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It’s a fairly average Wednesday when Seonghwa walks into the library wearing a skirt and Hongjoong proceeds to lose his goddamn mind.
He’s supposed to be working on an art history essay, and Seonghwa is supposed to be joining him to study and provide caffeine, which—yes, he does appear to be doing that, two takeaway cafe cups in his hands as he approaches the table Hongjoong has camped out at for the past four hours.
But he’s also wearing a skirt.
And Hongjoong can appreciate bold choices, he’s literally a fashion student, but Seonghwa? Wearing a skirt? On a Wednesday? It’s not even a special occasion, as far as Hongjoong knows.
The skirt is black and quite modest really, the swishing hem hitting Seonghwa below his knees. It still makes his legs look great though, the high waistband accentuating his slender waist and making him look impossibly taller—which is infuriating when Seonghwa’s legs still look long in even the boxiest of cropped khakis. Hongjoong squints critically as Seonghwa gets closer, student brain going into overdrive analyzing the fabric. Some kind of cotton blend? Definitely not a winter weight based on how easily the hem swishes back and forth as he walks, he’s probably freezing. It goes well with his tan colored sweater though, and—dammit, Hongjoong can’t even focus on theory right now. Seonghwa just looks good.
And far be it from Hongjoong to be so affected by this, as one who occasionally partakes in some skirt-wearing himself, but the sight of his roommate walking so casually into the building with delicate fabric flouncing around his knees has him inexplicably struck dumb.
“Hey,” Seonghwa says, dropping his bag on the chair opposite Hongjoong and depositing a large iced americano in front of Hongjoong’s laptop.
He takes off his coat, and Hongjoong is a bit too busy attempting to continue discreetly checking out his skirt that it takes him a moment to notice Seonghwa just hovering and not sitting down. Like he’s... waiting.
Waiting for Hongjoong to say something about his skirt?
“Hi,” Hongjoong says, and then grasps at the far reaches of his brain to come up with something to say. I think your skirt is causing me acute distress is probably not appropriate, so he garbles out something unintelligible while his tongue un-twists itself before finally getting out a safe, “You look good.”
The unsure expression on Seonghwa’s face melts into a smile, and he finally sits. “Thank you.”
“Is that… new?” Hongjoong asks, and he doesn’t specify but there’s nothing else he could mean except for it. The skirt.
“Hm, this? Ah, no… I’ve had it for a while, just haven’t worn it out,” Seonghwa says. Hongjoong maybe sees a tint of red to his cheeks but it’s quickly covered as Seonghwa opens his laptop.
“Oh,” Hongjoong says, because he’s definitely dug through Seonghwa’s closet on multiple occasions to help him put together outfits for parties and friend hangouts and once, a date, but he’s never seen a skirt in there before. He’s sure he would’ve remembered. “It’s nice.”
“Thanks.” Seonghwa ducks his head with a smile. “What are you working on?” He asks next, and the subject is dropped.
The skirt becomes part of Seonghwa’s regular pants rotation, which is to say, it haunts Hongjoong at least once but occasionally twice a week.
To make matters worse, it quickly stops being about just the skirt, and more about the way Seonghwa starts to carry himself like an off-duty model when he wears it. He absolutely knows he looks good, and while it’s nice to see him so clearly feeling himself with this whole new world of outfits he’s opened the door to, it’s a little less nice for Hongjoong, who finds himself chronically starstruck at the sight of his roommate’s increasingly bold outfits.
“Hey, what do you think about this?” Seonghwa says, flouncing into the living room with the skirt on. He’s wearing a half-sheer turtleneck tucked into it that exposes his arms and shoulders through gauzy black fabric. “Shoe ideas?”
Seonghwa’s styling choices with the skirt were growing more adventurous, ditching the soft sweaters and button-ups for crops, mesh, loud patterns. Hongjoong both respected his creativity while growing increasingly distressed at these developments. There’s probably an acceptable amount of checking out one’s roommate, and Hongjoong knows he’s beyond salvation at this point.
God, what happened to the Seonghwa he met freshman year who wore his polo shirts buttoned all the way to the top.
“Looks good. Maybe some boots?” Hongjoong says, in an act of masochism because all of Seonghwa’s boots are slightly platformed and make him even infuriatingly taller. “Going somewhere?”
Seonghwa nods along to his suggestion, grabbing a pair of black boots from the rack of shoes near the door and sitting to lace them on. He’s clearly going somewhere, glittery eyeshadow and a sheen of highlighter on his perfect cheekbones reflecting in the lamplight.
