Yes Homo

Except it turns out his feelings for Ji don’t go away that easily. The calm he felt after class fades into a morose longing as he slogs his way through the next two days of finals. Because what was the point of having all those feelings if they weren’t going to lead anywhere? If he was just going to ignore having a massive crush on a man for the very first time in his life? Should he try to find another guy to ask out, to see if he’s really gay? He doesn’t like anyone else, man or woman. He likes Ji.

Seunghyun is in the library again on Wednesday afternoon, whipping together the answers to the essay questions for a take-home test and periodically looking up to stare at the blank cinderblock wall and pity himself. He’s at one of the study carrells that are scattered through the stacks, a lone desk at the end of an aisle of art books. It’s quieter here than in the main study area upstairs, which Seunghyun prefers. No distractions.

Or so he thought. He hears someone at the shelves behind him, but he keeps his eyes on his laptop. His exam is due in forty-five minutes, but he only has half an essay to go, and they submit electronically, which is pretty neat. This time three years ago, he was a panicked freshman running around shoving papers into professor’s mailboxes minutes before the deadline.

He forgets about the intruder into his little study world for a few minutes, until he realizes the footsteps are now approaching him. They’re probably just heading for the next aisle over, but Seunghyun still pauses and waits to hear them pass. It doesn’t occur to him that they’ll do anything else until – somehow surprising him even though he’s been sitting there listening – someone appears in the corner of his eye.

“Oh, thank god it’s you,” Ji says as Seunghyun startles and turns to stare at him. “I thought it was the back of your head, and I was going to say hi, but then I thought it would be weird if it wasn’t actually you and I better check first, and it was only as I was practically on top of you that I realized it would also be really weird to walk up to a random stranger, stare at their face, and then just leave without saying anything.” Ji flashes a smile and Seunghyun melts a little despite his best efforts. “Although I guess this is kind of weird too?” He laughs.

“Nah, it’s okay,” Seunghyun says, because this is indeed a very welcome interruption to his cycle of working and being bummed out. “How’s finals week treating you?”

“Not bad. I’ve got one paper to hand in Friday that I’m almost done with, and other than that it’s just my Modern Design presentation tomorrow, which I’m pretty much done with too. Just gotta practice it a few times. I was actually just here to look at some pictures of the works I’m gonna talk about as influencing Murakami.”

“Wow,” says Seunghyun. He has never put that much effort into anything for school in his life. “You really go above and beyond, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ji says, waving him off. Seunghyun’s pretty sure he’s blushing a little. “It’s just an excuse to look at art books. I really like them. You get a much better feel for the work than you do looking at a little picture of it on a computer screen, you know?”

“Yeah. I like art books too,” Seunghyun says. It’s true.

There’s a funny moment where they both look at each other, half smiling, not talking, but just before it gets too awkward, Ji says, “So, hey, my house is having an end-of-finals party Friday, you wanna come? Should be decent enough.”

“Oh,” says Seunghyun. He was not expecting this. He wasn’t really expecting to see Ji at all for the rest of the semester. A party? At a frat? He hasn’t been to a frat party since his freshman-year roommate dragged him to one his first month here, and he only stayed like an hour before he bailed.

But this isn’t just a frat party. It’s a frat party that Ji’s inviting him to. His mouth is dry.

“Do you have a Saturday morning final or something? One of my buddies does, it sounds so horrible. I don’t know why they allow that.”

“No,” Seunghyun says, still trying to get his bearings. “I don’t – I could – um.” He can’t quite bring himself to commit to it. He’s picturing himself only seeing Ji for two minutes and then spending two hours pining in the corner with a cup of shitty light beer.

“Sorry, I can tell you’re in finals mode. Why don’t you hit me up on facebook when you decide what you wanna do?”

“I don’t have facebook,” Seunghyun responds automatically. He’d resisted making a profile until Sarah forced it on him when they started dating. He deleted it the day after they broke up, which felt pretty melodramatic, but less melodramatic than changing his relationship status to ‘single’ and unfriending Sarah.

“Oh my god, how are you even alive,” Ji says, rolling his eyes and smiling. “Gimme your phone.”

Seunghyun obliges without thinking. He wonders if Ji’s going to make fun of him for still having a flip phone, but he doesn’t. He just taps away, then makes a face. “Shit, it’s not gonna go through, there’s no reception down here,” he says, handing Seunghyun his phone back. “Well, now you have my number at least. Text me when you figure out what you wanna do.”

