Chapter Text
By unspoken consensus, when all six of them hang out together, they do it in the studio. Himchan and Yongguk are both graduate students, and both have moderate incomes. Jongup too, part-times at a local training center. Thus, the three of them are able to afford the comparatively less shitty studio apartment that Daehyun, Youngjae and Junhong cannot touch with their meager student loans.
Daehyun likes the studio because it has nice large windows that let in actual sunlight and contains hyungs to tease. Junhong likes it because it’s more spacious and more sound-proof. As far as Daehyun can tell, Youngjae just comes over for the monster of a coffee machine Himchan installed.
“Ok, I’ve had enough of this bullshit.” Himchan announces, eyes narrowing into slits.
He stalks over to where Jongup is sitting, and promptly straddles the younger’s thighs. Before anyone can react, Himchan leans over and kisses Jongup very solidly on the lips.
Daehyun, trying not to giggle, puts a hand over Junhong’s shocked eyes. “Hyung, the maknae is too young to see this.”
When Himchan releases Jongup, the younger looks down right terrified. Himchan glares down at him. “You see this? I’m totally, one hundred percent fine. Okay? I’m not going to fucking burst into flame if you touch me. You’re not going to dehydrate me unless you can manage a seventy degree fever again, okay? Christ on a bike, I’m not going to die from body heat.”
“Himchan…” Yongguk frowns from the doorway to the kitchenette.
“And you-“ Himchan rounds on Yongguk, leaving a very dazed Jongup blinking confusedly on the couch. Yongguk steps back, alarmed. Sniggering, Daehyun tightens his grip over Junhong’s eyes, despite the younger scrabbling at him. With his other hand he reaches for his phone. If Himchan is going to kiss Yongguk hyung too, he needs to get it on camera.
To Daehyun’s slight disappointment, instead of shoving his tongue down Yongguk hyung’s throat, Himchan yanks Yongguk’s hand up and around, and with rather worrying ease, twists that arm up behind Yongguk’s back. Yongguk gives an uncharacteristically high whimper.
Daehyun takes some photos anyways.
“You,” Himchan spits, “don’t get to beat yourself up for being an idiot. Only I get to do that. Got it?”
“Channie, you almost died.” Yongguk bites out, standing on his toes. Daehyun makes a mental note to learn that arm twisting move from Himchan.
“Ok, I was stupid, but both of you need to stop with all this. It’s my fault, okay? I need both of you to stop thinking you might kill me by accident or some shit, and actually talk to me, okay?”
Himchan releases Yongguk and sits down heavily at the dinner table. He suddenly looks drained, his slouching shoulder never looked more hunched. Junhong gently pushes Daehyun’s suddenly limp hand off his eyes, and moves over to Himchan, sitting down by his feet and putting his chin on Himchan’s thigh.
Daehyun stands and takes Jongup’s unresisting hand and follows Junhong. They arrange themselves around Himchan’s calves as well. Somewhere during the four years he’s known him, Himchan lost the roundness under the cheekbones, the softness around the eyes. And Daehyun never noticed how his jaw line found texture in maturity masked under all his sardonic wit, how there are gathering stress lines around his temple.
Jongup leans up and presses a tentative kiss on Himchan’s cheek, and Daehyun can feel the palpable tension leak out of Himchan.
“Sorry hyung.” Jongup says, before making himself comfortable on the ground again. Junhong laughs quietly and reach up to pinch lightly at Himchan’s cheek, amused at Himchan’s craving for closeness.
Himchan smiles, a small one that looks too raw, too soft, too out of place on Himchan’s face. Daehyun blinks and the smile is replaced by his hyung’s usual sharp grin.
All four of them turn to stare at Yongguk expectantly.
“Sorry, Channie.” He says, looking down and trying not to smile at Himchan sitting like a doting trophy grandmother in a pile of mischievous children.
They continue to stare expectantly. Daehyun wiggles his eyebrows for good measure. Himchan is definitely smirking now. Yongguk looks like he might flee and lock himself in the bathroom with a bucket of ice cream.
Youngjae walks in from the balcony where he’s been on the phone with his TA. He takes one look at the stare down, laughs, and tackles Yongguk, pulling him into the huddle.
Yongguk and Jongup are still careful with their touches, Daehyun notices, but they make an effort, and that seems to be enough make Himchan happy.
“How are you so smooth?” Youngjae nearly wails, “Even at the base? Like, my hand just glides over?”
“Please,” Daehyun cuts in from the kitchen “tell me you’re not giving each other hand jobs while I’m slaving over here preparing dinner for all of us.”
