Work Text:
the feelings that i miss most genuinely
translate themselves in dreams.
the warmth of a hand and its rhythm
across small gaps in the skin
becomes a short conversation in which
we both say exactly what we mean.
/
It’s not Seungkwan’s fault that this client is furious, but it is his job to try to de-escalate the situation enough to keep the deal intact. “I understand that,” he says politely, raising his eyebrows so he sounds like he’s smiling into the phone, “but unfortunately the bug was caught only after shipments went out. It’s important to us to make that up to our valuable clients like you. We would of course be happy to provide copies of the debugged software at our first possible—”
“Fine,” snaps the client. Seungkwan can hear footsteps over the line, like the man has packed up his things. That’s a good sign, usually. “But if it’s late…”
“We’ll keep you updated every step of the way,” Seungkwan soothes. “Please trust that we will fix our mistake.”
A few more back-and-forths: the client furious but calming down, Seungkwan trying to stay level headed and perky even at the end of a long day, at the end of a long week. The sun went down three hours ago. His eyes feel tacky and dry from staring at his computer screen, and he closes them as they wrap up the call.
Seungcheol shows up just as Seungkwan is hanging up and sinking back into his chair, hands over his face as he relaxes into a deep exhale.
“We’re grabbing drinks to celebrate the merger,” Seungcheol says, and he almost sounds apologetic.
Seungkwan’s heart sinks. “Right,” he answers. “I’d forgotten.”
It’s fair and it isn’t. It’s not like they send out an RSVP, but Seungkwan is the most junior member of his division, and it was wishful thinking to imagine he’d be able to actually make it to a late dinner with Hansol like he’d tried to promise.
Seungcheol pats him genially on the shoulder. “I’ll cover for you if you don’t want to get too…” he waves his hands around to signify trashed.
Seungkwan smiles at him. “Thanks, hyung. I think I’m okay, though. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
Seungcheol shrugs, laughs. “I used to drink half of Jeonghan’s drinks before he transferred, so I’m used to it.”
It’s difficult to imagine Jeonghan willingly accepting help like that unless it was framed like a trick, but Seungkwan is impressed regardless. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, with no intention of following through. Seungcheol’s kindness shows itself in a lot of ways, and Seungkwan figures he won’t be short on opportunities to take advantage of it. “Let me call Hansol and let him know I’ll be home late?”
Seungcheol gets a weirdly knowing look in his eye. “Of course. Should I step out?”
“No, you’re fine,” Seungkwan says, but Seungcheol is already leaving with a wink, shutting the door behind him.
Huh. Seungkwan stares after him for a moment in confusion before snapping out of it and calling Hansol.
“Hey, on your way?”
Seungkwan hears himself make a sad sound. “It’s—”
Hansol’s answering noise is one of understanding. “Another company outing?”
“Yeah,” Seungkwan replies miserably.
“They’re working you too hard.”
Hansol doesn’t sound disappointed, but Seungkwan still hates to let him down, and tries to sound as genuine as he can when he replies, “If I could say no, I would. I promise. You’re way more important than getting into the boss’ good graces.”
Hansol just laughs. “That’s not true, but I appreciate it.”
“It is!”
“Don’t pit me against your job, Seungkwan-ah.” Hansol’s voice has gone a little quieter now. “Please.”
“I miss you,” Seungkwan says, pouting.
Hansol sounds indulgent when he replies, “You can come after if you want. I might be asleep, but you can wake me up.”
“I might still come over, if it’s really okay. I won’t wake you up, though.”
Hansol laughs. “I know you won’t, but you could. I wouldn’t get mad.”
“I know, I know, the great Hansol would never get mad at anyone even if they came to his apartment drunk in the middle of the night and woke him up. You’re very—”
A rap at the door interrupts him, Seungcheol’s head peeking in briefly as he opens the door. “Two minute warning,” he whispers apologetically.
Hansol picks up on it. “You need to go?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Come over after, seriously. I’ll leave some water and painkillers out for you.”
“Fine,” answers Seungkwan huffily.
Hansol laughs again. “Have fun. Be safe.”
It’s a good thing this is a phone call, because Seungkwan feels himself blushing as they say the rest of their goodbyes, and he feels downright pink by the time he meets Seungcheol in the hallway another sixty seconds later.
Seungcheol doesn’t tease him, though he does chuckle and say, “Seriously, you guys remind me of me and Jeonghan.”
Seungkwan doesn’t really know what Jeonghan has to do with anything aside from also not loving company outings, but he nods anyway, loosening his tie as they head for the elevator and into the rest of their night.
/
The apartment is pitch dark when Seungkwan lets himself in, but he’s moved through the space enough times between dinners and sleepovers and movie nights to be able to navigate it with his eyes closed. He feels fizzy, bubbly, still tipsy at the very least. Distantly, he thinks that he should have taken Seungcheol up on that offer, but it’s too late now.
He creeps into the bedroom slowly, finding in the barest sliver of window light that not only did Hansol leave out water and painkillers, but he’d also laid out a big t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. They’re even folded.
Seungkwan’s heart does a fond little squeeze as he changes.
He’s swaying a little putting on the pants when there’s movement from the bed. “Mm?” asks Hansol muzzily.
“Shh, shh, it’s just me,” Seungkwan soothes. He gets the pants the rest of the way on, and revels in the comfortable clothes after a full day in a starched shirt.
Hansol is squinting at him, all bleary eyes and bedhead. “Have fun?”
Seungkwan giggles as he heads to the bathroom. “You’re still mostly asleep, huh?”
“No,” protests Hansol.
