Six Degrees of Separation [Gongchan/Sandeul]
Title: Six Degrees of Separation
Pairing: Gongchan/Sandeul
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chansik and Junghwan are stranded in New York City. Set before the filming of Solo Day. Canon.
Newark was an airport that did not beget its notorious status.
After disembarking the flight that left him stranded in an unkempt, private section of the supposedly comprehensive international airport, Lee Junghwan stood on the jetway and passed time watching grounds people wheel his luggage off the empty runway. He immediately decided that he couldn’t quite tolerate redeye flights as well as his bandmates could, but it had all been because of an emergency scheduling conflict. Junghwan had to record for a feature on Kim Bohyung’s solo album that couldn’t be rescheduled, so the manager booked a later flight for him, leaving him in New York City to fend for himself for a few hours before meeting up with his bandmates in Los Angeles for the filming of their next music video.
The customs teemed with visitors and immigrants rocking from foot to foot with children on hand, strollers, pets, and everything in between. Most of the passengers on the flight that had transferred in Tokyo were Asian and mumbled to each other in an assortment of languages that Junghwan didn’t understand. He sat on his luggage, rocking his feet and waving his phone to get data access. Ruffling his newly bleached bangs under a black snapback, he shifted his facemask back and forth and singlehandedly built up his anxiety for the cab ride to the hotel.
When he miraculously got signal, Junghwan dialed the number that was already entered in his phone, and the familiar voice sounded undeniably comforting.
“I’ll come get you. Wait by the exit,” Chansik said.
Gong Chansik, being the little shit he was, had volunteered to accompany him to New York, and as miffed as Junghwan was over that fact at the moment, he was grateful for Chansik’s partial presence. “That’s vague,” Junghwan replied, and Chansik laughed.
“Look, I have no idea what I’m doing, either.”
Junghwan rummaged through his bag for his camera. He figured he might as well capture his first experiences of America privately before Chansik arrived and ruined his cover. “I don’t understand why our company planned an all-inclusive to America right before-”
“Listen,” Chansik said. “I’d just be grateful. They’re doing all they can for us.”
Junghwan groaned. “There you go again with your grateful shit, and I’m going to have to call BS on this one, because-”
The pause was partly because Junghwan didn’t have any sound reasoning, and partly because Chansik’s familiar face appeared in front of him past the security desk. Junghwan spotted Chansik’s lean arm waving calmly at him.
Junghwan, despite himself, started laughing; the laugh came out as a choked sob in a sort of relief. “How the hell did you get here so quickly?”
Chansik grinned that cheeky smile that Junghwan loved, his thin lips pressed together in a line that curled up at one corner. “I’ve been waiting for you,” said Chansik. “A few minutes,” he added quickly.
“Alone?”
“Didn’t want to attract attention.”
Junghwan knocked Chansik’s cap into his eyes, smiling. “You attract enough attention as it is, silly.”
Chansik put a hand on Junghwan’s elbow and led him through the airport, and Junghwan stopped to marvel at the underwhelming essence of it all, the airport itself sterile and hospital-like in its décor. “We can take a taxi into Manhattan and go out for breakfast, if you’d like,” Chansik said. Chansik’s hand was soft, and Junghwan leaned into it, unintentionally pulling Chansik down with him as they tripped over Junghwan’s duffle bags. They looked at each other and laughed.
“This is awkward,” Junghwan said.
“I guess-we haven’t really been alone together much,” Chansik replied. “I honestly just really wanted to see New York.”
Part of Junghwan was disappointed that it hadn’t been I just really wanted to see you.
The taxi queue wasn’t long, and the clouds looked dense on the horizon where a hint of sunrise peaked through the summer morning haze. The taxi smelled like vanilla and old car, that familiar taxi smell, and something in it was comforting to Junghwan, though he knew Chansik would be eager to try the public transportation once they got into Manhattan and settled into their hotel, which was located on 32nd, between Madison and Park Avenue. Junghwan had tried to study a map of Manhattan on his flight between naps and meals, but he got as far as pronouncing the names of the nearby streets that weren’t numbers, and that was about it.
“Take the Holland Tunnel,” Chansik said in discernable English to the taxi driver, and Junghwan raised an eyebrow.
“Look at you, Mr. New York,” Junghwan said, and Chansik laughed.
“I was staring out the window the whole time on the way here. There shouldn’t be much traffic.”
“Thank God I have you,” Junghwan said.
“My English isn’t much better than yours,” admitted Chansik, and Junghwan shrugged.
“Well, I meant thank God it’s you and not Jinyoung,” Junghwan said.
Something just short of a crestfallen expression appeared on Chansik’s face, but Junghwan was turned toward the taxi window, watching what he could of the sunrise, so he did not see this.
“I mean, Jinyoung is really bad with directions,” Junghwan added arbitrarily.
In truth, Chansik had not been waiting a few minutes.
Chansik had waited in a deserted subway station nearly 45 minutes for the first train to come by to take him to Penn Station, then another hour or so to catch the train to the airport, where he arrived about two hours before Junghwan’s arrival. It had been a whole ordeal. He had not taken the taxi there; he’d studied maps of New York in those two hours over a coffee in the airport’s Starbucks, and Chansik found out that he was frighteningly capable of lying through his teeth. And Chansik, in the taxi window, watched his reflection and the dewdrops rolling across the windshield instead of the lights of New York City, blinking on at him through the early morning fog. Chansik had arrived to New York a day before Junghwan due to another scheduling conflict and the inability to fit both of them on the same last minute flight. Getting Chansik on board was a challenge in itself, but because Chansik pleaded that he so badly wanted to see New York, the managers had gone out of their way. Chansik reminded himself to treat them to a nice dinner once the five of them got back.
In truth, New York was secondary on Chansik’s list of Things to See.
