Chapter Text
♥︎
“God damn it, someone get over here! I’m low on blood!”
Bonggu rips his eyes off his phone when he hears screams pouring out into the hallway. Eunho’s being extra loud today. He must be doing really poorly.
Though, to be fair, he always plays kind of poorly. There’s a reason the university friends he plays with rejoiced when he said he’d have to take a two-week break for finals. Twenty months of being offline drastically diminished his skills. It’s taken him all semester just to get back into the Silver rank.
Not that Bonggu’s in any position to judge. Even after duo queuing with Eunho on the weekends for the past four months, he’s still yet to progress beyond Bronze. Besides, it’s kind of cute seeing Eunho throw a fit every time his team loses.
Bonggu shoves his phone into his pocket and jogs down the hall when he hears Eunho’s screams get louder. Part of him kind of just wants to rip the bandaid off and check his email now, but a much larger part of him really can’t miss the opportunity to see Eunho’s crashout. It’s been ages since he got to witness a good Eunho crashout.
He finally took his last exam today, though. It must have gone pretty well if he’s already screaming at his computer like this. When he took his calculus final last week, he was so worried about his grade, he invited himself into Bonggu’s apartment to lay face-down on the couch for the rest of the day. Bonggu nearly had a heart attack when he came home to find Eunho lying down motionless in the dark.
“Ha! You motherfuckers can’t get me! I—oh, god damn it!”
He’s got plenty of energy in him tonight. His last exam definitely went well. Not that Bonggu was particularly worried he’d find Eunho stewing in his own misery, though. It was his singer’s diction final, and he’s got a naturally clear voice. Loud, but very clear.
“Eunho,” Bonggu calls out, grinning as he pulls open Eunho’s door. “How was your final?”
“Fuck!” he hears Eunho scream from his bedroom.
Bonggu’s grin widens. He better get there fast if he wants to make it in time to see that crashout. He tugs off his scarf and hat as he rushes to Eunho’s room.
Just as he hoped, Eunho’s hunched over his computer desk and thwacking at his keyboard hard enough for the monitor to shake. His headphones must’ve drowned out the sound of Bonggu’s voice, because he lets out a yelp when Bonggu rests his chin on top of his head.
“Hey,” Bonngu says, reaching down to fix Eunho’s hair under his headphones. “How was your diction final?”
Eunho looks up at him with a grin. “It went great! I’m, like, 90% sure I got an A.”
“Congratulations,” Bonggu says, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I got the email, by the way.”
“Oh fuck, really? Have you opened it yet? Did you—shit, hold on a second. We’re about to win this match.”
They definitely aren’t. Vladimir's died eight times, and he’s currently about to die a ninth time from that momentary lapse in his attention. At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before Eunho’s hanging out in Bronze with Bonggu.
“You need to heal,” Bonggu says. “Use transfusion.”
Unsurprisingly, Eunho tries to do some flashy combo first. Bonggu gives him a conciliatory pat on the back when Vladimir dies again.
And again. In a way, it’s kind of admirable. Bonggu’s never seen someone so dedicated to a game they’re so bad at.
“We almost had it,” Eunho groans when the match ends, tilting his chin up to shoot Bonggu a pout.
His team definitely didn’t ‘almost have it.’ No doubt he’s getting cursed out over voice chat right now.
Well, he doesn’t need to hear all that. It’s a big day, after all. He’s officially on winter break. His friends will be understanding if he logs off without getting his typical compulsory chastisement. Bonggu lifts the headphones from Eunho’s ears and leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. “I know. You were so close with that combo near the end.”
“If that stupid Urgot just stopped spamming attacks every five seconds,” Eunho grumbles.
His teeth always poke out in such a cute way when he’s pouting like this. It really does make him look just like a big, angry puppy.
Not so much like a vampire anymore. Sure, he does like to wear black clothes sometimes, and he occasionally sits silently in the dark, and he spends a decent amount of his free time screaming about blood, but he’s nowhere near as intimidating as he seemed when they first met.
He’s actually kind of a sweetheart. When they went out for dinner the first time, Bonggu was fully prepared to be teased relentlessly for the whole vampire thing. It would’ve been far from unwarranted, but Eunho was too occupied with apologizing for making Bonggu jump out of his window to crack any jokes. He refused to let Bonggu pay for the dinner, no matter how many times Bonggu tried to put his card down. He even offered to help Bonggu out at the studio as he waited for his ankle to heal.
While he’s not exactly suited to help teach dance, Eunho’s pretty good with the books. And really, not all that bad at dancing. He just gets distracted very easily, and has a propensity to stomp on people’s feet when he isn’t paying attention. Once he and Bonggu settled all the misunderstandings between themselves, he got pretty good at focusing on his choreography—or, at least, focusing on the person helping him with his choreography. It took a few rehearsals for him to finally get through a full run-through without causing damage to Noah’s toes.
