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Hyunjin’s in a bad mood.
Not even bad — he’s just bummed in a major way. It’s the middle of the night, and the bar he’s standing outside of closed 15 minutes ago. The friend he came with ditched him an hour ago after finding someone to go home with. It’s absolutely downpouring rain and the awning above him isn’t doing much to help the wind sweeping rain in his direction. The past two Uber’s he’s ordered have cancelled on him. How humiliating.
He’s still pretty drunk, which only serves to irritate him more. He wishes there was a switch to turn his drunkenness off until he can figure out what the hell to do or where the hell to go.
His phone vibrates to tell him that his Uber has been cancelled by the driver for the third time in a row. He made the mistake of going to a bar in the heart of Atlanta, a good 40-minute drive from his apartment in a northern outskirt, so he wouldn’t be surprised if the drivers were deciding the drive north wasn’t worth it. It was his friend’s idea to go into the city, the same friend who ditched him with little warning, and Hyunjin makes a mental note to never go out with that guy again.
Getting home is an impossible task, he decides. He only knows one person on this side of town, and — well, it would be a longshot. They haven’t spoken in ten months, and he’s pretty sure he didn’t leave the best impression.
He’d might as well try. Best case scenario, he’d have a place to crash. Worst case scenario, he’d be hung up on after getting verbally torn a new one. Maybe the kindness that was shown to Hyunjin all those months ago will be shown again now, and anything is better than standing alone in the rain outside of a closed bar. He’s cold and sticky and he just wants to be indoors.
He taps on the contact and hits the call button. It rings, rings, rings, and then he hears a tentative and slightly confused, “Hello?”
“Yeah, hi, Changbin? It’s Hyunjin. Hyunjin, uh, Hwang.”
“I know.” A pause. “To what do I owe the pleasure at...2 am?”
It’s nice hearing that voice again. Hyunjin has contemplated reaching out, more than once, but he didn’t think Changbin would ever answer. Of course Changbin answered, because he’s kind and good and everything Hyunjin wasn’t ten months ago.
“I’m sorry for calling you. I’m — ah,” Hyunjin runs a hand over his face and wishes he was sober. Or maybe not, because this is suddenly mortifying and being drunk lessens some of the shame. “So I went to a bar downtown and it’s closed now and my friend left me so I’m alone and Uber’s won’t take me all the way up to Kennesaw? And it’s raining and I’m cold and you’re the only person I know that lives downtown and I don’t...I don’t know what to do.”
Changbin is taking his time in responding. Hyunjin did just spew a lot of information at once, but in his defense, his brain isn’t good at forming cohesive thoughts right now. “So, like,” Changbin says. “Do you...need a place to crash?”
“Or just somewhere to dry off. I don’t know. I’m drunk.”
“You’re drunk and your friend left you alone in downtown Atlanta? Jesus christ,” Changbin sighs into the speaker. “What bar are you at?”
“Joystick.”
“You’re only like 10 minutes away from me, then. Get an Uber over here, I’ll text you my address.”
Changbin sounds calm, a little monotonous, and Hyunjin can’t tell if he’s annoyed at the request. He feels a little bad, but it’s kind of his only option, so he says, “Okay. Thank you.”
“Mhm. See you soon.”
***
The thing about Hyunjin is that he’s kind of shitty.
Well — he was. He’s trying to be better. He’s taken control of his life in a way that he hadn’t a year prior, because his way of taking control before was unhealthy.
Playing with hearts is about control. Fucking around is about control. He knows this now, after the many therapy sessions he’s had in his attempts to Be Better. It was fun to find a new person of the month, of the week, and leave them high and dry when he got bored with them. And if he started getting attached? That would be a recipe for disaster, giving up control to someone else. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he fled like a fucking coward. He would delete the person’s contact as soon as he realized he was headed down that path.
He’s not sure why he didn’t delete Changbin’s number. There was something special there, enough to scare him, and in any other case like this, Changbin’s number would be wiped. Maybe Hyunjin forgot, maybe he subconsciously didn’t want to let go, but right now he’s happy that he didn’t delete it. He’s happy that Changbin miraculously answered the phone at 2 am.
Showing up to an old hook-up’s house in the dead of night, wet and humiliated and still a little drunk, feels like well-deserved karma for his past actions.
Hyunjin’s Uber pulls up to a small house, and he feels a tug in his stomach at the familiarity. It’s only been ten months since he’s been here, but it feels like it’s been a decade. The patchy grass looks the same as he heads up the sidewalk. The front door, with all its chipped paint and charm, looks the same as he knocks softly. And when Changbin opens the door, he looks the same — broad and gorgeous in a way that scares Hyunjin even now.
