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When Sanggyun was little, his mother used to rake her hands through his hair and tell him how pretty and soft it was; she used to pinch his cheeks when he’d grin at her and tell him he was cute; she used to hold him close and tell him stories, stories about her life in the sect and who she used to know and about the man his father was, what he was like and how much he loved her.
Sanggyun loved his mother very much, and honestly, he still does, even if he only sees her face in pictures now and hears her voice in his head. Even when it rains, he walks to the cemetery, sits by her pretty marble gravestone, and lays his head over onto it, arranging new red roses to adorn the white stone. He still talks to the gravestone (talks to her). He once thought that he’d grow out of it, grow out of telling his mother about the orphanage and about the kids who hit him and pulled his hair and called him bad names, grow out of resting his cheek against the cold stone and gushing about Sangdo, about how much Sangdo liked him and wanted to help him, grow out of wiping a clean spot on the stone and kissing it and telling his mother how much he loves her. But he really doesn’t need to, because- well, just because.
Sangdo once told him that, maybe, he was so sad because he wouldn’t let go of her. And even if it’s true, Sanggyun doesn’t really care.
Sanggyun always had big dreams of joining a sect like his parents, but he knew what happened to his mom- they told him that she was mugged, killed for not having any money on her, but Sanggyun knows that it was her own sect that killed her, killed her for falling in love and having a child and leaving because her husband died. He was scared that might happen to him, that he might fall in love and the same thing would happen to him, that he’d die over something so stupid.
But, when he finally approaches Sangdo’s sect and asks if he can join, the first thing he notices is that Sangdo has a boyfriend. He’s a bit shorter than Sangdo himself, with a small face and warm hands and a loud voice, and he’s so excited over Sanggyun joining that it’s almost infectious, making Sanggyun giggly for the rest of the day. At that point, he’s still living at the orphanage, and when he tells the other kids about it excitedly, they laugh at him. It doesn’t sting, not as much as it normally would, because he thinks he’s finally found people who won’t laugh at his excitement, who might call him pretty and cute and tell him stories again.
Jiho joins just a bit after Sanggyun and Sanggyun adores him. Jiho comes from a wealthy family, completely different from Sanggyun, but he has no airs about him- he asks Sanggyun if he likes Call of Duty the very first day they meet, and then end up playing it together for the rest of the day.
Sanggyun hasn’t had a friend in years, and had never had a real friend that holds him and asks him why he’s crying. But Jiho does that, one night, when he hears Sanggyun sobbing in the bathroom, and Sanggyun spills. He tells Jiho all about his parents, about his life in the orphanage and how absolutely overjoyed he is to be part of this sect and to have a friend.
“Well,” Jiho says, not letting go of Sanggyun, “that was depressing. Do you feel better?”
Sanggyun pulls back to wipe at his face with his shirt sleeve, sniffling and nodding. “Y-Yeah, thanks, really.”
Jiho smiles, brushing Sanggyun’s hair away from his face. “You can always talk to me, Sanggyun, I’m not going to make fun of you or- or make you feel bad, for anything, okay?” Sanggyun makes a noise of affirmation, burying his face in Jiho’s shoulder once more, and Jiho laughs. “Come on, do you want to sleep in my room? Maximum snuggles.”
Sanggyun laughs into Jiho’s shirt but nods and they begin the slow and, eventually, painfully funny ascent up the stairs and down the hall to Jiho’s room, flopping into Jiho’s bed a snickering mess.
Months turn into years and Sanggyun honestly doesn’t know how he ever survived away from this sect. It feels like home, but more particularly, home after you’ve been away for a very very long time- warm, welcoming, and loving. He compares it to the orphanage, sometimes, how there he was woken up with a whistle and here he’s woken up by Jiho flopping on top of him and kicking his legs; how there he was, for the most part, forced to make his own food, but here there’s almost always breakfast ready and waiting for him; how there he was alone, brushing his hair and trying to sing songs that he’d long forgotten the lyrics to, but here he’s just not.
