Work Text:
Zitao waits in the courtyard of Sehun's college with a scarf looped securely around his throat, hiding the moth inked down the centre and it's lace wings spread either side from view. Sehun's own class and the art and design classes two floors down have students that wouldn't look twice at Zitao, but Sehun leaves the building in a stream of typists and business studies.
"Sehuna," Zitao waves frantically, ducking around the flow of people all heading in the opposite direction. Sehun looks up to see a steady progression of people staring and turning their heads to continue staring before tufts of his blue hair come into view.
Sehun shrugs her bag to the other shoulder and pulls Zitao in to link arms once they're level. He squirms happily and elbows her in the side. "Was this really so urgent you couldn't wait for me to get home?" She chides first, because Zitao doesn't look the kind of urgent that requires mortal fear. "I didn't think you'd want to come back here."
Sehun is right that after the travesty that was Zitao's first and only term this isn't somewhere he's enthralled to be revisiting, but he has more important things on his mind than reminiscing. "I couldn't wait any longer!" Zitao tramps his feet in emphasis as they walk. Sehun received her first urgent text from him an hour ago and isn't surprised that he was able to leave work early enough to meet her here.
"Better tell me then, before you burst." Sehun's bag slides from her shoulder when Zitao suddenly detaches himself from her side to instead throw his arms around her. They both fall a few steps to the side, Zitao's weight reliant on Sehun balancing them back out. Sehun shoves him back upright and entirely loses hope of no one from her class noticing them and having questions tomorrow. "What. Did you find a ring in Junmyeon's things or something?"
Zitao whines and gives her a gentle shake before freeing up his hands to gesture with. "He's asked me on a date," he says with a flourish, and Sehun waits. Blinks enquiringly and then nudges Zitao away.
"That's it?" She gives Zitao a hard look. He still looks flustered. "You've been together for two years and y—"
"Nearly three," Zitao butts in, pouting furiously. "And we've never been on a date. I mean I've never been on a date, he has. This is really urgent."
Sehun sighs a stream of cloudy breath. She didn't bring a scarf; she could take Zitao's if she throttled him with it first. "How have you never been on a date?"
"A proper date," Zitao looks exasperated. "I mean we've been to, we go to parks and cafés and things like that and go out sometimes when we can, b— stop," Zitao clutches tight at Sehun's arm and tugs her from side to side to try and shake the grim expression from her face, "We do gross love stuff when we can, but he's never taken me on a proper date. A proper-proper date."
Sehun shrugs. If Junmyeon's taken his time she figures it's either because Zitao is happier being treated to places that allow him as much food as he can fit in within a time limit or that proper date company that will allow Zitao's decorated hands and neck isn't easy to come by. "Well I've never been on a proper-proper date either, so I don't know how I'd— and I will vomit if you did all this just because you wanted to tell me how much you love him."
"Stop being a jerk," Zitao whines, although that is partly true. "I want your help, we need to make plans."
"No and no."
"I'll model for you?" Zitao tries, although the severity of his pout significantly detracts from that offer. "You said you needed a not-girl model for your presentation. And there's no one else you don't hate."
Sehun purses her lips. Her plan since getting the brief had been to track Chanyeol down in Jongdae's appointment book, although assuming that he would a. agree in the first place, and b. be both reliable and available when required was more wishful thinking than certainty. However perfectly proportioned he was, Zitao is probably a safer bet.
"You'd need to change your hair colour, and Jongdae would have to be ok letting y—" Zitao's arms are back around her and his weight bowing her to the side before she can finish the terms and conditions.
"Thank you!" Zitao presses tight into Sehun's side, tighter, cheek to cheek. She groans and lets him finish nuzzling, pressing into the stud there, then takes a firm grip on his hand to get them moving away from the building.
˘
Zitao's date is three days later, and Jongdae delegates him six hundred (rough estimate) pointless tasks that morning to keep him at least somewhat quiet. He's on around stencil no. 308 when Yixing visits to bring them both lunch. Yixing cooks traditional when Zitao is going to be trying it, and he's still there animatedly discussing ingredients, Jongdae understanding very little of their conversation and chewing on what Zitao is neglecting to eat, when the chime above the door sounds.