Chansik liked to think he was an incredibly curious and attentive young man. He wouldn’t be incorrect in thinking that. Between the years of working together with four males mostly his age, he’d taken a backseat as an observer, listening to conversations and popping a statement in when one member of the group argued incongruently with what that member had said several months ago. In other words, Chansik called out the members who were hypocritical or did not think before they spoke. Everyone had been called out at least once. The members liked to call this action Chansik’s tendency to “wrecking ball” them.
On this trip to New York, then, Chansik’s main goal was to “wrecking ball” one unsuspecting Lee Junghwan.
The hotel was indeed located southeast of Midtown. After the taxi driver departed and Chansik and Junghwan were left on the curb staring up at skyscrapers in the northern distance and a not so discernable sunrise, Chansik realized that they were indeed alone in New York City, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. Secondly, when Junghwan looked up at him from under the snapback and fringe with this lost expression through a bitten lower lip and scrunched shoulders, Chansik realized that he had been assigned, whether he liked it or not, as the Responsible One, and suddenly, all he wanted to do was sleep.
The front door to the hotel was decorated with an unnecessarily ornate archway that contrasted with the plainly striped façade. A small café was attached to the hotel, and Junghwan and Chansik stood between two No Parking signs that stood glaringly red against the dull backdrop. The hotel’s lobby was about the size of their dorm’s living room, and the only elevator took them up to a narrow hallway that led to their room.
Chansik tried a couple times to get the key card to work. He could hear Junghwan holding his breath behind him.
The room itself was sizeable and clean barring a few small stains on the dark green rug. It was split into two sections by a wide doorway, one section housing a couch and the other a single king-sized bed. The lights that hung from the ceiling shone yellow and old, giving the room a warm, antique sort of feel, as if they’d just stepped from real life into an old screenplay, and Chansik felt oddly out of place. He’d stayed in a different hotel for the first night for various reasons that he probably wouldn’t understand even if the managers had told him, and the executive atmosphere of the previous hotel had been stripped from under his feet as he walked into this unsuspectingly charming hole in the wall.
“I guess they figured we could share the bed,” Junghwan said.
“Like we haven’t a hundred times before,” Chansik replied.
“Something about it’s different with just the two of us, you know,” said Junghwan, and Chansik glanced at him. From his expression, Chansik noticed that Junghwan immediately regretted what he’d said, and Chansik laughed.
“Breakfast?”
Junghwan gave Chansik a grateful and sheepish smile.
While Junghwan showered, Chansik fell on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The mattress barely sunk underneath him, but the comforters pillowed around him and mussed his hair. They really hadn’t been alone together often, with schedules dragging Junghwan from filming to musical to interview, leaving Chansik in the dorm most of the time. Chansik used that time to call his parents, trying to desensitize himself to the emotions that it brought up, but he could never shake off shedding a tear or two at his younger brother’s voice. The other members arrived back at the dorm at various times of night, so rarely did they get much of a meal together.
Junghwan walked out of the bathroom accompanied by rolling billows of steam and a towel wrapped around his waist. As he made his way to his suitcase, Chansik couldn’t help but stare at his retreating back. Junghwan’s arms looked soft, and Chansik reached forward to put a hand on Junghwan’s shoulder.
“What?” Junghwan said with a start, turning around and holding a t-shirt to his chest.
Chansik let his hand slide down Junghwan’s arm. It was more forgiving than the hotel pillows that lied scrunched up at the head of the bed.
“I don’t know,” Chansik said honestly. “You have nice skin.”
“Um, thanks,” Junghwan replied, sounding sincere. He brought the shirt up to cover the lower half of his face and turned around and slipped the shirt over his head. Chansik only pulled his hand away when the shirtsleeves graced his fingertips, and Junghwan didn’t seem to mind it.
Breakfast was warm and very American; Junghwan ordered pancakes, and Chansik French toast, and they picked at their food in an uncomfortable silence until the sound of a shutter broke Chansik’s trance. When he looked up, Junghwan was smiling at him from behind his camera, his eyes forming half-moons above the lens.
“Hey,” Junghwan said.
Chansik didn’t really know what he meant, but replied, “Hi,” anyway.
“Is this what boys our age normally do? Sit in diners in silence over comfort food?” Junghwan said, and Chansik laughed.
“I think the city that never sleeps is actually asleep.” And Chansik was correct; on weekends before ten in the morning, most of New York barring the joggers and early-morning cyclists rose and fell with the simultaneous waves of slumber, either resting from a demanding work week or from a night on the town, when people from parts of the city went to visit other parts of the city, and the people who lived in those visited parts gawked in annoyance from their overpriced studio apartments. Chansik and Junghwan realized that they were eating at one of those 24-hour places, and Junghwan wiped his hands on his pants. “It’s kind of an awkward time of day,” Chansik continued.
“And I’m jet-lagged as hell,” Junghwan finished. “So I’m, like, wide awake right now and will probably fall asleep at like eight.”
“Did you want to go somewhere to take pictures?” Chansik asked.
Junghwan shrugged. “I’ll find the time.”
They continued to pick at their food, and Chansik pretended to be incredibly absorbed in cutting the crust off his French toast and thereby slicing said crust into small pieces. Was that it, then? Was that where their conversation would end?
Junghwan’s fork jolted Chansik back into alertness. “Hey, you okay?” Junghwan said. “Are we doing something super tourist-y today?”
“I don’t know,” Chansik replied.
Junghwan leaned on his elbow. “I mean, we could just, like, walk around.”
There was something that vaguely annoyed Chansik about the people he loved. He tended to gravitate toward observant people, and it was the power of their conclusiveness that bothered Chansik, because that made it all the more difficult for him to hide things from them. Chansik was convinced that a part of him wanted to live in a world collapsed from view, minimized into a cubbyhole on a large screen that only popped up when he desperately needed it to. Yet a part of him unconsciously tended toward the people that could open that cubbyhole whenever they wanted to and take a look deep inside it. Junghwan was one of those people.
