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Junmyeon spends the average Saturday sleeping. Zitao works at eleven, and if he's been able to stay the night it's usually him crawling on top the covers that wakes Junmyeon, clumsy knees and elbows and sharply sweet with hair products, weighing Junmyeon down for goodbye kisses.
Zitao definitely left this morning— Junmyeon remembers complaints of a cold nose, chilled pressure hard under his chin. The music drifting through to the bedroom doesn't sound much like what he plays in the studio. Junmyeon rubs at his eyes, rolls his shoulders, slowly touches onto carpet with his toes, and promptly falls back into bed as pain shoots through his foot. Until the last few months avoiding bra straps and clasps on his bedroom floor had not been an issue.
Junmyeon finds it's owner hunched in a corner of the couch, mirror balanced on her raised knees as she drags back and forth under her eye with a thick black pencil.
"Wait wait wait," Sehun says without looking away from her reflection, aware of Junmyeon in her peripheral vision. He obediently does, silent incase he disturbs some kind of concentration. "Ok." She stops pulling her mouth down at an odd angle once she's finished blocking in her waterline and Junmyeon gets the all clear to flop onto the couch beside her.
"You look glamorous already. I haven't even done my hair yet," Junmyeon says between yawns, as though it needed saying, and Sehun drops the pencil back into the pouch beside her before reaching to silence the noise coming from her iPod.
"I dunno, I actually think you could work with this style." Sehun smiles, eyes and mouth, residual pigment and glitter on her fingertips as she flicks at the numerous directions Junmyeon's hair is sticking out in. "Maybe you should try not looking grown up just for the weekend."
"Mm." Junmyeon's fingers meet hers as he attempts to flatten the tufts of hair. Zitao would be far more pleased with a mussed up Junmyeon than Junmyeon would. "I think I do too much overtime to feel young."
"Did you start rounding up to 30 as soon as you were 26?"
"You two age me." Junmyeon smiles, sleepy and warm, affection genuine. "When it was just Taozi I didn't seem that bad, but when you two are together.."
Sehun dismisses the notion with a shake of her hand, bracelets jangling. It's partly true, but with all of his good intentions neither of them expect Junmyeon to be well versed in the things they babble about. Although Sehun realises again and again that when it's Junmyeon Zitao babbles about, before they fall asleep and in texts and in sobs against her shoulder when it's been a week since he last saw Junmyeon and his home is toxicity, he's making sense.
She shifts a little closer and Junmyeon glances down curiously when her head drops to his shoulder. He's still too small and narrow, but Sehun supposes he redeems himself in other ways.
"Keep me company today? I'm going for another piercing."
Junmyeon's eyes flick to the stud in her cheek, the matching one pressing into the top of his arm. "Already? What this time?"
"Tragus." She wrinkles her nose. "Should be fine. I've heard it can make a gross sound, but anything would be fine after my septum I think. I didn't faint exactly but.."
Junmyeon looks concerned.
"Nothing bad. It's here." Sehun turns her head slightly, squirms, reaches up to press a fingertip to the inner edge of his ear.
"Oh." Junmyeon still doesn't like the sound of that much. He had hesitated to reciprocate the contact any further than obliging as a pillow, but with Sehun slouching comfortably against his side he risks an arm around her shoulder. To his relief she doesn't lock up. "Didn't Taozi mention he wanted something like that? Or was that a different one?"
Sehun nods. "Yeah, he suggested it. We're getting matching ones. They're really booked up though, so in the end we couldn't get them done at the same time. He'd better not change his mind when he sees mine, that'd.." Sehun's talking with her hands raised, and when she pauses one falls into her lap. The other finds Junmyeon's at her shoulder, turning it, squeezing. "Do you mind? If we match?"
Junmyeon flutters his eyelashes at her, unsure if she thinks he's been unaware of their identical phone covers, bracelets, and how frequently they inhabit each other's closets. "No, no, it's.. I don't like to think what he'd ask for if he wanted to match with me. You two go ahead, I'll feel a lot safer."
Junmyeon leaves his hair softly unkempt when he gets ready. Black and denim seems the most appropriate choice for accompanying Sehun (and maybe dark glasses, as the piercing place shares a building with Jongdae's rival studio). He borrows one of the silver rings Zitao has left beside the bed in either some last-ditch attempt to look more suited to where they're going or to further amuse Zitao when they pick him up work from later. It sits heavy and textured on his ring finger, ever so slightly too tight.