“Mhm, you sound super awake. I didn’t have that much fun, but it’s fine. We finished earlier than I thought we would, and I got less drunk than last time, so… score?”
He can feel Hansol’s sympathetic pout from the other room, and focuses on washing his face and brushing his teeth with the spare toothbrush he keeps here. God, it’s nice to work a few blocks from your best friend.
When he makes his way back out, Hansol is propped up on his side, weight on an elbow. His hair looks even wilder, like he tried to tame it and gave up. “Are you gonna be able to sleep?” he asks.
“Yes,” says Seungkwan. He’s only about fifty percent sure it’s true, but if he shows even an ounce of hesitation then Hansol will insist on staying up with him. Ever since the last time, he’s become vigilant about those things, and Seungkwan doesn’t know how to tell him that being babysat like that doesn’t help him sleep. It just makes him feel ashamed, and forces him to get better at pretending.
No matter how much the little gooey core of his heart likes to squirm with happiness when Hansol shows him that kind of low-voiced, warm-eyed concern, it’s not worth it.
“Seriously,” he insists when Hansol just blinks at him. “Move over, I’m coming in.”
Hansol moves easily enough, and Seungkwan crawls under the covers. The bed is warm. The pillowcase is not as soft as it could be, but Seungkwan is trying to take it slow with redecorating Hansol’s entire apartment for him. He hasn’t run into any friction yet, but even someone as agreeable as Hansol will start putting up a fight at some point. Best not to rush it.
They get settled in the muddled darkness, and Seungkwan breathes slowly, feels his heartbeat steady. Even with Hansol’s familiar arm draped warm over his waist, it takes somewhere in the neighborhood of an hour for Seungkwan to finally fall asleep.
/
In his dream Seungkwan is lucid, which is a surprise. His dreams are usually strange, fantastical things, featuring spaceships or spies or celebrity encounters, not… not this, a scene where he’s wandering around his own apartment with full control of his own faculties.
He pours himself a glass of water, feels it glide blessedly cool over his tongue. It feels real, even as a distant part of Seungkwan knows it isn’t. Strange. The pad of his socked feet over the rug, the hum of his fridge, the knicknacks he doesn’t recognize in the living room even as everything else is almost exactly as he knows it in life— strange.
The door opening startles him from his thoughts. He braces, even glances around for a weapon as if to defend himself, but he needn’t have worried.
“Hansol-ah,” he greets, hand over his heart in surprise. Hansol meets his gaze brightly. “What are you doing here?”
Hansol pulls a face at that, exaggerated and squishy like he gets when he’s really in a good mood. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Seungkwan blusters at him. “I live here!”
“Yeah,” says Hansol slowly, plugging his phone in to charge, hanging his bag by the door. His shoes go next to what Seungkwan realizes are several other pairs in his size. “Babe, are you okay?”
“Babe?”
Hansol seems to see no issue with the fact that he just called Seungkwan— that he was smiling at him like— “Seungkwan, seriously, are you all right? You look kind of freaked. Did something happen?”
This is a dream, Seungkwan reminds himself, though it’s a kind of dream he’s never had before, all sharp-focus and turning stomach, butterflies swimming through guilt like a smoke screen. It’s not real, and it’s probably best to just play the part for now. “I’m fine,” Seungkwan says before he can stop himself, “sorry, I just have a headache. How was your, um— work, babe?”
He’s not sure if he should be offended or not that Hansol accepts the excuse so easily. “It was boring,” he says, stripping off his jacket and sinking onto the couch, just a meter or so from Seungkwan. “They’re still running me around as intern but I think next week I’m going to get to sit in on a recording session and hear hyung give live feedback.”
It’s eerie, the way this is a conversation that Seungkwan could imagine having with Hansol. So little is different, even as they apparently live together. Seungkwan’s apartment only has one bedroom, and sharing has never been an issue between the two of them, but the context…
“Sit,” Hansol directs, waving at him.
Seungkwan sits next to him, lets Hansol tuck Seungkwan’s head onto his shoulder and wrap an arm around him, tugging him close. “Sorry I’m being weird,” Seungkwan mumbles.
Hansol presses a quick kiss to the top of his head, and Seungkwan can’t help but melt into him. “Stop apologizing so much, I’ve told you. You’re fine. Do you want me to just order something for dinner?”
Seungkwan nods, burying his face into Hansol’s shoulder. Sorry, he wants to say, and he isn’t even sure why. For apologizing, maybe. For playing along with this humiliating fantasy. He’s going to wake up next to a Hansol that’s never called him babe, and then what?
Hansol orders dinner without moving from the couch, letting Seungkwan stay attached to his side like a barnacle, and then they eat.
It’s nice. Normal. Very little is different, except for the way Hansol stares at him with this goofy, honeyed expression. “You’re so embarrassing,” Seungkwan says around a bite of soup.
Hansol just smiles wider. “You like it.”
Seungkwan feels himself flush pink. “Whatever,” he responds with an eye roll. “You, um— I’m feeling a little faint, actually. My memory is…” he waves a hand, “fuzzy.”
Hansol’s expression immediately sobers. “Did something happen?”
It’s not the first time Hansol has been vocally concerned about Seungkwan, but it’s different here. He’s leaning across the table, every ounce of his attention devoted to scanning Seungkwan’s body like he’ll notice an injury and then looking into his eyes as if he’ll find the answer there. Seungkwan wishes him luck; Dream Hansol is a lot of things, but probably isn’t self-aware about being a dream.
