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Maybe Jake's mom knew before he did.
"The boy next door," she says, while she slices radish and Jake does his homework at the table like the good Asian American kid he is. "Don't you kiss him."
And before he can protest, she adds: "Don't stare too much, either."
Not kissing him won't be a problem. The staring part? A little harder. But like the good Asian kid Jake is, he nods and obeys.
While Yoda might have said there is no try, there certainly is a try to not stare at the boy next door when he goes out with his parents or just happens to be in the yard at the same time as Jake.
The boy's name is Jay, Jake gleans from one of his overhearing sessions. Their driveways are close together! Eavesdroppers are bound to be well-fed. 'Tis the way the world spins.
His name is Jay, and he's an only child. This piece of information comes from Jake's wonderful deduction skills: Jay with parents. Jay with a friend Jake doesn't recognize. Jay alone. Never Jay with anyone that could be of sibling age and looks.
Yoda might be on to something. Jake's try is more a do not not-stare than a do not stare. He really cannot not stare, though, the spring day he realizes Jay's been leeching off the clear patch of grass Jake cut last week after the rain shot it up. Jake feels like a territorial dog, glaring out at Jay the Trespasser through the entryway window.
"What?" Jay says when Jake shows up on the lawn with the spray paint. Jake repeats himself. "Ugh, fine."
Jay continues being perfectly annoying, sunning himself and making ridiculous requests as Jake sprays a white border into the grass. This includes and isn't limited to: "Hey, can you move it out a little more? So I can stretch out . . . Ahhhh . . . Cool, thanks."
"Alright," Jake says once the first step is complete. "This is how we're gonna do things. Look. Jay. Come on, look at it."
Jay looks at the paper lazily. "On a usual day I would care," he says equally lazily, "but the sun is just sooo pleasant."
Jake drops the paper on Jay. "Read it."
After a few seconds of staring at each other on both of their parts, Jay reads it.
Then he puts it aside. "It's stupid."
"No it's not."
"It is. It's really stupid."
"But you'll follow it?"
Jay stares at him again. Unfortunately, Jake hasn't stopped staring since the earlier few seconds. His eyes sting a bit and he blinks. Too many things reflect off of each other, making it bright out here.
The Neighbor Contract:
1. Stay inside grass allotted with the white line.
2. Not friends, no feelings.
3. No kissing (Jake's mom's rule).
Despite Jay being an only child, his house isn't typically quiet. His parents blast music, have all kinds of people over, Jay gets piercings.
Jake has an older brother. Jake is quiet. His older brother isn't very loud. Their parents aren't very loud. When they have guests over, they aren't very loud, either. They do like music. Jake doesn't have piercings. He's just curious about them, always watching Jay's.
At the dinner table, Jake is upset by the constant insinuation provided by their families that he and Jay are or will be friends. Something about when he's upset and it's related to Jay makes him loud.
"Jaeyun, this is unlike you," his umma tells him in the kitchen. That's scolding enough.
The adults send them to go hang out, probably using cleaning up from the meal as an excuse to talk about adult things.
"Jay," he hisses. "The contract."
Jay looks stupidly confused. "What about it?"
"Not friends. Friends hang out. We're not friends."
"Siblings hang out, too."
Thinking of Jay being his sibling kind of makes Jake want to hit something, get loud(er). With Jay, being siblings with Jay, it would not be like the relationship he and his hyung have had all their lives. Not at all. His skin itches.
"Fine," Jay says, probably after seeing whatever thunderous look Jake's accidentally let through. "Not friends and not siblings and not hanging out."
"Just forget it. We're not hanging out."
Jay nods. "Right."
"We're just waiting."
"Mhm."
"For dessert."
Jake doesn't even like sweet things.
Yeah, so. Maybe Jake's mom knew before he did.
But hey—he's not kissing the boy next door. Not even when he's being particularly frustrating or cute.
And maybe they're older now, and he's realized some things, maybe a lot of things, not enough things.
And maybe some things are pretty important and relevant to him and Jay, and maybe all of that just. Doesn't matter.
It starts mattering when they're both around nineteen years of age and it's summer again and they're in Jay's house alone and Jay for absolutely no reason informs the empty room that he's incredibly horny.
With the weather having become pleasant enough for open windows—birds and distant traffic and people sounds are audible, and a faint breeze roams around the room and it's not too humid today, and the warmth in the room isn't too hot—there's something so summer in the air.
