Chapter Text
A man who is pure at heart and says his prayers by night
May still become a wolf when the autumn moon is bright
they first meet as boys their age so often do, at college, at a party, with liquor loosening the life from their lips. eyes pulled and so easily turned to every exaggerated movement, so boldly aware of just how much the body can want. raw and rough. hard and fast. smashing everything across the span of one night to leave nothing of softness or sweetness for the morning after.
and the boys? all kinds of them: stupid boys, pretty boys, violent boys, and boys with teeth far too big for their mouth.
it’s like this that seungcheol first steps into the intramurals mixer, and he sees him in the corner of the room, and he thinks, tall.
the first time they meet, the boy does not turn to see him. he laughs out loud, a delightful sound that makes his friends crowd around him. he's holding all their drinks, and his broad shoulders strain back against his white shirt. it is the sight of his bare nape that first makes seungcheol’s mouth run wet. the strength of it, the untouched glow of its skin in the frat’s dirty lights.
then, it is the muscle shifting beneath that makes seungcheol think the boy might be strong enough to hold him down. force his hand over seungcheol’s neck and have him gasping out empty air into strangers’ sheets.
but, he watches the boy scrub a hand over his clean nape, and he wonders how much he would like it if someone else’s hand were to cover his own. to have another’s teeth making a place to fit against his hot skin.
the last one is a real dangerous thought. seungcheol lets the edge slide him by and goes to catch the boy’s attention anyway.
“hi there, can i steal a drink from you?”
the tall boy with a perfectly empty nape turns, and his breath goes with the slightest hitch of surprise. seungcheol can hear it perfectly. he smiles as he looks up into those wide eyes, and he knows at least tonight, he’s going to get to take this one, lovingly on his knees.
kim mingyu proves a surprise. a challenge. an instant infatuation, all in one, and long, long after.
they push into one another’s bodies on the second floor of the house, where other couples pasted together in the dark seem to share the same idea. theirs is more immediate, they are urgent strangers with the same desire. mingyu’s hands are on his waist, and seungcheol’s, already tugging at the edges of his hair to smooth over the ridge of his bent neck. the untouched span of skin there.
“soccer, soccer,” mingyu pants out when they separate. his bottom lip has turned pink, where it sticks out, where the dull points of seungcheol’s teeth bit into him.
he rests his arms on either side of seungcheol’s head, cages him in, and whispers with that same pink on his cheeks, “freshman tryouts, i got in as their first choice for center forward.”
“oh?” if jeonghan ever finds out about this, he’s never going to hear the end of it. big bad wolf eating up innocent little red indeed.
“i do swim, butterfly,” he lifts his arms under, around mingyu’s, and the boy’s eyes go wide at how well seungcheol handles him. seungcheol bumps their chests together, as he comes close enough to murmur across his mouth, “i'm a junior. you should call me hyung.”
mingyu stares at him like he’s dazzling, like he’s hung the stars. dazed as he is, his mouth is parted, slick and wanting.
so, seungcheol asks him very nicely, as polite as he can be:
“how do you want it?” he wraps mingyu even closer, ever tighter, until he can feel the boy’s obvious heartbeat and he swears he can smell it too, right over his skin, inside his neck.
mingyu’s pupils are blown out, with only a single ring of light eclipsed behind them. if he bit down, would mingyu scream or moan? imagining the sound of it, mingled over the smell of his heart on his skin, seungcheol can feel his teeth grow.
“come on,” seungcheol goads, rubbing a hand hard and mean right over his neck, “tell hyung what kind of boys you fuck, hm?”
the admission comes honest, fever-hot, “i like nice boys, but i like them when they know how to be mean to me, when i want it,” mingyu rambles against his mouth, “i like it best, when i don’t have to ask for it.”
seungcheol takes it back. little red riding hood has spilled some blood after all.