In his defense, it was a very footwork-heavy routine he, Yejun, and Noah put together. There was a lot of stomping in heavy boots involved. The fact that they had to sing at the same time made it all the more difficult.
It came as no surprise when they won their competition. They put on a very impressive performance.
That might be the only time Eunho looks truly intimidating—when he’s performing. He’s kind of like Hamin in that regard. Hamin’s good at looking scary when he’s in his dobok, but it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s not in tournament mode. Just like Eunho, he’s far too weird to take seriously.
Not that Bonggu is any different. He’s probably the reason Hamin turned out so weird. He’s got his own fair share of eccentricities that must have rubbed off on Hamin as he was trying to get the kid out of his shell. Either way, Bonggu easily adapted to Eunho’s tendencies to flail around and sing at an earsplitting volume. He’s used to that kind of thing. And besides, the kids at the dance studio love it. The weekend classes get very easily derailed when the students catch Eunho coming in for his shifts. It’s charming, seeing Eunho get so excited to play court jester for a bunch of elementary schoolers.
Everything about Eunho is charming, really. The way he never improves at League of Legends is charming. His insistence on driving Bonggu to work every morning despite Hanyang being in the opposite direction is charming. The fact that he flagrantly invites himself into Bonggu’s apartment whenever he wants is charming. The way he latches himself on Bonggu like an octopus at night is charming.
That one’s pretty practical, too. Bonggu’s come to find that he sleeps a lot better when he’s got a human heater by his side. Given how hectic the past couple months have been, it definitely makes a difference to get some quality sleep at night.
Because even though Bonggu’s workload has gotten way easier since Eunho started working part time, he’s still pretty busy. All the extra hours he has in the day end up getting filled with other things beyond paperwork. He’s started visiting KNSU more often to get lunch with Hamin. He’s been going to Hanyang just as often to see Eunho, Yejun, and Noah. He’s been going out on quite a lot of dates, too—movie theater dates, restaurant dates, gym dates, karaoke dates. Unsurprisingly, Eunho’s a big fan of karaoke. Bonggu’s spent many a morning guzzling tea in an effort to recover his voice after a long night of screaming into a microphone.
But the kinds of dates they go on the most are study dates. Ever since early November, they’ve been studying at cafes, parks, in the office between classes, even quizzing each other with flash cards as they sit on Bonggu’s couch watching Netflix or between games when they’re hanging out in Eunho’s bedroom. Bonggu never would’ve thought he’d be so into studying. Now, though, he finds himself excited at the prospect of keeping up the study dates for the next four years.
That is, if the email from Hanyang University currently sitting unopened in his inbox says he’s been accepted.
He’s got a good feeling about it. He did great on his college entrance exams. Sure, he flipped out a little the morning of the test, but when all’s said and done, it wasn’t his worst sleep-deprived spiral. Besides, it’s partly Hamin’s fault for thinking it’d be funny to show up at his door with seaweed soup. He knows Bonggu’s serious about those kinds of superstitions. It’s only natural he would try to escape out his window before Hamin and Eunho could drag him to the testing center.
He ended up taking the test, anyway. Perhaps Hamin and Eunho had to physically carry him out of his apartment to do so, but whatever. Bonggu refuses to feel embarrassed about it.
He’s kind of had to learn to be immune to embarrassment. There’s no way he’d survive being friends with Hamin, Yejun, and Noah otherwise. Because even if Eunho was kind enough to let the vampire thing go, the others certainly are not. When the autumn showcase rolled around, Hamin insisted that they all show up dressed as the Cullen family. Whenever Bonggu goes to the gym, Noah always puts on his vampire playlist over the speakers. Even Yejun convinced his parents to permanently change iced americanos to ‘iced vampire squid ink’ on the menu. They may get significantly less requests for americanos these days, but Yejun always looks very pleased with himself when Eunho has to grimace his way through a coffee order.
There’s no doubt a vampire joke or two is going to come up when they all go to Gyeongju next week. It’s only a matter of time before Bonggu’s mom knows the rather unfortunate circumstances that got him and Eunho together. He’s long past the point of caring. All he really cares about is how his mom is going to react to the news that he and Eunho are together.
She already likes Eunho, at least. She thinks it’s very sweet that he’s been helping Bonggu apply to university. Every time she and Eunho talk on the phone, she gushes about Bonggu having such a nice friend to help him get acquainted with campus life. She’ll probably think it’s nice that they’re dating.
Or maybe, if Bonggu doesn’t get accepted, she’ll think it’s because he got distracted by his new boyfriend. At least Bonggu doesn’t have to stew on that particular anxiety for a week. Once Eunho’s done throwing a fit over losing his game, they can read the email together.
