Work Text:
“Mom--” Hyunwoo sighs, rooting around in the fridge. “Mom. You’re not really listening to me.”
“Of course I’m listening to you, dear. It’s very nice that your little dance team took first prize this weekend. I’m just saying, there are more important things going on.”
Hyunwoo straightens up, holding an ice cold glass bottle of soda, a small frown on his face. “Okay,” he mutters wearily. This isn’t the first time his mother has switched the conversation, any conversation he’s tried to have with her, to her preferred topic of discussion. Taking the few steps back over to his kitchen counter, Hyunwoo picks up the bottle opener he’d taken out, fiddling with it uselessly and one-handed for several moments before he finally shoves his phone into the crook of his neck and uses both hands to pop the cap off.
His mother hasn’t stopped talking. She won’t, he knows. Not until she’s satisfied that they’re on the same page.
He always lets her think they’re on the same page.
“You’re not getting any younger, sweetheart. When are you going to find a nice boy and make me the puppy grandmother I deserve to be?” Hyunwoo’s mother whines in his ear.
Rolling his eyes, Hyunwoo takes a long sip of the drink in his hand, savoring the sweet taste on his tongue. “I don’t know, Mom. Whenever a nice boy shows up and wants to date me.”
There’s a quick snort on the other end of the line. “Darling, every boy wants to date you. You’re a catch.”
Hyunwoo tries to suppress a groan. “Thanks, Mom.”
She’s going on again, about things Hyunwoo is barely listening to, and barely wants to listen to (her water yoga class, the instructor with “abs of justice” -- Hyunwoo’s not sure where she picked that phrase up, but he’s thinking of sabotaging her internet connection somehow so she can’t go online and learn any more weird things) when blessedly, Minhyuk bustles in the side door of their apartment, a small box under one arm and his messenger bag slung across his chest.
Gratefully, Hyunwoo takes his luck where he can get it. “Mom, I gotta go. Minhyuk just got home and I’m sure he has... something... to talk about. It’s probably very important, so. Y’know. Gotta be a good best friend and all that.”
She’s starting her long goodbyes as Minhyuk giggles quietly, depositing the box he brought home on the kitchen table and tossing his bag to the floor. Hyunwoo will pick it up later when he tidies up the apartment. Minhyuk is far too chaotic to remember to clean up after himself, usually.
Hyunwoo crosses the room and leans over the table, lifting the edge of the box lid up just enough to let the sweet scent of whatever’s inside waft out and into his nose.
Macarons. Hyunwoo’s favorite, and Minhyuk’s specialty, at the bakery where he works.
Hyunwoo gives Minhyuk a big thumbs up for his efforts, and Minhyuk, having received the praise he so desperately needs at all times, smiles with satisfaction and heads down the hall to his room, to change out of his work clothes.
It’s another ten minutes before Hyunwoo actually gets his mother off the phone, all but hanging up on her in the end when she somehow spins a reminder to have his teeth cleaned at least three times a year into a moderately horrifying story about her last doctor visit, when she found out she’d have to have a particularly large mole removed from her--
“Sounds great, Mom. Talk later,” Hyunwoo says quickly, lifting the phone away from his ear and nearly punching the end call button in his desperation to leave the conversation before his appetite for macarons completely disappears. He’s not sure that could ever happen, really, but he doesn’t want to take any chances. Minhyuk’s macarons are the stuff of legends, a true wonder of the world. Sometimes, when Minhyuk is being extra obnoxious, Hyunwoo just reminds himself that as long as they stay best friends and roommates, he’ll have more macarons at some point in his life. It gives him something to look forward to.
As if on cue, Minhyuk wanders back into the kitchen just as Hyunwoo’s liberating two of his latest creations from the cardboard box, sniffing them. He meets Minhyuk’s eyes, considering. “Pistachio?” he guesses. “With... raspberry filling?”
Minhyuk beams. “Bingo! You’re the first person to taste them, besides me, of course. If they’re good, maybe Hyungwon will let me put them on the menu next month.”
Hyunwoo stuffs one into his mouth whole, earning a slight pout from Minhyuk as he starts to chew. “Every time. I tell you every time that you can’t just eat them all at once. You don’t get the full flavor experience that way,” he protests, but Hyunwoo is far too busy enjoying them to care.
