Chapter Text
“so, uh, this is the place,” jihoon says, facing the start of the hanok section. “post office is over there, those are the farms, and then my great-aunt runs the only inn so if you want i could bring you over-”
but flower boy is gone, and the only proof that jihoon’s not finally lost his fucking mind in this godforsaken snowy mountain village are the boot prints that end right next to him. he is mildly disturbed but also too pragmatic (read: in denial) to give it too much thought, and half an hour later he’s back where he started, cursing at the trees and lugging wood with his too-skinny arms.
(it’s not fair of him to talk about the mountain the way he does. it’s as much a part of him as the pink in his favorite sweater is, or what he imagines stars sound like in the desert.)
the inn his great-aunt runs is easily the largest and the oldest building in the village, sitting at the entrance to the hanok section like an enormous stone guardian. the courtyard in the middle also leads to the bath houses and the shrine, but it’s closed off for the winter as nobody ever seems to visit. travelers like it in the spring, where the flowers compliment the rustic qualities of the village nicely, but it doesn’t seem to be worth the effort when it snows. jihoon prefers it that way, too. in the winter the hanok is quiet and warm through the walls, like his own stone kingdom.
he stomps snow off of his boots after depositing the wood and axe in the courtyard. the entrance hall is brightly lit, which makes him squint in confusion. it’s only ever lit when they have visitors.
suspicion growing, jihoon goes looking for his aunt who he finds in the kitchen.
“ imo,” he sighs. “why are you making tea?”
the old woman turns in faux-surprise, apron swishing around her ankles. “jihoon-ah,” she smiles, ( infinitely more suspicious) “it’s cold outside! i just thought our guest could use a hot cup and some cakes, he was so skinny. just like you, hoon-ah, you look like you never feed yourself in that city.”
his suspicion turns into alarm; they do not have visitors in the winter. the only people dumb enough to visit the mountain when they have time off are jihoon and his idiot friends (and flower boy, but he’s been written off as a strange hallucination/daydream. the air is thin this high up, and the only semi-attractive peers in jihoon’s vicinity are seungcheol and jisoo, which, while tempting, is a solid no thanks. )
“hoonie,” she says, peering into the pot. “could you take this to his room? i think i’ve left something in the garden.”
both of them know that’s bullshit, and she knows he knows it’s bullshit because she’s never suffered from memory loss or lost any of her mental faculties ever. he knows because when she pulls the old age card on him, it’s a contest of wills that he never wins because he’s her grandson and she’s crazy.
balancing the tray carefully on his sweater arms, jihoon knocks carefully on the wood of the paper paneled door before sliding it open. he bites his tongue, because wow, okay, it’s flower boy. while this confirms his suspicions and confirms the change in medication he’ll be requesting later this week, it also confirms that flower boy is much, much prettier when jihoon’s not squinting through the glare of the snow.
he’s wearing a cream sweater that his shoulders fill out nicely. it swoops to his collarbones, revealing pale smooth skin and a single mole. jihoon swallows.
“um, excuse me?” flower boy turns and starts while jihoon bows in greeting. “welcome to the inn. my great-aunt sent me to drop off some tea for you, because she thought you had a cold trip. my name is lee jihoon, it’s nice to meet you.”
flower boy shakes his hands and keeps his eyes on jihoon, with the air of faint amusement that he always seems to have when he looks at him. “park jinyoung,” he says. “fancy meeting you here.”
jihoon shrugs. “i work here, and it makes things easier for my aunt too. just tell me if you need anything, i’ll be in the third room to the left of the restroom.”
as he moves to leave, jinyoung stands up and jihoon is struck by how much taller he is up close. stop that, he scolds himself. you can’t be attracted to guests. but the fact of the matter and the sad truth is jihoon’s thirst for hot older men that he didn’t spend his formative years with knows no bounds, so when jinyoung asks him to stay for tea he can’t go.
he cups his tea in his sweatered hands and mulls over conversation topics to break the calm, but awkward silence. jinyoung looks too young to be in the village for business purposes, looking for property or potential development sites, but he also doesn’t have the aura that most other young visitors do with their fancy cameras and hair dye. it really leaves one option, the same as jihoon. he’s staying with his grandmother’s younger sister for the winter semester, taking a break from school because he’s not yet sure what he’s going to do with all the authority he has over his own choices.
“do you have any family in the village?” jihoon asks. “i don’t think i’ve ever seen you around before.”
jinyoung smiles. “family business of a sort,” he agrees. “but yes, i haven’t been around recently. i don’t believe we’ve met before.”
his answer leaves a sour taste in the conversation afterwards because it calls up memories of jihoon’s father, who abandoned his mother and the mountain to chase a woman and his ambition. jihoon only started visiting the mountain regularly in his high school years, after his grandmother passed away and his father began deteriorating. but jihoon has also always been quick to judge and quick to draw away, which he knows has been the source of many failed friendships before they ever had a chance to start.
“no, definitely not,” jihoon sighs. “and i only ever come up once or twice a year for a little while, because i go to school in the city. imo tends to need a lot of help around the place, especially in the winter when she has to maintain the cafe and shrine.”
jinyoung leans forward, interested. “your family owns the shrine? i thought it was a community style thing.”
“it kind of is? most of my aunt’s friends, or like, the entirety of the village, used to help out in cleaning it up and doing some of the gardening, but it’s difficult now that all of them are older. it’s higher up the trail, so the air gets really cold and the mountain is a bitch to climb. it’s also always been on our family’s land, ever since it was established with my great-great-great grandparent’s generation, so i guess we’re just taking up all of the responsibility for it now.” jihoon shrugs. “so i work on it while i’m up here, and i go to school and try not to think about things in the city. what do you do?”
“i’m a researcher,” he smiles. “i do a lot of digging around for scientific journals and stuff, but i’m on vacation like you right now. i thought maybe visiting my ancestral home would be a nice change of scenery.”
jihoon can’t tell if he’s imagining it or not, but jinyoung says scenery just that bit slower and drops his eyes to jihoon’s neck while he does. he might be hearing things; he might be in need of a good fuck. or, he could be desperate enough to let himself start flirting with this complete stranger who showed up on the mountain like a fever dream in the middle of winter when no sane person ever vacations on the mountain.
(somewhere, someone is playing a run on the xylophone because
jeongdap,
jihoon’s sexually repressed.)