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If there was anything that really was the devil, it was having a crush.
A small flick of fortune was that the morning bus was busy, and Jake could look out a window or get the thought of Jay lost in the crowded seats. In the afternoon, they were the last people beside the driver and whichever cursed dolls people forgot to return to their bags.
It began as a great day. Jake's mom knew he'd be out of the house later than usual. Rock paper scissors still needed to be played to figure out who would do the talking at the office for Jake to take Heeseung's delivery shift, but that didn't matter in the grand scheme.
The afternoon bus wasn't going to be an issue because Jake wouldn't be taking that route home today. And the morning bus—he could just distract himself through it. And pay no attention whatsoever to Jay during classes and lunch and passing in the halls.
And then go his separate way on the delivery route and eat dinner with his family and do a bit of homework and pass out from a brilliant day and hopefully Heeseung would have a studio date with Sunghoon every single day for the rest of their lives. Or at least until graduation and Jay had moved out of town like he always said he wanted to do.
...Not that Jake paid attention to things Jay said. Floors and inconspicuous walls and testing how much background noise was humanly possible for ears to pick up became fascinating whenever Jay was in the vicinity.
So was the case when roughly three seconds—or what felt like three seconds—after claiming his window seat, Jay plopped down next to him.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Suddenly the chatter of the other kids in the seats was blasting through Jake's headphones like they weren't on his ears in the first place.
Suddenly his body had been hijacked and he was careening toward a place that was definitely not the landing strip.
Jay never sat next to him! Why was he doing it now, on this perfect day?
Jake tried to keep his eyes on the street outside the window, but that only made him jump when a hand tapped his arm.
"Hey." Jay's voice was muffled by the headphones Jake still hadn't taken off. He took them off and faced Jay. Ignoring him any longer would be rude. As would be pointing out Jay's jiggling leg that mirrored how Jake's insides felt.
Now what could he say? Something about the weather. School. Sweaty hands.
"Hey," Jake said in return. "That seat’s taken."
Jay looked bewildered. He glanced around. "I don't see them."
"It's taken by my butt."
"But your butt isn't that big."
Was that a compliment, an insult, or a fact? Jake just sat there in mortification, pretending he didn't see Jay licking his lips every few seconds. Did he need lip balm? Jake could think of a few ways he could get some that were inappropriate for being on a school bus. But surely much worse things happened on this bus.
"Ohhh." Jay snapped his fingers. "It's invisible?"
"Yeah. My butt is… really big. And invisible."
"So I'm sitting on your butt right now." Jay laughed like it was funny.
What wasn't funny was the feeling that a bead of sweat bigger than the Pacific Ocean was rolling down Jake's forehead—his entire head at that point.
During the next lapse in conversation, Jay licked his lips again. And okay, Jake had quite a habit of licking and biting his own lips but he'd never seen someone do it as many times a minute as Jay was doing right then. Like BPM? LPM. Licks-per-minute. Wasn't a lick also a measure of speed or distance?
Wait.
Maybe that was clicks Jake was thinking of. If that was correct, his heart certainly soared thirty clicks outside the bus when Jay talked again.
"This isn't really romantic, but uh. Jake, I didn't know how else to ask you. Will you go out with me?"
His heart was thirty clicks away for real, having landed, still pumping, on some kid's trampoline.
Except don't think Jake missed that little bit in the beginning: the "this isn't really romantic" part. Yeah, Jake caught that.
"No," he said. Stuttered. Whatever. Let him protect his reputation. It was already bad enough as it was, being the gay nerd jock. "Sorry, but I'm busy."
A platonic hangout sounded great right then. A platonic hangout with Heeseung or Sunghoon or both plus the cute Riki kid that always followed Heeseung and Sunghoon around.
What didn't sound great: a platonic hangout with Jay. Also known as a fresh opportunity for Jake to humiliate himself even more. That sounded like the last thing to sound great in the history of greats.
And that was why crushes were the devil. That was why crushes were embarrassing. Because what moron rejects their crush that just asked them out?
If only Jake had been propelled thirty clicks away from that bus along with his heart and dignity and decency and general smarts.
∆∆∆
So maybe the morning wasn't great, but that didn't mean the rest of the day couldn't be. It was already getting better: Jay hadn't looked at him since the school day started, and Jake planned on doing nothing about it.
At lunch, Heeseung had a problem with that.