“Yes I do. I taste pistachio and raspberry,” he reports, “and they’re both delicious.” Minhyuk looks a bit less pouty at this news. He sits down across from Hyunwoo at the table, helping himself to one of the sweet treats, and he’s nibbling around the edges, working his way towards the center slowly, when they both hear the sounds of a large truck idling outside. Just large enough to be…
“New neighbors??” Minhyuk crows excitedly, jumping off his seat. Hyunwoo sits at the table a moment longer, trying to decide if he’s more interested in that, or eating at least four more of these macarons. They haven’t had neighbors in a few months, not since Yoo Kihyun, the junior attorney who lived next door to them for ages, moved out to live in a nice, big house with his photographer boyfriend, Changkyun. They were great neighbors, quiet and clean, and a lot of fun to have over for the game nights Minhyuk would organize at irregular intervals, then forget about by the next week. Hyunwoo missed them, to be honest.
Even if Kihyun was a siren, one who would occasionally roam the courtyard that sprawled out in front of their building practicing his singing in the middle of the night.
He was an excellent singer. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was the large crowds he tended to attract, just by being what he was. Thankfully, being with Changkyun, a reserved autumn elemental, seemed to be a perfect balance for Kihyun, and they were very happy together. Hyunwoo’s happy for them. Mostly. Along with sometimes, maybe, often, being more than a little miserable that he can’t seem to find someone for himself.
After all, his mom says he’s a catch.
Hyunwoo finishes another macaron, getting up from the table with another couple still in his hand, and joins Minhyuk at their small kitchen window. Minhyuk’s practically vibrating with excitement. He loves new people, and making friends. Hyunwoo likes those things too, just... to a slightly lesser degree. To be fair, almost anything he could possibly do would be at a slightly lesser degree to Minhyuk. Hyunwoo’s never seen so much raw, unbridled enthusiasm for life contained in one person. It’s charming. It really is.
“I think it’s a boy!” Minhyuk chirps happily, standing in front of Hyunwoo at the window. Hyunwoo isn’t really paying attention yet. He’s got another macaron to get through first, and Minhyuk, as a matchmaker spirit, is always more interested in boys than baked goods.
Sometimes, Hyunwoo feels like the only human for miles. The token normal in a sea of weird. He frowns, rolling that thought around in his head as he rolls the last whole pistachio raspberry macaron back and forth on his tongue. Maybe that’s the problem. He’s normal. And maybe that’s boring.
He’s shaken from his rapid descent into The Sads by Minhyuk’s gasp.
“It is a boy.”
Finally, Hyunwoo looks.
It is a boy, indeed. He’s standing on the sidewalk next to the courtyard, earbud in one ear and the other side hanging down the front of his shirt. Under his snapback, Hyunwoo can just see bright blue hair peeking out. He wonders if maybe this new guy is a human, like him. He doesn’t look particularly magical. But then, neither do most of the supernaturals he knows, besides Minhyuk. Minhyuk’s... special.
He watches as the guy smiles and thanks the movers starting to transport his things to his new home. Even from this distance, Hyunwoo can see dimples. Deep, deep dimples, on both sides of the guy’s face. Hyunwoo glances away, blushing. Hoping Minhyuk doesn’t notice.
Minhyuk always notices.
Hyunwoo’s roommate leans away from the window, a smirk on his face as he regards his best friend. “It’s a cute boy,” he says mildly.
Hyunwoo rolls his eyes. “There’s a lot of those,” he replies, trying to sound nonchalant. Trying to feel nonchalant. Besides, this cute boy might not even be moving anywhere near them. His apartment could be all the way on the other side of the complex.
Next door, a door opens, then slams against the wall.
They wait.
A moment later, the telltale thumps of furniture being dropped off begin.
Of course. Good one, universe.
Minhyuk’s eyes widen. “That’s next door!”
Hyunwoo makes some sort of grunt he thinks qualifies as a response and walks away. Minhyuk follows him a few steps, then stops, twirling around the kitchen as Hyunwoo turns to look again. “We’ve got to make him some macarons. To welcome him!”
Hyunwoo raises an eyebrow in Minhyuk’s general direction, even as his roommate is already opening cabinets and pulling down ingredients and talking to himself about whether or not this new boy would prefer chocolate or strawberry, or maybe both. “We?” he asks doubtfully.
Minhyuk waves a dismissive hand, barely sparing him a glance. “Me. Whatever. You know what I mean.”
Hyunwoo chuckles, taking his cue to leave the room and leave Minhyuk to what he does best, besides matchmaking. “Yeah. I do.”
*
Naturally, Hyunwoo ends up drawing the short stick (okay, not that there’s an actual stick, and not that anything actually happened besides Minhyuk telling him what to do, as always) and being nominated to go next door and deliver the macarons, once Minhyuk’s finished with them. It’s well into the evening by the time he’s done, but Minhyuk insists that he go right that second, lest they lose any of their freshness before their new neighbor has gotten a chance to try them. Hyunwoo already knows he’s going to put the box on the doorstep, knock, and then leave immediately. Minhyuk probably knows too, but he sends Hyunwoo anyway.
