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"Enter any body of water and you give yourself up to be swallowed. Even the stones know that."
"beauty is terror"
"Would you fall in love with me again, if you knew all I've done? The things I can't undo. "
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we've both been very brave
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: N/A
Do Not Wants: None
Prompt:
- I Don't Understand But I Luv U by SEVENTEEN
- Heated Rivalry episode 1x05 - I'll Believe in Anything
[FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: musicians AU, secret relationship, situationship
Permission to remix: Yes
A/N: assume for this that jeonghan is fairly fluent in english and joshua doesn't know much korean. also, the text in italics is said in korean!
***
As he sits in bed and stares at the dense block of Hangul on his phone, Joshua realises he’s messed up. Jeonghan went into the shower ten minutes ago, and Joshua has still only made it through a few lines of the webpage. He knows that Jeonghan would laugh at him if he finds out what Joshua is doing, and that thought propels him to work as fast as possible. But there’s only so fast he can go. At least Joshua knows that Jeonghan likes his long luxurious showers, and that he likes using up as much of Joshua’s shampoo as he could, but that won’t be long enough. Not with the way Joshua’s frantically copy-pasting words into Papago, desperately trying to remember what the start of these long sentences had said, hoping he could unscramble this word soup into something he could finally understand.
He’s so absorbed in decoding the brick wall of text, so deafened by his own heart pounding in his and his own short breaths, that he doesn’t even notice Jeonghan step out of the bathroom.
“You’re out of shampoo,” he says, running a hand through his hair.
Joshua glances at him, almost getting distracted by the towel slung low on Jeonghan’s hips, before hurriedly turning off his phone screen and putting the phone on the bedside table.
“Buy your own shampoo, asshole,” he replies. “Aren’t you making a gajillion dollars or something?”
“A gajillion won, maybe,” Jeonghan snarks, striding over to the bed and perching on the edge of it. “Not worth as much in dollars. Don’t know if I can get your fancy shampoo. What were you looking at?”
Joshua scoffs. “I’m sure your stylists are buying you plenty of fancy shampoo.”
“Doesn’t matter. Yours smells nicer. What were you looking at?”
Joshua twitches, trying not too make it too obvious. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you put your phone away so quick?”
“Because I heard you come in. I’m trying to be a nice person, focusing on the real world. Connecting with the people around me. Touching grass, as the kids say.”
“Bullshit. You don’t normally put your phone away when I’m talking to you. Why now?”
“Because I’m texting my other fuckbuddy. He’s nice. Bulkier than you. He can toss me around a little, you know? He’s asking if I’m free today.”
“Bullshit. If you had someone else I’d know about it. You’re no good at hiding from me. What were you looking at?”
Joshua can’t help the warmth that floods through his cheeks. He really is no good at bullshitting Jeonghan, even though he’s normally very good at bullshitting anyone else. He unlocks his phone and hands it to Jeonghan.
“You’ll be shocked when you see it. Scandalised, even. Don’t go running to the press.”
Jeonghan takes Joshua’s phone. His eyes widen when he sees what Joshua was looking at, lips curling into a smile. Not the kind he does for the cameras, artfully posed and practised to perfection. The one that shows off all his teeth and makes him look a little stupid.
“Dude,” he says, barely holding back a laugh, “are you reading an interview I did in Korean?”
Joshua shrugs, even though he knows Jeonghan can’t see it. “Don’t know why you’re reading it. You know what you said.”
“The better question is why are you reading it. Do you even know how to read Korean?”
“Fuck off, man. It’s the easiest alphabet in the world.”
“But these words… do you understand it?”
The words catch in Joshua’s throat. He wants to say yes, he really does. He wants to be able to prove a point, that it isn’t crazy for him to read and understand and genuinely care about what Jeonghan has to say in Korean. But he knows there’s a Papago tab open on his phone that would show Jeonghan he’s right to doubt him.
Jeonghan finally turns to look at Joshua. “Why are you even reading my interviews? I thought my music was… what did you call it? Sickly sweet basic pop?”
Joshua shrugs again. “There’s still a process though. Making music. I just wanted to see if I could find out what yours was. We’ve known each other so long now… it feels like I should at least try.”