"Hyung," Jake whined, "you're supposed to be on my side."
"I'm on your side. Maybe you should just talk to him."
"And embarrass myself again? No."
Honestly, that day might have been the culmination of every embarrassing moment Jake had in front of Jay, which included but wasn't limited to:
That time Sunghoon dropped his eraser under Jay's desk and made Jake retrieve it by saying "fetch".
The time in the cafeteria, at the same table Jake and Heeseung were at now, when Sunghoon (he was a frequent culprit of these situations) had shouted that Jake had something to say to Jay and Jake had just shouted that Sunghoon sucks and of course everyone turned it into a dirty joke because that's what teenagers do.
The time Jake was following Heeseung (his favorite upperclassman) around the halls like usual, and Heeseung waved Jay over and had a conversation with him and when they handed the metaphorical mic to Jake, he told Jay he liked Spanish dancing.
Which would've been okay if the current topic had been Spanish dancing or if Jake actually knew anything about Spanish dancing.
Everyone always said the same thing to couples having fights or misunderstandings in media: just talk to them.
Today, Heeseung was part of that everyone.
Today, Jake was very happy to not do that. Also, he and Jay weren't a fighting couple.
∆∆∆
A masked person lived at 7 September St.
The package in Jake's hand was labeled 7 September St. with a taped note that read: Deliver personally! (Remove this from package first) in Heeseung's endearing scrawly handwriting.
The house loomed in the distance. It was honestly surprising that it hadn't fallen apart and gotten authorities called yet, it was so dilapidated and dark.
It wasn't actually abandoned but Jake and his classmates liked to pretend it was because that made it better than imagining the person that actually lived there. If ever in need of a Halloween costume, Jake would dress up as that person. But only as a last resort, because where would he even find a black mask with bulging and grotesque eyes and mouth like the one that person wore out in public? And would he have the guts to touch it?
The answers to those questions were nil and nada. A lot of people in town liked creepy things and Jake was not aboard their ship. Or he was being held hostage on their ship—both were true.
Just a few more steps.
And then a few more.
And then.
Stop.
Jake couldn't force himself any closer. The wind was picking up, buffeting his shirt. Were evil spirits afoot?
Something grabbed both of his shoulders and he flipped around and screamed in the evil spirit's face. Except the evil spirit was Jay and Jay was also screaming in Jake's face.
Ahem.
Jake stepped back and tried to quell his wobbly legs. Sea legs, you could say. Remember the ship? Haha.
Jay was brushing the lapels of his uniform like there was anything on them to begin with. Hah, like a bit of dust on his clothes would ruin that face. "What are you doing here?"
"Delivering a package." A highly sophisticated job that Jake was not going to let Jay interrupt. "What’re you doing here?"
"I live on this road."
"Then shouldn't you be home? I'll just deliver this and go home too. You probably have a lot of work from debate."
Jay squinted at him. "I don't, actually. Why don't I stick around?"
A sigh escaped Jake without his permission.
What he needed to do was deliver the package. His scaredy-cat tendencies were his own business.
And he wasn't trying to be rude. Jake was just not very hungry for Jay's flavor of delicious. Especially when his heartbeat was already overflowing its conveyor belt and his stomach was swooping and arms bore goosebumps like it was their final battle.
Click. Crunch.
Swing.
Jake realized at the same time as Jay that it was The Door that just opened. Number 7 September St. All the person had to take were a few steps and they'd see him and Jay standing on the side like teenagers about to vandalize a house.
Suddenly Jay's hand was tightly holding his wrist and Jake tried not to combust. "Do you trust me?"
"Who are you? Aladdin?"
Jake promptly ignored the implication that he was about to be taken on a magic carpet ride, and he was glad Jay ignored it too, in favor of making a dash for the back of the house. His fear of creepy things was greater than his fear of his crush, so of course he followed when he really should've run home yelling his innocence.
Fighting for a ball across a field for several years in a row had made him fast and strong, so much that it turned into him pulling Jay rather than Jay pulling him under the rotting wood planks of a nook in the back of the house. It was like a cave, a secret hideout. Something from childhood.
Jake felt very much like a child that had pressed a doorbell and hid in the bushes as he crawled back there, clutching Jay's arm.
When some of the adrenaline had worn off, Jay's expression spoke of accusation.