"Sehuna," Jongdae waves, the first to look over.
Zitao's stomach immediately twists with nervous excitement and regrets the amount of greasy food he assured himself would comfortably fit in there. He has a pencil stuck behind his ear from losing interest in his stencils half an hour ago, and Sehun plucks it out with a frown before Zitao can gouge her eye out lunging across the counter.
"Waaa." Zitao latches on tight around her shoulders, toes barely on the floor.
"Hey." Sehun returns the wave to Jongdae with one hand and absently pets at Zitao's hair with the other. "Sorry I couldn't come sooner."
Jongdae shakes his head, but the stacks of incomplete work on his desk are telling that Sehun definitely could have come sooner. "Do you know how to stop that noise?"
"Not yet."
Sehun joins them behind the counter to make use of the heater there while Zitao files away the stencils he did get finished and strategically stacks the ones he didn't. Sehun looks away from him to Jongdae and realises that Yixing isn't a customer at the same moment Jongdae realises they haven't been introduced.
"Oh." He smiles sheepishly at being caught with Yixing's arms around his shoulders. Not that he's ever officially enforced a no-cuddling-at-work rule, but it doesn't hurt to make Zitao think he has.
Sehun likes Jongdae, so Sehun smiles with sweetly pursed lips when Yixing steps towards her, hand extended. "You must be Yixing," she says. His smile is warm enough that hers starts to feel a little more genuine.
Yixing's Korean is less stilted than Zitao's when he replies, smile turned wide-eyed as he compliments her hair. His hand is rough, smaller than Sehun's own.
"She's with Tao," Jongdae says unevenly as he spins his chair back to his desk and hunches over.
Sehun anticipates it, but Yixing's grip on her hand doesn't falter. He looks as though he's replaying the sound of her voice as he glances back to Jongdae, but Jongdae is drawing with his nose an inch from the desk. Yixing's expression is pleasant, gentle confusion when he looks back to her, but Zitao bobs up at Sehun's shoulder before either of them can say a word.
"Gē! This is Sehun. Her hair was purple before but I think green compliments mine more, right?"
Sehun is somewhat relieved when Zitao's arms sling around her and pull her hand out of Yixing's hold.
"Uhmm. Yeah, that's me." She confirms with a shrug. "And I didn't dye it to compliment his specifically.." She already knows Yixing by description from constantly overhearing his name; he looks bemused enough that she assumes that's not mutual. The look he gives Jongdae when they separate back to their respective partners is telling of why.
Zitao blocks the doorway until Sehun concedes to wearing his gloves. He takes her hand in his own when they're ready to leave ("Well if you're wearing them what's going to keep me warm?") and attracts Jongdae's attention with another pitch-perfect, "Waaa."
Jongdae stands from behind the counter to see them both off with a half-smile and dismissive wave. "Have a good time."
"Are you going somewhere nice?" Yixing asks, and Jongdae sinks back out of view. He has so much explaining to do he might just take the afternoon off.
"With umma!" Zitao exclaims before nosing into his scarf bundled around Sehun's neck.
˘
Sehun had intended to get Zitao up to her room immediately, but her mother had (unsurprisingly) heard him arrive and delayed proceedings by ten minutes. She was more enthralled with Zitao's retelling of how he'd been asked on an extremely special romantic date than anyone else who's had to hear it.
"But you do your own eyeliner every day." Sehun rolls the orange her mother had insisted on giving her between her hands (Sehun doesn't snack much between meals; Zitao's appetite is a joy to her mother), as yet unimpressed with Zitao's reasoning for sending a red alert to be collected from work.
Zitao makes a distressed sound from behind an orange segment and puffs out his cheeks. He gulps it down after a moment of vigorous chewing, spluttering before explaining, "I want to look really nice. Nice like you do. You have lots of stuff I don't and practice more."
Sehun frowns. "And Junmyeon would be ok with you all made up? Where's he taking you?"
Zitao stares down at his fingers; his nails pierced the skin of the orange again and the juice is as far as his wrist. "I dunno," he admits softly.
Sehun heaves a sigh.
