Chapter Text
sunghoon lingered at the rink for a while after practice, skating around in lazy figure eights and practicing simple spins in his well-practiced way of closely following HHPD’s every move without making it glaringly obvious that he was doing so. he needed to work out a way to figure out his name, for god’s sake. he couldn’t keep on calling him HHPD. after a good fifteen minutes, HHPD accidentally sent a puck flying over towards his side of the rink, and sunghoon skated over and grabbed it rather than waiting for him to come over and get it.
“what’s your name?” sunghoon finally asked, gliding across the rink and sliding the puck back over, “i can’t keep on calling you HHPD.” he shut his mouth immediately, recognizing his mistake.
“HHPD?” HHPD squinted.
“don’t worry about it, please,” sunghoon panicked.
“well, now i want to know.”
“uhm,” sunghoon giggled nervously
“tell me.” HHPD raised his eyebrows.
“it stands for hot-hockey-player-dilf,” sunghoon muttered the last part under his breath, barely audible.
“...what?”
“please don’t make me say it again,” sunghoon pleaded, and HHPD laughed.
“please?”
“...hot hockey player dilf,” sunghoon gritted out, tucking his chin back into his collar and trying to gauge HHPD’s reaction. he didn’t look mad, or sad, or like he was going to socially ostracize sunghoon, which was a win. if anything, he looked a little bit proud.
“dilf?” he asked, sounding honestly curious, and sunghoon hummed, not willing to dignify the conversation with words, “i’m only, like, a year older than you.”
“i didn’t come up with it,” sunghoon muttered.
“and i don’t know your name, either, to be fair. i’ve just been calling you CFS.”
“CFS?”
“cute figure skater. i came up with it.”
“...oh.” sunghoon stared down at the rink. “well, i guess we’re kinda even, then.”
“i mean, i wouldn’t say ‘cute’ and ‘dilf’ are necessarily even, but,” HHPD shrugged, “i’ll take it.”
“sunghoon!” jay screamed from across the rink, simultaneously revealing his name and startling him into slipping and falling directly into HHPD, “i’ve been waiting in the car for, like, an hour. i thought you were dead.”
“not dead,” sunghoon called back, using HHPD (who seemed very amused) as a crutch to stand back up. “on my way. have a good practice,” he politely dipped his head to HHPD and hurried across the ice to jay, who was grinning.
“so,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “HHPD.”
“what about him?” sunghoon asked weakly, sliding on his skate guards and wobbling off of the ice. jay fixed him with a puzzling look.
“nothing. anyway, how was practice? are you feeling any better?”
“not really. practice was useless,” sunghoon yawned, “and i’m really tired.”
“do you want to take a nap?” jay asked, already knowing the answer. sunghoon hummed and nodded. “alright.”
sunghoon trudged out of the rink building after jay and flopped into the passenger seat as soon as jay unlocked his car.
“my house?”
sunghoon gave a barely perceptible nod of affirmation and nodded off, head leaning against the window.
he woke with a start just as jay was pulling into the garage, springing upright and looking around wildly for a few seconds.
“jesus christ,” jay muttered, “you scared me.”
“i want your bed,” sunghoon announced, and got out of the car in a daze. he usually felt like this after morning practices: so tired that he was a special kind of giddy, and jay just dutifully led him inside to his room, well-versed in dealing with him by now. “can i have a coffee, please?”
“not now,” jay pulled the blankets back and pushed sunghoon down onto the bed. he made a little noise of protest. “you can get coffee when you wake up.”
“don’t let me sleep all day,” sunghoon said sharply, “i’ve got other stuff to do.”
“i’m sure you do.” jay said, and then flicked off the lights. sunghoon came over to his house for naps, more often than not, partly because he genuinely enjoyed jay’s company but mostly because jay had a queen sized bed with a downy comforter and sometimes, if sunghoon was lucky, jay would give him a shoulder massage, which was an experience and sunghoon felt reborn afterwards.
jay had taken some sort of masseuse course online in freshman year and after a few painful experiments (with sunghoon as the only willing test subject [jake had threatened bodily harm if jay got anywhere near him]), he was pretty much an expert.
anywho, sunghoon was laying on his back staring at the ceiling and jay was standing over him, looking like he wanted to say something and he was making a weird face, like the one he made when he was angry but trying extremely hard not to be, and then he opened and closed his mouth a few times, like the thing he was trying to say was trying to get out but he wouldn’t let it. he visibly gave up and kept his mouth shut.