Jiyong had tried to send himself a message that says, Ji, I should really come to your party, it’s going to be off the chain~ ^^. Seunghyun’s not sure how he typed that all so fast; regardless, a big, stupid smile blooms on his face when he reads it. “All right, I’ll come,” He says. He can’t help himself.

“Yeah? Awesome! Do you know where the house is? It’s right on the Avenue. Like a block up from that side street with the place that does really good paninis.”

“Yeah, I think I know where it is,” Seunghyun says. He lives off campus, about a half mile from the end of the Avenue with the library, but he’d walked out of his way yesterday up towards the Greek houses to see which one was Kappa. It looks like a pretty nice house. Cleaner than the other frats.

“Okay, cool. Text me when you get there though because they might try to charge you cover at the door. We put the freshmen on the door because no one else’ll do it but unfortunately they’re idiots.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Seunghyun says. He has not quite caught up to the fact that he’s going to a frat party at Ji’s house on Friday; it is just now occurring to him that he managed to get Ji’s phone number somehow.

“All right, so, uh, I gotta go, and I’m sure you’ve got to get back to work, but, um, I’ll see you Friday! Just, uh – text me, okay? If you change your mind or anything – well – I’ll talk to you later!” Seunghyun says goodbye and watches Ji head off down the stacks, trying not to think about how fucked he is.

He is so fucked.

Seunghyun has no idea how he gets through the rest of the week. He’s afraid to think about his grades coming out, but at least by Friday afternoon he’s done for the semester and doesn’t have to feel guilty for obsessing over Ji and this party instead of working. Now he just gets to feel terrified.

He goes through three outfits and changes his hairstyle four times, which really just consists of moving the part back and forth because his hair isn’t actually long enough to do anything interesting with. Ji’s text to himself went through when Seunghyun left the library, and Ji texted back, wow Sam, you’re so right. glad you listened to your own advice! ^_* and Seunghyun keeps staring at it and that stupid little winking emoticon and he wonders if maybe, maybe, somehow, it’s possible that Ji is both gay and in a frat. There have to be some gay guys in frats, right? Statistically? Maybe Ji’s the one. Maybe he’s deep in the closet. Which, technically Seunghyun is too, because he hasn’t actually told anyone about his private sexual revolution. Maybe they could be in the closet together. Making out. Seunghyun was too shy to play Seven Minutes in Heaven in middle school; it would be nice to make up for that.

Seunghyun texts Ji as he approaches the house, as instructed. Not wanting to stand around outside waiting for a response, he heads up the steps. The front door is open to the biting wind; through it Seunghyun can see a large staircase, already littered with abandoned red plastic cups, and hear the thumping bass of the dance music playing inside. Two white kids in Kappa sweatshirts are standing on the porch, looking bored and self-important; they straighten up when Seunghyun approaches. They’re both taller than him despite their barely-post-pubescent features, which is sort of annoying.

“The cover’s twenty bucks,” the one on Seunghyun’s left says.

“It’s five less for every girl you bring,” says the other.

“Yeah, if you bring five girls it’s free.”

“Four.”

“What?”

“Four girls. If it’s five bucks less for every girl he brings.”

“Oh...oh, yeah. Four girls and it’s free. If you bring five girls you get five off your cover for the next party.”

Seunghyun checks his phone, wondering how long he should wait before texting Ji again or trying to explain to these guys that he knows him, but suddenly he’s there.

“Would you dumbasess please stop commodifying women and let my friend in?” Ji demands, grabbing Seunghyun’s wrist and tugging him over the threshold and into the house. “Sorry, they’re idiots,” he says, rolling his eyes.

“That’s okay,” says Seunghyun, a ball of warmth bursting in his chest even after Ji drops his wrist. (It wasn’t even skin-to-skin contact since Seunghyun’s wearing long sleeves. He’s really, really fucked.) They enter the living room, thick with people, smoke, and voices, and Seunghyun feels the sudden twitchy urge to go in a dozen directions at once. He blinks hard and turns to Ji.

“Let’s get you a drink,” Ji says. He sets off through the maze of bodies and Seunghyun follows, appreciating the view afforded by Ji’s well-fitting jeans. They reach a kitchen that’s a funny mixture of commercial and consumer equipment and is, blessedly, less crowded. Ji opens the regular-size white fridge – there’s another massive stainless steel one across the room – and pulls out two bottles of only-sort-of-shitty and full-calorie beer. He expertly opens first one, then the other bottle against the formica countertop, ignores the caps that fall to the linoleum, hands Seunghyun his beer, and the hops onto the counter and takes a sip of his own. Seunghyun takes a large gulp to distract himself from the sight of Ji’s lips pursed around the mouth of the bottle.