Seungkwan sighs and tries to come up with a reasonable excuse. “I’ve been sleeping badly because of work, you know,” he eventually manages. When Hansol nods earnestly, Seungkwan picks up steam. “Most of them treat me like a task depository at best. I go out of my way to be nice, I stay late and I get there early, and I go out when they ask me to, but it’s not— it never feels like enough. And Seungcheol-hyung keeps telling me it’ll get better when I’m not the newest anymore, but I’m worried it won’t.”
Hansol makes an encouraging sound.
More quietly, Seungkwan adds, “I’ve always been kind of a punching bag.”
The noise Hansol makes in response to that is heartbroken, and his face draws itself into the most serious countenance yet. “You deserve to be treated well,” he says, stone-cold serious, and it’s the most like his real self he’s seemed all evening.
Being scolded by Hansol for his lack of self-worth is the bread and butter of their conversations about Seungkwan’s work. “I know,” he soothes, “I know, I know.”
There’s a pause during which Hansol looks at their plates and seems to realize they’re more or less done eating, because he clears the table and then grabs Seungkwan’s hand, leading him to the bedroom. “Wear something more comfortable,” he says, missing the way Seungkwan’s heart-rate kicks up. Stupid. They’ve shared a bed a million times. They’re sharing one right now, technically.
Seungkwan does as he’s told, slipping into a set of matching loungewear, worn soft and fraying on one cuff of the pants. Hansol does the same on the other side of the room, and Seungkwan finds himself averting his eyes. He’d found some clothes that must belong to Hansol in his own drawer, shirts broad in the shoulders, pants longer in the legs. They end up side by side on the bed, outer arms pressed together until Hansol bumps him and shifts, and then they’re cuddling properly, in a way that they hardly ever do unless one of them (Seungkwan) is actively crying. Hansol’s chest is warm, comfortable to lie on. Seungkwan nudges closer almost without realizing he’s done it, and Hansol accommodates him easily.
“I’m sorry work is hard,” Hansol says after a while. His voice is low and caring. It almost gets Seungkwan to actually tear up, but he holds back.
He shrugs a little, shutting his eyes. “Sorry I make you worry.”
“I choose to do that,” Hansol answers. He drops a kiss onto Seungkwan’s head, and then another on his temple. It’s almost dizzyingly comforting, the kind of intimacy Seungkwan has more or less resigned himself to living without for a while. “Just… let’s take it easy tonight, okay? It’s still early. We can go get ice cream or watch a movie or something.”
Seungkwan hums. “I’ll take tomorrow off,” he promises wildly, consequence-free, “and we can do those things, but can we stay in tonight?” He doesn’t know how long he’ll be dreaming, but right now there’s nothing he wants more in the world than to be held like this.
Hansol doesn’t make him beg for it. “Of course.”
They drift like that for a while, cozy and haphazardly intertwined. Maybe half an hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. Seungkwan only moves when his arm falls asleep, and he moves just enough to take in the warm glow of the bedroom courtesy of the bedside lamp. Hansol is looking at him fondly. Seungkwan traces his eyebrows with his thumb and smiles.
This is the part where he says something romantic, he thinks. Now that he’s committed to enjoying the dream, he realizes he has a lot to say, but as soon as he starts collecting his thoughts the world starts blurring at the edges, dizzying. The walls fall. Hansol fades until it’s like he was never there at all.
The scene melts away, and he feels a hand gently shaking his shoulder.
Blinking awake is a slow process.
“What?” he complains, finding his way back into his body, stretching out all the way to his fingertips and toes. It’s Hansol’s hand on his shoulder, he quickly realizes. Hansol’s bed, Hansol’s apartment, Hansol’s scratchy pillowcase under his cheek.
The real Hansol sounds sleepy himself when he says, “I turned off your alarm to let you sleep more, but you need to get up now or you’ll really be late.”
“Hansol,” Seungkwan groans. That alarm was so he could take the long way to work and call his mom. Now he’ll be lucky to make it without sweating through one of Hansol’s pressed shirts, which won’t even fit him well to begin with.
“I know, I know.” When Seungkwan cracks his eyes open, he sees Hansol looking at him with a tired smile. “I tried to wake you up earlier. You were really out of it. You needed the sleep, Seungkwan, please don’t be mad at me.”
Evilly, he pulls out the puppy dog eyes.
Seungkwan groans again and pushes himself into a seated position, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “I know you had good intentions.”
Hansol frowns. “Is there a ‘but’ coming?”
“But we can’t all do what we love without giving a shit about— about responsibility, and meeting quarterly goals, and massaging egos. Some of us have to work really, really hard, and it doesn’t help when other people get in the way of that.” He regrets it as soon as it’s out of his mouth. “Shit, wait—”
“Ouch,” says Hansol quietly. It’s worse that he doesn’t sound mad. Seungkwan’s head is spinning—the dream lingers in the back of his mind, that Hansol and this one practically superimposed. He sounds like he’s trying to joke when he says, “Tell me how you really feel,” but it’s too heavy to land with anything but a thud.
“I’m sorry,” Seungkwan says immediately. “I have no right to say that about you. It’s not true. And,” he continues, more quietly, “you’re not in the way.”
Hansol’s expression is subdued, dubious.
“I mean it,” Seungkwan insists. “Never ever. I’m horrible in the mornings, you know that by now.”
Hansol takes a deep breath. “It’s okay,” he says, but it doesn’t really seem like it is. “You should get ready.”
Don’t be mad at me, Seungkwan almost whines, but it’s not the time, and it was his own fault anyway. “I’ll buy you dinner,” he offers instead.
“Not tonight,” says Hansol, not unkindly. He’s turned away, rooting through the top drawer of his dresser.
