Henry and Kibum first met just because they were the only Asian kids in class – but when they find out that they have more in common than they had thought, their friendship develops into something much deeper.

Notes:

"Oppar's Long-Fic Challenge Submission" (ha) - for genisaurion, aka Justin, fondly known as oppar, and his 21st birthday.

Thank you dearly to Christie for cheering me on.

I. The Beginning

The walls around the classroom were a remarkable shade of flaky yellow. Henry blinked, and was briefly reminded of the color of Corn Pops, the cereal he had had for breakfast this morning. He knew it wasn’t healthy to be thinking about his breakfast on his first day of school. The bile was rising in his throat already.

He took a deep breath and glanced around. California didn’t look too different from Toronto. The people didn’t, at least. Even though it was entirely a different country, and several hundred miles away (at least, that’s what Mom had told him), Canada and America looked pretty similar. Save for some foods and the milk jars.

Henry was thinking about food again. Mentally hitting himself, he walked over to the teacher’s desk. He was well aware of the eyes that had strayed away from their schoolwork and yearned to focus on the new kid. The teacher must have noticed too, because she glanced up a few paces before he was directly in front of her.

“I- um.” Henry cleared his throat. His voice was unsurprisingly weak and hoarse. Probably the nerves. “I just, um, transferred, um, today.”

He didn’t expect for her to hear; after all, how could anyone possibly decipher what he’d been trying to say through his semi-clogged throat and impossibly embarrassing stuttering? The teacher frowned at him for a few moments, but then ended up making sense of his words anyway.

“Oh! You must be Henry, then.” The teacher looked down to a sheet of paper next to her desk. Henry racked his brains to remember what her name was. It had been on his own transfer paper, but he forgot about it entirely. Maybe it started with an E? Or was it an L? He couldn’t remember… Had her name been on his paper at all?

Luckily, he was saved from the embarrassment when the teacher scribbled down something on the paper she was looking at—the attendance sheet, Henry figured—and then looked up and beamed at him. Henry blinked. He could feel his breakfast coming up again.

“I’m Mrs. Cole,” said his teacher with a flowery grin. “And you’re Henry Lau?”

Henry nodded numbly. Under any other circumstance, he would have rolled his eyes internally—but he was far too anxious for that.

“Well we don’t have too many Asian kids in this school,” continued Mrs. Cole, “though there are a lot in the area. But I think I’ll place you next to Kibum, anyways.”

Henry had no idea who Kibum was. He just wanted to go to the bathroom and retch.

Mrs. Cole marked something on another piece of paper with lots of squares and lines, and then nodded toward the class. “What are you staring at? Keep working!” she barked, and then turned to Henry and smiled again. “That’s Kibum, right there,” she said, pointing to a pale black-haired boy in the far corner. “You’ll be sitting next to him.”

There was an empty desk next to black-haired boy. Initially Henry wouldn’t have cared and would have run out of the classroom at the speed of light to go to the bathroom, but he figured that the polite thing to do was to sit at his desk first. So he walked across the classroom, aware of his classmates staring at him from the corner of their eyes, and carefully placed himself at his desk. The black-haired boy (Kibum, he recalled), looked up from his book and smiled at him.

“Hi,” he said. “What’s your name?”

Henry could feel his breakfast rising up in his throat.

“Henry,” he managed to choke out, before dashing out of the classroom.

***There were more humiliating things than running out of the classroom in a shade of green. Yet, Henry thought as he retched into the toilet once more, he couldn’t recall a more embarrassing moment of his life.

He kneeled on the ground and sighed a bit, squeezing his eyes shut so he wouldn’t have to stare at the colors of his own puke. First day of school and already he had screwed something up. Nice going, little bro, he could hear his brother Clinton tease in his ear. He sighed heavily and felt his stomach turn over again. Prepared, he angled his face directly above the toilet and heaved into it.

A few minutes later, although it felt like several hours later, he finally got out of the confinement of the dirty bathroom stall and walked back towards the classroom. He thought, for a moment, that he might end up throwing up all over again as he walked through the door—but he adjusted himself and told himself that he wouldn’t. Throw up, that is. In front of his classmates. There were a few things that he still wanted to do behind closed doors, and while puking wasn’t at the top of the list, it was definitely there. No one needed to know about his exceedingly weak stomach.

He slid back into his desk, and noticed that the teacher had glanced up from her desk to look at him. Worriedly, even. Thankfully, she didn’t say anything, so Henry was saved from any of the humiliation that he had anticipated, had hardly prepared for.

He saw the black-haired boy—Kibum—look to him as well. Unfortunately, he did not keep his mouth shut like Henry would have liked him to. Henry didn’t really want to talk to anyone right now, much less a classmate.

“You all right there?” he asked. He seemed sort of concerned, even. This allowed Henry to feel a little better about himself, even though he regarded the boy with mild apprehension.

Henry nodded, faintly. “I’m fine,” he said. And then, recalling their previous conversation, he asked a question he already knew the answer to. “What’s yours?”

“What? Oh.” The boy seemed to remember what they were talking about before, too. “Kibum,” he said, smiling. “Kim Kibum.”

“Your first name’s Kim?” Henry crinkled his eyebrows. He swore Mrs. Cole had said that his name was Kibum.

The boy laughed. “No, sorry,” he said. “I’m used to- Well, in Korean you usually introduce your last name before your first, and I- well, I moved here in the beginning of the year.”

He stumbled over his words and Henry noticed dimly that Kibum had a bit of an accent. That he was Korean explained it, he realized. He wondered just how much English Kibum knew; even though Henry deemed himself Asian, he barely knew a word of Taiwanese, much less Chinese.

“Ah,” he said to Kibum, as if he understood everything though he knew full well that he didn’t. “So, um.” He glanced around. “What are we doing right now?”

“Mostly just Social Studies reading and class work.” Kibum shifted slightly in his seat; Henry saw suddenly that there was a book tucked between his upper thigh and the lower part of his desk.

Bookworm, Henry thought instinctively.

He also felt faintly offended that the boy had seemed to know what was going on the moment he was sure his face had turned an obvious shade of puce— but he waved it aside. He wasn’t out to make enemies on his first day. Or at all, rather. Besides, Kibum seemed like he wouldn’t mind being a first friend.

Kibum looked like he was about to turn back to the book he was secretly reading his lap, but Henry said, “So what should I do?”

Kibum shrugged. Henry noticed that he looked faintly annoyed, from the creases in between his eyebrows. “I dunno. I don’t think Mrs. Cole would make you do class work on your first day here. You could probably put your stuff in your desk.” He indicated the little shelf below his table.

Startled, Henry glanced down. “Oh!” he said, realizing it hadn’t been there earlier. He brought his backpack up on the desk and started digging through his stuff, putting them into piles. Faintly, he was sure that he heard Kibum chuckle to himself.

Throughout the school day, he was treated with some wariness and an odd sort of polite respect—apparently, the students weren’t too keen on new students. Henry observed them all, wanting to go out and make some friends; but he had never been the most bold of kids, much less confident, so he just watched with hopeful eyes. When they were assigned to be partners for a Science lab, he hoped a little bit that he’d be matched with some boy who liked soccer as much as him—but instead, he was stuck with Kibum.

(Not that he minded, of course. But he’d rather have met someone new.)

Finally, lunch time came—Henry had been reminded about it around eleven thirty and had asked Kibum what time lunch would be (“Twelve,” he’d answered)—and all of the students filed into a single line, and then out the door. Henry, who was in the middle of the line and side by side with Kibum, gazed around the school hallways. Drawings and posters clung on every part of the blue painted wall. It sort of reminded Henry of home. Sort of.

He glanced to Kibum, next to him. It suddenly struck him that Kibum had been almost as quiet as he had been throughout the morning, aside from the occasional answers he gave in class when none of the other students would raise their hands. He wasn’t even looking out to talk to any of the students right now. For the first time, Henry wondered if Kibum had any friends.

They—that is, their class—made their way into the cafeteria, where the din was audible even in the hallway. Henry glanced around, trying to see what the other kids were having for lunch. He absentmindedly dug into his pocket, feeling the check his mother had given him this morning. He couldn’t wait to make new friends. That is, if his gut was up for it. And in ways more than one. If he wasn’t going to puke from new school food, he could possibly puke from the anxiety of making new friends.

However, to his disappointment, when after he had bought his lunch and gazed at a group of another class of fifth graders longingly, he could hear Kibum’s voice behind him say, “We’re supposed to sit with our class, you know.”

Henry turned around to look at him. Kibum was gazing at him as he punched in his ID number to the school cashier.

“Oh,” he said, and then sought out to find some familiar faces.

He sat at the lunch table and chewed at his grilled cheese thoughtfully. It wasn’t too bad, he mused, as he dipped it into the thick tomato soup. He notices that Kibum had settled into the bench seat across from him, and wondered if it was mere coincidence and that Kibum sat here every day, or that Kibum wanted to sit with him. Nonetheless, Kibum didn’t say anything and they continued on with their meal in silence. Henry even forgot his ploy to talk to the other students.

As soon he was sure he had eaten his fill of the disgustingly fatty—but actually quite good—cafeteria food, a whistle sounded throughout the room, and one of the teachers who was monitoring lunch announced that it was recess time. Relieved, he dropped his fork onto his tray and threw away the remains of his lunch, before following the rest of the kids out to the playground. On the way, he saw Kibum walking slowly, up from the cafeteria table and then head towards the exit along with the other kids. A book was in his hands.

Henry followed him quietly, almost instinctively. Kibum didn’t even seem to notice that he was there. Kibum walked across the grassy field while the other kids dashed toward the mulch and jungle gym, climbing around and screaming. A part of Henry wanted to join them, but there was this strange little urge that just made him continue following Kibum.

Kibum settled himself under a large shady tree, and then propped his legs up and began to read. Henry hadn’t even realized that he had sat next to him, until he noticed that he was utterly and completely bored.

“Kibum?” he said, and Kibum looked a bit surprised to see him there. Perhaps he hadn’t noticed him at all.

“Henry,” he acknowledged, with a little nod.

“I, er,” Henry said, but wasn’t quite sure what to say after that.

Kibum smiled, a little. It looked like his whole face was alight.

“You can sit here with me, if you want,” he said.

Henry felt torn between playing with the other kids and sitting with Kibum. Yes, he would have loved to play on the jungle gyms and rough it up a bit—but then, he wanted to sit here with Kibum, too.

“All right,” he finally agreed, and then Kibum smiled a bit more before returning to his book.

With a soft settling sigh, Henry adjusted himself to comfort on the grass. He was distinctly aware that he had made his first friend.

***The next day, Henry wasn’t sure what to make of his school situation. Now that he had spent one day in Santa Monica Elementary School, he was pretty sure that he was obligated to do actual schoolwork. Yesterday had all been child’s play, just becoming familiar with his new environment. But Henry Lau was ten years old, double digits, the big one-oh—so he had a duty to start on his studies.

(Not that he really ever tried too hard with his studies, and had managed pretty decent grades back in Toronto. But Henry Lau was determined to be someone new. If he didn’t get too lazy along the way.)

When Science came around, he found himself being partnered with Kibum again for some sort of electric lab they were supposed to be working on together. Kibum had a battery and Henry had some colorful wires. Both were rather wary to start on the experiment.

“I think this goes here,” Henry said experimentally, and placed the end of the red wire to the flat side of the battery.

“No, it goes on the positive side,” Kibum instructed, although he didn’t make a move to adjust Henry’s hand position. “And get the light bulb, will you? Or else we won’t have any results.”

“Oh—yeah.”

Embarrassed, Henry picked up wooden board where the light bulb was sitting, and then allowed Kibum to place the large battery at one end. Then together, they brought the red wire on the bumpy side and the blue wire on the flat side, connected the ends and touched them to the light bulb, so that it glowed bright.

“There,” Henry said, satisfied. He sat back in his chair. “That was cool.”

“It was,” Kibum agreed.

They glanced around. Evidently, the other children weren’t having the same luck that they had.

Probably because we’re both so smart, Henry mused with a small chuckle.

“So,” he said conversationally, looking back to Kibum. “You said you moved from South Korea? What was it like there?”

“It was…” Kibum shrugged. “Well it was different. Everyone looked the same.”

Henry couldn’t help giggling too, and noticed that a small smile had snuck its way up on Kibum’s face. He watched him for a few moments.

“And you?” Kibum asked. “You moved from Canada, right?”

“Yeah.” Henry nodded. “But my parents are from like, Taiwan. Even though I don’t know much Chinese.”

“I thought people from Taiwan spoke Taiwanese.”

“Well I don’t know that either.” Henry shifted his shoulders. “I dunno. I’ve lived in Canada my whole life. My brother was born in Taiwan, though.”

“Your brother?” Kibum raised his eyebrows.

Henry nodded. “Yeah! His name’s Clinton. He’s old. I think he’s in high school.”

Kibum smiled fully this time, so much that his eyes crinkled. Henry couldn’t help staring a little bit longer.

“I have a sibling too,” Kibum said. “Little sister. Her name’s Saehee.”

“So do I! Have a little sister, I mean,” Henry added in a rush as Kibum raised his eyebrows again. “Her name’s Whitney. Maybe we should get them to play together sometime.”

He knew that he didn’t have to say, while we’re playing ourselves. The way Kibum’s eyes lit up at these words seemed to indicate that he knew already.

“That sounds like a good idea,” he said with a chuckle. “Though—er, my sister can be a little bratty sometimes.”

“Mine too,” Henry laughed.

***Henry fidgeted in his spot. His gaze trailed the gym teacher, who was busy dividing them up into teams. While Henry was perfectly competent at some sports, basketball definitely wasn’t his favorite. He warily looked at the basketball net ten feet above them, and gulped.

When he was assigned into a team with Kibum, he figured it wasn’t so bad. Especially since Kibum was pretty horrible at the sport himself.

The majority of the gym period was awkward fumbles and random chases, so when they finally were pulled out by their homeroom teacher and were directed to go to the music room, Henry felt relieved. Music was definitely one of his strong points, if not his strongest.

He walked with the rest of the class to the music classroom. He would have talked to Kibum more; but as always, Kibum had a book in his hand, even as they were walking. Henry was a little bothered by this—either because he cared about Kibum’s safety, or he wanted to talk to the other boy, he wasn’t quite sure.

They entered the classroom and Henry quickly took the seat closest to the center of the classroom, with Kibum right behind him. The other students filed in after them. Even though they smelled and were drenched with sweat, they all seemed pretty eager to learn, and for once, Kibum and Henry were among them.

The Music teacher greeted them and handed them all recorders (Henry just got his), and then assigned them all to play “Row Your Boat” on the little clarinet-like instrument. Henry frowned down at his, because it basically looked like the most useless instrument in the world.

“This is stupid,” he heard Kibum say, who had been partnered with him. “I don’t think we’ll ever play the recorder again in our lives.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed. He glanced to Kibum, who was staring at the recorder like it was some sort of book he was forced to read (although Henry doubted that anyone would really need to force Kibum to read any book). “Stupid.”

“Do you play an instrument?” Kibum asked him.

“Yeah. Violin and piano.”

“Oh. I play piano too,” said Kibum.

“Really?” Henry grinned. “I played piano longer, but I like the violin more. At least it sounds a lot better than this.”

He blew on the mouthpiece and the recorder let out a horribly loud squeaky sound. Henry jumped back from the recorder and dropped it on the carpet, and both boys stared at the instrument.

Then they grinned at each other.

“Yeah, and the piano sounds a lot better than this,” said Kibum, and he blew on his own recorder as well. His fingers covered up a few holes, but the sound was just as bad and almost twice as loud.

“Even my brother’s horrible singing sounds better than the recorder!” Henry burst out. “Every night in my dreams! I see you! I feeeeeeel you!” he belted out.

Kibum fell over in a fit of giggles. Though a bit surprised at this reaction, Henry felt a surge of pride rush through him as he watched Kibum’s pale cheeks slowly turn pink as he giggled even harder.

“Boys!” the music teacher suddenly called to them from across the room, and they both looked at her, Kibum still trying to tame his giggles. “Calm down, will you?” She looked distressed as Kibum continued snickering into his palm.

“Okay,” Henry called back, and then turned back to Kibum. He was still grinning even as Kibum was reduced to only smiles.

***It was only Henry’s second week here, but he felt like he had known this place his entire life. After all, Kibum had eventually stopped his habit of reading in the halls whenever they were going to a Special class or lunch, and started telling Henry about their schedule and their school.

They were partnered up for what felt like the fifteenth time in thirteen days, although it was very likely that they had. They were to work on a Social Studies project together about a man named Benjamin Franklin, a man Kibum and Henry did not know, nor cared very much about.

“How old are you?” Kibum asked curiously as they pored over the information in their textbooks. Neither of them was reading it.

“I turned… eight last month,” Henry said, giving him a toothy grin.

Kibum furrowed his eyebrows. “Eight? But you’re in a fifth grade class.”

“Yeah, I know.” Henry shrugged. “But my mom said that I learned everything up to fifth grade here back in Toronto, so then she told the principal who let me skip a coupla’ grades.”

“You skipped grades?” Kibum widened his eyes. “You’re really smart then!”

“Not really,” Henry said, turning pink. “I just learned stuff in Canada. That’s all.”

“Awesome,” said Kibum, a grinning gleam in his eyes. “That means I’ll have to catch up to you.”

“Oh—no, you don’t have to,” said Henry. He could feel his cheeks heat up even more.

“Of course I do,” Kibum said, as if he was speaking to a small child. “Since you’re two years ahead, I’ll have to study two years ahead. Do sixth and seventh grade math problems, and such.”

“But—But that soundshard!” Henry exclaimed.

“I know it does. But I could probably do it, couldn’t I?” Kibum grinned. Henry didn’t doubt for a moment that he couldn’t. “Just living up to being Asian, that’s all.”

Henry couldn’t help giggling at this comment.

“You know, just ’cause I’m Asian doesn’t mean I’m smart.”

“Yeah, but you technically are smart. Since you’re two years younger than all of us.” Kibum said this in an almost demeaning way. “But it’s all right, because I’ll be even smarter than you.”

“I know you will,” Henry said fondly.

“And really,” Kibum added, “I’m pretty sure Mrs. Cole and the other teachers only partnered us up together because we’re the only Asian kids. You’d think she thought we wouldn’t have noticed.”

“Yeah,” said Henry thoughtfully, “and we’re not even the same nationality too! You’re Korean, and I’m—er—Taiwanese! Oh, but you don’t care, right? You like me anyways?” he added to Kibum a bit frightfully.

Kibum turned to him with a small smile that seemed to say, Yes.

***Eventually, Henry did make friends aside from Kibum, and he urged Kibum to do the same. So Kibum made friends with a girl named Clarissa and her friend Selene, although he didn’t seem too into it. Henry introduced Kibum to his own friends, then, and brought him along whenever they hung out during indoor recess or lunch. Kibum was there—but again, wasn’t very into it.

In fact, the only person he talked to as much as he talked to Henry, was no one. It was like Henry was very special. Henry was happy with this, though, because Kibum was special to him too.

Henry’s new friends didn’t seem to mind Kibum all that much, and did find that there were some uses in having a smart kid tagged along all the time. They liked Henry, too, as much as Henry them, and so he supposed that Kibum could probably tolerate. After all, he had Henry, didn’t he?

But for all intents and purposes, when Henry’s friends asked him to play kickball or soccer during recess, only seldom would he go play with them. Most of the time he stubbornly refused and instead sat next to Kibum under the same tree from the first day of school, and played with the grass as Kibum read his book. He didn’t mind too much: he’d thought he’d be bored, but after a few times, he realized that there was something intriguing, even a little fun in pulling at grass strands and watching as Kibum concentrated on whatever book was on his lap, occasionally flicking his fringe aside.

Kibum often said, the first few times, that Henry could join his friends if he wanted to. And of course, Henry knew this. He didn’t ever ask Kibum’s permission to when he did—he just went. It was on rare occasion, though, so sitting next to the book-reading boy and staring off into space was normal. So Henry always said no. Unless Kibum wanted to play with them, of course. But Henry knew the answer to that, too. (“No.”) So he settled with sitting next to Kibum under the large shady tree.

***It wasn’t Henry’s fault he wasn’t paying attention. One moment his eyes darted to the side where he saw Kibum sitting under the usual tree and reading a book—the next, the soccer ball flew into his face and hit him square in the face.

Adam looked horrified. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry Henry!” he said, running over to him.

“It—” Henry felt a large swelling inside his nose. “It’s okay,” he said, even though he knew it wasn’t. “I’ll just—I’ll go for help or something.”

The other boys had rushed over to him too, and nodded in response. But as Henry turned around, he knew that it wasn’t the teachers he wanted to see. As soon as he made sure that his friends had returned to their game of soccer, he took off and ran toward the familiar tree where his gaze had drifted before.

As he ran, he could feel the pain grow even more and more with each step he took. It was almost numbing, and the inside of his nose was pierced with blood, he could feel. And when Kibum looked up, he almost tackled the other boy into the ground, practically collapsing against him.

“H-Henry?” said Kibum, setting his book down. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I- I-”

Henry couldn’t take it anymore; the pain was overwhelming. Tears poured down his face and he threw his face into Kibum’s chest, half-humiliated that he was crying in front of his friend, half still stricken with the stinging feeling on his face. He could feel his snot smudge against the front of Kibum’s sweater vest, but his voice was too soaked with tears to say anything.

He felt Kibum’s hand pat his shoulder, first a little hesitant and awkward, and then a bit more smoothly. Then Kibum’s voice finally said, sounding a bit closer than Henry had thought, “Are you all right, Henry?”

All Henry could manage out was, “Soccer… ball… face… hurts…” before bursting out into tears again. He wrapped his arms around Kibum’s shoulders and sobbed against his shirt.

Kibum didn’t move for a while, but he didn’t seem too uncomfortable either. “There, there,” he said, patting Henry’s arm again. His hand absentmindedly made its way to Henry’s back and started making small circles there, almost instinctively.

Once Henry was sure he was done, he pulled away from Kibum. Aware that his eyes were still very red, he turned away and mumbled, “Sorry,” to him. He heard Kibum say, “It’s all right,” but still didn’t face him, feeling extremely embarrassed.

Kibum didn’t say anything, but he didn’t seem too bothered by Henry’s presence either. Occasionally the silence was broken by Henry’s sniffles and the slight rustling of Kibum’s feet. They sat underneath the tree for the rest of recess.

***It was the day before the first day of middle school, which meant that Henry was panicking, as usual. Kibum had made the connection with Henry’s anxiety and Henry’s tendency to overreact well within December of the previous year; and so as they walked around the town park, Henry was busy ranting to Kibum as Kibum nodded along, occasionally offering words of support and advice.

“Seriously, Kibum!” Henry’s voice went up a few octaves. “Clint said that middle school is full of bullies and mean teachers and a lot of hard schoolwork! I can’t do schoolwork! You know that!”

“Yes, I do know that,” said Kibum.

“And,” said Henry, “I don’t like bullies, either! Or mean teachers! What if one of my teachers doesn’t like me? What if she gives me bad grades all the time just because Clint was a jerk to her when he was in sixth grade, and she’s out to get me! I don’t want that to happen, I don’t!”

“I don’t think it will.”

“But you never know!” Henry threw his hands up in the air. “You know what kind of guy Clint is! He’d be sure to make me screw up on my first day of middle school, or something!”

