Chapter Text
While Jeong Haseong is happy, emotional needs satisfied with the relationship, he can feel greediness if his body is stirring with increasing frequency. It's worth a try to figure out if his boyfriend would be interested.
They are on the sofa again, kissing, with Kiryeo sitting in his lap like the space belongs to him.
“Kiryeo-hyung,” he starts between the kisses, barely keeping himself from rushing ahead, “would you come to my bed tonight?”
Kim Kiryeo pulls back to look at him, with his inscrutable face and intense look of sharp eyes trained on him for a few long seconds make Jeong Haseong feel like asking was a mistake.
“It might be nice.” Kiryeo sounds almost too calm, his voice raspy and quiet with consideration. “Cuddling in sleep.”
Jeong Haseong nods at this gentle rebuttal. If Kiryeo is not comfortable with sex, then he'll accept what's being offered instead.
Suddenly he recalls the previous time he tried without words and slipping a hand under hyung's clothes was enough to make him stiffen uncomfortably and flee.
“Thank you,” he smiles. Probably he received more grace than deserved.
“Haseong-ah,” Kiryeo rests hands on his shoulders rather than sink back into a hug. “Don't thank me. I'm the one benefiting here.”
The declaration is strange, but Jeong Haseong decides to not question it too much. Hopefully he'll get an explanation one day, but he is guessing that there had been something traumatic in his past. Those things need time. Even if they don't have enough of it, pushing a sore spot won't bring anything good.
“I'll come to bed in a moment,” Kiryeo-hyung says, and Jeong Haseong feels a little stupid when he watches him get off his lap. The damn voice sounds so husky it's unfair Kiryeo says such things with it.
Reminding himself that he just has a voice like this isn't helping. Jeong Haseong will have to take care of the issue in his pants before going to bed.
The idea is simple, but execution turns out more difficult than expected. Turns out that even after some time alone just seeing the man he adores waiting for him under covers is almost too much for his will to endure.
He sucks in his breath, way too long looking at this dyed hair spread around on his pillow, aware that Kiryeo is looking at him intensely.
Then he manages to actually move. He sits on the bed, noticing that Kiryeo-hyung is giving him plenty of space, and decides that the only way to survive this is to stay turned away.
He slips under covers feeling a bit stiff, and it only gets worse moments later: the hands slip around him in a hug he technically was promised.
Jeong Haseong has never been close with someone like this, but he's not sure if having dating experience would've helped him handle all of this.
“Your heart is beating too fast, Haseong-ah. If you actually need your space to sleep, just tell me.”
His quiet voice somehow makes Haseong flush hotter. It shouldn't be hot, the man is rasping next to his ear, it's probably just throat damage to match his lungs, but something about his voice still just… does something.
“Stay. I just never had been with anyone before.” He really hopes that the flush he can feel on his face is not too easy to notice.
“Hm. Try to sleep.” Kiryeo follows with a light kiss to the nape of his neck, which is decidedly not helping.
Warm body presses along his back and he focuses on deep breaths. Now he's certain that Kiryeo-hyung is not aroused by the situation.
It takes a long while, laying in silence and intentionally relaxing his muscles, before he finally manages to calm down.
Kim Kiryeo is trying to figure out what it's supposed to be about. As little as he knows about human relationships, he's learned enough to know that sharing a bed is not something friends do without an emergency.
But since the S-rank had been taking care of him so well, it's natural he had accepted the unusual request.
Jeong Haseong probably has some emotionally based needs.
He probably needs to actually try searching for answers on the internet, even if the answers he found so far were… contradictory and unorganized at best.
Humans were supposed to be pack animals, but many of them live alone. But he can't judge them as individualistic species either, not with the way his human friends keep offering assistance to other earthlings with little to no compensation.
He's so tempted to just sum up his research as "humans are weird", but he can't give up since he's pretty much stuck living as one.
It's not bad sleeping like that, hugging the back of a man who asked for company. It took him a few tries to place hands comfortably, but once he figured that out it's actually pretty nice. Just takes longer than he’d assign himself as sleep hours.
In his sleep Jeong Haseong turned around to hug him back.
The morning comes without any issues, merely leaving him to wait it out. Actually, lazing around in bed could be interpreted to be one of the charms of his half-retirement.
Jeong Haseong probably will wake up soon, as he is a hard working earthling.
The realization is rather sudden; Arms squeeze a little tighter around his waist and warm body presses just a bit closer and he recalls what he’d learned about this earthling: maybe this is happening because Jeong Haseong really hates the thought of going back to living alone.
It would be better to soothe this fear. And even the best security system he can install can still be improved by the presence of S-rank ready to act like a bodyguard.
As soon as he can see the pyromancer opening his eyes he shares the conclusion he got to.
“You could move with me.” He hesitates, considering what exactly he's trying to do. “I just need a room or two you promise to not open or look inside, regardless of circumstances.”
“Alright, hyung. I'll want room for my mother, for when she gets better,” Jeong Haseong agrees seemingly without even thinking about it.
He really is such a kind earthling.
“Just need to find a good place,” Kim Kiryeo happily agrees. He isn't sure if he can make a method for adapting unsuitable earthling to mana, but he probably needs to try, as thanks for what Jeong Haseong did to help him.
So they agreed on a new degree of cohabitation. Kim Kiryeo mentions their future bills and Jeong Haseong just mutters his agreement with not enough coherency to be trusted. But he's pretty sure that once the pyromancer is properly awake there won't be any problem with reaching proper agreement.
“We should have breakfast,” Kim Kiryeo reminds after four seconds more. The pyromancer inevitably will get called for yet another emergency, and it would be bad for him if he doesn’t have necessary calories in him when that happens.
Jeong Haseong reluctantly lets go and they both get up.
Kim Kiryeo returns to his own room for a bit, preparing for a new day with just a touch of cleansing magic before changing, then goes right to the kitchen, planning a new shopping list while preparing them a warm meal.
Then they share the meal together and before it’s done Jeong Haseong gets up from the table as his phone, exactly as expected, pings with an alert.
Kim Kiryeo tosses him a bun so he at least has something more to eat, even if proper breakfast will have to stay unfinished.
Technically the pyromancer still has a better balance of personal life and work than a typical alphuri worker. The thought still is a bit concerning, taking into account that humans have so called labor laws which definitely get violated frequently.
Kim Kiryeo lets himself wonder about what would change once he has a house.
Knowing Jeong Haseong, he would be really happy to repeat the bed sharing whenever they have time.
Probably it might end up in their routine just like cuddling on the couch had, for whenever both of them are not working at appropriate hours for it.
It would mean wasting stupid amounts of time in bed, so Kim Kiryeo would rather avoid getting pulled in too often. Humans waste a lot of their time by sleeping inefficiently. And it’s risky indulgence until the ongoing invasion of gimishe is solved.
For now, then.