This particular day, he’s woken up to Jiho jabbing his fingers into his side and telling him to get up because they have an important visitor. In retaliation, Sanggyun shuffles downstairs in his pajamas, baggy t-shirt and sweatpants, hair absolutely satanic, and then immediately wishes he hadn’t once he lays eyes on their visitor.
He drags Jiho off to the kitchen and grabs his shoulders, shaking him slightly. “You didn’t tell me he was cute,” Sanggyun hisses, and Jiho laughs.
“Alright, then-” Jiho opens his mouth and Sanggyun knows something awful is going to come out of it, so he slaps his hands over it just in time for Jiho’s shouts to be muffled behind them.
“Stop, stop, just- let me go upstairs and brush my hair, at least.”
Jiho pulls Sanggyun’s hands away from his face, shaking his head. “Nah, nah, no take backs, he’s probably already looked at you, there’s no going back.”
Sanggyun whines, making flappy hands at Jiho. “Don’t be so meaaan, let me go brush my haaaair.”
Jiho grabs Sanggyun by the wrist and drags him out of the kitchen with a firm ‘no!’, coming to sit by Sangdo on the couch and gesturing for Sanggyun to find somewhere to sit. Sanggyun ‘hmph’s and flops down in the armchair on the other side of the room and slaps his hands over his face when he notices their visitor watching him.
Hyosang comes in from downstairs and flops into Jiho’s lap, causing Jiho to squawk and their company to laugh behind his hand. “‘Sup,” Hyosang says, leaning back so Jiho’s indignant yells are muffled into his shoulder.
“Nothing, really, I just wanted to come by and see how you were, uh,” the man’s eyes shift to Jiho, barely peeking out from behind Hyosang, and then to Sanggyun, barely peeking out from behind his hands, “you’ve got new members?”
“Oh! Yes, yes,” Sangdo shifts on the couch to look at Jiho, then shoves Hyosang off of him, garnering a wheeze from Hyosang. “This is Jiho, you met him at the door. He’s very kind, and good with medical things, and he has quite a lot of underground connections. Jiho,” Sangdo pauses to gesture to their guest with a smile, “this is Yoonchul, one of my old friends.”
Jiho waves, smiling wide, then with a little prompting from Sangdo he leans across the table to shake Yoonchul’s hand. “Nice to meet you, I want your coat.”
Yoonchul returns his smile and shakes his hand, straightening his coat with something of a shy blush coming onto his face. Sanggyun blocks out most of the conversation, even when the subject turns to him, in favor of watching the way Yoonchul fidgets with his coat buttons and chews at the inside of his lip. He wants to ask him why he’s so nervous, but all he says is a simple ‘hi’ and an apology for looking like shit, which draws a laugh from him. An accomplishment.
“Go to the store,” Sanggyun grumbles to himself in a mocking tone, “get some groceries, it won’t rain, meh, meh. It’s fucking raining, I’m going to call Jiho-”
“Are you alright?”
Sanggyun turns away from the shop window and finds only a chest, so he looks up and- “Well shit, hey.”
Yoonchul smiles, seeming almost embarrassed. “You didn’t bring an umbrella?”
Sanggyun makes an annoyed noise, gesturing angrily in the direction of the sect house. “Fucking Jiho said it wasn’t supposed to rain until tonight, and they wanted me to pick up a loaf of bread and something for dinner.” Sanggyun waves his hand around, hitting the glass a few times for good measure. “I don’t know why I had to come all this way! Why didn’t Jiho tell me to bring a damn coat?”
Yoonchul awkwardly shifts his weight from one foot to the other, looking away from Sanggyun. “I- you could, you could take my coat, it doesn’t- rain doesn’t bother me much…”
Sanggyun frowns, reaching over to pull at the lapels of his coat. “But- don’t you need it?”
Yoonchul laughs, looking at Sanggyun with a sort of warmth that made Sanggyun blush. “This isn’t the only coat I have- in fact, you can keep it, i-if you want.”
“Hell yeah I’ll keep it, just so I can rub it in Jiho’s face. He doesn’t have a coat given to him by a boy.” Sanggyun sets his bag of groceries on the floor, stepping back to give ample arm room and sticking his arm out once Yoonchul has his coat off, revealing a sharp dress shirt and a tie with… with camels on it? “Oh my god,” Sanggyun says, reaching over to grab the end of the tie and twist it this way and that, the light catching the silky material. “Are these camels?”