“I do know what type of guy Clinton is,” Kibum said patiently. “But I don’t think teachers will go after you because of your—er—creature of a brother.”

“Really? I hope so.” Henry sighed. “And he also said that once we’re old enough, our voices are going to start cracking and we’re gonna get pimples! Do you want to get pimples? And we’ll get really tall—well, I mean, I hope we don’t get too tall—but pimples! Pimples are so disgusting! They’ll be all over our face and body, and ugh, my brother has pimples on his back! I don’t want pimples on my back!”

“Thanks for that image, Henry,” Kibum said with a grimace. “And it’s just adolescence, really. You know, puberty? If you were paying attention in health last year.” He sent Henry a look.

Henry blushed. “Well, I mean, no one else was either! They kept giggling at the word sex.” He giggled himself.

Kibum rolled his eyes, but he smiled as well. Henry forgot to breathe for a moment. “Well you really don’t have to worry about it, Henry,” he said. “It’s part of growing up. Eventually it’ll stop and you’ll grow out of it.”

“Yeah, but—” Henry bit his lip.

Kibum looked at him oddly. “But?”

“Girls,” Henry whispered.

Kibum frowned as they walked around the fountain. “What girls?”

“Well apparently,” Henry said, his face reddening, “they grow… you know.”

He motioned small lumps on his chest.

Kibum burst out laughing. “Breasts?” he said, choking a little bit.

“Yes!” Henry said animatedly, though he didn’t look happy in the least. “That’s what Clint told me! And they get really nice and attractive and stuff, but we’ll have pimples, and—oh, what if I don’t get a girlfriend? Clint said he had a girlfriend!”

“I think he was referring to his shop project. And Henry,” Kibum said firmly. “The girls will have pimples too. Plus, I don’t think you’ll have any problem getting a girlfriend.”

“Do you really think that?” Henry said, turning to Kibum, eyes shining.

For some reason, splotches of pink were starting to appear on Kibum’s cheeks. “I- ah, yes. I really think that.”

Henry beamed at him. Kibum turned even pinker.

That night, Henry lay in bed and stared at his ceiling, still a bit worried for the first day of middle school. Even though he had Kibum for several months now, barely a school year, he was extremely nervous. Middle school was completely different from elementary school, he heard. Even Kibum wouldn’t be ready for it, and Kibum was ready for everything. What if he screwed up on his first day? It’d be a sure sign that the years to follow would be just as bad, if not worse.

But then he remembered what Kibum had said. I don’t think you’ll have any problem getting a girlfriend. For some reason, hearing these words out of Kibum’s mouth made Henry’s body relax, as he snuggled into his covers. If Kibum had confidence him, then he should have confidence in himself. Kibum knew everything. So whatever Kibum said was true, and was going to come true. Henry fell asleep with a smile on his face.

The next morning, Henry quickly brushed his teeth and changed his clothes and got his stuff, grabbing a piece of toast and running to the bus stop. Soon enough, the bus dropped him off and he found himself standing at the front of the middle school, unsure what to do.

“Hey,” said a very familiar voice, and Henry turned around to see Kibum walking toward him. As usual, Kibum was in his sweater vest and jeans, although his sweater vest seemed a bit new and his jeans slightly bigger. Kibum wasn’t smiling, but he seemed content as he approached Henry.

“Hi yourself,” said Henry. “Do you have any idea where we’re supposed to go?”

“Homeroom. List’s over there.” Kibum jerked his thumb behind him, to a sheet of paper on the glass door. But as Henry opened his mouth to tell him that he was going to check it out, Kibum interrupted, “Don’t worry, you’re in homeroom with me. Let’s go.”

He smiled and Henry couldn’t help feel much more comfortable all of a sudden. Kibum’s fingers found Henry’s forearm, and he dragged him along as they made their way around the much bigger school.

They found themselves in a green-painted room some floors up and some hallways down—Henry hadn’t really been paying attention (he made a mental note to ask Kibum how to get here, later). He suddenly felt extremely intimidated by this new school, and watched with nervousness as Kibum told their homeroom teacher who they were and their teacher told them where their lockers—lockers—were. Henry had never had lockers before. He was always so used to the cubbies and shelves of elementary school.

He could tell that Kibum was every bit nervous as he was, though didn’t express it as much. Still, anxiety hit Henry like a wave and he had no idea what he was supposed to do. What he was supposed to say. Panicking, he glanced around and felt his hands holding his lunch bag start to shake.

But then Kibum turned around and noticed this. And then Kibum walked over to him and placed his hands on top of Henry’s. “It’s okay,” Kibum said in a calm voice. “You’ll be able to do this. So will I.”

Henry stared at Kibum, and Kibum smiled a little. The soothing feeling settled into his stomach again. If Kibum can do it, he thought fiercely to himself, and he says I can do it, then I must be able to do it!

When Kibum let go of his hands, Henry felt as calm as ever. Kibum gave him a little half-smile again, and Henry smiled back.

As soon as Kibum was five paces away from him, Henry threw up all over the floor.

Some while later, they were both in the boys’ bathroom and Kibum was in the stall with him, making sure that he was okay. Henry hovered over the toilet and felt the bile rise up his throat. He could hear Kibum sigh behind him.

“For some reason,” said Kibum. “I’m not extremely surprised.”

“Shut up,” Henry said with a laugh, and then retched again.

“You did this on the first day of fifth grade too,” Kibum mused.

“You didn’t help me then.”

“Didn’t figure it out until now.”

Barf, barf, barf. The putrid smell filled Henry’s nostrils. He crinkled his nose and threw up one more time, before turning around to Kibum.

“You must have been slow back then,” he said to him. “And that’s coming from me.”

“Oh, be quiet,” said Kibum. “Go back to your barfing.”

“I don’t have to anymore,” said Henry; but the moment he said it, he felt his stomach lurch again. “Oh god,” he said, and then turned back around and faced the toilet bowl. Kibum chuckled.

Henry had half a mind to tell him off again, but didn’t. Not just because his mouth was filled with throw-up, but also because he knew that whatever he was going to face during middle school, he was going to face it with Kibum at his side.

***“Like really, it was definitely Whitney’s fault last time,” said Henry as they walked into their Social Studies classroom. “Well all right, Whitney was the one who was crying—but I doubt Saehee would really do something that would reduce Whitney to tears. Have I told you about the time when she pushed me off my uncle’s boat? She claimed she didn’t, but I definitely felt her little two year old hands on my back and I—”

“—had a fear of water ever since, I know.” Kibum chuckled.

“Really though, our playdates between our sisters are just getting worse and worse,” said Henry. “Maybe we should stop, and—”

The bell rang. Henry paused for a moment, and then continued talking.

“—and just keep the hanging out to us, you know? Your mom likes me enough, right, and my mom loves you, and as long as we keep Clint out of the way, we should be fine—”

“Mr. Lau, please cease your chatter and sit quietly in your seat,” said their social studies teacher from the front of the room. “Now class, today we will be learning about the Civil War…”

Their teacher droned on. Henry stared at her with his eyes glazed over. Suddenly, in the middle of her lecture, a thought struck him and he turned to Kibum excitedly.

“You know, maybe we should try a sleepover—”

“Mr. Lau!”

Henry snapped his head up to the front of the classroom. The teacher was looking at him sternly.

“Since you seem to like talking so much, Mr. Lau,” she said, “perhaps you’d like to tell the class who led the most infamous slave rebellion.”

“Oh, er—” Henry racked his brains. Hadn’t he read this in the textbook yesterday? Or maybe he didn’t read the textbook at all, and was too busy talking to Kibum over the phone…

“Nat Turner!” Kibum hissed from the side, so quietly that their teacher couldn’t hear him. She probably hadn’t noticed either, since she was too busy glaring at Henry.

“Nat Turner!” Henry said automatically.

The teacher glared at him ten seconds longer. Then she said, “Yes that is correct. However, the reason it failed was because Turner was too greedy…”

Henry settled back into his chair and smiled to himself. He loved having a genius for a best friend.

***“President.”

“Executive Branch.”

“House of Representatives.”

“Legislative Branch.”

“Senators.”

“Legislative Branch.”

“Judi—oh damn, I mean Supreme Court.”

Henry felt Kibum’s stomach tremble from beneath his head as he laughed. “Judicial Branch,” he said to Henry, and then tried to lift himself up. Henry didn’t move.

“Nope. You’re not getting anywhere,” he said. “That’s what you get for laughing at me.”

Kibum smirked. “That’s because you misspoke. I can’t help it if you’re not the smoothest guy around.”

“Hey!” Henry said, lifting his head up a little and pouting. But Kibum continued smirking, so he rested back down. “Fine. You’re still my pillow if you keep insulting me.”

“It’s not insulting. It’s only pointing out the truth,” Kibum teased. Henry rolled his eyes but couldn’t help grinning at this.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Anyways, so as long as we keep studying, I’ll be sure to get a good grade on this. I swear Mrs. Roberts has something against me, since we’re in seventh grade now and she continues to give us tests when it is completely inconvenient.”

“Because I’m sure it’s such a tragedy that you only practiced violin thirty minutes today,” Kibum said sarcastically.

“It is!” Henry said indignantly. “And instead of my usual two hours, I’m studying with you—”

Kibum glared.

“—not that I mind,” Henry added hastily. “I just like practicing, okay?”

“Instead of studying?” Kibum adjusted himself on the beanbag, only barely moving Henry’s head on his stomach. “Look, you’re just reading my notes, not even bothering to open up the textbook.”

“That’s because I’m pretty sure your notes could make a textbook of its own. I’m pretty sure that your head is just filled with encyclopedic knowledge,” Henry said, grinning. “You’re practically a genius.”

“Hardly.” Kibum scoffed.

“Stop being so modest.” Henry adjusted himself and turned around, so that his chin rested somewhere near Kibum’s ribcage. “How are you so smart at everything?”

“I’m not,” Kibum said, blushing. “I can’t write essays for my life. I barely get an eighty on them.”

“Yeah,” said Henry, “but you candraw and sing and dance and play piano; and you can speak English and Korean! And a little bit of Chinese too! That’s more than enough! Who cares about writing essays?”

“Well, you know it’s pretty important for going into college.”

“Posh.” Henry waved his hand around and ignored Kibum’s chuckling at his strange word choice. “You’re more than talented, Kibum. Me? All I have is violin. But you have like, tons of things, I have no idea how you manage it.”

They were interrupted by the door opening, and both boys glanced up to see Henry’s mom standing in the doorway. “Dinner’s ready, boys,” she said, before closing the door.

Henry glanced up to Kibum. Kibum shrugged. Then Henry scrambled up and grinned, running to his bedroom door.

“Race you down to the kitchen!” he said with a laugh, and ignored Kibum’s calls of, “Not fair!”

***Henry was lonely and hot. He had begged his mom to put the air conditioner down to sixty degrees, but she refused and kept it at seventy-two. Why? Henry didn’t know. He thought his mother’s explanation of “staying with the weather” to be completely ludicrous. When he moved out, he was going to make his house an icebox during the summer.

He was also extremely bored and downright miserable. Both were because he was sweating from head to toe (and the fact that he was laying on a leather couch wasn’t helping anything), and also because Kibum wasn’t around. Kibum had decided to take the liberty to visit South Korea during the summer, where apparently his family was (who needed family? Henry needed him) and so now Henry had no one to hang out with. Oh sure, he had Ben and George and Harold—but it wasn’t the same. It had never been the same. On top of that, Clinton had already left for college a few days ago, and Henry had no one to talk to. Whitney wouldn’t understand anything.

He sighed. He thought it was an attempt to cool himself down, but he realized that the action also reflected his mood greatly, as well. He was scorching hot and was drenched in sweat and he had absolutely nothing to do. It felt like he had been sitting here all summer. Which basically, he had. Staring at the TV, watching mindless television shows… occasionally getting up to grab something to eat or drink… Henry wouldn’t be surprised if he gained a hundred pounds over the summer. It sure seemed like it.

The garage door of his house slammed. Henry turned around to see his mother coming in from the laundry room. She looked oddly happy. Henry wondered what she could possibly be happy about.

“Henry!” she chirped. “I have a surprise for you!”

“Really?” Henry said weakly. He didn’t want to get up. Not now. Not that he wanted to stay here, either—but he really just didn’t have the energy to move.

His mother nodded eagerly. “Yes!”

“Well,” Henry said in a tired voice. “What is it?”

Kibum appeared in the kitchen.

Suddenly, all exhaustion was forgotten as Henry leapt up from the couch and practically tackled Kibum to the ground—luckily, Kibum was strong enough to stay steady. Henry could feel Kibum’s laughter fill his ears as he wrapped his arms around Kibum’s bigger—and much cooler—body, feeling ever angle of his shoulder and his chest, and realized how much Kibum had changed.

He didn’t unwind his arms from around Kibum’s neck until he heard his mother say somewhere far away, “Okay, okay, Henry, I think Kibum gets it.” Beaming, Henry unraveled himself and put his hands on his shoulders to look him in the eyes.

“You’re back!” he positively squealed.

Kibum laughed; his voice was much deeper now. “Yeah, I’m back,” he said with such a glowing smile that Henry nearly cried out of happiness.

“How was Korea? How was your family? Oh my god, tell me everything!” Henry felt as giddy as a little girl, but he didn’t care. His best friend was back, in the country, in the state, in his house. It felt like a lifetime since he had seen him, but he could remember the day he had left, too.

Kibum continued to grin. “My family’s great. And Korea’s just like the rest of Asia, you know.”

“Henry’s never been to Taiwan before,” his mother said from the side. Henry could feel his cheeks flushing as Kibum laughed again.

“Yes, but I can imagine,” he said pointedly. He dragged Kibum over to the leather couches—which miraculously were no longer sweat-stained—and made him sit down. After a few moments of staring at him, Henry finally exclaimed, “You’ve changed!”

Kibum laughed for the third time: it was strangely deep, but Henry liked it. It reminded him of a low C.

“And you haven’t,” he said thoughtfully, looking at Henry’s shorter stature. “But I guess that’s ’cause you’re still eleven.”

“Douche,” Henry said, sticking his tongue out. But he couldn’t stop grinning, and could fill his eyes tearing up. Oh, he was such a girl. “You’re back! I can’t believe it! You’re back!”

When he hugged Kibum again, he was grateful for the warmth that filled him from head to toe, even though he was hot already. But with Kibum, it was different.

II. The Changes

When they were back in school a few weeks later, Henry couldn’t be any more grateful. For one, it gave him something to do; and another, he got to spend more time with Kibum. Sure, it was school—but it was totally worth it if he hadn’t seen him for basically the past two months.

However, when they entered eighth grade, Henry noticed something… different. Girls were paying attention to him. No, not him. ToKibum.

In his whole life, Henry had never denied to himself that Kibum was attractive. He knew Kibum was attractive. It might have just been the whole thing about being shallow (Henry was shallow he knew; he didn’t have a particular pride in it, but first impressions and appearances had always said a lot to him), but he did know that the girls definitely had something to look at. Kibum was fairly toned, had plenty of muscle, and while his skin wasn’t super dark, the lightness of it just made him even more attractive. His eyebrow-covering dark hair was sweepy and he always held up a sort of deep and mysterious demeanor, which was only let down when he was around someone closer to him (read: Henry.) Yes, if Henry was a girl, he’d definitely gawk at Kibum as well.

He didn’t mind it, really. Kibum was starting to get attractive—well, more attractive than before. And Henry prided himself in that. What he didn’t pride himself in, however, was the way girls started talking to Henry more like they had never seen him before in their whole lives, and then all of a sudden they wanted to talk to him just so that they could get close to Kibum.

And that, well. That was unforgivable.

“They are trying to take advantage of me! I swear!” Henry said as soon as Georgia, who had just come up to him and asked him what the math homework was (and giggled as well. Giggled), was out of earshot.

Kibum sent Henry a bemused glance. “Take advantage of you? For what?”

“So that they can get close to me, to get close to you“!” said Henry, grabbing a lunch tray and huffily plopping it onto the metal counter.

Kibum actually chuckled at this. Henry had no idea what was so funny about the situation.

“What?”

“Did you ever think,” said Kibum, “that the girls were talking to you because they liked you?”

“W-What? No they don’t!” Henry spluttered. “They’re obviously trying to get close to you, you’re the one the girls always want—”

“Since when?” Kibum asked with a half-amused smile. The other half just looked baffled. “And in case you haven’t noticed, Henry, you’ve gotten a lot better looking over the summer, too. Not that you weren’t good-looking before, but you know what I mean.”

Embarrassed, Henry ducked his head down. “I still have my baby fat cheeks though,” he muttered, feeling said cheeks rise up with heat as the lunch lady scooped mashed potatoes into his tray.

“But I like them,” said Kibum.

Henry’s face felt even warmer than ever, and he did his best to focus on the peas that were being placed on his tray. “That will be all, please,” he said to the lunch lady, before turning to Kibum again. “And be quiet. I don’t like them.”

“There’s really nothing wrong with your cheeks, Henry!” Kibum insisted. “The girls said that they were cute! Seriously! It just makes the girls like you even more!”

“Really?” Henry said, turning to him. Kibum nodded, very convincingly.

“Well okay,” said Henry as they continued on to get the rest of their lunch. “I’ll take your word for it. I still think those girls are planning to use me for you, though.” He darted his eyes around as if a girl would pop out of nowhere and try to ambush them.

They got their food and paid, and then went to their regular table along with the rest of their friends. As they sat down and Henry started on his mashed potatoes, Kibum looked up at him.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “Speaking of girls, I got asked out today.”

“Really?” said Henry, eyes widening. “By who?”

“Marissa Sherdeck. She’s in our Art class.”

“Ooh, for a date?” asked Henry, picking up a lone pea. Kibum nodded. “When is it?”

“Um.” Kibum shifted on the cafeteria bench. “Friday.”

“Friday? But—wait! That’s when we have our sleepover!” said Henry.

“I-I know.”

“You didn’t say yes, did you?” said Henry, narrowing his eyes.

Hesitantly, Kibum nodded.

“What?” Henry threw his fork down and glared at him. “You said yes for a day when we had our sleepover? How—How could you!”

A few of their friends glanced to them but Henry paid them no notice. Kibum looked taken aback as he sat still on the lunch bench.

“You know we had our sleepover planned that day! But when a girl comes over and asks you, ‘Oh, Kibum, won’t you go see a movie with me and we can go make out?’ you say yes? You pick a girl over me?”

“Well,” Kibum said defiantly, “I was going to tell Marissa that I wanted to leave early so that I could still go to your house, but if you really want us to make out, then we can!”

“Fine!” Henry shouted; they had definitely gotten the attention of a few tables now. “I don’t need you anyways! I’m perfectly happy playing my Nintendo 64 without you!”

“With who, your sister?” Kibum retaliated.

Flushing with anger, Henry said, “Screw you!” and picked up his tray, dumped its contents in a large grey trashcan, and stormed out of the cafeteria.

For the rest of the week, Henry and Kibum pointedly ignored each other, and both got different partners in classes where they were usually paired together. When Friday rolled around, the air was even more tense than usual; they barely looked at another in the hallways, and Henry seethed every time he saw Kibum talk to Marissa Whateverherlastnamewas. Which seemed to be most of the time, he realized. He wondered if Kibum was trying to make him jealous.

That night, he played his Nintendo 64 by himself. He half wanted Kibum to burst through the door at any moment and tell him that he was sorry, but the other half couldn’t stand to think of Kibum right now. After he lost another race on Mario Kart, he sighed and plopped his controller down, unable to control himself or think.

He didn’t even know why he was so angry over Kibum not being here. Well yes, of course he was a bit upset that Kibum had willingly chosen a date with a girl over a night with him. But he and Kibum had sleepovers all the time. So why was this time different? It wasn’t like they were planning anything special. But just the thought—just knowing that Kibum was out with a girl, where he was probably holding her hand, or kissing her in a dark movie theater… he just couldn’t stand it. He really couldn’t.

It was about eleven o’clock when Henry yawned and decided that he should go to sleep. But he had only turned the game console off when he heard a knock at his bedroom door, and saw it creak open.

“Henry?” said a timid voice. The door opened a bit wider to reveal Kibum standing in the doorway.

“Kibum!” Henry momentarily forgot about his anger and jumped up, before something unpleasant settled into his stomach. He sat back down on his bed and brooded.

“I—” Kibum cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Henry said, mostly to himself. He held himself around the middle and felt even worse.

“It’s not,” said Kibum. “You were right. I did pick you over a girl, and I—I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right,” Henry repeated, staring at the ground. “It’s not your fault.”

“But it is,” said Kibum, persisting. “I mean, I know I didn’t—but I shouldn’t have. We had plans today. And I ignored them.”

“It was your first date.”

Henry looked up to Kibum for the first time since he had arrived.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “A girl asks you out, and you say yes. I would have done the same. It’s fine. I’m just—I was an asshole for being mad at you.”

“You weren’t,” said Kibum, walking over to him and sitting next to him in the bed. “It was my fault entirely. Not yours.”

“Wasn’t. I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you.”

“Yes you should have.”

“No I shouldn’t.”

“Yes you should’ve!”

“No I shouldn’t!”

“Yes you should’ve!”

They both stopped for a moment. Then they collapsed into a fit of giggles. Henry felt Kibum’s arm come around him as they continued giggling restlessly, almost unable to stop. They fell on the bed and the comforter rolled out from underneath them and onto the floor, and they giggled even harder.

When they were finally done, Henry slumped onto the bed, breathless. He felt Kibum lay down next to him, somewhere near his feet.

“So,” said Henry as they stared up to the dark ceiling. “How did you get in here? Why are you here, actually?”

“I know where the house key is in the front, remember?” said Kibum. “And, well… I thought we still had plans.”

“And we do,” Henry said firmly.

They stared up at the ceiling a little bit longer.

“Did you kiss her?” Henry whispered.

“No.”

Kibum giggled again; Henry didn’t join in, but he smiled. He felt Kibum adjust a little, until his head was rested snugly on top of Henry’s ankles.

“She smelled like something weird, anyways, when she leaned in close to me in the movie theater,” he said. “I wouldn’t kiss her if my life depended on it.”

“You’re so mean,” Henry said, lifting his foot slightly. He heard Kibum yelp out in pain, and merely laughed.

“Where are you parents?” asked Kibum.

“Business dinner. And Whitney’s at a friend’s house for a sleepover.” Henry rolled his eyes. “Don’t you see, if you had been here all night with me, we could have had the whole house to ourselves? And completely raid the refrigerator!”

“Well, I got to see a nice new movie,” Kibum shot back.

“With a smelly girl.”

“Only when she leaned in too close!”

Henry laughed until his sides ached.

***Henry made his way through the applauding crowd, not able to keep the smile from his face. He wove through the dark aisles of velvety chairs, feeling people pat his back and say, “Good job!” to him, but didn’t slow down until he made his way over to his friends and family.

His father kissed him on the head; his mother nearly burst into tears of joy when she saw him; Whitney gushed about how beautiful his violin sounded; and even Clinton thumped him on the back and said, “Good job little bro.” As he made his way through the crowds, friends and random strangers continued complimenting him on his performance.

But he didn’t stop until he finally made his way to Kibum, whose fingers were between a few pages of a book. But the book looked completely unbent, and Kibum was wearing a small smile, almost like the two of them were sharing a small secret.

“Well,” Kibum said once they were close enough to talk to each other without having to shout. “I have to say that wasn’t as boring as I thought it’d be.”

