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Staying over at Johnny’s place isn’t actually part of the plan.
Of course, it’s a given they’ll be visiting – it isn’t often they get to holiday together, to Chicago much less. But the idea of sleepovers hadn’t crossed Johnny’s mind until Mark turned to him from some chick flick on the plane, eyes wide. “Hey, we’re staying at your place one of the nights, right?”
Johnny removes one earbud, honestly relieved to have some sort of distraction from the B-grade thriller on the screen in front of him. “I don’t know. Do you want to?”
“Dude, it’d be so fun!” Mark laughs, eyes shining. “We could go get Starbucks and mess around at Target, then watch movies until 3am. Then we could wake up late and make toast and eggs for breakfast.”
Mark has a knack for making everything sound comfortable, and Johnny almost says yes, right there and then.
“There aren’t enough rooms for all of us, though,” he says instead, stretching out his legs – or rather, unfurling them just enough to relieve the growing cramp in his calf. His body wasn’t made for premium economy, he decides wearily. “Let’s talk it over dinner when we touch down.”
“Sure,” Mark nods, but he’s snickering. “You should talk Jaehyun into switching seats with you.”
Johnny makes a dry expression. “I don’t think business class is worth me interrupting his kissy face time with Taeyong. No thanks, I’ll just suffer.”
A seat away, Doyoung snorts quietly. His screen is blank, but his earbuds are in – he must be listening to music, probably something from his latest musical. Johnny feels a smile tug at his lips before he knows what’s going on, and self-consciously drops it the moment Doyoung’s eyes meet his.
“Anyway, just something to think about, y’know, I thought it’d be fun,” Mark rambles on, already unlocking his phone, then slumping in his seat when he realizes, for the fifth time, that he can’t use the internet on the plane. “Did you know Doyoung’s never been to a Target?”
The other man sighs, pushing up his glasses. “Mark-ah, I’ve never been to America. Stop sounding so surprised.”
“Still! It’s Target! We have to go!”
“Okay, fine, it’s not like we said no.”
Johnny’s eyes linger on Doyoung from time to time after that, the way he looks with his eyes closed, lips diligently following lyrics from one of his latest gigs, looking all too put together in his denim jacket and styled hair for a twelve hour flight. It’s kind of infuriating, in a familiar, comforting sort of way.
It surfaces the image of a boy in sweats and an old t-shirt, sitting with his legs brought up in a company studio that’s falling apart at the seams, smiling in surprise as he takes the foil-wrapped kimbap roll from Johnny. The sound of his quiet, airy laugh, the warmth of his hand around Johnny’s wrist.
By the time he remembers to look away, Mark is grinning at him. Johnny clears his throat, not sure why he’s embarrassed, and trains his eyes on the movie in front of him for the rest of the flight.
*
It’s a miracle, Johnny hears often, that they’ve managed to stay so close after going their own ways since SOPA days. Out of all of them, Doyoung and Taeyong are the only ones who go way back, joined at the hip since middle school. Jaehyun and Johnny only’d started crossing paths more often when they’d bagged roles in the same drama, and Johnny hardly even sees Mark anymore, the boy busy with his top-secret idol comeback preparations.
He knows it’s mostly Doyoung, though – Doyoung, who organizes deliveries of churros and coffee to their filming sites, who coordinates dinners at locations and times they all can make, who memorises their birthdays so he can send them shoes and jackets from their favourite brands.
Doyoung, who still tries, even when Sicheng’d stopped talking to them after Jaehyun and Taeyong started dating, even when Taeil’d gotten busy with his programme at Hanyang and stopped replying his dinner invites.
It’s a miracle the same way Doyoung’s musical success was – built on years of blood, sweat and tears nobody remembers.
“I forgot to tell you,” Jaehyun says, some time after they’ve touched down. “Taeyong and I were thinking of heading to Connecticut early. You know, to see where I went to school and stuff.”
