Chapter Text
Road trip.
Those two words alone incite an irritation in Jisung’s soul so raw, so powerful, he really will combust like a water balloon dropping from a ten story building if someone says it again.
He used to love road trips. They were something he looked forward to during summer breaks when he was a kid. Long hours on the road with his family, then just him and his brother as they got older, belting out dumb songs and eating gas station candy for lunch. Stopping by roadside attractions that claimed to house the world’s oldest mummy. Fast food first thing in the morning, before the sun had fully risen. Coming home in the middle of the night, pitch black roads with the city glittering on the horizon.
Now? He wants to throw up just at the thought.
Maybe he’s being dramatic.
He actually doesn’t mind sitting still for hours on end. He does that all the time. Driving through endless desert highways can be meditative. Packing snacks for the trip feels nostalgic. Burning through stacks of CD’s? Great. He can entertain himself for days if he puts his mind to it.
The real reason he wants to throw himself off a building like a water balloon has more to do with why he’s going on a road trip rather than the road trip itself, but he can’t be bothered with semantics.
“Sungie! Is your bag in the trunk yet? We need to head out soon.”
Felix’s thick accent yanks him into the present. He swallows the lump in his throat and places a knee on his duffle bag to zip it closed with one hand. He wasn’t sure how much to pack. It’s going to be hot. It’s always hot. Living in the desert since elementary school hasn’t upped his tolerance for extreme weather conditions as much as it should have. They aren’t staying in the desert the whole trip though. What if it gets cold? Is one hoodie enough?
“Jisung?” Felix peaks into his bedroom, fitted out for the summer heat: tank top, cotton shorts, flip flops, and a white, paisley bandana to hold the bleached hair out of his face. “Are you ready? Chan is starting up the car.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right down.”
“Okay. Lock up on your way out.” He pats the door frame before pushing off, then belatedly calls out: “I’m going to help load up the trunk!” before leaving the apartment.
Jisung sighs, then lugs his bag over his shoulder. He makes sure all the lights are off before trudging to the front door. He struggles to lock it with his left hand, his right dangling uselessly at his side in a wrist brace. The keys fall on the ground three times before he gets it together. He swallows down the frustrated tears welling rapidly at his waterline as he finally gets the door to lock. The keys almost fall to the ground again when he digs his palm across both eyes to shove the waterworks back.
Fuck this.
They could have gone on this road trip without him. His presence isn’t necessary. Chan has made that abundantly clear.
He’s had less than a month to come to terms with losing his best friend. Not in a he-has-left-this-earthly-plane kind of way. More like a he-got-an-offer-he-couldn’t-refuse-so-fuck-everyone-else-and-their-mom kind of way.
When Chan first told him about this job opportunity, it was exciting news. An offer to work at a successful music company? In Seattle? Who wouldn’t be excited? Jisung was all for celebrating—until it sunk in that a job in Seattle meant Chan would have to move there.
Chan was the first person he could confidently call his best friend. They met in university and bonded over being the only two Korean kids whose fathers both decided to uproot their families’ entire lives to move to a different country. To Las Vegas, of all places. That they both happened to be studying music was the cherry on top.
So, when his roommate and best friend of five years casually mentioned taking one last road trip before fucking off into the sunset forever, Jisung laughed and spent the next four weeks marinating in a quiet anger that could only come from a deep well of self-loathing.
He acted out. Broke some things. Did some questionable shit while high. Cried for eighty-minutes straight when he knew Felix and Chan wouldn’t be home. It wasn’t the most mature reaction, but he didn’t know how to sit with his feelings. He still doesn’t.
“Is that all you’re bringing?” Chan asks, skeptical when Jisung joins them and hands over his bag. “We’re staying in Seattle for a week.”
Me and Felix are staying in Seattle for a week, Jisung doesn’t say. You’re never coming back. He looks pointedly at the tiny—and full—trunk of Chan’s car instead of responding.
“I’m putting the cooler in the backseat,” Chan explains. “I took out the spare to make room.”
“I told him that was a bad idea,” Felix says, leaning over the hood of the car with his arms crossed—an impressive feat considering how hot the surface must be with the afternoon sun beating down on it. “Watch us catch a flat in the middle of nowhere.”
“Please, don’t jinx it,” Chan sighs, like this is an ongoing argument. “I just had the tires changed.”
Felix shrugs, then hops into the backseat.
The car in question is an ultramarine blue 1970 Buick Skylark. Chan’s dad passed it down a few years ago. It’s a classic, in great condition. A newly acquired family heirloom. But it’s notorious for giving its unsuspecting passengers sore asses and sweaty thighs. Jisung doesn’t like having a sore ass and sweaty thighs. Not in this context, at least. Especially when he’s in such a bad fucking mood.