Henry’s broke into a wide smile.

“Says the guy who has his nose buried in a book half the time.”

Kibum cuffed the back of his head. “Oh, shut up,” he said, and pulled him into an embrace. “Congratulations,” he said into his ear.

***“The sperm goes through the cervix into the uterus and the fallopian tubes to the ovaries, where a produced and released egg is waiting.”

Everyone in their health class gagged, and Henry turned beet red. Next to him, he noticed that Kibum remained as unmoved as ever, though there seemed to be a pink tinge in his cheeks.

“The sperm breaks through the eggs walls to fertilize—because the sperm was ejaculated from the male’s penis, and the eggs are located in the woman’s uterus where the sperm had to go through the vagina for—and through sexual intercourse, and the combining of both sperm and egg, the DNA for the baby is created and the baby is in its first stage of creation.”

All of the girls were giggling uncontrollably, their faces scarlet from both amusement and mortification. The guys looked half-fascinated, half-disgusted.

Henry had heard all this before. Well, not in such detail, but his mother had given him “The Talk” (which had scarred Henry for life) so he knew most of the mechanics. But hearing it from a teacher’s mouth was… weird. Strange. Gross.

He sat in his chair, his eyes focused on the whiteboard behind the teacher’s head.

Kibum, whose lips were fixed in a straight line, seemed equally not amused. Apparently, they were the only ones in this class who had been given “The Talk.” Henry didn’t know if he should be embarrassed for the both of them, or thankful.

“Okay, so let’s start on the diagrams now!”

***Ding dong.

“I’ll get it!” Henry yelled. After throwing on his jeans, he dashed down the stairs, nearly slipped on the carpet, and literally flung himself at the front door before opening it. As he gasped for breath, he beamed at a grinning Kibum standing on the other side.

“Excited, are you?” said Kibum, raising his eyebrows. Henry was too busy staring at him to answer.

Kibum held up a box labeled Pokémon Stadium 2.

Henry squeaked.

“Come on in!” he said breathlessly once he found the words to speak. “Come on! Go go go!”

He heard Kibum chuckle behind him, and both boys ran up the stairs with the same vigor. Henry’s heart was racing and he clutched his palms excitedly.

“This is so much better than the eighth grade dance,” he said as he and Kibum went into his room, plopping themselves in front of the television set Henry had gotten for his eleventh birthday.

“Is it now?” said Kibum, shooting him an amused glance. He walked over on his knees to the Nintendo 64 box and pressed the eject button to put the game disc in. Henry nodded enthusiastically.

“Definitely!” he said. “Why would we want to be around a bunch of kids grinding when we could just sit here and play the new Pokémon Stadium all night!”

“Of course,” Kibum agreed. He got a game controller and tossed one to Henry as well, and the two boys settled into bean bags and started playing.

“So how’s orchestra coming along?” asked Kibum as he used Flamethrower against Henry’s Chikorita.

“Oh, fine,” Henry replied, pressing the controller buttons rapidly. “Mrs. Johnson’s really disappointed I’m leaving next year because apparently I’m the ‘best first chair she’s ever had’—that’s not fair!” he cried when Kibum’s Pokémon caught him off guard and defeated him.

“It’s perfectly fair.” Kibum turned to him and smirked. “And speaking of violin, are you going for first chair next year?”

“I’ll try,” Henry said. He picked at his fingers. “But since there are seniors in high school and they’re probably a lot better than me… I’ll probably end up just in Advanced Orchestra.”

“You should try for first chair in sophomore year then,” Kibum urged.

Henry rolled his eyes. “I’ll try, but I doubt I’ll get in. Until junior year, at least.”

“You have absolutely no faith in yourself,” Kibum declared, and then threw Henry’s controller at him again. “Let’s play again.”

So they continued playing and battling each other, though it was evident that Kibum had played the game before he had come to Henry’s house. Henry didn’t mind, though. They never had an unspoken rule that they couldn’t play a game before the other. Sort of like how Henry had played Mario Kart 64 before Kibum had come over that one time. But they always played every single Nintendo 64 game they had with each other, because they both knew that it was better playing in company.

Plus, playing video games was better than going to the end of the year school dance. Henry and Kibum had been to one—the seventh grade Halloween dance—and both were rather disgusted at the type of dancing that was going on. Even Henry’s friends participated in what they called “dancing” (aka grinding), and neither boy had much interest in dances at all after that. So they usually spent dance days at each other’s houses, playing video games and doing whatnot.

And even though it was the last dance of the year, Henry didn’t really care. He knew that there were probably dances in the high school too—well, not that he had too much interest in those, either. But he wouldn’t have minded going to the eighth grade dance. He and Kibum would just probably stand at the sides and mock all the other kids in their grade. It would be a fun time. But evidently Kibum hadn’t wanted to go (probably because he wanted to play Pokémon Stadium 2 with him so badly), which Henry was perfectly okay with. Even though Henry didn’t really understand, because he did recall a few days ago when Kibum had actually been asked out to the dance, and Kibum had turned the girl down. Henry wasn’t sure if he should feel bad for the girl or not. He would have loved it for Kibum to go with a girl on the second date of his life… but he did want Kibum all to himself.

It was a good thing Kibum had said yes then, though. That way, he had Kibum all night. And that, he concluded, was much better than going to any stupid eighth grade dance.

***“There it is,” said Kibum.

“The high school,” Henry said in a small voice.

They stared at the large building up ahead of them. In front of it was a courtyard, where a bunch of kids were gathering, socializing and laughing. Both boys gulped.

“Oh come off it,” Kibum said, trying to be encouraging. “It can’t be that bad. It’s only high school. We’re only going to spend four years in there.”

“Yeah.” Henry swallowed again. “Four years.”

“And that isn’t very long in a course of a lifetime, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” said Henry. And then, “I think I’m going to puke.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Kibum said fiercely, and grabbed Henry’s wrist in his hand. “Come on, we’re going in there.”

Kibum practically had to drag Henry all the way to the courtyard, and even then, Henry was reluctant to put himself in midst of all the new bigger and older kids. It was much different from middle school. So much different. He could feel the vomit rising up from his stomach.

“You are not going to throw up.”

Kibum turned them both around so that they were face-to-face. He took Henry’s hands in his and stared right into his eyes. Henry suddenly felt dizzy. He was vaguely aware of Kibum’s soft fingers stroking his palm, in an effort to relax his nerves.

“Listen to me, Henry,” Kibum said, looking right at him. “This is only high school. This isn’t the end of your life. You’ll be fine. It’s not a reason for you to barf like you do all the time whenever you’re nervous. Especially on the first days of school.”

“Yeah.” Henry nodded and swallowed again. “Okay.”

“Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” Henry said, a little bit louder this time. “Okay, Kibum. You’re right. No reason to get nervous. No reason at all.” He suppressed a little anxious shudder.

“Good,” Kibum said firmly. “Now come on. We’re going in there.”

Still holding Henry by his hand, Kibum led them to the front steps of the high school, ignoring all of the other students standing to the side. He pushed aside the doors and stepped into the building.

As far as Henry knew, this was the biggest building he had ever been in yet. Either that, or he was way too dazed to think straight. Everything looked ten times bigger. He pushed back any nervous tears that threatened to push beyond his eyes, and blinked to get a good look around at the white, white inside.

“Well,” Kibum said, dropping his hand and gazing around with an impressed look on his face. “That wasn’t so bad, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Henry, finding his voice again. “That really wasn’t—”

He was cut off when he suddenly retched all over the floor in front of him.

Five minutes and two janitors later, he and Kibum found themselves in a very familiar situation. Henry was kneeling in front of a large white toilet, while Kibum was standing behind him, pressing his hand on his back to help him throw up better.

“Déjà vu,” Henry murmured after another round of puking.

“You’re telling me,” Kibum said in a disgusted voice, doing his best not to look down.

Henry retched again. “Sorry,” he mumbled when he was done.

Kibum sighed from behind him. “It’s all right,” he said to Henry. “It’s not like it’s really your fault, anyways. Just your… stomach’s.”

Henry chuckled, and then puked. “Yeah,” he said, spitting into the toilet and squeezing his eyes shut. “Just my stomach’s.”

***After the first few days of high school, Henry discovered something very tragic: He only had two classes with Kibum. One was lunch (which definitely counted as a class, Henry would argue), and the other was English. They didn’t even have gym together. It was completely ludicrous.

Of course, Henry had no problems in making new friends. He just didn’t want to have to go through a school day with only seeing Kibum in two periods. It wasn’t like they had all their classes together in middle school, though (five instead of two)—but high school, it was different.

Thankfully, lunch seemed to make up for everything, even if it was only one of the two periods where Henry could see Kibum. Since lunch was his favorite class (because it really did count as a class, no matter what Kibum said) and he saw Kibum during lunchtime, it made it his most favorite class of all favorite classes. (Second was orchestra, but even then, it hardly counted as a class, since it was after school.) And so then, Henry learned to not mind it all that much.

They sat with their mutual friends underneath a large tree for lunch. It sort of reminded Henry of their old recess tree, where Kibum would read all the time and Henry would pick at the grass. The memory made him smile.

Kibum, who was sitting next to him, bumped his shoulder with his own. “How’re your classes?” he asked him.

Henry rolled his eyes. “Of course you want to know about my classes. Well, Biology and Geometry are okay, but Afro-Asian culture is such a bitch.” He scoffed and bit into his sandwich.

“Watch your language,” Kibum teased, flicking his forehead. Henry let out an indignant cry. “And English?”

“Well you know English.” Henry shrugged. “I’m all right, with your help in it. You should be in my French class, though. I can hardly understand anything.”

“And that’s coming from the Canadian,” their friend Thomas chimed in from the side. They ignored him.

“And orchestra?” Kibum chewed on his banana. “How’d you do?”

“Oh!” Henry beamed. “Advanced. Didn’t get first chair, of course, but Mrs. Volet said that I could possibly get it next year.”

“What did I tell you?” Kibum said with a small grin. “Told you sophomore year would be the perfect time.”

“Oh shut up.”

Henry pushed him to the side and Kibum laughed as he tumbled over. He grabbed Henry’s waist just as he went down and both boys fell over onto the grass. Laughing, they picked themselves up and threw grass strands into each other’s faces, and the rest of their friends joined in until a teacher came outside to yell at them.

***All his life, Henry had always been a curious kid. So when boys started talking about girls, and girl parts, and dating girls, well, Henry was supposed to be curious, right?

But he wasn’t. He had no interest in girls at all. Actually, to be perfectly honest, he had never had an interest in girls. Maybe it was because he hung out with boys his whole life, or maybe it was because he liked to keep to himself—but even with hormones raging inside his body, he felt completely immune to the supposed beauty of girls. Or something.

Instead, he did find himself perfectly interested in boys. Whether he was fascinated by the way they were so strong all the time, with long slender fingers and slight, perfect muscles—those were the things that Henry knew he was interested in. Even when he tried to insist to himself that he just had admiration or some sort of friendly affection toward the male gender, he knew that wasn’t it. He actually really liked boys… and not just in a completely generic way.

Oh yes, Henry Lau had found himself discovering that he was gay.

He decided that he should tell his parents. After all, this was the sort of thing you told to your parents, right? They had always been there for him, supporting him, and while family wasn’t usually the first thing himself concerned about, he knew that they’d be there for him. And, well, if his parents were homophobic, he could always move in with Kibum.

(He wouldn’t tell Kibum why, of course. Actually, he didn’t really feel completely up to telling Kibum that he was gay at all. Not yet. There would be a time for that. He knew that he could always call him, since the phone was in his room—but it wasn’t the sort of thing you told someone over the phone, either.)

So one October morning, on Saturday, a few days after his birthday, Henry trudged downstairs with a confession in his heart. To his relief, his mother was standing in the kitchen already and the moment he entered, he couldn’t prevent the words from spilling out of his mouth.

“Mom, I’m gay.”

His mother turned around with surprise—either at his presence or his confession, he didn’t know. After a moment of blinking, his mom said,

“Honey, it’s eight in the morning. Why are you up so early?”

“I—” Henry cleared his throat. “Well, um. I’m gay. And it’s been bothering me all night. Telling, you that is.”

“Oh.” To his surprise, his mother started chuckling. “Well all right. Just know that you shouldn’t be so bothered when you tell your father.”

“W-What?”

“It’s okay,” his mom assured him.

“Wait, but what do you mean?” Henry racked his brains. Out of all the possible reactions he had imagined his parents to come up with, this definitely wasn’t one of them.

“We know,” said his mom. “Well, we’ve known. I don’t think we expected you to figure it out so quickly…” And then she started chuckling again.

“You knew?” said Henry incredulously. “You knew and you didn’t tell me—”

“Honey, it’s not like we were going to come to you and tell you you were gay when you were five years old,” his mother said patiently, resting a flour-covered hand on his pajama shirt. “We wanted you to figure it out yourself. Though when you’re only twelve. it’s rather young… I suppose you’ve always been mature for your age,” she mused.

Henry couldn’t help it. He snorted at this.

“So what gave me away?” he asked his mom.

“Well,” she said. “You stopped believing girls had cooties last year…”

***It didn’t change anything, Henry thought as he stared at the TV screen, knowing that he liked guys. Knowing that he was gay. That he was a homosexual. The word made him giggle in his mind. He suppressed the giggle from coming out of his mouth.

But really, it was sort of the overnight revelation. When he had told his father, his father had reacted in the same way as his mom—knowing, and not too surprised. Henry wondered if he was really that obvious. Well yes, he did act differently around his parents than he did with his classmates. But Kibum saw them all. Henry wondered if Kibum already knew as well.

He glanced to the boy at his side, who seemed concentrated on the game they were playing. But if Kibum had known, he would have told Henry, wouldn’t he? That’s what Kibum always did—whenever he had an epiphany or found something out, he would tell Henry right away. Well, not right away, if they weren’t anywhere near each other or the phone. But it was a sort of thing Kibum did. He loved discovering things. So if Kibum had known, he would have told Henry a long time ago.

“Ha! I won again!” Kibum shouted, breaking Henry out of his daze. Kibum turned to Henry with a grin. “Want to play another round?”

“Really,” Henry huffed, throwing his controller aside. “I don’t see why you want to keep playing me if you always win. You know I suck at racing games, anyways.”

“Yes, but it’s always fun kicking your ass,” Kibum said with a smirk.

“Shouldn’t we be studying after school, though?”

“Henry Lau wants to study instead of playing video games. That’s a first.” Kibum playfully punched Henry’s shoulder.

“Kibum Kim wants to play video games instead of studying. Now that’s a first,” Henry teased.

“You’re just jealous that I get good grades all the time.”

“You’re just jealous that I beat you in every game except for Mario Kart!”

“And Pokémon Stadium.”

“Pokémon Stadium doesn’t count. That one’s yours, anyways.”

“Oh, sore loser are we?”

“You’re the one who wants to play games to kick my ass!”

“Yeah, that just makes me a sore winner. Win-ner.”

“You’re a douche.”

“You love it.”

Laughing, Henry tackled Kibum to the ground. The two boys mock wrestled for a bit, rolling around until Henry found himself sitting on top of Kibum.

“Tap out! Tap out!” Henry called, perching himself victoriously on Kibum’s chest.

Half-chortling, Kibum struggled until he grabbed a hold of Henry’s arms and rolled them around again. A flurry of slaps and mild kicks later, Kibum was sitting comfortably on Henry’s back.

“You tap out,” he said, bending down to look at Henry in the face.

Henry tried to pry himself out from under Kibum, but Kibum was too strong. “Get your fat ass off of me!” he laughed, attempting to push Kibum off.

“Tap out!” Kibum said in a sing-song voice, mimicking Henry perfectly.

Groaning, Henry hit the ground with his hand. Kibum jumped off of him and back onto the bean bag.

“You were just too fat for me,” Henry grumbled, sitting next to him.

“You’re just too scrawny,” Kibum teased, and pinched his cheek.

***Henry couldn’t see anything through his tears. Running around, he tried to find the nearest bathroom—but he couldn’t remember where it was in this huge school. He let out a little frightened gasp and turned the next corner, and then the next, and then the next, just trying to find some sort of refuge where he could curl up and cry.

Miraculously, he ran into Kibum in the hallway. Under normal circumstances, Henry would have turned away and pretended he wasn’t here, because crying in front of Kibum was always humiliating—but he was too hurt to care about his dignity now. And Kibum had seen him, anyways.

Kibum ran up to him, looking concerned. “Henry?” he said in a gentle voice. “Are you all right?”

Henry sniffled and shook his head. Kibum brought an arm around him and guided them around. Soon enough, they were in the boys’ bathroom. Kibum brought him over to the sinks, and then left to go around to a stall to get some toilet paper.

“What happened?” he asked soothingly as he dabbed at his tears. “What happened?”

“I—um.” Henry sniffled. “Boy, he… he beat me up.”

“What?” Kibum’s eyes widened in shock. “A boy beat you up? What for?”

“I-I walked in on-on him and some…” Henry gasped and let out a little shudder. Why couldn’t he stop crying? “Drugs o-or something…”

Kibum’s expression darkened. Henry suddenly felt very bad for the boy who he had told on, even though he was too busy feeling sorry for himself. Still, he said, “Don’t worry, Kibum, it-it’s okay, I promised him I wouldn’t tell anyone anyways.”

“No,” Kibum said, cutting him off. “You are. At least, I am. And I’m going to make sure that you aren’t hurt again.”

“But—”

“Oh, come here,” said Kibum, and his expression softened as he gathered Henry into his arms. Henry cried harder into his jacket, though distinctly he felt like this situation was familiar. But Kibum knew what to do this time. And Henry was forever grateful for him.

***“Henry.” Kibum looked near excited, even though his voice was as controlled as ever. “I have good news.”

They were walking after school to Henry’s house. Usually Kibum didn’t walk with him—he finished homework at home first (because apparently doing homework around Henry just didn’t work if they weren’t doing it together, and Henry liked to get a snack and play some video games before doing actual work)—but apparently he had something he wanted to tell him.

Henry glanced at him and rolled his eyes. “I figured, from the way you told me you were coming over to my house, during lunch.”

“Yeah.” Kibum nodded, perhaps a bit more energetically than a normal Kibum would have. “So. Um. Guess what?”

Completely bemused, Henry said, “What?”

“Just guess.”

“I… really have no clue, Kibum.”

“Guess!”

“Oh all right! Err, you got a seventy-five percent on that last Afro-Asian test?”

Kibum glared at him. Henry grinned sheepishly. “Well what? You told me to guess.”

“Yes, I did. Anyways… um. I have the part of the Lorax in the school musical.”

Henry blinked.

“What?”

Kibum grinned.

“I know.”

“What?”

“I have a part!”

“Holy crap,” said Henry, looking at Kibum as if he was Jesus reincarnated. “Holy crap. How did you—but freshmen aren’t even supposed to get main roles—holy crap!”

“I know! I know!” Kibum said excitedly, evidently not able to contain himself even longer. “Well it’s not really a main role—but Mrs. Strais, she really likes me, and—she got me a part in the musical! I’m the only freshman with actual lines!”

“With an actual name,” said Henry, awed.

“With an actual appearance!”

“I’ll be looking at the musical program,” said Henry, holding up an imaginary piece of paper in front of him, “and it’ll say ‘Kibum Kim—The Lorax.’ And it’ll be the happiest day of my life.”

“It’s the happiest day of my life!”

“Mine too!”

“We should go celebrate,” Henry said seriously.

Kibum grinned, and the sun lit up his entire face. “And that’s why I’m coming to your house.”

***A few months later, it was the last day of the musical performances. Henry had gone to every single one (and ended up cumulatively spending thirty dollars), just to support Kibum. Well, and to watch the musical, which wasn’t all that bad. But Henry got little happy jitters inside of him every time he saw Kibum up at that stage, singing—and speaking—his lines. He sort of felt like a proud mother, only that the thought of him being Kibum’s mother was sort of… weird.

He came to Kibum after the show and rewarded him with a beam and a tackle-hug once Kibum had stepped outside of the boys’ dressing room. “You were great!” he exclaimed, letting him go. “And are you wearing eye shadow?”

“Shut up.” Kibum batted his yellow hands at him, and smirked through his whiskers. “How do I look?”

“Ravishing,” Henry said with a grin. Kibum twirled his straw-colored mustache up, and Henry roared with laughter.

“Fags,” they heard a boy cough behind them, and both turned around to see a sophomore boy walk past them, dressed in a bright green suit.

“Ignore him,” Kibum said as Henry opened his mouth up to retort. “He’s not worth it.”

Henry closed his mouth and turned to Kibum again. “Yeah,” he said, pushing all thoughts of the boy aside. “Anyways, I can’t believe it! You’re now a professional actor! You could put this on your resume and everything!”

“Well I’m not sure about professional,” Kibum said, amused. “But yes, I can put this on my resume. It’d look good, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah!” Henry said eagerly. “Main role—well, main side role—in ninth grade! Geez! And you definitely weren’t lying when you said Mrs. Strais loved you. She practically glowed every time you opened up you opened your mouth”

“She doesn’t like me that much,” Kibum said, blushing. “And you make it sound so perverted, too…”

“That’s me!” Henry said proudly, and Kibum whacked his ear.

Another boy walked past them, this time a junior. Henry looked at him consciously; but the junior merely looked to Kibum and said, “Hey Kibum, are you coming to the cast party?”

Kibum shook his head. “Nah. I’ve got other plans.”

“What other plans?” Henry asked after the junior had said good-bye to him. “Don’t tell me you have plans that you didn’t tell me about.”

“Of course not,” said Kibum. “I’m coming to your house tonight, duh.”

“What?” Henry spluttered. “When did this happen? Why didn’t you tell me? Did you make plans with my parents or something?”

“No,” said Kibum.

“Then you can’t just—you can’t just invite yourself over!”

“Sure I can.” Kibum flicked with his mustache again. “I go to your house all the time, sometimes we have sleepovers with our parents knowing at last minute, and your mother loves me enough so that even if it was a school night—which it’s not, in case you forgot—she’d probably let me stay at least till midnight.”

“But—you can’t—”

“Unless you don’t want me to come,” Kibum said solemnly.

“No! I mean, of course I want you to come,” said Henry. “I just—this isn’t—you didn’t even—”

“Great,” said Kibum, grabbing Henry’s arm and steering him out of the hallway. “Looking forward to it, then. For now, though, I think we should go into the lobby and say hi to the audience.”

They walked into the school lobby, Henry still half-stunned at Kibum’s assertiveness, and Kibum remaining as smug as ever. Once everyone saw Kibum, though he was mauled by a rush of admirers and good job’s and congratulation’s that Kibum retreated back into his quiet shell once more. Henry watched him fondly as adult after adult walked up to Kibum, saying that he was lucky for getting such a huge role for being so young compared to the other actors, and then almost laughed out loud when Mrs. Strais walked over to Kibum and presented him to everyone else. Kibum had turned about five shades of dark pink then, and Henry had to cover himself up from smiling too hard.

Eventually though, everyone filed out of the lobby, either the audience to the car or the actors and actresses to backstage. Henry followed Kibum back to the dressing room, and waited until he was done dressing and whatnot. Then when he stepped out of the room, he asked, “You ready?” and Kibum nodded, saying, “Yup.”