Changbin stands aside to let Hyunjin in. “You’re shivering,” is the first thing he says.
Hyunjin hadn’t really noticed, but yeah, he’s shaking like a leaf. “Sorry,” he mutters, which doesn’t even make sense, but he just feels like he should apologize for taking up space in Changbin’s home.
Changbin waves a hand dismissively. “Don’t apologize, jesus. Let me get you a change of clothes. That’s for you, I’ll be right back.”
He points toward the couch, which has been pulled out into a bed and covered with sheets. There’s an array of mismatched pillows placed at the top, and Hyunjin wonders if Changbin remembered that he likes sleeping with a lot of pillows. That thought makes him feel a little too much for how drunk he still is.
Changbin disappears into his room and comes out with a pair of sweats and a t-shirt in hand.
“You’re blonde now,” Changbin says softly. It’s a little stilted, like they’ve never spoken before.
“Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“Like six months.” His hair is longer now, too. He’s so used to his hair that he barely recognizes pictures of himself from a year ago, so it’s strange that Changbin remembers him with short black hair.
Changbin hums. “It looks really nice,” he says, then passes the clothes off to Hyunjin. “Do you remember where the bathroom is?”
Hyunjin nods. “Yeah, thank you.”
He pads over to the bathroom and changes out of his damp clothes, thankful for warmth even if the sweatpants are a little short on him. Changbin is cute. He ties his hair up with the hair tie he’d forgotten was around his wrist, already dreading the tangled mess it’s going to be in the morning from being subjected to the rain.
When Hyunjin comes back out with his wet clothes bunched up in his arm, Changbin is setting a glass of water and some tylenol on the side table next to the couch.
“Take those before you fall asleep,” Changbin says, turning around to look at Hyunjin. He peers down and sees the way his sweatpants only reach to above Hyunjin’s ankles, and he sputters a laugh. “Sorry, I should have known you’d be too tall for those.”
Hyunjin feels his throat start closing up a little. He’s still stuck on Changbin setting out water and medicine for him, taking care of him, and his filter isn’t working too great tonight. “Why are you so nice?” he asks pitifully.
Changbin notes the shift in energy and furrows his eyebrows. “I’m not doing anything special, I’m just being a decent person. I wasn’t going to let you freeze to death downtown in the rain.”
“You should have,” Hyunjin whines, sitting down on the couch and leaning against the back. He tosses the pile of wet clothes onto the floor, shoes clattering around as they hit the ground, and pulls his legs up to his chest. “You had every right to laugh and hang up when I called, you know?”
Changbin folds his arms over his chest and looks down at his feet. “Yeah, I did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You were always so nice to me, Bin.”
Changbin shifts on his feet. “I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish here,” he says, cold as steel. “If you’re trying to butter me up to sleep with me again or something—”
“No, oh my god, no,” Hyunjin interrupts. That fucking stung. He’s slowly sobering up now, but he’s still tipsy enough that his eyes start to water. “I mean, I deserve that, but god, I’m so sorry. I really...I fucked up.”
Changbin’s defenses lower, but he still treads cautiously as he speaks. “I would usually wait to ask this until after you’re sobered up, but I don’t know if you’ll be here when I wake up in the morning. What the fuck happened back then?”
Hyunjin stares ahead of him, trying to find the right words in his scrambled brain. What happened is that he and Changbin met on Tinder for a one-time hook-up and it stretched into a month of seeing each other a few times a week. What happened is that they spent a lot of nights having sex, yes, but also a lot of time just enjoying each other’s company. What happened is that they shared one too many intimate conversations, one too many domestic back hugs in the kitchen, one too many kisses that didn’t lead to sex, and Hyunjin dipped out like the chickenshit he was before it could become any more real.
Hyunjin left one morning before Changbin woke up and never came back. He ignored Changbin’s messages until he stopped trying, even though it was absolutely killing him. Hyunjin had convinced himself that he wasn’t a relationship person. He wasn’t ready to give up his freedom, his autonomy, his control for someone else. He found a new fuck buddy a week later and made the mistake of adding a video to his Snapchat story of the two of them, dancing together at a bar with the new dude’s lips against Hyunjin’s neck. When he woke up the next morning, Changbin had replied to his video with ‘lmao fuck you.’
And that was that.