“It’s whatever,” Jisung says, watching as Chan stuffs his bag into what little space remains in the trunk. “I’ll just wash my clothes in a river or something.”
“Some of the motels we’ll stop at should have coin operated machines. Or you can borrow some of mine, worst case scenario.”
“I’ll be fine,” Jisung says.
“It’s gonna be hot.”
“I know.”
Chan gets the trunk shut after jumping down on it a couple times. He wipes the sweat beading on his forehead.
“Your dad—” Jisung’s voice catches. “Uh, you said your dad is going to drive up with the rest of your stuff? Did you want to keep anything here?”
“Nah.” Hands on his hips, Chan takes one last good look at their terracotta apartment complex. It blends in with the surrounding shades of brown, nothing grand about it. Stubby palm trees and rockscapes. Too hot for weeds to grow in the cracks in the pavement. Kind of a shithole. “I’m taking everything I’ll need.”
Jisung keeps his head down. “Yeah.”
A warm hand clasps his shoulder and gives it a little shake. “C’mon. We’re gonna have fun.”
Jisung nods, even though he doesn’t agree.
This is going to be the worst road trip of his life.
***
As Chan drives them out of town, Jisung watches the Vegas skyline disappear through the side view mirror. The next time he sees it will be when he flies back with Felix. Just the two of them. Without Chan. Abandoned. Alo—
A kick lands to the back of his seat and jostles him out of his sulk. He glares at Felix through the visor mirror.
“So, what’s the plan again?” he asks, trying and failing to hold back a sigh. It’s already so hot. It doesn’t matter that all the windows are open, A/C spluttering. The heat burrows under his skin like a fat tick.
Impervious to the heat through what seems like sheer determination, Chan carries enough cheer for all of them as he lists out their plans. “We’ll head west to Barstow, then cut up north to get to Highway 395 to see the Eastern Sierras. Then we can get a room near Lake Tahoe and hang out there for the day if you guys are up for it.”
“That’s a lot of driving,” Felix says. “Are we gonna take a break in between? My aunt said she’s ready to host us whenever we get to Seattle.”
“I’ll drive as much as I can and see where it lands us,” he says, turning on the signal to switch lanes. “We’ll probably have to stay somewhere for the night before we get to Tahoe. What I really want to see is the Redwoods, so we’ll take a detour towards the coast before heading up through Oregon.”
Jisung perks up at that. He hasn’t seen the ocean in forever. He wouldn’t mind driving along the coast, smelling salt in the air. It beats 24/7 dust and B.O.
“As long as there’s air conditioning, I don’t care how many times we stop,” Felix says.
Why drag it out? Jisung wants to say. He doesn’t.
“Worst case scenario, we leave the windows open and find a safe place to park?” Chan offers.
Jisung drills a glare into the side of his head, at the sweat beading on the back of his neck where his hair flips out from underneath his ball cap. “There’s no way I’m sleeping in the car. We might actually die.”
Felix leans over the front bench, arms dangling between them. “Isn’t sleeping in your car illegal anyway? Wild, if you think about it.”
“Is your seatbelt on?” Chan asks, glancing over his shoulder.
Felix rolls his eyes. “Across my lap, yeah.”
“That’s not—”
“We’d probably get heatstroke,” Felix continues. “But I wouldn’t mind cuddling and getting all sweaty with you, Sungie.” He tickles under Jisung’s chin and is met with a smack.
“If we get a motel room, I want my own bed,” Jisung says.
“Aw, don’t be like that.”
“Felix, please sit back,” Chan pleads.
“If you slam on the brakes, I don’t think this muscle car seatbelt will save me from flying out the windshield. Just saying.”
Chan concedes with a prolonged sigh. “Fine. But we’re not making any stops until we get to Barstow. We don’t want a repeat of the burro incident last year. Jisung doesn’t need any more injuries.”
Heat crawls up his neck. It wasn’t his fault. The burro approached him. Of course he had to pet it. “But it was cute,” he mumbles.
“It bit your arm.”
“But it was cute while doing it,” Felix says.
Chan sighs again and turns up the radio.
Predictably, the No Stop policy ends an hour and a half into the drive. Felix squirms and complains about needing to pee after downing half his body weight in Monster energy drinks. Jisung whines about needing to stretch his legs and to find working air-conditioning. The least Chan can do is make sure they don’t die of heatstroke.