Just as Kibum had predicted, Henry’s mom had no objections to Kibum coming over. In fact, she seemed completely thrilled by the idea, “Because it’s something to celebrate, anyways,” she’d said, which only made Kibum smirk at Henry from inside the car. Henry swore he glowed bright, even though it was completely dark outside.

They did their usual sleepover-sort of routine—play video games and scream at each other until they were tired, and then fall over in Henry’s giant beanbag like a couple of dead logs. Even tonight wasn’t so different, though Henry certainly felt different. It was probably because of the rush of adrenaline they both felt, and the fact that neither of them had bothered to change into their pajamas or brush their teeth that night, too exhausted from the rest of the day.

As Henry stared in the dark, he was quite aware of Kibum’s soft snoring next to him, from underneath his own pile of blankets. Henry couldn’t help smiling as he watched the rise and fall of Kibum’s chest. Tonight was just the same as all the other nights. Another day had gone, and Henry ended it with Kibum next to him. And he was sure that there would be many, many more nights like this, always ending in this sort of happiness.

***The week before the last week of school, Kibum asked Henry if he could talk to him on Friday afternoon in the park. Henry said yes; so then after classes were let out, they made their way over to the park in the center of the town, where they often went whenever they were bored. Not that that happened often—but occasionally they’d get tired of playing video games and would want some sunlight. Plus, Kibum said that it was good for exercising. Henry just liked being in the sun.

“You know what my sister said to me this morning?” Henry said as they walked around the fountain.

Kibum turned to him and raised his eyebrows, although the expression didn’t quite reach his eyes. “What?”

“She said that she was going to make sure she did better than your sister in finger-painting today! Well, her actual words were, ‘I’m going to destroy Saehee when we have that finger-painting contest today! And then she can eat my poop!’ Really, why did we ever introduce our sisters to each other, anyways?”

“She said that she was going to make Saehee eat her poop?” Kibum looked amused; again, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’d like to see that.”

“I’d like to not to. Ugh.” Henry shuddered. “Where did she learn that expression, anyways? You don’t even eat people’s poop!”

“I can make a guess,” said Kibum, turning to him—this time, his eyes were sparkling with mischief. But then his gaze quickly fell down and he resorted to staring at his shoes.

“But really though,” said Henry. “I swear, it’s like girls just don’t like each other or something. I mean, your parents get along with my parents, I get along with you, you don’t have an older sibling for Clint to annoy—it’s just our sisters! They ruin the whole family chemistry!”

“Family chemistry?” Kibum’s lips quirked up.

“Yes, family chemistry! It’s like… it’s like a basket of us holding hands! Except our sisters refuse to have anything to do with each other, and it makes the whole basket fall apart.”

Kibum looked beguiled at this metaphor, but said nothing.

“Speaking of family.” Henry huffed and folded his arms over his chest as they walked. “My mother! She seriously won’t get off my back about my finals! ‘Finals this and finals that, finals everywhere!’ As if I didn’t hear it enough from you and all our teachers already!”

“I’m sure she just wants you to get good grades, Henry,” Kibum said softly.

“Yeah, but.” Henry frowned. “It’s not like she’s telling me something new“! I’ve been hearing this all week! We have finals next week, big deal. I’ve studied all last week and I’m studying all weekend! I’m sure I’m going to be perfectly fine. Honestly. Well, not as good as you“, obviously,” he added to Kibum. “But up to my own standards. Not genius level.”

“I told you, I’m not a genius,” Kibum said, his cheeks reddening. “I just like studying…”

“A lot.” Henry grinned at him. “But you always have, so it’s okay.”

He glanced around as they continued walking around town. They had long left the center of the park; they were straying more to the side of town, where familiar buildings and stores were.

Henry squinted into the distance. “Hey, is that the elementary school over there?” he said, indicating a brick building near them. “Let’s walk around the field.”

Kibum nodded in agreement. The two of them quickly crossed the street, went around the next block until they were at the side of the school. The sun was setting behind some trees in the forest beyond.

“Oh, I remember this place,” said Henry wistfully. “It feels like we were here just yesterday…”

“At your age, it could be,” Kibum chuckled. Henry playfully hit his arm.

“Hush,” he said. “I’m reminiscing… Oh, I did like elementary school. Even if I was here for eight months.”

“It’s not much different from ten months, you know,” Kibum said wisely.

Henry ignored him. “And the joys of recess, and eleven o’clock lunches… because twelve o’clock lunches are pure torture now.” He made a face. “And partner projects… you and I. We were good partners, weren’t we?”

“We are good partners.”

“Yes, yes, of course we are.” Henry absentmindedly waved his hand in Kibum’s face, making Kibum cry out indignantly. Henry ignored him again. “Remember when we made that electrical little house? And when we read The View From Saturday and I asked you what ‘bitch’ meant. And we made that kite about Benjamin Franklin, too… I always thought he was a great man, you know. A great man.”

Henry glanced to the side that Kibum was staring into to space, his expression blank. But when he noticed that Henry was watching him, he appropriately rolled his eyes.

“Oh yes, those were fun times,” Henry said dramatically. They continued trekking around the field. “And recess… We seriously need recess in high school now! Instead of gym, where all those douchebags do nothing but grab each other’s crotches… ugh. Our recess was so much better. Even though we didn’t really do anything exercise-wise. But sitting under that tree was fun. I think that’s it.” Henry gazed thoughtfully down the field. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s it! The branch bends the same way! Come on, let’s go!”

He took off toward his and Kibum’s old recess tree. Once he reached the trunk, he turned around to see that Kibum was quickly walking to catch up with him. Henry smiled as he approached.

“I think we’re a lot taller now,” he said, giggling as Kibum ducked his head underneath a branch to join him in the shade.

Kibum grinned as well, but it barely projected beneath the tree. “I am, maybe. You? Not so much.”

“My time will come.” Henry stuck his tongue out at him and blew up at his bangs that had fallen in his face. Kibum stared at him. Henry turned back around to the tree.

“Sometimes I still feel like we’re in elementary school,” he said thoughtfully. “Just you know, sitting around and doing nothing… but doing something at the same time. I sound like a sentimental idiot.”

He turned around, expecting some sort of reaction from Kibum. But Kibum just stood there under the tree, eyes glazed over, not saying anything. Henry turned back to the tree trunk.

“Remember that time when Chris wanted to join us here? But then I told him no, because this was our special tree.” Henry chuckled, feeling a little embarrassed for his ten-year old self. “Or when Matt and Josie wanted to carve their names into the trunk, and we thought they would, and we got mad at them and they threatened they actually were going to! And they were about to, too—until you told the teacher who told them that they’d be damaging school property.”

Henry sighed. “And that time when you brought that super short book to lunch and I thought you were going to read it, but then five minutes in to recess you plopped it aside and said that you were finished. We just played with grass after that.” He smiled to himself. “Oh, and that time where you brought that huuge book and I thought it was like, some massive textbook or something, but then there were pictures inside and you told me what they were and then we both ended up reading during recess. I think that was the only time we did. And remember that time when I got hit in the face with a soccer ball? And I came crying to you? I wasn’t quite sure why I did, I probably should have gone to a teacher or something. But you still hugged me and let me cry while I was sniffling over my hurt nose or something, because geez, I was really a crybaby then. And that other time, when Marcus wanted me to play soccer with him! And I said no, because I was sitting with you! And you were like, oh, go play soccer if you want, but I was like, no, I want to sit here with you, and—”

“I’m moving.”

Henry hadn’t heard it at first; he was too caught up in his memories. But when it finally registered in his brain that Kibum had spoken, he did a double-take and looked back at Kibum.

“What?”

“Henry, I…” Kibum stared at him. Henry noticed for the first time that his eyes were glistening. “My parents said that we’re moving back to South Korea. After next week.”

“But…”

Henry’s brain wasn’t working. For some reason, the idea of Kibum is moving still hadn’t gotten to him. He blinked and stared at Kibum, having no idea what to think.

“How long have you known?” he finally asked. To his surprise, his voice came out in a harsh, raspy whisper, like he was trying to push back tears.

Kibum didn’t meet his eyes. He stared at a spot above Henry’s shoulder. “Since March.”

“Since March?”

These words stung Henry. Kibum had known he was moving… since March… and he never told him. Never mentioned it. Never once gave a hint to indicate that next year, next year he wasn’t going to be here with Henry…

And they had only spent one year in high school together…

“No,” Henry finally said, firmly. “No. You can’t do this. You aren’t moving. There’s no way.”

“I’m moving,” Kibum said again. He looked at him, almost like he was scared.

“No!” Henry said louder. “You’re not! You’re not moving! You can’t just move and abandon me! You can’t just—just leave!”

“I have to,” Kibum said weakly, his eyes watering, and he looked like a kicked puppy.

“No“, Henry said to himself. Not—Not Kibum.

“You can’t!” Henry shouted. “You can’t, you’re not—”

“I am.”

“BE QUIET! YOU’RE NOT!”

And then suddenly, Henry couldn’t take it anymore. The bile reached the top of his throat and he threw up on the grass in front of him, spraying the front of his shirt and both of their shoes. Feeling tears welling up his eyes, Henry turned around and ran, ran out from under the tree, ran through the grass, ran out of the field, ran into the streets, ran behind the buildings, ran all the way home.

He didn’t look back once.

III. The Separation

Henry,

I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you I was moving sooner. And I’m really sorry that I’m moving at all. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t forgive me… but I don’t want you thinking that I left you without saying good-bye.

Kibum.

***KIBUM!

You asshole! You didn’t talk to me at all for the last week of school! You acted like a total dickhead! You are a total dickhead! D:

… but it’s okay. Because yes, I do forgive you. I mean, well, the part where you didn’t tell me for three months, I’m still trying to get over that. And also, I’m sorry for throwing up all over your shoes. So I hope that my apology nullifies yours, or whatever.

How’s Korea?

Henry.

***Henry,

I know I’m an asshole, a dickhead… whatever you want to call me. I know. I’m sorry.

And it’s all right, you know. For throwing up all over my shoes. I need to get new ones, anyways. I think I might be getting some in a few days. And I’m also sorry that I didn’t send this email to you earlier. I was just… worried that you wouldn’t forgive me.

Korea’s good. It’s sort of weird, switching to a different language. The food’s still as good as ever, though. I bet you you’d like it.

Kibum.

***KIBUM!

Hey, sorry I didn’t get to your email sooner! I kind of got grounded, since… um… well, Whitney said something and then I might haveaccidentally hit her in the face with my soccer ball… and well, yeah. ^^;;

You’re an asshole! A douchebag! A dickhead! Jk, jk (though it was really douchey of you for not telling me earlier—eh, I should probably get over this by now, it’s been what, three weeks? Well technically four since we last talked, but you know what I mean :P) It’s all right though. I forgive you, like I said before. :P

You better get fancy shoes for me though. :D

And lol, you know me too well. I wish I had some Korean food, too! And I’m sure that you, Kibum, genius over everything, could probably adjust to switching between Korean and English without a second thought. Hehe.

Missing you,
Henry

***Henry,

Capslocking with double exclamation points now, are we? And what exactly did Whitney say? I want to know what’s so important that she said that made you “accidentally” hit her in the face with your soccer ball. And get you grounded. Probably your overreacting again.

And I’m sorry. I just didn’t know what to say to you on the last week of school. You probably had me on your mind, on top of studying for finals and everything… I didn’t want to anger you or frustrate you further. I’m sorry.

I got the shoes! Well, mine at least. I’ll remember to get you shoes next time we go shopping. (My mom loves shopping in Korea, even though she hated the malls in the States—who knew?)

I’ll eat as much Korean food as I can for you. And again, I am not a genius.

Missing you too,
Kibum.

***Kibum! (There, is that better for you? XD)

I TOLD YOU. IT’S FINE. I FORGIVE YOU. REALLY. I was being an asshole too, so it’s all right. We’re just a couple of assholes! :D … okay, saying that sounds weird. We’re just a couple of, um. Idiots?

Well, when we were playing outside, Whitney said something about like… you leaving me because I was too stupid for you. And then I may or may not have threw my soccer ball a little too hard and aimed at her, and she may not have gotten a bloody nose… and when I told my mom, Whitney told her that she was just joking and she didn’t mean it. Yeah, right. She was just joking. Sure.

And HAHA don’t worry about it, you don’t have to spend crazy Korean money (what is it called anyways? Isn’t it like yan or something?) on new shoes for me. But lol, you would be excited for them. What are the Korean stores like, anyways?

Ooh, by the way, I ran into Josie a few days ago at the water park. She said that she heard you moved away and she said she was disappointed because she was planning to ask you to Homecoming this year. And then she told me to pass this message onto you. In case you wanted to know :P

Missing you more,
Henry.

***HENRY! (Actually, I’m a bit fond of caps myself. Under circumstances.)

Oh, I’d never leave you because you’re too stupid for me. Because you are. Obviously you will never live up to my supreme non-genius intelligence. But that would never be a reason for me to leave you. I’d only leave you if you wore a dead fish on your back and refused to wash your hair. Maybe.

And no, yen is Japanese money, and yuan is Chinese money. I don’t even think yan is a form of currency. Won is Korean money, and one dollar is about a thousand won.

Korean stores aren’t that different from American stores, actually. Aside from the products… I guess my mom just really likes Korean stuff. She grew up there, after all. I just think she’s a little bit biased.

Tell Josie that I’d never go to the Homecoming dance with her, even if she paid me. She threatened to destroy our recess tree, for goodness sakes!

Missing you more, more,
Kibum.

***Dear my dearest dear of all dears Kibum,

YOUR INTELLIGENCE IS DEFINITELY GENIUS-Y. Or else you wouldn’t be called Kibum :P And lmao, that’s what I call commitment. “Maybe” with a dead fish on my back and gross oily hair? I would definitely not stay with me if I was like that… I’m not sure if that made any sense.

Ohhhhh okay that makes sense. I Googled ‘yan’ later and nothing came up. And wow. What is won, anyways? Is it like, a bunch of little pennies that you have to put on counters? Imagine a thousand of those things…

But I bet your mom has good reason to like Korean stuff better! American stuff is so boring, anyways. :(

I’m not going to tell her that. I did tell her, though, when I went to the water park again, how much you missed her and that she should tell the rest of the Kibum Kim fan club that you promised them all dates in the future, once you’re a famous actor and all. I stuck a beetle in her purse when she wasn’t looking, though. ;D

Missing you more than you!
Henry

***To Henry, who is not my dear at all,

So, funny story. Sometime last week (I can’t keep track of the days here) was Korean Constitution day, and my parents took me and Saehee to some party with all our relatives. Well, all the adults got drunk as me and my cousins sat around doing nothing, until my dad came over and yelled at us and then threw up all over Saehee’s lap. She looked mortified. It was hilarious.

You should have said “stay with myself.” Only others can stay with “me”.

Hahaha, no, there’s not like individual won or anything. There are bills, and I think the smallest bill actually is one thousand won. So it’s like a dollar, only not.

Since when do I have a fan club? And I doubt I’ll be a famous actor, okay?

Missing you the most,
Kibum.

***Kibummieeee! (That’s my new nickname for you. Like it? :D)

You are HORRIBLE. And that DOES sound hilarious, omg. I wish I was there! I told Whitney, and she laughed her ass off five hours straight. Wish we could have some of your crazy Korean parties around here. Did you manage to sneak any of the alcohol? ;P

OHHHH OKAY. That makes sense! Then… why have a thousand won? Why not have one won? (lol that rhymes.)

Actually, I’m not quite sure, but when I told Josie that she just ran off to her friends and giggled with them. So I’m assuming that’s your fan club.

And you’re not going to be a famous actor if you become a famous scientist first… or something.

Speaking of crazy parties, what are you doing for your birthday in a few weeks? :D

MISSING YOU THE MOSTEST,
Henry

***Henry-ry… (I wish I could do the same with your name, haha)

I am a horrible person. And you told Whitney? Must have been funny for her, imagining Saehee in a puke-stained dress. Well, it was funny for me too… I guess your sister and I have a lot in common.

Well, because one won is a coin and ten won is another coin, and… It’s just generally really complicated. Don’t worry about it.

The fact that I have a fan club disturbs me very much. And I am not going to be a famous scientist or actor. I will have a nice cubicle job… though actually I have no idea what I want to do in the future…

Oh right, my birthday is coming up, isn’t it? I don’t really know… technically in Korean years, I’ll be turning sixteen, which is sort of a horrifying thing to think about. I might just get a cake or something. You know me.

Missing you two times more than you,
Kibum

***Kibummieeeeee!

Okay, thinking of you and my sister together is NOT a pretty image. I mean like, you’re already two years older than me, and you and Whitney is just… ugh, no. And I am totally giving up on understanding Korean money. Everything Korean just goes over my head. I don’t understand any of it. Including you :P

What do you want to be then? Maybe you could be a teacher or something. A college professor. That’d be cool, wouldn’t it? Seems like your type of thing, anyways. XD

HAVE A HUGE PARTY! Omg you’re turning 16 in Korean years! I’d totally have a huge party. Cake is definitely not enough. xP

Missing you FOUR times more than you,
Henry

***Henry Lau, the food god,

I didn’t mean it like that! I just said we had a lot in common, your sister and I. You and I have even more in common, actually. That’s why we’re friends. I’m sure you can understand at least that.

(Oh, and have you started summer reading yet? Or do you need me to remind you a week before school starts, like always?)

College professor doesn’t sound too bad… I’ll think about it. I’m not sure. Once I’m in college, we’ll see.

Huge parties aren’t my thing. Or parties at all. Haven’t you noticed? And yeah, I guess sixteen’s a pretty big deal… no one here really cares, anyways.

Missing you an infinite amount of time more than you,
Kibum

***KIBUM! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’ll be mailing you your present soon :D

(Ooh, ‘Henry Lau, the food god’? Has nice ring to it 8D)

Even though it’s probably already over in your time… happy birthday and stuff! In goodness and health, in sickness and… er. Whatever it was. Or maybe I’m quoting the wrong thing…

And er. I definitely started summer reading already, okay?>.<

Well you need to do SOMEthing for your sixteenth birthday! Fifteenth, you know, but still. At least get a BIG cake! XD

I might be busy for the next few weeks (… back to school stuff and all that, you know T_T) but email me back anyways and I’ll return to you asap!

Missing you more than the Kibum mind can hold (which is a lot),
Henry

***Henry!

Haha, thanks. Though you know that no amount of presents can measure up to your words (though I do enjoy this new iPod. How much does it cost? It looks expensive). And how your words can’t measure up to you saying them to me. And um. I think that’s weddings. We’re not getting married. Unless there’s something you want to tell me?

Likely story.

My cake was pretty big, actually. Well, bigger than the ones that I’ve had in the U.S. Asians like to overdo things, don’t they? Though I guess you wouldn’t know…

All right. Well I’ll anxiously be waiting for your reply, and hope you manage in school without me.

Missing you enough to fill up that empty space in your head you call a brain,
Kibum

***Hey Henry,

Since you haven’t emailed me back in a while—I assume you’re swamped with schoolwork, which is a pretty big assumption considering how much schoolwork you actually do (joking, I’m joking. Mostly.) I just thought I’d let you know that I got into my new school’s drama club! It’s a lot different acting in Korean—but it’s the same, too. How about you? What extracurricular activities are you doing?

Saehee says to tell Whitney that she’s older than her in Korean years (because you know, she is) and that she had the biggest most chocolaty cake ever and that Whitney should be jealous. I’m not saying you should tell your sister this; don’t shoot the messenger.

Speaking of, how’s not being a freshman anymore? You better not be doing drugs or anything, or else I’ll come back to California and kick your ass.

Yours,
Kibum

***KIBUM. OH MY GOD I’M SO SORRY. It’s been so crazy, ugh. I’ll tell you all about it…

Weeeellll on the first day of school, there were like a BILLION new clubs and I really wanted to join a bunch of them. I ended up signing up for (and getting in!) the Breakdancing Club (yes, yes, laugh all you want—it’s actually really fun!) and the fall soccer team! That’s why I’ve been so busy, haha :( Sorry! But October’s coming up and I’m finally taking a break from my studies (which I HAVE been doing, thank you very much :P) to check my email and email you back and stuff, blahhh :( It’s just not the same without you here. I bet you’re all having fun with your Korean drama club and stuff. XD

I told Whitney, and Whitney threw a temper tantrum and yelled at Mom to buy her a cake. Mom got pissed and told her to go up to her room. Now Whit’s been sulking around the house, and probably isn’t going to stop until she gets her cake.

I LOVE being not a freshman anymore. Now I get to pick on the freshmen myself! Puahahaha! … joking, joking. And don’t even worry about it. Drugs are gross T_T Or, actually, maybe I will do them… just so that you’ll come over and I’ll see you again :D

Still missing you,
Henry

***Henry,

Well it’s not like I sit in front of my computer waiting for you to email me back all day, you know. I do have a life. But it’s nice to know you have one too. Breakdancing and soccer? You’re really trying to be a jock now this year, are you? How about orchestra? Get that first chair like you were promised you would get? And yes, Korean drama club is very fun. 당신은똥양동이입니다.

Hmm. Maybe your mom should get Whitney a cake, then. Just think about it, Henry—you’d get some of the cake too, right?

You better not pick on the freshmen, or do drugs. How about a better threat, then—I’ll never see you again or the rest of your life.

Just kidding, of course. I miss you too.
Kibum

***Kibum!

What does that Korean say? And how did you get your keyboard to type in Korean? Ooh, that must be so cool…

OH, by the way, Mrs. Strais is super, super sad that you’re not back this year. I think she’s trying to pick a new favorite, but she just looks glum all the time. SEE WHAT YOU DO TO US? You better.

Breakdancing and soccer is so much fun, oh my goooood. And also sometimes in breakdancing some of the guys rap, too. I try to rap. XD I’m not as great, but it’s really fun. And soccer is super competitive, because there are these guys who just want to own the field all the time, and they really piss me off. So I’m trying to match up to them :P

Well luckily, my birthday cake (! don’t you want to say anything to me :D?) was super chocolaty so Whitney was happy with that. Hitting two stones with one bird, and such.

NO! OKAY, FINE I PROMISE I’LL NEVER DO DRUGS OR PICK ON THE FRESHMEN. Why are you so mean :(

Missing you until you’re back here!
Henry

***Happy thirteenth birthday Henry! A week late, but you know… sent you your present. Hopefully you got it already.

Not telling you what it says. It’s in Korean for a reason, you know. And Korean keyboards are basically that we type the hangul with the letters… since there are Korean letters… I won’t bother trying to explain.

Sounds fun. I’ve tried breakdancing before over here a few days ago—it’s actually not that bad, as you said. Pretty fun. Not sure about the rapping, though, but I guess rapping in English is different from rapping in Korean… I’ll try that, too. And have fun with soccer. I’m sure it’ll make you ten times less scrawny.

(I do believe the expression is hitting two birds with one stone.)

Good. It’s my job to look after you, after all.

Missing you until… well, for a while,
Kibum

***OH MY GOD KIBUM YOU SENT ME THESE AWESOME KOREAN CANDIES THEY’RE SO GOOD HOLY SHIT. SO GOOD!

I have been like eating them like mad… you sent like fifty little packages! Fifty! Whitney’s been trying to steal some, but I’m like, “No, they’re from Kibum, they’re MINE,” and she just sticks her tongue out at me and stomps off to her room. Serves her right.