Yoonchul’s face turns bright red as he looks down at his chest, hands frozen halfway between him and Sanggyun. “I- uh, god, yes, they are.”
“It’s so cuuuute,” Sanggyun whines, rubbing his thumbs over the raised threads of the camel print, and he smiles when Yoonchul does.
Yoonchul’s coat is silky on the inside and much too big for Sanggyun, sleeves falling over his hands and material reaching his knees. He laughs, almost giddy, and turns to hit Yoonchul with his excess sleeves. Yoonchul withstands a few hits before he grabs the sleeves and uses them to hit Sanggyun, and when Sanggyun catches a glimpse of his face among the clothing onslaught, he sees the most gorgeous smile.
Ah, shit.
Yoonchul insists upon walking him home since “we live in the same direction anyway, it’s alright”, except Sanggyun watches through the window and sees that Yoonchul’s going back the way he came, towards the other side of town. Of course, that could just be because he had something else to do, or had other people to save from the rain.
“What up, bitches,” Sanggyun says by way of greeting, putting his bag of groceries on the table. “You’re getting spaghetti for dinner tonight.”
“Ew,” Hyosang groans from the end of the table, knees pulled up to his chest. “I don’t want to eat your gross ass spaghetti.”
Sanggyun points at him threateningly, ignoring Sangdo’s classic ‘stop it!’ look shot towards him. “Listen, pipsqueak, you never fucking cook. At least I try.”
“Yeah, and we had to get an entirely new set of pans because you kept ruining them.” Hyosang retorts almost idly, picking at his fingernails. “Ah, dammit, I’m bleeding.”
“Bleeding?” Sangdo repeats, putting his magazine down and taking Hyosang’s hand to examine it.
“And thus, nobody gave a shit.” Sanggyun whispers to himself, unloading the groceries and putting them in their proper cabinets, where they’d sit until he bothered to make dinner.
“I give a shit,” Jiho says from the doorway, dramatically heartfelt, and Sanggyun sticks his tongue out at him. “Don’t be a child, I’ll come over there and cut it out. But, uh, y’know- isn’t that Yoonchul’s coat?”
Sanggyun looks down, having almost entirely forgotten about it, then tries his hardest to not blush and sound confident when he answers. “Yeah, it is! Because somebody didn’t tell me, ‘hey, Sanggyun, take a damn coat’. So I had to steal that poor man’s.”
“Pfft, I doubt you stole it. What sort of awful thing did you do to him to get this?” Jiho comes closer, leaning into Sanggyun’s personal space. “Did you-”
“Nope, shut up,” Sanggyun says, lifting his hands up to slap them over Jiho’s mouth, whatever lewd thing he was about to say muffled behind his hands. “I think it was the tie, he has the cutest tie, Jiho, it’s got camels on it. He was so embarrassed about it- ow, you bitch!”
Jiho bites Sanggyun’s hand to draw the last bit from him, first drawing in a deep breath, then speaking. “You’re talking about him like you tend to talk about that one actress you like, are you infatuated with him or something? You’ve only talked to him twice.”
Sanggyun sticks his tongue out again, then yells in defiance when Jiho grabs it, digging his fingernails in. Sanggyun tries to say, “Let go, you bitch!” but it comes out as more of a “Lehgo yu bitshh,” which makes Jiho laugh hard enough to let go, flouncing out of the kitchen and down the hallway while yelling in a sing-song voice: “Sanggyun’s got a crush!”
Sanggyun can’t stop asking questions, but luckily Sangdo just treats him like a kid in love, which Sanggyun really hopes isn’t true, but hey.
“So like… if he’s sect-neutral, does he- does he kill people for Sehyuk too?”
“Well,” Sangdo pauses in his potato peeling to formulate a response, mouth twisting in thought. “He’s never really killed anyone for me, either… I think by sect-neutral it just means he doesn’t want to have allies, that could hurt him in the long run. I think he’s scared of Sehyuk, though.”