“I got scared,” Hyunjin settles on, because it’s the truth. He opens his mouth to keep talking, but he can’t focus with Changbin looming over him. “Can you, like, sit down?”
Wordlessly, Changbin sits on the edge of the couch bed. He turns to look at Hyunjin with a look that says he’s expecting a better explanation.
“I was going through a lot,” Hyunjin says, “and I was dealing with that with, uh, sex. My therapist says it’s a control thing — I have a therapist now, so, uh, that’s neat.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks, she’s helped me a lot. But anyway, yeah. I didn’t feel like I had control over anything in my life — work, school, the works — but the one thing I could control was what, and who, I did. I didn’t like the idea that someone could just...swoop in and take the reins on my emotions. Does that make sense?”
Changbin nods. “Yeah, it does. I can’t relate but I can understand.”
“And then,” Hyunjin continues. He’s tipsy-rambling, he knows, but Changbin will have to forgive him for that. “And then I met you, and you’re just like, wow. You’re hot and nice and we have the same taste in music and the sex was like, so good, holy shit.” Changbin snorts a laugh, which makes Hyunjin feel a tiny bit more at ease. “I caught feelings, you know? I can admit that now. I liked you, and that scared me.”
Changbin shifts and turns his gaze toward the floor. “You liked me? That’s...that makes me feel better, actually. That you weren’t, like, faking it. In retrospect, I thought you were pretending to like me to keep fucking me and then threw me away when I wasn’t of use to you.”
Hyunjin shakes his head hard enough to loosen his ponytail. “No, no no no, no, holy shit I’m the worst. I swear, I really did like you. When I was with you, I was being genuine, and that was terrifying. So I left, because I’m a coward, and I’m so fucking sorry, Changbin.”
“You’re alright,” Changbin says, lifting his head to give Hyunjin a weak smile. “It’s in the past, yeah? Don’t lose sleep over me. Plus, you seem to be doing alright now.”
“I’m...surviving. I’m doing better. More clear headed.” Hyunjin rubs at his eyes, willing them to focus. “Well, maybe not right this second. I’m still kinda drunk.”
Changbin chuckles, reaching over to take the glass of water off the table and handing it to Hyunjin. “Drink.”
Hyunjin gladly does as he’s told. It’s the best tasting water he’s ever had, but that’s what water always tastes like when he’s drunk and dehydrated.
“You had a girlfriend, right? For a while.”
Hyunjin swallows and tightens his grip on the glass. “Yeah. How did you know?”
“I still follow you on instagram, I’ll admit to that.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you still did. Uh, yeah, we dated for a few months,” Hyunjin says, tilting his head against the back of the couch toward the ceiling. “It was...it was nice. I needed it, I think. After I started going to therapy, I figured I should take a potential partner seriously.”
“Why’d you break up?”
Hyunjin shrugs. “I don’t think either of us thought we were good for each other in the long run, and we were both okay with that. It was a mutual break up and we’re both on good terms. I think I needed her to remind myself that I’m worthy of, like, affection outside of sex.”
Changbin reaches over and puts a hand on Hyunjin’s knee. “You are,” he says, patting his knee softly. “I’m really glad you’ve got your shit together now and that you seem open to, like, giving up a part of yourself for someone else one day.”
“Yeah. I want to try.”
“And thank you for explaining and apologizing.” Changbin retracts his hand and stands back up from the couch. “It means a lot, you know?”
Hyunjin nods, leaning over to set the glass of water back on the side table. “It’s the least I could do. I’ve felt guilty about it.”
“Like I said, it’s in the past.” Changbin points down at the pile of wet clothes that Hyunjin ceremoniously tossed. “Want me to throw these in the dryer so they’re not mildewy in the morning?”
Hyunjin pouts, bottom lip jutting out. “You’re the nicest person alive.”
Changbin laughs again, a balm to Hyunjin’s guilty heart. “You’re giving me too much credit.”
Just as Changbin leans down to scoop up the clothes, keys jangle in the front lock and the door swings open with too much fanfare for nearly 3 in the morning.
“Honey, I’m hoooome!” the guy announces, loud enough in Hyunjin’s sensitive ears that he winces. Hyunjin’s never seen this guy before, with his thick blonde hair tousled in his face and chubby cheeks that are, admittedly, cute to boot. It’s a different roommate than the one he’d met in passing before.
Changbin rolls his eyes. “Welcome home.” He turns to Hyunjin and cocks his head towards the guy. “That’s Jisung. He works at a bar downtown so he usually comes in screeching like a banshee at 3 am, don’t mind him.”