Junmyeon is just about finished checking his texts ('umma I'm bored', 'hyung is saying bad things about you', 'my appointment is getting her husband's name for their anniversary dont you think its such a nice gesture when people do that??'), when Sehun reappears, toweringly tall in wedge heeled boots and considerably less happy than usual to be in Zitao's clothing. The grey jacket zipped up under her chin is so baggy that when Junmyeon hooks an arm around her waist to usher her out the door it takes a moment to make contact.
Junmyeon generally thinks Sehun suits whatever she wears (even if it's Zitao's, if Junmyeon's gifts are given a second life), but she looks downcast today. The more typically boyish of Zitao's clothing looks out of place with her make up, smoky lilac, heavy and glittering as always.
"You look nice," Junmyeon smiles and gestures to her hair, loose waves swept and pinned aside for easy access to her ear. Standing side by side he's barely eye level with her shoulder, but when she looks down at him, at the soft natural swirl of his hair, the pout isn't directed at him at all.
"I don't. But piercings are kind of.. they have to get pretty close sometimes. Leaning and stuff." Sehun purses her lips, hands coming up to cross over her chest. Bras aren't terribly comfortable across broad backs and she often neglects to wear one, but they're just as good for concealing as for padding out. All of the ones available in Sehun's size are pretty, too, make her feel comfortable on the underneath if not always anywhere else. "I'll go home and change after."
Junmyeon nods, turning his car keys in his hands. "We can stop off there before we pick Taozi up," he agrees, frowns, then asks, "How do you feel about letting Jongdae tattoo you? He's mentioned holding a design for you."
"I'd be more comfortable if Tao could do it, but he already said that wasn't an option." Sehun makes a face. "He's really good. And nice, I think we're friends? The only place we could think the design would fit is my thigh, though, and my legs are.." They're kind of weird, Sehun thinks, big in the wrong places, lean in the wrong places. Sehun generally wears whatever she wants to, but there's little soft and curved about her legs where she'd like it to be. She favours dresses over nearly anything, but the pictures she posts to Instagram often cut off at the hem.
"They're pretty long," Junmyeon supplies helpfully.
"Wow." Sehun's eyes roll high, but Junmyeon's amusement at her disapproval isn't easy to withstand. Neither is him stepping ahead to open the car door for her.
'We haven't even made it outside yet and he's already being horrendous' she texts Zitao with four blue-shaded and aghast emoji.
Zitao sympathetically agrees that it's a permanent state, and when Sehun tells Junmyeon so he laughs, like Zitao said he would.
"Tao says he wants pictures," Sehun tells him without raising her eyes from the screen. "Of us on our day out."
Junmyeon makes a thoughtful sound before saying, "I have to confess I've never taken a girl on a date before, though. Especially such a pretty one—" and the first (and last) picture Zitao receives is of Junmyeon laughing, blurred, with Sehun's grim expression at the edge of the screen.
˘
The waiting area is surprisingly well furnished for how dubiously scant and shabby the stairwell up to it was, to the left of the tattoo studio door. Junmyeon tried to peer through the window as they passed to find misdemeanours to report back to Jongdae, but Sehun took his arm and tugged.
"I don't want to miss my slot," she said as she pulled, impatience carrying Junmyeon up the stairs two at a time. He wonders just how many people need piercings every day, but reasons that his two teenagers alone have taken up around twelve appointments between them.
"I don't know why you always look so horrified by piercings anyway," Sehun says as she skims over the form passed to her. Junmyeon is fiddling with the ring on his finger and trying to avoid the image heavy poster warning against home piercing. "How many hours have you had done on your back? Something crazy like twenty, right?"
"Very different," Junmyeon protests, ignoring the look the heavily inked man behind the counter is giving him but taking mental notes on the quality of his sleeves. "If there's going to be any crunching noises I'm staying out here."
Sehun slips the form back over after checking boxes and signing, then turns to Junmyeon, pout barely holding out on lips that want to grin. "You mean you're not going to hold my hand?"
Junmyeon scowls as severely as Sehun wheedles. "If I won't come in and hold Taozi's hand I can't make the exception for you. I'm better at transport and not getting bored while you two are busy doing things."
"Fine." Sehun's eyes flick skyward before she's smiling again. "You can stay here and look at all the expensive jewellery Tao wants."
Junmyeon turns toward the cabinet against the wall when she inclines her head and squints at the small labels too far from view on the shelves. "Is it? Expensive? He's never mentioned."
"Isn't everything he likes? When we came in last time he was looking at the opals. But he's got you, I just don't look." Sehun shrugs, "We agreed on gold in the end anyway," and gives Junmyeon a little wave with her fingers.