Jeonghan hands Joshua back his phone. Their fingers brush. Joshua tries to ignore the buzz of electricity that flickers through his shoulders.
“You know,” Jeonghan says, “if you wanted to know what I’m saying in an interview, you could just ask me. I could translate it for you. I might need to look up some more difficult words, but… I’d do it for you. You know that right?”
Jeonghan shifts so that he’s straddling the part of the duvet over Joshua’s knees.
“I wouldn’t want that,” Joshua replies.
“Why not?”
“Because… I want to get better at Korean.”
“Really?”
Joshua nods. It’s a half-truth, at least. “I can speak some Korean, but not being able to read it properly at 26 kinda sucks.”
Jeonghan hums. “Do you speak to your family in Korean?”
There’s a pull in Joshua’s core, like there’s a fishing hook in his stomach and Jeonghan is trying to reel him in. He answers anyway.
“It’s just my mom, really. She’s here in the States, and I mostly speak to her in English. I think it started that way when I started school, and then as I spoke to my family in Korea less, I just didn’t need Korean that much. So I suck at it now.”
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t suck. I’m sure your pronunciation of hello and thank you is perfect.” Jeonghan’s tone is a little mocking, but he’s got his stupid smile on his face, so Joshua knows he doesn’t mean it. He just rolls his eyes and bats gently at Jeonghan’s head.
“Well,” Jeonghan continues, leaning forward onto his arms, “I hope my interviews are a good study aid. Now study hard, because I will be testing you.”
“Oh yeah? What reward do I get if I’m a good student?”
Jeonghan leans down fully and kisses Joshua, slow and sweet. “That a good enough reward for you?”
“Hm, maybe. Need to double check though.” Joshua reaches up to pull Jeonghan in again, fingers curling in his slightly damp hair.
They kiss some more, before Jeonghan lies down on his side next to Joshua, wrapping an arm around his duvet-clad chest. Joshua can smell his shampoo in Jeonghan’s hair, and for a moment he wants to cry.
Instead he asks, “Does it bother you? That you have to speak in English to me?”
“Not really. It’s good practice for me. Plus it feels…”
Jeonghan trails off.
“Feels what?”
“I don’t know what word I’m looking for. Not illegal, but… bad, you know? Like it’s our secret.”
Joshua hums. Maybe illicit is the word Jeonghan is looking for. Not that Joshua would know how to say that in Korean.
“Does it bother you that you’re not fluent in Korean?” Jeonghan asks, like he can read Joshua’s mind.
“I mean… a little, yeah. It feels like I’m losing a bit of my culture, something that makes me me. I know I’m American, but being Korean is so important to me. My mom is so important to me. I don’t want her to feel like she has to translate herself or change herself when she talks to me, you know? I want to be able to watch dramas with her and understand everything properly, like she does. I want to be able to go to the Asian supermarket with her and read all the product names and get things for her without having to guess what they are. I want her to be her full self around me, and I want to be my full self too.”
There’s a silence in the room. For a moment, Joshua hears nothing but their own breathing. He hates it, stewing in his own confessions, the way the honesty makes his skin burn.
“Sorry,” he says, “that sounds corny as hell. I’m being a terrible cliche here.”
“No, no,” Jeonghan quickly responds, “it’s… I think I get it. You’re a good son, Joshua.”
“Oh.” Joshua swallows the lump in his throat. “Thanks.”
It would feel good to hear that from Jeonghan, if Joshua had told the whole truth. But he hadn’t. It’s a half-truth, really. Part of the reason why Joshua wants to get better at Korean is for his mom, and it is for that buried part of himself. But the other part is Jeonghan. He could have picked any way to try and understand Korean. He didn’t have to search for Korean articles about Jeonghan every few days, he didn’t have to bookmark interviews he did with Korean outlets to practise with later. But the truth is that Korean isn’t the only thing he wants to understand.
He and Jeonghan have been seeing each other for a few years now. Seeing each other might be a bit too strong, actually. They aren’t really anything. They go months without seeing each other, then spend every evening together for a few days when they’re touring in the same place or doing some awards show business. They fuck, and have dinner, and watch TV, and very very rarely have a conversation about anything real. And Joshua likes it that way, he really does.