“Walking sounds nice,” Chansik said, giving in. Junghwan smiled at him and took a sip of his coffee.
Love is a strong word. It is also a word that means different things to different people.
Junghwan would be one to find this out firsthand.
While walking across town, Junghwan marveled at the crowded candor of it all. A Sunday morning in New York City along 32nd Street left something to be desired, yet drew out all of the city’s more frequent residents in the form of shop owners and managers, doing their time cleaning up the sidewalk in front of their shops or quality checking whatever opening rituals their employees had performed. And from the grounds within the city, the skyline seemed rather ordinary, or even nonexistent. As they traipsed by the Empire State Building, Junghwan would not have noticed it if Chansik hadn’t pointed the landmark out, and the perspective from directly underneath it made its stature seem more conceptually complex yet strangely insignificant.
New York City reminded Junghwan of Chansik. And perhaps Chansik felt a part of that, too, which was perhaps why he’d wanted to visit it so badly. (Little did Junghwan know, it actually had been a form of I just really wanted to see you.)
Love is a strong word. And it first bore its fangs toward adult Junghwan from a direction that seemed vaguely B1A4, one member in particular, then another, then another. Despite Junghwan’s sensitivity toward the word, for him, love unconsciously manifested itself in moments.
Junghwan thought he loved Jinyoung when Jinyoung gave Junghwan’s face a minor compliment that had something to do with his cheeks. Then, Junghwan realized that love was more complicated than that. He thought he loved Sunwoo when Sunwoo punched him in the stomach after an argument and then pushed him down on his bunk, breathing hard. Then, Junghwan realized that love had a little more going for it than that. He thought he loved Dongwoo when Dongwoo had kissed him square on the lips in a bar, drunk as hell. Then, Junghwan realized that love had more sides to it than that.
Koreatown bore little resemblance to Seoul, but the familiar letters and readable signs comforted Junghwan despite himself. The sun had since risen high in the sky yet the haze spread the light into a blanket that seemed to fall down into the city like powdered sugar, piece by fine piece. What few shadows there were appeared blurred in the nondescript light, and Junghwan stared at the buildings, distinct borders between substandard yet somewhat glitzy hotels and hip cafes that tried a little too hard. A bus and a small crowd of white tourists stood eternally under the awning of the Radisson, and the W 32nd St painted on the street appeared faded.
“Did you see that?” Chansik murmured quietly in Junghwan’s ear and nudged him in the arm. Junghwan shivered involuntarily as Chansik’s breath traveled down the back of his neck.
“See what?”
Chansik pointed to a brightly lit bookstore that shared a front with a somewhat Americanized Face Shop, and in the window were plastered posters of SHINee, Girls’ Generation, and Big Bang. On the second window in the far corner, its edges crinkled and corners a little worn, was B1A4’s iconic What’s Happening poster. It looked like it was left there simply because someone had forgotten to take it down, but Junghwan smiled a half-smile under his snapback anyway.
“We’re famous,” Chansik said, and Junghwan shrugged.
It seemed a little obvious, now, that Chansik would be the final member to test Junghwan’s definition of love in a completely foreign country.
As they made their way farther and farther west, past a Paris Baguette, past a Citibank, Junghwan watched the signs fade back into English and the scaffolding switch sides of the street and back again, creating an inconsistent shadow over the two of them that didn’t make the air feel much cooler due to the humidity. Chansik held onto Junghwan’s elbow again.
“Did you want to take some pictures?” Chansik repeated quietly.
Junghwan had nearly forgotten the large, expensive lump hanging from around his neck. “Right,” Junghwan said, but when he took the lens cap off of the camera and squinted into the viewfinder, he couldn’t quite get a good composition. The problem was, there was nothing to take pictures of, yet everything to take in. The feeling of Chansik’s hand on his elbow was one of those things. “Chansik.”
Chansik jolted. As close as they all were, it was rare for Junghwan to call any one of them by their given names except for Sunwoo. “Yeah?”
“Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to see the city,” Chansik lied.
Junghwan raised his camera to the sky. “Then shouldn’t we be actually doing something?”
“You’re the one who suggested walking around.”
“I thought you weren’t feeling well. You seemed kind of out of it this morning.”
Junghwan and Chansik were walking in time. The streets were becoming a little more populated with people walking their dogs and the crosstown bus heading opposite them. The streets seemed narrower, too, as the trucks parked on each side of the road tunneled them in until Chansik and Junghwan stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the Manhattan Mall.
Chansik said, “I was just thinking about some things.”
“You can’t just say that and not expect me to ask what things,” said Junghwan, and Chansik laughed.
“You. Me. Us-the group, I mean,” Chansik replied. “Where are we going?”
“West,” said Junghwan. “Literally?”
Chansik rolled his eyes. “This wasn’t what I expected.”
“What wasn’t?”
The smell of smoked pretzels drifted through the air. Chansik pulled Junghwan against the wall of the mall, away from the intersection so that people could pass them. Chansik then paused for a moment. “Friendship? I didn’t expect to, you know, care about you-you guys, as much as I do.”
Madison Square Garden loomed in front of them like a long-time impractical levy, stacked between the two of them and a lucid view of that thin line where the blank, gray sky met the bridged horizon.
It was the conversation that wasn’t going how Chansik expected it to go. Stating the obvious first, Junghwan was the one who had wrecking balled Chansik, in a sense, even if he didn’t mean to. Junghwan was right, though unconscious of it-it was Chansik who had gotten the ball rolling.