They pull into a popular Alien Jerky rest stop, loading up on beef jerky and other snacks before hitting the road again. (As a kid, he was convinced the dried meat was actual alien meat, and refused to put it anywhere near his mouth. As a grown man, he eats that shit up like it’s going out of business.) And they aren’t making any other stops until they get to Barstow, Chan declares. “Seriously guys, we’re already behind schedule.”
The flat expanse of the Mojave desert passes by, mountains to the east now that they’ve passed state lines. Dread settles in his stomach as they get further and further away from home. No amount of alien meat can soothe that.
With the windows rolled up to avoid wind throb as they pick up speed, Jisung fiddles with the A/C, praying for a miracle. It's doing its best with what little relief it provides, but it’s not good enough. He’s usually able to tolerate Chan’s shit-ass car, but that’s when he’s begging for rides across town. It’s different to bake inside it for hours. His wrist and forearm itch beneath the brace. The fucking thing offers zero air flow. He examines the awkward thumb splint with a deep frown.
Despite growing up in the desert, he doesn’t do well in high temperatures. The thing about desert dwelling is that not a lot of time is actually spent outside. A majority of his teenage years took place in dark, air-conditioned environments. Outdoor sports? No way. Chilly movie theater? Hell yeah.
Even now, his happy place is somewhere with the A/C cranked all the way up, cocooned in a hoodie and blanket, curtains drawn, nostalgic animated movies playing in the background. Peak goblin-mode. Melting into the leather interior of Chan’s car is the last place he would normally find himself in the middle of July.
Something ice cold presses against the back of his neck. He yelps before twisting in his seat to curse out a grinning Felix.
“Hey, Pouty,” Felix says. He hands over a frozen water bottle. “Cool off, yeah?”
Jisung takes it and presses it to his forehead, letting it melt.
***
They make it to Barstow at a quarter past four, way later than planned. Chan huffs and puffs about them not leaving earlier in the day. They could have beat the heat, he says. Jisung doesn’t point out that it’s been simmering between ninety and a hundred-ten since morning. Leaving earlier wouldn’t have made a difference.
Felix snores away in the backseat without a care in the world, having fallen asleep somewhere between playing the license plate game and I Spy. He’s freakishly dry, but he’s always handled hot weather the best out of the three of them. A bag of spicy mangos sits on the cooler beside him, half empty due to the mango eating contest he goaded Jisung into. Jisung’s mouth is still on fire from it, and he really needs to pee after downing an entire bottle of water.
As soon as they pull into the main gas station, Jisung slides out of the scorching leather bench seat and tries to air himself out. He’s definitely feeling the sweaty thigh effect he rightly complained about. There’s no way to avoid it. The Skylark likes to make grown men suffer. His gray T-shirt clings to the sweat on his back, jeans too tight around his thighs. He uses the collar of his shirt to wipe the sweat from his upper lip. His bladder is uncomfortably full. He couldn't feel worse if he tried.
“I’m gonna use the restroom,” he announces. “Want anything?”
Chan clicks the gas nozzle into place and waves Jisung off. His face is splotched red. “I’m good. Don’t take too long.”
Jisung grunts.
He tugs at the center of his shirt to create a draft for his torso while he hurries past the sliding glass doors of the convenience store. A wall of cold air slams into him as soon as he steps inside, raising the hair on his arms . Bliss. He beelines to the restroom.
It’s clean enough, with two stalls side by side. He takes a quick glance in the mirror to assess himself. His cheeks are bright pink. Sweat glistens around his hairline. Dark stains spread from under his armpits and around his neckline. He looks about as good as he feels, which is terrible.
Gaze down, he pushes the door of the first stall open.
He’s not paying attention, which, okay, his bad. But, to be fair, bathroom stalls are usually locked when they’re occupied.
The first thing he notices is a pair of hiking boots caked in dust. Then jeans, scrunched down past a pair of bare knees. He continues up until he comes eye to eye with a complete stranger sitting on the toilet.
“Uh,” Jisung says, stupidly.
The stranger blinks at him in rapid succession.
Silence stretches for too long.
“I, um,” Jisung chokes. “Sorry, you—nice shoes.”
He steps back and yanks the stall closed, holding it in place for a moment.
…
Wait.
No.
What?
He peers under the second stall to check that it’s empty. He locks it behind himself, then struggles to unbutton his jeans one-handed. It’s awkward. So fucking awkward, because whoever he just walked in on has remained stone cold silent. He pees with his right hand held up in a cactus pose, cringing as beads of sweat crawl down his forearm underneath the brace. It’s a sensory nightmare from every direction. He tries to make it quick.
He flushes the toilet, wrestles with his zipper, and rushes to one of two sinks. He waves his hand under the faucet to get the water going, glancing back over his shoulder when the other toilet flushes too. Fuck.