To clarify, it's the empty room that's empty of people besides Jake and the aforementioned incredibly horny Jay.
Jake's pretty sure Jay didn't just forget he's here and say that aloud. He's pretty sure Jay wouldn't say that even if he actually were alone, but what does he know?
Unfortunately, a what that he does now know is that the sight of Jay's very obvious horniness in his boxers is . . . fascinating.
Jake sighs. "Fine. Gimme your dick."
"What?"
"I said gimme your dick."
"What the fuck?"
"Come on. I'll just help you. Shit, you're making this so much more difficult than it needs to be."
Jay laughs. "I'm the one that's making this difficult? Dude, you told me to give you my dick."
"Yeah. So hand it over."
"This isn't a fucking hostage situation."
Maybe he's horny enough to the incredible amount, maybe he's desperate enough, maybe he actually likes Jake enough for this, maybe it really means nothing anyway—
All those maybes floating around the room with the breeze suddenly don't really matter as Jay reveals his dark, flushed—hard dick already leaking shiny at the tip. Cut, like Jaeyun, and overall a little thinner. He's still plenty solid and probably five inches. It just makes sense his dick would look like this, like his boxy, thick hands. And it's straight—probably the straightest thing about him aside from his jawline.
While Jake's realized some (a lot) of things growing up, Jay has as well, and he's shared them with Jake more than Jake has shared with Jay. Maybe this is just another one of those things.
Jaeyun nearly licks his lips but he catches himself in time, and for good reason—he's seen a dick many times (mostly his own), it's just a dick, get ahold of yourself, good Asian son Sim Jaeyun. It's not dinner or something. And anyway, Jaeyun's not even starving, no matter what the blood having a throbbing soirée in his own dick has to say about it.
"You sure? Looks to me like you're holding yourself hostage. Relax, bro. Let me take care of it."
Even though he deliberately doesn't say, "take care of you," it still feels intimate in a way that maybe they shouldn't be.
Jay gripes something, something like: "Hard to relax when mumble mumble I didn't even mumble mumble. . . . If you say something about how I'm making it difficult this time, you're still wrong."
"I think I'm right," Jake says. "Look at him, you've neglected him, poor thing."
"Fuck," Jay says, and Jake goes silent, hand pumping him carefully. "Fuck, that's good. Jake—" He moans. His hand strokes Jake's thigh, over his shorts, onto his bare, warm skin. It's a sharp feeling, and it's a hot feeling, prickly like Jay's laid a heated poker on him.
Isn't this crossing some boundary? Jake's just helping him get off, isn't he? Why is Jay saying his name like that? Shouldn't he not be saying it at all? Shouldn't he not be saying anything at all?
He's touching him. Fuck, he's touching him.
"Call me—call me Jaeyun."
And there he goes, crossing the boundary too.
"Mmm. Jaeyun." He opens his eyes and looks directly in Jake's.
He's mostly only been called Jaeyun when he's being scolded and fuck that shouldn't be so sexual when it comes from Jay. It really shouldn't. It's fucking bad for Jaeyun, like it should be, but it's bad in a way he wants and tries to convince himself he won't keep wanting.
He looks away, back down at the active commotion, too late. He's already made eye contact with Jay for far too long and it rings in him, entwining with his arousal as he focuses on his pale hand on Jay's skin—watches his veins with the veins in Jay's cock.
Touching somebody else's dick: no. Never. Not by accident or a joke, even. But here he is. Here he has been all these years, all the confusion. As confused as he still is his actions right now are as deliberate as they'll ever be and he's rescued from his mortifying thoughts about church by how those veins and the whole flesh and skin around them pulse faintly in his grip and how Jay's so warm. His full balls move with the strokes and before Jake can overthink it he moves closer and cups their weight in his other hand. He wonders if Jay can feel on his sensitized skin every tentative, caged breath that puffs from his lips. Jay releases a breathy groan. He shifts his hips and grips Jake's thigh.
Jake's so turned on he doesn't know what else to do with himself. He imagines leaning down, what more of Jay's touches on his bare skin would feel like, what it would feel like massaging, rounding his tongue on his beautiful needy head, Jay's reaction to that.
In real life Jay's other head is thrown back in pleasure, eyes squeezed shut, throat working, abdomen rippling. There's more sweat than Jake had thought to expect; Jay's breathing is freezing up but it's not making the summer air any cooler; faint vocalizations come with each taut exhale.
Jake feels more and more like he's been shoved into tumbling down a guilty and treacherous path.