With the two of them alone in a foreign city, they suddenly became hyperaware of the other’s presence, body language, word choice. And Chansik could feel himself constructing his own sciences and limitations around Junghwan on this one-day trip; why was that? He felt his words mold around Junghwan’s, he felt his hand coming to rest on Junghwan’s elbow, he felt them walking together as if the ground were shifting underneath their weight, conforming to meet their steps. He felt the city curl around them, wrapping around 32nd Street and passing them by; it was how New York made one feel: as if one was infinitesimally small in a great world, yet standing awkwardly still as that world slipped past you in thousands of directions.
It was why Chansik had deigned to come with Junghwan alone to the city: he’d wanted to test the two of them; he’d wanted to test if they could hold on to each other as the city passed them by.
Junghwan and Chansik made their way around Madison Square Garden, choosing 33rd Street in order to avoid the mess that was Penn Station.
Their love story didn’t exist yet. It was more a story of incessant push and pull from the day they’d met. Junghwan was the one who ran, who pulled, who darted from person to place to concept, eager to fit into a niche he couldn’t quite find. And it was Chansik who held him back by a thread, waiting with a concerned yet impatient sort of glare, wondering when Junghwan would stop and finally follow the almost invisible string that tied him to Chansik from the moment they’d shaken hands in front of the rest of the group and Chansik gave that smirk that Junghwan loved and Junghwan replied him with a bright, cheeky smile.
Things had happened since then. They’d grown older; tears had been shed. Chansik had developed an injury; Junghwan had felt the meaning of failure. Chansik had felt what it meant to have someone (Junghwan) as angry as hell with you because they cared about you; Junghwan had felt what it meant to have someone (Chansik) comfort you out of love instead of obligation. Junghwan had felt what it meant to shy away from something you knew you had, and Chansik had felt what it meant to wait for something you might never be able to have. Their love story was under construction, much like the south side of 33rd Street, where the sidewalk was blocked off and Junghwan and Chansik held hands as they crossed the street.
They reached Eighth Avenue in an exhilarating sort of rush. Hundreds of blue, clunky bikes were lined up along 33rd Street. Then, they reached Ninth, Tenth Avenues, walking the long avenue blocks in quick, hurried steps. It had taken them about 45 minutes to walk, with stops, to the Hudson River from their hotel, yet it felt like an entire day had passed.
The Hudson River Greenway was as green as you could get in Manhattan, barring Central Park and a couple of the other, more spacious parks on the Upper West Side. It was also as far west as you could go without throwing yourself headfirst into the river itself. A median divided the path from the freeway, and the occasional traffic light allowed pedestrians to cross, though most of the Greenway’s residents were casual bikers.
Chansik ran up against the fence that walled the path from the river, and Junghwan approached the space next to him.
“So this is it,” Chansik said. “This is Manhattan.”
Junghwan took off his cap and let the wind blow his hair back. “I thought it was a pretty nice walk.”
The metal bars felt cool against Chansik’s fingers, and he slid his hand down over Junghwan’s.
The Hudson River Greenway was where they kissed, the two of them, without a word spoken. Junghwan seemed to know what to do. They’d walked downtown about 10 blocks in silence before Chansik stopped and took Junghwan by the shoulders. And Junghwan seemed to know what to do, leaning in toward Chansik and giving him a peck on the lips.
“Hey,” Junghwan breathed, and Chansik could feel Junghwan’s shoulders trembling beneath his hands.
“Hi,” replied Chansik.
Junghwan leaned his head against Chansik’s shoulder. “So, why did you come here? To New York?”
“I wanted to confirm something,” Chansik said. Junghwan smiled into his neck.
They took a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver asked if they’d walked crosstown and where they were from, and Junghwan left Chansik to answer the questions, though Chansik had only replied to the first one correctly because he’d learnt in America to say yes to everything he didn’t quite understand-Americans didn’t care whether the yes would actually be followed through or not.
It was only noon.
“I’m not skipping lunch for you,” Junghwan murmured as Chansik opened the door to their hotel room and closed it behind them, pushing Junghwan up against it.
Chansik grinned into Junghwan’s lips. “Just let me do this.”
The trip could have gone two ways.
They could have gone out to dinner at some glitzy American restaurant somewhere in Midtown that was vastly overpriced and to which they’d have shown up vastly underdressed. Instead, they ordered room service in the small hotel and received catering from the 24-hour café downstairs. Dinner was paninis and club sandwiches and sodas and cheesecake. Junghwan slipped into his pajamas and sprawled on the couch, and Chansik joined him, shifting Junghwan until his legs were spread across Chansik’s lap. And that was how they dined.
They could have gone clubbing, Chansik mildly passing for a 21-year old; they could’ve gotten girls, or grinded up against each other, the sexual tension surmounting until one of them was forced to jerk off in the bathroom of the club and the other in the shower of their hotel room. Instead, they had American sitcoms playing in the background on their television as they put off making love for some other time but still moaned into each other’s clothes as their kisses became breathier and more demanding.
Junghwan could’ve passed out on the couch, Chansik on the floor, reeking of alcohol and a mild disgust for themselves clouded by the weightlessness of their transient decisions. Instead, they shared the bed, Junghwan wrapped around Chansik, the satiny fabric of their pajamas sliding against each other underneath the comforter. Chansik liked to keep the room frigid, which in turn caused Chansik to become Junghwan’s personal space heater. They left the bedside lamps on as Chansik played with his phone and Junghwan breathed evenly into Chansik’s chest.
Jinyoung called them early in the morning to wake them up for their flight. “What did you guys end up doing? MoMA? Zoo?”
In a sleep-ridden voice, Chansik replied, “Eh, not much.” Junghwan yawned and stretched and accidentally smacked Chansik in the chin. Somehow, their shirts had been discarded through the night, and Chansik spooned up against Junghwan’s back and pressed lazy kisses down his spine.
It could’ve been America. But instead, it was so characteristically New York, shaping itself around the moments and memories of its beholders.