“Well, who wouldn’t be, have you seen the dude?” Sanggyun shudders in an exaggerated way, making a face. “He’s so creepy, I hate it when we have to go talk to him.”
“He’s not that interested in talking anymore, so you’re safe for now.” Sangdo says offhandedly, smiling, and Sanggyun returns his smile tentatively. “But- if you want, I can give you Yoonchul’s phone number. Well, if it’s still the same, at least.”
“No!” Sanggyun replies quickly, and Sangdo just looks at him. “I- well, I just- he wouldn’t know it’s me, though…”
“All you have to do is say, ‘hello, it’s Sanggyun, how are you today?’ and that’ll be the start of a decent conversation.” Sangdo lays his knife on the counter, washing his hands of potato juice and patting them all over his pants in place of going and getting a towel. “I promise, it’s not weird, he might appreciate it.”
Sanggyun sighs and Sangdo takes that as enough of a response, walking over to the table and getting a spare piece of paper and a pen, scribbling a phone number down and handing it to Sanggyun. Sanggyun sighs again, with more exasperation, and then takes the paper anyway. Sangdo smiles at him and Sanggyun groans, hurriedly walking out of the kitchen and down the hall to his left, ducking into his room and shutting the door behind him. He flops onto his bed and grabs his phone, looking between it and the piece of paper for several moments before groaning and laying both on his chest.
“Jesus fuck,” Sanggyun whispers to himself before slapping his hands over his face. “It’s not- there’s nothing to it! I just want to talk to him!”
Something in the back of his head says yeah, sure, so he wants to prove it wrong. He unlocks his phone and types the number into the dial pad hurriedly, sitting up so he’s in a better position and pressing the ‘talk’ button. He puts it up to his ear, and as soon as he hears the dull noise that lets him know it’s ringing, he regrets his entire existence.
It goes to voicemail, but the recorded message says, “You’ve reached Shin Yoonchul, and he’s probably busy! He’ll call back soon. Leave a message if you want!” Sanggyun sighs and hangs up, feeling awkward and embarrassed and not being able to stop himself from looking at his phone every few seconds.
Within a few minutes, his phone rings, playing the default ringtone that lets him know it’s not anyone he has in his contacts, so he audibly wheezes and answers it. “Heegh- shit, hello?”
“Oh! Sanggyun?”
Ohhh god. “Uh, yeah!” Sanggyun shifts, sitting cross legged on his bed and tapping his knee with his fingers nervously. “I- Sangdo gave me your number, in case you’re like, worried I’m a stalker or something.”
Yoonchul laughs, and it sounds just as nice over Sanggyun’s outdated phone. “It’s fine. Uh- how are you?”
“I’m alright, I guess, uh- shit, h-how about you?” I hate phone calls, Sanggyun thinks to himself as he stutters awkwardly, shifting so his knees are pulled to his chest.
“I just got home, so I’m tired and- and a little bit hungry, yeah.” He hears Yoonchul moving around, hears something clatter. “Shit- there goes the cups.”
Sanggyun laughs, turning so his cheek rests against his knee. “I’m hungry too, I should probably go find something to eat too.”
“Well, how about we both eat, and then…” There’s a pause, presumably as Yoonchul puts up his fallen cups, “you can call me back, and we can talk about,” another pause, seemingly nervous- it’s cute. “About hanging out, maybe, going for lunch?”
Sanggyun can’t stop himself from grinning, heart beating faster. “Sure, yeah! That sounds good, yeah.”
Yoonchul laughs, sounding relieved, and Sanggyun hears more dishes clanking against one another. “Alright, then, I’ll talk to you later?”
“Yeah, yeah. Enjoy your food,” Sanggyun adds quickly, cheeks warming.
“You too,” Yoonchul replies easily, and then hangs up shortly after, leaving Sanggyun to flop face first onto his bed and groan loudly into his sheets.
“Last week when I asked you, you were all, ‘no I like it this way’. Now you want me to color it.”
“Shut up, Jiho.”
“I’m just saying,” Jiho pins some of Sanggyun’s hair up, gathering the bottom layers of his hair and pulling it to the back. “Do you have a date?”
