Yes Homo

Seunghyun has always been a bit behind – a late bloomer, his mother likes to say. In Korea he could never quite keep up in class, and when they moved to the States and the curriculum was much easier, he still couldn’t quite keep up because of how long it took him to get a grasp on English. (And the ADD, which he wasn’t diagnosed with until age twelve, a solid five years later than average.) He had his first kiss at seventeen, and didn’t lose his virginity until he was nineteen, which probably isn’t that old in the grand scheme of things, but as a second-semester sophomore in college felt ancient. He didn’t decide what university he would go to until April 30, the night before the deadline, and didn’t declare a major until he already had eighty-seven credits. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise – though it still very much does – that Seunghyun doesn’t figure out that he might like guys until he’s halfway through the fall semester of his senior year at university.

Although maybe he doesn’t like guys, plural. Maybe he just likes one guy.

They have Modern Photography together, and Seunghyun notices him during their very first class, although not for the most romantic reason. Seunghyun had chosen (mistakenly, more likely than not) to attend a large state school, so many of his classes are the overwhelmingly-large type where you only really had to show up to take exams. But the art history department is smallish, and this class only has thirty or so students, so with attendance being mandatory, they have to go through the painful first-class ritual of reading off the roll. The professor – an adjunct Seunghyun doesn’t know – predictably butchers the pronunciation: “Uh...Soong-huh-yun Chuhoy?”

“I go by ‘Sam’,” Seunghyun says, feeling himself flush as his classmates all turn to look. He’d been nine when they moved to America, so he doesn’t have an accent, not really, but every time he has to explain his name to someone, the English words feel thick in his mouth and he notices every tiny phonetic transgression; every syllable that marks him as foreign. He never bothers correcting people’s pronunciation of ‘Choi’, just tells them ‘Sam, call me Sam’, and waits for them to move on.

Which he does. The professor. He makes a little note on his list and calls the next name, Brittany Davis, who has probably never experienced the weird anxiety of having a name people can’t say. But then, after Frank Fletcher and Katie Kublanovsky, the professor calls out “Jiyong Kwon?” and Seunghyun can’t help but turn to look in exactly the way he hates when his own name is called.

“‘Ji’ is fine,” he said – Ji Kwon, Kwon Jiyong – the guy, the guy Seunghyun is maybe a little bit attracted to.

Not right away. His first thought is just, Oh, he’s like me. Because obviously with a name like that he’s Korean, was born in Korea, but he has an American accent, so he’d moved here when he was young.

He also notices, somewhere in the back of his mind, that Ji Kwon has a very, very nice face. That he’s slender and elegant and somehow looks better in sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt than anyone else there. But those things feel objective and unimportant and Seunghyun’s main impression that day is that he happens to have a class with another person who came from Korea as a kid, which is only barely remarkable.

Then, in the sort of thing that makes you feel like fate is a little bit racist, Ji pulls Seunghyun’s name out of the bag to determine partners for the midterm research presentation. When he reads it aloud, he pronounces ‘Choi’ correctly, which briefly confuses their professor until he sees Seunghyun nodding his head.

They don’t actually have to spend that much time together – they divide up the work that day in class and have most of their remaining discussions over email and Google Docs – but twice when the professor finishes his lecture early, he has them spend the remaining class time working on their projects, and they drag two desks together and sit side-by-side, reviewing what they will say about Alfred Stieglitz and his contributions to modern photography. That’s when Seunghyun starts to notice that he likes Ji’s very, very nice face, and that Ji smells like flowers and leather and other things Seunghyun thinks smell good, and that when Ji smiles and laughs at Seunghyun’s stupid jokes, it makes his heart flip in a funny way. If you can believe it, even then Seunghyun still doesn’t really understand that he is maybe sort of attracted to Ji. That doesn’t happen until the day of the midterm when they meet in the library before class to practice their presentation, which Seunghyun doesn’t think is entirely necessary but Ji had suggested it and that makes Seunghyun want to. And he finds himself constantly interjecting with jokes and what he hopes are witty comments, going way over the the top, and Ji keeps laughing, and finally Seunghyun thinks, This is worse than how I was with Sarah.

