Chapter Text
Chan shifted his shoulders in the suit he had on and tried not to feel claustrophobic in it. It wasn’t that it didn’t fit, but it fit tightly; Seungkwan had said it looked more fashionable but honestly it felt like his shoulders were stuffed into sausage casing. At least the feather wasn’t the weirdest thing he could have put on his lapel, although the glittery corsage thing on his wrist made him wonder.
“Dude,” he muttered to Hansol, who looked to be the calmest in this particular groom suite. “What the hell is this ribbon thing for.”
Hansol shot him a placid look. “It’s for the rings.”
Chan blanched and looked down at it, feeling through the ribbons before he looked up with a look of disgust. “You’re shitting me.”
“Yeah, but you look nervous. Just an hour more and we’ll both be out of these suits.”
“This is what you get when you let your boyfriend dress your wedding party,” Chan sniped. “Why you didn’t just hold a barbecue in the back yard I don’t know.”
Hansol looked up at him again. Just a look, but a long one. A thousand-mile-stare one. A war-weary one.
Oh. Right. Boo Seungkwan, getting married in a back yard somewhere? Not on.
It wasn’t that Chan didn’t like Hansol’s fiancé, but the omega tried to baby him, and that was a one-person job solely reserved by his mother. Grumpy, irritated by the slim-fit pants as well, he made his way to a sofa and sat down to scroll through Twitter in the hope of something catching his attention.
True to Hansol’s word they were past the ceremony and into the reception about an hour later. It was small, but pretty, and the most important thing was that Chan got to take the jacket off and sling it over his chair. The speeches seemed to take forever and he zoned through them (especially his own), before the dancing and stuff arrived and the floor filled with happy couples. Instead of partaking, he made for the open bar and stared gloomily at the selection.
“Buy you a drink?” came from Chan’s left.
Chan turned to look, head tilted. The man that stood there looked like a fairy, some kind of wonderland elf with the permed blonde hair, but the rest was very masculine, as was the forthright look in his eyes and the faint scent of another alpha over the smell of everyone partying. “Sure,” he said after a moment, taken aback. The blonde hair rang a faint bell – the guy was one of the grooms’ best friend or something – but for the moment he looked as world-weary as Chan felt.
The man turned to the waiting bartender. “Whiskey, two of them, the twelve-year.”
Chan’s eyebrows arched. Even with the ludicrously overpriced alcohol at this place, that was expensive. “Lee Jung Chan,” he said. “Just call me Chan.”
The man tilted his head and grinned back. “Yoon Jeonghan. Pleasure to meet you.”
They talked and drank for an hour, slowly getting to know the other, and Chan was surprised to find out that he was genuinely having fun. Seungkwan had come by to abduct him for a dance, and had been a bit of a nag about it. Another stranger – Soonyoung? – had challenged him to a dance-off, but he kept on returning to Jeonghan’s side. It wasn’t so much the alcohol, he had a high tolerance, but the other just seemed tired and worn down a little, a little attention-seeking with the oddest sense of mischievous humour.
Into the second hour, as the night fell, Chan polished off his second whiskey and shook his head when Jeonghan offered another. “Do you want to dance?” he asked instead. “Or is it not your thing?”
Jeonghan looked at him, eyes hazy, and the devilish smile from earlier turned into a sloppy, more genuine one. “Sure,” he said softly, and held his hand for Chan to pull him up.
Instead of just pulling him up, Chan did that and pulled him out of the main room as well, outside to the deck where the music was a little muted and tiny little fairy lights outlined the dark space. “It’s better out here,” he said as Jeonghan made a questioning noise. “The sound in there’s too harsh on the ears.” He reached out to tug Jeonghan in his arms, and smile as the song shifted over to a drama OST track. Seungkwan’s choice, surely.
Despite being a little taller than him, Jeonghan’s slim form fit into his arms perfectly, and the hitched way he started to sway made Chan laugh. “Not used to dancing with guys?” he teased, keeping a little distance between their bodies. “It’s okay, you can escape soon.”
Jeonghan’s smile looked a little vulnerable unlike the confident, strong person he had portrayed inside. “Nothing to do with your gender,” he said after a long moment. “I’m just really not good at dancing. I don’t mind men.”
It was such a bland statement that it intrigued Chan. “Nothing to it,” he said earnestly, and slid one hand to Jeonghan’s thin waist to urge him a little closer. “Just listen to my body and sway, it’s really not that hard. I’m not going to laugh.”