He holds his hand under the faucet, trying to get the right angle for the sensor. Nothing. He waves his hand again. Still nothing. The sensor isn’t reading his movements at all . He can’t even find it.
The stall creaks open behind him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He doesn’t have time to run. His freeze response takes over, shoulders climbing to his ears. He refuses to leave the bathroom without washing his hand, he has principles, so he fights back a grimace when the stranger wordlessly steps up beside him to use the other sink.
The space in the bathroom is so cramped their arms brush together as the stranger lathers and rinses. The other sink works. Of course it does. Jisung should have gotten to it first. He’d be shoulder deep in the cold case digging for a drink by now if he had.
He clears his throat, pretending to examine himself in the foggy mirror. He sings ‘Happy Birthday’ in his head three times while he waits. The guy is a thorough hand-washer.
He side-eyes the stranger through the mirror. A green flannel is tied around his waist, which seems like a diabolical choice in this weather. The strap of a backpack digs into his shoulder. His shirt is drenched in a similar fashion to Jisung’s. And—
Cat-eyes. Sharp. Dark.
Jisung does a double take when he realizes the stranger is staring right back at him.
“Um,” Jisung says.
They hold eye contact for too long again. Why isn’t he saying anything? The silence is somehow worse than getting yelled at.
The guy glances down at Jisung’s sad attempt at hand washing. Or, lack thereof. His gaze then rakes down the rest of his body, to his feet, and slowly back up again. The corner of his mouth lifts.
Jisung is suddenly lightheaded. A little weak in the knees.
“Nice shoes?” the man asks sweetly.
In real time, Jisung catches as his flush deepens and spreads across his own neck and ears through the mirror. He doubles down on the eye contact, blindly messing with the sink because all he wants is to wash his fucking hand and he can’t and now he’s cornered.
“I-I—You—” He stutters and licks his lip. “Why didn’t you lock the door?”
“I did.” The man shrugs, unbothered. “The latch must’ve been faulty.”
Jisung scoffs. “Yeah, sure.”
“You busted the door down, actually. Had to go that bad?”
“I did not .” He might’ve. Did he?
The man glances down at his brace. “Need help?” he asks.
“Fuck off,” Jisung blurts, all bark. If this leads to a physical altercation, he’ll fold in .02 seconds.
Without breaking eye contact, the stranger laughs and reaches over. That has to be bad etiquette, right? Reaching for another guy in the bathroom? Jisung prepares to fawn when a gush of water suddenly douses his hand.
He breaks their staring contest to look down. The stranger’s finger is pressed against the top of the tap. The words ‘Push Here’ are engraved in metal.
Well, fuck me, he thinks.
The stranger doesn’t say anything else, but his giggles are humiliating enough. He shakes his hands out, then wipes them up and down his ripped jeans. Jisung watches through the mirror as he adjusts the backpack on his shoulder and heads out the door with a little wave.
The water turns off again.
He turns to face the exit, as if what he witnessed through the mirror took place in a parallel world. This road trip has barely started and he already wants to bury himself in a hole. He tries to make peace with it, because it can’t get any worse than this.
(It does.)
***
He finds Chan by an open refrigerator when he leaves the restroom. The older man is pretending to browse through beverages, using the cool air to freeze the remaining sweat near his hairline. Jisung, in the spirit of cooling off, grabs a massive can of Arizona Iced Tea and presses it to his cheek.
“Your car is literally Satan’s asshole,” he complains. Chan cracks a smile and grabs an energy drink for Felix.
They kill as much time indoors as they can get away with before trudging back to the car, now parked in front of the convenience store. Felix is still knocked out, waiting for them with the windows rolled down. Chan checks to make sure he’s still alive, pressing the can of Monster to his forehead until he wakes briefly to hold onto it.
Jisung takes his place up front, sufficiently cooled off for now. He decides to put the awkward bathroom encounter behind him. It was a blip. A bump in the road. One of those moments he might think about a few years from now and cringe over, laughing at himself. (Or, maybe, one of those moments he might think about in the middle of the night with a pillow between his legs and a fist in his mouth. He chooses not to examine that thought too closely.)
He’s totally over it. Ancient history. And it is history, up until they drive out of Barstow and catch a lone figure walking backwards down the on ramp.
Their arm is held out, thumb held up in a universal sign Jisung never expected to see in real life. Chan slows the car. As they get closer, Jisung’s heart leaps into his throat.
Oh, no. No, no, no .