“The base of his wings, okay? I’m giving him a back massage.” Comes Youngjae’s scandalised voice
“Is that what you kids call it these days?”
“Choke on my feathers.” Youngjae yells back.
“You sure there’s not something else you want me to cho-“
Junhong’s moan of utter bliss interrupts him. Daehyun quickly stirs the pot of ramen and wills his eyes not to fall out of their sockets in shock. “For the record, if you are giving each other handjobs, I will burn the couch.”
When he enters their dining area with a pot of ramen and three bowls, he can see Youngjae stretched out on the couch in the living room, Junhong’s large hands fanning out over his back. He resolutely turns his back on the scene, and concentrates on his ramen. Somehow the way Youngjae’s wings twitch and breathe skitters every time Junhong’s fingers complete a slow circle finds a way to become ingrained into Daehyun's brain nevertheless.
“Excuse me?”
Youngjae and Daehyun both look up at the girl that approached them.
“Are you, Yoo Youngjae-ssi?”
“Yes?”
“Ah, this is kind of embarrassing, but my friend and I made a bet, and there’s this rumour going around, you see, and, and we just sort of want to know, you know, if you really are a skyfolk?”
Daehyun can see a guy standing further back, clearly embarrassed, but equally as clearly curious. Suddenly Daehyun is glad they chose an open area to have lunch, where the chatter of students drown out the conversation at their small table.
He also realizes, as the girl stands flighty and happy but ultimately tiny beside the sitting Youngjae, Youngjae is tall, taller than most students anyways. It’s the way that he carries himself, the way he looks like he might bounce off with weightless grace and unlimited energy that makes him seem smaller than he is. Even when his wings are not in sight, they are somehow felt by the back of the eyes, dwarfing Youngjae with their weight, compressing him into a ball of suppressed energy.
He realizes that he wants Youngjae to tell the girl to go away, wants to do so himself. If Youngjae wants campus to know his heritage, he would have purchased one of those open back shirts years ago. It’s no one’s business, it’s not right to just put him on the spot and demand –
“Yeah,” Youngjae answers unperturbed, smiling politely. “I have wings.”
The girl’s breathe catches. “Oh, that’s – can I get a pictu-“
“No.” Daehyun answers, much too quickly and overly loud.
“Ah, of course, of course,” the girl blushes and bows, flustered. “thank you for your time.”
Youngjae regards Daehyun curiously as the girl scampers off to her companion.
“Why are you so sensitive? They are not your wings.” He asks.
“She… I thought it would make you uncomfortable.” Daehyun mutters
Youngjae smiles, “I would be, yes. But not for the reason you think.”
“You don’t know what I think!”
“Daehyun, please. You’re easier to read than freshman music sheets. I’m no more ashamed of my wings than you are of your skin. Some days you like it and some days it’s a nuisance, but most days you don’t even notice. I keep them in because it’s more of … a lifestyle choice, I don’t particularly have a wish to conceal them.”
He pauses, running a finger under his jaw speculatively,
“I just don’t want a picture of them circling around. Did you read the report campus security gave to Yongguk hyung?”
“Yeah.” Daehyun confirms, disgust and dread rolling around in the pit of his stomach just at the thought of what might have happened to Junhong. “I hope they catch them soon.”
Daehyun walks into his room to find Junhong napping on his bed. Because he is a nice hyung, he doesn’t do anything as rude as say, push the kid out of the bed or plays loud music next to his ear. But, because he is Jung Daehyun, he feels obligated to take some photos first before shaking Junhong awake.
Junhong blinks muzzily at him, realizes he is in the wrong room, apparently decides he doesn’t care enough to move and tries to go back to sleep.
Eventually, after Daehyun threatens tickling and ice cubes, Junhong grudgingly slides out from between the covers, hair wild and eyes barely open. He mutters something along the lines of “goodniiiihyuuummm”, leans over and places a sloppy kiss on Daehyun’s jaw and heads over to his own room, yawning sleepily.
Daehyun’s shock roots him there for a full two minutes, before he reaches up to touch the dissipating warmth on his jaw.
“Where should we go for the summer?” Daehyun asks the room at large.
“Daehyunnie, it’s like, March.” Himchan complains, “Also, what makes you think we want to spend summer with your loud arse.”
“Because my loud arse is irresistible?” He replies after checking that Himchan isn’t near anything he can easily throw. The man has unnerving aim. “Also, I was thinking, beach.”
Youngjae looks up at that. Daehyun smirks because he can almost taste the gleam in Youngjae’s eyes as he considers the possibilities of the sea wind in his wings.
“I can’t swim, and sunbathing is bad for my skin.” Himchan huffs irritably, then looks up at the blossoming silence. “What?”