Pairing: Gongchan/Sandeul
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Chansik and Junghwan are stranded in New York City. Set before the filming of Solo Day. Canon.
Newark was an airport that did not beget its notorious status.
After disembarking the flight that left him stranded in an unkempt, private section of the supposedly comprehensive international airport, Lee Junghwan stood on the jetway and passed time watching grounds people wheel his luggage off the empty runway. He immediately decided that he couldn’t quite tolerate redeye flights as well as his bandmates could, but it had all been because of an emergency scheduling conflict. Junghwan had to record for a feature on Kim Bohyung’s solo album that couldn’t be rescheduled, so the manager booked a later flight for him, leaving him in New York City to fend for himself for a few hours before meeting up with his bandmates in Los Angeles for the filming of their next music video.
The customs teemed with visitors and immigrants rocking from foot to foot with children on hand, strollers, pets, and everything in between. Most of the passengers on the flight that had transferred in Tokyo were Asian and mumbled to each other in an assortment of languages that Junghwan didn’t understand. He sat on his luggage, rocking his feet and waving his phone to get data access. Ruffling his newly bleached bangs under a black snapback, he shifted his facemask back and forth and singlehandedly built up his anxiety for the cab ride to the hotel.
When he miraculously got signal, Junghwan dialed the number that was already entered in his phone, and the familiar voice sounded undeniably comforting.
“I’ll come get you. Wait by the exit,” Chansik said.
Gong Chansik, being the little shit he was, had volunteered to accompany him to New York, and as miffed as Junghwan was over that fact at the moment, he was grateful for Chansik’s partial presence. “That’s vague,” Junghwan replied, and Chansik laughed.
“Look, I have no idea what I’m doing, either.”
Junghwan rummaged through his bag for his camera. He figured he might as well capture his first experiences of America privately before Chansik arrived and ruined his cover. “I don’t understand why our company planned an all-inclusive to America right before-”
“Listen,” Chansik said. “I’d just be grateful. They’re doing all they can for us.”
Junghwan groaned. “There you go again with your grateful shit, and I’m going to have to call BS on this one, because-”
The pause was partly because Junghwan didn’t have any sound reasoning, and partly because Chansik’s familiar face appeared in front of him past the security desk. Junghwan spotted Chansik’s lean arm waving calmly at him.
Junghwan, despite himself, started laughing; the laugh came out as a choked sob in a sort of relief. “How the hell did you get here so quickly?”
Chansik grinned that cheeky smile that Junghwan loved, his thin lips pressed together in a line that curled up at one corner. “I’ve been waiting for you,” said Chansik. “A few minutes,” he added quickly.
“Alone?”
“Didn’t want to attract attention.”
Junghwan knocked Chansik’s cap into his eyes, smiling. “You attract enough attention as it is, silly.”
Chansik put a hand on Junghwan’s elbow and led him through the airport, and Junghwan stopped to marvel at the underwhelming essence of it all, the airport itself sterile and hospital-like in its décor. “We can take a taxi into Manhattan and go out for breakfast, if you’d like,” Chansik said. Chansik’s hand was soft, and Junghwan leaned into it, unintentionally pulling Chansik down with him as they tripped over Junghwan’s duffle bags. They looked at each other and laughed.
“This is awkward,” Junghwan said.
“I guess-we haven’t really been alone together much,” Chansik replied. “I honestly just really wanted to see New York.”
Part of Junghwan was disappointed that it hadn’t been I just really wanted to see you.
The taxi queue wasn’t long, and the clouds looked dense on the horizon where a hint of sunrise peaked through the summer morning haze. The taxi smelled like vanilla and old car, that familiar taxi smell, and something in it was comforting to Junghwan, though he knew Chansik would be eager to try the public transportation once they got into Manhattan and settled into their hotel, which was located on 32nd, between Madison and Park Avenue. Junghwan had tried to study a map of Manhattan on his flight between naps and meals, but he got as far as pronouncing the names of the nearby streets that weren’t numbers, and that was about it.
“Take the Holland Tunnel,” Chansik said in discernable English to the taxi driver, and Junghwan raised an eyebrow.
“Look at you, Mr. New York,” Junghwan said, and Chansik laughed.
“I was staring out the window the whole time on the way here. There shouldn’t be much traffic.”
“Thank God I have you,” Junghwan said.
“My English isn’t much better than yours,” admitted Chansik, and Junghwan shrugged.
“Well, I meant thank God it’s you and not Jinyoung,” Junghwan said.
Something just short of a crestfallen expression appeared on Chansik’s face, but Junghwan was turned toward the taxi window, watching what he could of the sunrise, so he did not see this.
“I mean, Jinyoung is really bad with directions,” Junghwan added arbitrarily.
In truth, Chansik had not been waiting a few minutes.
Chansik had waited in a deserted subway station nearly 45 minutes for the first train to come by to take him to Penn Station, then another hour or so to catch the train to the airport, where he arrived about two hours before Junghwan’s arrival. It had been a whole ordeal. He had not taken the taxi there; he’d studied maps of New York in those two hours over a coffee in the airport’s Starbucks, and Chansik found out that he was frighteningly capable of lying through his teeth. And Chansik, in the taxi window, watched his reflection and the dewdrops rolling across the windshield instead of the lights of New York City, blinking on at him through the early morning fog. Chansik had arrived to New York a day before Junghwan due to another scheduling conflict and the inability to fit both of them on the same last minute flight. Getting Chansik on board was a challenge in itself, but because Chansik pleaded that he so badly wanted to see New York, the managers had gone out of their way. Chansik reminded himself to treat them to a nice dinner once the five of them got back.
In truth, New York was secondary on Chansik’s list of Things to See.