Junmyeon is still staring vacantly into the display cabinet when Sehun reappears barely two minutes later, arms folded tight over her chest.
"That was quick." Junmyeon winces as she joins him and he gets a good close up of her ear. It's not exactly bloodied, but Junmyeon's not exactly fond of holes in skin in any event.
"You made more fuss about it than I did," she nudges him, then peers into the cabinet. "Do you need to know what sizes Tao wears?"
"Oh, no. It was the opals you were looking at, right?" Junmyeon taps a nail against the glass, head inclined toward the jewellery, eyes on Sehun. "May I get them for you both? I don't want to ruin your thing by butting in, but they're so beautiful and they'd suit you both, so if you'd— Is that smile happy, or..?"
Sehun shakes her head, loose lavender curls bouncing. "May you? You're unbearable."
"So I can?" Junmyeon grins and Sehun grumbles as he weighs against her side. "Should I worry that everyone tells me that?"
"I somehow don't think you're going to."
˘
"Thank you. You've been really.." Sehun's head is bowed, just that little bit closer to eye level. Now she thinks of it she isn't sure whether she just means for today or for the months Junmyeon has shared his home and entrusted her with a share of his heart. They never talk about it and are rarely without Zitao for long enough to have opportunity to. And if she means that, she's not sure what the words are.
"Well, thank you. For everything," she shrugs, eyes darting downwards. Hesitantly, careful of her sore ear, she sweeps her hair back, holds it so it doesn't fall into her face as she leans in.
Junmyeon is slightly off focus, definitely listening but probably thinking about three other things at the same time, and he startles when Sehun suddenly moves in close. She gives him a hard look, unsure if she should stop and be mortified or wait for him to fully zone back in.
Junmyeon blinks at her, bemused for a moment, then lets out a loud ah.
"Later?" he offers with an abashed smile once he's caught up to the situation. "You can owe me it. When Taozi borrowed your lip stuff I was fuchsia for days."
Fair enough, Sehun thinks, and her hair spills back over her shoulder as she lets it go.
"It's just, Junmyeon." Sehun puts her hand out to stop him as he reaches for the car door. This isn't a conversation she wants to have with Junmyeon's attention only half there, regardless of how many trips the three of them have taken that prove his skill at maintaining an argument while focused on the road. "I don't.. dislike you?" she says, and her eyes widen. "No, god, wait, I didn't mean it to sound like that."
Junmyeon tilts his head and does wait, patiently curious and with such keen eyes that Sehun almost reconsiders how she would have liked to discuss this.
"I would.." she starts again, glances around, but there's still no one else nearby. "I mean, I wouldn't.. We've known each other a while, and you're.. We can.. be closer? If you wanted? Within reason," she quickly adds, eyes a little wider still, worried. "But I know you don't need telling that. I.. just saying. I mean I don't know if you wanted, but Tao.."
"Doesn't like that he always has to sleep in the middle." Junmyeon nods knowingly, seemingly unphased by the offer. He knows what she means, what it amounts to— Zitao feels Junmyeon's absence when the three of them are together more than Junmyeon does. "I hope he hasn't been pestering you about it."
"No, not really. You're nice and I think it'd be ok, if you're ok with it too. I just don't want you to mind." Sehun frowns. The offer is to break a barrier between them, but Zitao not in the middle means Zitao choosing a side. "Like, if he.."
Junmyeon gently nudges Sehun aside to open the door. If they don't get moving there won't be time for Sehun to change before they're due to collect Zitao from work, and an underdressed Sehun or Zitao left waiting would be a bigger issue than this. "I wouldn't mind," Junmyeon says without the tone of someone who's had to consider their answer, leaning on the door while Sehun climbs in. "He already stays over with you more than me — if I was going to mind I would have when he started sending photos."
"Oh, the bed.." Sehun's face heats slightly, but Junmyeon is walking around to his side of the car and doesn't see.
"He only stays over with me more than you because it's easier with his family. And your hours. He talks about you a lot."
Junmyeon didn't ask, but he doesn't try to cover a pleased grin. "How are his parents with you?"
Sehun's expression dulls a little. "They like me, I think? I mean they don't like the piercings and hair colour and everything, but at least I'm an unsuitable girl rather than an unsuitable boy." Sehun says it like the words are uncertain of leaving her mouth. Junmyeon has spent more than enough time edging around Zitao's parents himself.
"And I at least don't look unsuitable. Do they ask awkward questions?"