“No!” Sanggyun answers, probably too quickly, and Jiho laughs.
“Sure, sure. Tell them that Jiho sends his best.”
“Ggghhh.”
Sanggyun practically falls asleep while Jiho works over his hair, blinking awake when Jiho drags the kitchen chair he’s sitting in over to the sink and complains about him being fat.
“Listen, noodle bitch,” Sanggyun begins, but starts laughing too hard to continue, which gets Jiho to laugh as well and then nail him in the eye with hot water. “Ah! Fuck! God, why did I let you do this to me?”
“Because I’m the only one with experience, at least I only got water in your eye and not the hair dye.”
Sanggyun shrugs. “Good point.”
“Everything has to coordinate.”
“Ugh, Jiho, I don’t have the time for you to yell at me for having bad style.”
Jiho makes an indignant noise, picking fuzz off the back of Sanggyun’s black shirt. “I can’t believe this, I didn’t raise you like this.”
“You didn’t raise me at all,” Sanggyun points out as he pulls on his (really, Yoonchul’s, and he hopes he doesn’t ask for it back) coat, sticking his tongue out at Jiho.
“Excuse me, I’ve had you since you were sixteen, that’s long enough for me to teach you somewhat good style.” Jiho crosses his arms, mostly mock offended like he usually is, and Sanggyun shoves at his shoulder. Jiho grins, leaning in to whisper to him before he leaves the house. “Remember to tell them I said hello.”
“Ugh, you’re too much.” Sanggyun groans, shutting the door, and he hears Jiho’s laughter through the thick wood. He sighs, breath visible, and heads down the street towards the specified restaurant.
It hadn’t taken long for Yoonchul to ask him out, and while Sanggyun was in denial for a bit (“It’s not a date, you fucking ding dong.”) it eventually made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. He’d never been on a date, because nobody had liked him in the orphanage and he honestly became a hermit when he joined the sect, so he’d been subjected to almost an hour of Jiho trying to make him look good once his hair was blow dried and brushed out.
Sanggyun stops at the restaurant door, peeking in through the glass and groaning when he sees Yoonchul sitting in the foyer, looking a thousand times better than Sanggyun does when he checks his reflection. He takes a deep breath, marching into the restaurant with confidence he didn’t know he could muster up. Then being the elegant and alluring man he is, he walks up to Yoonchul and asks, “Is this a date?”
Yoonchul jumps at Sanggyun’s sudden arrival, then looks around nervously. “Maybe?” He replies unsurely, looking back to Sanggyun. “Do you want it to be?”
“Yeah, sure. Come on, let’s get seated.”
“So like,” Sanggyun begins, pushing the food in his mouth to one side, “what exactly do you do?”
“I’m an assassin,” Yoonchul replies, with practiced ease, and he thinks it’s almost silly to say it as part of dinner time conversation while he dips a french fry in Sanggyun’s ketchup. “I kill people because other people want them dead but can’t do it themselves.”
“Why do you do it?”
Yoonchul shrugs. “I guess I just had nothing else to do, no sect liked me enough when I was looking for one. So now I’m just me.”
“Do you make good money?” Sanggyun asks once he’s swallowed his bite of hamburger, setting his sandwich down for the moment in favor of listening to Yoonchul.
“Well- I guess, it depends on who hires me. I do a lot of work for the sects to the south, they always give me more money than I’m really worth… I dunno,” Yoonchul finishes, eating another fry. “What do you do?”
“Me? I’m- I play video games all day, and Sangdo makes me go to the store usually.” Sanggyun shrugs, picking his hamburger back up and smooshing it slightly in preparation for another bite. “I guess I’m just there. Sangdo likes me and pitied me, I- I practically begged him to let me join.”
“Why were you so set on it?” Yoonchul asks, then elaborates for fear of being taken the wrong way. “I mean, Sangdo’s a great guy, I’ve known him since I was little, but- the sect life, it’s hard.”