“hyung,” mingyu whines, suddenly sliding out of seungcheol’s arms, and for a moment, seungcheol thinks he’s a terrible drunk, but he sprawls forward on his knees and begins pushing seungcheol’s shirt up, up, and runs his mouth again with the pretty pink of his bottom lip resting right on top of seungcheol’s dick.
“hyung you’re the hottest thing i saw tonight, i’ll suck you off, i’ll let you fuck my mouth, fuck me, anything, just - just -” he opens his mouth wide when he's caught up on all his words, and takes seungcheol to the hilt with a single little gurgle. he gags himself for a moment and pops right back. spit, tears, no problem at all.
he blinks up at him and shows off his own grinning fangs. “just don’t make me ask for it, ‘kay?”
no need for another word. seungcheol fucks right back into his mouth and mingyu opens easy, moaning all the way down.
they go at it right on the floor, and it first it’s sex, just sex, easy sex, rough sex because seungcheol did promise to take him on all fours by the end of the night, so he props mingyu up by his ass and mingyu scrabbles, stretches, pushes back, he doesn’t have to ask, but he does beg, begs plenty loud and pretty before seungcheol even has the thought to push it out of him, but he learns so quickly, right there on the spot - “hyung please,” “hyung, don’t tease” - and in return, seungcheol listens just as well. so they fuck, too raw for their first time, with mingyu’s knees scraping through his jeans as he fumbles again and again for seungcheol’s hand on his waist.
seungcheol breaks him in against the ground. it's wild enough, a rut without rhythm that has mingyu reaching between his legs as if he would like to hold seungcheol there, offer him his heart and cock in one pulsing line to keep him longer—
so it’s a wonder in the end, that seungcheol is able to keep his own control.
the boy comes with fingers shoved between his teeth, choking over the top of his throat, and he cries, red and stained in the face, like he’s laughing with relief when seungcheol finally pops his dick out of him.
“baby,” seungcheol says suddenly, struck with something of an aching bruise inside his chest, and mingyu’s body jolts beneath his, thighs straining like they might pop if he opens himself any wider. they’re both learning on the fly. about what mingyu wants and what seungcheol should do with that want.
“baby boy,” seungcheol tries again through his teeth, and this time, he knows to push right back in before mingyu can even begin to sob for it. he hits home, and home, and home again, as he plays mean and filthy all night long.
seungcheol loves it, falls in love for the moment with the filthiness more than anything. raw animal work in the shape of human bodies. though he doesn’t feel that he’s in love--not quite, not yet.
come morning, he wanders off a couch with a sore back and an even deeper ache, a kind of rare contentment to his empty stomach.
it's with an ache in his stomach that he finds mingyu in the dorm’s kitchen, frying handmade batter into pancakes, as easy as angel-wings spread in the snow.
“breakfast for my hard work?” he asks with an odd sort of daring. if he flaunted that kind of alpha male cockiness so often, it’d be too much, even for him. but he knows for sure now mingyu is the kind of boy who enjoys it, and that knowledge breathes slowly inside him. it makes seungcheol run hot, it makes seungcheol want to indulge even more. he pushes into mingyu’s back, rests his nose on his nape, and it’s not dirty between them, no, not even with last night, not even now with his cock pushed up against mingyu’s shorts.
it’s morning filtering into the kitchen and making the usual grime on the floor shine with something like syrup, something that makes their feet stick and bodies warm with every slight shift. mingyu smells like another part of the meal in the rising steam of the batter and seungcheol, pressing lips and teeth and kisses, wants to skim the sweetness right off of his skin.
mingyu laughs like he can sense it too, rocking his broad back against seungcheol’s mouth. “rise and grind, hyung. if you promise to wreck me like that again, i’ll cook for you forever.”
seungcheol wants to eat off his plate and then scrape everything out of him in return. lips and tongue, he’ll be gentle, he promises.
it’s disgusting, he suddenly realizes, how easy this kind of love is. the eggs-over-easy with the pour of homemade batter to smooth over the big blotchy bruises on mingyu's knees, so rough, everything will still feel too-tender in the aftermath of a burning shower - that kind of easy.
it’s dangerous.
