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“Do you want me to kiss it better?”
“Listen, I love you,” Wonwoo says with a sharp inhale, “but if you touch me I’m actually going to punch you.”
Soonyoung grins. “Tall statement coming from someone who’d just been beaten by a nine year old.”
Ouch, there goes his ego. Throbbing and bruised and bloody—just like his nose. And okay, the scuffle shouldn’t have been a big deal and Wonwoo would’ve been alright with forgetting the whole thing (the little girl’s dad had found out when he came to pick her up and forced his daughter to do a low bow in apology, forehead kissing the ground, and Wonwoo had tried to placate the whole scene with a burning face) but apparently, Soonyoung isn’t content with that. He’d laughed the whole time Mina, the Taekwondo studio’s resident nurse, fixed up Wonwoo’s face. Wonwoo swears he’ll never visit Soonyoung during class ever again.
“Why’d she beat you up anyway?” Soonyoung asks now as they get into the car.
Wonwoo breathes out painfully.
“Well?”
“She asked me if I was your boyfriend,” Wonwoo says, sliding into the driver’s seat, “and when I said yes, she got angry. The last thing she said was that I was stealing you from her before she roundhouse kicked me.”
At that, Soonyoung erupts into another peal of laughter Wonwoo would normally find lovely had he not been the butt of the joke. Sticking the keys in the ignition, Wonwoo asks, a bit grumpily, “Are you done?”
“I’m done. I’m done,” Soonyoung assures but the giggles still bubbling from his mouth tell otherwise. “Oh man,” he says, wiping a tear from his eye, “I hate playing favorites but if someone asked then I think I’m gonna have to say she’s my favorite student now.”
Wonwoo just shakes his head, starts the car.
“Wait!” Soonyoung says, jumping from his seat, and then fumbling for his bag in the backseat. “Wait, lemme just…”
Wonwoo watches him blandly, wrists on the steering wheel, waiting to back the car out of parking. When Soonyoung procures a tiny, rectangular thing with a satisfied aha! and a concerning grin, he raises an eyebrow. Only does he realize what it is once Soonyoung’s opened it and reaching across his seat to Wonwoo’s face. “Oh no, no,” Wonwoo says, leaning away but there’s only so much space in the car he can escape to, “no, no. Soonyoung! Stop!”
Too late. Here is Jeon Wonwoo, twenty five and two years into law school, sitting in his car in a parking lot with a purple kitty band-aid on his nose. “Oh my god,” Soonyoung exhales, leaning back, eyes wide and glued to Wonwoo’s face like he’s witnessing a holy revelation, “Oh holy mother of God, this is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”
And because Wonwoo is a weak and easy Soonyoung-loving man with a closeted hunger for praise, he fucking flushes and remains scarlet and unrelenting even as Soonyoung squishes his face with one hand and takes his picture with the other. The picture goes to their friend group’s KKT chat box, of course, and Wonwoo gets shit (read: unwanted coos and affection) for it for a whole month.
Contrary to popular belief, living with Soonyoung is easy, comfortable and even quiet at the best of times. Systemic too, in a way. Soonyoung cooks; Wonwoo cleans. They take turns getting groceries and taking out the trash and washing the car. Initially, doing laundry had been a part of the equation but now Wonwoo volunteers to do it as much as possible ever since Soonyoung had accidentally mixed a red with the whites and Wonwoo had to wear a pink suit during a mock trial the next day.
How they’d gotten together had been a happy, cosmic accident. A funny, tail-chasing story best recounted during quiet breakfasts. In sunlit rooms, over plates of leftover jjajangmyeon from someone’s visit last night, amidst comfortable, familiar silence. Remember when you insulted my burnt cookies in 11th grade but ate them nevertheless? someone would ask, and it’d normally be Soonyoung. Remember when you thought I liked Mingyu? Remember when we first became roommates?
Remember when?
Their relationship was completely unexpected but was—in a way—what their friends would say had been a long time coming. Seungkwan found it amusing.