Except that it’s not enough anymore. Joshua wants to know Jeonghan a little bit better now. He doesn’t know what inspires his art, or how he lives in Korea, or how he thinks about lyrics. He doesn’t know what Jeonghan wants for his career, or where he’d like to travel, or what his ideal type is. And he can’t just ask Jeonghan these things, because that would disturb something. That would upset the perfect balance of whatever the hell it is that they have going on. It would feel like cheating, like he’s taking the easy way out, like their situation is something close to normal. It’s not. It never can be. And so this is the way it has to be.
Sure, maybe Jeonghan could just translate the articles for him. But Joshua doesn’t just want to be told about who Jeonghan is. He wants to find out for himself. He wants to have to work for it.
“Hey,” Joshua says after a minute, “speak to me in Korean.”
“What… do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Whatever you’re thinking of. Just say it.”
“Are you going to try and figure out what I say?”
“If I can, sure. But I don’t have to. I… I’d like you to just feel free to speak Korean, for once.”
Jeonghan takes off his towel and tosses it to the floor. He shifts again so that he’s on top of Joshua, knees bracketing his hips, hands either side of his face. He leans down slowly and kisses Joshua, soft and gentle.
"I really like you,", he whispers, his breath tingling on Joshua’s lips.
He plants kisses on Joshua’s cheeks, runs a thumb over one cheekbone.
"You’re so pretty. Such a pretty face, such pretty eyes."
Joshua smiles. “This is all easy stuff. I know all of this.”
“Oh I see,” Jeonghan replies, eyes going darker. “You want me to say something harder. I’ll see what I can do.”
Joshua spends the rest of the night covered in kisses, bathed in gentle and not-so-gentle touches, wrapped in warm words from Jeonghan. He doesn’t understand them all. For now, he’s not sure he has to.
***
"Joshua, you’re so pretty. I wish I could say more than that. I wish you would understand it when I tell you that I think you’re the most beautiful person I know. I miss you whenever I’m not around you. I’m always looking forward to when I can see you, even though you’re a real brat sometimes. I don’t know if I’m allowed to miss you, or if you miss me at all, and it’s painful for me. But I lo- I like it too. I like the pain of missing you and wishing I was with you, and I like how it all goes away the minute I see you. I like kissing you, and touching you, and I wish it could be like this forever. One day, I think it will be."
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
NJ!!!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DO THIS TO ME (i can) between the diaspora feelings and the jeonghan love confession i feel like you just punched me in the goddamn spine
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
not the diaspora anxiety and the language dysphoria superimposed on the guilt of filial piety!! not the idea of getting to know someone through their interviews because it is less confronting than asking directly !!??!!
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
[REMIX] a love language?
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: Vaguely similar situationship and musicians au
Permission to remix: Yes
Some annoying guy wanted me to project on him and kept bugging me about it... small ramble time
***
Not for the first time, Joshua wonders whether a home-cooked meal could be considered too much. Liable for misinterpretation.
By now he's built up quite the collection of Naver blog tabs, unable to stop himself from methodically scrolling through each one with too-frequent consultations against Papago and rigid dictionary definitions. A disproportionate amount of effort put into slogging through the steps and their visual aids, and yet he still hasn't been able to decide on a single recipe to follow through to completion.
It would have helped immensely if he had more time to prepare for this—a couple of days, or even a few weeks to engage in some trial and error and feel more secure about his choice. But, while he had known for a while that the Lunar New Year would fall on a weekday this year, he had only really learned yesterday that Jeonghan would be forced to spend it in America. Staying remarkably close to his apartment, in fact, with a relatively quiet evening in the cards—but far too little time free amidst his promotions to justify flying across the world and back within the space of a few days. Joshua had already known that he’d be free for the day after a mandatorily torturous stint with a bevy of producers and their studios, so his mouth had been able to impulsively take over and invite Jeonghan over for dinner before his brain could have a second—or even fully-formed first—thought about it. It’s not that he regrets it. It just would have been nice to ease into the offer with a bit more grace.
But what’s done is done, and it leaves him with his present dilemma of what exactly he should cook for Jeonghan.