“are you okay?” sunghoon asked quietly, laughing only a little bit.
“yeah,” jay said.
“‘kay. c’mere,” sunghoon patted the bed next to him, and jay could never really say no (sunghoon liked to use this to his advantage).
“any news on HHPD?” jay asked. something was underlying his words but sunghoon couldn’t quite place it.
“kinda. he called me CSF,” sunghoon whispered, “‘cause i accidentally called him HHPD to his face, and then i had to explain it, and it was really embarrassing.”
“CSF?”
“...cute figure skater,” sunghoon said, with a healthy mix of embarrassment and a winsome kind of pride.
“ah.”
“yeah,” sunghoon said. he’d kind of been expecting more of a reaction. “anyway.”
“anyway.”
sunghoon wriggled around under the covers for a few seconds, trying to get into a comfortable position, and his foot barely brushed jay’s leg. jay yelped and recoiled to the other side of the bed.
“you’re fucking freezing.”
“sorry,” sunghoon said. jay stayed on the opposite side of the bed, laying down again. “what are you doing? c’mere.”
“no. you’re too cold.” jay didn’t look at him.
sunghoon made a face at the sudden rejection, and somehow jay could tell even though it was pitch black. sunghoon upped his game and pouted a little bit.
“don’t,” jay warned. sunghoon shuffled a little closer, weariness forgotten. jay peeked over his shoulder and they made eye contact. “stop it,” he said, albeit weakly, and sunghoon felt a little bit bad.
“fine.” he flopped onto his side and stared at the back of jay’s head for a few seconds, waiting for him to relax a little bit before reaching out, ever so slowly, and pressing the entire, freezing cold sole of his foot to jay’s leg. jay shouted, and sunghoon giggled maniacally, and then jay rolled over and kicked at him. he kicked right back, of course, and grabbed a pillow to defend himself. jay was making the face that meant he wasn’t really annoyed, just a little grumpy. “i’m sorry,” sunghoon giggled, not sounding at all sincere, but jay seemed to accept the apology.
“get some socks, and then we can talk.” sunghoon huffed and reluctantly got out of bed. he crouched over jay’s extensive sock drawer (first drawer on the right in his closet) and pulled some on, then shuffled back out and flopped right on top of jay with a little ‘oof.’
“do you have socks on?” jay asked, peering up to check. sunghoon showed him and then rolled off to get under the covers. “better. new rule: no getting into bed without socks. you’re a menace when you’re barefoot.”
“i’m a menace when i’ve got socks on, too,” sunghoon said, feeling severely discredited.
“yeah. you’re just a menace in general.”
sunghoon rolled onto his side and stared at jay’s back, watching it rise and fall in time, until he started to get tired again. he could tell jay was still awake, though.
“don’t let me sleep all day, please,” he mumbled, falling asleep.
“i won’t,” jay said quietly.
//
jay let him sleep all day.
sunghoon opened his eyes pretty peacefully, and then realized that a) he’d hogged all of the blankets b) jay was no longer sleeping next to him, he was working at his desk across the room, c) at some point, jake had shown up and was passed out on the floor, and d) it was four pm. he sat up and furiously rubbed at his eyes.
“that’s not great for you, y’know,” jay pointed out, not looking up from his book.
“it’s four,” sunghoon said. jake stirred, snuffling into the carpet, and they both started whispering so that he wouldn’t wake up. jay made the signal for ‘he’s zonked out of his fucking mind, leave him be.’
“it is four,” jay said, as though surprised sunghoon knew.
“you said you wouldn’t let me sleep all day.”
“you looked tired, okay? plus, it’s not like you’ve got anywhere to be.”
“but what if i did!”
“you don’t, though,” jay said plainly. sunghoon huffed and flopped back onto the bed, pulling the duvet back over his face. jay mercifully let him lay there and sulk for a few minutes.
“there’s coffee downstairs.”
“thank you,” sunghoon grumbled and got up, at least remembering to make jay’s bed in his coffee-driven daze.
he hurried downstairs and slid across the hardwood in his socks. the home office’s door was left ajar, and sunghoon assumed mr. park was home from work early. he had little to no desire to interact with him this soon after waking up, so he sneaked around the kitchen and poured himself a tall mug of coffee, trying to be inconspicuous. he snuck back up to jay’s room in a similar fashion.
jake had managed to sit up by the time he got there, and looked extremely hungover and in dire need of coffee. sunghoon silently thrust his mug at him, and he wordlessly thanked him by downing the entire thing.