“So,” Ji says after a moment. “We never did the whole stupid what’s-your-major-when-are-you-graduating-who-did-you-vote-for thing.”

Seunghyun takes a breath, trying to snap himself into reality. He’s really, really here. At a frat party. With Ji. Talking. Not just talking – Ji’s trying to get to know him. On some level, at least. “Art history, in the spring – hopefully – and I can’t vote,” says Seunghyun. He and his sister had finally been able to apply for citizenship last summer, but their applications and background checks are still processing. “I would’ve voted for Obama, obviously.”

“I can’t vote either. And same. Obviously,” says Ji with a foxy grin. (Seunghyun thinks maybe that’s unfair, though, because quite possibly all of Ji’s grins are foxy.)

“And you’re studying...?”

“Business. Marketing, to be more specific. Graduating in a year and a half.” Seunghyun’s brain runs automatically through various stereotypes; being a business major in a frat is pretty straight, but marketing is probably the gayest business major, despite all that Mad Men stuff. “So what are you looking to do with that art history degree?” Ji asks.

He doesn’t say it in a condescending way, but Seunghyun still laughs self-consciously. “Oh, you know, probably go live in a van down by the river?”

Ji laughs, but then he says, “No, really, though! I mean, you can do a lot of stuff! Graphic design stuff, or, uh…”

“Well, I mean, I just really love studying it,” Seunghyun says, saving Ji from any further attempts to justify his impractical life choices. “So I applied to some programs to, um, basically study it more. And Pratt has this really cool master’s program in interior design. Like, serious interior design. Where they work with architects and stuff. But it’s really really hard to get into.” Seunghyun is abruptly sidetracked from the conversation by the realization that for all his attempts to squash Ji into a stereotype, he never considered how well he himself fit one: He is a quiet, judgmental art history student who wants to study interior design. How did he not figure out he liked guys sooner?

“That sounds really great,” Ji says, bringing Seunghyun back to the moment.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “I’ll probably just wind up back at home with my parents.” He takes a sip of his beer, hoping he sounded charmingly self-deprecating instead of bitter.

“Where’s home? That’s one we missed. Jersey?”

“Queens.”

“Flushing?”

Seunghyun rolls his eyes. It’s not hard to guess. “Yeah. You?”

“Jersey,” Ji says, a crooked smile pulling at his lips. “Basically. It can be complicated. Here for now, though.”

“You know what else we never did,” says Seunghyun, scraping at the label on his beer with his thumbnail. “The whole, I’m-Korean-you’re-Korean thing.”

“Not like it’s not obvious,” Ji says, grinning. “How old were you when you came here?”

“Nine. How about you?”

“Thirteen.”

Seunghyun’s eyebrows jump. “Really?”

“Yeah. That’s surprising?”

“Well – you don’t have an accent,” Seunghyun explains. “Like, at all. I just figured you were younger. When you came, I mean.”

“Thanks,” Ji says. “I practiced a lot.” He takes another sip of his beer and Seunghyun tries not to be too obvious about admiring his throat. Someone comes over and takes a beer from the fridge, and after he nods a greeting to Ji he walks away past Seunghyun, who reflexively steps out of the way – and slightly closer to Ji. He’s debating whether it would be weirder to move back or to stay there when Ji speaks again. “So...can I ask you something that might sound a little strange? I’m just curious.”

Seunghyun’s heart speeds up. Is he going to ask him about...that? Here? In the kitchen? “Sure,” Seunghyun says.

“I know you introduce yourself as Sam to Americans, but when you’re like, thinking about yourself, or talking to yourself or something, do you think of yourself as Sam, or as Seunghyun?”

It’s not at all what Seunghyun expected – though he’s not really sure what he did expect – but he still notices the little flicker of comfort he feels hearing “Seunghyun” like that; hearing it pronounced the same way his mom pronounces it, the same way his sister pronounced it before they moved here and became Heidi and Sam. Hearing it come out of someone’s mouth easily instead of carefully but still mangled by foreign tongues. “I – um – I don’t know,” says Seunghyun. “I… I guess I never really thought about it.” He has thought about it – he’s thought about it a lot, actually – but he’s not sure how to delve into it here in this noisy frat house.

Ji looks disappointed. “Oh. I just think it’s interesting. Having two names. You know?”

Seunghyun does know, and he wants to talk to Ji about this, but it just doesn’t feel right here. There’s so many people around, and it smells like stale beer and overly-salted tortilla chips, and he just wants to show Ji that they have things in common but he can’t figure out how. “Mostly Seunghyun,” he blurts out. “Mostly I think of myself of Seunghyun. But it depends on the context.”