“Aww, thanks babe,” Jisung coos, blowing a kiss in Changbin’s direction. “What a sweet talker. Always has a way with words.”
Hyunjin’s heart sinks a little, but he tries not to let it show outwardly. Changbin has a boyfriend, because of course he does. A boyfriend that he lives with, apparently, and Hyunjin suddenly feels like he should be anywhere else but here.
Changbin chooses to ignore what Jisung said, instead starting toward the back of the house with Hyunjin’s clothes in hand. “Gonna throw these in, be right back.”
Jisung steps into the kitchen, only separated from the living room by a weak half-wall, and starts rummaging through the refrigerator. Hyunjin reaches for the water again, hoping he can avoid conversation by preoccupying his mouth with a long sip of water, but Jisung strikes up conversation first as he pops some food into the microwave.
“So, who are you?”
That’s a fair question, considering Hyunjin’s in his home. “I’m Hyunjin. I’m, uh, a friend of Changbin’s.”
Jisung presses the timer on the microwave and turns towards Hyunjin. He pauses, hardens his gaze, and his demeanor completely shifts from the loud, jokey person who walked through the door minutes ago. “The Hyunjin who was fucking Changbin?”
Hyunjin’s face suddenly burns with mortification and he feels more sober than he has all night. It’s safe to assume Jisung’s heard of him, and the shift is jarring. “Jesus. Uh, yeah, a while ago.”
“The one who ghosted him after you got your rocks off?”
Hyunjin needs to get out of this house as soon as possible. He doesn’t know how to respond, so he lets his silence speak for itself.
Jisung lets out a hum, a judgmental sound, and crosses his arms over his chest. Jisung is sizing him up and Hyunjin feels two feet tall. “Are you...sleeping on our couch?”
“I don’t have to.” The glass of water in Hyunjin’s hands looks real interesting right now. “I didn’t have anywhere to go tonight and Changbin was the only person I knew in this area, but I can...I can leave if I’m intruding.”
“No, no,” Jisung says, an obvious lie in how high pitched it was. “That’s between you and Changbin, don’t mind me.”
Hyunjin hears footsteps approaching the living room and sees Changbin making his way back in. Changbin stops, looks at Jisung, then looks at Hyunjin. “Okay, the energy in here is really weird.”
The microwave beeps. Jisung opens it, takes the bowl out, and closes it. “Have fun, make good choices,” he says sharply, exiting the kitchen without a second glance towards Hyunjin.
Jisung’s door audibly closes, and Hyunjin can picture the question marks appearing all around Changbin’s head.
“What was that?”
Hyunjin shakes himself out of the momentary shock. “I’m — I’m gonna go,” he mumbles, setting the glass of water down and standing up with a wobbly start. “I’m really glad we got to talk, but this was a bad idea, I think.”
Changbin looks even more confused than before. “What? No, Hyunjin, you don’t have to leave. What the hell did he say?”
Hyunjin starts looking around for where his shoes landed when he tossed them. “Nothing,” he says, leaning down to grab the first shoe he finds. “Jisung knows who I am and made it kind of obvious that he doesn’t want me here. I’m, like, intruding super hard, so I’m gonna go.”
Changbin exhales, rubs a hand over his face, and sits on the edge of the couch bed. “You don’t have anywhere to go. I’m not kicking you out.”
“I’ll call a friend of something, I don’t know. I can figure it out.”
“You live 45 minutes away, an Uber is going to cost you like $100, and you’re still kind of drunk. 'Jin, sit down,” Changbin says sternly.
Hyunjin frowns. “I don’t want to make things more awkward than it already is.”
“Then I’ll have a talk with Jisung and remind him to stay in his lane when it’s not his business.”
Hyunjin draws his eyebrows together. “I mean, it kinda is his business when his boyfriend’s ex-fuck-buddy is sitting on his couch. I wouldn’t want that either.”
Changbin lifts a hand and waves it around to stop Hyunjin from continuing. “Wait, wait. Boyfriend?”
“...Yeah?"
“Oh my god, Jisung’s not my boyfriend,” Changbin says, almost laughing from disbelief.
Hyunjin stares at Changbin for a second, squinting his eyes. “He literally called you babe and blew you a kiss when he got home.”