"Yes, oh my god." Sehun looks less pensive immediately Junmyeon gives her the lead to. "I think they're, like, his mom at least, I don't think she's convinced at all. She's always giving me weird looks and staring at my throat and hands. I always pad out extra when we visit," she says with a gesture of her hands that makes Junmyeon's eyes flick away from the road. "And Tao gets all embarrassed about it, but I keep telling him it's stupid to."
Junmyeon can imagine. He takes Sehun up on her offer sooner than later, briefly taking a hand from the wheel to reach for hers and squeeze. Sehun waits a moment too long to turn her hand over and squeeze back. "You make him really happy, you know. He gets all.." Junmyeon gestures vaguely with his hand before returning it to the wheel.
"Yeah, he does." Sehun agrees, smiling. It's a different kind of attention to any she's experienced before. Zitao wants to look and touch and lights up with something so genuine when they're together, Sehun's never feared he lacks sincerity when he swears that it's platonic but he just really really (really really) likes her. He wriggles into her arms and whines about missing his umma far too much to have ulterior motives, she thinks. "I like you too, though," she tells Junmyeon without hesitation, and her little smile breaks into a grin. "Not as much. But I do."
"Same." Junmyeon laughs, shaking his head. "You don't have to agree just because Taozi complains about getting fidgety legs, though, you know. Extra hugs are nice and everything, but I know you like your space."
"Not really." Sehun shrugs and rests on the palm of her hand, turning to the window. "I'm just careful who I share it with. People have weird concepts of how much space you're entitled to depending on how you look." She frowns and purses her lips against her hand. "Or think they have some right to feel for themselves."
"I can imagine," comes out before Junmyeon considers that he really probably can't. Junmyeon is Junmyeon and no one has ever manhandled him to justify it. "Sorry. I can't, obviously."
Sehun takes the apology with a hum into her palm. Considers, for a moment, that Junmyeon has only ever shown a kind interest towards her, and speaks again. "It's just my dad, and my mom was even worse, when I first, y'know, when they knew I was serious about it, they were always like 'but you're so tall, but you're so boyish' like.. Like yeah, I am, but, so?"
Sehun pauses, swallows, glances to Junmyeon to see how he's taking the subject. Junmyeon looks back to her, brow furrowed, waiting for her to continue.
"I mean like, I don't care if people think the things I like look bad on me," she says with confidence stronger in her voice, "Though I feel better assuming that I pass, or at least that wearing such heavy make up people will guess in the right direction. I can't do anything about being tall, but that's not exactly my problem. I'll change more, too. Though days like today I can just cover up and wear boy clothes and if it weren't for the make up I don't know if I'd look much like me."
Junmyeon makes a sound of sympathy as she frowns but doesn't reach to touch again. "How long has it been though, Sehuna? You're so young."
"Oh." Sehun's heart wrings at the question. No one ever asks questions. "Only.. Only around seven months." She realises, with Junmyeon's concern flickering back and forth to her, these aren't stories she refrains from telling because it would cause herself discomfort.
Sehun wasn't always unhappy with herself when her clothes all came from menswear and girls cooed over how handsome she looked wearing eyeliner. People don't like to hear of the in between, though, or shy away from the potential of embarrassing questions. She doesn't blame them, she supposes, but Junmyeon's curiosity is nothing near to invasive. Just gentle, conversational. Makes Sehun feel like any other girl with a story, and she's going to complain to Zitao about his awful, awful charming boyfriend for weeks to come.
"It was lucky that I met Tao," Sehun continues after a pause, "I really wanted the tattoo but it was only six months then, and— it was a present to me, to mark half a year, and I was worried about letting someone so close and.. everything, I hadn't had many positive experiences with strangers up til then."
"I think he probably liked you from the moment he saw you, judging by what he told me at the time." Junmyeon grins, turned away from Sehun. "He texted me to say how pretty you are. He thought he'd embarrassed himself."
"Yeah, well. He's a creep." Sehun smiles and turns back to Junmyeon. "He wasn't exactly subtle about it, but I think he was trying. Jongdae was ok too, I guess." Fanning out her fingers, Sehun picks at dried polish around the skin at her nails. "Tao never said anything weird or gave me any weird looks or anything, though. Not even when he started working. He's sweet. And so loud otherwise, it surprise me, to be honest."
Junmyeon is silent for a moment too long. Sehun prods at his side.
"I didn't mean that in a bad way."
"No, no— he is. Loud. And sweet, but.." Junmyeon shrugs, smiles. "I guess he didn't do any of those things because he didn't see any reason to."
Sehun shrugs, too. And thinks about when they first met, and how Junmyeon is chewing at his smile. "You mean he didn't realise?"