Jeonghan’s body stiffened, then slumped against his. The contrast felt strange: where he wasn’t the tallest but built from long hours of dancing and sports, the other was very very slim, almost waifish, with the delicacy of his appearance heightened by his facial features. He mused about it, danced on, and waited for the other to draw away or surrender to the dance. Strangely, he was still having fun, more so than he had expected.
The song turned to something from Hotel Del Luna, a sweet sad thing he didn’t recognise, but moments into it he felt a sigh against his cheek and the body in his arms grew a little heavier as Jeonghan slumped against him. Smiling past his shoulder, Chan simply tightened the arm around them and kept them twirling endlessly as night deepened over Jeju. He saw one of the other grooms look at him quizzically through the window – Hong Jisoo, he thought – but just nodded to him and kept dancing.
The party had long since ended before Hansol came to look for him. Chan looked up from where he sat on the porch seat, staring out at the ocean. Jeonghan had long since collapsed on the bench next to him, miserably drunk, and now he lay there sleeping softly, covered in his jacket and Chan’s.
“This is new,” Hansol said, sticking his hands in his pockets and frowning at the whole scene. “Did you find him or did you make him that drunk?”
Chan rolled his eyes. “We were dancing earlier, and the more he drank and danced, the sadder he seemed,” he said. “He didn’t eat much and it was either that or letting him wander off to the hotel’s general bar to get his drink spiked.” He paused. “I’m still confused as to who he is beyond Yoon Jeonghan, sad alpha.”
Hansol crouched down close to them. “He’s my boss’ best friend,” he explained. “I don’t know much about him beyond that he can be very mischievous and he’s in a constant state of teasing with Kwannie. I’ll call Jisoo-hyung so he can help him back to bed.”
Chan’s mouth tilted into a smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “Go and have your wedding night instead. I’ll make sure that he gets back to a bed.” Another grin grew on his lips. “Don’t be too loud, the rest of us still have to sleep.”
Hansol laughed as he straightened. “Tell that to my husband,” he said over his shoulder as he wandered away. “Night, Chan, thanks for coming. Let’s catch up tomorrow as well.”
Chan mumbled an affirmative, but looked at the sleeping man next to him. Holding his head gently up from his lap, he turned and bent to pick him up in his arms. Jeonghan weighed very little, and it cost him nothing to hold him against his chest, rolling one shoulder to nudge Jeonghan’s head against his neck and not flopping back. Taking a deep breath, he made his way back to the hotel carefully.
It didn’t take much to figure out his room, just a quick check-in with Hong Jisoo. Chan arrived at the door and shifted his hold on the sleeping man, digging for the room card he had hauled out earlier. The room he entered smelled like cologne, cool and comfortable, and he carried him to the far bed. Leaning down, he set him down gently on the blanket before moving to pull his shoes off. He didn’t do much more, just loosened a button at his neck and got rid of the tie, then popped the button on the slim black trousers’ waist.
Seconds later, pulling the second bed’s quilt up to covered Jeonghan, he sighed and straightened, pinching at the bridge of his nose. If the man already felt sad…
He cast about, then poked through the toiletries bag in the bathroom. With two painkillers and a glass of water at the bedside, not to mention plugging the thin phone in to charge, there really wasn’t anything more he could do. Another sigh – he really wasn’t sure why he felt he should do more – he turned on his heel and left the room, pulling the door firmly shut behind him. They hadn’t drunk nearly enough to worry about vomiting, so the elf would be alright.
Chan didn’t think of the blonde man much after the wedding. Instead, going back to Seoul he went to the dance club that the other man with dyed hair had suggested: where Yoon Jeonghan had been an odd mix of delicacy and strength, Kwon Soonyoung was like a punch to the face – at least when he danced. Off the dancefloor he was sweet and silly and doted on his boyfriend, and it didn’t take long at all for the three of them to become friends.
It wasn’t until a month later, freshly sweaty and filthy from a long routine the two of them had choreographed, that he saw the man again. This time Yoon Jeonghan stood wrapped in a slim coat next to Soonyoung’s boyfriend, and the two talked quietly as they looked at the dancers on the floor. Their eyes met – Yoon Jeonghan smiled at him– and he hesitantly smiled back, thinking to the traces of sadness the man had slowly shown him on that night.
He neared them slowly as Soonyoung bounded to greet his boyfriend, who fought his octopus-arms off and scolded him for trying for a hug when he ‘stunk of sweat’. It really wasn’t anything new to Chan so he nodded to Yoon Jeonghan instead. “Hey,” he muttered, reaching to rub at his scalp and shoulders with his towel. “Sorry. Dancing is hard work.”