And so Hyunwoo goes out their front door, still in his workout clothes with a snapback on, sneaking out into the night like he’s about to commit a crime, except the crime is nothing more than foisting off a dozen delicious peanut butter and jelly macarons onto their unsuspecting new neighbor. Their unsuspecting... extremely cute... new neighbor.
Hyunwoo swallows, tiptoeing the few yards to the apartment next door and carefully placing the box on the ground. There’s no doormat yet. Hyunwoo hopes there’ll be one soon. A sign that the guy’s here to stay.
Y’know. Not like a signed lease and move-in already indicates that, or anything.
Minhyuk even went as far as tying a sprightly blue ribbon around the box, “to match his hair, obviously”. He tied the ribbon on and wrote “Welcome to the neighborhood!” in his atrocious penmanship, and now Hyunwoo’s here staring at the box on the ground and wondering if he really should knock. It’s late. It would probably be rude. Except…
The lights are on inside the apartment. There’s music playing at a reasonable volume, so clearly, the occupant within is not sleeping. So if Hyunwoo knocks, one of two things will happen.
One, the knock won’t be heard over the music, and the macarons will sit on the doorstep until morning, when they’ll probably taste less than great. Less than what Minhyuk wanted.
Two, the knock will be heard, and the cute boy will come to the door and Hyunwoo will have to think on his feet, and figure out how to carry on a conversation, which is not exactly one of his strengths.
And also, he still smells like gym sweat. Any way this goes, it’ll be less than ideal. So, Hyunwoo sighs, sucks it up, and knocks.
The music inside the apartment doesn’t stop, but the volume lowers ever so slightly. Hyunwoo doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the door opens a moment later, just a crack, and then he lets all the air he’s been holding out at once, in a long, stuttery mess of an exhale.
The door opens just a crack, but it’s enough. Enough for Hyunwoo to get a good look at his new neighbor for the first time. He’s not wearing a hat anymore, his bright blue hair styled up and away from his forehead instead. He’s not smiling, either, so Hyunwoo can’t see his dimples, and that’s less ideal than almost anything else about this whole situation.
“Hi?” the guy says after a moment, still holding the door open only a fraction of an inch. Hyunwoo remembers that he came here for a reason. A reason other than getting lost in the chocolate brown hue of the guy’s eyes, that is. The room behind him is only half-lit, but Hyunwoo can still recognize the shade of them. Either that, or he’s having some sort of hallucinatory heart attack. Both ideas are plausible.
Anyway, he came here for a reason, and that reason is still sitting on the concrete at his feet. Hyunwoo leans down quickly and scoops up the box, holding it in both hands. “Hi. Um. I’m your? Neighbor?” he starts, and he can hear how all the sentences sound like questions, his voice going up slightly at the ends, but it’s too late to worry about that.
The guy’s eyes travel down to the box, and his face relaxes. He’s smiling a little when he pulls the door open a bit more. “Oh. Hello, then. I’m Jooheon,” he says, and the door is opening more and more by the second, so now Hyunwoo can see further inside. He can see the bareness of Jooheon’s new place, how there’s only a lamp and a laptop so far. There’s a lamp and a laptop and not much else, until Hyunwoo notices all the flowers.
There are flowers blooming from the walls and flowers blooming across the carpet, flowers that glow otherworldly colors Hyunwoo knows don’t exist yet. He looks towards the kitchen. There are flowers spilling out of the open oven, sparkling and shimmering as they drop petals everywhere, and then, when Hyunwoo trains his eyes back towards the ground, there are flowers springing up quietly from under Jooheon’s feet.
“Oh…” he says softly, because it’s all he can think of. He’s never met a flower spirit before. He didn’t know what they could do, that it was so beautiful. He feels even more ordinary now, feels the ache of it in his bones, but then Hyunwoo lifts his gaze again, and Jooheon is gazing back at him with something new in his eyes, something Hyunwoo’s never seen before.
Something he doesn’t know what to do with.
“And you are?” Jooheon questions after a while, voice tinged with his smile now.
“I’m…” Hyunwoo starts, and then he trails off, watching the flowers drip from the walls with a gentle ease.
“You’re…?” Jooheon prompts again, and finally, Hyunwoo manages a reply. Sort of.
