Chapter Text
Sunoo saw a video once, about how bees kill hornets who intrude on their nests. They attach themselves to it, even as it stings them, and call other bees over to join so they can surround it in a tight, buzzing ball until the heat generated by the mass of them cooks the hornet alive.
He had felt like that, when he was trapped in the tangle of bodies, arms clutching at him, holding him in place as the shallow scratch on his neck was gently tended to. Like he was at the centre of a bee-ball being roasted, unsure which way was up or down or how long he had been there. Until the bees parted to let a new body in and closed ranks around it, until new, shaking hands were on his face and then there were lips on his throat, his cheeks, his forehead. His mouth.
It was all so fleeting, still buzzing, tear-stained and tacky with drying salt, he had been half convinced it hadn't happened. Hence the videos, the endless, categorical slog through them, half in hope and half in terror that someone had captured it just so he could know.
The air holds a silence for longer than Sunoo is sure he can bear, but he has borne everything in life up to this point. What's one more thing?
"I went with her."
Sunghoon's voice is quiet, and everything— his posture, his tone, the way he can't meet Sunoo's eyes anymore, it reeks of a kind of shame Sunoo has never seen in him before.
"What do you mean?"
He doesn't understand what he can possibly be talking about, why he's changing the subject, how it answers his question. Frustration threatens to bubble over once more, but he tampers it down with patience, sits in the quiet until Sunghoon manages to speak again.
"She hurt you, and I went with her." Realisation dawns, sickly and horrible, of what it is that has been eating Sunghoon up inside, of where the shame has come from, of the inadequacy he has swung from one extreme to the other to try to atone for. "I said— the things I said, I didn't mean them. You know that, right? I barely even, I couldn't look at you, I would've— But she hurt you and I went with her, I let hyung take you but I should've been with you instead, and—"
"Hyung," Sunoo cuts him off firmly. "You did what you had to do. She walked in there with a weapon, she could have killed someone, and because you said the right things, and did the right things, no-one got hurt."
"You got hurt."
"I barely got hurt," he corrects. "It was scary, and the cut stung, but it wasn't serious. It could've been so, so much worse, but it wasn't, because you made sure it wasn't."
"But next time—"
"There isn't going to be a next time."
"But if there is—"
"Well then what if there is?" Sunoo cries. The frustration has boiled over, the pot overspilling, lid unable to contain it any longer. "What if there is, huh? What are you going to do until then? Avoid me like the plague and then crash in and play the bodyguard when someone so much as looks at me funny? Never touch me again, never look at me again unless you think someone's about to jump me? Be suspicious of everyone we meet, hate all of our fans pre-emptively because they might just be harbouring some crazy delusions towards me? I can't live like that, hyung! I don't want you to live like that either, please, I don't… I don't want to be something you're scared of. I don't want—" he sags down, tired. Lets his cracked, exhausted voice drop too. "I don't want to live in a world where you only kiss me if I've been in mortal danger. I'm tired of it. I don't need a hero, hyung. I just— I want my friend back, if nothing else. Can't you be my friend again?"
Sunghoon makes a noise, a big wet sniffling inhale, and then he's crawling clumsily across the floor until he can wrap Sunoo up in his arms, tucking his face in against his neck. He squeezes him tight, hands undecided of where to rest, how to best ensnare him with his whole body, like he doesn't want to leave an inch of him to the air. It's the kind of hug Sunoo could have really used a few months ago, but he'll take it now. Better late than never.
"I am your friend," he sniffs. "I'm sorry. I am your friend. I know I keep fucking up, I know I'm fucked up, but I'll fix it. I'll be better, I'll be your friend again."
Sunoo squeezes him as tight as he can. Sweat and fading cologne and the stale, sterile air of an aeroplane hit him when he sticks his nose in Sunghoon's shoulder and sniffs. His cologne is the same, but Sunoo hasn't smelled it in months. Sunghoon hasn't let him near enough.
"You need to talk to someone, hyung."
He thinks for a moment, when Sunghoon seems to lock in place, he has ruined the conversation, brought it up too fast, but then the stiffness melts away again and Sunghoon feels even heavier in his arms.
"I've been seeing the company counsellor," Sunghoon admits quietly. "It doesn't help. It feels like she's digging for things I can't… I can't tell her. I can't tell her about you. That it feels like I'm putting you in danger just by loving you."