Seungkwan knows a dismissal when he hears one, even if it stings. “Okay,” he whispers, and gets up.
He goes through the motions of getting ready, no pauses for chatting or offers to make coffee. It’s weirdly quiet. Seungkwan isn’t sure how it all went wrong so quickly—Dream Hansol keeps haunting the corners of his vision, smiling at him, kissing his head, and Seungkwan needs the whole fifteen minutes it takes to make himself presentable to shake him off.
“I’m leaving,” he calls from the living room, lacing up his shoes by the door.
Hansol, also changed now, steps into the doorway between Seungkwan and his bedroom. “Have a good day,” he says.
Seungkwan musters up a smile from somewhere and waves at him once, awkward, cheerful. “Thanks.”
There’s one last lingering pause before he hustles himself out the door and into the pale spring morning.
After all that, Seungkwan is early to the office, and he sits pink-cheeked with shame at his desk without talking to anyone until the first call comes in.
/
Seungkwan only speaks to Hansol once in the next 48 hours, and it’s just a text.
He’d been sent a funny meme by his sister and copied into his chat with Hansol, who replied 🤪👍 and nothing else. Not exactly promising. Work had been awful, too—he was distracted, bumbling easy customer questions and forgetting to take his lunch hour both days.
It’s the weekend now, blessedly, and Seungkwan is groggy on a Friday night. He hasn’t dreamt at all since he stayed over at Hansol’s, and the memory of that dream is getting fuzzier with every passing moment. It’s almost funny in hindsight, that it freaked him out so badly when it obviously didn’t mean anything. He almost wants to tell Hansol about it to hear him laugh. To see his eyebrows shoot up, hands coming together to clap in mirth, big goofy smile on full display… he squashes the fantasy as best he can, eyes shut against it.
It’s lonely in his apartment. The more time he spends here, the more he notices the details that are different. It must have been Hansol’s embarrassing touristy magnet from Jeju on the corner of the fridge between the takeout menus. Must have been Hansol’s own shoes that he nearly tripped over coming in the door, because Seungkwan’s are arranged neatly as they always are. It’s weirdly quiet. The evening passes slowly, slowly, and eventually it’s just late enough that he thinks he can get away with going to sleep to try to shake off the weirdness he’s feeling just being here.
Sitting on his own bed makes him feel restless, itchy with the desire to go somewhere else, but there’s nowhere else to go; Seungkwan perches on the edge of his mattress in his matching pajama set and holds his own hand. It takes a long time for him to sleep that night. When he does, he doesn’t dream.
The morning is no brighter. He’s still by himself, still off-balance in his own home. He doesn’t even have work today to distract him, and the day stretches ahead claustrophobically in his mind. It’s the least like himself Seungkwan has felt in a long time, and that thought flips a switch in his mind.
Enough of this moping, he decides. Hansol is his best friend. He hadn’t even seemed that angry, just hurt. Seungkwan can grovel with the best of them if he has to, and this silence can’t hold but Hansol certainly won’t be the one to break it.
He takes the bus six stops to a trendy café near the studio building, picks up a latte, and sweet talks his way past the receptionist and into the correct hallway. He hasn’t been here before, and tries not to rubberneck too obviously as he wanders past custom neon lighting and contemporary seating in weird shapes. He eventually gets to what he’s 99% certain is the right door based on Hansol’s descriptions—Universe Factory is indeed written on a little plaque—and pauses in front of it.
He goes to knock but stops himself, realizing that they might be recording, and instead pulls out his phone. Hansol-ah, he types with a fluttery nervous optimism, open the door!!
It takes a moment, but the door does open, and Hansol squints at Seungkwan where he stands in the bright hallway. “Oh,” he says, big eyes blinking.
“Hi,” Seungkwan says, holding out the coffee. “I, um. I brought you this. Do you have like 5 minutes? It’s okay if not.”
Hansol takes it. He seems like he’s still processing, and then twists around at the torso to look back into the room. Seungkwan catches the blurry movement of someone waving him off before Hansol nods and steps out into the hallway, letting the door shut heavily behind him. “Thanks,” he says, and takes a sip of the latte. “Do you wanna walk?”
“Oh! Sure, sure. Lead the way.”
Hansol guides him to a quieter part of the building, up a flight of stairs and past what looks like an office. “I take breaks over here, usually,” he says, sitting down at a bench near a big, sunny window. “Like, lunch. There’s a vending machine around the corner.”
“Ah,” says Seungkwan eloquently.
If Hansol feels the awkwardness, he doesn’t let on. “How was work? Did they keep you late again?”
“I mean,” Seungkwan says with a mirthless little laugh, “what does it even mean to be late, you know? One of the other people on my team is out this week for a surgery so we had to pick up more work to cover for her, and when you’re on calls all day you can’t fill out the paperwork until after hours, and when it’s after hours everyone wants to come say bye or invite you to drinks or— and it doesn’t stop. I took home a stack of forms to copy edit this weekend. I’m not even a copyeditor. But I’m still the most junior person in the division, so they asked me to and I had to say yes.”
Hansol’s brow is furrowed, a hard divot right in between, and his mouth is pulling down at the corners. “Seungkwan-ah,” he says softly.
“I know, I know. You can get mad at me if you want.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
Seungkwan waves a hand around. “At whoever, then.”
Hansol looks down the hallway before something seems to set on his face, a determination, maybe, or at least a decision. He grabs Seungkwan’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “You know I’m just worried about you, right?” he asks. He’s looking at their barely-touching knees.
“Yeah.”
