Before I Knew You

The first words out of Seunghyun’s mouth were, “It was before I knew you.” He didn’t really know why. It was just the thing that came to mind as he watched Jiyong’s face crumple as if in slow motion. It was shock; he’d been expecting shock – but there was something else there. Panic? Could it be panic? Seunghyun knew Jiyong’s expressions so well by now, and this was just the way he’d looked that time in Singapore when they got on stage in front of thirty-thousand people and realized their earpieces didn’t work and they wouldn’t be able to hear themselves sing. But that didn’t make sense. What was there to panic about? He was just shocked, that was all, shocked that his hyung had done something like this, that he'd risked his reputation in that way at a time when he’d been desperate to get signed to YG, that he’d never told Jiyong when they’d told each other about practically every sexual encounter they’d ever had.

Was that it? It had to be. But why was Seunghyun’s instinct to say “It was before I knew you”? What did that mean?

He watched Jiyong swallow hard and turn away from them to face forward. The line had finally started moving.

“Jiyongie, it’s not a big deal,” Seunghyun said. “It was just a joke thing. We were drunk and teasing each other and, you know, it just happened. No one even saw but Minkyu.”

Jiyong glared at him, his jaw set. “It is a big deal,” he whispered through his teeth. Seunghyun knew all this was made a thousand times worse by the fact that Minkyu was here with them. God, when had Minkyu become such an asshole? He’d always enjoyed catching up with Minkyu and Hyunsu when his schedule allowed – it felt like old times, when he was still a chubby nobody who rapped in shitty basement clubs and didn’t have a manager watching every move he made. And the few times he’d brought Jiyong along, Minkyu hadn’t been quite this bad, bringing up stories from their past nonstop and ignoring every effort to steer the conversation to neutral territory. Maybe it was because he’d just broken up with that girlfriend of his, the girl who’d totally stared at Jiyong the one time they’d met.

The bus was almost full when they got on, so they headed down the aisle, Seunghyun trying to wipe the grimace from his face for appearance’s sake. Jiyong was behind him, but he sensed immediately when the younger man sat down in a single empty seat next to some noona who looked like all her dreams had just come true.

Seunghyun leaned down and spoke quietly into Jiyong’s ear. “Jiyongie, there are seats together in the back.” He didn’t want to make this a big deal. He also really, really didn’t want to sit apart from Jiyong.

Jiyong turned to him, his expression ice. “Sorry Hyung, I’m going to sit next to someone who hasn’t shattered my world today,” he said, so softly Seunghyun barely heard, but his voice like steel.

“Seughyunie!” Minkyu called from the pair of seats he’d gotten at the back of the bus. Seunghyun sighed and headed back to sit next to him.

What did Jiyong have to be so upset about? It didn’t affect anything. No one would find out unless Jiyong was stupid enough to carry on like this, making scenes in public. And god, it was so long ago. It was before they’d really become friends, before Seunghyun had been signed, before they were doing this crazy thing together, before anyone cared who Seunghyun was. He’d still been chubby. Well, not that chubby – he was in the midst of losing weight and had even stuck to his restricted diet on the trip while his classmates gorged themselves on junk food. But even still, no one at his school had believed he’d actually get signed, that he’d actually become famous. That was why he’d done stupid stuff like make out with Hyunsu on a joke dare back then: because he’d felt stuck in his stupid fat body and his stupid school and his stupid boring life. He’d been rejected from YG; his chance at stardom gone, his chance at keeping up with Jiyong gone. Even though Jiyong had insisted he could re-audition, that they would take him if he could just lose a little weight, even though he sent him encouraging text messages from time to time, even though he was doing everything he could to get back, be better, win a spot – underneath there’d been fear, and doubt, and underneath he’d felt it all slipping away.

Seunghyun squirmed in his seat next to Minkyu, who was prattling on about what he’d heard about the reception (five-hundred people, a cocktail hour like at American weddings, filet mignon for the main course). He could hear, from halfway down the bus, that Jiyong was talking to the woman he was sitting next to about how she knew the bride and groom. Not that Jiyong was talking so loud; it was that Seunghyun was very good at picking Jiyong’s voice out of a crowd.

Okay, so maybe he should’ve told Jiyong about this before. They were close. They were really close. They clicked in a way that had frankly shocked him – Jiyong was so different, so bubbly, so effusive – and Seunghyun had told Jiyong things he hadn’t told anyone else. Including quite a lot of sexual things. Jiyong loved talking about sex. He always wanted to know who Seunghyun was sleeping with and what she was like in bed, and did she go down on him, and did he go down on her, and what did she taste like, and did he kiss her after she’d gone down on him, and had a girl ever licked his asshole? Because according to Jiyong, that was a good time.

Seunghyun shook his head, like he could shake free his thoughts. He couldn’t of course; he couldn’t stop seeing Jiyong’s face crumple. And the panic. Why panic? Was it panic? Was he scared someone had overheard, that it would be on the internet before they even got to the reception? That was a possibility. Minkyu had whispered, and the people around them seemed to be in the middle of their own discussions, but you never knew.

Not that that would really matter. He’d just tell everyone it’d been a joke, which was true. After all, hadn’t all of Korea seen him kiss boys as a joke already? Including Jiyong, for crying out loud, in those stupid parodies. Could anyone really doubt his sexuality? If it did get out, it would blow over before long. There was no need to panic over it.