“You guys fit in a perfect, strange way,” he’d told Wonwoo once in a forgotten night. “You have sharp wits and a knife for a tongue as a law student and Soonyoung-hyung has a black belt and killer stamina with steel punches as a Taekwondo instructor. It’s like a brains vs brawns thing. You’re smart, he’s strong.”
Wonwoo protested. “Soonyoung can be plenty smart when he wants to be.”
And it’s true. There’d been times when Soonyoung had said profound things that left Wonwoo in strings he had to unravel in the middle of the night. Times when Soonyoung had been practically smarter than Wonwoo in terms of finance and household work. Times when Wonwoo had been in a fork and in a desperate attempt had consulted Soonyoung about a case he’d been working on and Soonyoung had found a hole—a small, glazed-over detail, really—in the plaintiff’s side after half an hour of Wonwoo’s long, half-hysterical explanation of the case in layman’s terms. Wonwoo had won because of this.
But of course, these are things only he can see. He sees it as a privilege, a heaven-sent blessing, that he could witness this on a daily basis. Soonyoung could have anyone he wanted yet he still chose plain ol’ Jeon Wonwoo with the Peter Pan collars and an almost invisible disposition.
When Seungkwan heard his response, he laughed with a look on his face that clearly said he regarded Wonwoo as a whipped, lovesick fellow. And maybe he is, in the brunt of it all, for the same person even after all this time.
“Oh my dearest, loveliest hyung.” Seungkwan fondly tapped Wonwoo’s cheek. “Love truly is blind.”
Wonwoo wakes up to someone gently shaking him. It feels like sitting on a boat being rocked, slowly at first, and then imposingly. Everything feels watered down when he opens his eyes. Like someone had put a thin film of plastic over his eyes. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” someone says, and it’s Soonyoung, smiling overhead, “Today is a special day.”
Wonwoo closes his eyes. “Five more minutes.”
“Unfortunately for you, I’m not in the mood to bargain right now,” Soonyoung tells him, and even the way the bed dips as Soonyoung sits feels like an earthquake to Wonwoo. “Get up. I have something for you.”
“Three more minutes?”
“No more minutes,” he hears Soonyoung say as he gets up again to wander somewhere in the room. “Come on. Open your eyes. Get up.”
When Wonwoo does open his eyes, the light is blinding more than ever. And when he moves, a sharp ache of pain jolts up to his head. “Fuck,” he groans, burying his face in the pillow in an attempt to get rid of the feeling. “Can today be cancelled?”
“Silly boy,” Soonyoung laughs as he opens the curtains, oblivious to Wonwoo’s pain. “You can’t cancel your birthday. You have to turn 26 at some point in your life.”
Right. His birthday, huh. Did it really have to come after an almost sleepless night of working on a pro bono case? And did Wonwoo really have to get up and celebrate it today?
“I can’t turn 26 today,” Wonwoo says, voice muffled against the pillow. “I’m sick.”
“What?”
“I said I’m sick,” Wonwoo says, and he gets another coursing headache that has him wincing. The back of his head feels like cracked glass. When Soonyoung comes closer to check up on him, a furrow between his brows, his face falls.
“Oh my god, you’re right,” Soonyoung says, confirming it when he places the back of his hand on Wonwoo’s forehead and feels the tell-tale heat of a fever. “Jesus. What am I gonna do?”
Wonwoo blinks at him blearily. “Start by giving me some water, maybe?”
“Not that,” Soonyoung says, looking distressed, confusing Wonwoo even more. He paces in front of the bed for a few seconds, obviously engaged in an inner debate, and just as Wonwoo’s about to ask what the fuck is happening, he hears a loud clatter outside. “Is somebody out there—” he starts but Soonyoung is already disappearing into the living room and closing the door.
Wonwoo is left looking dumbfoundedly after him. Defeated, he closes his eyes again and grits his teeth at the consuming headache. It’s as if the universe is saying hey, happy birthday! You think you know pain after twenty five years of living? Well check this out! Anyway, have a great year ahead!