“Yeah, the theatre department is having a bar crawl. Want to come with? Jongho is going, probably San, too.”
“Maybe another night,” Hongjoong says, bringing his attention away from Seonghwa’s perfectly applied lip tint to stare down at the tablet in his lap and the pattern drafting assignment he’s made approximately zero progress on. “Don’t let Jongho convince you to go shot-for-shot again, I don’t really have time to play taxi for anyone’s drunk ass tonight.”
Seonghwa snorts, and gives Hongjoong a hearty flick to the back of his head as he passes by. They both know it’s a lie, anyways.
“So kind of you. I’ll see you later, Hongjoong.”
And then he’s breezing out the door in a swish of skirt and gauzy shirt, leaving Hongjoong staring after him and definitely not getting any pattern drafting done.
It’s later that night when Hongjoong has given up on patterns and decides to start prepping materials for his classes later in the week that he finds it. He’s digging through the fabric stash shoved under his bed, attempting to find the truly hideous seven yards of purple twill he bought on clearance for his advanced draping class and wishing Seonghwa was home because Hongjoong swears he put it right here but it’s missing in action and Seonghwa is always better at finding things when Hongjoong misplaces them—he finds it.
It’s three and a half perfect yards of emerald green wool, tucked between his drafting muslin and a spool of scratchy stretch lace. He must’ve bought it for some scrapped project two or three semesters ago, something he can’t even remember, but it’s no matter now—as soon as his hands brush the smooth weave of the fibers, he knows what it needs to become.
A skirt.
After that, all of his actually important garments to work on, class projects and assignments and the handful of pieces he’s started designing for his senior show—everything takes a backseat.
Hongjoong starts drafting that very night, dozens and dozens of sketches on his tablet, emerald skirts and golden details and long-legged blond models. He’s draping pieces of muslin on a mannequin before long, using the cheap cotton to test out the pleats and skirt styles he was sketching before his scissors even come near the immaculate wool.
He reigns himself in from pulling all-nighters to work on it as he so often does when engrossed in a project, but he is up embarrassingly late for a few nights in a row perfecting his pattern pieces and stitching together a mockup of the skirt in cotton. It quickly gets him to a point where a fitting on the intended model becomes necessary. His guesswork at Seonghwa’s measurements can only take him so far, and he wouldn’t dare start cutting into this wool if he weren’t absolutely sure the final piece would even fit.
He’s about four coffees in when he comes to this point though, and caffeine-fueled project frenzy takes him stomping straight into Seonghwa’s room and shoving the mockup skirt in Seonghwa’s hands before the rest of his mind can catch up. It’s probably for the better, anyways—he’s not sure he could’ve worked up the nerve if he let himself overthink it.
“Um,” The realization that he should be at least a little bit embarrassed is delayed, but Hongjoong pushes on. “I need to fit this on you. Do you have a minute?”
Seonghwa takes it in stride though, standing from his desk right away and untangling the piece from the ball of fabric it had become in Hongjoong’s restless hands. “Sure. Is this for your pattern drafting class?”
“Uh, yeah,” Hongjoong says, a bold-faced lie. He’s just not quite at the brain capacity to admit to Seonghwa that seeing him flounce around their apartment in a skirt has possessed him to spend a shameful amount of his waking hours designing one.
“Okay,” Seonghwa says. A flash of doubt does cross his face when he finally finds the waistband and holds the garment out in front of him to inspect it. He considers the skirt for a moment. “You’re sure you want me for this?”
“Yeah, if you’re alright with it. You wear that other skirt well,” Hongjoong says, as casually as possible. “No worries, though,” He continues. He likes to annoy Seonghwa but he’d rather leave the emerald wool to gather dust in his fabric stash than actually make him uncomfortable.
Thankfully, Seonghwa goes easily after that. “Just making sure,” He says, and unclips the pin keeping the waistband closed.
Hongjoong averts his eyes as Seonghwa slips out of his sweatpants and into the skirt, turning around to find him fussing with the safety pin at the side, trying to make it sit correctly, which—yeah, that definitely needs to be taken in. Damn Seonghwa’s small waist.
Hongjoong directs Seonghwa to stand in front of his mirror before moving in circles around him to inspect the skirt, eyeing the way the pleats lay and where the unfinished hem ends at Seonghwa’s shins. He takes more time than strictly necessary, slowly working himself up to the fact that he needs to put his hands on Seonghwa now.