Normally, he’d be quite content following a well-regarded recipe on YouTube or highly-rated cooking blog, trusting in the flavour combinations a worldly American cook has decided to recommend to the internet at large. In this case, his pride won’t even allow him to consider it for more than a second; why on earth would he go to the effort of cooking for Jeonghan, ostensibly with a completely coincidental overlap with seollal, without trying his best to replicate a more authentic recipe with a homecooked touch.
He could call his mum now, on the off-chance she’d have her personal variation on rice cake soup or the like ready to share, but the suspicious interrogation he would have to fend off as a result would not quite be worth the shortcut—especially when there would be nothing to warrant it. Instead, he’s sentenced himself to engaging in a new form of a private humiliation ritual, tapping the page translation button on-and-off far too many times when his eyes begin to glaze over at an anecdote overstaying its welcome beneath a photo of rinsed seaweed.
In all fairness, this is probably doing wonders for breaking up his forced-Korean learning of late—he’s going to run out of old Jeonghan content eventually, and the vocabulary he’s brushing up on largely covers completely different niches.
Joshua has already gotten sidetracked by a few translation rabbitholes, googling the odd slang term that crops up or trying to piece apart synonym mismatches. The latest was to figure out why so many different verbs were just translating into cut for him in English, and he is absolutely not going to remember what a single specific slice-or-dice-or-cut verb translates to after tonight. The sight of it, at least, does give him more motivation to just try and learn more.
It’s a disproportionately unpleasant reminder that translating between languages is never as simple as finding an exact, one-to-one match in meaning ready and waiting. Even though he’s still totally focused on painstaking recipe evaluation, his mind can’t help but extrapolate further.
His mum always seems as fluent as you can get in English, but even she must also run into this issue—trying to reshape and toy with a thought that doesn’t quite have an equivalent when translated from Korean, the annoying realisation that some specialised verb or idiom doesn’t have a tidy matchup in the English lexicon. In fact, he knows that she does, on occasion. It’s easy to pick out when you know what to look out for.
It makes him wonder.
How much of the real her is he missing out on, without that supplementary shared channel of expression? There must be so much of her left behind, as of yet largely inaccessible on account of Joshua’s deplorable grasp on his heritage.
For that matter—how much of the real Jeonghan is he not getting to know, too?
Joshua already knows some of the differences in how Jeonghan acts for a Korean audience than when he is in America. He certainly hasn’t felt scarily endeared whilst watching videos of Jeonghan acting cutely upon his fans’ requests, and he definitely hasn’t watched any specific clips enough times for their URLs to be added to his browser’s auto-fill, either. Anything that he has watched was selected purely out of academic interest; aegyo is a part of Korean culture, of course, and there are genuinely a lot of words being thrown around in those videos in permutations that he isn’t all that familiar with.
Even that is just a public persona, in the end. Jeonghan must have to filter out some parts of himself in private, with Joshua—hampered by English being the only common option to use, for now. Maybe he shaves off some rough edges, just enough to keep their conversations running smoothly. Maybe he reduces his personality down by an order of magnitude just so it can reflect nicely through the clouded looking-glass Joshua is forced to use with him.
There has to be some additional degree of annoyingly-delightful teasing that Joshua is missing out on. How much more menacing would his flirting be—a train of thought he quickly cuts off.
Although—even if Joshua gets to a decent point of Korean fluency, how much of himself would he have to tamp down in turn, to navigate smoothly? Bridging the gap would be the least he could do.
He really shouldn’t be getting this introspective over some random Busan officeworker’s nostalgically-tinged musings about the types of soups their grandmother would make for them—though now that his eyes have finally focused in on the text again, it makes him want to ask his mum if there was any particular reason behind her always making guk with a clear, dried fish base, as opposed to this person’s direction to use beef in its expected place.
Whatever he ends up going with, he’ll just have to trust the recipe, insofar as he understands it.
*
Although Joshua did break out the precious set of bronzeware cutlery he owns—he still doesn’t know when and how his mum organised this particular housewarming gift, but he takes caring for each spoon and chopstick set seriously—he otherwise worked deliberately to downplay the fact that any effort had gone into this at all. Whilst the soup was simmering, he had restocked some side dishes from the only asian grocer still open in the neighbourhood rather than try to make them himself, seasoned radishes and seaweed and kimchi arranged on the table but kept in their containers. The whole thing is toeing the line between casual and meaningful—hopefully firmly on the side of casual.