Chansik liked to think he was an incredibly curious and attentive young man. He wouldn’t be incorrect in thinking that. Between the years of working together with four males mostly his age, he’d taken a backseat as an observer, listening to conversations and popping a statement in when one member of the group argued incongruently with what that member had said several months ago. In other words, Chansik called out the members who were hypocritical or did not think before they spoke. Everyone had been called out at least once. The members liked to call this action Chansik’s tendency to “wrecking ball” them.
On this trip to New York, then, Chansik’s main goal was to “wrecking ball” one unsuspecting Lee Junghwan.
The hotel was indeed located southeast of Midtown. After the taxi driver departed and Chansik and Junghwan were left on the curb staring up at skyscrapers in the northern distance and a not so discernable sunrise, Chansik realized that they were indeed alone in New York City, the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. Secondly, when Junghwan looked up at him from under the snapback and fringe with this lost expression through a bitten lower lip and scrunched shoulders, Chansik realized that he had been assigned, whether he liked it or not, as the Responsible One, and suddenly, all he wanted to do was sleep.
The front door to the hotel was decorated with an unnecessarily ornate archway that contrasted with the plainly striped façade. A small café was attached to the hotel, and Junghwan and Chansik stood between two No Parking signs that stood glaringly red against the dull backdrop. The hotel’s lobby was about the size of their dorm’s living room, and the only elevator took them up to a narrow hallway that led to their room.
Chansik tried a couple times to get the key card to work. He could hear Junghwan holding his breath behind him.
The room itself was sizeable and clean barring a few small stains on the dark green rug. It was split into two sections by a wide doorway, one section housing a couch and the other a single king-sized bed. The lights that hung from the ceiling shone yellow and old, giving the room a warm, antique sort of feel, as if they’d just stepped from real life into an old screenplay, and Chansik felt oddly out of place. He’d stayed in a different hotel for the first night for various reasons that he probably wouldn’t understand even if the managers had told him, and the executive atmosphere of the previous hotel had been stripped from under his feet as he walked into this unsuspectingly charming hole in the wall.
“I guess they figured we could share the bed,” Junghwan said.
“Like we haven’t a hundred times before,” Chansik replied.
“Something about it’s different with just the two of us, you know,” said Junghwan, and Chansik glanced at him. From his expression, Chansik noticed that Junghwan immediately regretted what he’d said, and Chansik laughed.
“Breakfast?”
Junghwan gave Chansik a grateful and sheepish smile.
While Junghwan showered, Chansik fell on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The mattress barely sunk underneath him, but the comforters pillowed around him and mussed his hair. They really hadn’t been alone together often, with schedules dragging Junghwan from filming to musical to interview, leaving Chansik in the dorm most of the time. Chansik used that time to call his parents, trying to desensitize himself to the emotions that it brought up, but he could never shake off shedding a tear or two at his younger brother’s voice. The other members arrived back at the dorm at various times of night, so rarely did they get much of a meal together.
Junghwan walked out of the bathroom accompanied by rolling billows of steam and a towel wrapped around his waist. As he made his way to his suitcase, Chansik couldn’t help but stare at his retreating back. Junghwan’s arms looked soft, and Chansik reached forward to put a hand on Junghwan’s shoulder.
“What?” Junghwan said with a start, turning around and holding a t-shirt to his chest.
Chansik let his hand slide down Junghwan’s arm. It was more forgiving than the hotel pillows that lied scrunched up at the head of the bed.
“I don’t know,” Chansik said honestly. “You have nice skin.”
“Um, thanks,” Junghwan replied, sounding sincere. He brought the shirt up to cover the lower half of his face and turned around and slipped the shirt over his head. Chansik only pulled his hand away when the shirtsleeves graced his fingertips, and Junghwan didn’t seem to mind it.
Breakfast was warm and very American; Junghwan ordered pancakes, and Chansik French toast, and they picked at their food in an uncomfortable silence until the sound of a shutter broke Chansik’s trance. When he looked up, Junghwan was smiling at him from behind his camera, his eyes forming half-moons above the lens.
“Hey,” Junghwan said.
Chansik didn’t really know what he meant, but replied, “Hi,” anyway.
“Is this what boys our age normally do? Sit in diners in silence over comfort food?” Junghwan said, and Chansik laughed.
“I think the city that never sleeps is actually asleep.” And Chansik was correct; on weekends before ten in the morning, most of New York barring the joggers and early-morning cyclists rose and fell with the simultaneous waves of slumber, either resting from a demanding work week or from a night on the town, when people from parts of the city went to visit other parts of the city, and the people who lived in those visited parts gawked in annoyance from their overpriced studio apartments. Chansik and Junghwan realized that they were eating at one of those 24-hour places, and Junghwan wiped his hands on his pants. “It’s kind of an awkward time of day,” Chansik continued.
“And I’m jet-lagged as hell,” Junghwan finished. “So I’m, like, wide awake right now and will probably fall asleep at like eight.”
“Did you want to go somewhere to take pictures?” Chansik asked.
Junghwan shrugged. “I’ll find the time.”
They continued to pick at their food, and Chansik pretended to be incredibly absorbed in cutting the crust off his French toast and thereby slicing said crust into small pieces. Was that it, then? Was that where their conversation would end?
Junghwan’s fork jolted Chansik back into alertness. “Hey, you okay?” Junghwan said. “Are we doing something super tourist-y today?”
“I don’t know,” Chansik replied.
Junghwan leaned on his elbow. “I mean, we could just, like, walk around.”
There was something that vaguely annoyed Chansik about the people he loved. He tended to gravitate toward observant people, and it was the power of their conclusiveness that bothered Chansik, because that made it all the more difficult for him to hide things from them. Chansik was convinced that a part of him wanted to live in a world collapsed from view, minimized into a cubbyhole on a large screen that only popped up when he desperately needed it to. Yet a part of him unconsciously tended toward the people that could open that cubbyhole whenever they wanted to and take a look deep inside it. Junghwan was one of those people.
