Trust

Fairy Lights, Jjajangmyeon

I hesitantly nod.

It's not a big deal if he says No, I try to convince myself. Sure, I wouldn't have bought those fairy lights if it wasn't for San, but- Yeah. It's no big deal. "We don't have to", I add quickly. "I'm sorry, it's stupid, it's just..."

San giggles. He fucking giggles, and then he tells me, "You're so cute, Woo."

"I- I what?", I splutter. No one has ever called me cute before. "I'm not, I just wanted to make everything, you know... special. I mean, I know it's not a- a date or anything, but I... yeah. I just thought it would be nice. Special. Yeah."

"'Special'?", San parrots. "What d'you mean by that?"

"I just think it should be better than the last times when we, uh...", I clear my throat, "when we did... stuff." Like when I sucked you off on our kitchen couch.

San's cheeks redden, which makes me wonder if he's now thinking back to the blowjob too. "You don't need to make anything special, Woo", he tells me. "It was all amazing. Remember how I kissed you in the party basement? Sure, the place wasn't super romantic or anything. But it felt good, it felt real, and that's all that should matter. That's all that matters to me. We don't need fairy lights or whatever." A beat passes. "I do like fairy lights though", he adds as an afterthought.

"Me too", I mumble.

For a moment, I'm certain that the movement San does is to reach out for my hand and pull me close and hug or maybe even kiss me too. But then our doorbell rings.

San lets his hand fall back to his side and blinks, disoriented. "Is that our dinner? Already?"

"I don't know, you tell me." I hesitate, weighing our options. "You'll go get the door and I'll go, uh... clean my room?"

"Alright. Sure." San turns to head for the door and I walk to my room - where the first thing I notice that I don't even have a hammer and nails to put the fairy lights up on the wall over my bed.

I've never been faster to clean up my room. It takes me about two minutes to diminish the chaos on my bed and floor, and another two to figure out that the fairy lights also look pretty and cast a warm glow when they're wound around my bed frame. Just this once, the socket on the wall is exactly where I need it.

"San?", I call out of my room when I'm finished, before stepping outside. San is sitting on our sofa again, two boxes of jjajangmyeon and two pairs of chopsticks on the table in front of him. He immediately looks up. "Are you done?", he wants to know.

"Yeah." I clear my throat. "You can come now."

He immediately gets up and hands me one of the food boxes plus two chopsticks. "Alright then."

It's only when I lead him the few steps to my room that I realize how fast my heart is beating. San however doesn't seem too nervous as he follows me inside. He grins when his gaze travels over my hopelessly overloaded desk, over my now spotless floor, to my shelf... then to my bed. "This looks nice", he comments on the fairy lights that now illuminate my bed frame in warm light, before walking over and sitting down on my mattress.

I'm still frozen in the doorway when San pats the space next to him. "Are you coming, Woo?"

"Yes." I finally manage to move. "Yes, sure." I sit down next to him. Pull yourself together and act normal, Wooyoung. I scoot backwards until I can lean my back against the wall. "I mean, it's nothing fancy, but..."

"Didn't we just talk about that?", San reminds me, scooting backwards until he's sitting against the wall too. "Oh, wait - so, look at this." He opens his styrofoam box. The smell of the black bean sauce immediately makes my mouth water.