“Hyung, you’re a … well, a mermaid.” Junhong points out. “You can’t swim?”
“I am not a maid of any kind.” Himchan puts a hand to his chest in a mock offense. Daehyun sniggers, and, much to the shock of the collective, so does Yongguk. Himchan sniffs playfully, “and no, you’d be surprised at how hard it is, learning to swim with two legs when you are born to swim with a tail.”
They take a moment to digest this. Jongup nods in a that makes sense sort of way and going back to his game before Daehyun is even finished processing the fact that Himchan has a tail.
“All right, so, mountain climbing?” He suggests weakly.
“I will” Himchan says calmly, not even looking up from his laptop this time “delete all your playlists if you suggest that again.”
After that one time when, uh, Junhong kind of, fell against his jaw due to lack of sleep, it seems his two roommates are plotting together to systematically drive Daehyun completely and utterly insane.
They probably planned the way Youngjae leans over his back in the morning, reaching for the coffee that Junhong made. His wings arch so that sunlight filters through the thin translucent ends, scattering gold across their messy dinning room. Daehyun is fairly certain unwashed dishes are not supposed to be pretty, but Youngjae’s dark feathers seem to give the light a heavier, richer texture, and the room is bathed with it. Daehyun is also fairly certain Youngjae gave him a squeeze and honest-to-god whispered good morning in his ear with a voice that Yoo Youngjae should have no business using.
And then there’s the way Junhong starts plopping down the ground to study, one hand supporting his head as he reads from his textbooks strewn carelessly across the carpet, his wings two contained messes on the floor. Absentmindedly, while apparently still completely focused on his studies, he would stretch his wings and Daehyun would be hit, repeatedly and brutally, with just how breathtaking they are. He finds himself sliding his gaze down to Junhong’s waist, along his arms before wrenching it back to his own workbooks. Once, he swears he heard Junhong snigger.
Of course, there’s also their suddenly extremely frequent back massages. Even after it becomes a daily ritual for the other two to give small rub downs while the three of them sit and browse TV or catch up on reading together in the evenings, every single time Daehyun looks up just to check they are indeed just giving massages because some of the sounds Junhong makes---
And as for Youngjae’s little breathy intakes as Junhong uses his elbow to push at the particularly dense muscles on the wing—
“Hyung?” Junhong’s voice calls to him as he passes the maknae’s room.
“Can you rub out my back for me?” He asks as Daehyun’s head appears around the door frame, “I’m super sore from the dance session, and Youngjae hyung is out for study sessions.”
“Ah, sure” Daehyun answers, because he can do it. No worries. He watched them often enough, that’s for sure. He can absolutely do it. He’s ran his hand through Youngjae’s feather just that other day. He’s totally up for the task.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to?” Junhong tells him uncertainly, unnerved by his expression.
“No, no. Hyung will help out the poor suffering maknae with his physical needs.” He quips, and Junhong groans and scowls at the joke. He lets Daehyun straddle him and talks him through how to navigate through the feathers and over the flight muscles.
Junhong starts moaning about thirty seconds in.
Daehyun starts having breathing problems about ten seconds after that.
“Okay,” Daehyun says after a full minute of persevering “I can’t do this.”
“Why not, hyung?” Junhong twists around to look at him, spine arching and mischief gleaming in his eyes. Something inside Daehyun screams ABORT at him.
Junhong laughs at Daehyun’s expression, one hand coming to rest on his wrist and Daehyun is suddenly anchored under that light touch. “You know how sensitive we are? At the base of the wings?”
He pauses, rolling his shoulders and a shudder runs through his feathers almost involuntarily, “I mean, I’m pretty normal, and it feels really good when hyung press the right places.”
Junhong is doing that thing with his face. The really attractive, sidling of his lips thing that he has no right to just spring on unsuspecting hearts. Daehyun makes a noise probably only dogs can hear. He tries not to look too shocked or affected, but it’s Junhong. Daehyun really needs to cut down on the dirty jokes because he is obviously a bad influence on the maknae.
“Youngjae hyung, though, he’s unnaturally sensitive. There’s this one dip between his shoulder blades, last week he almost came in his pants when I-“
“Oh my god, please stop talking and give me my innocent maknae back.” Daehyun pleas.
“You’re blushing.” Junhong tell him with unnecessary glee.
Daehyun makes another noise, the sound exclamation points would make if they are embarrassed. He tries to scramble off the bed, and maybe call the police or something because a doppelganger had switched out his Junhong with this, sexier, dirtier version of Junhong. What the hell.