He stops behind him, where the slightly-too-large skirt sags in the back. Hongjoong pulls it up slightly, bringing it to where it belongs at Seonghwa’s natural waist instead of drooping a few centimeters lower. Seonghwa is warm where Hongjoong’s fingers slip into the waistband, brushing against Seonghwa’s skin as he carefully pins the garment to fit correctly. He feels his hands shaking slightly, though perhaps it’s the caffeine.
“Is it comfortable like this?” Hongjoong asks, slightly muffled with the pins he holds between his teeth.
Seonghwa clears his throat. Hongjoong can’t see his face, but perhaps that’s for the better. “Yeah...? It’s not too tight.”
Hongjoong is thankful for Seonghwa’s patience as he re-pins the pleats to fall better with the new waistband size. They’re both quiet, and it’s tedious work; fold, pin, measure, pin, don’t stab Seonghwa, fold, pin, ignore the exposed skin where Seonghwa rucked up his shirt, measure, pin.
He moves around Seonghwa again when he finishes, looking between him and the mirror to double check that the pleats are even and fall correctly, which they do, thank god. He wasn’t expecting a mistake on something so rote as pleats, but he feels all kinds of off kilter right now, so it wouldn’t surprise him. He’s nearly done now, though, he just has to mark the hem. Hongjoong gingerly kneels on the ground, starting at Seonghwa’s side and carefully tugging at the fraying unfinished bottom edge of the skirt.
“What do you think about… here?” Hongjoong asks, folding the cotton under itself a few centimeters so it ends just below Seonghwa’s knees. It’s shorter than his black skirt, but barely so. “Or longer?”
Seonghwa considers himself in the mirror. “I think that looks nice.”
“Great,” Hongjoong says. He starts in on pinning the hem at that length, slowing working around the circumference of the skirt as he kneels. “Just try to stay still.”
He nearly chokes on the pins in his mouth when he makes the mistake of looking up. Seonghwa is looking right back down at him, past the flounce of skirt at him. Hongjoong gently, internally, starts to freak out. Seonghwa looks away quickly though, returning his attention to the mirror, which isn’t much better because he’s still looking at Hongjoong, what the fuck is that about, and Hongjoong is kneeling on the damn ground in front of him like, like—
Hongjoong hisses through his teeth when his lack of attention sends a pin through the fabric and into his thumb.
He tries to be more focused after that, pinning the rest of the hem as carefully as possible, ignoring the feeling of Seonghwa’s eyes, the way warmth seems to radiate from his skin, the way he’s eye-level with Seonghwa’s crotch for way too many minutes in a row. He’s well practiced at hemming garments though, so he thankfully finishes up the last length of it quickly.
With everything pinned correctly into place, Hongjoong walks around Seonghwa to give his work one more lookover, and huh, this might already be one of his favorite designs. It’s not even in the final fabric, but Seonghwa looks good even in the rough cotton mockup, so Hongjoong might cautiously say that he’s perhaps outdone himself. It’s a shame his senior project isn’t going to be a winter collection, or there would definitely be room to include it.
“What do you think? Do you like it?” Hongjoong asks, and he tries not to sound too eager for Seonghwa’s opinion. He’s only mildly successful.
Seonghwa checks out the skirt in the mirror for a moment, smoothing his hands over the pleats, shifting his weight to make the hem swish, turning to the side to see it in profile. Hongjoong watches him carefully.
“It looks really good, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says. His smile is genuine, too, so Hongjoong believes it. “I’m sure you’ll do well on your project.”
Hongjoong refines his pattern pieces in cotton and cuts them out of the emerald wool that very night, the body of the skirt coming together quickly under the foot of his sewing machine and his well-practiced hands.
He only gets a few more days of work on it before his attention does eventually need to return to his coursework, and the skirt is pushed out of his main focus for a few weeks as the semester winds to busy close. He manages to pick at details when he has a moment, finishing the hem by hand in small bursts between assignments, stitching up the pockets one night when he’s too keyed up to sleep before a presentation, and meticulously embroidering with golden thread around the seams in an attempt to wind down after an exam.
“What’s that?” Seonghwa asks. He’s just gotten back to the apartment after a late evening exam, and flops on the couch next to Hongjoong. “For your advanced techniques class?”
Hongjoong startles, nearly snapping his thread. He hadn’t heard Seonghwa get back, zoned out while carefully sewing the button closures onto the skirt with a decorative stitch he learned through youtube. Variety show reruns play on the television to keep him awake. “It’s a… personal project. I’m too burnt out on class stuff to work on anything else right now.”