"I don't know," Jake yelped. He removed his hand from Jay's triceps. "I touch people when I'm scared."
Jay sounded like he was going to laugh. "I didn't even say anything. But what are we going to do now?"
Instead of once again embarrassing himself in front of Jay, Jake tried to do the grown-up thing and get a reminder of why he was doing this in the first place: Heeseung, who, years ago, took Jake's freshie puppy gaze in stride, and since then they'd stuck together like Velcro that would be very painful to pull apart.
This evening was the only time Sunghoon was free to work on his music project with Heeseung, so of course Jake offered his labor for Heeseung's delivery shift. At the post office the adults had told him that was very generous to do for his friend.
It was actually quite selfish, because Jake took quiet glee in the fact he didn't have to see Jay on the school bus again. He took a bike and traveled the route Heeseung usually took, delivering stuff after school.
Except he ended up seeing Jay anyway. He ended up being with Jay anyway. And clouds filled the sky with a thick, dark layer and he and Jay were huddled under the back of this person's dilapidated house because Jake couldn't get his nerve to deliver the last package.
Here's how Jake imagined a conversation between him and the masked person would go:
Jake: your package, my liege. Please don't give me those eyes.
Masked One: what eyes?
And then the Masked One's eyes would grow so big that Jake wouldn't notice the mouth doing the same and by then it'd be too late and he would be swallowed whole and soon made not-whole by those needley teeth and digestive juices.
"Jake," Jay interrupted his thoughts, "stop catastrophizing. Look. Look at me."
Jake looked at him. He looked him right in his eyes that were much better than any mask's.
"It's not as bad as you think."
"How do you know?"
Jay smirked the smirk of someone whose words were working. "I'm a mysterious guy."
For a long moment, Jake found the ground ultra fascinating. Then he sighed. "Okay. I'll go."
Jay's hand lingered when he patted Jake's shoulder. "You got this, Jake."
Jake was prepared for battle. He was prepared to fight. He was prepared to retreat with grace. Negotiate a treaty.
His preparations didn't stop the full-body cringe that brought him to the door and pressed the doorbell.
Five seconds passed. Were those footsteps coming from inside?
The door creaked as it opened a crack. And then it opened all the way, and Jake's foot was ready to propel him backward, but the person standing on the torn welcome mat was just... A normal person.
A normal person bearing an awful resemblance to...
"Thanks for delivering." She crouched to pick up the package Jake had accidentally dropped when the door first croaked. Then she stood again and Jake took in her bright green eye contacts and dyed orange hair and white wool shawl. "Oh," she said. "You're not Heeseung."
Before Jake could confirm that he indeed was not Heeseung, she was saying, "Thanks anyway! And tell him hi. He's my favorite student but I like to think I keep it hidden very well. Oop, ahahaha, there I go again with my silly talk. Have a great one!"
The door closed. Jake stood there, dumbfounded, like the door had smacked him rather than just done its job as a piece of wall with a fixed range of motion.
When Jake returned to the nook, Jay was hunched over his knees, picking his fingernails. He stopped as Jake calmly, elegantly let out some of his leftover excitement on the grass, and kindly did not comment on Jake's tap-dancing-hip-hop dance style combination—he probably wasn't one to judge, as he'd done much weirder stuff.
Jake knew that for fact because he'd witnessed him do that shit so many times.
Jay seemed more interested in other things, anyway. "How'd it go?"
Jake ended the grass groove and sat very seriously in front of Jay. "I need to have some words with Heeseung."
∆∆∆
In Jake's book, it was far too late for a debrief, but he was so excited he couldn't sleep. Kicking grass earlier hadn't helped.
Which meant Heeseung didn't get to sleep yet, either. Not that he usually did at this time. He was lying on the carpet beside Jake's bed (where Jake lay) and staring at the ceiling and fidgeting with something.
"So you were with Jay, huh?"
Yes. Jake was with Jay and... Well.
∆∆∆
After Jake said he needed to have some words with Heeseung, Jay didn't take that as a cue to exchange farewells for the day. No. Instead, he untucked his knees and sprawled out, relaxed, under the planks.
"Okay. But what happened just now? Come on, I'm invested."
("I'm invested, too," Heeseung said.)
Jake had been prepared for drastic measures upon the door opening, but the person wasn't wearing a mask, and the person was also Heeseung's favorite teacher. So basically Jake spent half his life being afraid of nothing. Didn't explain why she wore that mask all the time, but the weirdness did help Jake understand why she was Heeseung's favorite.