Jay cums with a stuttered whiny moan and his body heaving with shaking, shuddery breaths.
Jake's barely removed his hands—thick with cum—from his crotch before Jay leans on him like a sweaty cavern caving in, a tall dark green blade of grass drooping on his shoulder.
He lifts his head and Jake knows what he's looking for.
Jake pulls away. "No kissing."
Jay nods, still breathing heavily. His hand still clutches Jake's thigh.
Jake was wrong. This is completely a hostage situation.
He started the contract to mitigate effects like these like his umma warned him of and where is he now?
Any time they're in a close position Jake can't stop thinking of it. For one thing, only a little more harmless than the rest, Jake's wrists (or arms in general) are way weaker and less enduring than he'd convinced himself they were. Which means, well, it means Jake's at risk. May be at risk. Of being replaced. It's irrational, yeah, yeah.
And there's another thing he can't stop thinking of. It feels like a lifetime ago that they went to prom, yet somehow his brain is dredging it up and convincing him of its confusing relevancy.
They'd gone separately. Jake went with some friends and Jay went with someone—someone that wasn't Jake, if that's not clear. Unfortunately at the time it was very clear to Jake that it wasn't him with Jay, and everything else was kind of muddled, including why exactly he was so upset about it, and what exactly to do about being upset about it.
Worse: afterward, Jay had acted like he was the one that was pissed with Jake.
Their families gift them unscented dish soap when they move into a dorm suite.
It's a start for acceptance, considering they let them move out in the first place, and together at that.
It won't go well, his umma warns.
Both of their sets of parents warn, many times, verbally and non-verbally. Jake has a feeling his umma's warning carries something more than simple privacy concerns.
He and Jay share the idea that they will probably continue being warned but also that they won't give up. It's really been doing both sad and revelationary wonders for Jake's good Asian son anxiety.
Alone in their dorm for the first time, surrounded by blue and brown and watery afternoon light, it finally feels official that they've moved in.
The second everybody else left Jake crashed on his bed and the strange but oddly comfortable position it's put him in does not change as he says: "Wow, it's so weird this is our place now."
Jay's laid down on his own bed across the room and he's silent. He doesn't actually end up responding to that phrase, and Jake forgets about it because Jay suddenly says: "Why can't we kiss?"
And then he sits up and comes over.
His knees dip the mattress, he's right in front of Jake, Jake's mind is now taking its sweet time to replay every instance of their sexual escapades (which are quite numerous), so much so that it nearly knocks him over and oh no then Jay would have to be on top of him which would really suck, wouldn't it.
"Isn't it fine if we're friends?"
"Not friends," Jake mutters, mesmerized by Jay's pink lips so close to his.
Their first kiss is gentle and far more tender than Jake expects—not that he imagines this often, but in his extraordinarily occasional unintentional contract-violating nightmares it's rougher, it's urgent, it's illegal. And this? This is soft. And careful. It's really gay.
Jake forgets to close his eyes for the first few seconds, but then he gets into it. Maybe too into it. This doesn't feel like something friends do.
(Jay isn't Jake's friend. Jake isn't Jay's.)
Jake adjusts so he can feel the bed under his back and the weight of Jay climbing half on top of him with their breathing in sync. When he opens his eyes, Jay's already looking, gaze lidded, somehow raw.
"Was that good?"
It was good. He did like it. He liked it too much. It's too comfortable like this, with Jay's hand starting to slide up Jake's chest to his neck. Jake wants to do something stupidly romantic, like bring his own hand up to Jay's and hold them together against his face.
"Come here," he says, and drowns it all with another kiss that turns into . . . a whole lot more.
Later, when they should be finding something for dinner because of what time it is and what they just did, they're just laid out on the bed—as much as they can with how cursedly small this mattress is. Jay's skin is warm and sweaty against Jake's and the air in the dorm is cool.
There's the voice again—what about the neighbor contract? What about your status as a good Asian son?
Jake's too dickmatized to give a fuck in that direction for once.
Is pushing two beds together a good idea?
They get bigger sheets for it.
On a day Jay himself isn't going shirtless around the dorm, he finds a reason to complain about Jake going shirtless around the dorm. Jake easily finds a reason (Jay's previous complaint) to complain about Jay's socks always ending up on his stuff, and Jay tells him he's being a hypocrite.
