning. As they go over, the sleeve of Sungchan’s polo shirt rides up and slips down, bearing milky and slightly sunburnt skin. The redness stops at a blurry halfway point down his arm, where Eunseok had strong-armed him into wearing sunscreen before getting into the ocean yesterday. The shoulder, lean and well marbled with intramuscular fat. Cooked with heat and high pressure until tender.
(“I think I love you. Like, for real.” He’s cooking when Sungchan says it. Sizzling oil fills the silence. Eunseok burns whatever it is he’s making.)
Something within Eunseok, some primal and barely repressed desire, wonders what it would feel like to bite into Sungchan then and there. To grind him between his teeth, tear at his shoulder and neck and into his chest over the thrumming of the bike. There are so many different ways to prepare animals of all kinds, to braise and stew, fry and boil, and a chef’s job is to understand them all, to narrow sustenance down to a science. He wants to skin, to portion and butcher and scrub meat from bones until they glisten.
Would he understand, then? Maybe Eunseok needs to take himself apart instead. Every look, every quiet concession and soft smile, the dishes that are washed before he even finishes cooking, is Sungchan’s way of laying him bare. A butcher’s knife between joints, and the lean meat slides away like magic.
Sungchan revs the engine, and it startles him enough to jump in his seat. “You okay back there?” They’ve slowed to a near-walking pace by a rest point.
“Thinking about dinner.” Eunseok pauses. “You know I hate cleaning ribs.” He knows.
Sungchan nods, bumps his back into Eunseok’s chest and grins at the yelp he receives. Eunseok meets his eyes through the mirror, and it feels like being flayed, descaled, all over again. “Time to go home then.”
Again, Eunseok wonders which direction home is in. He wonders if he needs to wonder.
--
When they get back to the Airbnb, he takes the ribs out of the tiny freezer. The kitchen comes with a sparse collection of pots and pans, but Eunseok will manage.
The bedroom door opens behind him, and Sungchan emerges, freshly showered and hair flat against his scalp. He reaches for the ribs on the countertop and fills a bowl with water to help them defrost. Eunseok turns to look at him, and he waggles his eyebrows.
They finish before Shotaro and Wonbin get home. The galbi comes out perfectly cooked, and he thinks he understands it then, even just a little bit.