It’s evident Eunho’s not quite done throwing his fit, though. He’s still staring up at Bonggu with a massive pout on his face. Bonggu crouches down to press his lips to that pout.
“Feel better now?” Bonggu asks as he pulls back.
“Not yet,” Eunho says, puckering his lips and looking up at Bonggu expectantly. “Maybe if you kiss me again.”
Bonggu lets out a chuckle as he sits himself down on Eunho’s lap and pulls him in for a proper kiss.
It doesn’t last as long as Bonggu would’ve hoped. Eunho’s only just wrapped his arms around Bonggu’s waist when he freezes and says, “Wait, you said you got the email?”
“Uh huh,” Bonggu says, leaning forward to nudge Eunho’s lips apart.
It’s cute, the way Eunho automatically perks up. Bonggu can feel his hands squeezing excitedly at his waist.
“Did you open it?” Eunho asks, pulling away to look at Bonggu expectantly.
“Not yet. Kiss me first. I haven’t seen you all day.”
Eunho lets out a groan before complying. There’s something kind of funny about it—Bonggu should probably be the one freaking out right now, given it’s his future on the line, but it’s the people around him stirring up a fuss. His mom woke him up at 5:00 in the morning with a phone call asking if he’d gotten the email yet, even though he’s told her plenty of times now that he no longer wakes up at the crack of dawn to go to work. He only got to sleep in for a few minutes after that, because he got a call from Yejun and Noah asking the exact same thing. Hamin chased him around the studio all day, stealing his phone from his pocket whenever he got the chance and refreshing his email. He’s probably chasing Noah around the gym right now, clinging onto him and waiting with baited breath to find out if he really is going to have full-time employment in the spring—nevermind that Bonggu already said that he isn’t going to take back his promise to let him lead more classes, regardless of whether it turns out to be necessary or not.
Eunho’s been the worst by far, though. As soon as Bonggu got off the phone with Yejun and Noah this morning, Eunho rolled on top of him and asked if he’d gotten the email yet, as if he hadn’t just heard Bonggu say he hadn’t twice in a row. He called Bonggu four times before his diction final asking for updates. He probably would’ve called again right after if he hadn’t decided to race home for a celebratory round of League. He seems to be making up for that lapse in urgency now, though. He’s squeezing at Bonggu’s waist like he’s trying to wring out his internal organs.
Not that Bonggu minds it so much. It was freezing outside, and Eunho’s got warm hands.
Bonggu lets out a snort when one of those hands tries to discreetly reach into his pocket.
“Alright,” he chuckles, breaking the kiss and taking his phone out of his pocket. “We can read it now.”
He can’t help but hold his breath a little as he pulls up his email. It isn’t nerves as much as excitement, though. Sure, it’ll be disappointing if he doesn’t get in, but if he does, he’s got a lot to look forward to next semester. He’ll get to see Yejun more often. He and Eunho will get to spend even more time together. They’ll go to school together in the morning, meet up between classes, and go to each other’s performances. Bonggu will finally get to dance onstage again after spending so many years watching from the wings. He’ll get to be in showcases just as often as he choreographs them.
So maybe he’s a little nervous. Who wouldn’t be? There’s a lot riding on this single email.
“Open it,” Eunho begs, tugging Bonggu up further on his lap and craning his neck down to stare at Bonggu’s phone.
Bonggu shakes the nerves away as he clicks on the email. No use getting worked up over it before he even knows the results, especially when Eunho’s already so worked up himself.
This letter certifies that Chae Bonggu has been accepted—
Bonggu doesn’t get any further than that before Eunho’s screaming in his ear and trying to squeeze him to death. Not that he needs to read the rest. The word ‘accepted’ plays through his head over and over again as he squeezes Eunho back.
“I guess I should start calling you sunbae now, huh?” Bonggu says with a wide grin as he wraps his arms tight around Eunho’s shoulders.
Eunho’s response comes in the form of darting up from his chair and carrying Bonggu out of his bedroom. Where he intends to take them, Bonggu doesn’t know. All he knows is that he’s finally getting that BFA in dance he’s been putting off for the past five years. He’s going to be performing again. He and Eunho might even get to perform together somewhere down the line.
It kind of feels like a massive weight has been lifted from his chest. He hadn’t even realized just how tense he was, but now, he can’t help but go a little limp as Eunho carries him off to the living room. To be fair, though, he’d been studying like a maniac for the CSAT up until a month ago, and then immediately after, he had to help Eunho study like a maniac for his finals. It’s relieving to finally have both of those successfully behind them.
It’s clear Eunho feels the same. As soon as he deposits Bonggu on the couch, he flings himself down on top of him, body going completely slack as he smushes Bonggu into the cushions.
“Get up,” Bonggu chuckles. “I gotta call my mom.”