“I’m, uh... H-hyun... Hyun... woo?” He cringes internally. Everything is still questions. So many questions, and maybe there aren’t answers. Maybe the answers don’t matter.
Jooheon has a nice smile. A really nice smile. It’s kind of unfair.
“Hyunwoo. Is that for me, Hyunwoo?”
Hyunwoo shakes his head, but it’s not in disagreement. It’s more to just... start over. To knock about three-quarters of the current thoughts out of his head and make room for the ones he needs to behave like a functioning adult. That usually is one of his strengths.
“Yeah. Yes. Um. My roommate works in a bakery, and he made these for you. As a welcome to the neighborhood sort of thing,” Hyunwoo says, pushing the box into Jooheon’s hands so he can go back to staring at his feet.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” Jooheon reads, chuckling. “Thank you.”
Hyunwoo grunts. It’s kind of his only option at this point.
There’s a moment of silence between them, and then Hyunwoo hears the door open more. “Would you like to come in for a minute?” Jooheon offers.
No, Hyunwoo thinks. It’s late and I need to go home and rethink all my life choices, especially the one where I’ve been best friends with Lee Minhyuk for over half of that aforementioned life.
“Okay,” he says, and steps into Jooheon’s world.
*
Hyunwoo’s been sitting on the floor of Jooheon’s apartment for fifteen minutes, just staring at the flowers around him, before either of them say anything.
Jooheon’s gone through three macarons. “These are amazing. Tell your roommate thanks.”
“Yeah. He makes good desserts,” Hyunwoo replies, scratching the back of his neck idly. He can feel Jooheon watching him.
“You’re human,” Jooheon says after a while, but when Hyunwoo looks up, he’s smiling. It makes Hyunwoo smile too, even though he doesn’t know exactly why, yet.
“I guess so,” Hyunwoo answers, and honestly, he’s not really sure how many more times he can make himself cringe tonight before he just has to call it a wash. He’s going for some sort of record, currently.
Jooheon laughs a little. “Right. This isn’t weird for you, is it?” he asks, waving a hand to indicate the flora that just keeps re-decorating the entirety of his apartment in brilliant, beautiful colors.
Hyunwoo watches for a while, trying to take it all in. He watches petals slip from between Jooheon’s fingers on some sort of infinite loop, and then he thinks about Minhyuk, and Kihyun, and Changkyun, and all the other supernatural beings he’s known, and he answers truthfully. “No. It’s not weird.”
Jooheon almost looks relieved. Hyunwoo remembers that Jooheon gave him a beer when he came in, and he finds it still at his side, lifting it to his lips for a long sip before he goes on. “My roommate, Minhyuk... my best friend, Minhyuk. He’s a matchmaker spirit. Our neighbors before you were a siren and an elemental. So... no. It’s not weird.” Jooheon is about to say something, Hyunwoo can tell, but he can’t seem to stop talking now that he’s started, so he forges ahead blindly, not sure of what he’s going to say until he says it.
“It feels more weird being human, sometimes. Y’know? I mean... I guess you don’t know, really,” Hyunwoo babbles. Jooheon doesn’t say anything. He’s still just watching. “It’s kind of shitty being all normal. Not having cool powers. I can’t really talk to Minhyuk about it. He’s not really... a talk to kind of person,” Hyunwoo admits, and he thinks he hears Jooheon chuckle softly.
“Anyway, what do you do?” he asks, desperate to change the subject somehow, desperate for Jooheon to save him from himself by any method he has at his disposal.
Jooheon seems slightly confused by the question, at first. He glances around his flower-studded apartment, as if to say, this, I do this, but then Hyunwoo sees it on his face and he laughs and adds, “For work, I mean. What do you do for a job?”
“Oh,” Jooheon says, blushing a little. It looks good on him. “I, um, I’m a gardener. I run the community garden downtown, and take odd planting jobs. I’m actually thinking about putting a small garden in the courtyard here. It’s a perfect spot.”
Hyunwoo smiles. “That sounds nice.” He scoots a little closer to Jooheon, so they can talk. Or maybe just because he wants to, and Jooheon doesn’t stop him. Fleetingly, he wonders what time it is. Minhyuk’s probably freaking out back at the apartment, wondering what their new neighbor thought of his macarons. Hyunwoo decides not to care about that, for the moment, and he goes on.
“My mom loves to garden. I’ve tried to plant things here and there, some flowers and vegetables maybe, but I seem to have a black thumb. Everything always dies on me.” By the time Hyunwoo’s got the words out of his mouth, he’s frowning, thinking of all the pretty flowers he wanted so badly to grow healthy and beautiful, but ended up wilted messes instead. The tomatoes he planted one year with so much love, that never even grew up past the soil before the weather took them.