Sarah was Seunghyun’s second girlfriend, the first person he’d ever had a serious crush on, and the only person he’s ever slept with. They dated for about a year and a half but broke up the spring before. Seunghyun hadn’t been as upset about it as he sort of thought he should be. Because he had really liked her; they were friends before they started dating and Seunghyun spent the better part of two semesters trying to get her to like him (plus a summer, via text). Once they were together, she claimed she would’ve said yes if he’d asked her out the day they met, which Seunghyun isn’t sure he believes

So that’s his first realization: noticing the connection his mind draws between Ji and Sarah. It throws him off balance, and he’s probably more awkward during the presentation than he might have been, and when Ji flashes him a smile when they finish and the professor says “Great job,” Seunghyun’s stomach lurches and he thinks What the fuck.

It’s slow after that first jolt. He keeps noticing Ji, and then noticing himself noticing him. His heart speeds up a little when Ji nods in greeting when Seunghyun gets to class, and he notices that too. At first he thinks things like, Well, he’s a nice guy; I’d probably like to be friends with him, and then, He’s good-looking; I’m allowed to notice that he’s good-looking, and eventually he’s saying to himself, Okay, I like him, but so what?

‘So what’ is the big question. Should he do anything about this – well – crush? (It is a crush, he has to admit to himself.) He doesn’t really know Ji. He doesn’t even know if Ji’s gay.

But he does have reason to suspect. All of those reasons are dumb stereotypes that Ji fulfills, but those stereotypes are based on something, right? Ji is artsy and soft-spoken and pretty. And it’s on purpose. He wears jewelry and feminine clothes and, Seunghyun is almost certain, sometimes makeup. So maybe Ji is gay. Or something. Sort of gay. Seunghyun thought he was straight up until a few weeks ago, so it’s surely possible that Ji’s something.

And if he is, the next question becomes: How can Seunghyun get Ji to like him?

He carefully avoids thinking about the question that should come after that What will Seunghyun do if Ji actually does like him?) and turns all his focus to the problem at hand. Which is not to say he actually does anything about it. He just thinks about it. A lot. Whenever he’s on campus, he keeps his eyes peeled for Ji’s slender frame, even though on occasions when he sees him Seunghyun usually pretends he hasn’t. It’s much safer to fantasize: to dream up scenarios in which Ji would be charmed by Seunghyun’s wit and intelligence. He knows this is stupid; that if he were to talk to Ji, Ji would inevitably go off-script immediately and Seunghyun would be thrown and awkward and it would be, generally, terrible. But he figures it doesn’t hurt anyone to imagine.

Towards the end of the semester, Seunghyun makes his way to the library to work on a paper – he always concentrates better there than at home – while running through a favorite scenario in his head: Chance upon Ji at the library, Ji asks what he’s doing there, Seunghyun says ‘Oh, you know, Wikipedia isn’t going to copy itself into this paper,’ Ji laughs, then asks for help with his assignment, which happens to be something Seunghyun is an expert in, like postmodern furniture design or late-nineties single-player video games, and they spend the whole afternoon together, and then get dinner together, maybe at that place that does wraps and fajitas, and Seunghyun will tell Ji he has to get the Cajun wrap and get two extra things of hot sauce on the side, that is the exact correct amount, and Ji will say it’s the best wrap he’s ever had, and ask what other food secrets Seunghyun knows…

His reverie is interrupted by the worst possible thing: Actual Ji. That he actually chanced upon. In real life.

“Hey, Sam!” Ji says – loud enough to earn a sigh from the guy at the next table – and waves at Seunghyun as soon as he rounds the corner to the study area.

Seunghyun waves back and makes his way over, tingling with low-grade panic. “Hi,” he says when he reached Ji’s table, and somehow, the word has never sounded so stupid.