“Later,” Eunho says, words muffled as he buries his face against Bonggu’s neck. “The guys’ll be here soon. We can tell everyone at the same time.”
Of course there’s already something planned. It makes sense. Hamin took his last final on Monday. Noah and Yejun finished yesterday. There’s plenty of reasons to have a celebration tonight. Now, they’ll all have something worth celebrating.
Bonggu kind of just wants to conk out, but whatever. He’s used to staying up late these days. He kisses the top of Eunho’s head and says, “I’ll wake you up when they’re here.”
“Thank you,” Eunho mumbles, pressing a kiss to Bonggu’s neck before promptly letting out a quiet litany of snores.
It’ll be hard to peel him off when the others eventually get here, but it’s fine. They know the door code, and they’re plenty used to seeing this kind of thing. Bonggu just settles back and closes his eyes, grinning as he imagines what next semester will be like.
♥︎
It’s not like Bonggu’s mom isn’t already aware of Eunho. She’s very aware of Eunho. When Bonggu and his mom talk on the phone, Eunho nearly always comes up in conversation, if he isn’t a direct participant in the conversation itself. Bonggu’s mom is the one who told Bonggu and Hamin to invite him to her house for winter break. Sure, she extended the invitation to Yejun and Noah too, but she said she wants to meet Eunho specifically. She clearly already likes him.
But it’s that exact thought that has Bonggu petting his hands nervously through Eunho’s hair as he stares out the train window and waits for them to get to Singyeongju Station. There’s a lot riding on this now—if Bonggu’s mom doesn’t approve of their relationship, it’s just going to make things incredibly awkward for everyone.
That’s not going to happen, though. There’s literally no reason for her not to approve.
Maybe. Bonggu can’t know that for sure. He’s never been in this situation before. He’s never had the time to date someone seriously like this.
The thought has Bonggu tapping his feet anxiously as he watches the snow-dusted rice fields outside Yeongcheon give way to Gyeongju’s tiled roofs and grassy tomb hills. At least his brain decided to save this sudden burst of nerves for the tail-end of the trip. If he had to spend the full two hours going through all the possible scenarios that could happen when his mom and Eunho meet face to face, he’d probably be freaking out by now. Thankfully, he was too occupied planning beach trips and temple visits with his friends to go through the full rolodex of what-ifs.
All four of them are conked out now, though. Bonggu better stop moving around so much, or he’s going to wake them up. He forces his feet to stop tapping so he doesn’t accidentally kick Yejun and Noah. He lays back against his chair so Hamin’s head doesn’t fall from his shoulder. He forces himself to stop raking his fingers through Eunho’s hair so he doesn’t accidentally tug on the strands and send him tumbling off his lap.
He can’t help but wonder how his mom would react to this scene, though. She’s used to how clingy he is with Hamin, but maybe she’d feel differently about him being this close with Eunho. Knowing the context, she might find it off-putting to see them so flagrantly cling onto each other in public. She might forbid them from sleeping in the same room.
That would make things difficult. His mom’s only got one guest room, and it's supposed to be Hamin’s turn to get it. There’s no way he’s going to willingly share, and if Bonggu can’t sleep out in the living room with the others, that leaves him with either his mom’s room or the porch. The latter would be pretty excruciating when it’s this cold out, but possibly more bearable if things don’t go well. The last thing Bonggu wants is to be trapped alone with his mom after an argument. He’s got no idea what that would even be like. They’ve never had a fight before.
There’s a lot of uncharted territory waiting for him at the end of this train ride. He can’t help but grimace as Singyeongju Station gets closer and closer.
“You smelling his breath from all the way over there or something?”
Bonggu rips his eyes away from the window to look at Noah curled up on the seat across from him. It isn’t hard to piece together who he’s referring to—Yejun’s currently dead asleep, mouth hanging open and directing his snores right into Noah’s face.
The sight leaves Bonggu’s nerves in a jumbled mess. On one hand, Yejun and Noah are just as clingy as he, Hamin, and Eunho are. The chances of his mom immediately clocking something different about him and Eunho are pretty low. But at the same time, that could just make the reveal even more awkward than it will inevitably already be. If their relationship comes as a surprise, she might be upset that Bonggu didn’t tell her sooner.
Or maybe he’s telling her too soon. Maybe he should just wait until after he graduates before breaking this news to her. He already gave her one major piece of news this week. Anything else might be too much.
“Seriously,” Noah says through a yawn, craning his face away from Yejun’s, “He better brush his teeth before we meet your mom. She’s gonna think he’s the vampire when she catches a whiff of his garlic breath.”
Vampires are supposed to be averse to garlic. Bonggu’s not quite in the mental state to correct him on that, though. He’s too busy weighing the benefits and drawbacks of waiting four years to tell his mom he’s dating someone. By that point, he and Eunho will have more than likely moved in together. That could make the conversation awkward, but at least they’ll have some experience telling parents about their relationship. They’ve got plans to tell Eunho’s when they visit for New Year’s.