"Didn't he give you an outfit to wear? Or suggest anything?" Zitao is shaking his head. "Then what are you wearing?"
"I was just going to wear black and hope for the best?"
"Jewellery then? Silver or gold?"
"Gold, probably, I was going to wear this necklace he got— don't don't, ok no details," Zitao throws his hands up in surrender when Sehun holds the orange up in threat.
˘
Zitao likes Sehun's home. It's always hot and stuffy in a way that makes Zitao's head muzzy and means never having to shiver from bed to bathroom (or kitchen) in the night.
Zitao is warmed from the inside out as Sehun's fingers brush his jaw to blend out a smear of foundation. Warm like his head is full of cotton wool. Zitao wears eyeliner nearly every day but has never bothered with things like the satin primer Sehun vigorously smoothed over his skin, and he's not even sure he could identify some of the products she'd dug out of an Ironman lunch bag larger than the pouch that travels with her to Junmyeon's place.
"Good thing I had testers in other shades." Sehun contemplates Zitao's face, tilting him left and right with both hands for inspection. "Yep. You'll do."
Zitao is stock-still while Sehun plucks items from the pile beside them and starts to line them down his thigh. "So like," he's sitting as upright as possible, back straight, leg steady as she reorganises them into order of use, "Is this the kind of thing girlfriends do before dates?"
Sehun blinks up at him. She has her hair loosely braided, the longer sections at the front swept away from her face and secured with clips on top her head. After peeling away false lashes and rubbing irritation from her eyes numerous times, her 10 hour worn make up from this morning is far from glamorous. She changed into sweatpants and an old Tshirt before starting; before sitting cross legged opposite Zitao with a pile of make up on the floor. "Yeah," she says after a moments thought. She doesn't feel terribly pretty right now, but Zitao is still giving her that infuriatingly besotted look.
"It's fun. I've never done it before."
"Neither have I."
Zitao smiles. Sehun scowls gently, playfully in return. Rolls her eyes when she reaches for Zitao's face and he starts talking again.
"I was, I was excited about this part, too," Zitao says, skin warmer under Sehun's fingers than the first time. "I love both of—"
Sehun kneeling up abruptly interrupts him. She leans over him brandishing an eyebrow pencil. "Gonna poke your eye out," she says conversationally. "I know you do. But don't you dare get emotional and ruin this before I've even started."
Zitao obediently keeps his eyes closed for several minutes of intermittent pressure sweeping over them, Sehun tutting and muttering under her breath.
When he dares crack them open again it's unintentional, in surprise when Sehun presses something into his hand. A container with a circle of bronze, glittering powder run through with flecks of deep purple in leopard spots. It's so pretty. Zitao stares at it mournfully.
"Are we using this?"
"Yeah. Just hold it a moment, I need to find the brush." Sehun leaves his side to dig back into the lunch bag, clattering inside it until coming up with a brush three times the thickness of any other Zitao has seen. "Do you want it? It doesn't suit me."
"I can keep it?" Zitao jolts closer, briefly forgetting about perfect modelesque stillness. "Thank you! It's so pretty. What do you use it for?"
Sehun's answer comes in firm, blunt strokes with a soft brush along the ridge of Zitao's cheekbone. The loose powder makes him splutter, but Sehun swats at him to keep still so she can return her attention to his eyes. She goes back in with a second layer of powder, creamy beige and run through with less glitter than the wider base of copper.
"Look up." She nudges Zitao's chin and he obediently blinks his eyes back open and skyward. He tries not to wince as a thick pencil comes very, very close to his eye.
"Can we do this again?" Zitao asks when Sehun shifts to his right, the rim of his left eye now soft and smoky black.
"If you can get a second date," she says before her lips purse, tongue poking out between them in concentration.
Zitao doesn't respond, because Zitao doesn't want to be stabbed in the eye. There's a quiet warmth between them as she works, a soft buzz beneath his skin that makes his thoughts and movements turn heavy and lagging. Sehun's full attention on him — on his features, on making him beautiful, at ease under the trust he's given and sharing such close space when this is so so important — it makes his pulse flutter, sweet and squeezed tight. Makes him glow warm inside and her breath falls over his cheek and he feels so much it's— he feels kind of sick, actually.