Still, as Jeonghan sniffs the air as soon as he crosses the threshold, Joshua is filled with the mildest sense of foreboding.
“Did you cook for me?” Jeonghan certainly looks delighted enough as he catches sight of the humble spread, the gently steaming bowls of rice and soup already arranged at opposing ends of the table.
Joshua is briefly filled with the warring desire to soak in some verbal praise, or to downplay it completely. Casualness wins out—why try and take too much pride in a likely flawed first attempt, after all.
“It was nothing—the banchan is going to expire soon, so it just made sense to put this together.”
“Hey, you didn’t even say that with an accent!”
Joshua hadn’t intended to show off that he’d made progress on shaking American vowels from his sparse Korean vocabulary, but it’s a happily accidental side effect. Jeonghan’s teasing marvel at it doesn’t even chafe. It undoubtedly would coming from anyone else.
*
Jeonghan hums with delight as he sips at his soup, and it’s only after that favourable reaction that Joshua drinks some of his own. He’d taste-tested as he went, of course, but it’s good to know that the unintentionally long period of simmering and reduction had only further benefited its flavour profile.
“Dude,” Jeonghan breathes, “you could open a restaurant with this, your sonmat is insane.” His exaggeration is undaunted by Joshua’s quiet scoff. “I love it.”
I love you, would be a great response to pull out and turn the tables with, right now—but saying it even unseriously just comes off conceptually as very gauche. In all honesty, the language-learner forums have not helped Joshua fully nail down the nuance of like and love when it comes to people. Even just the level of politeness to tag onto the verb, in this particular context—the sparse phrases in Korean he exchanged with his mum in childhood have turned a polite 요 into eager muscle memory on his tongue, and odds are high it’ll slip out at the end even if it might send mixed signals.
He doesn’t even know what particular signals he would want to send. Jeonghan resuming their private game of easing him into Konglish isn’t exactly an all-clear to dump feelings onto him, after all, even if Joshua is pretty sure it would be easier to talk about them in Korean; something about that detachment—the filtering he himself would have to do in a language he’s not all that fluent in yet—would let a dissection of the tentative truth flow out so much easier than he could ever manage in English, he’s pretty sure. At least in theory.
It’s not exactly the best time to test it, though. Maybe after enough months have passed. And if Jeonghan’s still entertaining all this with him.
“I'll quit singing when I can make tteok from scratch,” Joshua bats back, instead. “Which—you probably shouldn't eat all of, unless you've been counting it this whole time? You're already old enough as it is.”
To his credit, Jeonghan only needs a beat to process the redirection.
“Fuck off, we're the same age.”
“You're the one still using the Korean system—it never sounds like we are.” It's like Jeonghan wants to already be reaching his mid-thirties—an absolutely cursed concept.
“Shouldn't you call me hyung, then? Jisoo-ya.”
Joshua supremely regrets ever telling Jeonghan his Korean name. It shouldn't roll off Jeonghan’s tongue so naturally when Joshua isn't at all used to hearing it.
There’s a bold verbal crossroads in front of him, and he makes his decision quickly enough—hastily fishing out another rice cake slice from his bowl to chew on, pointedly. He definitely has not been keeping count, but he's pretty sure Jeonghan hasn't been either.
“Shut up, it’s just two months,” is the concession Joshua has to make, although he does put a mental pin in this whole thing for later.
Maybe it'll be worth teasing Jeonghan about his apparent hyung kink sometime after drinks.
(Hey—you're the one with the secret thing for older men. I can't believe I had to find out like this.)
(Jeonghan seems all too ready to suggest edging him in favour of another performative mouthful of rice cakes, but it’s definitely worth it.)
Re: [REMIX] a love language?
Re: [REMIX] a love language?
Re: [FILL] heart on my sleeve, not where it should be
The frustration of using an imperfect second language and feeling like you become an imperfect second version of yourself when you speak it... crying yeah it really is like that and you described it so well via joshua's relationship with his mother
I hadn't watched HR when I first read this and I have now but wowww the (presumably) several years long situationship where both parties are secretly longing for something more gets even more dizzying when superimposed over jihan. i luv them thank you for writing this!!!