Jisung turns to Chan with pleading eyes. It doesn’t accomplish much. Chan pulls off to the side of the road several yards ahead of the hitchhiker. In the side view mirror, Jisung watches the stranger walk towards them. A navy blue baseball cap is pulled low over his face now, exaggerating the way he chews a piece of gum.
“What are you doing?” Jisung hisses, smacking Chan on the arm. He sinks lower in the seat, thighs crushing the can of tea between them, as if compressing himself will somehow save him from what’s to come.
“I just want to see if he’s alright,” Chan says.
“You said no more stops!”
“It’s fine, Ji.”
He peaks through the mirror again, just to make sure.
Light wash jeans ripped at the knees. Faded band tee with a threadbare green and blue flannel tied around his waist. Backpack slung over one shoulder, with a giant yellow hydro flask clipped to the strap.
Yep. That’s the guy.
“We don’t have any room,” Jisung rushes in a frantic whisper, holding his brace up to cover his head. Wait, no, that will give him away even faster, won’t it? Maybe the guy won’t recognize him. It was such a short interaction. Who keeps track of strangers that walk in on them in the bathroom anyway? They only stared deeply into each other’s eyes for, like, two minutes max.
The stranger leans against Jisung’s open window, and the heat of his gaze scorches the side of his face. No luck there, then. Jisung stares staunchly down at his own boots.
“Hey. You guys headed north?” he asks, voice lilted in what could be amusement. At Jisung’s expense, probably.
“We are!” Chan answers. “Need a ride?”
“If you don’t mind.” He taps his fingers on the window frame. “However far you’re willing to take me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Seattle.”
Jisung flinches. Shit.
“No way!” Chan laughs. “That’s where we’re headed.”
The guy puts his hand out, right in front of Jisung’s face. Jisung presses himself back into the seat as much as he can as Chan reaches over to shake.
“The name’s Rhino.” He pops his gum. “Or Minho.”
“Korean?” Chan laughs again, squeaky and friendly and far too familiar towards someone he met literally thirty seconds ago.
The smile is clear in his voice when the stranger says, “Yeah.”
“Ah, same here! That’s crazy.”
Rhino, or Minho, or whatever, lets his arm hang halfway in the car, inhabiting Jisung’s space in a way that must be purposeful. He smells like dust and sweat, and the soap from the gas station bathroom. Jisung picks at the tab of his drink. He tries not to trace the veins crawling up the hitchhiker’s forearm. With his eyes or his hands. (Or his mouth, or his—)
“I go by Chris, but Chan works too. Jisung stopped going by Peter a while ago though.”
Jisung snaps his head to the side to give Chan a look of betrayal. E tu, Channie-hyung?
“Go ahead and hop in if you don’t mind taking a couple detours,” Chan continues, too trusting of strangers. What the fuck? Jisung widens his eyes, but his silent warning goes ignored. “Sorry, it’s a little cramped. We can let you out whenever.”
The stranger gives a thumbs up, then walks leisurely around the front of the car. He slips into the backseat with a sleeping Felix, squished against the cooler with his backpack between his knees. Jisung watches through the visor mirror as he removes the baseball cap to reveal gray-blonde hair. He pushes it off his forehead, wet with sweat. His cheeks are flushed from the heat. They make eye contact in the reflection and Jisung freezes. Again. The stranger’s lips curl in a familiar smirk as he puts his hat back on.
“Where are you coming from?” Chan asks, blinker ticking as he merges onto the highway.
“Vegas,” the hitchhiker says.
Chan nearly vibrates out of his seat. “What! Really? We just came from there too!”
“Oh, yeah?” He makes eye contact with Jisung again. Jisung snaps the visor closed. “Visiting? Or locals?”
“Locals. Ish. Jisung’s lived there the longest out of the three of us. I’m from Sydney, originally.”
“You guys go to UNLV?”
“We did! I’m the class of 2019.”
“Cool. 2020 for me.”
Jisung remains silent.
“These two are 2021,” Chan fills in. “Crazy that we never ran into you. What did you major in?”
Their conversation continues with zero input on Jisung’s end. He takes small sips of his ice tea after twisting the tab off completely.
Chan elbows his arm, almost knocking the can right out of his hand. “Small world, right, Ji?”
Jisung harrumphs and gives them both the cold shoulder.
***
Felix is audibly bewildered when he wakes up fifteen minutes later to an extra person in the car.
“Hello?”
“Another Australian?” the hitchhiker asks, amused. Jisung rolls his eyes, prepared for what comes next.
“ Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, oi, oi! ” Chan and Felix chant in unison. Jisung talks himself down from opening the door of a moving vehicle. He might find peace smeared across the asphalt. He might not. He won’t know unless he tries.