“I know it’s not your fault. And I’m seriously not mad. It’s just hard to watch you put yourself through it sometimes.”
If it were a few days ago, Seungkwan would already be bristling. Seungkwan doesn’t have a choice. He can’t change shit about his job, and he can’t help that he tries hard and does his best, and it doesn’t matter that Hansol worries about him. Seungkwan never asked him to.
But it’s easier today, maybe because they’re both feeling tender from the not-quite-fight, to see Hansol’s side. They’ve been friends since they were kids; of course Hansol will worry. “I know,” Seungkwan says, and then he admits, “I’d feel the same if it were swapped. And I know I basically said you don’t work hard, which… ah, Hansol, please believe me, I feel horrible. I know how hard you work. I shouldn’t blame you for not having to kill yourself over your job to do well.”
“Stay over at mine more,” Hansol says in a rush, like he’d been waiting for his chance to. “It’s closer to your work, you can sleep more. And you won’t have to deal with your own dishes all the time.”
He’s pouting at Seungkwan with puppy-dog eyes like he isn’t offering Seungkwan the greatest gift he’s ever been given. Let me take care of you. Let me help you be happy, let me lighten your load. Hansol doesn’t look resentful. He’s kinder than Seungkwan could ever be in his place. And he wants to give even more than he already has.
Seungkwan feels a gentle smile bloom on his own face to match the way his cheeks threaten to heat. “Okay,” he whispers, and the beam he gets in return carries him through the rest of the day all on its own.
/
He has another dream on Sunday, when he carts a bag over to Hansol’s and cooks dinner in Hansol’s tiny kitchen.
“I don’t think my place has ever smelled this good,” Hansol says.
He says it again in the dream, but it’s warped: our instead of my, Seungkwan’s pricier, bigger, colder apartment in place of Hansol’s, Hansol’s hands lingering on his waist instead of planted platonically on Seungkwan’s shoulders, occasionally massaging away tension from stress.
In the dream, Seungkwan leans back into the grip. “You’re welcome,” he chirps happily, and gets a kiss on the temple for his efforts. It’s cozy, comfortable. He forgets to feel bad about this one because he’s warmed down to his toes by the affection.
When he wakes up the next morning, a few minutes before his alarm, he lets himself study Hansol’s sleeping face and think, There are worse people to have embarrassing dreams pining over, and he doesn’t even want to cry.
“Sleep okay?” Hansol asks thirty minutes later, once Seungkwan is out of the shower and doing his hair.
He nods. “Yeah, thank you. I was actually going to grab some coffee across the street, want any?”
Hansol shrugs, which means yes, so Seungkwan goes and returns and they have coffee together on Hansol’s tiny couch. The level of domesticity will be scary later when Seungkwan thinks to worry about it, but for now the bump of their shoulders against each other is just nice. Relieving.
“I might have something for you later,” Hansol says out of the blue right before Seungkwan has to leave.
Seungkwan tilts his head at him. “Hm? What? Something nice?”
Hansol grins. “It’s a surprise.”
“You’re no fun,” Seungkwan pouts, but he means the opposite, a happy little fluttering of anticipation in his stomach from being thought of.
He makes it to work ten minutes early, sets up at his desk, and remembers to take his lunch break on time. As he’s walking to his favorite kimbap stand two blocks down to get some food, his phone chirps, and he sees that he has two new messages from Hansol.
Finished the thing I was talking about early!! I wanted to ask you to do the guide track but hyung said it would ruin the surprise… so here it is :) but I always imagined the vocal parts in your voice 😅
my my rough guide.mp3
Seungkwan fumbles for his earbuds, connecting them to his phone and hitting play with a trembling finger as he walks through the busy streets of this part of the business district.
It’s a light song, soda-bubbly and summer-sweet, with happy lyrics. It makes Seungkwan smile. He thinks about Hansol finishing early, and then he thinks about the last week and the two days of it that Hansol spent thinking that Seungkwan doesn’t take him seriously. His smile slips a little. Still, the song is buoyant, and he lets it carry him through his lunch break on repeat.
It’s AMAZING, he sends back, with about ten celebratory stickers to express his admiration.
Expectedly, he just gets back an aegyo-laden thanks and a thumbs up. He’s proud, Seungkwan can tell, but Seungkwan will be the one to do the cheerleading that he won’t do for himself.
Hansol is always Hansol.
/
At the office the next day, Jeonghan comes by, which is a cause for celebration. Seungkwan doesn’t know him well, but he does know that Jeonghan’s transfer to Gwangju was heartbreaking for the younger associates and some of the older ones too. Seungcheol in particular seems delighted to have him here, which was to be expected. He talks about Jeonghan a lot for a former coworker, which Seungkwan had surmised to mean that they had managed to stay close.
“You know Seungkwan,” Seungcheol is saying, guiding Jeonghan around the office as if it’s been months and not just a few weeks since he was last here. Their pinkies link together once they get within range of Seungkwan. “He’s still the newest.”
“Aww,” Jeonghan says, wrinkling his nose sympathetically. Seungkwan wonders if he’s being made fun of.
He just shrugs in response and saves the weekly report file he was working on. “It’s nice to see you, are you doing well?”
Jeonghan beams at him. “Better now that I’m here,” he says with a meaningful glance toward Seungcheol, who— blushes?
Seungkwan starts to put some things together in his head. “I’m glad for you,” he says, finding that he means it, and turns back to his work with a little grimace. “I should probably get back to this.”
Jeonghan pouts. “You won’t catch up with me? Cheol-ah, leave us for a few minutes, let the others know I’ll be joining at dinner.”