Clint’s coming over soon (I think in four or five weeks) for Thanksgiving. I think he’ll have my birthday present too :DD

Ugh, FINE. I’ll figure out what it means by myself… somehow…

Haha, you? Breakdancing and rapping? I’d like to see that XD For SOME reason, I can’t imagine it… it’s really hard, you know :P

Oh you know I’m bad at English (it’s currently my worst subject T_T). And since when have you been my keeper? :P

FOREVER LOVING MY BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER,
HENRY LAU THE FOOD GOD (your words, not mine :D)

***Henry,

Glad to hear you like your birthday present. I was only going to buy a few, but then I had no idea which one you’d like most, so then I just went with all of them… sounds like I made the right choice.

Oh, something interesting happened to me today. After drama club, a man came up to me and said that I had a good voice and offered me a spot in some Korean entertainment company! I said no, of course, because I really have no interest in being a celebrity at all—but it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? I was pretty surprised myself.

Hmm. Maybe I’ll buy some Korean candies for Whitney, too. Clinton while I’m at it as well. Tell them both I say hi, when you get the chance, all right?

I’m perfectly competent at rapping (and breakdancing!) Actually, the guys whom I was doing it with backstage while we were waiting during drama club said that I was really good. Add that to my list of talents, will you?

If I wasn’t your keeper, who would be? You’re too reckless for your family. And improve that English grade!

… brother from another mother. I won’t ask.

Kibum

***Kibum. Holy shit. Are you serious? You were offered to be famous and you just DECLINED IT?

HOW COULD YOU? YOU COULD HAVE GONE INTO A BOY BAND AND MADE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS (or won, whatever) AND CELL A BUNCH OF CDS AND I COULD BUY THEM AND HAVE THEM BLAST ALL OVER MY HOUSE! AND I COULD SEE YOU ON MY TV SCREEN! Well probably not because I live in America—but hypothetically, you could have been on a TV screen! Why did you say no? Why! :(((

And NO. You will not buy candy for my siblings. These Korean candies are mine, MINE! Puahahaha! *does that Gollum thing from Lord of the Rings… my precious…*

Well okay, if you say that you’re competent. I guess I’ll believe you :P You’ll have to show me sometime, or something. What’d you rap? Some crazy thing in Korean?

Hell to the yes I’m too reckless for my family! And I’m working on it… shut up.

STILL YOUR BRO FROM ANOTHER MO’
Henry

PS: I TOTALLY figured out what that Korean said! Why the hell did you call me a turd bucket?

***Henry,

Calm down. Really, it was just a guy from an entertainment company. I doubt I’d have gotten far, anyways. They’re recruiting trainees like mad, and for me to actually make billions of won (because millions of won is like, thousands of dollars. Which isn’t that much in terms of salary, I think) is very slim. But thank you for your words of encouragement, anyways.

Okay, okay fine. Only because you told me not to. You really like your food, don’t you? And Gollum… haha. I remember Lord of the Rings. Good movies.

Yes. It was all nonsense, really if I were to translate it into English. But Korean is a lot easier to rap in, I’d imagine, compared to English. (You know, you should send me a record of your scores in your classes so I can make sure you’re doing well.)

Oh, how’d you figure it out? I’m surprised you got it so quickly.

… not your bro from another mo, because I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean,
Kibum

***But seriously, Kibum! Ugh! You just don’t know anything about the entertainment industry! Even in Korea, I bet it’s all the same!

I used Google Translate, duh XD Well it said “You are the shit bucket” but I know you never said shit, so I figured… :P

Gah. I’d write more but it sounds like Clint’s barraging our door down and he always wants to play Resident Evil with me whenever he visits. Ugh. I hate that game. Hopefully I’ll manage to send you another email during Thanksgiving break!

YOU ARE DEFINITELY MY BRO(THER) FROM ANOTHER MO(THER),
Henry

***Henry, or in this case Mochi (your new nickname; I saw some mochi here in Korea and they reminded me of your cheeks. All squishy and such), just in case you get this email before Thanksgiving break. And even not, when you read it afterwards.

I actually wrote “You are the poop bucket”, but turd and shit are pretty close, yeah. Huh. Google Translate is accurate, for once.

I’ll be sending you your Christmas gift (I already bought it) around the third week of December, a little more than a month from now. Tell me when you get it, all right?

By the way, you never did tell me how orchestra was going.

Kibum

***KIBUM HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO LATE

I imagine you’re super busy with Korean schoolwork too, you crazy Koreans (not like I actually know anything about Korean culture, I’m just saying hypothetically…) since you haven’t even sent me a double email, but yeah. Second week of December, will be waiting for your gift next week! \o/

Mochi? My cheeks are NOT that squishy. Or fat.>.<I take offense to that nickname!

Oh yes, because you don’t say shit or turd, you say poop. That makes it so much better :P

OH I’M SORRY. I know how you’re always interested in my orchestra stuff, and yeah XD I got second chair! Not first like I had expected, but still, second chair for a sophomore is pretty good! Really good, actually. Mrs. Volet still loves me :D

Wishing you were here,
Henry

***KIBUM! OH MY GOD I LOVE THE STUFFED ANIMAL YOU GOT ME! SINCE WHEN DID YOU KNOW I LIKED HAMSTERS? LOL OMG IT’S SO CUTE I’M GOING TO SLEEP WITH IT EVERY NIGHT!

And where have you been? You didn’t respond to my last email and I’m already on winter break! It’s been a month! :(

***Okay Kibum, I know you haven’t replied to my last two emails, but I’m going to email you anyways and the next time you check your mail you can read them and yeah. I just need someone to talk to! And I don’t know who else to talk to!

So anyways, today was an ABSOLUTE mess. First of all, it was raining! Ugh, I hate the rain. Then when I went downstairs after I washed and changed and everything, Whitney spilled her orange juice all over my favorite shirt! I had to go upstairs after that and it was SUCH A WASTE OF TIME and I was almost tardy to school. THEN Mr. Bruster yelled at me in Algebra II because I forgot to hand in homework for the fifth time in a row and I actually started CRYING, and THEN I threw up all over the ground and he started yelling some more and all of the kids were laughing at me. So then after that, I had to go to the bathroom and I came in during the middle of fifth period which was French, and this guy pointed out I had puke stains all over my shirt and it was so disgusting and humiliating. And then I ended up going to lunch late because I was called to the guidance office because we had counselor meetings, except my counselor thought that I had like, depression issues because my eyes were still red from when I had tried in Algebra II and it was totally humiliating telling her that I had stomach problems and I was sensitive and crap, oh my god. And I missed part of lunch! I barely had time to eat my sandwich at all, and I didn’t even open up my chips or bite my apple! And THEN when I got home my mother started yelling at me because I forgot to do the dishes and I yelled back and now I’m grounded from my PlayStation and my GameBoy and SAVE ME KIBUM I NEED YOU ;_;

***Mochi,

Sorry I haven’t been around lately. I had winter play and then exams and then my mother made me go to watch some of my cousin’s plays (he’s a famous actor, did you know that?) and then we were out of Seoul for a few weeks to go visit other people. It’s like, what, January now? Anyways, I’m glad you like your Christmas present. Congratulations on getting second chair. And um, please stop throwing up. Or the next time you do, just throw up all over your teacher. That’ll shut him up from yelling at you any longer.

Also, in case you were interested, I’m doing senior class work now. Told you I’d be two years ahead of the game.

Stay safe, miss you, and all that,
Kibum

***KIBUM OH MY GOD YOU’RE ALIVE *tackles you!*

Ooh, winter play, eh? 8D What part did you get? Did you get a main role? I bet you got a main role, that’s why you didn’t mention it :P And ew, exams. Please don’t remind me. I had midterms this week and… ugh. Gross.

HOW IS SOUTH KOREA? Not like I asked you enough, but asking you again! Seems like you like it, right? :DD Don’t have too much fun without me!

… that sounds like an excellent idea. Next time I feel my stomach churning, I’ll go find Kristen to throw up on :D

You smartiepants :P

DON’T GET TOO ASIAN FOR YOUR OWN GOOD,
Henry

PS: I need to come up with a nickname for you. Mochi is so embarrassing >.<

***Mochi/Henry,

What exactly do you mean too Asian for my own good? Hanging out with so many Koreans or constantly being better than you in terms of schoolwork?

As a matter of fact, no, I didn’t get a main role… I got the lead role. Well, side-lead role, like love interest or whatever. It was fun. Sort of weird, though, since the girl kept trying to feel me up every time we were together. She was a good actress, though.

How did you do on your midterms?

South Korea’s fine. Everyone’s a lot more… conservative though. I’m not quite sure how to explain it. That, and touchy. But I’m so used to you that it’s not much of a problem for me. And don’t worry, I doubt I’ll ever have as much time here than I’ll ever have with you.

Kristen? Who’s Kristen? What did she ever do to you?

I’d like to know what nickname you come up with for me.

Kibum

***KIBUMMIEEE! (I haven’t called you that in a long time :D)

I swear to god I will come up with a totally humiliating nickname for you and you will love it. Or you won’t but I’ll call you it anyways :DDDD

YOU’RE JUST… too… Asian… By the way, are you doing any sports? Soccer season’s over (well it’s been over for a while) but I might go for the spring team. How about you? :D

OOH ew was the actress weird though? Doesn’t matter if she’s a good actress or not… does not sound fun if you weren’t up for it :P Speaking of girls, yeah, um, Kristen asked me out to Homecoming a few months ago (I didn’t go) and I told her no, and then she said some pretty bad stuff about me to her friends and then it spread around school… isn’t really important though, don’t worry XD

MIDTERMS. UGH. I don’t know yet, I didn’t get my grades back. I’ll tell you when I get them though :O

REFUSES TO BE CALLED MOCHI,
Henry

***Mochi,

Humiliating. All right. You better live up to my expectations then. I’ll be sure to turn red and be embarrassed the next time you send an email.

I’m not doing any sports, but mostly because play’s keeping me occupied for now. I hope you make it to the spring team; it’d do good for you to learn sportsmanship and all that. Because you obviously need it, yeah.

Haha, you would care about girls. Eh, the actress was all right. I didn’t really pay too much attention to her. And you said no to Kristen? Why? And what did she say? Do you have a girlfriend who you’re not telling me about? Haha.

So, how about those grades of yours?

Kibum

***SNOW WHITE! Yes, that’s your nickname. ‘Cause your skin’s all pale like and your hair is super dark :D I HOPE THAT’S HUMILIATING ENOUGH FOR YOU.

No, I don’t have a girlfriend! :( And by that face, I mean, why would you ever think that there’s something I wouldn’t tell you? And I said no to Kristen because she’s an annoying bitch who made fun of Liam because of his braces. And don’t worry about what she said, it’s not important.

MY GRADES. I actually did pretty well on my English and Chemistry midterms! (B and an A!) History and Algebra II though… uh. Is a 76% considered good?

THE MOCHI TO YOUR SNOW WHITE
Henry

***Mochi,

I’m on spring break right now. When’s yours? Also, I got an MSN, so we can instant message instead of email. I’ll send you my username in another email. You should get one too.

… Snow White. That’s more embarrassing than I thought you’d come up with. What do you mean, my skin’s pale and my hair is dark? I’m not a girl! That doesn’t give you any right to call me a princess!

Really? You don’t have a girlfriend? I’m actually a bit surprised… And I dunno, girls were just never things we used to talk about. I thought it was something you wouldn’t mention to me. It’s nice to know that you would, though. (Oh yes, I remember Kristen now. She was an annoying bitch, wasn’t she?) Speaking of girls, I made a new friend in drama club yesterday. Her name’s Eunhee. She sort of reminds me of you. It’s a bit hard making new friends in Korea, so I’m glad she was willing to talk to me after classes.

Congratulations on your English and Chemistry grades! And work on your History and Algebra II ones. 76% is not considered good.

The… Snow White to your Mochi. If that makes any sense at all,
Kibum

***SNOW WHITE

I’m sure you’re having all sorts of fun in China for summer break right now. I’m really bored just sitting at home (what have we done in the past summers, anyways? Was it really this boring? Or maybe I’m just bored without you :P) so I decided to email you, even though we haven’t in a while. MSN is so cool. We should have gotten it earlier. Anyways, I guess you really don’t have to reply to this email when you get back, since I’m just trying to pass time XD

Uh… what’s been new with me, you ask? :D I got offered to go into this prestigious (BIG WORD) music school, but I turned it down. Sorta want to finish my schooling in Santa Monica and stuff. Junior year next year! I’m so excited ’cause I’ll be an upperclassman! But then again, there’s college stuff.. and last year where grades actually count, omg. So I’m really nervous too>.<

I’m still jealous about Eunhee by the way. I can’t believe she’s with you IN China! Don’t make out on the Great Wall or else you’ll scare all the tourists :P

LOVE, YOUR MOCHI

***Mochi,

Replying to this email because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t. Feel free to IM me later tonight though, aka when you wake up. I’m back in Korea, a few days before school’s supposed to start… China was really fun though.

Speaking of which, for the last time, Eunhee and I are not together! We’re only friends, nothing more. I haven’t dated since that drastic time in eighth grade, don’t you remember? So nothing to worry about. And ew, making out with Eunhee. Are you trying to scar me for life or something?

I think we only played video games during the summers we were together. We went to Disney Land that one time, though. And the park. Oh yeah, the park. We went there a lot too.

Why didn’t you accept that offer to the music school? And you tell me that I was stupid not to take that acting job. Education’s much more important than becoming famous.

Love,
Snow White

***KIBUM/Snow White/Geniuspants/other nicknames/etc.

Ugh, so my brother didn’t let me on the computer all Thanksgiving break and now Whitney wants to get on and my mom promised her that she could get on so AHHHH I’m sending you an email to talk to you instead sdflkj my family is so stupid T^T

JUNIOR YEAR IS SO HARD if I didn’t complain it to you on MSN already. Oh my god I want to shoot myself. I’m so glad we have Thanksgiving break already since I really, really can’t deal with school right now and Veteran’s Day and all those other days we had off in October and September were NOT enough, let me tell you. I’m going to go throw myself off of a cliff now. Family and school, gar.

Also, I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that I didn’t go to Homecoming AGAIN for the third year in a row! It’s a record! Actually I haven’t been to any of the school dances, lol XD Patrick just told me it’s all grinding though… so I have no interest. Like, dancing is fun and all, but not when you’re surrounded by a bunch of hormonal teenage girls and boys RUBBING THEIR GROINS AGAINST EACH OTHER. So so so gross. Ew.

Dude you have to come here soon all right? SOME TIME. Maybe next summer or something. I DON’T KNOW I MISS YOU A LOT. I can’t believe it’s already been more than a year since you left Come baaaack I miss you ;_;!

Mochimochibear!

***“Mochimochibear!” (your words, not mine)

Again, replying to this email because I’d feel bad if I didn’t. Nice to hear that you’re so alive; I haven’t talked to you on MSN for three days. I was starting to get a bit worried. Hit Clinton in the head for me and yell at him for taking you away from me. And tell Whitney that playing Neopets is not as important as talking to me. Which is true. (But really, Neopets?)

I’m sure you’ll get through junior year with flying colors. Remember what I said a few weeks ago? Just concentrate on your studies above everything else. I’m glad you quit Breakdancing Club this year—you need the time for your class work, anyways. And please don’t throw yourself off a cliff. Hit yourself repeatedly in the head with a frying pan. That would work.

Yes, dances are a nuisance. I’m glad you retain some of the little dignity you have left. And did you seriously just type “rubbing their groins against each other”? As much as I love that image… scratch that, I don’t.

We’ll see,
Kibum

***Mochi,

I’ll be gone for the next couple of weeks. Feel free to email me if you wish, but don’t feel obligated to.

Yours,
Kibum

IV. The Reunion

Henry was sitting at his computer when he heard the doorbell ring. He was about to get up from his seat, but then Whitney called, “I’ll get it!” so he returned to his computer game.

It was two seconds later when he heard his little sister shout, “KIBUM!”

Almost like the word was a magnet, Henry was up and out of his chair and was running out of the room and down the hall. He looked over the wooden railing to the front door, where he saw a very familiar boy standing in the doorway, drenched in snow with bags and a suitcase in his hands, and looking very, very amused.

“KIBUM!” Henry all but shrieked, and then he was speeding down the stairs—nearly dripped over the carpet—and flung himself onto the other boy. He got a face full of Kibum’s crisp black jacket and could feel the snow dripping onto his own dry hair, but he didn’t care—Kibum was here, in the United States, in California, at his front door, and holy shit was that stubble around his chin?

Kibum laughed; he looked pretty giddy himself. “Hi Henry,” he said. His tone was impossibly excitable, and it made Henry even more happy. He couldn’t stop himself from constantly smiling, and it looked like Kibum had a hard time keeping the glowing grin off his face as well.

“KIBUM!” Henry shrieked again. “Holy crap! When did you get here? What the- how did you get here, too! Where are your parents! Why are you at my front door! KIBUM YOU’RE HERE!”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Kibum laughed again and walked into his house, took his shoes off and dusted the snow off the bottoms.

“I really can’t believe it,” Henry said as Kibum made himself comfortable. “But really, how did you get here? Where are your parents? Do myparents even know about this?”

“Of course,” Kibum scoffed, grinning at him and looking more like Kibum than ever. “We weren’t the only ones who were exchanging emails, though. And wow… you really have changed.”

“Have I? Is that a good thing?” Henry walked to the hallway mirror and looked himself up and down. He didn’t look much different, as far as he could tell.

Kibum laughed again. It was music to Henry’s ears. “No, stupid,” he said to him. “Remember the last time I saw you, you were only twelve? A lot can happen in a year and half, you know.”

“Oh, right.” Henry turned back to him, pleased. Kibum was staring at him with a smile, but a sort of stricken smile that he hadn’t seen before, like Henry was better than anything he could have ever imagined. Henry beamed even more at this.

“So this is what you meant about being gone these weeks,” he said, and Kibum nodded. “Tricky tricky. Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“It’s a surprise, duh.” Kibum chuckled. “Merry Christmas and all that.”

“Does that mean you don’t have a Christmas present for me?” Henry teased.

Kibum shook his head. “Of course not! I have your present for you. It’s in… er… one of these bags.” He lifted up the duffel bag in his left hand. “This one, I think.”

“Awesome,” Henry said eagerly, and he took the duffel bag, as well as Kibum’s suitcase, and started dragging them to the family room. Kibum followed him and looked around his house.

“Not much has changed,” he said thoughtfully. “Aside from you and your sister, of course. You’re almost my height now.”

“I am your height.”

“I think I have about an inch or two on you.” Kibum smirked. “And you still have those baby cheeks.”

“Shut up,” Henry said, hitting him on the side and then laughing and hugging him again. “Look at you! You have stubble! And you still haven’t told me how you got here! It’s like—It’s like a Christmas miracle or something!”

“Well,” said Kibum as they dropped his bags to the floor and sat down on the leather couches. “When you mentioned that you wanted to see me soon, back in November, I asked my mom if I could see you during winter break. Then my mom said that she didn’t want to spend a lot of money for all of us to go back to the States, so then she just said that I could go by myself if I was going to stay with you. So then she emailed your mom asking when your winter break was, and coincidentally it was the same time as mine, so then they just basically arranged everything and your mom knew that I was supposed to come sometime this week. So here I am.” He grinned.

Henry stared at him in awe.

“So how long are you staying here?” he asked, when he finally found the words to speak.

“Four days,” Kibum replied.

“Four days? Four days? That’s not nearly enough for us to make up for the lost time we haven’t seen each other!” Henry hit Kibum’s shoulder again, and then fell over in his lap. “We’ll have to spend every waking moment together, you know,” he said seriously as he looked up at Kibum’s face.

Kibum grinned down at him” Henry felt his breath hitch. “I know,” he said. “I also got really addicted to coffee on the plane ride here, so I think I’ll have enough energy during the day for us to hang out and not be jetlagged.”

“You got addicted to coffee? You’re becoming more and more straightedge every day!” Henry exclaimed.

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” Kibum chortled.

“Anyways,” said Henry, “what do you want to do? Play video games? Watch TV? Play in the snow? Ooh, let’s play in the snow! I bet it doesn’t snow in Korea!”

“Of course it snows in Korea.”

“Yes, but it’s not the same snow as California snow, is it?” Henry got up and pulled at Kibum’s hand. “Come on, let’s go outside!”

Kibum chuckled and followed him into the laundry room to get his shoes, and then Henry let him get his own before they went outside. As soon as they stepped into the snow, Henry shivered. “I haven’t been outside all winter break, actually,” he confessed.

“What?” said Kibum. “What did you do all break, sit at home and sit in front of your computer?”

“… yes?”

“Lazy ass.” Kibum laughed and pushed him into the snow. Henry fell down with a yelp, feeling snowflakes sneak their way into the back of his shirt and down his pants. In a very undignified manner, he grabbed onto Kibum’s wrists and yanked him down with him, and both boys tumbled to the ground, snow spraying all around them.

“Look at you! You’re Snow White now!” Henry teased, throwing a handful into Kibum’s face.

“That was lame,” Kibum said, throwing snow back. “Oh, speaking of, I brought mochi cakes so you could try them yourself.”

“How thoughtful of you,” snickered Henry, bringing his hand around and shoving a ball of snow up Kibum’s jacket. Kibum yelped when his hand touched his warm skin, and the two of them rolled around, wrestling on the snow once more.

About ten minutes later, when they were lying on the front lawn and laughing, attempting to make snow angels, Henry heard the front door open. He tilted his head back to see his mother standing on the front porch, looking at them, amused.

“Hi boys,” she said. “Kibum, you’re here already? I actually wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Kibum laughed and pelted a snowball at Henry, before looking to Henry’s mom again. “I think my mom meant to say this morning instead of last night, because she messed up the date.”

“Well that makes sense,” Henry’s mom said pleasantly. “When you boys are hungry, there’s frozen pizza in the freezer. Your father and I will be going to work, Henry,” she added to her son, “but I expect the house to be in one piece when we get back. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Henry threw his own snowball at Kibum. “Have I wrecked the house yet?”

“I’d expect you to with Kibum around, which is what exactly I’m trying to avoid,” she said. “Stay safe.”

With one last stern look, she turned back around and closed the door. Kibum grinned at him.

“Does she really think that we’ll ruin the house or something?”

“I don’t know,” Henry said solemnly. “You are known to have quite a wild streak…”

After one last mini snowball fight, the two boys ran back inside to the house. When they were back in the family room, Henry said, “You can unpack your stuff here. Mom’s been making me host sleepovers outside of my bedroom because she thinks we’re too big for it now, or something.”

“You’ve been having sleepovers without me?” Kibum said with a pout as he rolled out his sleeping bag.

Henry rolled his eyes. “There were only two. And they were really boring, anyways. One of them was because Mark wanted to play on my Xbox, and the other was for the birthday party that Julian insisted that I must have. It’s not like I wanted them.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Kibum amusedly, although he didn’t seem too convinced. “And you have an Xbox? Since when?”

“Last birthday.” Henry shrugged. “After the first week, I was bored with it.”

“Ooh! We should go play it though!” Kibum said excitedly, dropping his sleeping bag and getting up from the ground. “Though wait,” he added, glancing to his other bag. “I do have your Christmas present. Maybe I should give that to you first.”

“Yes! Gimme my presents!” Henry dove for the bag that Kibum was staring at and unzipped it open as fast as he could. “Is this it? No, that’s your underwear. How about that—oh wait, I think that’s just a tee shirt—”

“It’s the package,” said Kibum, sitting down on the couch next to him and watching.