Kim Sunoo is not an idiot. He's always known that there was something there, between them, something that for a long time Sunghoon hadn't known how to handle, something that had frightened him more than it excited him. The fear ebbed slowly away, over time, and their friendship grew stronger. He thinks, after a point, he could have pushed, and they would have become something else, but he never knew whether acknowledging it would be wise or whether it would unbalance the relationship they had worked so hard to build. He's been thinking about it more this past year, as it's become something less unspoken, in private and in public, whether crossing the line from tension and jokes to action might be worth it after all.
That ship has rather sailed now, in the wake of things.
"We need to find you someone else. Someone you can be honest with, who can help you work through it. Someone outside of the company. You have to let go of the guilt, hyung. Or it's going to eat us alive."
He feels the nod against the side of his head, and when no further words come forth, he lodges his chin in the junction of Sunghoon's neck and his shoulder. He's not going anywhere. Not for a good while.
After an unknowable amount of time, when they finally manage to extract from each other, Sunghoon looks at him, straight in the face without hesitation for what feels like the first time in eons. His eyes are red, his face pale and puffy. He gives the first true smile, weak and watery though it is, that Sunoo has seen since January.
He brushes his hand up through Sunghoon's hair to push it off his forehead, smoothing the dry frown-lines there with his thumb and wrinkling his nose over the grease and the product in the strands.
"Sorry," Sunghoon mumbles. "I'm a bit of a mess."
"Go and shower first. You can sleep here, if you want."
There's a moment, and then Sunghoon's eyebrows raise, and the ghost of a smirk haunts his mouth.
"I'm not exactly going to turn down that offer."
A disbelieving laugh sneaks its way out before Sunoo can stop it, and he smacks Sunghoon hard on the arm.
"Don't be greasy. Go."
The thought of joining him is tempting, and he feels the offer sit on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it back down and stays seated as Sunghoon clambers to his feet and into the bathroom. Everything has been a bit backwards, and it wouldn't hurt them to take things slowly. They need to talk it all through more, decide what they want and what they don't, what they're ready for and what they aren't. Sunoo thinks he might be ready for a lot more than Sunghoon is right now, that there's probably a great deal he needs to get comfortable with in his head before he can even think about it in reality. The first kiss was a slip, a panicked reaction to exceptional circumstances. He's fairly sure there won't be any more anytime soon, but that's alright. He has a lot of practice being patient.
The others are going out for dinner, but they have been explicitly instructed that they won't be joining them. It rankles, being put on house arrest, and if he were alone in the room he'd probably go stir crazy, but as it is he thinks they need this, the time together.
He wonders how the higher ups would feel about it if they knew.
The phone is a barrier, but he steels his courage and battles through it to order room service; he still feels like he's reciting words in a script rather than having a conversation, that odd feeling of knowing what the person on the other end is saying but not actually being able to connect it to the sounds, the individual words that he's hearing, but he gets through it. He's done this often enough to know that he can, and that in half an hour or so a steak dinner will be rolled in through the door.
He doesn't say anything when Sunghoon emerges from the bathroom, hair dripping and a towel wrapped around his waist. He tries not to look, and swerves around him as they swap places for Sunoo to have his own shower. He lets himself melt under the relentless stream of hot water for only a minute or two before he forces himself briskly through his shower routine. His skincare can wait until after dinner, there's no point doing it twice, but he splashes his face with cold water and pats it dry all the same. He dries himself thoroughly and rubs lotion into his skin, and it's only after that, looking around to get dressed, that Sunoo realises all of his clothes are still out in his suitcase, not yet unpacked.
His dirty clothes are discarded on the floor, and he could put them back on, but the thought of it makes him shiver, all that stale sweat on his nice clean skin. It's not a big deal. It shouldn't be a big deal, they've been sharing rooms since they were teenagers, they've seen each other every which way, but something about the context, the enormity of what they've both finally acknowledged, makes it feel dangerous and inappropriate. Or maybe entirely appropriate, but a touch too early. Scanning the bathroom he notices the robes folded neatly on a shelf, below the towels. They look thick and fluffy, and it seems a safer option than going out in a towel, so he unfolds one and wraps it around himself, tying the belt as tightly as it will go, before gathering his things up and leaving with the steam.
Cleaner and steadier, Sunghoon stands by the bed in a worn pair of Sunoo's work-out shorts, pilfered from his suitcase. He's always made the concession to not sleep only in his underwear when he shares a room, but that's about as far as he manages. They're shorter than the baggy basketball style shorts he tends to favour, and Sunoo has to tear his eyes away from the defined muscle of his thighs.