“anything you want, baby boy,” he finds himself promising, first thing in the early morning.
mingyu wrinkles his nose with a toothy grin when seungcheol takes his first big bite. feeding forkfuls and syrup dripping from well-torn lips, he’s not quite the same again after the fucking paired with the food, the kiss, the bite, and the swallow.
it’s only a small thing, but seungcheol falls in love with kim mingyu the morning of and forever after.
*
seungcheol would say, with a slight cautionary tale in the form of a big red sign blinking - blinking - warning- wolf - he’s been good with how he handles his appetite lately.
he’s on his fourth and final year on the swim team, and ever since he met mingyu, he’s really been watching what he eats. what he should and shouldn’t eat. watching out for what he wants to eat.
his diet: salad, mixed greens to supplement all the protein shakes, and if he has to, dry strips of white chicken that go down dry, no danger of anything red. tuna in cold mouthfuls counts as enough of an indulgence.
everything else he leaves to mingyu’s cooking, and for that, he’ll always make an exception.
really, he’s been good, so good lately, ever since mingyu gave him a reason to do so.
he takes his usual morning jog, 7:30 on thursday mornings. always early enough to greet others passing down the street, early enough so that his eyes don’t wander to the forest trails. the unpaved paths that don’t belong to pavement, those that beckon with their open mouths, spilling earth right into the road.
there are bits of rumor about the forest trails. stories to tell freshmen as a dare.
but there was that real nightmare for the university back in his freshman year, when they had found a deer gored in the deep center of the forest. and because it's true, the depths of the forest is hidden from the beaten paths, it took days before a dog at the end of its leash went sniffing and found the source of fresh rot and ruin.
there are no wolves in the reserve trails, the university had reassured in its urgent email. there are small weasels, foxes, and other wild animals, but beasts in the sense of the word?
well, that’s neither here nor there. they haven’t had another incident like that since.
passing the bridge for the residential street, seungcheol runs on towards the university. it’s a 15-minute jog and he keeps pace, never pushing himself into a full chase. never enough to make his heart desperate, to make blood sound in his ears and drown out everything else.
he always ends his run circling the soccer field, taking a lap or two as he winds down, eyes never leaving the bodies streaking about in the middle.
the university’s soccer team starts their practice by 7:45, and by 8:00, they’re at the height of their warmups.
mingyu pumps up and down the field, thighs flashing across the green, under and above the white of his shorts and shin guards. he runs like a gazelle, like every other living animal seungcheol has watched through the safe barrier of a camera and an englishman’s dry humor. he, they, all of them remind him of the same thing. animals built like machines, tireless and always ready to run. built for the chase.
seungcheol watches mingyu take his nth dash through the gaps in the fence. his fingers slot into their own gaps, curling, as his eyes begin to compare the sight of mingyu’s sprint with the way the boy had tasted, his spread legs, the beautiful, jumpy tendon that always stands out when seungcheol presses his mouth to the seam of wide, honeyed thighs.
“yo, choi--” one of the guys bark, “save whatever you’re doing right now for the pool, we usually try to keep this part of the field dry when we play!”
“fuck off chan!” he flips the freshman the bird, forcing his own face to beam wide and stiff as the kid breaks the line to swing by, cackling at his own joke before he streaks off.
skinny thing. his eyes go right back to mingyu.
his boy blinks, half crouched by the goal to catch some shade. in turn, he catches seungcheol’s attention and sends it right back.
he’s sweet, flushed and full under all the warm damp of the morning sun. it’s still the last trails of summer, and everyday, no matter how hot, the air feels slightly wet. so naturally, mingyu lifts his shirt to his chin and sweats the sight of his bare skin into the open air, and suddenly he’s the worst brat seungcheol has ever had the pleasure of meeting.
mingyu waves with the tips of his fingers, little fangs peeking out against his bottom lip. flex, just a little.
fuck.
it’s the face seungcheol is making, the blunt of his nails scratching against the fence’s thin lines. his promise, later, mouthed in quick shadow, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, the shade in his eyes under all that damp morning light.
at 8:15, seungcheol runs back, steps heavier, harder with intention, and this time, he quickens his pace without being careful enough to count the beats of his heart.
though, it is loud, as loud and empty as blood around the hollow hunger of his bones.