“you didn’t tell me your dad was here.” sunghoon frowned. jay didn’t answer, too engrossed in his book, “and hi, jakey.”
“afternoon,” jake muttered, holding his head in between his knees. sunghoon looked down at him in concern.
“are you good?”
“yeah. yeah, i’m good. gimme a sec.” jake got to his feet and shakily ran for the bathroom. sunghoon huffed a laugh and shuffled into jay’s closet, changing into a cozier outfit (one of jay’s omnipresent sweatshorts sets).
“your knee looks disgusting,” jay said when he came back out, “and it looks like you haven’t even cleaned it.”
“‘cause i haven’t.”
“what happened to your knee?” jake asked, walking back in and looking significantly less pale.
“i fell,” sunghoon said, “it’s not that bad.”
“it looks kinda bad,” jake pointed out.
“okay, maybe. it doesn’t hurt, though.”
“yeah, but it looks gross.”
“i got that the first ten times you said it,” sunghoon said. jay glanced up at him and raised his eyebrows.
“go clean it. you know where the bandaids are.” jay flicked the tip of his pencil towards the door. sunghoon stared at him in bewilderment for a moment, then looked to jake for help. jake just shrugged and pointed him to the door.
“majority rules,” jay pointed out, and sunghoon stomped into the bathroom, threw open the medicine cabinet, and did the sloppiest possible job of bandaging his knee, just to spite them. hydrogen peroxide was still fizzing when he walked back in and got into jay’s bed, facing the wall with his back to them.
“so,” jay said, finally shutting his book, “roadtrip.”
“oh. yeah, i kinda forgot about that.” jake was laying face-up on the carpet, in a position resembling a beached whale.
“how?” sunghoon piped up, grudge forgotten already.
“i dunno.”
“anyway,” jay said, “how are we going to pay for this? ‘cause i kinda only have $150 in my bank account right now.”
“i have, like, fifty bucks to my name right now. tops,” jake mumbled.
“i have some money left over from my summer job,” sunghoon added, although he wasn’t sure how much, exactly.
(his summer job was working at an almost bankrupt movie theater with a greasy 34-year old manager who would coerce his employees (the demographic was teenage girls plus sunghoon) to play strip poker, dare (which was truth or dare without the truth component, so this game consisted mostly of his boss making the girls make out, which some of them were actually very eager to do, or make sunghoon pick up more side work, which, in comparison, seemed extremely benign) or just normal poker in exchange for cigarettes or weed, and sunghoon would have to decide just how retrograde he’d have to be each night after his shift to both keep up a steady supply of weed (most of which he handed directly to jay or jake and never saw again) and uphold his reputation. it was a very delicate balance.
the first night he’d given them his earnings was more than a little bit strange.
jay usually picked him up from work. he was sitting quietly in the mercedes with jake zonked in the backseat (as you can see, jake being zonked is a running theme) when sunghoon peered out of the front windows of the theater. his coworkers, lucy and mara, were currently chain smoking cigarettes and eyeing him, jealous because he’d won for the first time.
he wasn’t really paying them much attention, rather, he was trying to figure out how to not look guilty. he’d paced a few times in the bathroom, splashed his face with cold tap water, and stared at himself in the mirror, trying to train his facial expression back to normal instead of screaming ‘I HAVE A ZIPLOC BAGGIE FULL OF WEED IN THE POCKET OF MY HOODIE RIGHT NOW.’ he didn’t even want it. he considered giving it to lucy and mara, since they obviously wanted it badly enough to make out in front of everyone for a good, awkward five minutes, but then decided against it. he stared at himself in the mirror for a few more minutes until he looked relatively normal. he thought he’d done a pretty good job, but jay saw through him as soon as he sat in the passenger seat.
“what?” he asked, giving sunghoon a weird look.
“huh?” sunghoon asked back, giving jay his best ‘please do not ask me any questions right now or i will burst into tears’ look. jay didn’t listen.
“what did you do?”