It’s not even really a lie, though he isn’t quite equipped to share with Seonghwa the entire truth of the garment yet. Thankfully, Seonghwa just nods, and the topic is dropped. There’s nothing but chatter from the television for a few moments.
“Have you eaten?” Seonghwa eventually asks.
“Mm-hmm,” Hongjoong just nods, focused on tying off a stitch so he can move to the next button. He looks up when Seonghwa doesn’t say anything else, and finds him watching Hongjoong suspiciously. It’s clear Seonghwa doesn’t believe him. “Seriously! I made soup. There’s still some on the stove if you want the rest.”
Seonghwa hums, surprised. “You’re only offering so I’ll put your dishes away, too.”
Hongjoong snorts. “Well, yeah.”
Seonghwa rolls his eyes, but pads off to the kitchen. Hongjoong hears the microwave turn on, and the clanking of Seonghwa loading the dishwasher right after. Seonghwa returns to his spot on the couch with a warm bowl cradled in his hands a few moments later.
Seonghwa eyes him between blowing air on hot spoonfuls of soup. “Aren’t you tired? I heard you get back from the library at like four in the morning…”
Hongjoong shrugs. He’s not that tired, not really, though a full stomach plus the droning of the television and the warmth radiating from Seonghwa at his side does have his eyelids feeling a little heavier. Seriously, why does Seonghwa always run so hot, Hongjoong feels like he’s sitting next to a fireplace... well, he figures it certainly wouldn’t hurt to close his eyes for a moment.
He wakes some nebulous amount of time later to a blanket tucked carefully around his shoulders and his sewing folded in a neat pile on the coffee table.
When the semester finally ends, the only thing standing between Hongjoong and a finished skirt is one unfinished buttonhole and a few unclipped threads. He knocks them out in a scarce thirty minutes and is left sitting in his room, completed skirt in hand and wondering if it’s in bad taste to burst into Seonghwa’s room, hand over the skirt with no further explanation, and make a hasty escape.
Or perhaps he could just blurt, Oh, seeing you in a skirt gave me brainworms of such a serious degree that I neglected my coursework to design one for you.
Yeah, he doesn’t think that would go over well.
The solution comes in the form of an all-caps message in the groupchat. It’s from San, reminding everyone that he’ll personally put coal in their stockings if they don’t show up at the Christmas party he and Yunho are hosting at the end of the week. Hongjoong doesn’t even hang stockings, but he wouldn’t put it past San to manage it anyways.
So the skirt is carefully folded in a box and wrapped with some leftover fabric trimmings Hongjoong quickly stitches together because he’s both too lazy and too broke to bother going out for wrapping paper.
It seems far too personal to hand over in front of their friends, which is how Hongjoong ends up standing in front of Seonghwa’s bedroom door later that week, an hour before they planned to make the walk across campus to Yunho and San’s.
“—Shit,” Seonghwa says, when he opens the door into Hongjoong’s face because Hongjoong has just been standing there, letting the gift get progressively sweatier in his hands instead of knocking. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Hongjoong says, rubbing at the spot on the bridge of his nose that his glasses were smushed into. “Yeah, sorry.”
“What’s up?” Seonghwa asks. He’s only half-dressed for the party, a festive sweater on over a threadbare pair of pajama pants.
“This is for you,” Hongjoong says, pressing the wrapped gift forward into Seonghwa’s hands.
“Oh no, I haven’t wrapped yours yet,” Seonghwa gestures vaguely behind himself into his room. “Do you wanna do this tomorrow instead?”
“No, no it’s fine, you can open it now!” It comes out more frantic than intended, but Hongjoong really might die if he has to work up the nerve to do this again.
“Alright, I will.” Seonghwa carefully unties the ribbon and unwraps the cloth. Gentle hands extract the skirt from the box, and it’s silent but for an intake of breath as Seonghwa looks at it.
“Hongjoong…” Seonghwa turns the skirt over, looking over the detailing and neat stitching. Golden buttons fasten the skirt at both sides, and delicate embroidery follows the lines of the pockets and down the sides. He runs his hands over the soft wool, the material slipping through his fingers as they brush over each seam. He finds Hongjoong’s custom tag in the back, his logo drawn on scrap cotton and stitched into the inside waistband with care. His eyes look like they’re sparkling when they find Hongjoong again. “You really made this for me?”