The socks thing has only really been niggling at him a bit, and he doesn't actually really mind as long as they aren't extraordinarily dirty socks. It may just a tiny bit also be niggling at him more than he's let on because certain thoughts about their roommateship have been niggling him with extraordinary strength in a way that feels way too extraordinarily dramatic and kind of ridiculous when of course Jay isn't going to leave and Jake doesn't know how he knows that but it is one thought that comforts him.
"Why do we fight like this?"
Jay looks . . . confused? "Are we fighting?"
"I dunno. It feels like it." He feels bad for being a mopey downer if this is actually just fun banter for Jay.
"Well, then let's stop."
"Aren't you still mad at me?"
"No. Besides, I don't want you to be really upset."
"You want me to be upset a small amount."
"Maybe."
"Asshole."
"Hey, only friends get to call me asshole."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Jay shrugs. "According to you we're not friends."
"Because we . . . " A heavy silence smoothly and suddenly oppresses Jake. ". . . Wait."
Jay waits.
Jake resumes. "What are we?"
"We're not friends," Jay says impatiently. "Not friends, do you get it now?"
"Maybe I'm just dense."
"You're a little bit dense. But you're also so many other things, and that's what makes you Jaeyunie, okay?" Jay looks like he's figuring something out. "And . . . That's what I love."
"Bro," Jake says sadly, such a sap.
"Don't bro me when I just told you I'm in love with you."
"'Kay, bro. Wait—in love? Like lovers? Nah, that's . . . " A second heavy silence oppresses Jake when he smoothly and suddenly remembers he's been trying to unlearn homophobia.
"You're fucking gay," Jay has no problem saying. "We've already fucked like a million times and neither of us sees anyone else. Remember prom? I was trying to get over you. Or just. I don't know. Get your attention."
"It worked."
"Yeah? Come on, Jake. I don't wanna beg you."
"Don't beg me, then," Jake says, and digs his hand into Jay's hoodie and kisses him. He's going to keep going shirtless around the dorm. It gives Jay better access.
Jake wants him to be happy because of him all the time. He forgot happiness isn't realistic.
Happiness alone can be shallower than meaning, happiness being a state of contentment and ease and comfort. There will always be discomfort, there will always be conflict, there will always be the cliché ups and downs. So-called thick and thin, all the shit in between and outside, just life. When you have meaning, all that struggle is there but it's also deeper than just the feeling, the fleeting feeling you wonder if you'll ever feel again, the fleeting feeling that teaches you that most of the time you're not actually feeling, well. Anything.
The fleeting feeling teaches you meaning, and teaches you the importance of it.
He's caused so many feelings and actions in Jay over the years—Jay was more-than-bothered that Jake hadn't made him his priority.
Was it like that?
Jake had certainly ruminated about this for years. It felt prioritized in his head. But it hasn't shown well in action until the present.
One of those actions it shows in is their conversations. Somehow, they can actually talk about things now.
Like so:
They sit on the couch and they bring up the prom thing.
"It felt like a—a violation," Jake says, feeling like metal screeching haltingly over tracks.
Jay nods encouragingly. "Of?"
"Us. The contract of us."
"Isn't the neighbor contract supposed to be us?"
"It is. It was. Supposed to be. But . . . I don't think it ever was us."
Jay nods again. "Not the us that we want to be."
Jake puts his arm over the back of the couch. "So what, do we just get married now?"
"You haven't said it yet."
"Said what?"
Jay just looks at him.
Jake just looks at him back. Tilts his head a bit, watches Jay tilt his to match.
"Okay," Jake says with a laugh, moving closer on the couch. He takes another moment to admire Jay, and then he leans in and kisses his cheek. "I love you."
He's said it before. But he'll say it again and again, until it feels like his natural state of being. Just like how it feels to be with Jay.
Jay smirks, nodding slowly. He raises his arm, his hand cupping Jake's head and the other on his waist, pulling him heavily onto his lap. He slowly grinds up on Jake. "I love you too."
Jake's groan of exasperation doesn't come out as intended. It's more of a moan. "You're insatiable."
"Baby, you make me horny."
Okay! Well, holy fuck, then!
"And who are you to say that?" Jay adds. "You're the same."
"Love you," he says when Jay leaves for class.
"Love you," Jay says on his way out.
And to think it used to be so difficult.
The Neighbor Contract (Rewritten)(with visible annotations so we remember our history):
1. Stay. inside grass allotted with the white line.
2. Not friends (definitely), no shortage of feelings.
3. No kissing in places anybody can walk in and get traumatized haven't we taught you better than this (Jake's mom's rule)(she should've knocked).