Henry searched through his stuff eagerly until he found a medium-sized brown cardboard box. He rattled it.

“Hmm, what ever could it be?” he said, glancing at Kibum.

Kibum hid a smile. “You’ll have to open it to find out.”

So Henry impatiently tore the tape and cardboard aside (while Kibum yelped as he got a face full of masking tape), and his eyes widened when he saw what was inside.

“More Korean food!” he shrieked.

“There’s more,” said Kibum, grinning and nudging his shoulder.

Henry dug through the piles of bags of Korean candies until at the bottom, he saw two stuffed hamsters—one was a pure white, and the other was pitch black.

“They’re us,” Kibum said, reddening. “You’re the white one and I’m the black one—well I guess you could be the black one if you want, but I always thought that you’d want to be white—”

“THEY’RE SO CUTE!” Henry squealed, and his voice cracked horribly and he was completely embarrassed, but his embarrassment was overwhelmed by how much he was touched by Kibum’s Christmas present.

“And the mochi cakes are here, too,” Kibum said, digging through his clothes bag until he pulled out a clear plastic bag. “I wasn’t quite sure which filling you’d like the most—so I just—got a bunch—”

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you!”

Henry squealed again and flung his arms around Kibum’s neck, hugging him so tightly so that he could smell the shampoo in his hair and the fresh snow scent still lingering in his shirt. And his excitement wasn’t just from the generosity and thoughtfulness of Kibum’s Christmas presents—but that Kibum was here with him, now, and had traveled halfway across the world just to see him. (At least, it was halfway across the world as far as Henry calculated, though he didn’t give it much thought.)

Kibum laughed, and sounded pleased as he gently hugged Henry back. “It’s really no problem,” he said once Henry let him go. “Are you really that excited about the Korean candy? It’s not that great, in my opinion—”

“Oh, but you don’t even know! I have something to show you!” Henry took Kibum’s hand again and dragged him upstairs and into his room, and then let his hand go to stride over to the other side of the room. “I keep a collection,” he said, going back over to Kibum with a shoebox in his hands. “Of the Korean candy wrappers and bags, you know—”

“You collect them?” Kibum’s eyes widened when he looked into the box. He glanced back up to Henry. “Either you’re really obsessed with Korean food,” he said, “or you’re crazy. Perhaps both.”

“Shut up.” Henry stuck his tongue out at him. “And don’t you want your Christmas present? I have that for you too! I was going to mail it to you yesterday, but then I decided that I’d get it to you after break since you wouldn’t be home anyways—”

“Even though I’m here already,” Kibum said, his lips twitching.

Henry nodded and then went to his closet. Kibum followed him, seemingly bemused. “You kept my present in your closet?” he said pensively.

“Yeah,” Henry said, looking over his shoulder and then turning back to the inside corner of his closet. “It’s not very big, but I wanted to keep it safe—so here.”

He brandished a small box, carefully wrapped with blue and white wrapping paper, and handed it to Kibum. As Kibum started tearing the wrapping paper off, Henry said, “I made it. It’s sort of girly, though, but—” He reddened and closed his mouth when Kibum opened up the velvet box inside.

Inside was a thin wooden bookmark with delicately engraved designs on it. Down the middle read Kibum’s name, while on the other side was a doodle of what looked like to be snowflakes. A light blue ribbon hung out from the top, and it definitely looked like it took a long time to make.

“We were making things in shop,” said Henry. “And I wanted to make something for you. But I knew you really wouldn’t care about a clock or a shelf or something, so I decided to make a wooden bookmark for you, ’cause I know you like to read and stuff and you keep folding down the pages of your books instead of getting an actual bookmark. I got points off for size, but I did get kudos for creativity—not like it really added anything to my grade—”

He was cut off when Kibum suddenly threw his arms around him into a tight hug. “I love it,” Kibum breathed into his ear.

Henry couldn’t help turning pink in pleasure. “Do you, really?” he said when Kibum released him.

Kibum nodded vigorously, and looked down to his bookmark again. “It’s really… wow. How did you even manage to make it? I thought you had clumsy hands.” He sent Henry a teasing look.

Henry rolled his eyes, but he was still smiling. “I do,” he said. “It took me about twelve tries—but I finished just in time for it to get graded and stuff. Eighty-five, but then again everyone in my class thought it was awesome.”

“I think it’s awesome too.” Kibum beamed at him. Then he tilted his head to the side, looking somewhere behind Henry. “Hey, is that the stuffed hamster I sent you last year? I think it is!”

He ran over to Henry’s bed, where the giant orange and white hamster was and started playing with it. Henry laughed and joined him, and then later when they remember that Kibum’s stuff was still downstairs, they brought the hamster down along with Henry’s sleeping bag and pillow. The rest of their morning was focused on unpacking Kibum’s stuff and splaying their sleeping items all over the family room floor” and once they were done, they went to the kitchen for dinner. Whitney apparently had holed herself up in her room—Henry told Kibum that apparently she had a little crush on him, to which they both laughed at. Henry secretly wondered if Kibum liked her back, and he felt a twinge of jealousy. Even though the idea of having his friend as his brother-in-law was wonderful, he wouldn’t want Kibum to spend more time with his sister than with him.

Later in the afternoon, when they were busy playing the Xbox and Kibum tackled him because Henry had an unfair advantage that he refused to downplay, Henry thought how stupid he was for thinking that. Why would Kibum ever spend more time with Whitney whenHenry was his best friend? He was really an idiot. And besides, he doubted that Kibum would ever go for Whitney. He was too cool for that.

They spent the rest of their day talking and laughing, and eventually retreated back to Henry’s room to play more video games before dinner. It seemed like they were touching each other more than they usually did—the unnecessary hug, the unneeded holding of hands, the leaning too close than they would have, though it was definitely in both of their comfort zones. It was probably just to make up for the lost time they had together, Henry figured. Since he hadn’t seen Kibum in a year and a half—which was a lot, in retrospect, considering how much they both had physically changed (mentally, not so much)—and probably wouldn’t see him for a while when he left, they had to spend as much precious time together as they possibly could before Kibum had to leave again.

But then again, Henry thought as he lay on the family room floor with Kibum snoring lightly beside him, Kibum would probably come back. He always did.

***The morning after sort of felt like a dream to Henry, mostly because somewhere in the depths of his mind, he still couldn’t believe that Kibum was back in America. But when he opened his eyes and rolled onto his side, he saw Kibum lying there, still asleep in his sleeping bag, looking as sixteen as ever. (Which was an old number, Henry realized suddenly. And he was only fourteen. Geez.)

After Henry had dumped a cup of cold water on Kibum to wake up (and after Kibum had chased him around the house for a little bit), they walked into the kitchen to see a note from Henry’s mom saying that she and Henry’s dad were at work (again) and please could they not demolish the house (again), and also Whitney was going to be at a friend’s house so they actually had the entire house to themselves. Henry and Kibum didn’t really care, however: they planned to spend the whole day in Henry’s room, playing Xbox (Kibum’s request) and occasionally going downstairs to eat (which was Henry’s request, because apparently Kibum had been so focused on his studies back in Korea that he often forgot to eat, which Henry thought was terrifying and inhumane.)

Henry’s parents came home soon enough, as well as Whitney, and dinner came and went. Henry and Kibum retreated back to Henry’s room and played more video games until his mother called them downstairs at eleven o’clock to tell them to get themselves ready for bed and go to sleep soon. So they did just that.

“I can’t believe you’re going home the day after tomorrow,” Henry whispered in the dark, once they were in their sleeping bags. He stared up at the dark ceiling. “It feels like you just got here yesterday.”

“Well, I did just get here yesterday,” Kibum chuckled.

Henry couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. “Yeah, but I wish that I wouldn’t have to wait, you know. For you to come here. I wish we could just stay together, wherever we went, and we’d always be together.”

“You sound like a girl.”

“Well you are a girl.” Henry turned and grinned at him. “Snow White.”

“Pansy.”

“Idiot.”

“Ass.”

“Dick.”

“Loser.”

“Geek.”

“And proud!” Kibum said, and they both chuckled and stared up at the ceiling again.

“You know,” Henry said after a few moments passed. “What if we just ran away, you know? Then you wouldn’t have to go to Korea and I wouldn’t have to stay here and wait for you.”

“That’d be perfect!” Kibum sat up in his sleeping bag and propped his elbows on the cover. His eyes glinted in the darkness. “We should do that!”

“Are you serious?” Henry said, looking alarmed. “I was just joking—”

“No, no, no, it’d be perfect!” Kibum looked excited now.

Henry eyed him concernedly.

“Did Korea turn you insane or something?”

“I’m perfectly sane.” Kibum waved his hand absently. “We should do it, though! It’d work! We could do it right now!”

“Right now?” Henry drew himself back. “Kibum, we can’t run away right now, it’s in the middle of the night and there’s snow outside—”

“Which makes it even better! No one would suspect a thing!” Kibum grinned.

Henry took a moment to catch his breath. “But,” he said, “what about our parents? What will your parents tell my parents? What will happen?”

“Oh, it’s all right, they’ll probably figure it out. And by the time they get to the police, we’ll be in Mexico already.” Kibum smirked. “Well then? Are you up for it?”

By this time, Henry was pretty sure that Kibum had gone completely insane. But he couldn’t just leave Kibum to do everything on his own. He knew that once Kibum set his mind to something, he would do it, and wouldn’t wait for Henry to catch up. So Henry only had one choice.

“All right,” he said. “Then should we go upstairs and get our stuff? Or—”

“No.” Kibum shook his head. “We can buy new stuff on the way. I have a savings account. You have one too, right?” Henry nodded. “Good. We’ll need all the money we can get.”

They slowly crept out of their sleeping bags and headed toward the kitchen. Kibum glanced at the refrigerator.

“You might want to get some food though,” he whispered. “Just so that we won’t starve on the way. And a blanket too, for warmth and shelter.”

“Right, right.” Henry nodded, and then made his way over to the refrigerator to get their food. He had no idea what Kibum was planning, and where exactly they were going to go with this—then again, Kibum was the genius and whenever things were left to him, they usually turned out perfect.

Henry decided to get a loaf of bread, peanut butter and grape jam, because they were easiest preserved in the cold. And just for convenience’s sake, he grabbed a knife and a spoon, too. Then he went into the hall closet to get a blanket, and then got his shoes; and when he came back out, he saw Kibum lurking at the entrance of his house. The front door was open.

“Come on,” Kibum whispered, beckoning him over. Henry carefully wrapped the jars of peanut butter, jam and bread into the blanket, and then followed him outside.

The cool wintry air hit him like an ocean wave once he stepped onto his front porch. He stood there for a moment and breathed it all in, and saw that Kibum, who was a few paces ahead of him, was doing the same. Henry smiled to himself. They had always been alike. Always.

But they were only a few meters onto Henry’s front lawn when something suddenly lurched inside of him, and Henry stopped. “I can’t do this,” he said to Kibum in front of him. “I can’t leave.”

“Well of course not,” Kibum snorted, turning around to look at him. “You really think I was that mental to run away without a book? Come on, give me that blanket.”

As Henry numbly handed him the blanket, he stared at Kibum. “Wha…? But… you said… we were gonna…”

“I was just joking,” Kibum scoffed, opening the blanket to see what was inside. “I wouldn’t run away, even if I had all the money in the world. I didn’t even finish my education, and if I was running away with you, I’d at least get something to keep in contact with our parents. Running away isn’t even my sort of thing, it was always a bit too dramati—ow!”

He winced and dropped the blanket as Henry put his fist down. “That’s for scaring me,” he said, glaring.

Kibum looked at him” to Henry’s surprise, he was grinning. “Aw, did I scare you?” Kibum asked. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to.”

“Well you did,” said Henry, though his glower faded as Kibum continued smiling.

“I’m sorry,” Kibum repeated. “It’s just fun messing with you, you know. Anyways, let’s see what you packed.”

“Then why did you come up with that ridiculous story of us running away?” asked Henry while Kibum kicked the blanket open and eyed its contents.

“Peanut butter and jelly? Really? And because I wanted to have a nightly picnic with you, of course,” Kibum said, picking up the jar of peanut butter and looking at the label. “With nuts. You never change, do you?”

Henry helped him lie out and flatten the blanket, and then they sat on it and grabbed the knives and spoons, making their own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Kibum nudged him and indicated the night sky as he spread the peanut butter on his slice of bread.

“That’s the Zaang,” he said, pointing to a collection of stars a bit above them. “It’s part of the Southern Deity, and made up of two constellations. I learned about it in school.”

“Ooh.” Henry stared up at the sky. The stars were like little white eyes, winking at them from above. “What else did you learn?”

“That’s the Ryu.” Kibum pointed a little bit farther up, where another group of stars were, looking snugly fit with each other. “Also part of the Southern Deity, and made up of two constellations. There are probably more, but I can’t see enough stars to tell.”

“Do you know any constellations in English?” asked Henry, because he knew absolutely nothing about astrology. Or was it astronomy? He could never remember the difference.

“Oh, of course.” Kibum folded his bread in half and took a bite out of it. After chewing and swallowing, he pointed to a row of three clear stars a bit off in the distance. “Orion’s Belt. And that,” he moved his finger a little to the left, “is Libra. That’s your star sign.”

“What’s yours?” asked Henry, getting another piece of bread to spread jam on.

“Leo. I can’t see it from here, though.” Kibum scanned the skies. “It’s usually hard to make out the constellations. Sometimes you just can’t see the stars.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean they’re not there, does it?” Henry turned to Kibum and smiled. “Come on, tell me more about horoscopes.”

As they continued gazing into the sky, the moon glowed down at them, almost like it was smiling.

***The next day wasn’t much different from the previous, although Kibum did manage to keep Henry in his room until it was two o’clock when Henry finally realized that something was missing, and that something happened to be the food in his stomach. Kibum had just laughed and said he was a growing boy, and Henry flicked a piece of ravioli at him.

Later at night, they agreed to do what they had done the night before. It had been fun, Henry reflected as he swerved his animated car on the TV screen. Kibum knew a lot about stars, but he also knew how to not make Henry bored. Plus, when they had stayed outside for so long that they were starting to get really cold, they had huddled up next to each other and Henry had felt every inch of the side of Kibum’s body. That had been nice.

However, by the time it was twelve o’clock at night, Henry noticed that something else was missing today. His mother had forgotten to call them downstairs. She and his dad probably fell asleep already.

Henry poked Kibum’s ankle with his foot as they played Mario Kart. “Kibum.”

“What? Don’t distract me.”

“But we can’t go outside tonight.”

“What? Why not?”

Kibum paused the game and looked at Henry, who had his full attention now. “But we could last night.”

“Yeah, but my parents are asleep,” said Henry, indicating the door. “And we can’t go downstairs. We’ll make too much noise.”

“Oh.” Kibum’s face fell. Then he glanced around the room, and spotted the curtains immediately. “We could use the window,” he said with a mischievous smile.

Henry looked at his windows warily. “Are you sure? ‘Cause we’re on the second floor…”

“Sure.” Kibum grinned. “We can just pull one of those escape plan things, you know? We’ll throw a blanket out, and then I’ll slide down it and then you can slide down in, fireman style.”

“Oh, good idea!” said Henry. “And what about the food?”

“I’m sure you can go one night without food,” Kibum teased.

“Fine, fine.” Henry stuck his tongue out. “Let’s do it, then.”

Carefully, and as quietly as they could, they grabbed one of Henry’s less used blankets, and opened a window and tossed it out. Then Kibum turned around to Henry.

“Do you think you’re strong enough to hold me?” he asked. Henry nodded.

“All right then,” said Kibum, gripping a part of the blanket still inside the room. “See you down there.”

He cautiously climbed out the window and slowly started sliding down. Henry peered over the ledge and watched, as Kibum skillfully (though none too gracefully) managed to get to the first floor, and landed on the snowy flowerbeds. Then he looked back up to Henry.

“Your turn!” he called softly. “Use the window to hold the blanket down, then climb out the other one! Be careful!”

“I will!”

Henry did as he was told, and soon enough found himself holding onto the top of the blanket with dear life. How Kibum had managed to do it, he had no idea: he was about twenty feet in the air. Terrified, he let himself down as delicately as he could, and –

“Shit!”

He slackened his grip too much; suddenly he was sliding faster than ever, even though it was all happening so slowly. He heard Kibum cry out, but he hardly paid any attention—the snowy white ground was coming toward him faster and faster, and he was falling headfirst to the ground –

Thump.

Henry’s face touched the snow first. Clumsily, he tried to open his eyes and lift his head up. Kibum’s worried face were the first thing he saw.

“Henry!” he said, panic in his voice. “Are you all right? Did you break anything? I’m sorry, that was my fault—”

“No, I’m fine,” Henry said, muffled against the ground. “And it’s not your fault. Just let me lay here… for a minute…”

Kibum continued watching him as Henry felt the snow seep in through his clothes, slowly melting until his entire front was wet. Not like there was anything he could do about it, anyways. Once he was sure his limbs weren’t as sore anymore, he started to get up.

“Thank God we didn’t—”

“Henry, what are you and Kibum doing outside?”

Henry and Kibum looked at each other.

“Shit.”

They got in trouble for a good rest of the night, and Henry’s mom told him that he would be getting screens on his window sometime soon. Kibum apologized to him, but Henry didn’t mind; it was his fault, anyway, for having complied with Kibum’s ideas. Kibum probably hadn’t been serious, anyways. Henry was an idiot to have actually agreed with him.

In the morning, after they had gotten a good night’s sleep—if not a few hours less—they brushed their teeth and changed their clothes and Henry helped Kibum pack all of his stuff into his bag. He was extremely disappointed that Kibum was leaving so soon. How had he managed without Kibum before, since he was here now? Henry didn’t even want to think about it.

They made a ploy to try to keep Kibum in his house before they left for the airport, but it was soon thwarted when Whitney went to the hall closet to get an extra pillow and found Kibum instead. After spazzing at his sister silly and after Kibum soon soothed a frightened Whitney with his charm and good looks, Henry was soon in the car with Kibum in the seat next to him, and Kibum’s bags in the trunk.

It just isn’t fair, he thought. Why do I have to be without Kibum for the next several months? Who knows the next time we’ll see each other?

They arrived at the airport soon enough and Henry felt something wrench at his cut, like something had just been pulled out. He watched as Kibum went through the logistics of getting his ticket and seat, and didn’t say a word throughout. When they finally arrived at the security station to drop him off, Kibum turned to Henry.

“Don’t forget to instant message me every night,” he said to him.

Henry nodded. He felt like something was stuck in his throat. He quickly swallowed.

“I won’t,” he said.

“Good.” Kibum eyed Henry carefully. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” Henry said, quickly turning his head to the side so he couldn’t see his wet eyes. “I’m just… I’ll miss you.”

“Hey.” Kibum briefly touched his hand, and Henry turned to him again. “I’ll miss you too.” He smiled.

Suddenly, Henry couldn’t help it anymore. He slung his arms around Kibum’s neck and hugged him tightly, burying his face into Kibum’s shoulder.

“Stay safe,” he murmured against Kibum’s jacket. He felt Kibum pat him on the back, and then Kibum’s arms wrap around him as well.

“Don’t worry,” he said into Henry’s ear. “I will.”

***Mochi,

Back in Korea. Safe and sound and whatnot. Mother hugged me when she got home, though not nearly as tightly as you did.

MSN tonight?

Kibum

***KIBUM! GUESS WHAT?

I GOT FIRST CHAIR FOR VIOLIN! Now I’m sure you’re probably thinking, “It’s about TIME already,” but Mrs. Volet didn’t do violin reorganizing until now because she’s super sad that the seniors are leaving. I’ll suck up to her, though… and then she’ll love me. ;)

Anyways, so yeah. I decided to email you as soon as I could (because I’m still in school right now) because you keep bothering me about it. And you’re probably asleep. So yeah :D

Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day! ^_^

Henry

***Mochi,

I never sleep. Haven’t I told you that?

And congrats on getting first chair! We’ll talk about this tonight on MSN, I promise.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you too.

Kibum

***Oh my god Kibum, guess what. I GOT A 95% ON MY MATH MIDTERM. FUCK YEAH! My GPA’s now a 3.8… I’m still working hard to make it a 4.0! (I had to tell you as soon as possible—all my friends would have made a dumb Asian joke and only you would understand .)

Also, we never talked about it before, but—what college do you want to go to? I’m thinking somewhere on the East Coast :D

Henry!

***Mochi,

Oh, congratulations on your math midterm! I knew you could do it. Geometry was always your strength, anyways.

I’m not quite sure, actually. Where do you want to go?

Keep your grades up. Wow, I feel like your mom now.
Kibum

***Kibum, you will never, EVER be my mom. Don’t even make me think about it. Ugh, that’s just gross .

YES GEOMETRY’S MY STRENGTH. AND SO IS TRIGONOMETRY \O/ We’re starting precalculus now… I don’t want to do it >.< It sounds so painful ;_; HELP ME.

I was actually thinking about Berklee College of Music, because it sounds like it has a good music program… duh, right XD Any ideas where you want to go? Any at all?

LOVE, HENRY

***Mochi,

Well I personally am pretty glad that I’m not your mom either. The visual’s not too… great.

I’ll try to help you with Calculus next year, though I’m not sure if you’ll be able to type out all the functions on the computer, haha. Let’s see how you do.

Berklee’s a really good school, actually. I just did some research on it. I’m sure you’ll get in, though. As for me… I really have no idea, but I still have a year left. And so do you.

Love, Kibum

***KIBUM! It’s been a while since we last exchanged emails, huh? XD

Sooooo you’re probably in Japan for your spring break (like you told me over MSN, lol) and I am super super bored. Clinton’s back from college (as always), except he’s too busy studying (STUDYING! Yes, I know right? Apparently you study a lot when you’re in college. :() and Whitney’s being a brat, as always, so I’m stuck inside my house with nothing to do except play Sims on my computer, which Greg gave to me since he never played it anymore. It’s pretty fun—I made an avatar of you and me. We share a house. It’s pretty cool.

And then I got bored so I’m emailing you again. And… I have no idea what to say. BLAHHH.

HOPE YOU’RE HAVING FUN IN JAPAN… WITHOUT ME :(

LOVE, HENRY

***Mochi,

This email is pretty late since I just got back from Japan a few hours ago, and then I completely crashed and took an eight-hour long nap. My teacher made us go see a bunch of sights, and then Eunhee wouldn’t stop talking to me on the train, and I basically went without sleep for twenty-three hours. And now I’m wide awake at five am. This is healthy.

Of course (a hypothetical) you study in college. It’s actually supposed to be a lot harder than high school, though I suppose it just depends what college you go to and if you’re in the Honors program or not. I’ll talk to you about it later.

Sims? That life simulator game? Well, at least we share a house. That does sound pretty cool.

I could never have enough fun without you.

Love,
Kibum

***KIBUM!

So so so this girl just asked me out. To junior prom >.< Her name’s Emily. She’s really pretty and nice, but… I really don’t want to go. And I know guys usually do the asking, so it was a surprise when she asked me. She said that she’s been waiting for weeks now since we hang out a lot (which we do—but not that much) and she says she likes me and she wants to go to prom with me… but I don’t know how to say no! Please help me? :((( (I’m in school right now and she just told me like ten minutes ago and I’m freaking out omg.)