“Okay,” Johnny says, bleary from the lack of sleep. “So we’re leaving Chicago early?”
“As in,” the younger man blushes furiously. “Just the two of us, you know. After the lunch at your place, we’ll take a night flight over. If that’s okay.”
Ah, classic Jaehyun, still getting shy about his relationship after a year and a half going strong with Taeyong. Still dropping by Johnny’s Kakaotalk with anxious texts for dating advice, phrasing his plans like he’s asking for permission.
“Right, I see how it is,” Johnny rolls his eyes, dragging his luggage off the conveyer belt. He’s just messing with Jaehyun, though – he knows how much this trip means to him and Taeyong. “Yeah, of course. You guys booked a hotel already?”
“We’ll manage,” Jaehyun says, with the dismissive air and purchasing power of a black card holder. “Anyway, Taeyong was thinking, there’s not much of a point in just Doyoung and Mark trying to get an Airbnb while you guys are in Chicago. Why don’t they stay at yours?” He continues, before getting distracted by his luggage, passing by on the belt.
Some miracles are hard earned, Johnny thinks, and some happen just like that – Mark breaking out into the widest grin once he hears the news, and Doyoung looking over from the full length windows of the airport, pleasantly surprised, warming Johnny up in a circle spreading out from his chest to the tips of his toes.
*
Contrary to popular opinion, Johnny is not in denial.
He’s completely self-aware about his crush on Kim Dongyoung, thank you very much, and has been since the feeling first sprung up six years ago, back in SOPA. Except that back then, he’d been convinced Doyoung and Taeyong would get together – with the way they stuck to each other all the time, squabbled over food choices, nagged like a married couple, who would’ve thought otherwise?
Except they didn’t. And when Jaehyun and Taeyong popped the news they were dating a year after graduation, Johnny was knee-deep in his career, dabbling in photography and acting and modelling. Dating anyone was the last thing on his mind, though this wasn’t to say he didn’t still try, for his parents’ sake.
At this point, the butterflies were old news, longstayers in the bottom of Johnny’s stomach. It was enough that the two of them still saw each other, still grabbed lunch when they could and came over for dinner when their schedules didn’t clash.
It’s enough, Johnny thinks, gripping the steering wheel as Doyoung straps into the passenger seat, setting a cold can of coffee for him in the cup holder and adjusting the GPS on his phone, mounted on the dashboard, tilted up at just the right angle.
It’s enough because at the very least, Doyoung’s there, and Johnny can’t quite imagine a life where he’s not.
*
Though, honestly speaking, this trip might just mark the end of his life, anyway.
Taeyong ends up underpacking for the bitter Chicago weather, and shivers in silence for the three minutes after they step out of the restaurant, heading for the park.
“Just take mine. I brought extra,” Doyoung hands him his padded jacket before anyone, even Jaehyun, notices. To Jaehyun’s credit, Taeyong and Doyoung have always just had that freaky best friend psychic connection.
The wind whips around them as they walk through the park, and Mark scuttles behind Jaehyun, hands stuffed into his pockets, complaining loudly. Johnny barely notices it, more interested in a pair of dogs out on a walk, sniffing eagerly at joggers’ ankles and barking at trees.
“Nnh,” Doyoung makes an unintelligible sound, squeezing behind Johnny against the side of the pavement, as the dogs gambol past him.
“It’s okay, I got you, the big bad dogs can’t hurt you,” Johnny chuckles, grinning when the younger man glares up at him.
Then Johnny notices the redness of his nose, and the way he’s starting to sniff, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “You’re cold?”
“I’m not!” Doyoung says, before promptly sneezing. “Okay, maybe a little. But Taeyong probably needs the padded jacket more than I do. Why is Chicago so cold?” He demands, like it’s Johnny’s fault.
The older man just laughs, automatically shedding his coat and pulling it around Doyoung before he can protest.