Jeonghan smiled teasingly. “So I saw. I’m sorry for crashing in unannounced like this, but I wanted to say thanks for what you did for me. I’m sorry it took so long as well, but I had to track you down first. I was wondering whether I could buy you coffee?”
Chan blinked and looked down at himself. Sweaty, dressed in his oldest dancing clothes and shoes. “I’m… not really dressed for it?” he said. “And you really don’t have to, Jeonghan-ssi, it’s alright. I was happy to help.
Jeonghan’s smile dimmed a little, but he nodded firmly. “Then it’s alright. Thank you again, Chan-ssi.”
Chan watched him walk away, confused – had he missed something or did it just feel that way?
At his side Lee Jihoon snorted and shook his head. “I didn’t know there were two idiots,” he said, sounding irritated. “Did you have to do that?”
Chan shook his head and looked at Jihoon’s irritated expression. “I… actually have no idea what just happened. It’s true, I am sweaty. Soonyoung-hyung too, look. I didn’t want him to feel obliged, he doesn’t owe me anything.”
“Idiot,” Jihoon said again, stuffing his hands into the down coat’s pockets as he continued to lean away from Soonyoung’s clingy arms. “He wasn’t asking you for coffee to say thanks, he was asking you for coffee because he wanted to ask you out. Or do you have something against older people?”
Not for the first time, Chan grimaced irritably at the question. “Hyung, no,” he said firmly. “Not you too, Seungkwan-hyung’s been on some kind of crusade lately.” Biting his lip, he looked at the pair of them before he tugged his hoodie up and threw the towel over his shoulder. “I’ll be back, just give me a moment!”
“Go left!” Soonyoung shouted behind him as he ran to get to the exit.
He caught up to Yoon Jeonghan wandering a block further, panting when he reached to tap his shoulder. “Jeonghan-ssi!” he said. “Hold up, will you?”
Eyes wide, Jeonghan turned on his heel, then frowned as he saw Chan. “You ran all this way?” he asked, fingers going to the sash of his coat. “Here, hold on – that was stupid, do you want to catch cold?”
Somehow the scolding cheered Chan up; Jeonghan sounded so much like Seungkwan that the touch of the familiar soothed him. “No, it’s okay,” he said cheerfully, staying his movements. “I’m fine, I’m strong. Look, I wanted to say that I misunderstood just now. I thought you were only offering out of obligation, and I look like a sweat-soaked rat anyway. I would like to get coffee with you, I’m just going to stick out like a sore thumb unless we get at the dance club’s canteen.”
Jeonghan’s expression gentled a little. “I don’t mind?” he said quietly. “Coffee is coffee, I’m not that picky. Do I really look that stuffy?”
Chan grimaced as the wind fluffed through his sweat-wet head, chilling his scalp. “You’re wearing a Balenciaga coat and I’m wearing a t-shirt that I probably should have thrown away three years ago,” he said honestly.
“Yes,” Jeonghan said as he moved to walk back to the club next to Chan. “I saw the shirt. So did everyone else, especially when you lifted the hem to wipe at your face and all the girls squealed.”
That made Chan blush and kept him quiet all the way back to the club. Seeing the rice-and-kimchi pair still inside, surrounded by other dancers, he peeked at Jeonghan. “Look, can I get you a cup of coffee and ask you to wait? It won’t take long to shower, I promise, and then I can take you somewhere nicer than here.”
Jeonghan stared down at him from the scant height difference between them. “I’m older,” he finally said. “I’m taking you somewhere nicer.”
Chan’s eyebrows arched. “Age is a factor here?” he asked, already stripping off his hoodie. “Fifteen minutes. I’ll go get you the coffee.” So he did, enjoying the slightly confused look on Jeonghan’s face, and ran through his shower as quickly as it could. When he came back Jeonghan was on his phone, with girls circled around him as they giggled and asked for selfies. It gave him a moment to lean against the wall and admire him objectively.
He still had the permed blonde hair from the wedding but it looked softer now, and his face was a little gaunter underneath it than last time too, tending towards heroin chic more than slim but healthy. Gentle, especially in how he talked to the girls and posed with them, but also standoffish; Chan could almost see the divide between the façade he projected and the tired, unhappy man he had been earlier, and that made his heart ache. He didn’t like the look of the man, not because he wasn’t beautiful, but because he seemed less than optimal, less than his true potential.
