Chapter Text
“You’re not going home for the holidays this year, hyung?”
“No, not this year.”
San glanced up from the videogame that he had been playing away at, dark eyes landing on the elder. “Why not? You went back the last two years. Do you have unfinished work or something?”
“No, it’s not that,” Hongjoong sighed. He had been sitting on his own side of the room, alternating between his Twitter feed and San’s game that he had promised to watch. “I have a feeling that they don’t exactly want to see me this year… You know, with Seonghwa and all that…”
San pursed his lips. “They’re still upset with you? It’s so stupid. If our place wasn’t so small, I’d invite you to come home with me. My sister coming home with her boyfriend, so I’m not sure there will be space…”
It had been a sort of tense conversation. Telling his parents that he had found someone he was happy with, them asking who the lucky girl was… all that good stuff. He knew that his parents weren’t going to disown him or anything, but… the whole vibe of the phone conversation he had with his mother a couple of months ago had not been pleasant. The flat “oh” that he had heard from her side was enough to tell him that she was not the happiest. Along with the text messages he received from his father, he had a feeling that they would need more time to get over this “situation”.
Hongjoong had gotten over the tears and hurt that he had felt early on. Seonghwa pulled him into his arms that night and comforted him, telling him that his parents’ opinions didn’t matter… It was a variety of things that he could’ve heard from anyone else, but from his boyfriend, it made the situation at least a little better.
Of course he was annoyed with his parents; it was pretty ignorant of them to get upset with him with a situation like this. He should’ve seen it coming, but everyone always hopes that their parents aren’t homophobic, right?
Though, at this point, he isn’t over it, but he isn’t sitting and crying like he had those first few days. He just wished that someday, his parents would learn that their son dating a boy wasn’t going to be the biggest problem that they ever have.
Hongjoong waved San off, a scoff escaping his lips. “No, no way, it’s fine. I don’t have to go anywhere; I can stay here in the dorms. I can work on my tracks without you constantly pestering me about what it sounds like or what the assignment’s for.”
“Ah, why don’t you go to Seonghwa hyung’s? I’m sure his parents are really nice; he’s always said good things about them!” San sat up a little straighter, his mouth a small smile. “And you could meet his parents!”
Almost immediately, Hongjoong was denying it, perhaps a little too sharply. “No! No, no, it’s…. I’ll be fine! Like I said, I really don’t need to go anywhere… I’ll be fine here.” Hongjoong breathed out a sigh, knowing what his roommate’s next question was going to be. He’d save him the trouble. “I’m not really… I don’t wanna sound like a little bitch or anything, but I don’t really wanna meet Seonghwa’s parents yet. I mean, we only started dating six months ago..”
“Only six months –“
“Some people like to take things more slowly, alright? I’m not like Wooyoung and Yeosang who were already locking their door a week after they got together –“
“Yeah, but they knew each other for years before that. I think you should meet them soon, at least. Like I said, Seonghwa-hyung makes them sound really nice. I’m sure they’re really curious about you,” San continued, fiddling with the joysticks on his controller. “Don’t you want to?”
Did he? The thought of it made the butterflies in his chest start to beat just fast enough to feel uncomfortable. He could only imagine what Seonghwa’s family was like. Seonghwa was just so perfect, it made him wonder. His boyfriend was so clean and so pristine, soft and pretty, gentle in nature – it almost scared him how different they could be. Hongjoong was far from perfect, definitely not the cleanest, and perhaps a little bit too… colorful for other people’s tastes. So, yes, he was not ashamed to admit that he was very, very scared of meeting Seonghwa’s parents.
It made his anxiety spike. What if they didn’t like him? What if they suddenly decided that because they didn’t like Hongjoong, they wouldn’t allow Seonghwa to be with him. Cliché, yes, but there were many scenarios that he couldn’t get out of his mind –
“Hyung, breathe. Breathe,” was calling, waving his hand in Hongjoong’s direction to get him to pay attention.