“Walking sounds nice,” Chansik said, giving in. Junghwan smiled at him and took a sip of his coffee.
Love is a strong word. It is also a word that means different things to different people.
Junghwan would be one to find this out firsthand.
While walking across town, Junghwan marveled at the crowded candor of it all. A Sunday morning in New York City along 32nd Street left something to be desired, yet drew out all of the city’s more frequent residents in the form of shop owners and managers, doing their time cleaning up the sidewalk in front of their shops or quality checking whatever opening rituals their employees had performed. And from the grounds within the city, the skyline seemed rather ordinary, or even nonexistent. As they traipsed by the Empire State Building, Junghwan would not have noticed it if Chansik hadn’t pointed the landmark out, and the perspective from directly underneath it made its stature seem more conceptually complex yet strangely insignificant.
New York City reminded Junghwan of Chansik. And perhaps Chansik felt a part of that, too, which was perhaps why he’d wanted to visit it so badly. (Little did Junghwan know, it actually had been a form of I just really wanted to see you.)
Love is a strong word. And it first bore its fangs toward adult Junghwan from a direction that seemed vaguely B1A4, one member in particular, then another, then another. Despite Junghwan’s sensitivity toward the word, for him, love unconsciously manifested itself in moments.
Junghwan thought he loved Jinyoung when Jinyoung gave Junghwan’s face a minor compliment that had something to do with his cheeks. Then, Junghwan realized that love was more complicated than that. He thought he loved Sunwoo when Sunwoo punched him in the stomach after an argument and then pushed him down on his bunk, breathing hard. Then, Junghwan realized that love had a little more going for it than that. He thought he loved Dongwoo when Dongwoo had kissed him square on the lips in a bar, drunk as hell. Then, Junghwan realized that love had more sides to it than that.
Koreatown bore little resemblance to Seoul, but the familiar letters and readable signs comforted Junghwan despite himself. The sun had since risen high in the sky yet the haze spread the light into a blanket that seemed to fall down into the city like powdered sugar, piece by fine piece. What few shadows there were appeared blurred in the nondescript light, and Junghwan stared at the buildings, distinct borders between substandard yet somewhat glitzy hotels and hip cafes that tried a little too hard. A bus and a small crowd of white tourists stood eternally under the awning of the Radisson, and the W 32nd St painted on the street appeared faded.
“Did you see that?” Chansik murmured quietly in Junghwan’s ear and nudged him in the arm. Junghwan shivered involuntarily as Chansik’s breath traveled down the back of his neck.
“See what?”
Chansik pointed to a brightly lit bookstore that shared a front with a somewhat Americanized Face Shop, and in the window were plastered posters of SHINee, Girls’ Generation, and Big Bang. On the second window in the far corner, its edges crinkled and corners a little worn, was B1A4’s iconic What’s Happening poster. It looked like it was left there simply because someone had forgotten to take it down, but Junghwan smiled a half-smile under his snapback anyway.
“We’re famous,” Chansik said, and Junghwan shrugged.
It seemed a little obvious, now, that Chansik would be the final member to test Junghwan’s definition of love in a completely foreign country.
As they made their way farther and farther west, past a Paris Baguette, past a Citibank, Junghwan watched the signs fade back into English and the scaffolding switch sides of the street and back again, creating an inconsistent shadow over the two of them that didn’t make the air feel much cooler due to the humidity. Chansik held onto Junghwan’s elbow again.
“Did you want to take some pictures?” Chansik repeated quietly.
Junghwan had nearly forgotten the large, expensive lump hanging from around his neck. “Right,” Junghwan said, but when he took the lens cap off of the camera and squinted into the viewfinder, he couldn’t quite get a good composition. The problem was, there was nothing to take pictures of, yet everything to take in. The feeling of Chansik’s hand on his elbow was one of those things. “Chansik.”
Chansik jolted. As close as they all were, it was rare for Junghwan to call any one of them by their given names except for Sunwoo. “Yeah?”
“Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to see the city,” Chansik lied.
Junghwan raised his camera to the sky. “Then shouldn’t we be actually doing something?”
“You’re the one who suggested walking around.”
“I thought you weren’t feeling well. You seemed kind of out of it this morning.”
Junghwan and Chansik were walking in time. The streets were becoming a little more populated with people walking their dogs and the crosstown bus heading opposite them. The streets seemed narrower, too, as the trucks parked on each side of the road tunneled them in until Chansik and Junghwan stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the Manhattan Mall.
Chansik said, “I was just thinking about some things.”
“You can’t just say that and not expect me to ask what things,” said Junghwan, and Chansik laughed.
“You. Me. Us-the group, I mean,” Chansik replied. “Where are we going?”
“West,” said Junghwan. “Literally?”
Chansik rolled his eyes. “This wasn’t what I expected.”
“What wasn’t?”
The smell of smoked pretzels drifted through the air. Chansik pulled Junghwan against the wall of the mall, away from the intersection so that people could pass them. Chansik then paused for a moment. “Friendship? I didn’t expect to, you know, care about you-you guys, as much as I do.”
Madison Square Garden loomed in front of them like a long-time impractical levy, stacked between the two of them and a lucid view of that thin line where the blank, gray sky met the bridged horizon.
It was the conversation that wasn’t going how Chansik expected it to go. Stating the obvious first, Junghwan was the one who had wrecking balled Chansik, in a sense, even if he didn’t mean to. Junghwan was right, though unconscious of it-it was Chansik who had gotten the ball rolling.