He pushed away from the wall and wandered to Jeonghan’s side, clearing his throat to scatter the girls. “That’s enough,” he said kindly but firmly. “I need to kidnap him for an appointment.”
The girls – they looked to be from Bomi’s class – giggled but nodded, thanking Jeonghan with little bows as they decamped. Before the elder could speak, Chan reached down for the hand not wrapped around a phone and pulled him up straight, frowning at the confused smile he got. “There’s a restaurant close by that does good food and good portions,” he said encouragingly. “Let’s go? You look as if you haven’t seen the barest sniff of red meat in months.”
“You’re very flattering,” Jeonghan replied with a drawl, but a little of the hidden tension in his face disappeared. “Come on then.”
Chan scoffed, shook his head and wandered out. Fortified with jacket and pants it wasn’t that cold outside, and they were soon in the restaurant. Waiting until Jeonghan slipped in, he sat down as well, grabbing chopsticks from the box as he dragged the menu closer with the other hand, twisting it to face Jeonghan. “Pick,” he said, twisting to eye the drinks selection. “My treat.”
Jeonghan laughed at that, unexpectedly deep, but his hands folded around the menu as he scanned it. “If you think I’m going to let someone fresh out of university pay for me you’re making a mistake.” He flicked a glance at Chan, then looked back at the menu. “And that is not up for negotiation, so be good and just take it, alright? I owe you in any case.”
Deep inside Chan something bristled but he pressed it down, focusing instead on the long, slim fingers holding the menu. “In that case prepare your wallet. I hope it’s strong enough to survive.”
To Chan, friendship wasn’t a thing that you could build overnight, especially not with a personality like Jeonghan’s. It took a lot of work: the alpha was stubborn at times, and their natures clashed over the strangest things. He was a big brother himself, he was used to taking care of others, and despite his knowledge of Jeonghan’s inner strength he still saw him as delicate. It was a hold-over of their first meeting that he just couldn’t forget. That pining sadness dragged at Jeonghan; the people that the alpha depended on most was out of town on their individual honeymoons, and the New Year period had never been fun, so Chan was less use than teeth on a chicken in cheering the other up.
He was at a loss for what to do, until an idea hit him barely past New Year, right on the coldest day of the year.
Chan had never called Jeonghan, they texted mostly. Still, he initiated the call this time and waited impatiently for it to go through.
The phone clicked, and the voice that came from it sounded as if Jeonghan had been gargling rocks for a week. “Hello?” he grumbled, word cracking in the middle. “Hyung isn’t good for coffee today, sorry.”
Chan blinked, pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it, and put it back. “Switch to video,” he ordered, and frowned when Jeonghan grumbled. “I’m serious. Switch to video.”
The call simply ended. So did the next two, until video finally flashed on the screen: an exasperated-looking Jeonghan, roots coming in dark but with blonde hair stuck to his temple. His nose, Chan saw, was redder than Rudolph’s nose, and his eyes had an old, rheumy cast to them. “You’re sick, aren’t you,” Chan said simply. “You look like someone’s taken to boiling your eyeballs in lard.”
“Fasci…nating,” Jeonghan mumbled, collapsing back into what seemed like his bed. The phone flopped, turning the vid-call to a slice of his hand and the ceiling.
Man, I don’t know why I worry, Chan grumbled internally.
Except… he did know, and it irritated him vastly. “Send me your address and the door code, I’m bringing you some medicine,” he said.
A rippling kind of snort came from Jeonghan’s side.
Chan frowned, looking around at his small apartment, then brought the phone close to his mouth. “Jeonghan-ssi!” he yelled into it. “Apartment address and door code! I’m not going to give up!”
A stream of swearing came from the other side, broken by deep, racking coughs, before the call ended. Luckily for Chan’s sanity, a location came through soon afterwards, followed by a line of middle finger emojis, then a door code and an apartment number. There were some words as well, but they read like garbage – then again, if Jeonghan’s eyes were functioning at all, he’d eat his dance shoes. Scooting quickly through his apartment, he grabbed a jacket and his wallet, then stamped on his shoes, ready to war on the cold and snow outside.
Half an hour later, deep in the warren of uber-rich apartments in Gangnam, he half-wondered whether they’d let him in, but the door guard had been notified somehow, the elevator opened for him, and he made his way to the second-to-last floor in quiet, music-filled splendour. From what he could see when he stepped out, there were only a few apartments on the floor; Jeonghan lived at the far end.