“Don’t be dumb,” Doyoung complains, but he doesn’t take it off. If anything, he curls up into it, still frowning. “What if you get cold?”
“I grew up here, remember?” Johnny jokes. It’s true – he barely feels anything without the extra layer. “I’m a cold, chic Chicago man.”
“Shut up. You’re the warmest person I know,” Doyoung argues, then stutters, blinking. Johnny stops walking to look at him in confusion, and for a moment, they’re just staring at each other.
Until Doyoung sneezes again.
“This is so unattractive,” he mumbles, pressing his shirt sleeve to his nose while Johnny laughs.
“Who’s there to attract?” Johnny pulls the coat tighter around Doyoung – it still hangs a little loose, despite his sharp, broad shoulders. Johnny kind of likes the way it looks on him, in a fuzzy, warm way. “It’s just me.”
Doyoung looks up at him, a wry, fond smile on his lips. “Just you?”
None of the rest comment on the fact that Doyoung’s wearing Johnny’s coat, but by the river later, Johnny sees Doyoung lift the collar up absent-mindedly to cover his pink nose, sees his shoulders rise as he takes a breath.
Then he seems to remember himself, turning sharply to glance at Taeyong, who’s giving him an indiscernible look, and when he turns back, the pinkness has spread from his nose to his cheeks, too.
Johnny likes the way it looks on Doyoung.
He likes the way he looks on Doyoung.
(He should probably get that checked.)
*
Don’t be embarrassing please, is what Johnny implores of his parents when he calls, two months earlier, to tell them about they’ll be stopping over in Chicago during the holiday.
It’s wrong to say his mother never listens to him – she does, and then proceeds to do the exact opposite of everything he asks. That’s the only explanation for the WELCOME HOME, JOHNNY banner standing proudly in his front yard, pictures from his latest drama plastered all over.
“End me,” he whispers in pain, but Mark’s too busy literally Rolling On the Floor Laughing in the backseat.
There’s nothing Johnny can do to stop them (including his mother) from forming a little cult circle in front of the banner, chanting his name, Doyoung leading the charge.
Nothing changes when they’re inside, as he finds old pictures of his elementary school days lovingly tacked on the walls, and his room remodelled to put all his old medals and trophies up on the walls.
His mother and excessively numerous aunts then proceed to stuff them full of food, from the galbi that his father’s painstakingly grilling out in the back, to the salad and kimchi jjigae his mother’s been cooking since morning.
Coming home is much better than it used to be, and Johnny eventually relaxes, even when he’s sitting in the living room next to Jaehyun and Mark, while his mother sits by the piano stool, rifling through his old photos.
“He’s our only son, you know,” she says importantly to Doyoung, who looks especially, heart-clenchingly soft today, drowning in a sky blue hoodie, sitting on his heels. There’s something about the way he’s listening to his mother, genuine as always, that does funny things to Johnny’s heart. “So we brought him on trips every Friday to Sunday. We did everything he wanted to do.”
Johnny snorts lightly, tipping the glass bottle of beer back so he won’t have to make eye contact with anyone.
“When he got older, every time I brought him to the grocery store, everyone would turn to look at him. Everyone in our neighbourhood! He was so tall, you see,” His mother adds, and Johnny groans, hiding his face. “When he carried my shopping bags, the cashier would tell me congratulations!”
“Ah, it’s the same in Korea, omonim,” Doyoung says with a smile, unaware of the looks Johnny’s many interchangeable aunts are giving him. “When we go grocery shopping, high school girls come up to ask for autographs.”
Mark laughs, and Johnny shoots Doyoung a betrayed look. His mother, however, is absolutely living for this.
“Do they now?” Her eyes are sparkling. It’s a trap, Johnny wants to yell, but he’s not so sure Doyoung’s still on his side anymore.
“When he and I go to cafes for lunch, the baristas at the counter give him complimentary desserts,” Doyoung says smugly, shooting Johnny a sideways glance. “And they write his name with a heart on his coffee.”