Jooheon leans forward. He smells like violets, bright and crisp and just a little floral. Of course he does.
“I could help you, you know. It’s not too hard, once you’ve got a few tips and tricks down,” he says, and Hyunwoo didn’t realize he was leaning too, leaning in Jooheon’s direction as much as he could without being inappropriate, but here he is, and Jooheon doesn’t look like he minds at all.
“Okay,” Hyunwoo says slowly. He feels like he’s hypnotized, just sort of staring at Jooheon. He’s gorgeous, in a strange way. In a way that doesn’t quite seem to fit this world, which Hyunwoo guesses makes sense. His eyes are too small and his smile is too wide and none of it fits, except that it all fits him perfectly. It’s perfect. Hyunwoo feels light-headed, too.
He stays at Jooheon’s for another half an hour or so, and they talk, and they start to learn about each other. Hyunwoo’s surprised by how easy it is for him to open up to Jooheon, when usually, no one knows the real him. Only Minhyuk’s managed it, and it took him about a decade to get there. It’s not that Hyunwoo’s secretive. It’s just that... he doesn’t know how to do this. How to do people. He never has. He’s always had this crippling shyness, and at some point when he was young, he just started to cover it with being absolutely, one hundred percent wooden and emotionless.
He never said it was a good way to live, okay?
By the time Jooheon closes his front door behind Hyunwoo, they’ve made plans for the next morning, for Jooheon to teach him some basics about gardening and Hyunwoo to help Jooheon start his little plot of plants down in the courtyard after he gets permission from the landlord. Hyunwoo knows his landlord well enough to know that Hoseok is a sucker for dimples just like he is, and he knows Jooheon will get the go ahead easily.
Minhyuk’s already asleep when Hyunwoo gets home, but there’s a note scribbled on the bathroom mirror in Minhyuk’s brown pencil eyeliner to greet Hyunwoo when he walks in.
DID HE LIKE THE MACARONS
CHECK YES OR NO
Hyunwoo chuckles and uncaps the eyeliner Minhyuk left on the counter, dutifully putting a big check mark next to “yes”, and then he brushes his teeth and falls into bed.
He dreams about flowers.
*
Hyunwoo’s awake bright and early the next morning despite having such a late night. Being a morning person is definitely one of his strengths, he thinks to himself as he gets ready to meet Jooheon, showering and finding some clothes he doesn’t mind getting dirty. Minhyuk is already gone again, working the early shift at the bakery today.
He’s almost late to meet Jooheon in the courtyard, because thirty-five seconds before he’s supposed to leave, Hyunwoo changes his mind about his whole outfit. Three times. It’s not because he’s nervous, or anything. Jooheon definitely doesn’t make him nervous.
By the time he makes it out of his apartment, Jooheon is waiting for him across the courtyard, sitting on the dewy grass quietly with his earbuds in. As Hyunwoo walks closer, he can see Jooheon’s hands moving idly, swirling beautiful, dark red poppies up from the ground in small flourishes all around his feet, and Hyunwoo has to stop halfway there, just to watch. Jooheon’s lips are moving, too, but Hyunwoo can’t tell if he’s mouthing the lyrics to whatever song he’s listening to, or encouraging the little buds surrounding him softly, gently. Whichever it is, it makes Hyunwoo feel so fluttery. He feels like there’s forty or so butterflies just underneath his ribcage, drifting around each other and against his bones. He likes it.
Maybe.
Hyunwoo tries to approach as carefully as he can, willing his clumsy feet to tread lightly over the grass underneath them, but as always, it doesn’t quite work. He’s only a few steps away when he trips on a traitorous pebble, or something, and nearly topples right over on top of Jooheon. To his credit, Jooheon barely seems fazed. Hyunwoo wonders if anything really fazes him. He wonders if maybe he could give it a try, sometime.
Jooheon smiles up at him, his eyes crinkling into his cheeks as he pulls his earbuds out, stuffing them into the pocket of his hoodie. “Good morning,” he greets Hyunwoo, standing up and brushing the dirt off his jeans. Hyunwoo slows to a halt, but he’s a step or two off, and he ends up just this side of too close to Jooheon. So close that their noses could touch if either of them leaned forward, but neither of them do. Instead, they just stand there for a moment, and it should be awkward, but it isn’t. It’s nice.