“My parents were part of a sect,” Sanggyun says, staring at his hamburger in favor of actually eating it. “They fell in love, got married, had me. The sect got mad, they didn’t want anyone feeling love or anything- they killed my dad, so my mom took me and left.” Sanggyun takes a deep breath, like the wound is still raw, and Yoonchul regrets bringing it up. “I was eleven when she died, the sect members told me it was a mugging gone wrong, but- I know they killed her.”
“I’m sorry,” Yoonchul whispers, and Sanggyun smiles at him warmly.
“It’s fine, it- it almost feels good to talk about it, I guess. It’s stewed for long enough, I haven’t told anyone about it in almost five years.” He finally takes another bite of his hamburger, then makes a face, so Yoonchul presumes that it got cold. Sanggyun eats it anyway. “I was sent to an orphanage by the sect members, which was the biggest ‘fuck you’ of them all. I was in there for four and a half years, it was bullshit. The kids hated me, mostly because I wore my hair long- they pulled it, called me a girl. It was, it was shitty, because my mom always called me pretty, she loved my hair- she loved me.”
Yoonchul reaches over slowly to wipe tears from Sanggyun’s cheeks, then moves to tuck some of his hair behind his ear. “I think your hair is beautiful, and-” Yoonchul stops talking, for fear of embarrassing himself, but Sanggyun is leaning into his touch, so he continues. “You’re beautiful, too.”
The way Sanggyun’s face lights up is something Yoonchul never wants to forget.
Sanggyun always calls at the worst times, and Yoonchul never noticed until right now, when he’s trying to scrub blood from under his fingernails despite the water making the scrapes on his knuckles burn persistently.
It goes to voicemail and Yoonchul goes back to scrubbing, reasoning that he’ll probably have to clip his nails back to get all of it out. He hates the clean up after a job, the blood and bruises and the tiresome job of finding somewhere to put the body, and he hates having someone else’s blood on him even more. So he tries his very hardest to scrub himself as soon as he gets home, at least his hands-
“Jesus,” Yoonchul whispers to himself as he hears his phone ring again from the table, volume loud enough to rise above the rush of water in the sink. He uses the heels of his hands to turn the faucet knobs after rinsing his nail brush, then gets a towel and wipes both his hands before going to pick up the phone. “Hello?”
“C-Can I come over?” Sanggyun asks, voice wobbly, and it scares him a lot.
“Of course, did- did something happen?” Yoonchul asks, heart rate picking up, and all he gets in reply is a broken sob from the other end. “Sanggyun?”
“It’s- g-god, I’ll tell you w-when I get there, okay?”
“Okay, okay, be safe.”
Yoonchul keeps the phone pressed to his face even after Sanggyun hangs up. He’s so scared, what could have happened? Sanggyun is emotional, sure, he cried when they watched the Lion King together last week, but this is something different. Yoonchul waits anxiously near his front door, hovering and pacing and holding his phone in his hands, waiting for Sanggyun in any form.
Eventually, there’s a soft knock on the door, and Yoonchul practically throws it open, shivering against the cold gust of air that blows in and pulling Sanggyun into his arms and out of the cold. The instant the door closes, Sanggyun starts crying, burying his face into Yoonchul’s chest and heaving the biggest sobs.
Yoonchul gently guides Sanggyun over to the couch, sitting down beside him and gathering him into his lap. “Sanggyun, honey, what happened?”
Sanggyun tries to take a deep breath but it catches, stuttering into his lungs and making him sound absolutely pitiful. “I-It was- Hyosang, Hyosang, a few days ago h-he just, he disappeared, on his birthday, and then h-he…” Whatever else he was going to say is drowned out by choked sobs and Yoonchul pulls the blanket off the back of the couch, wrapping them in it like he knows Sanggyun likes. A few minutes of loud cries turns into soundless heaves and eventually Sanggyun whispers, “His face.”
“His face?” Yoonchul repeats, brushing Sanggyun’s hair away so he can see his expression. He looks awful- Yoonchul didn’t get a good look at him earlier, but there’s dark circles beneath his eyes and he looks almost gaunt.
“Sehyuk- he cut Hyosang’s face open.” Sanggyun is almost monotone, as if he’d cried all his emotion out and was left with nothing else. “I- yesterday, I found him- they dropped him on our front porch like a package.”