“Hey wait,” Junhong’s voice has laughter in it, and he laches on to Daehyun from behind as Daehyun’s escape attempt is hindered by his own legs that refuse to corporate. “Hyung I was ki-“
He stops, and Daehyun wants to die because he knows why he stopped. There’s no way Junhong failed to notice how Daehyun is positively shaking with arousal.
“Hey, let hyung go,” Daehyun protests weakly, just as the front door slams indicating Youngjae’s return from study sessions.
“Hyung, why are you so scared of liking me?” Junhong asks, holding Daehyun more firmly against his larger frame. Daehyun gives a whimper as Junhong’s wings are suddenly wrapped warmly around him too. That, is just plain unfair.
“I’m not!” He whines, voice raising several octaves as he is caressed by Junhong’s chuckles that vibrate against the base of his spine. “Junhong-ah, hyung loves you, absolutely loves you so please, please-“
His voice is muffled as Junhong, still chuckling, covers his face, his whole body, in soft feathers. He’s panicking. A part of him - an extremely large part, like ninety percent –wants to bury himself in Junhong’s chest and grab his wings and just drown in the sensations, but the remaining ten percent is giving him a very long list of why doing so is a terrible, terrible idea.
He spent most of his days in this shared apartment listening to that ten percent, by now it’s second nature to obey. It’s one thing to admire the wings, it’s another to get off on it. That’s just. Wrong. Disgusting. He can’t. It would be sinking to level of crazy, gross wing fetish old men. He’s greedy, but he’s not gross. He wants to keep Youngjae and Junhong with him, even if sometimes he dirties the space with his thoughts, as long as he suppresses---
Junhong’s lips brush the shell of his ear. He yips, and screws his eyes shut so tight tears are forced out. He can’t breathe without growing dizzy with just how close Junhong is, the warmth of his skin burning into his back, his beautiful, powerful wings a soft cocoon around both of them, trapping their scents, their essences together. Daehyun weeps because he wants it, whatever it is. He wants to be trapped here with Junhong forever. But he can’t. Junhong’s right. He’s terrified of liking them, both of them, because he might like them for the wrong reasons.
He might have said that last part aloud, god, he’s so messed up.
“Sometimes I can’t believe how stupid you are.”
It’s Youngjae’s voice, slightly distorted by the blanket of feathers. Not him too, Daehyun thought. Daehyun doesn’t want Youngjae to see him so compromisingly, intimately wrapped in Junhong’s feathers, doesn’t want Youngjae to also know that Daehyun is –
He gives a desperate, hiccuping sob and starts flailing a-fresh, Junhong gently letting him fall out of his hold this time. Unfortunately, the white feathers part to send him straight into Youngjae’s chest.
It seems inevitable. A gentle fall from the heavens, as irresistible as gravity.
“I hate both of you.” Daehyun whispers into Youngjae’s bare shoulder, there’s no more fight in him. There’s no point anyways. He might be able to resist one of them, but both working against him is too great a challenge for his now very weakly protesting ten percent. He concentrates on more important things like, how to not look gross when hiccuping pathetically and how to stop his runny eyes and nose dripping on Youngjae’s pale skin.
-How to not look too terrified when his younger roommate is pressing him backwards into the opening arms of his even younger roommate. How to breathe when he’s bracketed by warmth and his vision is filled by twitching feathers, light and dark mixing like piano keys.
“I thought you ‘absolutely love me’” Junhong whispers the words into his hair, amusement dripping like spicy dipping on sweet rice cakes. “So you must only actually hate Youngjae hyung.”
“How rude.” Youngjae comments lightly, brushing a smile against Daehyun’s jaw.
“-jae” Daehyun pants, there too little air in his lungs, too much blood in his brain, too many sensations trying to tip him from guilty, agonized pleasure to unabashed, shameless ecstasy “Youngjae, Junhongnie, what if. What if I do like you for the – the wrong reasons.” And fresh tears fall from his face because he can’t stand the thought. That his enjoyment of these two beautiful people wrapped around him might stem from something perverse within him. He can’t let them, he can’t let himself.
Junhong’s arms wrap tighter around his middle, and Youngjae kisses the tears off his face before backing off, leaning back against Junhong’s wings and stares unflinchingly down at Daehyun’s laboured expression. “The fact that you asked the question in the first place is a good indication. But if you don’t know if your reasons are right, then I think you should think hard about it before you accept or reject Junhong. Or me. Or both of us. Or yourself.”
“Hyung,” Junhong whispers, sounding as close to tears as Daehyun is to constipation, forearms bunching against Daehyun’s stomach, “am I just a pair of wings to you?”