“It’s a dumb joke.” Changbin covers his face with his hands, but Hyunjin can tell he’s smiling, like it’s almost funny how ridiculous he sounds. “Jisung moved in like a month or two after you and I...yeah. He started treating me like a domestic partner as a gag one day and it just stuck. We’re really close friends, but I swear we’re just roommates.”
“He’s mean,” Hyunjin mumbles under his breath, jutting his bottom lip out. He sets the one shoe he found back on the floor and joins Changbin on the couch bed. “I thought he was being a defensive boyfriend, which, you know, would have been understandable.”
Changbin shakes his head. “I’m still very much single. Like I said, he’s one of my best friends. He’s an incredibly loyal friend, but with that also comes his need to protect his friends to the ends of the earth, even if he comes across as a dick. He was defensive because he knew you, uh, kinda hurt me.”
“So you told him about me?” It’s not accusatory the way Hyunjin asks, more curious than anything.
Changbin fully laughs now, visibly sheepish, and scoots himself up to lean against the back of the couch. He extends his legs out and deflates against the pillows. “Yeah, I did. I was still kind of hung up on it. I don’t deal well with heartbreak, I guess, and I thought you and I were gonna...be something? I dunno. I was being presumptuous.”
“No, you weren’t,” Hyunjin cuts in, following Changbin’s lead and scooching up next to him. “Being presumptuous, I mean. We were being pretty boyfriend-y.”
“Yeah,” Changbin says under his breath. He starts picking at his fingernail as he talks. “I was bummed, you know? And, like, maybe I would bum myself out again when I’d see you post a hot selfie or something on Instagram, but instead of just unfollowing you, I let myself drag it out.”
Hyunjin frowns. He resists the urge to apologize again; it’s Changbin’s turn to talk now.
“The term ‘the one that got away’ might be a little strong,” Changbin continues, “but that’s kind of how it felt. We hadn’t even gotten to try. So yeah, Jisung’s heard me whine more than once about how I wish things had gone right.”
Hyunjin never expected to get closure from Changbin like this. He never thought he’d get the chance to talk to him again, not after the stunt he pulled. This conversation feels too honest for two boys who never actually dated, but Hyunjin is glad it’s happening.
“Do you still think about me?”
Changbin sighs. “Honestly? Yeah.”
Part of learning to give up some control is having conversations like this, he thinks. Hyunjin doesn’t feel in control at all — he feels vulnerable and like he’s taken an emotional beating tonight, both from Jisung’s unfiltered call-out and from facing past-Hyunjin’s mistakes head on.
Maybe closure isn’t the right word for it. For some reason, it doesn’t feel like anything is coming to a close. There’s an air of hope around them, like maybe they can go back to square one and start over. At least, Hyunjin hopes they can. He might be ready. He’d try for Changbin.
“I’ve thought about you a lot,” Hyunjin admits softly. “I think running away from you made me realize I was self-sabotaging, because I never really forgave myself for that.”
Changbin lifts his head. “Really?”
“Yeah. How could I not, you know? We have so much in common. You made me laugh more than anyone else ever has. I felt comfortable around you, even when we were just hanging out and watching movies. And like, yeah, the sex was great, and yeah, you’re hot as Hades, but you’re also so nice and so funny and...and kind of my ideal person now that my head is screwed on a little tighter.” Hyunjin feels lighter now, a foreign but welcomed feeling. “Of course I thought about you. I just wish I’d met you for the first time now. I wish I didn’t fuck this up.”
“For what it’s worth,” Changbin says, turning his gaze back down toward his hands, “and considering we still think about each other after almost a year, I don’t think you fucked this up. Maybe you fucked up, but you didn’t fuck this up.”
Hyunjin’s eyes widen. “For real?”
“I’m not making any promises,” Changbin adds. “I’m gonna sleep on it. But if you’re actually interested, all I’m saying is it’s not completely off the table for me.”
Hyunjin almost gets teary again, because Changbin is the nicest person on earth. More than anything, he feels relieved. Being forgiven feels pretty good. “If you decide that’s what you want, I’ll be here.”
It’s late. They’re both visibly exhausted, and tonight has felt like an entire week. Changbin straightens up with an exaggerated groan and gets up from the couch. “Will you be here in the morning?”
“If you want me to be.”
Changbin takes a few steps backwards toward the hallway and smiles gently. He flicks the overhead light off, leaving just the lamp on the side table illuminating the room. “Don’t forget to take the tylenol. I’ll see you in the morning.”
With that, Changbin disappears down the hall and into his room. Hyunjin already feels his oncoming hangover, so he’s thankful for the last reminder, but it’s hard to feel too cruddy when his heart feels so hopeful.