They can’t tell Bonggu’s mom four years after they tell Eunho’s parents. That would be crazy. Waiting for graduation is definitely too long.
“Seriously, what’s up with your face right now?”
“Nothing,” Bonggu says distractedly. He kind of has to tell his mom this weekend. This isn’t the kind of thing you talk about over the phone, and the next time they see each other in person will be for Hamin’s graduation, so he obviously can’t tell her then. It’d take the attention off Hamin. It’s either tell her now or tell her in July, and there’s no way Bonggu’s tainting his own birthday with his first ever fight with his mom.
Because it could totally happen. Even if she’s perfectly fine with them dating, she might change her mind when she finds out how weird Bonggu acted towards Eunho when they first met. There’s no way the others are going to skip over the part about the jahng bongs. If Bonggu’s mom finds out he was plotting to knock Eunho out with a big wooden stick, she might decide he’s not good enough for Eunho.
Oh god, what if she finds out about the cookies? She’s going to kill Bonggu for throwing them away. She might even disown Bonggu and adopt Eunho instead.
Crap, now Bonggu feels guilty all over again. He never did quite get over how sweet and pitiful Eunho looked when he brought those cookies over. Bonggu almost slammed the door in his face that day. If Bonggu’s mom does disown him, it would be pretty well-deserved.
“Oh, is it about him meeting your mom?” Noah asks when Bonggu leans down to press an apology kiss to Eunho’s temple.
“Maybe,” Bonggu mumbles, smoothing Eunho’s hair out of the way and pressing an apology kiss to his forehead.
“She already knows, right?”
Bonggu flushes a little as he shakes his head ‘no.’ Maybe he should’ve just told her over the phone. At least they wouldn’t have to share a house for a whole weekend if things went awry.
“That’s tough,” Noah says with a frown. “But hey, if it turns out she’s homophobic, I’m sure my parents would be down to adopt you.”
There’s an awful lot of hypothetical adoption here for a bunch of people in their twenties. At least Bonggu won’t need to consider alternative parenting arrangements for that specific reason. In all the millions of ways things could go wrong, Bonggu can at least know that’s not one of them. He already came out to his mom ages ago. Or, rather, his mom pieced it together herself when he couldn’t sleep for four nights in a row when he found himself crushing on a guy in middle school. She was the one who had to help him calm down enough to work up the courage to ask the guy out.
And then she had to calm him down when they broke up three days later. And again, when they repeated the same pattern his second year of high school. At least it was a little easier that time around. Hamin was there, so Bonggu’s mom didn’t have to take a full night shift reassuring Bonggu that there’s plenty of guys out there who’d be honored to date him. Nevermind that both of Bonggu’s ex-boyfriends broke up with him for the same reason—he was, as they both rather bluntly put it, ‘a lot to deal with.’
He’s totally still a lot to deal with. Sure, Eunho’s equally dramatic, and it’s been working out pretty well for them, but what if Bonggu’s mom sees that as a bad thing?
She definitely will, once she catches sight of them. They made the terrible decision to stay up late every single night for the past week to play League. It seemed like a great idea when Bonggu finally managed to make it to Silver with Eunho, but Bonggu’s mom is going to think all they do together is aggravate each other’s non-existent insomnia when she sees the dark circles under their eyes.
“She’s not homophobic,” Bonggu says, rubbing his thumb at Eunho’s dark circles in a futile effort to make them go away. “She already knows about me. She just doesn’t know about me and Eunho yet.”
“She already knows. Quit freaking out about it and get some sleep,” Hamin mumbles, lifting his head from Bonggu’s shoulder to shoot him a glare before settling back down and closing his eyes.
And then he’s out, his own snores mixing with Eunho’s and Yejun’s. Bonggu’s half-tempted to wake him up again, because how the hell can he know that? How can anyone know anything?
“See? Everything’s gonna be fine,” Noah says. “Why don’t you just stop worrying so much and take a nap instead?”
There’s no time for that. They’re almost at the station. Bonggu offers Noah his best attempt at a non-worried smile and tries to mentally prepare himself for whatever happens when they get to his mom’s house.
♥︎
Despite Bonggu’s tendencies to make dumb decisions or go on bizarre mental tangents when he’s tired, it’s rare for him to actually experience any ramifications from those decisions or tangents. He’s actually pretty lucky, in a sense. He ended up getting a really good dance scholarship in high school despite the Orange Caramel incident. He somehow made it past basic training in the army despite technically deserting his post. He managed to make friends with Yejun and Noah, even though the circumstances in which they met were deeply embarrassing. Somehow, Eunho really likes him, despite being the central figure in that deeply embarrassing circumstance. Sometimes, Bonggu has to wonder if he’s been blessed with good karma.
