He doesn’t love him yet. It’s the incipient passion, a rearing sensation coming newly with undeniable power, vividly with brilliance. What he does not speak: he knows that he, one day, will (love him). The anticipation rung as strongly as anything else, a sublime resonance somewhere in his heart. Certainty, that’s how he feels it. Like invigorated lightning, too; a spark he idealizes with each glance he’d take.
Sometimes it’s slowly, strung gently by palpable dream whose tenderness was such that he’d think himself still asleep. Sometimes it’s urgent, the figurative moon river pulling him and his tiny boat with a special violence. It’s always brutal, tugging hard enough to rip his oars aside. The oars were another metaphor, this time for caution. Alongside its brutality, the feeling was a tyrant. It didn’t leave him with the liberty to make any other choice. He had to look. That’s his excuse.
Not that he needed one. Hansol never asked. Just in case he did, though. That’s what he would provide, put it coolly, believably. It was an oppressive, monstrous compulsion, dragging him absolutely kicking and screaming against all (nonexistent) defiance, making him stare. Making his hand inch closer on the desktop, pinky skirting its end against the edge of Hansol’s opposing hand. Making him wonder how the space between his fingers felt. Was it warm? He’s never actually held hands before. Could they maybe try?
He means actually try, by the way, because it’s different from when Hansol’s suddenly beside him, looping Sunan’s wrist in-between periods. Excited to see him, or maybe Sunan’s only imagining that but Hansol is laughing, diction a little softer than with the rest of their classmates (he’s even starting the conversation). Different from when he’s meeting him outside in the dead of night, too. Even if that starlit corpse was colder now with the emergence of winter, begging they pull each other as close as possible. That’s just hospice, human survival. That’s them being decent, treating each other decently. It’s different, isn’t it?
He’s in Hansol’s car before the sun comes up because it’s just the weekend. They’re not going anywhere because Hansol just hasn’t decided yet. They haven’t actually tried. His gaze flickers to the armrest separating them. The driver and the passenger seats — not ‘them’, obviously.
“ — H-Hey.” As gentle and as evanescently audible as his cowardice usually bade he was. Hands rubbing over his own thighs, as if reminding himself of his own corporeal form, that he was alive. “Um ... What are we ... ? — What are we doing? I mean, you and I. Here? As an activity. Christmas is coming soon.” So stupidly, very aware of its lack of correlation. “I’m excited.” Giddy and killing his giddiness, instead shrugging forcibly. “It’s whatever, though. What about you?”