Cheol-ah in the office. Whatever realization Seungkwan came to, it must have shown enough on his face for Jeonghan to drop the last vestiges of pretense. Seungcheol, clearly smitten, nods and waves at them both before making his way out.
Jeonghan smiles at his back as he leaves. “He’s cute,” he comments idly, mostly to himself, and turns back to Seungkwan with a happy glint in his eyes.
Seungkwan feels abruptly nervous. He never spoke to Jeonghan much, but the other man is clearly sharp, quick-witted. Seungkwan isn’t worried about his ability to hold his own if the conversation takes some turns, but he is concerned about why Jeonghan wants to talk to him at all. He bites the bullet and decides to hint at it. “Ah, you must have a busy day today, but you still made time to talk to me.”
“Mm,” acknowledges Jeonghan. “I caught an early train, and I have another one in the morning.”
This is where Seungkwan would usually politely ask where Jeonghan is staying, but he thinks he might know. “Right,” he says instead. “How is it being back?”
“Same as ever. Maybe a bit less exciting without me, but I expected that.”
Seungkwan feels a laugh get tugged out of him. “That’s fair.” He’s heard tales of what happens to employees that are shitty to Jeonghan. Or, Seungkwan realizes, to Seungcheol.
Jeonghan watches him with amusement on his face. “Did you only just figure it out?”
Seungkwan could play dumb, but it’s weirdly nice to be across from someone who would call him out on it even if he tried. Someone who doesn’t underestimate his perceptiveness, and won’t let him play it off so easily. “I’m not sure how,” he admits. “When I look back it’s really obvious.”
Jeonghan nods. “You wouldn’t have been looking for it,” he says graciously. He immediately follows that with, “It’s pretty obvious, though, yeah. We try to be discreet but neither of us is very good at the whole secrecy thing.”
“You seem really happy.”
Jeonghan’s smile goes soft, private. It makes him look younger. “Yeah. Can’t help but be.”
Seungkwan’s heart pangs. “Is it hard being far away?”
“Most of the time. But between you and me, you can do a lot over the phone.” He waggles his eyebrows.
Seungkwan splutters, scandalized and delighted in equal measure. “I’m on the clock!” he whisper-shouts.
“Of course, of course.” Jeonghan doesn’t look sorry at all. “You’ll have to tell me how you got your own office so young, though. They had me out with the sales team for over a year when I joined, and Seokminie was in here because his uncle is the Vice President.”
“Oh, it’s haunted,” Seungkwan says.
Jeonghan blinks at him. “Is that what they’re saying now?”
“Seokmin-hyung, um. He kind of fled? He says he had an encounter with a ghost, and he seemed really freaked out. He asked if I wanted the office when he moved upstairs, and then arranged it for me. So here I am.”
“Huh.” Jeonghan’s interest fades quickly, and he taps out something on his phone before putting it away again and leaning toward Seungkwan. “Seungcheol is waiting to come back, so I’ll make this quick. He said you’re seeing someone?”
Seungkwan feels himself go abruptly, miserably pink. “I’m not.”
“Oh,” Jeonghan says, nonplussed. “Really? Not that— handsome guy, good eyebrows? Did you break up? In the picture Cheol sent you seemed really—”
Seungkwan shakes his head frantically. “Picture? What— no, we’ve never been dating, he’s my best friend. I might have let hyung imply that, though, because I didn’t realize… he was comparing us to you two, and I thought it was like, oh, you’re really good friends.”
Jeonghan starts to laugh, a disbelieving giggle that crests into a cackle before he pulls himself together. “Sorry, sorry. If you were dating someone though, it would be him?”
Seungkwan nods tightly. “I guess.”
“Okay, well Seungcheol just wanted me to check and see if everything was okay. He thought it would be weird, since he’s your sunbae, if he cornered you at work. I have no compunctions about that kind of thing, and he said you were stressed. We can’t have our Seungkwannie being stressed.” He pauses to pout dramatically, over-sympathetic in a way that almost tips over into mocking. “Have you been worried about it?”
Seungkwan has no idea what to do with Jeonghan’s incredibly loose boundaries, nor with the fact that he needs to finish this report in the next 15 minutes if he doesn’t want to stay later than he was already planning to. Seungkwan’s friends are sick of his long hours, his family doesn’t know what to do with him, and Hansol is… Hansol is Hansol.
He leans toward Jeonghan too, tired of holding himself so carefully. “Were you and Seungcheol friends before…” he waves a hand to signify falling into horrible deep intense love with each other.
“Kind of,” Jeonghan says. “I always thought he was really hot, though, and it was always flirtatious between us. We weren’t super close as friends without the rest of it.”
“Ah.” Seungkwan tries not to be disappointed.
“Stop, you can’t look that sad, Cheol will kill me if he comes back and you’re frowning like that.”
Seungkwan forces a smile, which only makes Jeonghan look more distressed.
“Listen,” Jeonghan says, “no one can make you do anything. If you want to stay stuck and pining forever, you can. But if the way he looked at you in that picture—where he was picking you up on foot from the office, by the way—is indicative of literally anything, not telling him is closer to cowardice than it is self-preservation.”
It lands like a crowbar to the chest, and Seungkwan is left speechless.
Jeonghan smiles like he gets it, and pats Seungkwan once on the cheek, overfamiliar like he has been the entire time. “Think about it, okay? Seungcheol will give you my number, call if you want. Hyung is here for you.”
“Thanks,” Seungkwan manages weakly.
Jeonghan pats him again, equal parts comforting and condescending, and then he stands up. “S.Coups-ssi!” he fake-yells, cracking the door open to reveal Seungcheol casually standing outside.