Or, rather, was blessed. He’s definitely cursed now. For what may be the first time in his life, he was actually right about something his sleep-deprived brain conjured up. He buries his face in his hands and lets out a long, pained groan.
“Hey, keep mixing that dough,” his mom tuts, lips still raised in a smirk as she reaches out to pull Bonggu’s hands away from his face. She turns back to Hamin. “Then what happened?”
“You’re not gonna believe this,” Hamin snorts, looking far too pleased with himself as he leans against the counter and gives a drastically inaccurate retelling of the events of last August. “After I finally got him to stop whining like a massive baby and ask the guy out—who, as you may recall, already asked him out and was rejected, like, fifty times—he takes Eunho’s phone from him and full-on ogles a picture of him half-naked. In front of everyone! Completely shameless, I tell you. He was like, ‘oh my god, his abs.’”
“That didn’t happen,” Bonggu mutters. Not that it’s going to make any difference. Literally not a single detail of this story has been correct. The only part Hamin, Yejun, and Noah decided to get right was the cookies, the traitors. Just as Bonggu predicted, his mom chastised him when she found out he threw those cookies away.
“After he did all that work just for you?!” she gasped after hearing Yejun recount the full process he and Eunho went through to make them.
It was, as Bonggu has known for a while now, quite a process. Eunho woke up at 7:00—a good five hours before he usually woke up at that time—to meet up with Yejun at the bakery. He meticulously selected a variety of flavors in hopes of ending up with at least one Bonggu would like. He even stopped by Yejun and Noah’s apartment after to dig through Noah’s closet in search of an outfit he thought would impress Bonggu enough to get him to talk to him. He was pretty upset when all his efforts were for nothing. Noah and Yejun spared no detail recounting how mopey he was when he came over for rehearsal that night.
Bonggu’s mom looked heart-broken when she listened to Yejun describe in far-too vivid detail how sweet and pitiful Eunho looked when he told them Bonggu was already dating someone, even though she’s well aware that the person in question was Hamin. To be fair, Yejun and Noah are quite the story tellers. Bonggu found himself feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing all over again. In the end, he’s the one who offered to make apology cookies.
And now, here Bonggu is, making sugar cookies in his mom’s kitchen as he listens to his friends horrifically exaggerate the whole vampire disaster.
At least he’s got Eunho on his side. Sort of.
“Hyung’s right. That’s not what happened,” Eunho says from where he’s sitting on the counter and stealing bits of dough from the side of the bowl. “He did ogle me the first time we met, though.”
“That’s your fault,” Bonggu groans, jabbing his elbow into Eunho’s thigh. “Who answers the door shirtless?”
“I was sleeping,” Eunho says with a shrug.
“Oh, that reminds me,” Hamin says excitedly. “Did I already tell you about the rice cake?”
Yes, Hamin’s already told Bonngu’s mom about the rice cake. She’s already chastised Bonggu plenty for trying to make him disintegrate, even though all he did was toss a couple garlic bulbs in the dough. It’s hardly the most life-threatening method Bonggu could’ve employed. That doesn’t stop her from shooting Bonggu a glare and saying, “I can’t believe you’d try to do that to him. He’s an angel.”
Said angel is currently dipping his finger into Bonggu’s mixing bowl and stealing cookie dough again. At this rate, they’re barely going to have enough to make a half dozen.
Well, these are Eunho’s apology cookies. If he wants to eat them while they’re raw, he’s got the right to do it. He worked so hard on his own apology cookies last August.
“I know he is,” Bonggu says, offering Eunho a smile.
The smile Eunho offers him in return is very cute. He’s got cookie dough on his lip. It’s caught right under one of his canines. Bonggu reaches up to wipe the dough away.
Eunho catches his hand before he can pull it back and licks the dough from his thumb. Three groans are quick to follow. Bonggu flushes when he hears his mom say, “You boys stop that. You know he gets embarrassed easily.”
And yet she’s perfectly fine with laughing at Bonggu for the vampire stuff. Bonggu isn’t given the time to point out the hypocrisy of it all. Noah’s quick to say, “Oh, you should have seen him when he found out Eunho’s human. His face was the same color as his hair. He was like, ‘oh Eunho, I can’t believe someone as handsome as you is a mere mortal.’ And you wanna know something else he said? This is crazy. He said, ‘Noah hyung, your eyes are so blue. When I went out to stalk you, I was so enraptured by your ethereal beauty, I—”
The story Noah’s spinning about him slipping on a puddle of water when he saw Noah in the bakery for the first time doesn’t even fit within the chronological order of events. He didn’t even confess that he suspected Noah and Yejun might be vampires too until three weeks after he slipped on that puddle of water—in his own apartment, and well before Noah arrived, mind you. Not to mention it was Yejun he was staking out that day. Noah just happened to show up.
