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“What about this one?” Wonsik held up a smooth blue tie with diagonal lighter blue stripes evenly spaced down its length. Hakyeon moved over to him from the rack he was looking at and stared at it intensely, brows furrowed and bottom lip between his teeth. “What’s wrong?”
Hakyeon sighed and crossed his arms. “I don’t know what I want. Or where to start looking.”
“Well,” Wonsik turned the fabric over in his hands, “this is a start.”
“But is it the right start?” Hakyeon’s lips were pressed into a line as he surveyed his options. It couldn’t have been that big of a deal - the ties were a fraction of a men's section, just two racks - but to him it was major. Here he was in his 20’s and he’d never even had a chance to wear a tie before. The thought of tying it made his stomach turn with uneasiness. It’d inevitably be crooked and he couldn’t go out looking like a fool. What if he couldn’t pull it off? Or what if he picked one and it didn’t match his outfit? What was he even wearing again? It was just a dinner - a double date with Jaehwan and Taekwoon - but how nice was the place? He couldn’t remember the name, and he didn’t want to underdress or overdress. And he didn’t know which was worse.
He was snapped back to reality by a hand on his shoulder. “Hey,” it was Wonsik’s voice, smooth and steady, an anchor in the currents of his mind, “are you still with me?”
Hakyeon nodded, took in a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his mouth. “I’m going to look ridiculous.”
Wonsik frowned. “You’re going to look so handsome even the straight boys are going to be jealous.”
“Or their girlfriends will point at me and ask ‘what does that girl think she’s doing?’”
The look on Wonsik’s face was dispirited, but only for a moment. When it flickered back, he seemed to have found a solution. “Let’s just do something simple, okay?” He turned to the rack and started going through the skinny black ties, searching for the correct measurement. “Here. Let’s start with this. It’s a classic. Anyone can pull it off, so you’re going to kill it.”
Hakyeon hadn’t been able to calm his nerves the entire day. He paced around the apartment and set out his outfit (black dress pants and suit jacket with a red dress shirt), ironed it out two or three times for some sense of control. Wonsik tried to get him to sit down and have a glass of water, but he couldn’t despite how dry his mouth was.
An hour before they planned to leave he stood in front of the mirror and tried to eliminate every crease from the fabric. No matter how much he looked at it he wasn’t satisfied. He had reached to tighten his binder several times before Wonsik finally caught him and told him to stop. “Beauty is pain,” he joked, but Wonsik didn’t laugh.
Twenty minutes until they were supposed to meet Jaehwan and Taekwoon and he still didn’t have the tie on. He looked at videos on his phone until he had to plug it in again, but still couldn’t quite get the hang of it. He started to panic, and tears burned the edges of his eyes but he wasn’t about to let them fall on his nice shirt.
“Come here.” Wonsik’s hand on his shoulder again - stability. He turned Hakyeon to face him and started tying the fabric, his fingers moving as if on autopilot.
“This is embarrassing,” Hakyeon muttered from the side of his mouth.
Wonsik chuckled. “It’s not embarrassing - it’s adorable.” He smoothed out the front of Hakyeon’s outfit after his finished tying the tie. “If you don’t learn how to tie a tie, we can woo everyone with our domesticity.” The older simply rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t hide a glint of amusement in his eyes. “Come on,” Wonsik kissed him on the nose then linked their arms, unable to hide his satisfaction in the flush on Hakyeon’s face, “I want to show off how handsome you are.”