Seungcheol shushes him immediately. “Stop, stop, oh my god. I told you not to call me that in public.”
“Hyungs,” Seungkwan says, “please do your foreplay away from my office. It was nice to see you, Jeonghan-hyung. I’m sorry I can’t make it to dinner.”
They say their goodbyes quickly after that, not an ounce of shame from Seungcheol or Jeonghan for whatever the hell that was at the end, and Seungkwan sighs and turns back to his work, emotions churning. Not all bad, but not settled, either.
/
That night, he goes to Hansol’s apartment and dreams again.
This one is like the others, but dialed up to 11. As soon as Seungkwan steps into his dream apartment, he’s swept into Hansol’s arms and being kissed within an inch of his life. His heart pounds, hands coming up as if by instinct to grip Hansol’s shoulders, holding on for the ride. Hansol is thorough, precise. He kisses Seungkwan like he’s kissed him a hundred times before. It makes Seungkwan’s heart swoop in his chest. “What—” he stutters, taking a breath when he can, getting dragged in for another handful of kisses before he can pull back to ask, “What’s gotten into you?”
“Just missed you,” Hansol says, big tragic eyes and hands hot on Seungkwan’s hips. From this close, Seungkwan has to tip his face up to look at him.
“Oh,” he answers breathlessly.
Hansol grins. “Yeah.” He leans to steal another kiss, and then another. Slow, sweet drags, like Seungkwan is something to be savored. It’s heady, consuming.
Time is always funny in his dreams, but it goes totally sideways then. With his eyes closed, Seungkwan feels like he’s floating, tethered only by Hansol’s hands and mouth. They end up in the bedroom somehow, and Seungkwan loses his shirt, and Hansol’s lips trail from his neck to his chest down his belly and—
“Wait,” Seungkwan gasps, eyes flying open. Hansol’s hair is fucked up from the way Seungkwan had been gripping it. “Wait, wait.”
Hansol’s expression contorts into concern. It feels so real. It feels so real.
“Seungkwan-ah?” he calls, quiet, tentative. His t-shirt is crooked, sharp collarbone on display. Seungkwan had pressed a kiss to it earlier. He’s so pretty. He is just the same as he is in life, except he loves Seungkwan like this. Except he wants Seungkwan like this. It’s not right. It’s not fair. Seungkwan doesn’t know what to do except curl away, hiding his face behind his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “I can’t, I can’t.”
A hand comes down gentle on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Talk to me, babe, you’re worrying me. Did I do something? Do you need a minute?”
Seungkwan nods in a desperate rush. “Yeah. A minute.” He has to cut himself off because he’s scared of what will come out of his mouth if he doesn’t control himself.
This Hansol is a figment of his imagination. Seungkwan doesn’t know why he’s been having these dreams—repression coming back to bite him, maybe, or the universe playing a cruel prank—but he can’t go on like this. What would the real Hansol think if he knew Seungkwan was playing house with a version of him that never had a say in the matter? Jeonghan’s voice rings in his head, calling attention to his cowardice. Seungkwan is coloring in the lines of a story that never belonged to him. Seungkwan is going to shake apart on this bed.
Hansol tries gently to pull his hands away from his face, but Seungkwan resists. He’s starting to feel light-headed. The room feels like it’s spinning. His breaths are coming too fast, his cheeks feel wet, his fingertips tingle with the beginnings of numbness and—
He wakes up crying.
“Whoa,” Hansol says, the real Hansol, puffy-eyed with exhaustion. The room is pitch dark; it must still be the middle of the night. He’s leaning over Seungkwan, eyes wary. “Hey, you’re awake, it’s okay.”
He doesn’t look disgusted at all. It’s only because he doesn’t know, but false comfort is still comfort, and Seungkwan feels his own face crumple as he starts to sob.
Hansol makes a wounded noise, hands fluttering like he doesn’t know where to touch. The uncertainty hurts but is relieving in its own way, further proof that this isn’t another figment of Seungkwan’s pathetic imagination. Seungkwan tries to apologize a few times through his blubbering, but he’s not sure he sounds coherent. Hansol makes reassuring sounds in response to every attempt.
It takes a long time for Seungkwan to calm down. Long enough for Hansol to go off and come back with tissues and a glass of water, and to get Seungkwan sitting up against the headboard so he can breathe easier.
Eventually Seungkwan is just quietly sniffling, wiping at his eyes every now and again. “Sorry,” he manages, muted.
Hansol watches him with that intense frown he gets when he’s worried and doesn’t know what to do about it. “Bad dream?” he ventures.
Seungkwan huffs a mirthless laugh, more tears spilling down his cheeks. “No,” he answers. “Or— yes, I don’t know.”
“You haven’t been sleeping well here,” Hansol says, not a question.
Seungkwan shrugs. He figured out last week that he only has the dreams when he sleeps in Hansol’s bed, so it’s no wonder that waking up from them is a minefield. This was bound to happen eventually. “Not really.” He dabs at his face with a tissue. “Sorry I woke you up.”
There’s a heavy moment of silence.
Hansol sighs. It would be easier if he sounded cold, but he just seems worried. “What’s going on with you?”
Working long, grating hours of customer service calls has given Seungkwan a certain set of skills, but they fly out the window in the face of this kind of exhaustion. Seungkwan doesn’t want to lie anymore. If it’s shameful, then he’ll be ashamed.