It appears he's not the only one with that problem. Sunghoon's gaze seems trapped in the sliver of skin between the lapels of the robe on his chest, and Sunoo fights the urge to pull it further closed.
They don't say anything, just stand and stare at each other, no longer bothering to hide where eyes are wandering. There's something delicious about it, the open acknowledgement of the wanting, and the restraint despite it. Sunghoon talks a big game, but he flirts like a ten year old, pulling pigtails and getting shy and awkward at unpredictable moments. He's also, Sunoo reminds himself as his eyes rake over the abs on display, traumatised and needs to be handled with care.
He's almost glad of the doorbell and the call of room service!, until he sees the way Sunghoon has stiffened up, head fixed on the door, shoulders tense.
"I ordered dinner," he explains uselessly. "I'll get it."
"No."
He's already halfway to the door by the time Sunghoon says it, and he turns to see him still stood in one spot, fidgeting. He almost trips over himself all of a sudden, and pulls the hoodie he had been wearing over his head.
"No," he says again. "I can do it. You aren't dressed."
He looks determined, if tense, and Sunoo doesn't know if this is driven purely by chivalry or by some bull-headed need to prove he can handle a stranger seeing them in the same room. Either way, it seems best to let him get on with it, so he pulls the chairs round while Sunghoon answers the door and points where to roll the little tray-table with its covered dishes. It feels odd for Sunoo, knowing he's naked under his robe while a professionally disinterested young woman in a smart uniform bustles efficiently in and out of the room. He wonders what she thinks they are, here in one room, clearly just showered, one not dressed. He wonders what she thinks they've been doing.
He likes the idea of it, is the problem. It thrills him in much the same way that it terrifies Sunghoon, because he has never, never—
Kim Sunoo, beloved, wanted, has always been a secret. No-one who counts has ever been able to want him out loud. It's his own doing, of course, by choosing and chasing the career he has, but it still smarts sometimes, to always be hidden, like he's something to be ashamed of, like he's dangerous. There's no way to realistically be anything else without toppling his whole life, but surely there's a middle ground, some way to feel less…
The steak is good. Sunghoon keeps cutting little bits off his own, the pinkest, juiciest bits, and putting them on Sunoo's plate. For someone whose every waking moment is spent in a gym, who eats protein like it's going out of fashion, it's a bizarrely touching effort. When they take the cover off the pudding, Sunghoon slices that unequitably too and passes Sunoo the far larger portion.
The pudding is good, though its a bit heavy towards the end, a bit cloying like sweet tteok can be if you put too much of the cake without the filling in your mouth. The thick sweet custard that goes with it helps a little, as do the currants, fat and juicy, dotted through the heavy sponge. Sunghoon sits and watches him as he finishes it, his own plate clear. He's not smiling, but there's a fondness in his eyes that Sunoo usually sees only second-hand via a screen, and all the tension seems to have dropped from his shoulders.
"Do you want any more?"
He holds the last spoonful out in offering, but Sunghoon shakes his head.
"I'm full just watching you. You eat it."
He is watching him, too. Chin in hand, eyes tracking the spoon as he closes his mouth around it, flitting to his cheeks as he chews with such open affection Sunoo almost wants to hide behind his hand. He wonders if he's blushing. The room's too warm to tell.
They work silently to pack the dishes back onto the tray, and then Sughoon goes to brush his teeth as Sunoo rolls it back outside the door for the staff to collect. He joins Sunghoon in the bathroom, and they stand, side by side, elbows jostling as they brush, staring at their reflections in the mirror who can't seem to believe where they are either. Having started first, Sunghoon finishes first too, and is about to walk away with nothing more than a splash of water to get the foam from his chin when Sunoo starts elbowing him, frowning insistently at his own skincare bag. He takes the hint, borrowing cleanser, toner and moisturiser at least, and leaving Sunoo with a slightly awkward squeeze of the waist to attend to his own much more in depth rituals.
When he emerges from the bathroom, skin clean and soft, Sunghoon is standing, stock still, in the middle of the room, staring at the door Sunoo is passing through. His hoodie hangs off his shoulder, partially unzipped, exposing warm skin to the harsh overhead light.
Sunghoon jolts slightly on the spot, one arm raising, then freezing, then raising again. He takes a jerky step forward, and then stops in place, still staring at him. He stays there, a metre away, for a good few seconds as he seems to process the movement his body has already made, and decide where to go from there. And then he steps forward again, and his hand lifts again to fit along Sunoo's jaw, and he leans down and presses their mouths together.