But this could be significantly worse, Bonggu supposes. If some factually dubious teasing is the worst thing to come out of today, then so be it. Bonggu’s immune to teasing by this point. He drowns out the conversation and leans against Eunho’s side as he finishes mixing the dough.
Besides, the thing he was actually worried about was shockingly anticlimactic. Turns out, Hamin was right. Bonggu’s mom already figured out they were together ages ago. A few too many early morning phone calls featured Eunho’s groggy voice asking what time it was. Between that and all the times Bonggu accidentally went on tangents about how nice Eunho looked on a certain day or something cute he’d done, it wasn’t difficult to piece things together. All of Bonggu’s panic washed away when his mom pulled him and Eunho in for a hug and said she was happy for them.
And then she chastised Bonggu when Hamin excitedly revealed that he rejected Eunho the first two times—not fifty, though that particular detail seemed to get lost in the conversation—Eunho tried to ask him out. And laughed when it was revealed why Bonggu rejected him.
Really, it could be a whole lot worse. At least she approves of their relationship. She may not approve of literally anything surrounding the start of that relationship, but whatever. Once Hamin, Yejun, and Noah finally get through their exaggerated retelling, this can all fade into a distant, cringey memory.
Eventually. Hopefully. Bonggu’s mom is currently laughing like a hyena as Yejun vividly describes the outfits he and Hamin wore to the bakery. At least she’s laughing at both of them this time.
“You don’t need to go along with every idea he gets into his head, you know,” Bonggu’s mom snorts, reaching up to ruffle Hamin’s hair. “You boys haven’t changed a bit. You still follow Bamby around like a little duckling.”
Bonggu shoots Hamin a smirk and says, “Mom, did you know Hamin tried to exorcise them with fried chicken?”
“Oh!” Noah exclaims, perking up from his seat at the table. “I almost forgot about that part.”
Bonggu leans against Eunho’s side, grinning as he shapes the dough into balls and places them on the baking sheet. Finally, he’s not the sole recipient of the teasing. Noah and Yejun are having a wonderful time drastically exaggerating the chicken situation.
“I never threw it,” Hamin scoffs. “That would be a waste of perfectly good chicken.”
“I’m telling you, he threw it at us,” Yejun says solemnly. “The whole box. He was like Father Dyer in The Exorcist.”
As far as Bonggu knows, no one was tossing boxes of fried chicken in that movie. Nor does he recall vampires being part of the plot. Not that he’s going to offer up a correction. He’s perfectly content to listen quietly as he holds Eunho’s hand and shapes the dough into balls. It’s a little hard to make cookies with only one hand, but he’s not exactly eager to let go of Eunho’s. Besides, no one’s coming to make fun of them for it. Bonggu’s mom wouldn’t allow it.
It might be a different story when they wake up tomorrow morning. They haven’t gotten around to discussing sleeping arrangements, but Bonggu’s got a feeling he won’t be relegated to the porch or his mom’s room. Given how small the living room is, and knowing Eunho’s octopus-like sleeping habits, there’s little doubt in Bonggu’s mind that he’s going to wake up with Eunho laying on top of him and Yejun and Noah having an absolute field day making fun of them for it.
That’s an embarrassment he can deal with tomorrow, though. For now, Eunho’s smiling. That’s more than enough to keep Bonggu content as he finishes making the cookies.
♥︎
Bonggu has definitely been blessed with good karma. That karma has a roundabout way of manifesting, but it’s there nonetheless.
“But it’s my turn,” Hamin groans, sliding down in his chair. “I slept on the floor last time.”
Bonggu’s mom reaches out to give him a conciliatory pat on the back and says, “Can’t you be accommodating this once? You know how embarrassed Bamby gets.”
One could argue this conversation is, in itself, embarrassing. Bonggu’s sure not going to be the one to make that argument, though. He’d much rather be a little embarrassed right now than wake up to laughter for the next three mornings. Besides, sleeping on the floor sucks, especially when there’s three other full-grown men jammed up next to him like sardines. He got plenty of that in the army.
He makes no effort to hide his flush as he nods and says, “That’s right. I mean, you remember how awkward it was last week, right?”
So maybe Bonggu’s exaggerating a little. All that happened is Hamin and the others caught him and Eunho half-asleep and kissing on the couch when they came over to celebrate the end of the semester. Bonggu’s the only one who flipped out over it, but to be fair, that was awkward. He nearly pushed Eunho off the couch when he startled at the sound of the door opening. There’s no use putting themselves in a situation where that could happen all over again.
Eunho nods sagely. “This would be the best for everyone. I snore in my sleep. Yejun hyung can attest to that. We shared a bunk in the navy.”