He takes a shaky breath. “I dream about you,” he says, “when I’m here.” Hansol looks crestfallen, which is enough for Seungkwan to power through. “Dreams where you love me the way I wish you did. The way I love you. Really, Hansol… it’s embarrassing. I was embarrassed and waking up was confusing the first time so I picked a fight, and then I didn’t want to fight but I was still ashamed, and last night was— I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I thought it was a weird coincidence but then it happened a third time and I’m just feeling really overwhelmed right now. I understand if you want me to leave.”
Silence.
Seungkwan focuses his gaze on Hansol’s chest, the slow in-out of his breathing. Still nothing, just the distant sound of cars honking out the window. A faint shout near the bus stop right by Hansol’s apartment, the main reason it’s so much more convenient to stay here when he’s running late.
“Please say something.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” Hansol says. Slow, like he’s picking his words carefully. That’s always been his way with things that matter.
Seungkwan tries to stamp out his own impatience, but it’s hard. “So…”
Hansol laughs a little, like Seungkwan is cute for practically vibrating with nerves. “I like you a lot. I thought that was obvious, I— ah, wow. Sorry, I’m still half-asleep. Do you want to date me?” he asks, still smiling and only seeming the tiniest bit nervous. Like it’s no big deal. Like he just wants to know.
Words kicked clean out of him, Seungkwan nods.
“Cool,” Hansol says. His smile gets bigger.
“Cool?” demands Seungkwan. He’s smiling back, but he’s pouring all of the indignance he can into his voice. “I spill my heart to you and you say cool? Come here, seriously, I’ll show you cool—”
It’s a blur after that, Seungkwan shoving Hansol back onto the bed and the two of them scuffling like the kids they were when they met. It’s giggly, ridiculous. Seungkwan is trying not to be too giddy in case it scares Hansol away, but he can’t help the way he’s beaming, or the way adrenaline is sending a slight shake to his hands when just a few minutes ago he was crying his heart out.
Seungkwan accidentally elbows Hansol in the gut, and they settle down, Hansol flat on his back with Seungkwan peering down at him and his sweet, open expression. It’s too good to be true.
“Tell me this is real,” he asks quietly.
Hansol’s grin softens into something small and warm, but there’s mischief in his eyes. “Why?” he asks in return. “Do I look like the boy of your dreams?”
“Yuck,” Seungkwan replies. And then, “Yes. You do.”
Hansol melts the rest of the way. “It’s real. I know I didn’t answer seriously, but you know, right? I want to tell you in daylight, when I know you’ll believe it. But you know. You know?”
Seungkwan does know. No version of Hansol, real or imagined, would play with him like that if his heart wasn’t sure. The yes is tucked into his big, toothy grin. It’s folded into his soft palms. “Yeah,” he says. “Is it too embarrassing to say I’m scared to go back to sleep?”
Hansol tugs at him, arranging them both until Seungkwan is being held like he was in the first dream when this all began to take root. “It’s not embarrassing.”
“Okay,” Seungkwan whispers. His leg is starting to get a cramp. That wouldn’t happen in a dream, right? “Maybe it’s better to sleep, actually. And you can remind me in the morning.”
“Sure,” Hansol agrees easily. He’s starting to sound drowsy again, and Seungkwan almost feels guilty for waking him up for all of this.
“You’ll remind me, right? Promise?”
Hansol links Seungkwan’s pinky with his own. “Promise,” he says, and Seungkwan feels his voice rumbling where they’re tucked up against one another.
“Okay,” he says again, slightly scratchy pillow under his cheek, “okay. Um. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Seungkwan.” Hansol sounds like he’s smiling.
Seungkwan smiles too, just until he falls asleep.
/
When he wakes up, it’s sunnier than he was expecting. A quick glance at his phone shows that it’s after 9. Hansol must have turned their alarms off, considering it’s Sunday, and Seungkwan stretches luxuriously from his fingertips overhead down to his toes before remembering the previous night.
He’s shaking Hansol awake before he can convince himself otherwise, heart running laps in his chest.
“Hi,” he says as soon as Hansol’s eyes open, “good morning, sorry, you promised you’d remind me if it was real, do you still want to date me?”
Hansol makes a disoriented noise. God, he’s never been any good at waking up and it’s devastatingly cute. His eyes squint open slowly. His face is puffy.
“Ah,” he manages. He rubs his hands over his face, and his ridiculous bedhead makes Seungkwan want to tug at the lock of hair that always flops over his forehead no matter how hard he tries to tame it. “Yeah. Can we talk about it after I sleep more?”
Seungkwan pokes him in the ribs until he sits up. “No, are you kidding?”
“You’re gonna whine if I kiss you with morning breath.”
“Well now I’ll whine if you don’t!”
Hansol’s smile is a sunrise. He lifts a hand to run his thumb delicately over Seungkwan’s cheekbone with apparently no concern for the fact that it makes Seungkwan’s ears flush a burning red. “You’re so cute.”
“You said you’d tell me.”
“I want to be your boyfriend,” Hansol answers, and he looks tired but sure. “I want to date you. I want you to dream about me and be happy you did. You know I’m not good with words like you, so I can only tell the truth. The sun is up and I love you. Is that enough?”
“You know it is,” Seungkwan answers, and if his voice is a little thick, if his eyes are a little wet— that’s nobody’s business but his own. And maybe Hansol’s, too.
After that, all Seungkwan can do is reach for him, and Hansol yields like he always does. Leans back, gets his hands on Seungkwan’s waist, looks at him like he hung the moon and all the stars in the sky. This is what Jeonghan must have seen in that picture, Seungkwan realizes. This is what Seungkwan has only let himself pretend to see. But he’s looking now.
And here in the golden morning light, kissing Hansol is better than Seungkwan ever dreamed.