It was mine.

—Sir, this passport is expired.

Like an idiot, I had brought my expired passport, issued from before my military service. Gyu-ho was freaking out next to me (“What do we do what do we do”) and we had only a few minutes until boarding.

I gave up and handed him the envelope of Japanese yen we had exchanged in advance.

—Pocket money from your hyung.

—What?

—Everything is booked and it’s too late for refunds. At least one of us should get to enjoy it.

—You want me to go to Japan, by myself? What’re you going on about?!

Gyu-ho’s Jeju accent was rearing its cute head, which always happened when he was upset. I stuffed the envelope into his pocket and showed him the itinerary on my phone.

—Follow this plan and find some guy to spend the night with. They say Japanese men have bigger dicks. Have a million affairs. OK?

—Seriously, what the hell?

Gyu-ho grinned, more disconcerted than anything else, as I pushed him into the line for customs. He kept looking back at me, and I waved at him to go on.

I got back on the airport link alone. Gray, empty marshland stretched on and on outside the window. I felt like I was watching the same movie on repeat. My ears craved music, so I put on Kylie Minogue’s album Aphrodite for old time’s sake. Days like this reminded me of her voice. My lips kept drying out, but my pockets turned up empty—no lip balm. This was usually Gyu-ho’s cue to hand me some of his. That wasn’t all he did for me. He came home before me, cleaned the floor, had the stew cooked salty just the way I liked it, struck me speechless with the many ridiculous things he said . . . What was I going to do without him for four days? I thought of how long it had been since Gyu-ho and I had had sex. I’d never had a relationship so unmoored from sex before. And it was me who had told him to sleep around with Japanese guys, so why was I feeling shitty? Proving once again that no one is a bigger idiot than me.

◊

I first met Gyu-ho at what’s now a defunct gay club in Itaewon.

It was Chuseok and they were having an all-you-can-drink tequila event. Not having a family to join for Chuseok—being a certified Unnatural focused on bringing shame to the family (not much has changed since then) and generally being stuck in poverty (yup, still)—I could hardly afford to pass up such an opportunity. I left the following message in our group chat:

Hey guys, there’s an unlimited tequila event at G today. See you all there.