“It’s true,” Taeyong affirms over his sparkling water. Traitor #2.
Johnny doesn’t think he’s seen his mother this delighted since he told her about his breakout acting role last year. She reaches over, on her knees, to pinch his cheeks. “I knew it. My handsome, talented son. My lovely Johnny.”
He grimaces, though it turns into a smile once he sees Doyoung sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him, watching the two of them with a warm contentment.
And if his army of aunts are conspicuously exchanging hushed, excited remarks in the background, well, Johnny can ignore it for now.
*
Jaehyun and Taeyong catch a cab for their domestic flight at around five, leaving Johnny in the house with Mark and Doyoung, trying (and failing) to clean up after themselves.
“Go enjoy your young people things,” his mother shoos him out the door busily. “Don’t worry, your omma will take care of everything at home, okay?”
Johnny warms up the engine of his dad’s car as Doyoung gets into the backseat, flushed after a whole afternoon of talking and laughing. At the front door, Mark’s still tugging his shoes on.
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus back there,” Johnny scowls, adjusting the rearview mirror. Doyoung’s smirk comes into view, making his heartbeat jump.
“Don’t be silly. I was just filling your mom in on everything that’s happened with her handsome, talented son,” the younger man laughs. “Just kidding. It’s clear she misses you a lot.”
“Yeah,” Johnny grips the steering wheel. “It…it was nice. Being back here. Feeling welcome.”
“Yeah?” Doyoung smiles. In the evening dimness, through the rearview mirror, he looks softer. Johnny almost jumps when the younger man touches his shoulder, a calming presence. “That’s good.”
Except for Mark, the rest of them know about his relationship with his family, the complicated feelings that’d driven him out of Chicago to South Korea in the first place. And sometimes things would happen that’d still make him want to run. But as he’d grown older, and so did his parents, things had changed.
Johnny had grown up. Things had happened to him, people happened to him. People like Doyoung, who made him want to fight for relationships that he didn’t think he needed to save.
Mark yanks open the front door to the car and hops in, then, and Doyoung’s touch disappears like the sun slipping below the horizon. Johnny puts some Troye Sivan on the speakers and Mark starts singing, as they drive, off into the dusty blue of the evening.
*
Things only mildly start spinning out of control once they’re at Target, and Mark’s excitedly trying his best not to empty out the store into their trolley when Johnny gets a text from one of his cousins.
suh jinhee:
you have a new boyfriend??
Johnny distractedly types in a response with one hand while grabbing a box of Bagel Bites from the freezer.
you:
no??
where did u hear this from?
“I need new shorts too. I lost my shorts on the second night,” Mark adds, navigating their shopping cart away.
“They sell clothes here?” Doyoung’s eyes widen incredulously. It’s kind of cute, and Johnny would smile if he weren’t in a bit of a social crisis here.
“They have everything here,” Mark (founder of Target, probably) says proudly. “C’mon, hyung!”
suh jinhee:
I heard you brought him back to your house this afternoon
why didnt you tell us you were bringing someone back from Korea!!!
we would’ve been there!!
Johnny rolls his eyes. Invite his cousins over, so they can get their gossip fodder first-hand instead of through their moms? Nothing ever stayed a secret in the Suh family when he was a teenager, and apparently, things haven’t changed a bit. They’re probably getting their siblings in Seoul to do top down stalking of all his social media now.
you:
i don’t know what you’re talking about haha
i’m not dating anyone
Nothing happens for a while, but Johnny knows he’s not safe yet. Jinhee’s probably blowing up some exclusive cousins chat out there now, plotting their next step.
He just doesn’t expect their next step to come so soon.
suh jinhee:
kkkkkk
his name is kim dongyoung, isn’t it?