EMAIL ME BACK!
LOVE, HENRY

***Mochi,

Are you even going to prom at all? If you’re not, just tell her you didn’t make any plans. And if you are… well, tell her you didn’t make any plans to go to prom anyways and try to avoid her for the rest of the night.

I hope you have fun with your prom-going… or prom-not-going.

Love,
Kibum

***KIBUMM!

Your plan worked! Yeah, I wasn’t planning to go anyways, lol. I told her so and she looked dejected but she didn’t seem to hate me so I guess it’s all right! Plus, prom is waaaay to expensive. I’m not gonna spend a billion dollars on a tux and a limo and a ticket. Maybe next year, though XD

LOVELOVELOVE, HENRY

***Mochi,

Of course my plan worked. My plans always work. And I hope you have fun at senior prom, next year. (Look at me, giving you luck in advance. Feel flattered.)

Love,
Kibum

***Henry, you haven’t been on MSN for a while and you haven’t emailed me, either? I know it’s only been a week since we last talked, but still.

Shoot me an email or an instant message when you can.

Kibum

***Kibum,

Sorry, something came up. I might be able to chat tonight, though! Look out for me!

Henry

***Henry,

You cut off our last conversation short. You seemed pretty normal for the past few days, but that was really odd. Is there something wrong that I need to know about?

Don’t be afraid to talk to me.

Kibum

***Kibum,

Haha, no. Don’t worry about it, really. I’ve just been super tired and busy lately. Sorry.

Henry

***Henry,

Too busy and tired to talk to me? Is there something going on? Should I be worried?

***No really, it’s fine, Kibum. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.

Henry

***Henry,

You and me. We’re going to talk on MSN tonight. I have off tomorrow—it’s Children’s Day—so I can stay up as long as I’d like. And I want to know what’s up.

Kibum

***Kibum,

Sorry for leaving our chat last night. I’m really sorry. I just… I’m sorry. I can’t talk about it right now, okay? I’ll tell you sometime else.

Hope you understand. Sorry. :(

Henry

***Henry,

It’s all right. I understand. I just wish you didn’t feel like you have to keep secrets from me.

I hope you feel better.

Kibum

***Kibum,

I’m not keeping secrets from you! I mean… there are things that I want to tell you. I just can’t. Not yet. I hope I feel better too. Really, don’t worry about it.

Thanks. *hugs*

Henry

***Henry,

*hugs back*

Kibum

***Kibum,

I’m feeling better! And really, don’t worry about me at all. I’m just being melodramatic as usual, lol XD

Clinton’s coming back for summer next week. THAT’S why I’m so jealous of college kids—they spend so much less time at school, even when they live there! Lucky! Though Clint usually does complain that he’d rather be back in college… I just think he’s lying XD

Anyways, I never told you this (probably because we hadn’t talked much on MSN back when we were emailing and I was being depressing) but I got a 2200 on the SATs! Yay! Does Korea have something like the SATs, too? I looked at my transcript from my guidance counselor, too, it seems pretty good. Though that C in Algebra II that I got in freshman year always makes me cringe. .

Finals are coming up soon! Aka in three weeks. I’m so psyched. Not. :(

How about you?

Henry

***Mochi,

I’m happy to see that you’re feeling better. I was starting to get really worried. I barely ate for three days—then again, I never eat. And you’re using emoticons and an excessive amount of punctuation again! That’s the Henry I know.

Haha, yeah, I can’t wait until we’re in college too. And I’m sure with my help, you’ll be able to do the schoolwork. And you can visit your family every break, too. Clint secretly loves it, trust me.

Oh, congratulations on your SAT scores! You’ll definitely get into Berklee, with that score and your grades, plus your extracurriculars (soccer and violin and all). I have complete confidence in you. And I think colleges will want to see how you improved, so once they see that A you have in Trigonometry right now, that’ll definitely blow them out of the water.

Korea has university entrance exams. I might want to go to a college in America, though, so I think after I take them, I’ll transfer them over to some American colleges. Don’t know where I want to go yet.

Good luck with those finals! And talk to me again on MSN, won’t you?

Love, Kibum

***Mochi,

I’ll be at your front door in three days. Mom wants me to pick stuff up for her first. Wait for me.

Kibum

V. The Next Step

Kibum hadn’t changed much since Henry had last seen him, but Henry had felt like everything had changed. From the way he walked, from the way he looked at him, from the way their arms would accidentally brush whenever they leaned too close against each other…

For months now, Henry had been contemplating his friendship with Kibum. It had started when he became aware that he was signing his emails to Kibum with “love”, and that Kibum was signing them like that back—though that was probably just to parallel him or something. Henry didn’t know why he had done it in the first place—it just sort of felt instinctive, the same way you would do with a brother or sister. But when Henry stared at the email right before he sent it, it wasn’t the same. It felt different, saying “love” to Kibum. Because Kibum wasn’t his brother. Sure, it’d be nice if Kibum was his brother… but he wasn’t. He wasn’t even like a brother. He was like something else.

And okay, Henry had known he was gay for ages now. But he hadn’t really been conscious about his feelings toward guys. Sure, he’d check some guys out and see who was cute and who had a nice ass—but it was all admiration, minimal infatuation, attraction. He never kissed guys, and when he masturbated, it was always too some imaginary guy in his mind. He wasn’t even sure if he was even thinking about a guy. It was all just natural, for him to beat off like he was eating or drinking or even sleeping. (Of course, masturbating wasn’t as important as those things, much less was on his mind as much—but he was a teenage boy, and it happened.)

So as giddy as he was for Kibum to come back to California for the summer, a little bit of himself was dreading it, as well. For not only had he developed feelings for his best friend over the summer of eleventh grade, but he was beginning to think about him while he jacked off. And that was not a good sign. That was not a good sign at all.

Henry did his best not to think about it.

An afternoon a few days after the last day of school, he waited anxiously at his front door for Kibum to arrive. It wasn’t the sort of anxious where he felt like he was going to throw up—but the anxiousness that was going to stay forever, and he had no idea what the hell to do. Because Henry really had no idea what to do. He swallowed, and told himself to stay focused.

When Kibum rang the doorbell, Henry opened the door.

“Hey,” Henry greeted, as if Kibum appeared on his doorstep every day even though they hadn’t seen each other for about six months.

“Hey.” Kibum grinned back; Henry swallowed. “Want to help me with my stuff?” He gestured to the bags next to his feet.

Henry nodded, and together the two of them got Kibum’s suitcase, backpack and duffel bag and dragged them into the family room. Once they were done, they plopped onto the leather couch.

Kibum turned to Henry.

“Hey,” he said again.

Henry made a noncommittal noise.

“Are you all right?” Kibum asked concernedly, leaning closer to him.

Henry managed to nod. “I’m fine,” he said. “It’s just… really hot. Heat waves make me think slower.” He fanned himself and thought, What the hell did I just say?

Kibum grinned again (Henry tried to tear his gaze away from him) and felt Henry’s burning forehead. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, his voice teasing.

Henry tried to relieve himself from the aftershocks of Kibum’s touch. “I’m perfectly fine!” he said, perhaps a bit too loudly and too defiantly. “Just… tired and all. You know.”

“Well okay.” Looking a bit alarmed but not too concerned at this outburst, Kibum retracted his hand. “So, what’s new with you?”

“Um…” Henry racked his brains and tried to distract himself from staring into Kibum’s eyes too long. “Girls,” he blurted out, and then wondered why the fuck he said that.

“Girls?” Kibum raised an eyebrow. “What about girls? Did you finally get a girlfriend?”

“No, no!” said Henry, shaking his head rapidly. “No, that’s not what I mean, I…”

“Henry, you really don’t look that good at all,” Kibum stated, pulling a frown. “I’ve been here for five minutes and you’re talking more nonsense than you ever have in your whole life. Is something the matter?”

“No, I’m fine, really!” Henry said, and hoped his voice wasn’t too loud or shaky. “I think we should go play video games. There’s something I wanted to show you!”

“Okay.” Kibum continued frowning, but followed him as Henry jumped off of the couch and ran upstairs.

Once they were in his room, Henry did an imaginary pace inside his head. Stop freaking out, he told himself. It’s just Kibum. It’s not like heknows anything. Pretend nothing’s changed. It’s all the same, the way everything used to be. There’s no way he’d figure out, anyways.

“What did you want to show me?” Kibum asked curiously, settling down on Henry’s worn beanbag.

Henry grabbed the Sims game from the side of his desk and popped it into his computer. “This,” he said, thinking quickly on his feet. “Remember how I told you that there was that computer game where we had a house together? This is it.”

“Oh!” Kibum looked pleased. “Show me! I want to see!”

“That’s what I’m doing now.” Henry laughed. This is easy, he thought. Distracting myself. If I can keep this up for the next four weeks…

He was extremely aware, though, when Kibum knelt next to the chair he was sitting in and their arms brushed, gently. Henry prevented himself from flinching, and noticed that Kibum didn’t even seem to notice at all. It’s probably always been this way, he thought to himself,and I’m only starting to notice now. Damn, this is going to be really hard…

And it was. For the rest of the night, and for the next several days, Kibum was the way he had always been—touchy, friendly, extremely intimate, even though they were still friends. Henry had to suppress every urge to blush and physically react to these touches, and told himself that Kibum was just a friend, nothing more, and that’s all he’ll ever be, like he had been doing for the past few months.

But, of course, it didn’t work. And his feelings for Kibum remained as intact as ever.

It was a bit of a problem in the mornings. But Henry made sure that he woke up before Kibum, anyways, in order to go to the bathroom, and bit his lip so he wouldn’t say something that he’d soon regret.

***

One week in, and Henry decided that no matter what his feelings were, his best friend was over and he hadn’t seen him in ages so he was going to make the most of it, dammit! Who cared if he had a crush on him? (He did.) Who cared if he was both physically and emotionally attracted to him? (He did.) Who cared if every little thing Kibum did made Henry jittery and nervous and excited all at the same time? (He did.) He was his best friend for goodness’ sakes, so they were going to spend all the time they could together!

(He still liked him liked him, though.)

So the next Monday, when Henry and Kibum had the house to themselves for the first time since Kibum had gotten here, Henry decided that they weren’t going to lounge around and play video games all the time. They were actually going to do something.

“We are actually going to do something,” he declared over breakfast.

Kibum looked up from his cereal. “Haven’t we been doing things all week?”

“Yes, but we’ve been inside the house the whole time,” Henry said patiently. “It’s time we’ve had some fun! It’s time we get some sunlight!” He pumped his fist in the air.

“Sounds good.” Kibum turned back to his cereal. “Finish your breakfast, will you?”

“Fine, fine,” Henry grumbled, and shoved a spoonful of milk and Corn Pops into his mouth.

They finished their breakfast, and then showered, dressed and brushed their teeth. As soon as Kibum had dried the last strand of his hair, Henry grabbed his wrist and tugged him toward the front door, saying, “We’re going to the water park now!”

“Water park? What water park?” Kibum blinked, like a lost puppy.

Henry cursed his brain for the Kibum-puppy analogies. “I told you a long time ago over chat,” he said. “There’s a water park on the edge of town that’s only open during the summer? I did tell you, right?”

“Oh yeah! I remember now,” said Kibum. “Awesome. But shouldn’t we get swimming suits, first?”

“Oh—right.” Henry turned pink and tried not to think of Kibum shirtless. “You brought your trunks?”

“Of course. What’s a summer without any swimming?” Kibum waggled his eyebrows at him. “Hold on, I’ll go change!”

He ran off to the family room. Henry told his pants to calm down, and then went upstairs to change into his own trunks.

They met back up at the front door within a matter of seconds, and once Henry was sure he had his house key, they took off for the water park. It wasn’t very far away from Henry’s house—perks of living in a town, was that everything was within walking distance—and it took them about twenty minutes to get there. By then, Kibum and Henry were both sweating like dogs and giggling like hyenas at the sight of each other panting and trying to breathe.

“I am… never running… a race against you… ever again,” Kibum managed through his stifled laughter and gasps.

“Soccer… did me well… I think,” Henry giggled, leaning against the fence of the water park. He regained his composure and managed to control his breathing again. “Let’s go on all the rides!”

They did. They went on all the rides they could see—water rollercoasters, boat rides, water slides, water tubes, and even the little kiddie rides in the back of the park. Henry had never known Kibum to be such a fun-loving guy, but apparently underneath his bookwormishness, there was a boy dying to ride the biggest and scariest rollercoaster. Man, not boy, he reminded himself, and blushed at the image that appeared in his mind. Luckily, Kibum was too busy wondering out loud which ride they should go on next, and didn’t notice at all.

(Henry was also lucky that Kibum had always been looking in another direction each time they sat closer to each other than normal friends (not best friends) would, for his face would turn a beet red that it would take an army to tone it down.)

They had lunch around twelve (Kibum remembered to bring extra money, since all of Henry’s money had gone to buying their park tickets), and then went on all the rides again. But once the afternoon sun got hotter and beat down on their backs like a hammer, the lines started getting longer as well.

Too lazy to wait in line for White Water Rapids, Henry turned to Kibum. “This is boring,” he said. “We should go play in the playground instead.”

“Playground?” Kibum’s eyes lit up. “What playground?”

“There’s a water playground,” Henry jerked his thumb backwards, “over there. There’s a small one for kids, but there’s another one for older kids like us, too—”

“Let’s go!” Kibum said eagerly, and grabbed his hand and ran to where Henry had pointed. Henry followed him, laughing.

“Well geez,” he said, once they were standing at the fence outside of the play area. “If I knew you liked playgrounds so much, I should have tried to get you to play on them when we were younger!”

“Oh, playing on dry land isn’t half as fun.” Kibum grinned and tossed his sandals off, and then stripped his shirt off so that he was standing only in his swimming trunks. “Come on, let’s play!”

Henry did his best not to gawk after Kibum as Kibum ran off into the playground and disappeared behind a large tower. Then shaking his head and smiling to himself, Henry took off his own shoes and shirt, tossed them into a pile with Kibum’s stuff, and ran to follow him.

“You can’t catch me!” he heard Kibum laugh somewhere beyond. A large jet of water streamed from above, and Henry looked up to see a long yellow metal tube hanging from above. Kibum was at the top of the playground, controlling the water.

“Asshole!” he cried, and then ducked under the bridge of the jungle gym and tried to find the nearest plastic staircase. However, when he was only a few feet away from him, he felt another stream of water hit him—he turned around to see Kibum at the other side with an attached-to-the-playground water gun in his hand, grinning.

“I told you you can’t catch me!” he shouted.

Henry let out a cry of amused indignation and clambered up the stairs as fast as he could, dodging the other kids who were playing, and got a water gun of his own. He looked around wildly for Kibum so he could shoot him—but where was he?

“Over here!” Kibum called, and Henry spun around to see Kibum on the far tower, laughing his ass off. Growling, Henry abandoned the water gun and sprinted down the fake bridge, to get to where Kibum was as fast as possible.

The two teenage boys chased each other around throughout the entire water playground, accidentally terrorizing little kids along the way. Finally, after too much running around, Henry finally cornered Kibum in a tower which only had a ladder to get down from.

Henry cackled. “I’ve got you now!” he cried. “There’s no place for you to g—whoa!”

He slipped as he ran toward Kibum, and landed on top of him with a very loud, “Oof!” His shoulder made contact with Kibum’s chest. He tried not to blush.

“Klutz,” Kibum laughed, shifting a little; Henry felt his upper arm brush against his nipple and heated up even more. He turned his head so that Kibum couldn’t see his red-as-a-tomato face.

“Get off me, will you? You’re not as light as your cheeks would suggest,” Kibum said with a smile in his voice. At first, Henry had thought,Cheeks? Ass cheeks? but then he realized what exactly Kibum was saying and got off of him as fast as he possibly could.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away and trying to calm his pants down and cool off his face and thinking, SHIT SHIT DOUBLE SHIT WHAT DO I THINK I’M EVEN DOING?

He heard Kibum laugh again from behind him, and turned around to see Kibum smiling. He prevented his eyes from straying to Kibum’s muscular arms or to his bellybutton or any lower.

“That was fun, wasn’t it?” said Kibum. “How about we gang up on the other kids at this place?”

Henry smiled as well.

“Let’s do it.”

***

So for most of the remainder of the summer, Henry and Kibum spent their time doing whatever they could before Kibum had to go away again. They went to the park again, to the zoo, to the movies, to the mall, and to Disney Land on a weekend. (They both later agreed that Disney Land wasn’t as good as it used to be. But that was probably because they grew up.) They even saw some of Kibum’s old friends along the way, to whom they said hello to and had a few conversations with.

Well into the next week, and the third week that Kibum had been here, they were walking around downtown, looking for something to do. Though walking around was already doing something, Henry realized, but he didn’t voice this thought out loud.

“Look! There’s a pottery shop!” Kibum said excitedly, and grabbed Henry’s hand and dragged him over to the front of the store. This was the fifth store Kibum had pretended to have remote interest in, and the fifth time Henry rolled his eyes and pretended that his fingers weren’t burning because Kibum was touching them. He wondered if Kibum felt it.

“There is absolutely nothing amazing about a pottery shop,” he stated once they were outside the glass window and Kibum had dropped his hand.

Kibum turned from pressing his sweaty nose against the window and gave Henry a mock glare. “Nothing amazing about a pottery shop? Blasphemy! Obviously you don’t appreciate anything about the ceramic arts!”

“I appreciate the culinary arts, that’s what I appreciate,” said Henry as his stomach growled. “Can we go get something to eat? Pleeease?” he whined.

“No,” Kibum said firmly. “Not until we teach your stomach to live for six hours with consuming anything. You remember what we discussed a few days ago, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Henry, not looking at Kibum’s stern glare. “‘The human body should be able to function for six hours without eating, otherwise all you get is extra fat and weight’—I get it. Not like my weight is anything I need to watch out for, anyways.” He poked his belly.

“Yes,” Kibum said patiently. “But still. It’s something you should consider, at the least. Oh look, a music store!”

“Music store?” Henry’s ears perked up. “Where?”

“Over there!” Kibum pointed to the other side of the street. Both of them took off after checking for cars, and soon enough had their noses pressed against the store window.

“Should we go inside?” Henry asked.

“If there’s air conditioning. I forgot how sickeningly hot it gets here.” Kibum pulled at his collar.

Henry tried not to stare at his neck. “Let’s check. I’ll go in first.”

He made his way to the front door and opened it. A bell rang, and a cool breeze rushed in his face. “Freedom!” he practically shouted, and walked into the store with Kibum on his heels. The feel of air conditioning was a relief to his soul and his body and his skin and, well, basically every part of him, inside and out.

Henry heard Kibum come in after him. “Ah, this feels much better,” he said, joining Henry at his side. “Shall we look around? We shouldn’t just stand here and do nothing.”

“Yeah,” Henry agreed, and the both of them made their way around the store.

It was any old instrument store—racks of guitars, rooms of pianos and keyboards, drum sets in a few corner, string instruments in another and a little shop especially for woodwinds. But Kibum looked at everything with such fascination that Henry couldn’t help being enamored as well. He watched as Kibum asked an employee if he could try a guitar (and failed at it), attempted at the drums (and failed at it), and then finally went to the pianos where he was actually pretty competent at. Henry played the piano as well (and tried to get Kibum to play “Heart and Soul” with him, but Kibum refused), and after much urging from Kibum, played a few notes on a violin. When they were well-rested and cooled off enough, they said good-bye to the employees who had taken a liking to them, and walked out of the shop.

“Well that was fun, wasn’t it?” Kibum said with a grin. “Even though it’s still hot as hell as here.” He exhaled and fanned himself with his hand.

“It is,” Henry agreed. “Why don’t we go to the middle of town and rest or something? And possibly get something to eat along the way?”

He batted his eyelashes when Kibum turned around to look at him, and then Kibum sighed. “Fine,” he said and Henry cheered. “But only if we go to one place of my choice before.”

“Sure!” said Henry. Then he stopped. “Wait, where are we going?”

“Bookstore.”

“Mean!” Henry hit Kibum over the head with the back of his palm. “You’re going to spend forever in there, two hours at the least—”

“Half hour at most, I promise,” said Kibum. Henry looked at him. “Well really! You can’t just tell me to go there and not browse through at least one shelf!”

“And by ‘browse’, you mean read the back cover of every book?”

“Yes,” Kibum said.

Henry continued giving him the look.

“Do we have a deal or not?”

Kibum stared at him back. Then Henry slumped his shoulders and sighed. “Fine. We can go to the bookstore,” he grumbled.

“Yay,” Kibum said. And when he looked to a disgruntled Henry, he just grabbed around his torso into a side embrace, not letting go. “Oh come on, Henry,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll have plenty of fun.”

Henry opened up his mouth to speak, but he was too distracted by the warmth of Kibum’s weight pressed into his side. He walked to the bookstore without a single complaint.

***

Summer went on without a hitch. Henry managed to go through his daily routine with only the occasional blushes that Kibum saw, and then the frequent blushes that happened when one of them was coincidentally turning their head. It didn’t matter, though, because Henry was determined to get over this stupid crush he had on his best friend so everything would feel right and normal again.

The day before Kibum had to leave to go back to Korea, sometime in mid-July, they decided to spend it not playing video games or staying at home, which is what they usually did on the weekends, but instead go out and do as much as they could before Kibum was gone. They spent most of their morning in the zoo, and then quickly left near lunch time to grab a bite downtown, and then went to the water park until the lines started getting long again. Then they went to see a movie—a really crappy one which they mocked and talked throughout, until the security guards had to come in and yell at them. It wasn’t like they were being really loud, though. It was just that either Kibum was saying a cynical remark, or Henry was sniggering immaturely at a double entendre that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Near late afternoon, they ran out of things to do. So Kibum suggested for them to walk around the park like they always did, and talk about whatever was on their minds. Unfortunately, the only thing on Henry’s mind was the way that they were pressed so close together that their hips were nearly touching and that sent feelings into places where feelings were not supposed to be sent, especially around one’s best friend.

“So,” he said, trying to get his mind off of his lower regions, and moving away from Kibum so that he could only barely feel his hot skin. “How’s life in Korea? Like, things you didn’t tell me online.”

“Uh.” Kibum chuckled. “I don’t know? I tell you everything through MSN, anyways.”

“I suppose.” Henry stared at his feet as they walked. “Uhh… how’s Eu… Eu… what’s her face.”

“Eunhee?” Kibum laughed. “That’s how you say it.”

“Eunhee,” Henry tried, saying it the way Kibum had.

“Right.” Kibum smiled at him. Henry quickly looked away. “Um. She’s fine, I guess?”

“Anything new with her?” Henry said cautiously.

Kibum furrowed his eyebrows. “I… can’t remember. Oh! She got a boyfriend a few weeks before we left, the son of one of her parent’s friends. He’s from Gwangju.”

“Oh.” Henry still didn’t look up. “Is she still your best friend in Korea?”

“Well duh,” said Kibum. “Though she’ll never be as good of a friend as you, of course.”

He bent his head down and tried to catch Henry’s eye. Henry glimpsed at him and managed a smile, before quickly looking away again.

“That’s cool,” he said. “I don’t really have a new best friend here, since you’re still my best friend from California, deep down at heart.” He laughed, but it sounded strange coming out of his mouth.

“True, true.” Kibum laughed as well. “But I’ll be your best friend all over the world, right?”

“Right,” said Henry. He still didn’t look at Kibum. But that wasn’t weird, of course. It wasn’t like they had to stare at each other all the time, right?