Jiyong raced off the bus ahead of Seunghyun when they reached the reception. It took a solid twenty minutes of pleasantries before Seunghyun could shake loose Minkyu, find Jiyong, and grab him by the wrist and drag him down the empty side hall that went to the bathrooms.

“Let me go, Hyung, we’re supposed to be taking pictures! These are your friends, you know.”

“Shut up Jiyongie. Why are you so upset about this? It was years ago!” Jiyong stared at him silently for a moment. “Well?” Seunghyun asked.

“Well do you want me to shut up or do you want me to tell you?”

Seunghyun sighed, exasperated, and clapped Jiyong around the ears. “Just tell me, asshole.”

Jiyong’s lips were pouted, the lower one glistening and sticking out a bit. “You always said that if you were going to experiment with someone of the same sex, it would be me.”

Seunghyun was stunned. He couldn’t believe those words had just come out of Jiyong’s mouth. “What are you talking about? I never said that.”

“Well, you implied it,” Jiyong snapped.

Seunghyun swallowed hard, his mouth and throat suddenly bone dry. “What the fuck?” he croaked. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Oh, don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. You’re such a fucking jerk, you know? God. You know why I’m mad.”

“Because I got drunk and kissed a friend as a joke when I was seventeen?”

“Yes,” said Jiyong coldly, arms crossed.

This was unreal. How could Jiyong just say all this stuff? How could he ruin this wedding for Seunghyun? How could he be mad at Seunghyun? Seunghyun was the one who should be mad at Jiyong, and he was, now that he thought about it. He was furious. “Well, you want to know something about that kiss, Jiyongie?” he asked. “Our dicks touched through our pants,” he hissed, and with that he turned and marched off to the private room where Minkyu and Hyeeun were taking wedding pictures. He heard Jiyong yowl with rage behind him and what sounded like a fist connecting with the wall.

Once in the room, a smile lit up Seunghyun’s face. A few moments later, Jiyong arrived, a big relaxed grin on his face too. They were professionals. They weren’t going to let this ruin Hyunsu and Hyeeun’s wedding. Other than Jiyong’s eyes lingering a moment on Hyunsu’s crotch when they shook hands and Jiyong looked him up and down, ostensibly checking out his suit, neither even hinted at what was going on. (And Seunghyun was pretty sure no one else noticed Jiyong sizing up Hyunsu’s junk.) They smiled placidly and followed the photographer's directions about where to stand, when to be in the picture, when to leave the shot. (They were both in almost every picture – one was just them standing on either side of Hyeeun, their arms all linked, which Seunghyun didn’t think made any sense since neither really knew her, but they did it without comment.)

At long last they were released and allowed to rejoin the dinner in the main room. They were seated at the same table, but Jiyong switched with another guest (“I already talk to him all the time! I want to talk to someone new!” he’d joked) and Minkyu drank very much very quickly and told Seunghyun he’d changed, then added, “Well! I’m just saying! Lighten up, Seunghyunie!”

Seunghyun barely acknowledge him. Jiyong’s words were running through his head on a loop: “If you were going to experiment with someone of the same sex, it would be me.”

And, well, if Seunhyun was one-hundred-percent honest with himself, more honest than he was really comfortable being with himself when he was in the middle of a room full of his old high school friends, he did know what Jiyong was talking about. It wasn’t like Jiyong hadn’t done certain things in the past that made Seunghyun, well...wonder. Like that time they’d picked up those two girls who tried to trick them into having an orgy and they’d left in a huff and Seunghyun had said “Can you believe that?” and Jiyong had said “Yeah, just trying to surprise us with it! Not even asking!” and Seunghyun wasn’t sure if Jiyong understood he was outraged at the whole idea of an orgy with another man and not just the fact that the girls had tried to trick them.

Or how Jiyong was always changing in front of him. Not just his shirt – he seemed to love walking around showing off his prominent ribs and the small, hard muscles of his chest – he changed his pants, too, and sometimes his underwear, although Seunghyun had never see anything other than Jiyong’s bony little butt.

Or, well, there was that time – okay, those times – that Jiyong had called him while he was having sex. Sex with girls. But he would call him and they’d chat for a while and then Seunghyun would ask why he was breathing weird and Jiyong would say, “Oh Hyung, I’m just keeping her warm,” and Seunghyun would shout, “Ugh, gross!” and as he hung up he’d hear Jiyong laughing and saying, “Hyung! Hyung! Come on…” and then the next time they’d see each other Jiyong would joke that it was like they’d had a threesome.

He made a lot of jokes, actually, and maybe, maybe, maybe they weren’t always jokes. Like how he’d grumbled when they saw in the Secret Garden script that Seunghyun was supposed to kiss Seungri for real but his and Jiyong's kiss would be fake. And grinned saucily when Seunghyun thought What the hell, the fans will love it and kissed Jiyong for real in the scene anyway. And then told everyone for weeks, “Seunghyun-hyung’s never kissed anyone as pretty as me.”

And, well, that day on the set, sitting across from him right before the kiss, Seunghyun remembered thinking that Jiyong really looked remarkably like Ha Jiwon. And that night, he’d had a sex dream about Ha Jiwon that he hadn’t thought was related until right now.

Seunghyun couldn’t help but sigh with relief when the reception was over. He made a beeline for the elevator – a bunch of them were staying in the hotel, because they’d had the idea to carry on the reception at the bar afterwards, but Seunghyun was certainly not up for that, and anyway Minkyu didn’t look too happy with him.

Ha Jiwon had been dressed up as a North Korean spy like in King 2 Hearts in that dream. It didn’t mean anything.