Johnny almost runs the shopping cart into a mannequin. Doyoung clucks his tongue disapprovingly and takes over the reins from him, while Mark rifles through the shorts selection.
suh jinhee:
is it true you go on café dates together?
and do grocery shopping?
We go for lunches on our off days, like normal friends do, Johnny wants to argue. Why should I even have to explain this to you, anyway? We get groceries together sometimes, because my apartment’s in the same area as his dorm. He comes over to make dinner because it saves money, and Doyoung’s practical like that. We’re just friends.
He looks up, seeing Doyoung inspecting the two pairs of shorts Mark’s holding up, running his hand across the seams inside. “Get this one. The other one has a cheap lining, it’ll start fraying after a few months, especially since you dance so much.”
Mark nods seriously, accepting this decision without a second thought, before diving into another rack, presumably to search for more clothes.
Then Doyoung turns the entirety of his gaze to Johnny, from the white hoodie in his hands. “Should I get this?” He holds it against himself, looking in the smudged supermarket panel mirror. “It’s so cold here in Chicago.”
Johnny doesn’t know what possesses him in that moment, but he shakes his head, throat dry. “Don’t. I’ll give you one of mine.”
We’re just friends. Friends get close to your mom. They make sure you have your favourite brand of coffee before long drives. You cook dinner with friends and watch dramas together under a blanket on the couch afterwards.
You like the way friends look in your clothes.
Doyoung doesn’t seem to get it, at first. He frowns, not taking his eyes off the hoodie. “But it’s so comfy! And not too expensive. It’s got that Chicago feel too, you know, the…” he looks up, right into Johnny’s eyes, trailing off in the middle of his sentence.
It’s like the world stops around them right then, down to the molecules of air, so it feels like Johnny’s breath is trapped in his lungs, frozen in place.
“Oh…?” Doyoung’s voice sounds funny and far away, breaking the silence. He pauses, before putting the hoodie back, looking away. “Okay.”
When he glances back, his cheeks are pink again, and this time, Johnny has a feeling it’s got nothing to do with the cold.
For the nth time in his life, Johnny blesses Mark’s existence in his life, because the younger boy trundles back cheerfully, a hoodie over his arms, making him the only thing standing between Johnny and asking out Kim Dongyoung in a fucking Target.
“I’ll give it to you when we’re back home,” he mumbles out of the corner of his mouth as they head to the cashier. “Remind me if I forget.”
Like hell I’m going to forget.
“Okay,” Doyoung says, smiling.
(Johnny can’t even get mad when he gets suckered into paying by both of them later.)
*
While Mark and Doyoung are taking turns with the bathroom upstairs, Johnny carefully picks out a pullover in navy blue and white from the stack of fresh laundry in the living room.
The soft fabric wrinkles in his shaking hands as he starts heading back up the stairs. His mind’s in such a mess, he barely notices his mother until she physically grabs his elbow (the only part of him she can comfortably reach).
“Did you enjoy yourself today, Youngho-ah?”
“Yeah. Sure,” Johnny says, mouth dry. When he senses she expects him to continue, he tries. “We tried to go to Starbucks just now, but it was closed. So we hit up my old middle school and walked around for a while.”
“That’s very nice,” his mother smiles. She starts tidying the mantelpiece beside him, where a couple of his high school photos are still framed up, taken during one of her many visits to Seoul to find him. “Your friends are very nice, Johnny-ah. They seem like kind people.”
“Yes, I think so too,” Johnny says firmly, gripping the pullover tighter.
“Especially that Kim Doyoung. I heard you have dinner together sometimes?” his mother waves, voice dropped to a whisper. “At your apartment? Just the two of you?”
“We do,” Johnny replies tightly. Old habits die hard, and he knows where this is going.
“So you two are close then? Very close?”
Back when he was younger, she’d been a lot more callous about it, verbally tearing through his ex-girlfriends, the things they said, the things they wore. Just listen to your omma. Only date the nice girls omma introduces to you, okay?