“i didn’t do anything. knowingly. kind of.” he stammered, absentmindedly reaching into his pocket and closing his hand around the baggie as if he could protect it. he felt too hot all at once, overwhelmingly guilty, and wondered if jay had x-ray vision, and probably already clocked the baggie before sunghoon even got into the car, like he was some sort of weed bloodhound. jay narrowed his eyes and reached over the center console. sunghoon panicked, froze, and let jay reach into the pocket of his hoodie and extract the baggie. jay looked at it for a few long seconds, then looked at sunghoon for a few longer seconds, although it felt like an eternity. he was staring into jay’s unreadable face in the dark, and his eyes were nearly black in the shadows, and lucy and mara were watching them from the windows and undoubtedly chanting for them to kiss as they did when any combination of two people or even inanimate objects got within ten feet of each other, and then jay finally looked away and pocketed the baggie himself and ended the longest moment of sunghoon’s life up to that point.
he didn’t say anything, just gave sunghoon another look, and then he put the car in reverse and drove him home. jake was still quietly snoring in the backseat, and neither of them said anything except for goodnight.
the next night sunghoon won the employee game of dare, and, by extension, another baggie. he’d had the common sense to bring a backpack with him to work, this time, hoping that maybe if the weed wasn’t directly on his person it wouldn’t throw off his chakras so obviously. it didn’t work, and jay just held out an open hand.
“give it to me.” jake was awake in the backseat this time, not visibly zonked, at least, and looked curious. sunghoon went “?” and jay sighed, giving him a look that read ‘i am not going to ask again’’ and then sunghoon reached behind him into the pocket of his backpack and procured the cursed baggie and handed it to jay. jake looked at it for a few moments with a look identical to the one that jay had last given it last night but significantly more confused, as if it had just appeared there in jay’s hand rather than sunghoon putting it there. maybe that made more sense to him. again, he didn’t say anything, lost for words, and stared at the back of sunghoon’s head the entire way home.
after a few more nights, this had become routine.
“how are you getting this much weed?” jake asked one night, breaking their unofficial oath of silence, “i mean, it must be expensive.”
“strip poker,” sunghoon answered too quickly, like the words were running away from him before he could lie about it. jay and jake both made identical faces. jay looked sunghoon up and down, and he self consciously hunched his shoulders.
“okay. okay, nice.” jake decided, and never brought it up again.)
anyway, he hadn’t really been paid all that much, and it was probably definitely illegal to pay him below minimum wage, but it was better than nothing. actually, no, he takes that back. it was definitely worse than nothing.
“so you have like, ten dollars.” jay said.
“i have more than that. i have, like, at least fifty.”
“so gas for a day,” jake said. he’d rolled over and had his face smushed against the floor.
“...yeah.”
“this is not going to work out,” jake said, facedown in the carpet.
chapter 5
“he didn’t pick up,” sunghoon whispered, feeling betrayed, “that bitch.”
“after the tone, record your message. beeeeeep.” sunghoon held the phone even closer, listening to the voicemail message. his hair, still wet from his shower, slowly dripped onto the screen.
“JAY,” he whisper-screamed, “PLEASE COME PICK ME UP. IT’S AN EMERGENCY.” he gave no explanation, just left the voicemail and huddled behind the wall of lockers in the locker room. he’d accidentally walked in as HHPD was showering and although he hadn’t seen anything, he’d definitely seen too much. he shuddered, screwing his eyes shut, and curled up into an even smaller ball, and then the door to the locker room opened with a metallic thud. sunghoon’s eyes flew open
“hello?” HHPD called. his footsteps ventured closer. sunghoon stood up and pretended he was very focused on trying to get his locker open and definitely not seeing flashbacks of HHPD every time he blinked.
“hey,” he squeaked, in a tiny little voice that didn’t sound anything like him. he was making a frankly admirable effort to maintain eye contact, trying not to focus on the way his compression shirt stretched around his shoulders or how his hair was still slightly damp.
“are you feeling okay? you were sick just a few days ago, right?” HHPD screwed up his face in something that looked like genuine concern.
“oh. yeah, i’m okay, just tired and a little bit sore.” sunghoon nodded and turned back to the locker. he felt like he’d ascended, like part of him was floating around, faintly disappointed, while the other was standing there and staring with wide glassy eyes like an idiot.
“i’m glad you’re feeling better. ni-ki has a mocha up front for you, if you want it. i might’ve messed up your order a little? i wasn’t sure if you wanted it with whipped cream or not, so i-- are you good?” HHPD trailed off. sunghoon felt like he was making a weird face. he came back into his body for a brief moment to check: he definitely was. he tried to train his expression back to something normal but sunghoon couldn’t stand him. he was just-- so-- he couldn’t describe it, but whatever it was made him want to pass out.
“yes,” he lied, in the same squeaky voice from before.
“do you need to, like, sit down?”
“no.”