With the two of them alone in a foreign city, they suddenly became hyperaware of the other’s presence, body language, word choice. And Chansik could feel himself constructing his own sciences and limitations around Junghwan on this one-day trip; why was that? He felt his words mold around Junghwan’s, he felt his hand coming to rest on Junghwan’s elbow, he felt them walking together as if the ground were shifting underneath their weight, conforming to meet their steps. He felt the city curl around them, wrapping around 32nd Street and passing them by; it was how New York made one feel: as if one was infinitesimally small in a great world, yet standing awkwardly still as that world slipped past you in thousands of directions.
It was why Chansik had deigned to come with Junghwan alone to the city: he’d wanted to test the two of them; he’d wanted to test if they could hold on to each other as the city passed them by.
Junghwan and Chansik made their way around Madison Square Garden, choosing 33rd Street in order to avoid the mess that was Penn Station.
Their love story didn’t exist yet. It was more a story of incessant push and pull from the day they’d met. Junghwan was the one who ran, who pulled, who darted from person to place to concept, eager to fit into a niche he couldn’t quite find. And it was Chansik who held him back by a thread, waiting with a concerned yet impatient sort of glare, wondering when Junghwan would stop and finally follow the almost invisible string that tied him to Chansik from the moment they’d shaken hands in front of the rest of the group and Chansik gave that smirk that Junghwan loved and Junghwan replied him with a bright, cheeky smile.
Things had happened since then. They’d grown older; tears had been shed. Chansik had developed an injury; Junghwan had felt the meaning of failure. Chansik had felt what it meant to have someone (Junghwan) as angry as hell with you because they cared about you; Junghwan had felt what it meant to have someone (Chansik) comfort you out of love instead of obligation. Junghwan had felt what it meant to shy away from something you knew you had, and Chansik had felt what it meant to wait for something you might never be able to have. Their love story was under construction, much like the south side of 33rd Street, where the sidewalk was blocked off and Junghwan and Chansik held hands as they crossed the street.
They reached Eighth Avenue in an exhilarating sort of rush. Hundreds of blue, clunky bikes were lined up along 33rd Street. Then, they reached Ninth, Tenth Avenues, walking the long avenue blocks in quick, hurried steps. It had taken them about 45 minutes to walk, with stops, to the Hudson River from their hotel, yet it felt like an entire day had passed.
The Hudson River Greenway was as green as you could get in Manhattan, barring Central Park and a couple of the other, more spacious parks on the Upper West Side. It was also as far west as you could go without throwing yourself headfirst into the river itself. A median divided the path from the freeway, and the occasional traffic light allowed pedestrians to cross, though most of the Greenway’s residents were casual bikers.
Chansik ran up against the fence that walled the path from the river, and Junghwan approached the space next to him.
“So this is it,” Chansik said. “This is Manhattan.”
Junghwan took off his cap and let the wind blow his hair back. “I thought it was a pretty nice walk.”
The metal bars felt cool against Chansik’s fingers, and he slid his hand down over Junghwan’s.
The Hudson River Greenway was where they kissed, the two of them, without a word spoken. Junghwan seemed to know what to do. They’d walked downtown about 10 blocks in silence before Chansik stopped and took Junghwan by the shoulders. And Junghwan seemed to know what to do, leaning in toward Chansik and giving him a peck on the lips.
“Hey,” Junghwan breathed, and Chansik could feel Junghwan’s shoulders trembling beneath his hands.
“Hi,” replied Chansik.
Junghwan leaned his head against Chansik’s shoulder. “So, why did you come here? To New York?”
“I wanted to confirm something,” Chansik said. Junghwan smiled into his neck.
They took a taxi back to the hotel. The taxi driver asked if they’d walked crosstown and where they were from, and Junghwan left Chansik to answer the questions, though Chansik had only replied to the first one correctly because he’d learnt in America to say yes to everything he didn’t quite understand-Americans didn’t care whether the yes would actually be followed through or not.
It was only noon.
“I’m not skipping lunch for you,” Junghwan murmured as Chansik opened the door to their hotel room and closed it behind them, pushing Junghwan up against it.
Chansik grinned into Junghwan’s lips. “Just let me do this.”
The trip could have gone two ways.
They could have gone out to dinner at some glitzy American restaurant somewhere in Midtown that was vastly overpriced and to which they’d have shown up vastly underdressed. Instead, they ordered room service in the small hotel and received catering from the 24-hour café downstairs. Dinner was paninis and club sandwiches and sodas and cheesecake. Junghwan slipped into his pajamas and sprawled on the couch, and Chansik joined him, shifting Junghwan until his legs were spread across Chansik’s lap. And that was how they dined.
They could have gone clubbing, Chansik mildly passing for a 21-year old; they could’ve gotten girls, or grinded up against each other, the sexual tension surmounting until one of them was forced to jerk off in the bathroom of the club and the other in the shower of their hotel room. Instead, they had American sitcoms playing in the background on their television as they put off making love for some other time but still moaned into each other’s clothes as their kisses became breathier and more demanding.
Junghwan could’ve passed out on the couch, Chansik on the floor, reeking of alcohol and a mild disgust for themselves clouded by the weightlessness of their transient decisions. Instead, they shared the bed, Junghwan wrapped around Chansik, the satiny fabric of their pajamas sliding against each other underneath the comforter. Chansik liked to keep the room frigid, which in turn caused Chansik to become Junghwan’s personal space heater. They left the bedside lamps on as Chansik played with his phone and Junghwan breathed evenly into Chansik’s chest.
Jinyoung called them early in the morning to wake them up for their flight. “What did you guys end up doing? MoMA? Zoo?”
In a sleep-ridden voice, Chansik replied, “Eh, not much.” Junghwan yawned and stretched and accidentally smacked Chansik in the chin. Somehow, their shirts had been discarded through the night, and Chansik spooned up against Junghwan’s back and pressed lazy kisses down his spine.
It could’ve been America. But instead, it was so characteristically New York, shaping itself around the moments and memories of its beholders.