Even after he’d packed and left for Seoul, even after they both started making an effort to fix what they’d chosen to ignore for the past seventeen years, she still hovered over this one particular sore spot, unwilling to back down.
Look at this watch she bought you. Thin plating. Poor quality. It’ll tarnish in a few years. Not like the Rolex your appa bought you last year. Does she think my Johnny is so cheap?
He gave you ten roses for your anniversary? So? Doesn’t he know my Johnny doesn’t like flowers? Why are you dating someone who doesn’t even know you?
At the end of the day, though, it wasn’t what she said that frustrated him, it was that he listened. Suddenly, he started disliking things about the people he loved that he’d never noticed before. And true enough, after a few months, a year at best, things would end.
After a decade and six thousand miles, he was still a prisoner.
“He told me all about you after lunch just now. About all the wonderful things you’re doing in Seoul,” his mother brushes an invisible speck of dust off the mantelpiece. Johnny does recall seeing Doyoung deep in conversation with his mom at the couch that afternoon, before he’d gone out to help his dad tidy up the grill. “He talked about everything you told him about home here, too, you know. Middle school, and wanting to be an actor when you were little.”
Johnny frowns, trying to pick apart what she’s trying to say. He knows, only now, that with her, it’d never really been about the watch, or the roses.
“He said he’s been wanting to come see where you grew up for a long time.”
He has. This whole trip had, in part, been Doyoung’s idea in the first place. His mother has this unreadable look on her face, like she doesn’t quite know where to look.
“What are you holding your jacket for?” Her smaller, rougher hands touch Johnny’s then, like leaves in autumn, his favourite season. It’s only then he looks down, realising he’s crumpling the white letters embroidered in the navy blue fabric.
He swallows down his fear, and looks her in the eye. “It’s for Doyoung.”
His mother nods, even when he says nothing else. He finds himself waiting, like the accused in a dead silent courtroom, for a verdict.
She looks far, far up at him, and smiles, lips pressed together, patting her little autumn leaf hands against his white knuckles. For once in Johnny’s life, she can’t say anything.
It’d never been about the watch or the roses. Just like how Johnny knows, only now, that all those times he broke down in front of Taeyong about his significant others never being enough for her, it’d never really been about them.
His mother glances down once more at the pullover, then back up, smile mellowing. “He does look nice in blue.”
Johnny just nods.
By the time he’s processed what she’s said, she’s walking away, and he’s halfway up the stairs, holding onto the pullover like a lifeline.
He takes a deep breath, and turns around.
“Mom,” he says, voice echoing through the big, empty house. He can still see her at the doorway to the kitchen. “I’ll – I’ll try to be back for Chuseok next year. With him.”
Through the darkness, he can see her smile.
*
Doyoung’s showered and sitting on a chair in the guest room and looking through his phone, legs brought up to his chest, when Johnny walks in.
“Hi, cold Chicago man,” he smiles absently. “Did you see the photos Taeyong sent? Apparently they touched down in Connecticut a while ago.”
“Yeah,” Johnny mumbles, though he hasn’t. Doyoung turns his phone around, a picture of Johnny and Mark showing off their matching passport cases at the airport. “Cute.”
“Yeah, super cute,” Doyoung swipes the screen, but he looks distracted. He’s pretending he hasn’t seen the pullover.
“Anyway, this – uh, this…it’s yours,” Johnny says, numb with recklessness from everything that’s happened this trip. “You like it?”
Doyoung’s eyes light up, and he stands, all shyness out the window, taking the soft fabric. “It’s so soft. And comfortable,” he presses his cheek to it, beaming, before he reads the bold white letters emblazoned across the front. “Chicago.”
“Is it okay?” Johnny asks, one hand still on the jacket. It feels like fire where it touches his fingers.
Doyoung studies the jacket. Then, wordlessly, he lifts the pullover, slipping it on effortlessly, Johnny absently helping to pull the hem down past his waist.