“No!” Daehyun gasps immediately and honestly, but that fact alone is not enough to convince himself to accept this development, not when he can’t pretend anymore that he so undeniably, shamefully attracted to their wings. The power and girth of them, the way they make their shoulders slope back in graceful curves, the way Youngjae’s arm is rough and soft at the same time in Daehyun’s hands, as if it’s covered by minuscule downy feathers, the way Junhong’s eyes seem to be a shade lighter when he takes his wings out. Is attraction the same as objectification? Sometimes it sure seems like it, and he thinks of dark men lurking in alleys, trying to lure a kid into producing a compromising photo they can sell online; of adolescents around campus giggling and nudging each other wondering what winged sex feels like.
He’s so messed up. He can’t let them – let himself – do this, until he is absolutely sure. And he might never be sure. He’s not sure what this is. Attraction? Lust? Love? He’s not even sure what the right reasons may be, but he does know there are so many wrong ones. -And he needs to stop everything and move out and maybe go to another continent if he is close to touching even one of the wrong ones because there’s too much at stake for him to just fuck it up, he loves both of them too much to just –
Oh.
Youngjae must see his expression because he bears down in a flurry of feathers and skin, with a flash of teeth between his widely smiling lips, and the earth spins for Jung Daehyun.
They stay in a bundle for a while. It might have been minutes or centuries, the time it took for them to go from the initial heated kisses to the lazy caresses of fingertips, thighs and lips. They move languidly, letting Daehyun sink into his revelation softly while Junhong and Youngjae kiss in perfect harmony against his neck. Junhong’s soft laughter ring out between them and Youngjae moves with purpose, silent and intense. Daehyun’s pretty sure he’s babbling, murmuring their names and reassuring them and himself with whispers of “Yes, yes-“. He is still not sure if there are right reasons for all this, but anything that can bring out Junhong’s smile that slips to one side and shows his incisors and pushes his eyes into crescents and makes Youngjae’s eyes bright and his hair adorably mussed and Daehyun so, so happy can’t be that wrong. He’s sure of that.
Without ever moving, and without ever stopping their movements, Daehyun and Junhong ends up propped against the pillows on Junhong’s narrow bed, lips barely touching. On his stomach between them, Youngjae watches contentedly, though Daehyun is clearly nodding off, worn out by his tears and emotional self-discovery and lulled by the warmth. He makes a small choking noise when Youngjae leans up and presses a kiss against Junhong’s collar bones, and then a louder groan when one of the joints on Youngjae’s wings come up to caresses against his jaw. Youngjae turns to him at the sound, eyes dark and lips curling, and runs this thumb across Daehyun’s lower lip. Daehyun wonders if his lips look like Youngjae’s, dark and wet and swelling, wonders if his eyes look like Junhongs, half lidded and all pupils and breathtakingly beautiful. He wonders if Youngjae can feel the throbbing of his heartbeat in his lips as insistently as he can, wonders if he can feel the tingling heat of the other two’s affection stamped there. He wonders if Junhong’s wandering fingers picked up that same heartbeat buzzing hotly just under his skin, wonders if he can read in his face how thankful Daehyun is, to come to this understanding, to just, be together.
“You know, this is all kinda cliché,” Daehyun murmurs, half asleep with euphonic content.
“What, the two exotic creatures luring the unsuspecting human into a kinky, sex-crazy orgy?” Youngjae smirks at him, still gliding his thumb softly across his lip.
“Okay, first, we haven’t had a kinky, sex-crazy orgy yet.” Daehyun is trying hard to keep down a yawn. Junhong giggles and puts his arms around Youngjae. The kid must be really into spooning. “And second, I was talking about how you two fell for the handsome, built, really cool roommat-“
Youngjae palm is suddenly firmly against his mouth, doing his best to look unimpressed with a snorting Junhong wrapped like seaweed over rice rolls around him. Daehyun tries to wink sexily, but his eyes are having trouble reopening, so he just blinks a few times, hoping he looks mischievous and dashing.
Youngjae gives a put-upon sigh and suddenly, Daehyun is pinned under what seems like several tons of flight muscles and dark feathers while Youngjae straddles Junhong beside him.
“Just for that,” Youngjae tells him with evil glee, as Daehyun struggles sleepily to get free, “I’m going to have my own kinky, sex-crazed orgy with Junhong without you.”
“Oh my god, how could you corrupt the maknae, without me?” Daehyun whines as Junhong starts moaning with what seems to be exaggerated intent, especially since Youngjae haven’t actually done anything yet “and you can’t have an orgy with just two people.”
“We can try.” Junhong says cheekily and Youngjae laughs.
Daehyun can’t remember being happier.