“I’m Felix.” Jisung watches Felix in the side view mirror as he leans over the cooler, probably to shake hands. Or kiss ass. Whichever. “Nice to meet you.”
“Minho. And same.”
“So, did you just spawn in our car or…”
“Obviously, he didn’t,” Jisung grumbles.
“He speaks,” the hitchhiker says.
Jisung seals his mouth shut and presses himself closer to the door, refusing to give into the hitchhiker’s mind games. He also refuses to refer to him by name. The only way that’ll happen is if he makes him. (Not in a sexy way. Obviously.)
“Jisung usually doesn’t shut up,” Felix says, the traitor.
“Hmm, really.”
“He’s just tired,” Chan says. “It’s been a long day.”
Not really. They haven’t been on the road that long in the grand scheme of their trip. The hitchhiker probably knows that, if he really came from Vegas like he claims he did.
“That’s fair. The heat makes me tired too.” The hitchhiker pauses, letting the rumble of the Skylark take over. Then: “It really makes me appreciate a nice pair of shoes, you know? Keeps me going when I travel.”
Jisung flips open the visor to glare at the hitchhiker through the mirror. They catch eyes. Something about it makes his stomach flip.
He keeps the mirror open, but doesn’t look in it for the rest of the drive.
***
They’re behind schedule due to a few extra stops, and Chan makes the executive decision to stay at a motel before they’re too far from civilization. It’ll be dark soon, and driving through pitch black roads in the middle of nowhere sounds like a Hills Have Eyes situation waiting to happen.
Gravel crunches as they pull into the lot of a Motel 8. Jisung rolls up his window, focusing on the mechanical whir instead of the quiet voices coming from the backseat.
As soon as the car is fully in park, he jumps out and goes for a short walk. It’s still warm out, but it’s cooled enough for his shirt to dry. His hand is fully drenched beneath the brace though. He feels gross. Hours in the car with three other guys also sweating buckets wasn’t great.
Felix and the hitchhiker had talked nonstop for the last hour of their drive. They didn’t seem put out by the fact that they’d only known each other for the length of a Lord of the Rings movie. The last of the spicy mangos passed back and forth between them as they listed off names of people they knew from university. They had a few acquaintances in common, and shared the same dance instructor at different times over the years. Chan chimed in a few times as well, repetitions of “Naur way” filling the space Jisung refused to fill with his own words.
Jisung had tuned them out around that time, sinking further in his seat, prepared to curl up on the floor like a dog if it meant he didn’t have to hear the stranger’s life story. He fought the urge to turn around and tell Felix that the hitchhiker was a weirdo who didn’t lock bathroom doors. That he probably got off on it. Like those people who leave airplane bathrooms unlocked waiting for unsuspecting victims to join them. That’s a thing people do in real life, he’s sure.
A large stretch of sun-dried dirt sits at the edge of the parking lot. He stops there, crouching down to watch a gecko smaller than the length of his finger skitter across a decorative rock. He finds a stick to hold out, trying to coax the gecko onto it.
“Hey, little buddy,” he mumbles. “You wouldn’t replace me, right?”
The sun sets, deep oranges and reds on the horizon. Mountains tower to the east, a literal barrier between here and home. He places his arm over his knees to rest his chin in the crook of his elbow. The gecko disappears, like everyone else important in his life. He draws shapes in the dirt instead, which somehow turns into a stick figure with water faucets for eyes. The hum of traffic on the nearby highway acts as white noise to lull the dreary thoughts buzzing in his head.
“Sung! C’mon, we got a room!”
He sighs.
Heading back to the car, he tries to ignore the heavy gaze following his every step. The hitchhiker leans near the open trunk, ankles crossed, with his backpack slung over his shoulder. His gray-blonde hair frames his eyes, drying in curls from the salt of his sweat.
Jisung swallows and looks away.
Chan has Jisung’s duffle bag and the cooler, heading away from the car. A door sits propped open a short way off, light spilling out onto the covered walkway.
Jisung stops. Checks around. “Do we have another room?”
“The motel was booked,” the hitchhiker says. Jisung glances at him warily.
Chan returns for his own bag, car keys jangling. “We got lucky! They had one double left. I figured since we all went to the same uni, it would be like rooming together in the dorms.”
Wrong. Nope. Not the same thing. “Okay.”
The room is blasting A/C, the unit buzzing so loudly Jisung can feel it in his teeth as soon as he walks in. Two full size beds with outdated floral comforters take up most of the space, with a desk that doubles as a coffee bar pushed against the far wall. Felix sits on the bed closest to the door, shoes off and legs criss-crossed, repeatedly pressing the power button on a remote with his arm held out as he tries to work the TV. Jisung locates his own duffle bag sitting on the other bed.