Soonyoung comes back after a reasonably long time. It feels like decades to Wonwoo’s wonky clockwork mind. He places a glass of water, a bowl of soup, and a tablet on the dresser beside the bed. “You have to eat up first before taking your medicine,” Soonyoung says, clearly intent on feeding Wonwoo as he takes the spoon and the bowl.
“Is this yukgaejang?” Wonwoo asks after the first sip. “Why do we have this? Did you cook it? This literally takes hours to cook, though. Where did you get it?”
Soonyoung just pushes the spoon between his lips.
After, Soonyoung returns the almost empty bowl to the kitchen. When he comes back, he looks satisfied when he sees the medicine gone and the glass empty and climbs into bed with Wonwoo. “I’m sick,” Wonwoo protests weakly but lets Soonyoung drape himself all over him anyway.
“Sorry you have to spend your whole birthday in bed,” Soonyoung says, voice tickling Wonwoo’s shoulder, face buried in his neck.
“That’s alright,” Wonwoo sighs, a bit contentedly. “Sick or not, this is how I exactly want my birthday to go.” Remembering the noise from the living room, he asks, more out of fear of a vase breaking than anything else really, “What was that loud clatter from outside earlier, by the way?”
Soonyoung doesn’t say anything. Instead, he picks his head up from Wonwoo’s shoulder and hums against his lips until they’re kissing. It lasts for a few minutes, and the whole time, Wonwoo feels like he’s in a haze. Everything is saturated beneath his eyelids as Soonyoung’s mouth moves against his. When he pulls away, Wonwoo feels dizzy, faint, like a beam of light had gone past his head quickly.
“You should go back to sleep,” Soonyoung says, giving him one last kiss. “I’ll wake you up for dinner and for your medicine.”
“Soonyoung?” he rustles, remembering. “What was the noise outside?”
When it’s clear that Soonyoung is hedging, Wonwoo closes his eyes to ward off the incoming headache. He says, a bit warningly, “Soonyoung.”
“I might have invited some people earlier,” Soonyoung admits, and Wonwoo opens his eyes again in alarm. “You know, for a surprise party. They were waiting in the living room and you were supposed to go outside and we were going to surprise you, yada yada.”
“Oh god.”
“Don’t worry, it’s okay now,” Soonyoung immediately reassures. “I told them you were sick and that the party was unfortunately not going to happen today. They all say happy birthday, by the way. There’s food in the kitchen.”
“You told them to leave?”
“What was I supposed to do? Force you out of bed?”
“God. Now I feel bad,” Wonwoo says, closing his eyes. “Did you at least reschedule the party?”
“Well, do you want me to?”
Wonwoo considers, weighs his options. He loves his friends, really, and he’d love to celebrate with them but he somehow can’t imagine himself enjoying human contact (other than Soonyoung, of course) for the next few days after all those cases and days spent consulting clients and going to court back and forth. It’s summer and he’d finally finished the required 30 hours of pro bono work and he can rightfully say that he earned his well-deserved rest. He opens his eyes.
“I’m guessing that’s a no,” Soonyoung says, reading his face. “Go back to sleep, Wonwoo-yah.”
Wonwoo sighs, cuddling closer. “Did you tell them I was sorry?”
“Of course,” Soonyoung says, kissing his forehead. “They understand, don’t worry. They only want what’s best for you and if you decide you need to hibernate for a week then they’ll leave you be.”
“You could get sick, you know,” Wonwoo mumbles into the silence after a few minutes. Soonyoung is still holding him, and Wonwoo still feels his body burning but with Soonyoung, it feels like a kindling type of warmth. He could stay like this for days.
Wonwoo feels the smile pressed to his hair. “I know.”
Wonwoo never thought he’d be the type. He never was, but Soonyoung can look at Wonwoo with those eyes, and he’d burn the moon for him if he asked. Now, they’re in the middle of the kitchen, both Soonyoung’s hands on his waist, waltzing him to an imaginary beat. The yellow kitchen lights shine down on them like a spotlight.