“...okay. welp. mocha’s out front. i got sprinkles on it, too. have a good evening!” HHPD gave him a little salute before spinning on his heel and walking away, and sunghoon let himself fall over and sit on the bench. he sighed, then mentally kicked himself for it. when that didn’t work, he physically kicked himself for it, then hopped around in cartoonish agony for a few seconds. he really needed to get over this. HHPD was just a stranger. he wasn’t even a friend, really. for all sunghoon knew, he really was a hockey-stick murderer, like jay thought. a hot hockey-stick murderer, but a hockey-stick murderer nonetheless.
it was never going to happen, and sunghoon needed to get over it. his phone started to vibrate in his pocket, and he fished it out, answering immediately.
“hey,” jay said, “i’m on my way, what happened?” sunghoon made a pitiful noise into the phone. “it was HHPD, wasn’t it,” jay said flatly, unimpressed.
“yes,” sunghoon admitted.
“dude,” jay said emphatically, and didn’t follow it up with anything. that disappointed ‘dude’ spoke multitudes.
“he got me a mocha,” sunghoon tried to defend himself, “what am i supposed to do? not like him?”
“yes! yes, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do!” jay said, and sunghoon frowned.
“well, i do, so what now?”
“there are a few options. you can keep on pining forever, like an oblivious idiot, you can confess to him,” sunghoon groaned at this, “or you can wait for him to confess to you.”
“but-- wait, what?”
“what do you mean ‘what?’”
“the last one. why would he confess to me?”
“dude,” jay said, sounding genuinely distressed, “seriously?”
“...yeah?”
“he likes you, you oaf.”
sunghoon made a strangled little noise.
“i’m almost there.” jay promptly hung up, and sunghoon stared at his phone in disbelief before pocketing it again. he headed out into the main rink area, poking his head out and looking both ways to make sure the coast was clear before creeping out. HHPD was currently facing away from him, but as soon as sunghoon stepped out he spun around as if he had a sixth sense.
he grinned and skated over. sunghoon froze and waited for him.
“hey. i was starting to think you died in there.”
“still alive,” sunghoon mumbled, unfortunately. “just waiting for jay.”
“ah. well, have a good day, then.”
“HEY!” niki/riki screamed from across the rinks, “YOUR COFFEE’S FREEZING.”
“c’mon,” HHPD looped sunghoon’s arm through his and kicked off his skates (had he even laced them?). he allowed HHPD to lead him to the coffee stand, where niki/riki was slumped over on the counter again.
“how much do i owe you?” sunghoon asked. he patted himself down for his wallet.
“nothing; loverboy over here already paid for it,” niki/riki hiked his thumb at HHPD, face smushed against the counter. HHPD noticeably paled and kicked niki/riki’s leg under the counter.
“what?” he finally sat up, indignant. HHPD fixed him with a look that probably wasn’t meant to look as hot as it did. “my bad.”
“anyway,” HHPD said, kicking niki/riki one more time and shuffling over to sunghoon (he was just in a pair of socks since he’d kicked off the skates).
“thank you,” sunghoon muttered, sipping his coffee. HHPD kind of jutted out his chin and nodded once. he’d switched back to the dude-bro persona like it was a kind of defense mechanism against embarrassment. sunghoon really needed to try that sometime with jay, but then realized that jay would see through him immediately and just start laughing at him.
sunghoon’s current methods of dealing with mortal embarrassment seemed to be a) making every effort to hide, whether it be behind someone or something remotely large enough to cover him (i.e. jay, who would just drag him back out of hiding, or any large potted plant, or even just hunching his shoulders in and pretending he was somewhere else entirely) or b) pretending nothing happened and trying to melt into the walls.
both of these were consistently met with limited success.
“anyway,” he agreed, and neither of them said anything. they stood in silence, leaning on the plastic rink enclosure, until jay arrived.
“hey.”
“hey.” HHPD did the dude-bro chin nod again. jay did it back, and sunghoon tried to do it but it felt very unnatural and he kind of regretted it immediately. jay gave him a weird look.
“are you ready to go?”
“mhm.”
“do you, like, have parents?” HHPD asked, joking. sunghoon looked at him for a split second too long, and he started panicking. “i’m sorry, dude, i didn’t know. that was uncalled for--”
“i have parents,” sunghoon said, a bit confused, “jay is just my personal chauffeur.” jay kicked him.
“oh. i thought i made the most insensitive joke ever, like, they died in a plane crash or something.”
“no, you’re good.” they stood in awkward silence for a few seconds before jay slapped his hands on his thighs, sighed, and went: “welp. we’d better get going.”