He opened the apartment and peeked inside, and immediately wanted to pull his head back out again. The place was huge, yes, but it smelled of sick person so overwhelmingly he couldn’t even find the normal scent he associated with Jeonghan. Gritting his teeth, he closed the door firmly behind him, put the medicine and the food down on the closest open surface, then went invalid-hunting. The place was absolutely massive, filled with discarded clothes, trash and too-trendy white leather furniture. “Gosh,” he muttered to himself, wrinkling his nose. “More money than taste.”
Chan found the corridor to the bedrooms at the far end of the lounge, sliding it open and stepping through. The bedroom was massive as well, but smelled even worse of sick person than the rest of the place. He longed to open a window, but the aircon was already blasting so much chill air that it’d be a death sentence. Stumbling over some kind of Hermes bag, he patted the heaps of clothes down until he found the remote on one side of the bed and switched the heating mode.
Jeonghan lay supine on the other side, hips barely covered with a blanket and thin chest surging as he panted. His lungs sounded wet, and the moment Chan stepped close to him he could feel the temperature spike around him. He’s so sick, sicker than I thought… “Wake up!” he yelled at the blonde, reaching to pull the filthy blanket up around his shoulders. “Hyung, wake up!”
To his surprise Jeonghan startled awake from the daze he lay in and stared up at him through bloodshot eyes. “Channie?” he croaked, then coughed – a nasty, disgustingly wet one.
Chan, cursing under his breath, darted back out to the bag full of medicines, getting the digital thermometer as quickly as he could. He checked it, inserted it into Jeonghan’s ear – Jeonghan whined and tried to get away – and cursed again when he saw the temperature on it spike up to just below forty degrees Celsius. He reached out to help Jeonghan’s thin body up, trying to get him where the mucus in his throat wouldn’t sound so dreadful, and pinched his nose shut as the alpha immediately coughed up wet globs onto his shirt. “It’s okay,” he said as softly as he could. “It’s okay, don’t worry.”
Holding a panting Jeonghan straight with one hand, he dialled for an ambulance with the other. Afterwards, assured that one would be dispatched immediately, he wrapped Jeonghan in the cleaner blankets and lifted him, carrying him out to the lounge to wait.
It wasn’t too long before the kitchen phone rang; the door guard gave him a little trouble but was eventually persuaded to send the paramedics up. As they took Jeonghan and strapped him to the small trolley, he fell around, but eventually located Jeonghan’s wallet more by luck than anything else, and followed them anxiously downstairs.
The hospital was a whirl he never wanted to repeat. He had to phone Hansol to get Jisoo-hyung’s number, then the beta for all the information he couldn’t fill in, and it was a good hour later before they let him into a small private room. It was almost sweltering inside, and a doctor muttered something about pneumonia at him as he scratched in the medical chart. All Chan registered really was that he’d have to stay overnight, that Chan might as well leave since he wouldn’t wake up soon, and that visiting hours the next day was bright and early.
“You should take better care of your partner,” the doctor got in as a parting sally; Chan was too tired to run him down and explain. It felt unfair in any case, he was a good acquaintance at the very least, if not a friend, and … well…
Partnering someone. There was a thought and a half.
Chan sank down in a nearby plastic chair and scrubbed at his face. Partnering. Mating. It had been on his mind a little, especially with the recent weddings, but he had never liked anyone enough to even attempt that.
He stared thoughtfully at the thin, blonde figure on the bed, hooked up to an oxygen feed and a heart monitor. His thoughts churned that the doctor had so easily assumed he was a partner, and wondered. They had been seeing each other a few times, which was a few times more than anyone except Soonyoung, and he hadn’t even questioned his drive to stimulate him, make him less sad. Fine, so that had ended in a hospital, but he had been on the verge of dragging him out to gym, then a restaurant.
Was Yoon Jeonghan really just a friend?
Chan was at the hospital the next day, then the day after that, and the little kernel of confusion in him shaded towards anger. Jeonghan didn’t wake up, which gave him plenty of time to stew. He tried to ameliorate it with dancing, then cleaning his most problematic friend’s filthy apartment, but it simmered in him like a low-level fire merely waiting for a spark to leap out. In the end, phone creaking so loudly that he was afraid of it, he did the simplest thing he could: phone Hansol to have it out with him.
“You do know,” Hansol said after a long time of ringing, “that technically a honeymoon means no-one disturbs you?”
Chan stared at the opposite wall. “I don’t know what to do about something, and it’s not something I can ask my dad.”
Another long wait before Hansol finally sighed. “What is it?”