"I think I, I think I have butterflies."
Sehun makes a sound Zitao decides to take as interested. "Did you really never even go on a date before you met him?"
Zitao pouts. Sehun nudges his chin back up. "No, I mean, 'cause of now. And for later, obviously. But, now, too."
"Well I'll have to practice on you more often. We need to work well together for my presentation."
The cap finally goes back on the pencil and Sehun is far enough back for Zitao to give her a smile. "I'm a good model."
"Do your own waterline. Only to halfway," Sehun instructs, digging back into the bag at her side for a pocket mirror.
Zitao glimpses bronze and gold on his eyelids, but much as he'd like to study Sehun's work so far he doesn't keep her waiting.
Sehun takes the mirror and pencil back before kneeling up close again. She sweeps under his eyes with a smaller brush dusted through a light rose-purple. The loose powder stings Zitao's eyes and she gives his knee a sympathetic pat but threatens him on pain of death not to let his eyes water.
"Huna, can I come back here after?" Zitao dabs a pointed tissue into the corner of his eye to soak up the welling tears. "I'm not sure what umma will want to do. But I don't wanna go home after, it'll ruin it."
Sehun frowns. "Stay the night with him, Tao. If it's taken you this long to get a date at least make the most of it."
"I dunno what he'll say, though. It's a work night for us both, and.. It depends on lots of things."
Making a face as she reaches for the eyeliner, Sehun shakes it against her palm a few times before giving it a tap against Zitao's leg. "But if this is important then I'm sure you could.."
"It's not that easy." Zitao shrugs, prodding at Sehun's shin with his fingers. Sehun is always of the opinon that it's better to do what you want and deal with the consequences afterwards, but Sehun has a very different standing with her parents and no employer to get on the bad side of. "I don't like that it's like this. My parents aren't like yours. And you know what umma is like, he's always resp- responsible, even if it makes things bad for him."
She shrugs, too. "I don't mind if you want to, I just thought.." It's not like Zitao wouldn't have thought staying with Junmyeon was preferable. "Though I have an early class tomorrow."
Zitao nods in understanding, though Sehun's track record in regards to sensible bedtimes isn't all that clean regardless. Sehun gives Zitao's thigh a squeeze, soft and fleeting, before offering him the eyeliner pen.
"Do you want to do it yourself?"
Zitao shakes his head, purses his lips. Sehun has steady hands and he can hold his breath. "You know what style you're doing, you should do it."
Without being asked Zitao scooches back to lean against the bed, solid support to keep himself still as possible. Sehun kneels up to lean over him, eyeliner uncapped and raised. "Look down," she says, but her fingers tilt Zitao's head up towards her and his line of vision follows.
"Down," she repeats, firmer. "Don't blink."
The brush moves in short, overlapping strokes from Zitao's inner eyelid. A thin, quick line flares out from the corner.
"Is that a guideline?" Zitao asks under his breath. With his eyes near-closed he doesn't anticipate the smack to his upper arm, howling exaggeratedly more in surprise than pain.
"You want me to make you look half-decent you shut up about my methods." Sehun probably makes a warning gesture, but Zitao has his eyes obediently low.
They are guidelines; filling them in is long wet slicks over his eyelid, cold to his warmed skin.
Sehun slips a tube of gloss into Zitao's bag, thinner and paler, redder than the shade she normally wears. "For the love of god remember to dress before you put it on. Don't reapply too often or you'll get a buildup."
"Huna," Zitao does an impressive imitation of her glummest expression, "I haven't forgotten everything 'cause I'm excited."
"If you go to eat — you're most likely going to eat, just," she continues, "Don't laugh with your mouth full. However nice it is don't wave your hands around," Zitao opens his mouth to protest, but Sehun's warning look silences it to an agitated puff of air. "And if it's somewhere fancy enough that the menu doesn't have prices, don't call him umma."
Zitao does protest to that.