Hyunwoo is the one to look away first, trying not to blush. “Uh. Yeah. Morning,” he replies finally, glancing down at the equipment Jooheon’s set up in this corner of the courtyard. There’s a watering can, a bag of soil, an assortment of seeds, and, Hyunwoo notices with a not so small amount of pleasure, a whole box of donuts, with two tall to-go cups full of orange juice. Jooheon smiles a little shyly, sitting back down, and Hyunwoo copies the action automatically.
“I thought you might be hungry,” Jooheon says, flipping the donut box open and handing one of the drinks to Hyunwoo.
Hyunwoo chuckles. “I’m pretty much always hungry. My mom used to call me The Bottomless Pit. Thankfully, no matter how much I eat, I always seem to work it off just fine at the gym,” Hyunwoo says with a laugh, laying into a donut as Jooheon watches, something between a smile and a frown on his own face, now.
“Lucky you,” he says a moment later. “I never really lost my baby fat. It’s annoying.”
“It’s cute,” Hyunwoo says without thinking, and then he pretends to be way more interested in his donut than it’s worth, but he can still see Jooheon biting his lip out of the corner of his eye.
Neither of them make any attempt to continue that line of conversation, for the moment.
They eat in silence for a while. Jooheon looks like he’s still sort of waking up, and the donuts are sort of starting to lull Hyunwoo back to sleep, but then Jooheon wipes his hands on a napkin and claps them together, startling Hyunwoo out of his drowsiness, and says, “Let’s get started!”
Jooheon spends thirty minutes teaching Hyunwoo the basics: what each seed is and what it will grow, the best position to plant each in, and when they’ll need watering. He learns about peppers and carrots and gets a refresher course on tomatoes, because honestly, he hadn’t really retained any knowledge after his previous Huge Embarrassing Gardening Failure. Hyunwoo thinks maybe he should have brought a notebook with him, so he doesn’t forget anything Jooheon is telling him. But, without it, he has a free excuse to keep talking to Jooheon after today, keep asking him questions under the guise of needing more gardening expertise. So, it works out.
After Jooheon’s informal Intro to Gardening class, Hyunwoo watches while Jooheon plants a neat little row of peppers, three to a pot. He tells Hyunwoo that once they grow, the weakest one will be weeded out, allowing the remaining two to grow together. He talks about fertilizer as he carefully adds a couple matchsticks into the soil with each seed, something about how peppers like sulfur. By that time, Hyunwoo is completely overwhelmed and just sort of staring without comprehension, and he’s not sure if he’s staring at Jooheon or staring at the clay pot between them, or which one he’s not comprehending. He’s not sure if it matters.
They dedicate a small section of the plot to herbs, mint and parsley and basil and thyme. Hyunwoo likes the little herb garden. It smells good. It smells like Jooheon, clean and fresh and just a little spicy. Hyunwoo can still smell the violets on Jooheon, too, just like he did last night. He thinks about asking if they can plant some of those, too.
To Hyunwoo’s eternal relief, he only messes up a few times. He only breaks one pot with the sheer force of the gigantic bear mitts that life has the nerve to call his hands. He only floods out one tomato plant with over-watering. He only smears wet dirt on one side of his face right after the flooding incident, and it makes Jooheon smile and reach over to wipe it off with his sleeve, so maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. Maybe Hyunwoo’s not so bad, after all. Miracles truly never cease.
After the tenth or so time it happens, Hyunwoo’s almost positive that Jooheon is letting their hands brush together on purpose, every time they’re near each other’s.
They end up on their backs after an hour or two of work, staring up into the overcast spring sky. Well, Jooheon is staring up, and Hyunwoo is trying not to be too obvious about staring at Jooheon. First, he’s staring at Jooheon, because Jooheon’s eyes are closed and he can, and then he’s staring at Jooheon’s fingers, laid gently across the grass between he and Hyunwoo. He watches tiny daisies pop up between those long, graceful fingers, and then Jooheon turns his head and opens his eyes and smiles at Hyunwoo and asks, “What are you thinking about?”
Hyunwoo runs through all the ways he could answer, as quickly as he can. There’s a myriad of honest things he could reply, and an equally large myriad of carefully veiled half-truths as well. In the end, his brain gets a little too warm with so many options, and so, as usual, he blurts out the first thing he can come up with, regardless of which category it falls under.
“I was thinking about why you’re even bothering to hang out with me. I’m nothing special. I’m pretty boring, actually.”
Hyunwoo says it, and then he closes his eyes again, because he doesn’t want to see the look on Jooheon’s face. He doesn’t want to know if it’s pity, or maybe a bit mocking, even though neither of those things really seem like Jooheon, from what he knows so far. They’re just what his mind always convinces him people feel around him. Especially people with abilities that Hyunwoo will never have. People that will always be more interesting than him, just by default. So, basically... everyone.