*
later though is a real promise, a threat made with panting breath and swollen implication, and the raw young men they are, they make good on it, to each other, for each other, every single time.
seungcheol opens the door before mingyu can even knock.
after all, it’s clear from the boy’s footsteps, the slight echo from shoes that are never worn properly, sneakers crushed to the heel, and the loudest rhythm of all--his heart. it approaches, steady, racing, louder and louder, wanting.
when seungcheol opens the door, the sound is like his breath. it always starts with a lovely little hitch.
when mingyu kisses him, he can taste bits of grass from the soccer field this morning. dew and dirt, clean hot sun starting on a humid day. and within it, the deeper his tongue goes, the more he can taste his own heavy desire there, right along the hot edge of mingyu's teeth.
mingyu laughs, lips smacking gross and wet against seungcheol’s, and as he parts seungcheol’s mouth with a finger, it’s even more disgusting.
he’s so in love.
“hyung,” mingyu coos, and his eyes flutter down to the sight of seungcheol’s teeth. big bunny teeth he would always say with his own fangs making red pricks against his swollen mouth, and seungcheol is glad for it too.
mingyu pushes his lip past his gums and seungcheol bares his teeth just for play.
right now, the top row of his teeth remains round and blunt against the soft pad of mingyu’s thumb. to touch them, they would feel almost-soft, and that’s how he knows he can still trust himself, trust in his sense of control. his mouth may be empty, but there’s mingyu’s soft finger, the salt of his unbroken skin, and he thinks that taste alone must be enough to keep him full.
as for mingyu, with his heavy eyes and pouted lips, he looks desirous enough to bite.
“good morning - oh, you are both so gross.”
close to noon, a pale ghost slips into the tiny hall with a full view of the door.
amendment: yoon jeonghan isn’t so much of a ghost as much as he is an anemic night owl. ‘anemic’ must be the term for whatever he has on his health records that officially excuses him from morning classes.
seungcheol grimaces as mingyu waves, waggles the hand that is still gleaming with seungcheol’s spit.
“morning, jeonghan-hyung.”
there’s not enough of a difference in the way mingyu says ‘jeonghan-hyung’ and hyung, not when his mouth remains like that, soft and sweet from the press of seungcheol’s teeth.
seungcheol presses his nose into the damp of the taller boy’s collarbone, and jeonghan eyes him with a sharp, mean humor.
“by all means,” he yawns, covering the lean shape of his mouth, “carry on you two.” he smiles and beneath his oversized pink eye mask, the effect of his expression is still jarring enough to cut cold and clean.
it’s one of the many differences between them. yoon jeonghan always makes sure to smile for others with his mouth closed.
mingyu’s warm laugh spills away the silence between them. shamelessly, he untangles himself from seungcheol and goes to bother jeonghan in the kitchen.
there’s a strawberry smoothie for every ‘morning.’ mingyu is overly obnoxious over jeonghan's proportions, pointing out how there’s too many strawberries and barely any milk or yogurt to even out the mixture into something smooth, something liquid enough to be an actual drink.
jeonghan simply sits on the counter, and with each sip, the pink comes to life on his pale cheeks. when he takes his final gulp, the remaining pulp from the cup finally paints his thin lips close to red.
“is it any good?” mingyu asks, a tilt of his head, an innocent blink.