Ji’s smile is back. He lifts his bottle. “Well cheers, Seunghyun. Or – Geonbae, Seunghyun-ssi!”

The clink their bottles, but then Seunghyun says, “Actually you can’t call me that. You’re born in nineteen-eighty-eight, right? I’m nineteen-eighty-seven.”

“Oho! Good point, Sunbae.”

Seunghyun laughs. “God, I can’t even remember the last time someone called me ‘sunbae’ .”

“What about ‘Hyung’?”

There’s nothing unusual about the way he says it – he says it in exactly the way it’s supposed to be said – but a funny shiver runs through Seunghyun that he can’t explain. He likes it, though. “Nope,” he says, “haven’t heard that one in a long time either.”

“Hey, you should come meet my friends,” Ji says. He hops off the counter and lands close enough that Seunghyun should immediately move away, but he hesitates because he can smell Ji and Ji smells nice. “We can do the you’re-Korean-I’m-Korean thing again. Because they’re Korean. I mean they were born here, but their parents are Korean. And they’re cool. I didn’t mean that the only reason you should come meet them is that they’re Korean. That part is just incidental, really.”

Seunghyun laughs, hopelessly charmed, and Ji smiles in a way that’s mostly just mashing his lips together. Then he abruptly calls out, “Oh, hey, Murph the Smurf!”

Murph the Smurf has appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. “’Sup,” he nods at the two of them.

“You seen Abe?” Ji asks.

“Yeah, he’s in the library. Canoodling.”

“Like regular canoodling, or avoid-the-library canoodling?”

“Regular. I think it’ll be a few more drinks before they get gross. He was looking for you, anyway, so you should go by.”

“All right, thanks,” says Ji.

“No prob, Ji. Hey, nice to see you again, Sam,” Murph the Smurf says as Sam follows Ji back out of the kitchen.

“Can I ask you something?” Seunghyun asks as they slowly edge their way through the swarm of people in the living room.

“Sure,” says Ji.

“Murph the Smurf...where does that nickname come from? He doesn’t exactly look Irish. Or like a Smurf.”

“Nah, he’s Samoan, and his real name’s Joe,” Ji says. “It started out when we were freshman, he got the nickname Smurf because he couldn’t, you know, close the deal with girls. So he had blue balls, you know?” There’s a break in the crowd and Ji darts through, quick and lithe; Seunghyun manages to follow, but has to apologize to some people he bumps into as he goes. “So with nicknames like that, it’s better to just try to uh, like – evolve the name rather than get rid of it. So we started calling him ‘Murph’, you know, short for ‘Smurf’.” They pass the front door and Seunghyun catches a bracing blast of clean, cold air. “But anyway, one day this asshole upperclassman is making fun of him, like, reminding everyone that his nickname is really ‘Smurf’ and that he sucks with women or whatever – which he doesn’t really, but, you know – and Murph told him to fuck off because he’d rather have blue balls than be a rapist. Which was really bold, you know? Because so many guys don’t acknowledge that, that a lot of the time it’s not about, like, fucking up with a girl or something, it’s about respecting what she wants. So since then we say both parts.”

They’ve made it through a dining room where a raucous game of beer pong is happening into a sort of side-entrance hall with another set of stairs, a door to a porch, an archway leading into an even larger living room than the one at the front of the house, and just off to the side of that, a door into a small room lined with low bookshelves. Seunghyun follows Ji in.

Two guys are sitting on a couch with red cups in hand; Seunghyun guesses the girl Abe was canoodling with took a bathroom break or something. “Guys, this is Sam,” Ji says, “Sam, that’s Abe and that’s Tyler,” he says, pointing them out. Abe is the shorter of the two and has his hair dyed brown and slicked back from his face. His arm is slung over the back of the couch; Tyler, sitting beside him, has close-cropped black hair and a cocky smile. They both nod at Seunghyun in greeting.

“So you guys have a class together?” Abe asks as Ji takes a seat on the sofa to the right of the doorway.

“Yup,” Seunghyun says, still standing. “Modern Photography.”

“Oh, cool,” Abe says. Tyler nods.

“Sit down,” Ji says, patting the cushion next to him. Seunghyun does, seized with sudden agony. Is he sitting too close? Is he sitting too far? He’s been sitting next to guys on couches his whole life and it’s never been this complicated.