“you’re such a dad,” sunghoon grumbled under his breath.
“i’d better get back to practice, anyway.” HHPD waved and shuffled off to the rink again.
“you got a coffee?” jay asked.
“kind of. HHPD got it.”
“of course he did.” sunghoon made a little noise and bumped him with his hip. “i told you he liked you.”
“the coffee means nothing.”
“he got sprinkles on it, alright? he’s in love. with you.” jay said. he kind of made his ‘i want to tell you something but i am barely holding myself back from doing so’ face. “c’mon, we’re scooping jake from work.”
“he got out early?”
“by some miracle. you’re sitting in back, by the way.”
“unfair,” sunghoon huffed, getting into the backseat and shoving jay’s bass cases over so that he could sit comfortably. “did you play somewhere?”
“no, i’m moving them out of storage and putting ‘em back in the case in my room,” jay glanced at him in the rearview mirror, “gonna start practicing again.”
“i hope your dad doesn’t kill you.”
“he wouldn’t dare.”
“he definitely would.”
“anyway! music,” jay announced, blindly punching the stereo controls until the radio turned on. bennie and the jets blasted through the speaker right next to sunghoon’s head. jay turned it up (how it could get any louder than it already was, sunghoon didn’t know) and they screamed along until they reached jake’s prestigious place of employment: papa john’s.
jake was on the curb, head in hands, and didn’t look up until jay honked at him. his uniform was covered in pizza flour handprints and a huge splotch of marinara, and jay fixed him with A Look.
“take it off. you’re not getting pizza sauce on my upholstery.”
“what?”
“strip and get in the car, we’ve got places to be.”
“you sound like an overly aggressive pimp, dude,” jake laughed, peeling his uniform shirt off and leaving himself in a somewhat ratty wifebeater and too-big slacks.
“and you look like a pimp beaten down by capitalism,” jay sniffed, turning bennie and the jets back on, “you get shotgun,” jay gestured to the seat, and jake slumped over into it.
“hi, hoon.”
“hey. d’you want the rest of this?” sunghoon held the rest of his mocha up to the passenger seat.
“i don’t want your cooties.”
“i don’t have cooties,” sunghoon snapped, indignant, “if anyone does, it’s jay.”
“hey! don’t bring me into this. don’t you dare bring me into this.” jay jabbed his finger at sunghoon.
“not my fault you kiss people,” sunghoon huffed, “that’s gross.”
“not my fault you don’t,” jay said. sunghoon gave him his best betrayed/heartbroken/kicked puppy look, but jay had anticipated this and was looking away.
“speaking of kissing,” jake piped up, “how’s HHPD doing?”
“what does he have to do with kissing?” jay asked, “did you kiss?” he sounded legitimately distressed at the idea.
“i don’t know, i kinda assumed he wanted to.” jake turned around in his seat to stare at sunghoon. “did you kiss him?”
“no!” sunghoon cried, trying to reach into the passenger seat to throttle jake.
“well, do you want to?”
“i-- i mean. uh. i don’t know,” sunghoon sputtered.
“you’re worse than i thought,” jay said. he seemed to be relieved that sunghoon hadn’t kissed HHPD.
“oh, shut up.” sunghoon grumbled under his breath for a few moments. jay wasn’t taking him home; they seemed to be heading for jake’s house first. or maybe they were going to spend the night.
“so,” jake waggled his eyebrows at sunghoon in the side mirror, “HHPD.”
“what about him?” sunghoon sighed.
“anything.”
“i don’t wanna talk about this anymore. you two are just going to make fun of me.”
“i won’t,” jake said, obviously lying, “really.” sunghoon raised his eyebrows. “okay, maybe a little bit. but i wanna hear you talk about it. it’s kinda…” he trailed off.
“kinda what?”
“nevermind. just-- talk.”
“i mean, he got me the mocha. and also i… uhm. i kinda walked in on him in the locker rooms, but he didn’t notice me, and then i kinda hid and called jay and asked him to come pick me up. that’s pretty much it.”
“oh. well, i’m glad you didn’t drink the coffee,” jay glanced over to jake, “double cooties are lethal.”
“yeah,” jake laughed, “but that sounds like an eventful day. you didn’t practice at all?”
“...no,” sunghoon realized, and then slouched in his seat. stupid, he scolded himself.
“you needed a day off anyway. you can’t spend all summer there.”
“yeah, but--”
“no but’s. you went every day this week except for tuesday,” jay snapped.