“hm,” jeonghan hums with his stained mouth, the pink high on his cheeks. he smiles sweetly down at mingyu and tilts his head to mirror the same inquisitive look.
“i can think of better things.”
a low sound rumbles from the hallway, a sound almost indistinguishable from the hum of the fridge, and as always, jeonghan teases, because he knows exactly where that sound comes from.
with barely a glint of teeth, he whispers loud enough for all three of them to hear: “but wouldn’t you like to know, mingyu-yah.”
*
a candid summary of their true natures:
seungcheol has an unwilling appetite for red things, raw things. as such, he avoids solid meat at all costs. the restraint on his appetite borders on asceticism.
for jeonghan, it’s not so much about the meat itself. as such, he always finds more sly ways to steal a slight sip, mince a small drink. indulge and feed whenever he can, and even then, take a bit more just so that he can tease it across seungcheol’s scowling face.
as for mingyu, the boy gazes back with his own hunger. he wants just as much, for something he doesn’t understand, something he could never know. he’s careless with his innocent greed and whether he is truly aware of it or not—it’s going to bite him hard one day.
nevertheless, he asks boldly: “let me have a taste too, hyung.”
*
friday is a cheat day, friday is a free for all, friday afternoon after a day of no classes is where mingyu mixes a pot of fresh vegetables with store-packaged ramen, and in return, seungcheol fucks him with a full stomach nicely across the floor.
and if they feel up to it, a lazy and sweet craving for the dark evening, there’s always free ice cream on the student bridge at night, a glowing box of cold flavors beneath the campus lights.
here, arises a perpetual series of questions&answers between the big bad wolf and the sweetest piece of meat ever beheld in his loving eye:
hyung, you always make that face when i cook meat. do you not like it? if you’ve converted to veganism you should just let me know.
no, well, vegan, that’s not the right word for it. mingyu-yah, you know i’ll eat anything you cook, but as for me . . . no red meat, arasso?
hyung, come on, midnight run to the forest and i’ll let you fuck me on the trail when you get tired?
baby boy, if you want to get wrecked so badly, why don’t you get on your knees right now?
and the most important and unanswerable of all:
“hyung, my next game is on saturday,” mingyu props himself up, holding a half-crunch just to stare straight into seungcheol’s eyes. unblinking, spread out as much as he can with his big body on the cramped couch, he makes his demand out loud into the lax silence.
“home game. next saturday.” he nudges his knee into the full knot of seungcheol’s stomach for emphasis.
and here it is, what seungcheol always dreads, three innocent words in the form of a loving demand:
“you’ll come, right?”
here’s the thing: mingyu shows up to every one of seungcheol’s swim meets, whether they’re home or away, at some other university where buses saturated by chlorine-stink are packed into long yellow bodies lining the street. he wheedles minghao into driving him over every time, and he always, always, manages to steal seungcheol’s swim jacket beforehand, the wind-breaker with CHOI emblazoned on the back, pearl white letters across a sea of lancer blue bold.
when he’s screaming for seungcheol from the stands, he makes sure to wear his name. it has become a steady pattern by now and the highest point of pride for their university’s swim team: choi seungcheol never fails to break his pr with each meet.
as for mingyu’s games, that’s a big fat zero on his personal scoreboard.
he’s a very bad boyfriend for this, he knows, and mingyu is the better one, the perfect one for never threatening to break up with him. seungcheol is all too grateful for it.
but he has reasons, he stresses, good reasons for never being able to go.
“baby boy,” he tries now, placating, trying to fold his body over mingyu’s, press down gently on his wrists, enough to make him shiver and ask for more force--trying his all to distract him.
mingyu stops him. “hyung.”
seungcheol tries another desperate act. he drags his teeth behind mingyu’s ear. “hm?”
he expects the cute shiver, the moan, but mingyu’s words come down harder. “if you try to distract me again, no sex for a week.”
“what?”
“no sex for a month.”