Sunoo doesn't know where to put his hands. One settles lightly, without prior permission, on the bare chest in front of him, and Sunghoon pulls away again. Sunoo's other hand grips at his elbow, but he doesn't go far, the heat of his breath still warming the little hairs under Sunno's nose. The mint from the toothpaste lingers, tingling the insides of Sunoo's nostrils.
"I don't," he says, and it takes Sunoo a second to realise that the reason he doesn't understand is because it isn't a full sentence.
"Don't what?" He whispers back.
They're alone, no-one to overhear. It still feels like a whispering sort of conversation.
"I don't only want to kiss you when you're in mortal danger."
"No?"
He's going for teasing, light and airy, but he can hear the uncertainty in it, and Sunghoon's expression is not flirtatious. It's serious and solemn, and he shakes his head.
"No."
This time he takes Sunoo's face in both hands and tips his chin up, stumbling a little as he presses in closer. He can't seem to coordinate moving his mouth and his feet at the same time, one or the other lagging as he tries, clumsily, to maneouvre them backwards. How utterly charming this is to Sunoo is probably a sign that he was doomed from the start. He finds himself trapped safely between a body and a wall, pressure at both sides, and now Sunghoon has stopped walking he's much surer and sweeter with his mouth, and with his hands which skim down to grip at Sunoo's waist. The kisses spread out, slow and careful, to his chin and his cheeks and his nose, a mirror of the hazy rush of the first time. He tucks kisses into Sunoo's jaw, under his chin, and gently across the now-invisible line of the scar.
"I've never been ashamed of you," he whispers into the skin under Sunoo's earlobe. "You need to know that. I was just scared, and uncertain, and you're so precious, you're so perfect. I never wanted to hurt you."
Sunoo doesn't tell him that he hasn't, because it would be a lie, but he sighs into the kiss that returns to his mouth and lets his hands grip into the nearly-dry hair at the back of Sunghoon's head.
Sunoo is hyper aware of the fact he's wearing nothing under his robe, and he's almost itching to get Sunghoon's hands underneath it, but finds himself charmed by how oddly respectful Sunghoon is in keeping them away from any gaps. He can feel it starting to affect them both, and yet, there's no push. Maybe its too much of a step, and Sunghoon isn't ready yet, or maybe he just doesn't want to after everything that's happened today, or maybe he has romantic notions about first times needing to be special and prepared for. Either way, eventually, the kisses trail off into sleepy exchanges, Sunoo slumped against the wall rather than pinned to it, and Sunghoon, sweet and awkward and perfect, suggests they find something to watch on the TV until they want to go to sleep. There are other ways Sunoo can think of to keep them occupied until then, but he's happy enough just for them to be in the same room, to be acknowledged, touched, wanted.
He's not stupid enough to think that this solves everything, but it's a damn good start.
It's not late, exactly, but it's no longer unacceptably early to be in bed. They do have a concert tomorrow, after all, so Sunoo goes to the toilet and then digs in his suitcase to find his pyjamas while Sunghoon raids the minibar and starts skimming through channels.
For a moment, Sunoo pauses with his pyjamas in his hands, unsure of whether he should go back to the bathroom to change, and then he thinks. Fuck it.
"Ok," Sunghoon says, eyes fixed on the screen as he channel hops. "We have the news, Singles Inferno rip-off where everyone's naked, nature documentary, crying drag queens, home renovation, quiz show we won't understand, action movie, horror movie—"
"Horror movie," Sunoo says.
"I can't really read the description so—"
Sunoo raises an eyebrow and lets the open robe fall from his body onto the floor as Sunghoon stares, open mouthed, sentence abandoned halfway along its journey.
"So?"
Whatever his next words were supposed to be, Sunghoon chokes on them in a manner most undignified. It might be more merciful to look away, or play coy and pretend he doesn't know what he's doing, but Sunoo is tired of hiding his desires, and tired of pretending he doesn't want to be looked at. Even like this, in private, he wants to be a thing to be seen. He lets Sunghoon's eyes trace greedily over the exposed whole of him, the soft skin and the pressure creases from his jeans, his tummy, his dick, the scratch on his arm and the bruise on his thigh. He lets him look, and slowly, casually, pulls his pyjamas on before bending to pick the robe off the floor. A slightly hysterical wheezing sound comes from the bed, cut off by an insistent cough as he hangs the thing up and crawls over the duvet to where Sunghoon is lounging against the headboard.