“how do you know?”
“you shared your calendar with me, stupid. plus i drive you, like, most of the time.”
“oh.”
“yeah.”
“you should take the rest of the summer off,” jake suggested.
“can’t,” sunghoon said. “need to get better all the time.”
“the grind never stops.” jay turned down jake’s street and they immediately panicked at the sight of his parents' car in the driveway. sunghoon prayed they hadn’t seen jake’s car yet.
“turn around,” jake said, pale, “please.”
“understood.” jay made a u-turn that threw sunghoon around in the backseat.
“can i stay at yours tonight?” jake asked quietly. jay nodded.
“sunghoon, you wanna ask your mom?”
“she’s not home for a few nights. went on vacation with her friends.”
“oh. cool. well, d’you wanna spend the night with jake and me?”
“sure,” sunghoon sighed and rested his head on the window, yawning. jake blindly reached into the backseat and sunghoon handed him the coffee.
“risking double cooties?” jay asked, glancing over. jake hummed and chugged the rest of the mocha, handing sunghoon the lid so that he could lick the whipped cream from the bottom.
“praying they don’t kill me.”
“oh, they’re lethal,” jay laughed. “HHPD plus hoon? fatal combo.”
“shut up,” sunghoon whined weakly from the backseat. “can’t you just let me like him in peace?”
“no,” jake said, as if it was obvious.
“never.” jay grinned at him in the rearview mirror.
---
for once in his life, sunghoon could really go for one of jay’s massages. he craned his neck to see jay’s alarm clock: 4:52 in the morning.
they were all piled together in a too-hot, lanky, bony heap on jay’s bed. jake’s foot was in his face, and jay was choking him, but it was somewhat comfortable and very nostalgic.
“jay?” sunghoon whispered. he wasn’t really sure if he was asleep, and he definitely didn’t want to wake him up just to ask for a massage.
“hm.” jay groaned and rolled over to look at him. “was about to fall asleep.”
“oh. sorry, nevermind.”
“‘s’fine. what is it?”
“now i feel bad about it,” sunghoon said, wringing his fingers and breathing as quietly as he could through his mouth, because jake’s foot was sweating an inordinate amount and it smelled like something dead.
“don’t,” jay sighed, “tell me what it is.”
“...my back hurts. like, kinda really bad.”
“roll over,” jay huffed, tossing jake off of them so they could move. jake didn’t appear to wake up, just snuffled into his pillow and started snoring again. “you could’ve just asked, you know.”
“yeah, but…”
“yeah, yeah.” jay sat on the mattress next to sunghoon and started kneading the muscles of his shoulders. sunghoon held back every single embarrassing noise he wanted to make in a frankly impressive show of self-restraint. “i can hear you thinking from here, hoon.”
“sorry,” sunghoon whispered, and genuinely tried to think more quietly. maybe they really did have a hivemind. “what am i thinking about right now?”
“i don’t know, HHPD?” he whispered somewhat bitterly.
“no,” sunghoon only kind of lied. “i guess the jayjakehoon hivemind link has been broken.”
jay pressed hard directly on one of the knots in sunghoon’s back and he had to bury his face in the pillow to prevent himself from screaming.
“i don’t think it’ll ever break,” jay whispered.
“i’m stuck with you two forever,” sunghoon agreed. they were silent until jay finished, rolling off of sunghoon and onto the mattress next to him.
“i miss it when we were, like, ten and you’d ride your bike all the way over here just to sleep in my bed.”
“i still do that,” sunghoon said, confused.
“yeah, but it’s different now,” jay breathed, eyes closing. he looked peaceful. “i can’t remember the last time we actually… slept together. you know what i mean.”
sunghoon hummed and stared at jay, who was staring at the ceiling. further down the bed, by their feet, jake woke up, muttering nonsense. he fumbled around for a few seconds before grabbing one of sunghoon’s legs and holding it to his chest like a plushie. he was breathing hot air on the back of sunghoon’s knee.
he remembered what jay was talking about. every night, jay would come home from soccer practice, sunghoon would come home from skating, and they’d just lay down and sleep, both exhausted but happy to be in each other’s company. sunghoon would often flop on top of jay --or, less commonly vice versa -- and they’d fall asleep, too tired to push the other off. “yeah.”
they lay there for a while longer until jay rolled over and faced sunghoon. they were just.. observing each other now. sunghoon felt like it should be more awkward than this, like he should want to look away and pretend it never happened. finally, jay threw one arm over sunghoon’s shoulder and pulled him a little bit closer, so they were half-cuddling. sunghoon closed his eyes first, unable to take it anymore, and tried to fall asleep, but jake’s breath ticking the thin skin on his thigh combined with jay’s breath ruffling his hair was keeping him from it. he watched jay’s chest rise and fall in time until he got sleepy, feeling his eyes close.