Yoonchul doesn’t quite know what to say, so he just snuggles Sanggyun close and makes sure the blanket is tucked around them both adequately.
Sanggyun wakes up crying, panicked and with lingering images of blood spatter in his mind. It takes him a bit to realize that he’s not in his room, and thus has no tissues at his bedside, so he turns and bumps his face against Yoonchul’s shoulder, rubbing his face all over his shirt before carefully putting an arm around him, scooting that much closer and taking a deep breath to steady himself.
Yoonchul rouses after a few minutes of Sanggyun running his thumb across scabs and scars spread across his arms and hands. He turns to face Sanggyun, eyelids heavy with sleep and drool dried on the side of his face.
Sanggyun laughs, raking Yoonchul’s messy hair away from his forehead. “You’re cute.”
“Mmmgh, have you been crying?” Yoonchul raises a hand to swipe his thumb across a still-drying tear track, and Sanggyun knows there’s no point to lying, so he nods. Yoonchul pulls Sanggyun towards him so Sanggyun is cradled against his chest and Sanggyun sighs contentedly, turning his head so his ear is pressed against Yoonchul’s chest. Just hearing his heartbeat calms Sanggyun’s nerves and he snuggles himself even closer, feet brushing against Yoonchul’s mostly bare legs.
“I don’t want to go home,” Sanggyun murmurs, closing his eyes.
Yoonchul strokes Sanggyun’s hair, fingers running through it and working out tangles on the available side of his head. “Don’t go, then, I don’t mind.”
“I guess I’m- I’m scared something will happen to someone else.” Sanggyun turns to bury his face into Yoonchul’s chest, hoping to stave off tears. “I’m scared it’ll be me.”
Yoonchul rubs at a blemish at Sanggyun’s temple, one he’s had for years. “It won’t be, it won’t be any of you. I’m- I can’t do much, but I do believe that Sehyuk wouldn’t do it all at once.”
Sanggyun grimaces at the mention of Sehyuk, deciding quickly to derail the topic before he cries for real. “Yoonchul, can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Are we, like, are we dating? Because- I think I need that kind of, fuck, that kind of-ew, closeness.”
Yoonchul laughs and Sanggyun moves back a bit so he can look at his face. There’s such soft fondness in his eyes that Sanggyun would normally make pukey noises, especially if he saw another couple in a similar situation. But when it applies to him, it just makes his face and chest warm.
Yoonchul dips his head to rest his forehead against Sanggyun’s, eyes closing. Sanggyun closes his eyes too. “Closeness, huh?”
“Ew, your breath stinks.” Sanggyun fights down the urge to shove Yoonchul away, and Yoonchul laughs again.
“I’ll go brush my teeth before I kiss you, then,” Yoonchul replies slyly, breaking away from Sanggyun and standing up to walk to the bathroom, disappearing out of the room and down the hall. Sanggyun calls a, “You better!” down the hall before making a face and whispering, “What?”
When Yoonchul comes back, Sanggyun’s sitting up in bed and using his phone screen to try and get his hair to look more orderly. Sanggyun looks up and leans to put his phone back on the nightstand, then strikes a grand pose, yelling, “I’m ready!”
Yoonchul laughs, climbing back onto the bed and putting an arm around Sanggyun’s waist before pressing a kiss to his lips, gentle and tasting of minty toothpaste. Sanggyun’s laugh afterwards is more of a satisfied cackle and it makes Yoonchul laugh too, nuzzling his face against Sanggyun’s before falling to the side, taking Sanggyun with him and tangling their limbs together.
“You know,” Yoonchul says into Sanggyun’s hair, “I’ve liked you since I first saw you.”
“Awwww, that’s cute,” Sanggyun replies, tilting his head up to try and kiss Yoonchul again but instead catching his chin. Good enough. “I think I’ve liked you since you gave me your coat. I don’t even wear my own anymore.”
Yoonchul smiles, lifting a hand to brush stray hairs away from Sanggyun’s face. “Now that’s cute, can I kiss you again?”
“Of course, kiss me lots.”