“I am a bit closer with Emily,” he said suddenly. “You know,” he glanced at him, “the girl who asked me out to prom? Well, she said she forgave me and she apologized, and was really embarrassed because she thought she misread the signs or something. But she said she hoped nothing weird was between us, and I said yeah, and we’ve been hanging out a lot ever since.”

He chanced another look at Kibum’s face, but his expression was blank. Empty. Nothing. No reaction at all.

“Good for you,” Kibum said, perhaps a bit absentmindedly. “It’s nice to know that you’re faring well without me.” He shot Henry a brief smile at this.

Henry looked back down. “I’m faring well, of course,” he said. “But not better. You know. Because I can never cope well enough unless you’re around.”

“You give me too much credit,” Kibum laughed. “Come on, let’s go to the elementary school.”

They walked toward the elementary school grounds. Henry briefly remembered what had happened the last time they were here. Kibum must have remembered too, because he tensed almost immediately. But Henry didn’t let this get to him, and he didn’t want to be seen as the lower person, so he continued on and ignored the stiffness in his own shoulders.

“It’s really been a while,” Kibum said thoughtfully, gazing to the sun which was setting into the distance behind some trees. “We’ve really grown up, haven’t we?”

“We have,” said Henry. “And yet, none of this has changed.”

“I don’t think any of it will change,” said Kibum. “Even as we grow up, the world will stay the same.”

“That’s awfully deep, even for you.” Henry sent Kibum a teasing grin, but Kibum didn’t seem to notice as he continued staring out to the setting sun.

“What’s Emily like?” he asked suddenly, turning to Henry.

“Oh. Well. You know.” Henry shrugged, and tried to think of some adjectives to describe Emily. Even though he had never given it much thought, there were definitely things he liked about Emily. Like…

“She’s smart. Funny. Pretty. Sarcastic sometimes, too.” He shrugged. “Reads books a lot, though,” he added, looking pointedly at Kibum, “not as much as you. Also plays a lot of video games for a girl, and can kick my ass at mo—some games.”

Kibum grinned at him and Henry took a deep breath. “You were about to say ‘most games’, weren’t you?” he said, amused.

“Hey, she has two older brothers and plays with them all the time!” Henry said defensively.

“Yeah, yeah. Right.” Kibum waved his hand playfully at him. “Did you get any girlfriends?”

The question was so sudden that it nearly caught Henry off guard. “No,” he said immediately. “Didn’t we go over this? I really haven’t had a girlfriend in… well, actually, I’ve never had a girlfriend.”

“Never gone on any dates?” Kibum raised an eyebrow.

“Well—”

Henry stopped. Was he really going to tell Kibum that he hadn’t gone on a single date with a girl, not even a measly one that didn’t even work out?

“Well I’ve been to a movie with Monica once,” he said, deliberately leaving out the fact that they had only gone as friends because Monica had a boyfriend already. “We saw some chick flick. It wasn’t so bad.”

“And you asked her out?”

“Well no,” Henry confessed. “But you know—it was a mutual agreement thing. ‘Cause we both wanted to go to the movies together. Duh”

“Duh,” Kibum echoed. He looked to Henry again. “And you really aren’t interested in any girls at all right now?”

Henry focused his eyes on the grass near his feet. A ladybug sat on a tiny leaf. “No,” he said as truthfully as he could. “I’m not.”

Kibum was silent at this. Henry lifted his eyes up to see that Kibum was looking pensively at the elementary school grounds, past the soccer field and to the large hill that creased to the other side.

“Why are you so interested, anyways?” Henry asked suddenly. “How about you? Get it on with any Korean girls?”

Kibum’s face turned stony. “No,” he said shortly. “I haven’t. In fact, I was so concentrated on my schoolwork that I didn’t even have time to think about anything aside from my classes, and you.”

“Oh.” Henry turned back to the ground. Had he said something wrong? What had he done to set Kibum off?

Kibum’s expression softened. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped like that.”

“Is there… Is there something you want to tell me?” Henry was completely aware of the irony of the fact that he was the one who had just said that, but he didn’t care—Kibum’s reaction certainly had been… unexpected.

Kibum shook his head. “I’m fine, really.” He managed a chuckle and glanced at Henry. “Come on, we still have a lot of ground left to cover.”

They continued walking along the elementary school field in silence, while Henry racked his brains and tried to figure out why the hell Kibum had acted like that. Kibum usually wasn’t one to lose his cool, and even under the most awkward situations, he always seemed to be at least a little bit comfortable. But back there, he had completely lost it, or something. Was there a secret girlfriend that Henry didn’t know about? Who Kibum had never told him about? This thought made Henry’s stomach burn; Kibum shouldn’t be keeping secrets like that, especially ones that he didn’t like talking about. He’d tell them to Henry, at least.

But then again… why wouldn’t Kibum tell Henry? Maybe Henry was just being a bit paranoid. Yes, that must be it—Kibum basically told Henry everything, even the unnecessary things that they both thought were stupid. It was because of those that they knew that they could talk about anything and everything to each other, because even the most pointless things had their significance. The same way both Kibum and Henry weren’t exactly the most important people in the world—but to each other, they were more important than the world.

Henry’s train of thought was cut off when suddenly Kibum stopped in front of him, making Henry bump into his back. Blushing slightly, and retreating, Henry tilted his head to the side.

“Kibum…?”

Kibum turned around. His expression was strange; Henry had never seen it on him before. His eyes, though: his eyes looked the same as they always did whenever he looked at Henry. Black, warm, affectionate. But something about this look was definitely different, and it made Henry wary when he looked up at him.

“Kibum, are you all right?” he asked, timidly.

Kibum continued staring at him—Henry suddenly was aware of how close they were. Or had they not been this close before, and one of them had taken a step closer? He could see every last detail of Kibum’s face, despite being a few centimeters shorter—he could count every eyelash, look at himself in the reflection of Kibum’s clear contacts, notice the pinkness of Kibum’s gums in his slightly open mouth, and his hip was pressing against Henry’s, digging into him, crushing into him, warm and bony…

Henry’s fist collided with the front of Kibum’s face. He had no idea why he did it—instinct took over and his brain was screaming, RETREAT! RETREAT! and he staggered backwards and watched as Kibum covered up his now freely bleeding nose. Henry had no idea what he had just done. Why he had punched Kibum. Why he didn’t let him move in any closer. And why, why he was just staring at Kibum awkwardly as Kibum tried to look at him through his fingers, and why his heart was pounding in his chest, so loudly that he could hear it through his ears; and for a moment, Henry could see black.

He had no idea what to do. What to feel. What to say. What to think. And he had just punched his best friend in the face, probably broke his nose, when he was so sure that they were about to kiss, so sure…

Henry didn’t have any other choice. He ran.

***

Henry apologized later that night, when he finally confronted Kibum again. Kibum had said it was all right and that it was understandable, but that unreadable expression spread across his face and Henry didn’t know what it meant.

But that was the least of Henry’s worries. Because he and Kibum had definitely come too close for comfort, way too close for comfort. In all his years of living, he had never been so close to someone so much that he had noticed absolutely everything and was no longer aware of his own breathing, but of the other’s; no longer felt his own heartbeat, but the other’s; no longer looked with his own eyes, but through the other’s.

And he was scared. He was definitely scared. Because he had no idea what it meant, and why Kibum hadn’t moved first, and why, why did it seem like they were so close to kissing when it was the last thing that Henry wanted? Well of course, actually, it was the only thing he really wanted—but he knew Kibum would never go for him, because first of all, he was Kibum, and second of all, because he was Kibum. And if they kissed, it would only end in shit, and Henry really, really didn’t want to end in shit.

That night they went to sleep early and barely talked to each other, probably because of that afternoon’s events. They didn’t even touch each other at all, and even though their sleeping bags were side-by-side on the family room floor, not even the edges grazed each other. It was different, weird, and overall, made Henry feel completely miserable. He hated this awkwardness that had suddenly come between him and Kibum. He hated how they were perfectly fine, up until that moment when Kibum had stopped and Henry had been stupid enough to stay there, so close behind him, so close that he ended up punching him and that changed everything.

When he woke up, he felt like he had barely gotten any sleep at all. Of course, as usual, he woke up before Kibum and did his business in the bathroom. Afterward, he came back into the family room to see Kibum rubbing his eyes, evidently just as tired as he was. Henry wondered if Kibum had stayed up all night pondering over their relationship, too.

They barely touched, pointedly went out of their way to avoid brushing against each other, and Kibum had even handed Henry his spoon with the tip facing backwards so Henry could hold onto the handle. So Kibum had noticed their discomfort as well. And he didn’t like it any more than Henry did.

The car ride to the airport was more silent than usual, though neither of Henry’s parents, nor Clinton or Whitney commented on the quietness of the two boys in the back. And when they dropped Kibum off at the security station, Henry hesitated as he saw him off.

“I…” He reached up, perhaps preparing for a hug, but then brought his hand back down. “Stay safe,” he said to Kibum, keeping a good arm’s length away from him.

Kibum nodded, just as resolutely. “You too,” he said. “IM me over MSN, and stuff. And emails, if you don’t have a time.”

“Yeah.” Henry let out a forced chuckle. “Say hi to Eunhee for me and all that, all right?”

“All right.” Kibum exhaled slowly. “Well… bye then.”

“Good-bye, Kibum,” said Henry.

Kibum nodded, and then grabbed his bags and started walking through the security gates. Henry watched him one last time, before turning around to go home.

***

Henry/Mochi (if you still want me to call you that, haha),

I’m back in Korea. Well I’ve been back for a few weeks now—school starts soon. How are you?

Kibum

***

Hey Kibum!

I’m pretty good. We haven’t talked on MSN for a while, have we? Will you be on Friday night? (And by that I mean in the morning in your time; I assume you will since it’s the weekend?)

I’m all right. :) Just enjoying the last few days of summer, and stuff. Doing summer work, you know. :P

Still missing you, as always,
Henry

***

Henry,

I can’t get on MSN tonight. My dad wants me to help him out with cleaning up our apartment, and then we have to go into town for shopping. Sorry. Some other time though? Hopefully we’ll catch each other sometime.

College applications are this year, aren’t they? You still applying to Berklee?

Missing you too,
Kibum

***

Henry,

Sorry about that, last night. I didn’t mean to leave five minutes into our instant messaging chat. Saehee came in asking me about something, and then I had to leave to eat dinner and do homework and I completely forgot. Hope you’ll forgive me.

Kibum

***

Happy birthday, Henry! Just letting you know I didn’t forget. =) How are things in the States?

Kibum

***

Hey Kibum! Wow, that was unexpected. Thanks :D

All right, if I do say so myself. All the teachers are on our backs to make us not slack off this year, since it’s senior year (even though I’m only fifteen—I think a lot of the teachers forget that XD) and colleges want the half year report. I’m already applying to colleges—almost done with my Berklee one, and I think I might go for a few arts and music schools in New York and Pennsylvania. How about you? How do the college things work in Korea?

Henry

***

Henry,

It’s no problem. After all, you did wish me happy birthday over MSN a few months ago, so I had to do the same, didn’t I?

Sounds good! Technically, I should stay in high school in South Korea for a couple of more years, since that’s when you’re supposed to graduate—but since I want to go to college in the States, I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and take the crazy Korean exam, and then have it transferred to the American universities. I’ve already applied to a few places, though, so hopefully it’ll all turn out okay.

Kibum

***

Henry,

Happy Halloween! That is, if it’s still Halloween in your time, haha.

Kibum

***

Henry,

Happy Thanksgiving! Also, think you could catch me on MSN tonight? And by tonight, I mean for you—I’ll be free all day.

Let me know. Or maybe I’ll just wait for you.

Kibum

***

Kibum!

Sorry I didn’t catch you on MSN last night :( Just got your email this morning, and I feel terrible. *sighs* It really feels like we haven’t talked to each other in forever, doesn’t it? I guess we just keep missing each other.

Will you be coming up for winter break this year?

Henry

***

Henry,

Of course I will! What makes you think I won’t?

And that’s all right. We’ll take our chances. I mean, it’s not like we’re avoiding each other or anything.

Kibum

***

Kibum,

Right, of course not, haha XD And okay! I’ll be looking forward to you coming over.

Henry

***

Henry,

I’ll be there in a week, in case we don’t get to talk beforehand and you didn’t know already. Merry Christmas in advance.

Kibum

***

Kibum,

Merry Christmas in advance to you too! Though you probably won’t read your email until after you get back. But just so you know that I wished you a Merry Christmas. ^^

Henry

***

Henry,

Thanks.

Kibum

***

Henry wasn’t sure what to expect this winter break. After all, the last time he and Kibum had seen each other, they hadn’t left on the best of terms. True, it wasn’t like they hated each other, since they did send the occasional email and instant message. But even those had become even less frequent. And even though Kibum had said that it wasn’t like they were avoiding each other, Henry felt like that that was exactly what they were doing.

Still, he was as excited as ever to have his best friend back. Cyberspace just wasn’t the same as physical interaction. And even if the physical interaction made them both jumpy and more uncomfortable than normal, it was still there, right? And that was all that mattered, really.

So when Kibum rang the doorbell, Henry greeted him with a beatific smile on his face. And when Kibum said hello, Henry hugged him, as usual. The hug was stiff, and Kibum barely hugged back; neither of them acknowledged it, and Henry helped Kibum move his stuff in.

They exchanged their usual banter, though it seemed a bit more polite and a lot less loose. Henry was sure that his parents, his brother, and even his sister had sent them strange looks all day, but he didn’t care—it didn’t matter to them, what happened between him and Kibum, anyways. They were the best friends, and his family wasn’t involved. Let them think what they think. It didn’t matter to Henry, anyways.

(Henry did wonder what they were thinking though, and he wondered what Kibum thought about all of this. If Kibum noticed the slight tension that had fallen between them for several months now. If Kibum detected the friction that sizzled every time their hands touched, or their eyes met.)

They gave each other their Christmas presents—Henry had gotten Kibum a pair of headphones and an iPod case for the iPod he had gotten him ages ago; and Kibum got Henry the usual pack of Korean candies (the wrappers and bags of which Henry still collected), as well as little plush toys that Henry put on his dresser. Henry noticed that Kibum’s eyes strayed to the stuffed hamsters that were still lying on his bed, the stuffed hamster that Henry slept with every night—Henry quickly ushered him out of the room and said that they should eat lunch.

The afternoon was probably the strangest afternoon Henry had ever spent with Kibum. After lunch, they retreated back to Henry’s room where they played video games without a word—which was strange, because they’d always taunt and tease each other into submission. And then when they ate dinner, they would let the other speak first without trying to interrupt or shout over the other, and apologized too quickly and too much.

Henry had no idea what was going on between him and Kibum. And he didn’t like it at all. It was weird, to be with your best friend and have no idea what to talk about, have no idea what to feel, and most of all, have feelings for him and forget how to act like the way it used to be, the way that it should be.

***

Kibum’s breathing was shallow, but Henry wasn’t fooled: Kibum never breathed deeply anyways. It just wasn’t his style. He was still awake, and Henry knew it.

The two boys stared at the two glass windows on the ceiling, moonlight spilling into the room. It was silent.

Henry thought about the winter before. When they had snuck outside and ate a winter picnic, when he had fallen into the snow and they got caught. He smiled a little bit. It was a nice memory. They were both stupid, but they were both happy.

He thought about the summer. When he had seen Kibum for the first time, had actually seen him. As more than a friend or a best friend. As something else he didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t seem to get out of his mind. He thought about the way their skin would brush and burned. When he lay on top of Kibum when they were in the water park, and the water felt like fire. When Kibum hugged him so close that their bodies aligned with each other. When Kibum was barely millimeters away from his face, and Henry had punched him and gave him a bloody nose.

His stomach jumped.

“Henry,” Kibum whispered into the dark.

Henry continued staring at the ceiling.

“Yeah?”

“Did you… Did you get into college?”

“Oh. Right.” Henry nearly hit himself in the face. How could he have forgotten to tell Kibum? “Yeah, I applied early in October to Berklee. Letters came a few weeks ago. I got in.”

He heard Kibum exhale deeply. “Good. Congratulations.”

Henry tilted his head a little.

“How about you?”

Kibum shrugged. “I’m moving back,” he said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Just because of me?” Henry couldn’t help teasing.

Kibum scoffed, though there definitely was a light tone to it. “Don’t get to full of yourself,” he said. “I did tell you I wanted to go to college here, anyways.”

“Yeah,” said Henry. “But you are sort of moving back for me, even just a little, am I right?”

He glanced to Kibum again to see that Kibum’s cheeks had turned an odd shade of pink. He didn’t respond though. Henry looked up to the ceiling, feeling inexplicably happy. He knew that was a sign of yes, even if Kibum hadn’t said anything.

“So,” he said. “What college did you apply to, then?”

Kibum exhaled again.

“Berklee.”

Henry blinked.

“Berklee? Like, the one that I applied to?”

He heard Kibum’s head shift on his pillow. “Yeah.”

“Any place else?”

“No. I didn’t want to waste money.”

Stunned, Henry turned a little so that he could see the profile of Kibum’s face. “But…” He bit his lip. “But what if you didn’t get in? Then where will you go? Did you even apply to a college in Korea? Will you stay here?”

Kibum chuckled. “No, I didn’t apply to a college in Korea.”

“But—” Henry frowned at the sky through the windows. “But what if you didn’t get in?” he repeated.

Kibum exhaled for a third time.

“I got my acceptance letter a few weeks ago.”

Acceptance letter… acceptance letter… The wheels worked in Henry’s brain, as he finally made sense of these words. Kibum’s acceptance letter came in a few weeks ago. Kibum’s acceptance letter came in a few weeks ago. Kibum’s acceptance letter for Berklee College of Music, the college that Henry had been talking about for about a year now, had come in a few weeks ago.

Kibum’s acceptance letter came in for a few weeks ago!

Henry quickly sat up in his sleeping bag to look at Kibum properly. “Are you really—” he started.

But then several things happened.

Henry’s sleeping bag had come up along with his back, causing him to slide up even further than he had intended to. What’s more, Kibum had noticed this and had moved over to help him, just so that he wouldn’t fall and nastily crack his head open against the coffee table behind them. This caused Henry to tumble face forward and suddenly his entire sleeping bag went along with him, and then Kibum rolled over as well from trying to protect him, and then they laid in a pile to the side, Kibum on top of Henry, and their noses bumped into each other and they both mumbled apologies and tried to make the situation less awkward and then their cheeks brushed and their mouths moved a little and they were—

—and they were kissing.

The initial shock had Henry frozen in place for a couple of seconds, but when it seemed like Kibum wouldn’t be moving any time soon, Henry closed his eyes and pressed his lips up against Kibum’s, harder. To his great, supreme, utter surprise, Kibum let out something that sounded like a moan into his mouth and adjusted his body so that he was in a much comfortable position on top of him, and kissed him back as well. Their lips worked against one another and Kibum sucked his bottom lip in and his wonderful, wonderful hands were running up and down Henry’s sides and his right leg was in between Henry’s, but not too awkwardly or too sensually, but just perfect, the way it should be. And Henry was kissing more than ever and sure it was awkward and sure it was his first kiss but he certainly hadn’t expected it to be like this, with Kibum, with his best friend. He had imagined his first kiss to be all sorts of things—awkward, foolish, clumsy, completely and utterly embarrassing—and while this definitely wasn’t a perfect kiss, because Henry’s hands were clammy and he was probably shaking from underneath Kibum, and Kibum sort of smelled like sweat and oil (and it was delicious)—this was definitely the most amazing thing that Henry had ever experienced in his mere fifteen years of living so far.

They broke apart and gasped for air.

“I-I’m gay,” Henry stammered, looking up at Kibum’s pink flushed face highlighted by the moonlight.

Kibum chuckled, and glowed even more. “Well it’s a little late for saying that, isn’t it?”

Henry rolled his eyes and grabbed Kibum’s collar, and pushed him down on him again. Their mouths parted and Henry could feel every inch of Kibum, could taste every bit of what he tasted like at night. He was warm and nice and smelled not like vanilla or chocolate or any other sweet scent that Henry always liked—but he smelled like Kibum, and Henry concluded that it was the best smell in the world.

When they parted again, Kibum beamed at him. “I like you,” he said simply.

Henry laughed, and bubbles filled up his stomach, all the way to his heart. “Who’s late in saying stuff now?” he teased, and Kibum ducked his head down to kiss him once more.

They fell asleep after much needed kissing and unneeded talking, because Henry knew that that would come in the morning. But right now, he had Kibum, and he’d have Kibum after high school and into college. And after that—well, who knew? The only thing important was that they were here, right now, and they were together. And that, Henry thought just before he drifted off to sleep, was enough.

***

Henry woke up to the sound of his father yelping in the kitchen. He groggily lifted his head up—and realized that he had been sleeping with his head in the crook of Kibum’s neck, his arm slung around Kibum’s torso, and they had been in this position from night to morning.

He was about to leap off and claim that they hadn’t done anything, but the damage was done. When he looked back up to his dad, his dad looked as astonished as anything.

Kibum must have noticed the absence of his warmth, because then he opened his eyes and said in a tired voice, “Wazzat?”

Henry continued gawking at his dad, who was gawking right back.

But then something extraordinary happened:

His dad laughed. Laughed.

“Honey!” he called upstairs. “Whitney, Clinton! Come down!”

“What is it, Dad?” said Whitney’s voice from above, as Henry continued staring at his dad, completely bemused. He could hear Whitney running down the stairs, down the hall, and into the kitchen—and once she saw Henry and Kibum’s intimate position, a wide smile spread across her face.

“EEEE!” she shrieked, and then ran right back up the stairs.

Henry glanced at Kibum, who was looking just as confused as he was. Apparently Henry wasn’t the only one who had no idea what was going on.

“Clint! Clint! Mom, you’ve got to see this—oh my god, I can’t believe it!”

“What, dear?” said his mom’s voice, and then Whitney cried, “Come downstairs and have a look!” They both went down the stairs, Whitney dragging her mother by the hand, and walked into the kitchen.

“Look!” she said, pointing at Kibum and Henry in the family room.

Kibum and Henry blinked at them.

“Oh, dear!” Henry’s mom beamed. “I can’t—oh my god, I can’t believe it! Clinton! Come on!”

A third pair of footsteps clambered down the stairs, and then Clinton came into the kitchen, rubbing his unruly hair and looking at all of them through his half-open eyes. “What is it? Geez, Whitney, you sure brew up a—storm.”

He stared at Kibum and Henry. Kibum and Henry stared back at him.

And then Clinton grinned.

“Finally,” he said. He walked into the family room and clapped Henry on the back. “Good job, little bro. It took you guys long enough.”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” Kibum said suddenly as Clinton retreated back into the kitchen.

“Nice to know that I’m not alone,” Henry murmured.

“Oh, boys,” said his mom. Whitney squealed again.

“It really did take you guys long enough,” his dad said, and Clinton nodded vigorously.

“Whatever.” Henry rolled his eyes.

He absently grabbed for Kibum’s hand, as if it was natural instinct. Which it was, but this time, it meant something totally different. And they both knew it.

Henry looked at Kibum and smiled. Kibum smiled right back. His smile had never been any brighter.

FIN.

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Notice:

No Matter What

by aroceu

Summary:

Notes:

I. The Beginning

II. The Changes

III. The Separation

IV. The Reunion

V. The Next Step

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© 2009-2026 aroceu