There’s a full length mirror on Johnny’s closet, and Doyoung turns to inspect himself in the mirror. Johnny’s heart does a funny little flip at how good he looks in it. How right the two of them look together.
“I like it,” Doyoung says, voice dipping into that warm airiness Johnny hears sometimes on his ballads. He puts his hands in the pockets in front, leaning back just the slightest, so his back’s flush against Johnny’s chest. “Makes me feel like yours.”
There’s no way he doesn’t feel the way Johnny’s heart is pounding in his chest, like a drum.
Doyoung turns around, dark, soft eyes endless enough to lose Johnny and catch him a million times over. And Johnny knows he would – would catch him as he falls, right into that endless, lovely heart of his. Maybe there’s nothing Johnny wants more at this moment.
His hands are still around Doyoung’s waist, and it’s just as well, just enough to pull him closer, press his forehead to the other man’s and kiss him.
It’s intoxicating, inhaling Doyoung and smelling himself, smelling Johnny all over him, as it should be. Doyoung is just as warm, just as soft, as he’d imagined, all those years ago till now. When they part for air, the younger man’s cherry lips are swollen pink.
He laughs, breathy and soft, reaching up to stroke the back of Johnny’s neck. “Took you long enough.”
“Sorry,” Johnny mumbles, feeling stupid. “I just realised, I guess.”
“Realised what?” Doyoung looks like he’s thoroughly enjoying himself.
“That – you look good on me, I guess.”
The younger man laughs, stuffing his hands in the jacket. “Don’t you mean the other way around?”
“No, as in,” Johnny waves in the general direction of downstairs, of Connecticut where Taeyong and Jaehyun are, of Seoul where Jungwoo and Yuta are meeting them for dinner next week, feeling clumsy and ineloquent. “You,” he says, hoping it encompasses everything he’s trying to say, about everyone he loves because of Doyoung. “I like the way I am with you.”
Doyoung smiles, a slow, surprised sunrise, and despite the wind whistling outside the windows, Johnny feels the warmest he’s been all day.
The younger man presses a kiss on the side of Johnny’s lips, chaste and sweet.
“I like the way I am with you, too.”
*
Johnny’s on the bed, Doyoung back on the chair by the desk, by the time Mark strolls in, singing along to whatever he’d been playing in the bathroom.
“Movies!” he says, blowing right past Johnny and Doyoung. Johnny’s internal crisis about whether or not to hold out on Mark for the rest of the trip is starting to reignite, when the younger boy turns around, seemingly not oblivious enough to notice the addition to Doyoung’s closet.
“Nice sweater, hyung,” he turns around again, but Johnny can see that his cheeks are red.
“Thanks, Markeu-yah, I like it too.”
“Did you guys-…?” he says suddenly, whirling around, eyes fixed on Johnny first, then Doyoung, grin spreading on his face when he sees the other man’s expression. “Okay. Sweet,” then under his breath, he mutters, “finally.”
Temporary (and irrational, knowing Mark) fears assuaded, Johnny proceeds to call him a little shit in every language he knows, before they put on an Avengers movie on Johnny’s old monitor, and curl up under the blankets with a bowl of popcorn his mom had brought up.
“Do you guys – wanna, you know?” Mark says awkwardly, where he’s nestled between them. “Because I could totally head out to the guest room if you guys want some alone time, I don’t know-…”
Doyoung exchanges an evil look with Johnny in the semi-darkness. Then, as though they’d planned this, they both swoop in for a very wet kiss on either side of Mark’s face.
Johnny finds himself gazing at Doyoung as Mark splutters and whines between them, fondness threatening to burst out of his chest.
“This is good,” Doyoung throws an arm behind Mark’s shoulders, slender fingers gently rubbing a spot in Johnny’s back. He looks as comfortable as Johnny feels, like there’s nothing else he could ever want. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”