“Hey,” Ji says again. “That’s so funny, I looked up right when you were walking in. What are you here for?”

Oh god, his line. His line actually fits. “Um,” Seunghyun says, “uh, you know – I have a paper. Wikipedia isn’t gonna copy itself.” He shrugs bashfully, the tips of his ears burning. He can’t believe he said that. It sounds so unoriginal and boring out loud.

But then – somehow, mysteriously, miraculously – Ji laughs. Really laughs. Loudly. Enough to get a second sigh from the disgruntled guy. And Seunghyun laughs too, in pure relief.

“What about you?” Seunghyun asks when Ji settles down a bit.

“Oh, I have an assignment about Kohei Nawa. Unfortunately Wikipedia doesn’t have much to say on him. You know anything about him?”

It’s actually working, Seunghyun thinks. His stupid fantasy scenario – this is actually going like that. Well, Seunghyun isn’t an expert on Kohei Nawa, but he at least knows something. “Oh – yeah, actually. Are you taking that Discourses in Modern Design class?”

“Yeah! Did you take it? Was he your ‘Voices of Emerging Artists’ person?”

“Yeah. I mean, no – he wasn’t my person. But someone in my class did him and after their presentation I –” Seunghyun’s voice runs out in his throat, suddenly aware of how utterly uncool this makes him sound. He scratches the back of his neck. “I kind of did some research on my own,” he admits. “I’m sort of a modern art nerd.”

“The term is ‘buff’,” Ji says, smiling. “That’s great, he seems really cool. Would you mind helping me out a little? I mean, I don’t want to keep you, I know you’re busy, it’s just that I’m at that scary-overwhelming stage where I’m not sure where to start and I’ve just been browsing Facebook for half-an-hour –”

“Sure, I can help,” Seunghyun says, dropping into the seat across from Ji.

“Oh my god, you’re a lifesaver,” Ji says, his eyes flared wide. “Thank you so much!”

It’s not that Seunghyun is suddenly not awkward – he still very much is – but somehow, Ji makes him sort of forget. Every time he stutters or starts rambling or just says something stupid, Ji smiles warmly or nods or laughs. It’s nice, and what surprises Seunghyun even more was how easy it is; how comfortable. Ji seems to understand all his references, all the half-formed thoughts as they come out of his mouth. The time slips away: Seunghyun answers Ji’s questions and points him to some English-language resources about the current art scene in Japan, and then Ji asks if he wants to share the table and offers him some jellybeans as a bribe, and they work across from each other, breaking often to chat. Suddenly it’s almost seven in the evening and Seunghyun’s stomach is starting to complain. Is it actually possible they’ll go out to eat together?

“Wow, look at the time,” Seunghyun says, hoping that it will – as it does in his head – prompt Ji to say, 'Oh wow! Hmm, are you hungry? You wanna grab dinner?'

But instead the opposite happens. "Shit!" Ji exclaims and jumps out of his seat. "Sorry, I gotta run," he says as he starts packing his things into his messenger bag. "It's my best friend's boyfriend's birthday today and I promised I'd go to the dinner."

“Oh, okay,” Seunghyun says, clamping down on his disappointment before it can reach his face.

“Thank you so much for your help though. Seriously, you saved me! You’re amazing!” Ji gushes. Seunghyun fidgets, realigning his laptop to be parallel to the edges of the table so he can avoid facing Ji and revealing the blush that’s undoubtedly coloring his cheeks. “I’ll see you – um – I’ll see you, uh, in class!”

“Yeah,” says Seunghyun, daring a glance at Ji’s face. He looks so bright and happy, a big grin plastering his cheeks. “See you in class. Have a good, um, friend’s boyfriend’s birthday dinner,” he says, chuckling awkwardly.