("Did you have fun on the route at least?")
("I would've had more if I'd known your teacher was there.")
("I never brought it up because why would anyone ask where my favorite teacher lives?")
("Why would you even know where your favorite teacher lives?")
("Just keep telling the story.")
After Jake told him about Heeseung's favorite teacher, Jay started laughing and rambling about juice and extensive sleuthing and creepers and masks and Riki.
Apparently, the package was a new mask because recently someone threw grape juice on the old one, and grape juice was very harmful for that particular mask so Heeseung's favorite teacher needed a new one pronto.
Jake chose not to ask where or how Jay got this information, but Jay kept going anyway.
The Masked One's land was known to have a lot of creepers from the school nearby, and Jay was one of them, along with Riki.
"As in, my Riki?" Nevermind that Riki interacted with Heeseung and Sunghoon more than Jake during their hangouts. Jake just liked to think of himself as a sort of mother while Riki's family were still in Japan.
"He's everyone's," Jay said sternly.
("Ah, our Riki.")
("He knows all four of us, then?")
("We all know each other. Jay and I have known each other for a very long time, you know. Our mothers used to speculate about our relationship.")
Jake stopped the story for a moment, sitting up to stare down at Heeseung. "You need to start telling me everything about your life, bro. I can't do this."
Heeseung sat up, too. "You never asked!"
And yeah, Heeseung didn't often volunteer information without being asked, but Jake didn't realize it reached as far as being close friends with Jake's long-time crush without Jake knowing.
Honestly, that had no significance to the story. Jake was simply surprised.
And speaking of his crush:
Jay had suddenly become very serious and asked Jake on a date. Jake may have made a frog sound in his throat but at least he didn't bark or barf.
Jay said, "You might not like me back, and that's okay, but I think I wasn't clear about something on the bus earlier."
Jake froze, yet managed to gesture for Jay to continue.
"I asked you on a date in a romantic context. Not a bro hangout. Unless you want that bro hangout to also be a boyfriend hangout."
And while several people had asked him for help writing their own love confessions, because "you're so good with your words, Jake" he was actually kind of shit when it came to his own even though everyone assumed otherwise. Perhaps that was where the stereotypical jock came in and replaced the nerd. Or perhaps they went hand-in-hand like some overused trope.
Hopefully Jay wasn't expecting a beautiful, eloquent reply, because that was not available at the time. Luckily, something else was available. Two somethings (someones) and Jake had a crush on one of them and it seemed Jay had a crush on one, too...
"Jay," Jake said. Jay smelled so good and warm amidst the scents of dirt and coming rain. "You wanna be brofriends?"
"Boyfriends?"
"Brofriends?"
“Come on, I’m trying to—”
Holy shit.
Holy shit they were kissing. He was kissing Jay. His crush he could barely stand talking to just last week. What was he supposed to do with his hands? Did Jay care about sweaty hands? He didn’t seem to, since he pulled Jake closer with an arm around his shoulders, and Jake figured if he didn’t like it he would’ve pushed him away already.
And then they lived happily ever after, which lasted until the clouds made due on their dark promise and it became apparent their families would not be happy with them for missing dinner.
He didn't even care as he walked his bike home in the pouring rain, sloshy sneakers and drippy hair galore. His clothes, that had uncomfortably stuck to his back the last few minutes of the walk, peeled off real quick and got tossed in the dryer. Jake should probably actually go check them right now.
"So..." Heeseung sounded impatient. "Did you accept the date?"
"Yes! Of course I did. Isn't it obvious? What else would you expect me to do?"
The hypocrisy hit right after.
Thankfully, Heeseung was merciful, because they both knew Jake absolutely would've shaved off the interaction like his first chin hairs had Jay asked him out even yesterday. "I'm just proud you didn't run away this time."
"...Thanks? But anyway, now I need to figure out what to wear. And if I should pay or he should pay or we should split it. Or we should do something we don't have to pay for. Doesn't have to be a restaurant or theater. We could go to the park or cook at home or play music together—I know he plays guitar. Come on, you do gay stuff with Sunghoon; help me out here. And since you and Jay are so close, do you know what scents he likes?"
"I can't recall if I've ever heard you say this much." Heeseung looked like he was about to faint.
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