Hongjoong blinked a couple of times, focusing in on his roommate and drawing his eyebrows together. “I… I just don’t think I can do that right now. Maybe during spring break…”
San was quiet for a couple of seconds, but then he was smiling and nodding along. “Yeah. I think you should talk to Seonghwa-hyung about it. For now, how about you get down here and play a round with me? I can change it to multiplayer even if you’re shit at it. ~” He beckoned the arts major down in his direction, gesturing for him to sit on the floor. “And take this controller – the other one sticks. You’d just mess up.”
Hongjoong only stared at San for a moment, but he couldn’t help but laugh at his quick switch of the subject. He was thankful that someone like San was his roommate. He listened to his friends and cared about them an immense amount, but if someone didn’t want to talk about something, it was easy for him to smoothly change the subject. The younger was someone Hongjoong was glad to have in his life. He could only thank the school for pairing them as roommates.
“Yeah, you’re gonna kick my ass, but I’ll play anyways.”
“It’s not a game where we fight each other. Were you even paying attention, hyung???”
~
Hongjoong decided to take San’s advice and talk to Seonghwa about his situation. Not about meeting his parents, hell no-
but about him staying in the dorms in general. About his parents still being a little iffy on the subject of being upset with him. He’s not sure if Seonghwa knows that his parents are still down on their relationship despite it being a couple of months later. It just kept nagging at him and he knew if he needed to talk about it to someone, it would be his boyfriend.
It took him forever.
Hongjoong wasn’t really a fan of talking about his problems. One of the reasons he even fell for Seonghwa at all was because of how easy it was to talk to him. How soothing the elder was, how trustworthy he was. It felt so easy to talk to Seonghwa while It wasn’t the same for everyone else. It was embarrassing for him to even tell San when he was anxious about something; it was a miracle he even told his roommate about his parents.
This made the fact that he took until the very last minute to talk to Seonghwa about it pretty unsurprising.
There had been about a week until school let out and everyone went home for winter break but Hongjoong didn’t want to ruin Seonghwa’s good mood. The elder loved Christmas and Hongjoong could see just how excited he was for the holidays. He had holiday-themed sweaters (nerd), listened to Christmas music, gone as far as decorating his dorm with Yunho despite the fact that he was going to be going back to his parents’ afterwards. Hongjoong didn’t want to fuck any of it up until he had to.
He wasn’t even ready for when the question was sprung onto him, but… he probably wasn’t ever going to be ready, so he might as well get it over with.
It was when Hongjoong was sitting on the edge of Yunho’s bed and keeping Seonghwa company as he packed to go home. Yunho had already gone home a few days early after completing his finals, so Hongjoong had kind of taken over his side of the room ever since he had left. There was comfortable conversation, Seonghwa asking Hongjoong about his current work and Hongjoong (playfully) nagging Seonghwa about his oh-so-organized habits.
He should’ve seen it coming, honestly, but he couldn’t help the way his heart stuttered in pace when Seonghwa glanced over and asked, “When are you leaving for home, Joong? You haven’t even packed anything yet. You know, I could always help you with it.” The elder threw (actually very gently placed) another sweater on top of his pile before sitting back on his heels where he had been on the floor in front of his suitcase. “I don’t think I could stand to let you pack by yourself when half the time, you can’t even fit everything in there because of how haphazard you are with it.”
Hongjoong was suddenly very interested in the threads that were hanging from the hem of his jeans. He continued to pick at them, focusing maybe a little too hard. “You don’t have to help me with it, it’s fine.” Oh no, he was not ready for this, not at all. Maybe it didn’t seem like such a big deal, but talking about it was not exactly his favorite topic.
“Why not? I’ve helped you with it before. It’s not really all that time-consuming, I already know all your favorite sweaters and jeans and such-“
“I don’t need help with it, Seonghwa. It’ll be fine.”
“But-“
“Seonghwa.”
Hongjoong looked up at Seonghwa at the same time he looked up at him, and he felt like there was a shared moment of tension that he hadn’t meant to create until Seonghwa’s features were softening. “What’s the matter, Joong?”
His automatic response was “nothing,” or “don’t worry about it,”, or something along those lines. But, with Seonghwa staring at him like that with his eyebrows drawn together and soft brown eyes focused so intently on him, it wasn’t really hard for Hongjoong to crack.