"He mentioned it after he stayed over with you the first time. Only to ask if I—"
"It's fine, I know it didn't bother him." Sehun remembers the first time Zitao stayed over at her place. How completely unselfconscious she was, Zitao's pitch loud and high with nervous excitement all evening, (how embarrassing her mom was about her bringing such a nice boy home and refilling his bowl until Sehun forcibly dragged him away from the table). "People can usually tell even if they don't let on. You and Jongdae could."
"Mm," Junmyeon purses his lips for a moment. "I—"
"Don't say anything about thinking I'm pretty. You've used up your charm allowance for today," Sehun interupts warningly.
Junmyeon glances over, first concerned and then grinning when he sees the way Sehun's looking at him. "Already? It didn't feel like it."
"Definitely." Sehun smiles when Junmyeon laughs and falls quiet for the rest of the drive.
˘
Sehun only delays their journey to pick Zitao up from work for five minutes, hurrying back to the car still tugging and twisting at her tights to get the toe seam comfortable.
"You can look." Sehun snorts at Junmyeon's sudden struggle to make looking above and only above waist level natural. Her skirt is soft, dark leather, tight across her thighs and too far above knee for Junmyeon to consider counting inches. "You and Tao are as bad as each other but you're the only ones I haven't threatened to hit."
Junmyeon looks out of courtesy for being given the offer, and Sehun smacks his arm. "He's shy. I'm chivalrous."
Sehun gives him a skeptical look as they set off again.
˘
When they reach the studio Zitao is already waiting. Kneeling over the back of the waiting area couch, staring out between the lettering on the window. He waves to Sehun as he peels himself away from the glass and she beats Junmyeon through the door to him.
"I knew you wouldn't be on time," Zitao complains softly, warm and sleepy from the sun through the glass, and Sehun reaches for his face and kisses him. Zitao startles, flooding bright as her glossy lips, hands coming loose to her waist more to anchor himself than anything.
When she pulls back Zitao looks affronted as though she may as well have been pinching him. "What was that for?" he whines, fingers to his lips. It feels sticky. They kiss frequently, good morning, goodnight, and goodbye, a glossy print on Zitao's cheek. Sehun kissed his lips, though, stained them pink, and it's not something Zitao had ever ever—
"One more." Sehun rakes his hair out of his wide, bewildered eyes and Zitao looks no more like he knows how to respond the second time, even forewarned. The kiss takes less time than it does to register that her fingers are still in his hair and at his jaw and the hand squeezing around his own can't be Sehun's.
"Hey, baby," Junmyeon's smile is warm enough to calm the worry when Zitao sputters away from Sehun and looks down.
"Don't." Zitao scowls, but the tips of his ears are already reddening. Junmyeon leans up on his toes to peck Zitao's cheek. "No. But. So," Zitao croaks, face so so hot as Jongdae's customer unsubtly watches on through the open blinds. Jongdae's machine has been silent for longer than it takes to clean off skin and refill. "Did you guys have a nice date? Is that what..?"
Sehun gives him a dull look. "If it was because of that I'd be kissing him, dumbass. Though I do owe him one, he got us those earrings you were eying up."
"Oh. umma—"
"Oh umma," Thankfully Sehun doesn't hit hard, but Zitao clutches his upper arm dramatically either way. "You haven't even looked at my piercing."
"You haven't given me a chance!"
"Goodbye, Zitao," Jongdae calls from behind the counter, drawing a quick halt to the argument. Junmyeon calls an apology to Jongdae in a tone that earns him a sort of growl in response as he ushers them out the door.
"So what was that for?" Zitao is slouched down low in the back seat, still sleepy. Junmyeon is magically adept at making car journeys seem less jolting when Zitao is sleepy. Zitao has Sehun's hand in his lap, fingers absently playing with fingers and bracelets. "Are you gonna do it again?"
Sehun shrugs. "I just like you. Maybe." Zitao still hasn't looked at her piercing and it's still throbbing. "If I like you enough again."
"Hey," Zitao pouts. His lips still feel tacky when they touch, but at least his face isn't scarlet any more.
"Taozi," Junmyeon asks from the front, "Are you staying over tonight or am I taking you home?"
"Yeah," Zitao answers without thinking, yawns. "Oh. With you, 'm staying."
Sehun says a quiet, "Yay," and tugs Zitao to rest against her shoulder. He goes willingly, lifting her hair out of the way before sloping down against her and getting settled. "I'm going in the middle," she announces before the lull in conversation goes on too long, and Zitao squeezes her hand so tight.