His eyes haven't left him. He watches his approach with them wide open, still staring as Sunoo reaches over him for one of the packets, retrieving a rounded disk of chocolate which, when popped into his mouth and bitten into, turns out to be filled with caramel. He snuggles up to Sunghoon's side and drops his head onto his shoulder, studiously ignoring the tent in his shorts.
"You," Sunghoon groans, "Are going to be the death of me. It was bad enough when you didn't know—"
"Oh, trust me, I knew," Sunoo assures him. "Sometimes you look at me like you want to eat me."
Sunghoon blinks at him for a second, and then leans in and opens his jaw, briefly digging his teeth into the top of Sunoo's skull before retreating.
"Hmm." He says, delicately smacking his lips like he's considering the taste of a wine. "I guess I do. I think your cheeks would taste better, though, here—"
All Sunoo can do, as he dodges and wiggles to evade capture and the ever-present threat of Sunghoon's freakishly vampiric canines, is laugh. He shrieks as he rolls across the bed, trying not to upend any of their snacks, and he's struck by how wonderful it is just to be silly with him again. Everything about this has been so heavy and so serious for so long, but this is his friend, this beautiful, dumb, awkward boy who he's adored since their mildly disastrous teenage meeting. This, not the drama and the fear and the desperation, is who they are.
He gets caught eventually, and Sunghoon concedes to the hysterical protest that they have a concert tomorrow and reneges his assault on his cheeks, picking up one of his flailing hands in his teeth and worrying it like a dog instead. And then he hauls them back to lean against the pillows, Sunoo in the cradle of his legs with his back to his chest, and he plucks one of the chocolate button things that has fallen out onto the covers up to pop it in Sunoo's mouth instead.
The movie isn't even in English. They can't tell what language it is in, but there are subtitles neither of them can read properly at the bottom of the screen, so they feed each other chocolates and crisps and invent a story to replace the one they can't understand. Sunghoon tries to persuade him that the ghostly child that keeps knocking on windows is a Jehovah's Witness, like the ones that stand with the pamphlets on the corner of the high street in Gangnam, and then does an incredibly rude impression of the middle aged lady who had tried to talk to them when they were rookies and too young and polite to know how to escape. Sunoo makes fun of him when he feels him flinch at the jumpscares, and gets squeezed to death for his trouble. They heckle the main characters as they run up the stairs into the creepy attic as though that could ever end well, and laugh at the frankly ridiculous denoument, in which the ghost gets inexplicably trapped in a book that neither of them can remember having featured in the film thus far.
"To be fair," Sunoo says, "We didn't see the beginning. It might have been there."
"Mm."
The TV screen goes black, the remote is discarded to the other bed, and Sunghoon pulls himself lazily out from underneath Sunoo to scoop the empty and half empty packets up onto the desk. There are several minutes of confused pressing of switches, until they figure out how to turn all of the lights except the bedside lamps off. Sunoo scrolls mindlessly through tiktok while Sunghoon coordinates a morning gym session with Ni-ki, and then curls up around his back to look over his shoulder instead. It's not so different to how they've found themselves before, but Sunghoon no longer jolts away at absentminded attempts at closeness. Now he allows himself the press of a nose to Sunoo's skin, and the creep of his hand firmly around his waist, under his pyjama tshirt. He wiggles his other arm out underneath Sunoo's neck, so he can rest on his curved up bicep.
The algorithm throws them a video of a couple walking through a garden, a girl walking ahead as she's filmed from behind, one hand lagging back still tangled with her photographer's.
"Would you like that? One day?"
He sounds uncertain, and Sunoo tries not to feel hurt over it.
"Don't push yourself," he says, drier than intended.
"I'm not. I don't, I can't, not anytime soon. I wouldn't be able to think about anything I should be. But someday, in the future, I'll take you out. For dinner, or for a weekend trip somewhere. Just us, and I'll take photos of you, and post them with a cheesy caption. Would you like that?"
There is a boy in his bed who's been unable to look at him in public for months. There's a boy in his bed who is damaged, and hurt, and scared. There's a boy in his bed who he has known for years, and grown alongside, who has loved him quietly, who is asking, after everything, to take him on a date.
Sunoo swallows around the lump in his throat and, phone discarded to the bed, tangles their fingers together .
"Yeah, hyung. That sounds really nice."