“Thanks!” Ji says. “Okay, um...bye!” He waves and rushes off, and Seunghyun counts to three before turning in his seat and watching him go. The word ‘KAPPA’ is stamped across the ass of his sweatpants and Seunghyun finds himself having some very library-inappropriate thoughts.

He goes home not long after; he’s too wrapped up in reliving his conversation with Ji to get any work done. Shit, this is definitely a crush. A real, serious, not-going-away-any-time-soon crush. And even more terrifyingly, he’s starting to think it’s reciprocated.

Seunghyun turns the idea of that over carefully in his head, trying to remove his own anxiety and excitement and look at the situation logically. Ji touched his arm twice, and smiled a lot, and laughed a lot, and called him amazing. That’s flirting, right? Seunghyun would think it was flirting if a girl did that – surely guys flirt with each other the same way girls flirt with guys? (Do they? He didn’t know. He wonders if that information is recorded somewhere, or if you're just supposed to instinctively know how to recognize male flirting if you're gay.) So assuming Ji was flirting, that means either a) he’s gay and flirts with everyone because that’s just his personality or b) he’s gay and was specifically flirting with Seunghyun because he likes him. Either way, Ji’s gay. Or something. Whatever. He likes guys.

So Seunghyun’s path becomes a little clearer. He has to figure out two things: 1) how do men flirt with each other and 2) does Ji have a naturally flirty personality. Which feels achievable. Which is scary. Because if he finds out that yes, Ji was flirting and yes, Ji was specifically choosing to flirt with Seunghyun, that means that Ji likes Seunghyun back. Which means they should maybe, possibly, potentially actually do something about it.

Three days after their meeting in the library, Seunghyun heads to Modern Photography full of giddy energy. He’s going to try to talk to Ji today and see how that goes, see if there’s any more flirting, and then if there is he’s going to talk to him again the next time he sees him and suggest some kind of hang out. Something that might be a date but could just as easily be a casual get-together between two totally platonic new friends. (He hasn’t figured out what it will be yet. Maybe coffee.) And then he’ll see how Ji acts during their maybe-but-not-definitely-a-date and just – (this is the scariest part) – go from there. See what Ji does. Let him make the first move. It’s kind of bad timing because it’s finals week and everyone’s going home soon, but he figures maybe he can get Ji’s phone number and they can text over winter break, and maybe they’ll have a course together next semester too and that can be a way to get a date-that-isn’t-a-date going if he can’t manage it before next week.

He gets to class early maybe for the first time all semester and there’s Ji waiting outside the locked classroom door, somehow looking perfect and pulled together in track pants and a sweatshirt. He’s texting on his phone, so Seunghyun could just walk by him and bail on his whole plan, but he makes himself take a deep breath and go over. “Hey.”

Ji looks up and his face breaks into a smile and Seunghyun files that under Good Things and Potential Flirting – Evidence. “Hey Sam! Listen, thank you so much for helping me on Friday, I feel so much better about the whole thing now! I’m almost done with it and I don’t even do my presentation until Thursday!”

“Oh, that’s great! I’m, uh, I’m happy I helped. It was no problem.”

“Well, I really appreciated it. How’d you do with your paper?”

“Huh?” Seunghyun has unfortunately stopped processing what Ji is saying in favor of watching his mouth. His brain catches up to his ears a moment later, and before Ji can repeat himself he says, “Oh, um, my paper! It’s – um, it’s good, thanks. I got it like half done.” Most of his progress was last night after he numbed his brain watching old episodes of Pokemon and then stayed up until three feverishly writing.

“Nice,” Ji says, nodding. Then, “Hey, I love your coat!”

“My coat?” Seunghyun repeats dumbly. He looks down as though he doesn’t know what his own winter coat looks like. It’s a wool peacoat his mom treated him to last year.