“what?!”
mingyu pushes him back by his shoulders, and seated right above his lap, the tip of his nose against seungcheol’s, he smiles and says: “hyung. try me.”
it’s a bluff. seungcheol knows it has to be. he grins, lopsided, with the shine of his teeth on full show. mingyu flashes his canines back, equally unimpressed.
“you’re really going to sexile me over soccer?” baby boy goes unspoken, but seungcheol only gets so cocky like this because mingyu is such a sweet thing to tease.
“just one match, hyung, my best one for sure,” mingyu bounces with each word, only a slight brush against his lap before he yanks away, and the thought automatically leaves seungcheol’s mind.
if mingyu left him, he’d certainly find a spot in the secluded wood and die from heartbreak.
still, the young men that they are, he’d be running dry within the week. it’s part of his nature, the carnal sort, to want the fucking and loving as one.
how is it that he’s gone on this long without kim mingyu in his life?
the answer: clearly, there’s no way for seungcheol to go on if he’s not.
“fine, fine, alright,” he groans and yanks mingyu back down, and the boy makes a gloriously happy sound as seungcheol’s hands dig into his ass, drag across his waist, knotting at his spine, and they fuck again right there, mingyu making him agree at least three more times with seungcheol’s cock kept perfectly cozy inside him and the elder begging, teeth straining against the soft underside of mingyu's jaw, please, i’ll go, anything, baby boy please move, let hyung come inside you, please, please, please--
so. soccer game this saturday. home turf. with mingyu sprinting up and down the field with his long legs strained in those bare shorts and tight calf guards, panting with sharp flickering eyes like he’s being chased down, being hunted for the thrill of it. looking like he’s never felt more alive—almost the same as sex, as taking a first bite on the edge of hunger—
seungcheol is in deep shit now.
they still go out for free ice cream after, and mingyu beams down at him when he smears the chocolate from his lips. the street lamps glow behind his head like they might go out. sex-fluffed and satisfied, mingyu looks like he’s never been happier, and at least there, weak to his heart, seungcheol can excuse himself for giving in.
not once did mingyu have to ask, not one please strung from the sound of his mouth.
fine, he’ll say once, just once, and it will be the always-exception for seungcheol when it comes to mingyu.
*
the worst option would be to go back on his word. make up some excuse just to see the disappointment break open across mingyu’s lovely face like a wound.
so seungcheol cuts his losses and goes for the second-worst option.
he asks jeonghan for help.
vampire venom to soak him in languor. vampire venom as a mild poison. practically, it won’t turn him; there is no greater extent of a monster than what he already is.
no, he simply asks jeonghan for one of his bites to sedate the part of him that goes sharp with hunger every time mingyu breaks out into a run.
“i can’t believe i have to taste your filthy dog blood,” in jeonghan’s words.
he has his cold hand clamped around seungcheol’s jaw and his grip is an un-gentle one, meant to bruise blood to the bone.
seungcheol remains staunch, unhurt, and absolutely unwilling up to the very last moment.
“get your nasty spit in me already, you pale bitch,” comes his reluctant demand.
there is no warmth to jeonghan's touch, no heat with jeonghan pressed to his chest, jeonghan's hand working back the length of his neck. their bodies lay atop one another and like this, they are anything but lovers.
“oh, fuck you too you mutt.” jeonghan grins through his long teeth and buries the entirety of his mouth into seungcheol’s neck.
there is no delicacy in the way he drags both fangs down and makes seungcheol’s skin peel and raise. he means to strip him of his flesh, and he means for it to hurt.
it does hurt, badly, but seungcheol clenches down on the blunt ache within his jaw and nothing jeonghan does could come close to making him break.
at some point, he digs his fingers back into jeonghan’s shoulders, and the jointed flesh there fills out his palm as warm round bone. his blood has settled into jeonghan’s skinny body and in return, some of the cold glamour has entered his own. the hurt is still all pain; he thinks it a lie about vampire glamour, that a sensation this raw could ever turn into pleasure.