“Where are you sleeping?” Jisung asks.
Felix glances around. “Probably here, mate.”
“Can I—”
“Hey guys, Minho and I are gonna walk to that pizza place we drove by near here. Stretch our legs,” Chan says as he places his bag at the foot of Felix’s bed. “Any requests?”
“Pineapple,” Felix says, engrossed in trying to work the remote but present enough to give Chan a shit-eating grin. “I know how much you love it.”
“Pepperoni. Got it. Jisung?”
Jisung shuffles out of the way as the hitchhiker moves deeper into the room to place his backpack near Jisung’s duffle. Their arms brush. It’s the closest they’ve been since the gas station.
Jisung glances nervously between their bags.
“Ji?”
“Uh.” He shifts back into his own space. “Meat?”
“Great. More pepperoni. We’ll probably take,” Chan looks at his watch, “thirty minutes? Forty-five? What d’you think?”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” the hitchhiker says.
They head out to get the pizzas, leaving Felix and Jisung alone. Felix holds onto his ankles as he leans backwards to crane a look out the window.
“Oh my god ,” he says, once he deems the coast clear.
“No,” Jisung says, preemptively.
Felix makes his eyebrows dance.
“Stop. Can I sleep next to you?”
“No way.” Felix laughs. “You turned me down.”
“Fine. Then I’ll sleep next to Chan.”
“Nope. You got to sit next to him all day. It’s my turn.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Rock, paper, scissors?”
Jisung storms off to use the shower after he loses the best of seven out of nine. Felix’s cackles follow him into the bathroom, through the door he slams shut, the spray of water, and his internal screams.
***
As if they’re all good friends, they sit on the beds eating pizza and watching Forensic Files on the outdated TV. Felix and Chan get along with the hitchhiker well enough to feel comfortable letting him sleep in the same room as them. They trust him enough to throw Jisung under the bus.
Jisung struggles to eat his pizza one-handed. He sits at the desk where they placed the pizza boxes and eats over the cardboard. A beef crumble falls on his lap and he has to leave it there until he’s finished. He’s in his own miserable bubble while the other three get to know each other better and fucking paint each other’s nails and shit.
When the conversation dies down, Min— the hitchhiker eventually excuses himself to use the shower. Jisung hunches his shoulder up as he passes.
Once the door shuts and the shower starts, Chan asks, “You okay, Ji?”
No, he’s not okay.
Not that it matters.
When he finishes eating, he rubs a napkin between his greasy fingers. He stands, mumbles something about getting a drink from the vending machine, and takes off. He’s not entirely sure there is a vending machine. But the room is suffocating. Humid, with the shower running. He needs to get out.
He wanders around outside, staying in the lit areas so he doesn’t get snatched by a coyote or something. He finds a vending machine in the end, but he didn’t bring any money with him, so he stands in the glow of it, gazing over bags of candy and chips that are probably expired. The buzz of a power box reaches him from somewhere. Maybe a powerline. Dry twigs shift in the warm breeze. He scratches under the edge of his splint and imagines what it would be like if he took off for real. He could hitch a ride. He’s cute. Someone would stop for him. He might get murdered, but high risk high reward. He didn’t grow up with slot machines around every corner for nothing.
Footsteps approach him, the kind that suggest dragging feet, growing louder until they stop at his side. A five dollar bill manifests in front of his face and he snatches it out of the air on autopilot.
“What’re you gonna get?”
Jisung side-eyes the strange man who has somehow integrated himself into their friend group. His hair is darker at the roots now that it’s completely wet from his shower. He’s in a black tee with three cats yowling at the moon on it and knee-length shorts. Black slides. Jisung’s stomach twists into a knot.
“I don’t know,” Jisung says. The bill softens from the moisture of his hand.
He settles on a bag of sour gummies for three dollars. The vending machine slowly releases it, and he tears the bag open as soon as he fishes it out of the pick up slot. He pops one into his mouth, tongue immediately prickling as he chews.
“Good?” Minho asks.
Jisung shrugs.
Should he share? It would be weird not to. Minho paid for it, after all.
Hesitantly, Jisung holds out the bag. Minho takes it for the peace offering it is.
They sit on the curb of the motel walkway with the bag of candy between them, watching the red and white lights of traffic zip by in the distance. The atmosphere is, strangely enough, relaxed. He expected it to be awkward. Maybe he blew the whole thing out of proportion. There should be some level of discomfort when sharing candy with a stranger, right? Especially one he walked in on with their pants down. But Minho seems unbothered by the incident, like it never happened. Jisung’s defenses wilt the longer they sit quietly together.