“You’re ridiculous,” Wonwoo says, but he’s laughing. “There isn’t even a song.”
“Sure there is,” Soonyoung says, and he starts singing the beginning to La Vie En Rose as they dance across the kitchen tiles. One step, two steps, turn. They’d talked about it before: what they wanted to be if they weren’t doing the things they were doing now. Wonwoo wanted to be a videographer. Soonyoung wanted to be a dancer.
They dance to Soonyoung’s off-beat singing, to the sound of the fridge humming low, to Wonwoo’s steady heartbeat. Soonyoung is easy to love, and once Wonwoo learned how to, he couldn’t stop. Now, it feels like second nature to him. From sixteen to twenty-six—he realizes he’d been loving Soonyoung for almost half his life. Overcome with overwhelming fondness, still dancing to a song only they can hear, Wonwoo tells Soonyoung, “Thank you for being with me.”
“Wow,” Soonyoung laughs, and he stumbles mid-step in surprise but he sounds pleased as a punch. As if he hadn’t fumbled at all, he teases, “Is Jeon Wonwoo turning soft? Do you still have fever? What is this?”
“It’s Cancer season, that’s why,” Wonwoo says, and Soonyoung opens his mouth again, most likely to tease Wonwoo even more about his pink face, but he kisses Soonyoung before he can speak, stealing all words. He feels it through the kiss: thank you for being with me, too. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me.
I love you.
“Being with Wonwoo is easy,” Wonwoo hears the minute he opens the apartment door, and it’s clear that Soonyoung is on the phone and that this isn’t a conversation he should listen in. Still: “Really, all you have to do is to feed him vegetables, compliment him, and take interest in his interests. Like video games for instance. Who’s gonna play Mario Kart with him if I don’t?”
Soonyoung had always reprimanded Wonwoo about being quiet to a fault. Swing the door open with a sound, he’d said one time he’d mistaken Wonwoo for an intruder and almost punched the living daylights out of him. Call out to me, announce your arrival. I don’t know, just don’t go around the apartment quietly like a fucking burglar! Do you want to get killed or something?!
Wonwoo sometimes gets selfish, though, and he thinks he’s gonna have to use this fault of his to his advantage if it means hearing what Soonyoung has to say about him. They’re not very vocal with their affection, choosing instead to show it through actions, but still, he listens in. “No, not really,” Soonyoung is saying from the bedroom, “It’s like, I still can’t believe it, you know? I really hadn’t imagined myself dating him at all in the past. I knew he liked me, and I wasn’t disgusted or anything, I just couldn’t imagine myself dating him before but look at me now.”
Wonwoo takes off his shoes quietly, lines them up next to Soonyoung’s sneakers.
“I don’t know. I really can’t put it into words,” Soonyoung says. After a long while, he tells the person on the other line, “It’s like—getting a toothache? Sometimes, I look at him and I get overwhelmed with the magnitude of what I’m feeling. It’s almost physical, the pain. But in a good way. I’ve never liked anyone like this before which is probably why I get surprised sometimes. He makes me so happy it hurts.”
Silence, and then: “Of course I love him. Nothing seems impossible when I’m with him. Does that—am I making any sense?”
Wonwoo closes his eyes. Breathes, calms himself down. Finally, he clears his throat. Amidst the flooding emotions in his chest, he announces, “I’m home!”
He hears Soonyoung say he’ll call back, hears the pitter-patter of his bare feet as he drops the call and makes his way to Wonwoo. “I hope you brought the milk I asked you to buy,” Soonyoung says with narrowed eyes as soon as they make eye contact, and Wonwoo resists the urge to kiss the front away. Instead, he smiles and raises the paper bag from his hand.
“Oh, good,” Soonyoung says, and he looks at Wonwoo’s eyes then away. He bites back a smile. “Welcome home.”