There’s a little silence before Jooheon says anything. It’s small, only a second or two, but it seems to last an eternity.
“Hyunwoo,” Jooheon murmurs after a while, his voice soft. Like him. It’s the kind of soft that makes you pay attention, and so, Hyunwoo does.
“Mmm,” he mumbles, turning his head in Jooheon’s direction and opening his eyes after a moment.
When he does, Jooheon’s much closer than he remembered. He’s not quite sure which of them moved, or if it was both of them, but Jooheon’s face is barely an inch from his, now, he’s so close that Hyunwoo could count every single eyelash if he wanted to (and he might, later, if he gets the opportunity), and Hyunwoo doesn’t know what to say or what to do, but then it stops mattering, because Jooheon kisses him.
It’s just one kiss, one sweet, simple brushing together of their lips, but it might as well have been an earthquake, for how it feels to Hyunwoo. Jooheon pulls back the tiniest bit, just enough to speak, to whisper. “I think you’re special,” he says quietly, and he might be about to say something else, but Hyunwoo pushes forward again and kisses him first this time, and he can only hope the words Jooheon had on the tip of his tongue melt into it, like he can feel their hearts doing, slowly. Carefully.
*
They lay there like that, in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by potting soil and puddles from the watering can, and most of all, Jooheon’s flowers. They’re still kissing when Hyunwoo realizes how intricately, how intimately Jooheon’s abilities are tied to his emotions, because they’re kissing and Jooheon is happy, he’s smiling against Hyunwoo’s lips, and there’s roses everywhere, suddenly.
There are red roses for romance, pink for sweetness. Hyunwoo remembers his mother teaching him that. There are yellow roses for joy, and orange for excitement, and Hyunwoo never kisses with his eyes open, but he’s doing it now, because it’s just so magical, and he can’t look away. That’s the only word for it, even though Hyunwoo feels like a total cliche for even thinking it.
Everything about this is magical. Only yesterday, Hyunwoo was talking to his mother on the phone about how he needed to find a nice boy, a boy who wanted to date him. Now, he thinks Jooheon might want to do that, based on current evidence. It’s been a long time since anyone wanted to date him, so his radar might be a little rusty, but, he’s almost positive…
“Oh. Hey, Jooheon.”
The voice that interrupts Hyunwoo’s thoughts and all the kissing he and Jooheon are doing could only belong to one person.
Hyunwoo shifts one eye away from the roses Jooheon made for them and looks up, and Minhyuk is smirking back down at him. At the whole scene, really.
Jooheon stops kissing him. Hyunwoo is slightly disappointed about that.
They both sit up a little. Hyunwoo feels distinctly grumpy.
Jooheon lets out this embarrassed giggle, just then. It’s nearly the cutest thing Hyunwoo’s ever heard, and he lives with Minhyuk, so that’s really saying something. “Hey, Minhyuk,” Jooheon replies, and that’s when it hits Hyunwoo.
He flops back down on the grass with a groan, covering his eyes with one arm. “Damn it, Minhyuk. I thought this was the real deal! I thought we agreed that you weren’t going to use your matchmaking powers to ruin my life anymore,” Hyunwoo protests. He wonders if he and Jooheon can just go back to kissing, and forget that Minhyuk ever meddled. Surely, one of the supernatural creatures occupying this courtyard at the moment must have something resembling that ability.
Minhyuk holds his hands up, taking a step back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he starts, shaking his head from side to side, his hair flopping every which way, yet somehow still managing to look perfect when it settles down again. “I didn’t do much, I swear. Jooheon needed a new place, and I just thought you two would be cute together, so I convinced Kihyun and Changkyun to vacate their apartment so Jooheon could move in. Swear. That’s it.” Minhyuk’s eyes are possibly wider than Hyunwoo has ever seen them. He’s telling the truth.
Hyunwoo glances back at Jooheon for confirmation. Jooheon shrugs. “It’s true. He just told me about this place and said I should meet his roommate,” he confirms, and then he starts to grin. “I guess I’ve met his roommate.”
Hyunwoo rolls his eyes, chuckling. “So, this is all for real, then?” he asks, and he’s barely gotten the words out of his mouth before Jooheon’s fingers are lacing through his and they’re both smiling and Jooheon’s nodding, but naturally, the moment is once again interrupted by Minhyuk.
“Well. This is grosser than I thought it would be,” Minhyuk muses. “It’s been so long since I saw you with anyone, Hyunwoo. I almost forgot how disturbing it is to see real, live emotion on your face.”