Sehun's mother is always sweet to Zitao, and he feels it more than ever when she asks him to come into the kitchen so she can see Sehun's work in good light. Together he and Sehun seem to take up a lot of room in the small, crowded space. Sehun didn't get her height from her mom; Zitao makes himself as small as possible when she reaches for him. She compliments him with an affectionate brush to his hair, fingers resting at the crown topped skull inked behind his ear as she tilts him down closer.
"You look so handsome! Doesn't he?"
Zitao gets a glimpse of Sehun rolling her eyes as he's turned towards her, her mother smiling at him as though the pride is hers to have when he's pulled back.
"You must let me meet this man one day, whenever I ask questions I get told off."
"Mom," Sehun looks on despairingly. "You're going to make him late."
The warmth in Zitao's chest feels like it reaches it's capacity, starts to spill out and spreads into his stomach, rises to sting at the back of his nose. She gives his hand a parting squeeze instead of voicing any of the questions obvious on the back of her tongue.
Zitao gulps in a deep breath of chilled air when he steps out ahead of Sehun, willing the emotion down. He should probably check with Sehun how much of their arrangement her mom actually knows about, but she's always been as kind towards him regardless of if he's holding Sehun's hand or emoting over his boyfriend (or both at once).
Sehun walks with him as far as the sidewalk, arms around herself, on tiptoe in her socks.
"Do I really look ok?" Zitao palms his face with both hands and bats his lashes at her. It's not as effective as when she does it; Sehun drew the line at loaning out her eyelashes.
"Better than usual, but it did take an hour."
"Thanks."
A full body shiver takes Sehun so she gives Zitao a gentle shove to get him moving. "Just don't panic, don't mess up doing your hair, take a lot of pictures so I have references, and send me a picture of your outfit. And his."
"I will." Zitao isn't expecting anything as glamorous as the effort he's gone to from Junmyeon (although it's not like he needs anything to make his lips pinker and prettier), but he's almost as anxious to see Junmyeon as he is for Junmyeon to see him. ”Have a nice night. I might see you later?”
Sehun nods, tugs Zitao by his shoulder for a peck on the cheek. ”Maybe you'll get lucky."
Zitao's glitter-lined eyes go wide as he gasps. "You think I'd go home with someone on the first date?"
He still has yet to fully master intonation; Sehun purses back a smile at how stern he sounds. "Don't feel obliged to send updates if you do. And don't call him umma."
˘
Sehun is patting her face dry while looking over the combined sum of her own and her mother's skin care containers when there's a knock on the bathroom door. Her mother's voice comes through soft, distinctly sounds like she's smiling. It's barely 9:30 and Zitao texted her because Sehun wasn't replying.
Sehun wonders how Zitao keeps track of all the umma entries in his contacts. He arrives before she's even finished moisturising.
"It's so early," Sehun leans against the doorframe, giving Zitao a highly judgmental look. "You two are such losers."
"You look so cute!" Zitao exclaims loudly, reaching for the hairband at her forehead and then aiming at a smear of face cream not thoroughly rubbed in when she smacks his hand away.
"Shut up and get in here, it's freezing."
Zitao looks drunk, but Sehun knew even before the sloppy kiss to her chin that he hasn't touched a drop. "Upstairs," she groans. She's more than used to how soft and ridiculous Zitao gets when he feels loved.
Sehun shoves Zitao towards her room and heads back into the bathroom to finish up her skincare. She thought Zitao would be jumping on the bed or running circles into the carpet waiting for her to get back, but instead she finds him flat out, stripped down to his underwear. His skin is more patterned than her bed covers.
"I need a shirt," Zitao says with a wave, reaching out as though the suggestion will make one materialise.
"You could have looked for one yourself." Sehun's own effort extends to toeing at a pile of laundry to see if there's anything shirt-like in there.
"I might have touched a bra by accident." Zitao holds up both hands, staring at them aghast.
Sehun notices something new every time she sees Zitao's inked skin. Tonight it's a crescent moon between Zitao's ribs, nearly hidden by the aged spread of another design. He's like scribbles on the back of a school binder.
"No sleeping until you've taken your makeup off." Sehun nudges Zitao when he looks ready to drop back down once his arms have successfully navigated the sleeves of a soft cotton shirt. Zitao wrinkles his brow, eyes squeezed shut.