“I’m not going home this break.”
“What, why?” Seonghwa was instantly on his feet and sitting next to Hongjoong on the mattress, not touching him yet and giving him space but still pressing up against his shoulder. “Did something happen?”
Hongjoong sighed. It was now or never. “I think they’re still upset from when I told them about us. It’s not your fault or anything, but – they were very, um… uh, bland on the idea of me coming home. They didn’t sound too excited or anything, and they were asking me, ‘oh, are you gonna bring that boy’, then I got a little mad and decided that I would just… skip out on it this year.”
He was thankful that Seonghwa hadn’t interrupted his words; he was glad to have gotten it all out in one go, despite having gone back to staring at the fray threads and picking at them. He felt Seonghwa shift and there was a beat before his gentle hand was on the small of his back, careful and cautious… Hongjoong could barely handle the skip in his heartbeat.
“Oh, Joong,” he murmured softly, and all Hongjoong could think about was how perfectly perfectSeonghwa was. “You’re staying here by yourself? Won’t you get lonely? I know everyone else is leaving…”
“I mean… I’m not going to say I’m going to be all happy and cheerful that I’m going to be here on my own, but I know you’ll only be gone two weeks. San for the month. I could always just get more work done.” He somewhat leaned into his boyfriend’s touch, always drawn to his comfort over everyone else’s. “I can get a lot of stuff done without San bugging the shit out of me all the time…”
There was a little awkward laugh that punctured the end of his sentence, and he only felt it even more when Seonghwa didn’t laugh back. Instead, he came back with words that almost sounded sad, if Hongjoong wasn’t mistaken, making him look up at his boyfriend. “I can’t let you do that, Joongie. Alone on Christmas? I’d be the worst boyfriend in the world, I can’t let you do that –“
“It’s – It’s no problem! I know you’re probably going to ask me to go to your place, but that’s a whole different situation that I don’t think I’m ready to unpack yet, no offense, haha –“
“No, that’s not it,” Seonghwa claimed, his arms wrapping around Hongjoong’s middle and chin falling onto his shoulder. “You should’ve just told me sooner; I’ll stay here with you. I can’t just let you be alone on Christmas! That’s like… mortal sin!”
“Mortal sin, huh?” Hongjoong repeated, not exactly sure. “Seonghwa, you’re not staying away from your family for me. You miss them, and I don’t wanna be responsible for keeping you from them. Just go home, I’ll be fine here.”
Seonghwa scoffed, releasing the younger before turning his head and having his boyfriend look back at him. “My family’s only an hour away and there’s always spring break. Think about it, Joongie, we can spend our first Christmas together. Doesn’t that sound nice? You won’t have to be lonely; I can stay with you in your dorm, we can make hot chocolate, watch movies and stuff – we can celebrate by ourselves!”
Hongjoong felt his cheeks heat up. “You can’t just expect me to be okay with this,” he sputtered, tilting his head away and reveling in the way Seonghwa’s fingers slipped from his chin. “I can’t just let you abandon your family like that –“
“Abandon? You make it sound so serious… My mom might be a little upset, but my brother is going home so he’ll keep her company. It’ll be fine, I swear. Don’t you just want to cuddle up with me on the couch in the main room and watch movies? Or you can still work on your tracks… I don’t want to leave you alone. You really don’t deserve that.”
Seonghwa seemed to be perfect at making Hongjoong feel like he was something. His parents being a little cross with him just for being on the side of the spectrum they didn’t like had made him feel a little less human if anything, if all he was seen for by some people was who he liked…
But Seonghwa was so good at piecing him back together and he was embarrassed that there was someone who made him feel so weak.
Hongjoong sighed, looked down at Seonghwa’s suitcase then back at its owner. “…You don’t have to,” he went on, one more try at making sure that Seonghwa himself was sure.
“I know I don’t. But… I care about you, Hongjoong. I don’t want you to be lonely this Christmas.”
Hongjoong smiled. “You’re so perfect, Park Seonghwa.”
“Oh… I promise, I’m far from perfect –“
“Not to me. You are an actual godsend.”
Seonghwa’s laugh sounded like music to Hongjoong’s ears.