Hyunwoo flips him off for that one, and Minhyuk makes a show of catching it and shoving it in his pocket for later. “I’ll just be on my way,” he says, walking backwards towards their apartment. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do out here. There are eyes everywhere,” Minhyuk intones, wiggling his eyebrows ridiculously, and then finally, blessedly, he’s gone.
Hyunwoo shakes his head in disbelief, turning back to Jooheon. He’s sat up now, crumbling a little handful of dirt in his palm absentmindedly, but he looks up in surprise when Hyunwoo pokes his finger into the soil in his hand and paints a stripe down Jooheon’s nose, and then they’re both doing that embarrassing giggle and finally kissing again.
The scent of violets, of Jooheon himself, is everywhere. Hyunwoo decides he’s going to plant some in this garden on his own, to show Jooheon he knows what’s he’s doing, now. And if he messes up somewhere along the way, well, he’s got the best gardening teacher around to help him fix any problem he could possibly ever have.
*
One month later
“Mom. Mom. Mom,” Hyunwoo says desperately into the phone, finally resorting to tapping on the speaker with one finger when all his other attempts fail. “You’re still not really listening to me.”
“Of course I am, sweetheart.”
Jooheon snickers quietly, crossing the kitchen to give Hyunwoo an encouraging peck on the cheek. Hyunwoo tries valiantly not to blush. He fails.
“Great. What’s the last thing I said? The thing I’ve been trying to say this entire conversation?” Hyunwoo asks, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. He can feel a migraine coming on, one entirely induced by his mother and all the things she chooses to be.
On her end of the line, his mother sighs. “You said you have a date tonight, darling, and you’ve got to go.”
Hyunwoo grits his teeth. “Right. So…”
“And I think it’s lovely that you’ve got a little date, dear, but really, what’s the point of playing around with dates that you aren’t even serious about, when there’s much bigger problems going on here?”
Hyunwoo rolls his eyes so hard that he’s worried they might get stuck that way. “That’s the whole point, Mother. It’s not just a little date. I have a date with my boyfriend. My boyfriend,” Hyunwoo emphasizes, staring at the ceiling plaintively.
His mother goes silent for a moment. “Your what?” she says finally, quieter. Frighteningly quiet, really.
“You heard me.”
Hyunwoo holds the phone away from his ear as soon as he’s got the words out, because he knows what’s coming. Sure enough, it’s only two seconds later that his mother lets out one of the loudest shrieks Hyunwoo’s ever heard, and coming from her, that’s really saying a lot.
Next to him, Jooheon raises one eyebrow at the noise. Hyunwoo just shrugs. He hopes that conveys... something.
His mother is really something.
Hyunwoo tunes back in to his mother’s current freakout just in time to get the gist of what she’s trying to communicate, not that he needed to try that hard to figure out. She’s yelling something almost incoherent about how Hyunwoo never tells her anything and how she needs to meet this boy immediately to make sure he’s good enough for her only son, when Jooheon snatches the phone right out of Hyunwoo’s hand and plasters a big smile onto his face. Hyunwoo’s not really sure who the smile is for, but he decides to enjoy it, anyway, because dimples.
“Mrs. Son? Hi there, it’s Lee Jooheon. I’m the boyfriend.”
Hyunwoo hears the shrieking getting louder again, but Jooheon just keeps smiling and gives him a big thumbs up, and Hyunwoo can only smile back dopily as Jooheon decides to take the conversation outside and down to the courtyard, probably to save Hyunwoo and Minhyuk, still asleep in his bedroom on his only day off this week, from the absolute assault that is Hyunwoo’s mother.
Hyunwoo still doesn’t know what he did to deserve Jooheon, but he hopes he can keep doing it, anyway.
He glances out the window of the kitchen as Jooheon paces around the courtyard, gesticulating from time to time and talking nonstop. Hyunwoo’s gaze moves away from Jooheon, to their little garden, with plants and flowers just beginning to flourish. He looks just to the right of the garden plot, and his violets are there, the ones he planted to surprise Jooheon.
The day Jooheon saw the tiny buds peeking out from the dirt was the day he asked Hyunwoo to be his boyfriend, officially.
Jooheon meanders back into Hyunwoo’s line of sight, bending down to pat the violets affectionately as he continues talking with Hyunwoo’s mother. Hyunwoo watches as the flowers seem to stand a bit taller, stretching out towards Jooheon, who just smiles and walks on.
Hyunwoo thinks he sees them shimmer, just for a moment, before they go back to soaking up the pale spring sun.