"Can you do it?" Zitao misaims the first time he makes a swing for her. He catches her the second, pawing at her waist, squirming closer. "Sehun, Sehuna, Sehunnie, hunhun. Huna," he groans into her side, "Can't you do it for me?"
"You can take off your own damn makeup. I already spent an hour putting it all on you."
Zitao makes a sound almost convincingly heartrending. "But it's nicer when you do it. My eyes are so hot, mèimei."
"No." Sehun says firmly, but Zitao felt how she sagged against him. (And she does, carefully, gently.)
Zitao appears dead asleep by the time Sehun is ready to join him, face wedged into the space between pillows. It takes some nudging to get him moving, propped up by Sehun's elbow and kept moving with a knee to his tailbone.
"mèimei," Zitao mumbles as he tugs at her arm, this time more happiness than tease. "Thank you for your help."
"Any time. Tell me all about it tomorrow." Zitao is so warm as Sehun obliges, arm tucking around his waist. Junmyeon already texted to thank her, emoji choices as excessive and nonsensical as ever. "Sleep well."
Zitao hums in response, already drifting again. Then Sehun slots in tight against him, chest to back. Sehun never wears a bra to bed, and despite being familiar with the fact Zitao is immediately very much awake, face filling with heat.
"There was one important thing though," he says, not conviced it wasn't obvious his breath caught.
"I thought you were tired." Sehun isn't — not really, as is often the case when she has early classes the next day.
"Yeah, but I told umma I'd ask— uhm," Zitao is pretty sure he's flushed as far round as the nape of his neck, but that doesn't deter Sehun from pressing her forehead there. "We wondered— Would you come too? Next time. All of us could have a date."
"So it went well enough that he wants another one?"
"Yeah." Heat spreads from Zitao's face past his neck and into his chest, swoops low into his stomach. "It, it was, I—"
"Love him so much," Sehun says for him. Zitao can practically hear her contorting in playful displeasure. "I'm well aware. You've been together for two years and—"
"Nearl—"
"Nearly three years, and you're like this still."
"I can't help it," Zitao protests, voice wavering, tiredness starting to catch him up again. "He looks after me so well. It makes me feel all.. all.. Huna," he whines softly, heel finding her shin, "What's the word I want."
"God knows. Too many to choose from. But yeah, I'd come with you. I don't think we're going to keep getting away with mom not meeting him if she realises we're all together, though.."
If Zitao were more awake and had fewer hearts in his eyes he might find that prospect worrying, but he just giggles. "At least he's more her size. And you know what umma is like.. If he's managed to keep my parents happy with him for this long I think yours will love him."
"Mm, maybe don't call him that if we introduce him, though." Sehun is sure her mother will be charmed by Junmyeon, like she is with Zitao despite his distinct lack of actual charm. She may have a lot of questions that Sehun knows she'll have to answer one day, but for now her mother unconditionally welcomes anyone that Sehun would willingly invite home ("especially when they're such nice handsome young men").
Zitao laughs again, squeezes the arm around his waist tight. "Umma, meet umma~"
"Yeah, let's not do that." Sehun leans over Zitao the little she can with her arm trapped. His features scrunch up a little as strands of her hair fall into his face, but the soft kiss to his temple evens them out again.
"That means it's sleep time," Zitao sounds a touch disappointed. "But he, Huna, we had a private room and everything, and it—"
"Early class," Sehun reminds him. But an early class means she can leave by lunch, visit Zitao at work and subject Jongdae to hearing everything all over again. Zitao knows that, too, so squirms in closer to try and settle despite the excitement still trying to bubble up. Sehun warm against his back and holding him secure around his waist helps lull it down, though, encourages him to save his stories for a better time.
"Love you."
"I know."
"So~ much."
"Don't push your luck." Sehun sounds grouchy, though the little squeeze of her arm just makes Zitao's grin ever wider, and, "Early class, Tao," she emphasises with digs of her chin into Zitao's shoulder when he tries to speak again. And he would keep trying to speak again if the warmth and gentle thrum of happiness didn't lull him to sleep so fast, Sehun following soon after.