“Are you still embarrassed?” Minho prompts out of nowhere.
“What?”
“About the bathroom.”
Oh. Well, so much for pretending it never happened.
All the leftover embarrassment from their initial meeting floods back, leaving him in a particularly grouchy state. He might have been more friendly on a good day. He might have indulged in the weird flutter remaining steady in his stomach the longer they sit side by side. But he’s angry, self-conscious, and embarrassed again, and he notoriously doesn’t know how to sit with his feelings.
“And you’re not?” he responds defensively. “Who just leaves the door unlocked like that?”
“I did lock it. Not my fault the latch was broken.”
“Whatever,” Jisung huffs, dissolving the sugar off his fourth gummy. If Minho doesn’t care about it, then he won’t either. “I’m over it.”
“Hmm, really?” Minho chews. “What’s wrong then? Shy?”
“No.” He’s warm all over, but that doesn’t count. It’s July.
“You don’t trust me then?”
“Should I?” He rustles around for another candy from the bag propped against the curb. “Who hitchhikes anymore? That’s something people only do in movies.”
“It’s not so bad.” He shrugs. “I like the thrill of it. And I get to meet new people.”
“You know we’re not going straight to Seattle, right?”
“I know.” Minho throws a gummy into his mouth, lips pouting out and cheeks hollowing as he sucks on it.
Jisung licks his bottom lip. His own candy sits tucked in his cheek, an acidic sting spreading to his teeth, pooling on his tongue. “You’re seriously okay with being stuffed in the back seat like a sardine for the next few days? We don’t have room.”
“I’ve been in worse positions.” He digs in the bag for another candy, still sucking on the first. “And I talked to Chan about it.”
“What if you steal our stuff in the middle of the night?”
“I already gave Chan gas money. You can ask him.”
Minho can’t possibly intend to spend the entire drive with them, right? Chan wouldn’t allow that. Right?? This road trip was supposed to be for family. It’s the last time Chan will spend time with them. Why would he invite some random guy to tag along? They literally don’t have space for an extra person.
“This is crazy,” Jisung scoffs. “You know that, right? You could be a serial killer.”
“I could.”
Minho’s nonchalance is beginning to feel less like a calming balm and more like a bad case of road rash.
“I think we should leave you behind tomorrow, actually.”
“Are you sure about that?” Minho rubs his fingers together, sprinkling sugar crystals onto the asphalt. “Who will help the next time you can’t turn on a sink? It really sounds like you need me here.”
Jisung’s stomach dips, face hot, humiliated. “Okay, I get it, you don’t have to keep bringing it up.”
“Why? I thought you were over it.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.”
“And you don’t have to act like a brat.”
The heat from his face moves lower. Weird.
“What?” he asks again, a little dumbfounded.
Minho rests his arms straight out on bent knees, looking ahead at the road. His nose and jaw are sharp as razors. “You’re throwing a tantrum, aren’t you?”
Jisung gapes at him, stunned. “E-excuse me?”
“Whatever your problem is, it has nothing to do with me, right? Not really.” His hands curl and flex, knuckles pink. “Is it jealousy? Do you have a thing for your friend? Not getting enough attention? I can’t quite figure it out.”
What is with this guy?
“I don’t have a problem,” Jisung snaps. “And even if I did, it’s none of your business. You’re just some guy we picked up on the side of the road like a stray dog.”
It’s a little harsh, but the anger he’s carried with him for the last month shifts from a light simmer to a boil.
Minho snorts in response, and there goes the metaphorical snap of Jisung’s patience.
The heat leaves his body, chest growing hollow and cold. He struggles to stand with his useless hands, one trembling and the other fractured, legs weak as he looms over this total stranger with the audacity to speak to him like they know each other.
“You don’t know anything about me.” His throat is too tight to yell. He doesn’t want to draw attention, anyway. He overcompensates with the venom in his words, fighting to keep his voice from warbling. “You don’t know how fucking important this drive is. So, seriously, you can fuck right off and leave me the hell alone.”
Minho tilts his head back to look up at him, face completely neutral, posture relaxed. Jisung prepares himself for a rebuttal, for Minho to fight back or apologize. Instead, he says: “Okay.” Then: “What side of the bed do you want?”
Unsure how to retaliate against the hitchhiker’s unbothered attitude without getting them kicked out of the motel, Jisung turns and heads back to their room.
“Goodnight, Peter!”
“Fuck off, Rhino ,” Jisung spits over his shoulder.
He swears Minho laughs.