but then jeonghan pulls away, crawling his hands down seungcheol's body, his lips part from seungcheol’s neck with a great, blooming emptiness. seungcheol lays on the couch for a moment and decides that this must be it, what keeps all those unsuspecting freshmen stumbling back in the dead of night with their dry lips and the lines of their necks bared for jeonghan’s sharp kisses. desire all hollowed out within their glassy eyes.
seungcheol gets to his feet, and the sluggish pulse of his veins only reminds him, mingyu, mingyu, mingyu.
jeonghan licks the pink strings from his mouth and stares after him. he’s satisfied, curled back against the couch, though his gaze remains on seungcheol’s neck, keen with hunger:
“go on then, seungcheollie. go have your fun.”
right before he fumbles for the door, his fingers folding odd and soft at the knuckles, a lilting voice calls,
“just don’t blame me for any of the after-effects!”
but by then, he’s already stepped into the night with one hazy thought on his mind.
----
the game takes place under the full blast of the stadium lights.
by the time he arrives, it has begun to rain hard enough to soak the entire field into a dark pool.
looking at the huge oval green, seungcheol feels as if the grass has been pressed flat to the ground. he imagines that the entire indent had been the work of a large, absent animal, one who had laid on its stomach to rest through the night, only to shake its legs free of sleep and leave behind the wet depression afterwards.
he’s not thinking clearly. he's thinking as he's dreaming. he wants to see mingyu. he wants to wrap himself around the boy in the sunken field, where he’ll ask him to lay down and then, maybe they’ll simply sleep forever, warmed by each other’s bodies. they’re both already so warm; together, they'll run hot as blood. it’s a wonderful dream he’s having as he sits here, wide awake as water drips into his eyes.
the two teams make dim lines in the rain.
and even with all the cold venom in his body, with all of seungcheol’s careful restraints at play, his eyes find the back of mingyu’s nape through the gloom and his stomach sharpens in response.
ah, his hunger can wait.
he folds his nails into his palm, licks at the numbness of his gums as he sits back under the soaked stands.
there’s a game to watch.
at first, it is all perfect as planned. no intense surge of impulse to his gut, no rising blood to make him see and want for the taste of red, nothing of appetite or hunger at all. he can watch mingyu run for his life and nothing but a sleepy sort of contentment comes from his slow-beating heart.
the boy streaks up-and-down the field, and seungcheol is too glad for the rain and how well it hides the unnatural precision of his eyes. quietly, he appreciates every detail - the green grass splashed onto the heel of white cleats, the clench and release of muscle that jumps from knee to thigh the moment in preparation for a kick, the sharp elation that strains a pink mouth into a mean grin with every goal - and so, it becomes impossible for him to miss the unwanted gaze of a second set of eyes.
there’s been another player dogging mingyu for the second half of the match. chasing purposefully at his heels, always a step too fast, a step too slow, an ungainly pace that is meant to jarr and hopefully, hurt. mingyu has long noticed, and with every attempt, he turns, bares the small slit of his teeth and runs ever faster through the rain.
“that should be a foul,” the guy next to him mutters when the player shoulder-checks mingyu roughly away from the oncoming ball.
a low sound rises from seungcheol’s throat in agreement. he breathes out a puff of shaky condensation when mingyu stumbles. the boy pants, drenched with wild eyes. then, he’s off again, sprinting against the blustering wind with his hair blown back against to his forehead.
the rain is at its worst, and the damp surrounding them presses in like a thin clammy membrane. it molds itself between every crease and when that’s done, it works in even further to seep and coat the very inside.
it keeps seungcheol numb enough to forget the hot blood returning to his veins.
when the game is 13-10, home to visiting, the player’s gaze fixes on mingyu with a last-ditch intent. seungcheol sees it within the millisecond — a wayward foot and mingyu goes crashing immediately after, body carving out a wet wave against the swollen field. torn grass, squelching mud, and soiled water follow in his wake.