“Yeah?” It comes out like a question for some reason, and Hongjoong shifts uncomfortably on his feet. “I’ve just been seeing you wear that other one, and I felt, uh, inspired to work on one too? That’s why I did that fitting the other day. I hope you like it.”
“Of course I like it. This is amazing, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa says. His eyes are back on the skirt, tracing over the buttons with a fingertip. He holds it up to his waist, looking down at the way the fabric flares out over his knees. “I really can’t believe you made me something this nice.”
“You don’t have to get all emotional about it,” Hongjoong says, and it’s so transparently a deflection that Seonghwa only deigns him with a knowing smile in response.
“I’ll wear it tonight!” Seonghwa says, and it catches Hongjoong off guard. Hongjoong only manages an Oh? before Seonghwa is disappearing back into his room to finish getting dressed.
Hongjoong passes the time by getting ready himself, showering off the nerves that have built up at the thought of Seonghwa actually wearing the skirt, which is stupid when that’s the whole point of the damn thing. He dresses in a green sweater and some red plaid pants, styling choices inspired by Yunho’s very serious text informing him that the holiday color dress code would be strictly enforced. By the time he finishes drying his hair and putting on enough makeup to look like he tried, Seonghwa is already waiting for him in the living room.
He’s changed out of his original festive sweater and into a black turtleneck, a thinner knit that he’s tucked into the skirt. And the skirt… Hongjoong thinks he’d really like to see more of his designs modeled on Seonghwa.
The high waist fits Seonghwa’s proportions perfectly, flaring out with the pleats and ending at a flattering length at his knees. The gold details match his golden blond hair, styled perfectly out of his face, and the gold jewelry he’s accessorized with. His legs always look long, but his platformed shoes make them even moreso and Hongjoong just can’t stop staring. He wants to draw him, or take a picture, do anything to immortalize the feeling of seeing Seonghwa in one of his designs for the first time.
“Oh— oh, wow,” Hongjoong says.
Seonghwa’s face reddens slightly, but he lets Hongjoong walk around him to inspect the garment, checking that it looks good from every angle, making sure everything went well in the translation from pattern to final piece, because he’s a student, dammit, and he’s not just trying to stare at Seonghwa for as long as acceptable. He almost thought he’d be sick of seeing the thing after working on it for so long, but it’s different now, actually on Seonghwa.
Hongjoong ends his inspection back in front of Seonghwa, allowing himself to appreciate his own handiwork for a moment more.
“You look amazing in it,” Hongjoong says, too honest. His eyes are still on the skirt, and he lets his fingers brush over the hem. He hand stitched it, every centimeter, because he doesn’t like the way machine stitches would show so noticeably on the front side of the fabric. He’s not sure Seonghwa would have noticed either way, but Hongjoong would know.
“It’s your work, that’s why,” Seonghwa says. He waits a beat, before gently easing Hongjoong’s chin up with soft hands to look at his face instead of the skirt. “You’re always incredible. I love it, Hongjoong.”
Hongjoong can only nod. He can’t quite manage a response, really he’s not sure what would come out of his mouth if he tried. Seonghwa still has his fingers tipping Hongjoong’s chin up, and from there it’s trivial to lean closer, let his eyes flutter shut, and press their lips together in a kiss.
He goes in a little too fast, noses bumping until Seonghwa slides his hand from Hongjoong’s chin to the back of his neck and angles them better. Seonghwa’s soft lips slot against Hongjoong’s perfectly, and it feels like threading a needle just right on the first try. Seonghwa takes his time with it, which Hongjoong is more than alright with. He’d be alright to live in the moment as long as Seonghwa will let him. His hands find themselves at Seonghwa’s waist, trailing down to brush against the fabric of the skirt, fingertips finding the raised stitching of the embroidery.
Seonghwa pulls away with a chuckle. “You like the skirt too, hm?” He presses a kiss to Hongjoong’s nose. “You should.” Another kiss. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” Hongjoong says, pressing himself further into Seonghwa’s hold. He’s not ready to give up this contact so soon. “I think I’ll have to make you another.”
(Seonghwa accosts him under the mistletoe at the party later that night, because of course San and Yunho put up mistletoe—probably to victimize Hongjoong specifically—and of course Seonghwa’s eyes go all big and moony when he spots it, and of course Hongjoong can’t manage to put up even a token resistance before he gives in and lets Seonghwa kiss him in front of everyone.
He doesn’t mind though, not really.)