“I snore too,” Hamin whines.
“Eunho also rolls around in his sleep a lot,” Yejun says with a grimace. “He likes to roll on top of people and smother them. Just let them take the bedroom, huh? It’s the safest choice.”
“What if he kills Bamby hyung?” Hamin retorts. “His blood will be on your hands.”
Bonggu’s mother ruffles his hair and says, “You know he won’t be able to sleep tonight if he’s in the living room. He’ll be too self-conscious. He might very well die from embarrassment. Will you take responsibility if that happens?”
They’re both being wildly over-dramatic about this whole thing. It’s not like Bonggu’s going to pull an Orange Caramel if he doesn’t get the guest room. Still, it would be really nice. Besides, it makes sense for Hamin to take the living room. It’s a small space. Putting three people there instead of four is simply more reasonable.
Not that rationality matters so much in this situation. Hamin’s serious about that guest room. There’s only so much that will make him relinquish his right to it.
“Hamin,” Bonggu says, reaching across the table to squeeze Hamin’s hand. “If you let us have the room, I’ll do anything you want all weekend. Just say the word.”
“Anything?”
It’s a little concerning, the way a smile slowly slides its way onto Hamin’s face. Anything to get that guest room, though, Bonggu supposes. Now that the option’s out there, the thought of having to share the floor with three whole people all weekend is sounding more and more unbearable. Everyone snores, including Yejun and Noah. Bonggu would much rather just listen to Eunho’s all night. His snores are cute.
The thought keeps Bonggu feeling confident as he nods and says, “Anything.”
♥︎
Out of all the ‘anythings’ Hamin could have gone with, this is surprisingly benign.
“Thank you for the cookies, hyung,” Hamin says, wrapping an arm around Bonggu’s shoulders before trotting off to sit between Noah and Yejun.
Really, Bonggu was expecting to pay for all of Hamin’s meals, or carry Hamin on his back to the beach, or take cringey pictures in rented hanbok, or something similarly costly, physically demanding, or embarrassing. This, though, is actually kind of nice. Eunho ate the first batch himself, anyway. Bonggu’s benefitting from this arrangement just as much as Hamin is.
“You’re welcome,” he says through a mouthful of sugar cookie as he leans against Eunho’s side and watches the sun dip below the shoreline.
Another part of Hamin’s ‘anything’—getting to climb out the guest room window and watch the sun set from the roof. Not that he would have been forbidden from doing that in the first place. He and Bonggu always do this, regardless of whose turn it is to get the guest room.
From up here, you can see Gampo Beach in the distance, peeking out from behind the line of trees separating the residential neighborhood from the tourist area. A little further up the coast, you can see the very tops of fire clay temple rooftops, their faded red and blue dancheong standing out in stark contrast to the trees surrounding them. And when the sun is setting over the horizon like this, all the colors pop even more vibrantly.
It’s a nice view. Even nicer with all these people to share it with. Frankly, if Hamin does decide he wants to cash in on some more ‘anythings’ and make Bonggu take embarrassing pictures in hanbok when they visit the temple tomorrow, Bonggu doesn’t think he’d mind. He’s in way too good a mood to feel something as petty as embarrassment. He probably used up all his embarrassment tonight, anyway.
Actually, the picture idea might be kind of nice. It’d be cool to have some pictures of the five of them. And Eunho would look cute in hanbok.
“Let’s rent hanbok when we go there tomorrow,” Bonggu says, pointing at the temples up the coast. “We can take pictures.”
“Good idea,” Noah says with a grin. “Eunho, you remember your hanbok days, right? Back when you were first turned?”
Eunho lets out a snort. “Shut up before I turn you too.”
“I’m the one who turned you, actually. As you may recall, I’m the coven leader, so—”
“Let’s take a picture now,” Yejun cuts in. “This view is so cool. Both of you, get over here.”
It really is a picture-worthy view. It’s been a minute since Bonggu’s been relaxed enough to enjoy it. Usually, he’s too busy thinking about all the work waiting for him back in Seoul to properly take it all in properly.
It’s not like there’s any less work waiting for him this time around. He, Eunho, and Yejun need to get ready for the semester to start. He and Hamin need to finish planning the winter showcase. He’s gotta get Noah’s and Hamin’s graduation presents and work out a new studio schedule to accommodate Hamin’s taekwondo matches for when he’s the head teacher. It’s a pretty heavy workload, when all’s said and done.
Far from unmanageable, though. If anything, Bonggu’s excited. He’s got a lot to look forward to in the coming weeks.
For now, though, he wraps a hand around Eunho’s waist and lays his head on Noah’s shoulder as he smiles for the camera. He’s got a whole weekend to enjoy hanging out with his mom and his friends before starting this new chapter of his life.