by this point, it’s a futile attempt. the game is over, 13-11.
the panting bodies gather around the center of the field. a crime scene. more like a ritual hunt with the prey brought down between all of them.
hansol is breaking the circle to help him up, wrapping an arm around his waist, draping mingyu over his own shoulder. in all the gloom of grey and sodden green, comes a wince, and there is no immediate distinction, of when it was only a fall against the grass and when they all seem to notice the red patch on mingyu’s knee.
a trickle of red begins to bloom.
the culprit stands away from the team, arms crossed, sneering at his futile reprimand.
seungcheol is on his feet before he can ever remember getting up. his mouth is more swollen than a bee’s sting.
---seungcheol is on his feet, in the field, and he is going to drag the asshole across the grass and away from mingyu by the unraveled string of his guts, spewing blood and bile and whatever else disgusting things there are until he’s inside-out. until he’s dead.
“hyung,” mingyu gasps with bits of grass stuck to half his face and his hair soaked to his eyes. he looks over at seungcheol, and there is a bad bruise showing on the swell of his cheek. it is a slow creeping color, terrible in how lovely it is against the corner of his mouth.
the circle of bodies parts and seungcheol is entirely a mess of heart, stomach, and hot, pounding blood.
in the end, he scoops mingyu away from hansol, and in the center of the field, the deluge of heavy rain, he buries his mouth right against mingyu’s neck.
“hyung,” mingyu sounds purely delighted after his injury, “you came to see me.”
“ ‘m going to kill him,” comes seungcheol’s reply, his eyes seared wide, his hands latched around mingyu’s waist, his heart pulsing through his nails. his mouth is spilling over wet. “kill him for hurting you.”
“oh, shit,” mingyu’s bleeding knee jerks against his leg, the scratch of his open wound and seungcheol's voice making him jolt. it makes his own voice catch high with a tight moan, thick with pleasure and not pain.
“-cheol, hyung,” a whine, like he’s already decided to beg. his syllables come out and lisp together from how clumsy his mouth gets, “that’s like, really really hot. don’t do it please.”
seungcheol can’t say another word.
he half-carries, half-drags mingyu away. between the killing impulse and the big body safe in his arms, all he knows is the first spot of blood he saw on the field and mingyu sprawled at the center of it, looking up into the storm with wide, hunted eyes.
he loses a few moments after that —
linoleum, hard - cold - then the water - hot - shocks them into freezing for a moment before it begins to burn - mingyu shivering as his mouth moves, the slick shape of it already bitten silly from his match, from that bad bruise smacked across half his cheek, and seungcheol can only listen as his tongue spills under the hot water and the boy begs, begs, begs,
too urgent - too rough, mingyu’s cries are shattered against the walls as seungcheol takes him, scrapes him open a bit further on his knees.
a spread of blood floats atop the water, and eventually it winds its way down the grated drain.
—and he comes to, lapping at the torn skin around mingyu’s knee, a bare leg held like a benediction within his palms. the boy is moaning weakly as the shower is still going overhead, soaking them clean of the rain, the grass, the mud, the heat and the fever and everything else that came across their bodies.
then, and only then, with the first taste of mingyu’s flesh in his mouth, does seungcheol remember jeonghan’s words.
after-effects.
it’s much too late now.
*
later, late, late into the night, jeonghan saunters into the kitchen during his true waking hours. “so, how did it go?” he asks, pressing a ready drink to his pale mouth. seungcheol has wrapped himself around mingyu, the both of them bundled up in clean hoodies, sweats and shorts, basking in front of the tv.
he holds on as tight and gentle as he can and flashes his teeth over his shoulder. mingyu hums and answers instead, joyously soft, cradling the clean pink cap of his knee.
“it was absolutely perfect, hyung.”