“Jeonghan-hyung is in the hospital,” Chan said. “I know you know that, but he’s not waking up, and I’m worried. And then…. And then I’m furious too. For some reason I’m so furious I can feel it eating at the back of my throat.”
That got a quicker answer, even if he heard a soft muttering on the other side first. “You’re angry?” Hansol asked. “How angry?” He paused. “And what kind of an anger?”
Chan thought back to the apartment he had cleaned up with shaking hands, and the way the nurses shied away from him. “Remember that time that someone tried to bully Gun at school? It’s like I’m feeling protective, but there’s no target for it? Like… the person I’m feeling protective about can – at least on paper – take care of themselves. But I’m still angry. So angry that I can feel it every time I swallow.”
“I’m putting my wiser half on the call,” Hansol said instead, and soon the sound of the phone hitting the table came, along with a “Hello, Chan-ah” from Seungkwan.
Briefly Chan considered being ashamed or irritated, but he had made his bed in making the call in the first place. “Hello, Seungkwan-hyung. Sorry to disturb you two.”
“Tell us again about the anger,” Hansol said after a moment.
Chan sucked a breath in, then slowly let it out his nose. “It started just after New Year, when I rode in the ambulance to the hospital with Jeonghan-hyung. We had been catching coffee and meals for a while, and I thought we were friends, and then the doctor made a mistake and told me to take care of my partner better. It stung, you know? Even if it wasn’t true, it stung, because I had been trying, since he looked miserable and depressed at the wedding and it was clear he needed a friend somehow. I was trying at least.”
Seungkwan’s concerned, wordless noise pushed him to continue.
“And then I arrived at his apartment, and it was disgusting. It was actually a disaster, because he was so sick he couldn’t get out of bed and he had laid so long on the bed under the air-con he couldn’t even regulate his temperature anymore. It made me even angrier, because he was so sick I couldn’t yell at him, but I really wanted to. And now, each day I sit next to his bed I grow angrier and angrier, and I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know why I’m so angry. He’s older than us, right? He should be able to look after himself?”
Hansol and Seungkwan’s sighs sounded so closely together it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began. “You know alphas are protective,” Hansol began.
“I know!” Chan burst out. “But…”
“Hush,” Seungkwan said. “Let Hansolie talk.”
“You know alphas are protective,” Hansol said again. “We all show it in different ways. Like Seungcheol-hyung making sure that the other alphas didn’t bother Jisoo-hyung, or the way that I try to have some coffee ready for Boo when he’s having a bad day. The point is, we try. That protective instinct is hardwired into us; sometimes it twists and you get horrible people, and sometimes it’s frustrating.”
Chan snorted. “You make it sound like a living thing,” he muttered.
“It very nearly is. The fact is, from what I can tell you’re angry because you care about Jeonghan-ssi, and you’ve been trying to take care of him a little by being his friend and going out with him when it’s pretty clear that he’s lonely and not happy. But then you were confronted by how much he didn’t care about himself, which is a waste of your protectiveness,” Seungkwan added. “Like… why am I trying to make you feel better when you make yourself feel like shit. It’s worse because you can sense he’s vulnerable.”
“And because you’re a decent guy, Chan-ah,” Hansol said afterwards. “No one likes it when their friend is that neglectful of themselves. Not even…”
Chan frowned down at the phone. “Not even what?” he demanded.
“Chan-ah,” came Seungkwan’s voice. “Is there a possibility that you actually care for Jeonghan-hyung? Like… really care?”
Chan plucked the phone from his ear, ready to let rip, but his tongue twisted and the question he had asked himself came up – was Yoon Jeonghan really a friend? Would he get this angry over any of his friends? “Oh god,” he muttered softly, feeling something shrivel inside himself. “But he’s another alpha, and he’s older…”
He heard Seungkwan’s snatched-in breath, likely to scold, but it was Hansol that got there first. “And?” his best friend said lazily. “That has fuck-all to do with the price of oranges in Jeju. Don’t be sexist, bro. And also, I’m putting the phone down because you’re worrying my mate. Yell double at Jeonghan-ssi for us. Bye.”
The click of the call ending resounded in Chan’s mind as he stared disbelievingly at the screen, feeling his world shift slowly but inexorably to one side.
Holy shit, holy shit, was it true? Had he grown fond of Yoon Jeonghan somewhere between all the coffees and restaurants, to the point where that was the first thing spilling out of his mouth?
Chan groaned and tossed his phone away, reaching up to yank at his hair. “I’m fucked,” he ground out, jaw aching with disbelief and a little shame. “So, so, so fucked.”