Seunghyun has been internally panicking for a while before he notices the awkward silence in the room. He takes a sip of his beer. Fuck this, he’s not going to be the one to break it. He’s having a hard enough time just sitting.

“So, we’re doing a really good job at this self-segregating thing,” Tyler says, glancing out the door at the white people milling around.

They all laugh, forced but relieved. “We even separated ourselves by citizenship status,” Ji adds, indicating a line between the two couches.

“How old were you when you came over?” Abe asks.

“Nine,” Seunghyun says, glancing at Ji and exchanging a look to acknowledge the repetition of their earlier conversation.

“Nine Korean age, or nine Western age?” Tyler asks.

“Oh, Western,” Seunghyun says. “I, uh, kind of find the whole Korean-age thing confusing at this point.”

“Me too!” Tyler says, bouncing in his seat. “When I started kindergarten my parents were telling me I was seven years-old but all the kids in my class were saying they were five. I thought I was retarded or something.”

“Hey! ” both Ji and Abe exclaim. Abe smacks the back of Tyler’s head.

“What?” Tyler asks, rubbing his head where Abe hit him.

“Don’t say ‘retarded’ like that. That’s fucked up,” Abe says. He looks over at Seunghyun. “Sorry; he’s a freshman. We’re still training him to be a person.”

Tyler mutters something under his breath, but he turns his attention back to Seunghyun too. “So, hey, what’s your Korean name?”

“Seunghyun.”

“Mine too! Wow, that’s crazy,” Tyler says.

“‘Seunghyun’ is a pretty common name,” Ji says with an air of simultaneous disdain and fondness.

“I know,” Tyler says sulkily. “But it’s still crazy, because there’s only four of us, and two of us have the same Korean name.” He makes a face at Ji. “Wanna hear something, funny, though?” he asks Seunghyun, the perkiness back in his voice. “His Korean name is Youngbae.” He hooks his thumb at Abe.

“That’s not funny,” Youngbae grumbles. He’s clearly holding back a smile, like he knows exactly what the joke is.

“Yes it is,” Tyler says, turned to look at Abe now. To Seunghyun’s astonishment, he reaches out and takes Abe’s face in his hands. “Because you’re my old bae,” he says, grinning.

Youngbae is grinning too. “I’m only, like, two years older than you!”

“You’re my bae and you’re old and it’s hilarious,” Tyler says. He leans in and gives Abe a peck on the lips. It’s brief, but Seunghyun sees Abe’s eyes close; senses that he doesn’t take it for granted.

“You guys are gross,” Ji says, laughing.

Seunghyun, meanwhile, feels like he’s on fire. His skin is crawling and his heart is hammering and he think he might throw up all over the faded, threadbare Persian rug on the floor. Abe and Tyler are a couple? They’re a couple, and they’re both in the frat. Seunghyun is sure of that, from the way Ji and Murph the Smurf talked about Abe and the way they’re sitting on that couch in this frat house like it’s theirs and the Kappa sweatpants Tyle’s wearing right now. They’re gay and they’re a couple and they’re in a frat and they’re out and Ji’s laughing at them kissing like it’s nothing, and –

“Yo, Links, you gonna take over DJing like you said or what? I don’t know if you noticed, but Cheddar just Rick Rolled us for like the third time and he’s gonna puke on the laptop soon.” Some tall white guy is standing in the door looking at Abe and Tyler, not an ounce of surprise or revulsion on his face at their position as far as Seunghyun can see.

Abe, who is apparently also called ‘Links’, heaves a sigh and stands. “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

“I’m coming too. You promised you’d let me have a turn,” Tyler says.

“You are such a pain,” Abe says, but he throws his arm around Tyler and pulls him in to kiss his cheek. The three make their exit and Ji and Seunghyun are left on the couch; silent except for the screaming in Seunghyun’s head.

“Sam,” Ji says after a moment, “I don’t know if I’m imagining this, but… you seem kind of uncomfortable with Abe and Tyler? And if you’ve got something against that, I don’t think we can be friends.”

Seunghyun manages to turn towards Ji, who can’t quite meet his eyes and looks profoundly disappointed in him. Seunghyun wants to laugh, but he knows it’d come out a shriek. What the fuck is he supposed to say now? How can he possibly explain how this whole thing just made his brain explode, and not for the reasons Ji’s assuming?

“I think I’m gay,” Seunghyun blurts out. That, apparently, is the best he could come up with.

Ji’s mouth falls open and he stares at him for a moment, wide-eyed with shock. He looks away, closes his mouth, looks back, and sets his beer on the floor. He stands. “Come on,” he says, holding out a hand. “Let’s go talk.”