“Yeah, the lines are really nice,” Ji says. He lifts his hands to Seunghyun’s shoulders, brushing across them and then down the lapels, his fingertips just barely gliding over the hems to emphasize the apparently nice lines. Seunghyun’s heart is in his throat. “I don’t always like the way these coats are cut for men, you know? But yours fits really well.” And then – Seunghyun can hardly believe it and it’s happening to him – Ji smoothes his hands over Seunghyun’s chest, feeling it. The fit. Or Seunghyun’s chest. He’s not sure. But he’s, like, ninety-five-percent sure this is flirting.

“Hey, Ji!” someone calls from down the hall, and Ji’s hands slide from Seunghyun’s chest and he leans around him to see and then he’s calling out, “Yo, Murph the Smurf!” and giving a little two-finger salute.

Some guy who looks neither Irish nor in any way Smurf-like saunters up wearing basketball shorts and a baggy sweatshirt. He and Ji easily execute a bro shake, that half-handshake half-high-five that Seunghyun has always felt a little silly doing. “You got a final?” Murph the Smurf asks.

“Modern Photography in a few minutes,” Ji says, hooking his thumb over his shoulder to point to the classroom door.

“All right, I won’t hold you up. I was gonna come by the house for dinner tonight, you know what it’s gonna be?”

“I think fish,” Ji says. “Chef keeps saying it’s brain food but I think the kitchen budget’s just running out for the semester.”

Murph the Smurf laughs, a deep boom. “All right man, sounds good. See you later,” he says.

“See ya!” Ji replies as Murph the Smurf resumes his walk down the hall.

Seunghyun just stands there, feeling out-of-place and utterly off-kilter. Murph the Smurf is exactly the kind of dudebro that Seunghyun has been spending his college experience avoiding. And Ji’s friends with him? Good friends, apparently, since Murph the Smurf is going to Ji’s house for dinner tonight, and –

Abruptly the realization comes to Seunghyun, fully formed: “The” house. A chef making dinner. Murph the Smurf. ‘Kappa’ on Ji’s sweatpants. He’d thought it was a brand name or something, but now he knows he’s wrong.

Ji’s in a frat.

All of Seunghyun’s most private and tender hopes for their relationship come crashing down in an instant. Seunghyun doesn’t know a lot about guys in frats, but he does know that they are relentlessly, aggressively straight. Ji’s not a sensitive, artistically-inclined gay guy. He’s a frat bro with an odd penchant for touching. Or, oh god, maybe this whole thing is a set up? Maybe all the flirtiness is part of some weird bet that involves picking up guys just to prove he can and laugh at them?

Seunghyun’s thoughts reach this latest, awful permutation in the half a second it takes for Ji to turn back to him, but when he does his smile at Seunghyun is so genuine that it puts him right back at ease. Bitterly disappointed, but at ease. Ji isn’t playing a cruel prank. He’s just a nice straight guy who happens to be pretty cool despite being in a fraternity.

“Sorry,” Ji says, unaware that he’s just crushed Seunghyun’s fantasies. “What were we talking about?”

“Uh –” Seunghyun stumbles, but he’s saved a moment later by the professor arriving and unlocking the door. Seunghyun offers Ji a placating smile, the kind that says We both know this conversation is over, and they head in and take their seats.

By the time the exam finishes, Seunghyun has adjusted his mindset. Ji doesn’t like him back. He’s not an option. Which means Seunghyun effectively has no options, since there isn’t anyone else he likes. Which means he doesn’t have to figure out if he’s gay or whatever, which frankly makes his life a lot easier. And he also doesn’t have to worry about trying to get Ji to like him, because there’s no chance of their relationship going anywhere. When Ji talks to him again after class, Seunghyun feels remarkably calm.

This doesn’t matter, he thinks to himself. This is just another guy, just another classmate. Maybe a potential friend; most likely not. He’s not someone Seunghyun needs to impress. He’s just a person, and Seunghyun thinks he’ll probably enjoy talking to Ji way more now that there’s no pressure than he ever would’ve enjoyed trying to bumble his way into his first gay relationship.

This is the best possible outcome, Seunghyun tells himself. It definitely is. Seunghyun’s very happy with this.