He doesn’t deserve a second chance, he knows, but he feels lucky that Changbin is even considering it. That’s enough for him to sleep easy. He pops the tylenol into his mouth and washes it down with the last of the water. He turns off the lamp, shuffles himself under the sheets, and knocks out cold.
***
Hyunjin wakes up to the sound of mugs clattering against each other. He jolts, blinking his eyes open, and sits up with his face all scrunched up.
“Shit, sorry,” comes a whisper from the kitchen.
It takes Hyunjin a second to assess his surroundings and remember where he is, but when he does, he feels embarrassment hit him in the gut. He’s not so much embarrassed by the conversation he and Changbin had, but rather the general mess he was in to find himself at Changbin’s in the first place. He’s definitely never going out with that friend again.
“Time’sit?” Hyunjin slurs through a yawn. It smells like coffee throughout the house and nothing has ever sounded better.
“10:30-ish,” Changbin says. “You can go back to sleep.”
“Nah, I’m awake.” Hyunjin stretches his arms above his head and groans; he’s definitely got a hangover, but it’s not as bad as he’d expected.
“Want some coffee?”
“I would love some.”
“Good, because I just poured you a cup. You still take it black with two spoons of sugar?”
Changbin is good at remembering details. Hyunjin is done for.
“Yeah, thank you so much.”
Once he’s finished, Changbin brings both mugs of coffee into the living room. He sits down on the couch bed, close enough for their knees to rest against each other, and hands a mug to Hyunjin.
“You remembered how I take my coffee,” Hyunjin states.
Changbin blows some steam off the top of his mug and takes a slow sip, careful not to burn his tongue. “I try to remember things like that about people I like. I guess I never forgot.”
Even his girlfriend months ago didn’t remember things like that. It blows his mind a little, but it’s not shocking, because Changbin is the nicest person on earth.
They sit in comfortable silence for a moment. Hyunjin checks his phone, which has just enough battery left to make sure no one has called a search party for him, but he can’t be bothered to ask for a charger when it dies on him.
Changbin breaks the silence, his tone soft when he asks, “Do you want to try again?”
Hyunjin’s heart lurches. “Like, us?”
“Yeah.”
“I think I’d like that more than anything.”
Changbin takes another sip from his mug. “Don’t fuck this up,” he warns. “I’m trusting that you’ve changed and you won’t leave me high and dry again.”
“I won’t,” Hyunjin hurries out.
“Because I will kick your ass so hard you’ll meet God.”
Hyunjin giggles into his coffee. “You could kick my ass into the next century.”
“I’ve been working out more. I’m not afraid to wreck your shit at full strength.”
“Well, good thing you won’t ever have to do that, because you’re stuck with me now, actually.”
Changbin smiles. It’s wild, the spark that Hyunjin feels when he meets eyes with Changbin. It’s something out of a D-list cliché romance novel, but Hyunjin gets it. He’d spent so long convinced he’d never be worthy of being looked at like this, like he’s worth more than what he can offer in the bedroom. Changbin looks at him like he’s worth a second chance.
When Hyunjin leans forward, Changbin easily meets him halfway. The kiss is familiar, but imbued with a newness that makes Hyunjin feel like he might explode. It’s quick, a precious closed-mouth kiss, but that’s all they need right now. This is all Hyunjin needs.
“We’re taking this slow,” Changbin says authoritatively. He’s taking some control.
Hyunjin lets him. “As slow as you want.”
Changbin turns to look at the clock in the kitchen. “Do you need to get home soon?”
“Nah, I don’t have anything to do all weekend. I can head out soon if you need me to, though.”
“No, no,” Changbin says. “I just wanted to make sure. I’ll drive you, if you want me to. An Uber up there is probably still dumb expensive.”
Hyunjin gives him a worried look. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I don’t mind. It’s a little extra time with you, too.” Changbin reaches over Hyunjin and grabs the television remote from the side table. “But, if you don’t have anything to do today, do you want to hang out? With me? For a little while before I take you home?”
It’s cute that Changbin suddenly sounds insecure when he asks. Hyunjin smiles, leans over to press a soft kiss to Changbin’s cheek, and holds the warm mug of coffee to his chest. “That sounds like a great plan.”
Changbin grins and presses the power button on the remote to bring the TV to life.
Hyunjin is comfortable. He feels warm. He’s giving Changbin some control over his heart, and for the first time, Hyunjin isn’t scared.