“just go to sleep,” jay said, thankfully moving his head so that his breath wasn’t tickling him anymore. “i cancelled your morning practice.”
“i hate you,” sunghoon mumbled, halfheartedly punching him, “thank you. g’night.”
“night.” jay started breathing into his hair again, but sunghoon didn’t say anything about it.
//
he woke up at two and accidentally choke-slammed jay into the mattress when he tried to get out of bed. jay made an ‘oomph’ sound and started coughing, but sunghoon really didn’t have time to check his vitals.
“i’m gonna be late,” he cried to no one in particular, running into jay’s bathroom and shoving his head under the tub’s faucet, doing his best to wash his hair.
“hoon,” jay wheezed.
“no time!” sunghoon ran into jay’s closet, hair leaving a trail of droplets that he was definitely going to slip on.
“sunghoon,” jay wheezed a little louder. sunghoon tossed his shirt out of the closet, trying to get dressed. “i canceled your practice.”
“what?” sunghoon stumbled out of the closet, still shirtless and pointedly ignoring the way jay seemed to perk up significantly more, “you did?”
“yeah. you get a day off.”
“...oh.”
“go dry your hair and come back.” jay rolled over again. sunghoon tiptoed over and shook his head like a dog, accidentally getting droplets on jake too. jake briefly woke up, understandably confused, but shrugged and fell back asleep. jay slowly turned to fix him with a withering glare that clearly read ’you have five seconds to get out of my sight before i commit a hate crime.’.
“i’m going, i’m going,” sunghoon scampered into the bathroom and threw a towel over his head, drying it as much as he could before heading back out.
“and put a shirt on,” jay added. jake immediately looked up from the bed.
“...yeah. definitely do that.”
sunghoon frowned and tugged on one of jay’s sweatshirts, leaving his own on the floor. he flopped on top of both of them, this time, and let every muscle in his body relax.
“there’s a party in new haven tonight,” jay not-so-subtly brought up. “i was thinking that maybe we could go.”
“who else is going?” jake asked, and then bit sunghoon’s thigh for, seemingly, no reason. sunghoon screamed and shook him off. tooth marks were already starting to redden, right under the hem of his shorts. sunghoon inspected them and lazily kicked jake in the shoulder a few times.
“kids from sacred heart and newport.”
“aren’t those both catholic schools?”
“yeah, but they go hard. trust me,” jay said, a haunted look in his eyes.
“what have you seen?” sunghoon asked, “actually, don’t answer that.”
“answer that,” jake piped up, “i wanna know.”
“you wouldn’t believe me if i told you,” jay shook his head, “i guess you’ll have to find out for yourselves. in the meantime, get off of me. i’m making waffles.”
“can i help?” jake asked, shoving sunghoon off of him. he tumbled onto the floor and shot him the most betrayed look he could muster. it had no reaction.
“no. sunghoon’s the only approved assistant.” jay grumbled, standing up and stretching. “you’re not allowed in my kitchen after the carrot cake debacle.” jake grumbled but didn’t object.
“i don’t wanna help,” sunghoon groaned, pulling himself back onto the bed and latching onto jake. “staying here forever.”
“fine,” jay shrugged, sounding rather happy with the prospect. “i’ll go make some food. by the way, your mom wants you to be home at some point today to make sure you’re still alive. she says she hasn’t seen you in a while.”
“it’s been, like, two days.”
“since you saw your mom?”
“yeah,” sunghoon shrugged, “we’ve both been busy.”
“oh, yeah. how’d the dinner with my dad go?” jay asked, laughing.
“i guess it went okay. i think they had salmon and rice.”
“fancy. anyway,” jay clapped his hands together, “waffles.”
jay reappeared a while later when sunghoon and jake were just about to fall asleep again.
“food,” he said, setting the plate down on the bedside table. jake sat up immediately and folded a waffle in half, eating it like a taco. “hey, hey. no food in my bed. at least eat it at the desk,” jay pulled jake out of bed and pushed him in the direction of the table in the corner.
“eat,” he did the same to sunghoon, who shuffled over, still half asleep. “big night tonight.”