Work Text:
“I didn’t want to leave. I turned all your clocks backwards, I drew the curtains closed, and I changed your alarms. I squeezed an entire desert into our hourglass.”
— alex dang
It’s way past midnight already, and Hyunggu should most definitely be in bed. Instead, he is walking up the hallway on the third floor of the company building, past empty rooms and beneath flickering lights, until he stops in front of a familiar door. He knows the passcode to open the lock. He’s known it for three years now, besides Hwitaek changing it twice in between, and Wooseok changing it one more time for good measure. It’s just one of those numbers, that is lodged inside of his brain, like his own phone number or the birthday of his mother.
The door opens soundlessly, and Hyunggu slips into the dimly lit studio. On the shelf, by the wall, is the painting he made as a farewell gift for Hwitaek, because he is stupidly smitten like that. He cringes, when he spots it now, because he has gotten better in the past months, but his heart twists at the mere fact that Hwitaek keeps it so prominently featured. It’s – very sweet of him. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. Hwitaek is known to be openly affectionate towards all of them, and considers every ounce of love he receives in return a victory.
Currently, the man in question is sitting hunched over his keyboard, barely visible in the chair, tufts of his freshly bleached hair peeking out from behind the head rest. Hyunggu watches for a moment, listens to the click-clack of the keys, the mouse, and the muffled noise from the heavy headphones Hwitaek is wearing. It’s not that long anymore, he thinks, and tries to breathe through the weight on his chest. His anxiety – it’s a tangible thing these days, big enough to touch.
Hyunggu steps closer, waits until there is a pause to the music, and then, he says as gently as he can, “Hey, it’s late. Don’t you wanna come home?”
To his credit, Hwitaek doesn’t get scared; he simply stiffens in his chair, before he slides the headphones off, and leans his head back. His eyes are bloodshot and the circles beneath are deep, and all Hyunggu longs to do, is pull him into his arms and sing him to sleep. God, he’s become such sap.
Hwitaek reaches for his hand, and Hyunggu gives it to him willingly. He is not going to protests now, when he already knows it will be a fight to get Hwitaek to stop working. Time is running out for him, and there are things he needs to finish before the video shoot, and songs that need to be sent out, and he gets it, absolutely, but he also – he wishes, he was maybe a little higher on the list of his boyfriend’s priorities.
“Hey baby,” Hwitaek mutters, and clears his throat. He leans his cheek against Hyunggu’s wrist, the palm of his hand. It’s warm to the touch, and Hyunggu’s fingers hook under his chin, where a day’s worth of stubble is growing. “I promise, I’ll be done soon.”
More computer noises, a few fingers of Hwitaek’s unoccupied hand play a triad, and Hyunggu leans over the chair, and slides his other arm over Hwitaek’s shoulder, down his chest. Hwitaek grunts.
“Just a minute.”
Hyunggu hums, and brushes his nose through Hwitaek’s light hair, over the crown of his head. He’s showered today, it smells like Hyunggu’s shampoo, and it’s one of those little things, that says, he’s mine. Hyunggu doesn’t know, if he’ll ever be able to breathe properly again, when his heart is doing so many funny things at that thought alone. He’s mine and I am his. He wants to carve it right over his ribs, maybe in permanent ink. He’s got the daisy already, what is one more reminder that he is in this for life.
“You always say that,” he mutters, fingers dragging over Hwitaek’s shirt, his stomach, where he is defined still. He knows, he will come back twice as broad than he is now, which is a weird thought, because Hyunggu is so familiar with every inch of Hwitaek, that he doesn’t know if he’d do well with the change. “And then you don’t come home till like four a.m.”
Hwitaek stills, again, and is quiet for a moment. “Touché,” he says then, and Hyunggu laughs.
“See? Come home with me. I don’t wanna be alone tonight.”
It’s not easy to get Hwitaek to relent to his demands, but it used to be harder, to draw him out of one of these moods. Hyunggu has gotten years of practice in by now, knows all the weaknesses he tries to carefully hide, or overplay by being loud and silly, and he is ready to use every single one to his advantage right now. Carefully, he leans closer, practically bends himself in half, to press his lips to the spot behind Hwitaek’s ear, the one, that makes him shiver. Makes him melt into his arms, into the touch of his hands, the curve of his body. He’s gonna miss this, he thinks, and it’s terrifying. He is already yearning for it, and Hwitaek isn’t even gone yet.
God.
“I need to finish this, baby. One minute, please,” Hwitaek mumbles, half distracted again, and Hyunggu sighs. He squeezes Hwitaek’s hand and stands up to sink into the chair next to him, the one he, or whoever else is writing with him, mostly Wooseok, usually occupies. Hwitaek’s eyes are focused on the screen, and Hyunggu slips his shoes off and draws his knees up, resting his feet on Hwitaek’s legs, digging his toes into his thighs. Of course, Hwitaek doesn’t do as much as shift, after he has gotten used to every single one of Hyunggu’s annoying habits. Hyunggu doesn’t know, if Hongseok is as open as Hwitaek to warming his freezing toes when they watch some stupid drama. He’ll have two years to find out, he figures. Not that he necessarily wants to.
One of Hwitaek’s hands curls absentmindedly around his ankle, calloused fingertips gently caressing the inch of skin revealed between his socks and his sweatpants (too short on him, probably Hwitaek’s at one point, the last monochrome piece of clothing in his wardrobe, that Hyunggu must have stolen eons ago).
Hyunggu pulls his phone out to take a picture. Hwitaek’s delicate hands wrapped around his skin, like a silver band.
After a few minutes of aimlessly scrolling through Instagram, Hyunggu starts wriggling his toes, and the grip around his ankle tightens considerably.
“Behave, babe.”
Hyunggu’s mouth pulls into a frown. “But you said a few minutes like half an hour ago,” he protests, and at least Hwitaek has the audacity to smile guiltily, blunt fingernails scratching over the smooth skin of his leg, rubbing over the arc of his heel, beneath his sock. He shivers, lightly, and he knows Hwitaek can tell. Fuck.
“I’m almost done, I promise,” Hwitaek says, and he curls over and kisses the inside of Hyunggu’s knee. It’s warm, and reassuring, and Hyunggu wants to reach out and draw him in, taste the terrible snack machine coffee on his tongue, and replace it with something sweeter. He wants to crawl into him and make a home there, he wants to lock all the doors and never let him go. He doesn’t know how to do this without him. Hwitaek knows, because he always knows. He wants to tell him, though, how he has no idea of doing this on his own, of living from weekend to weekend, one leave to another, wants to make him pinky promise with a stamp on it to be glued to his damn phone whenever he can be. I don’t know how to send you mail pigeons, he wants to joke, so you better pick up your phone for once.
“Hwitaek,” Hyunggu says, instead, quiet but with feeling, and Hwitaek turns his head to look at him. The blue glow of his workstation makes him look paler than he already is. Hyunggu wants him sunkissed, warm and real. All of this feels like a hazy dream, some half-baked reality. This can’t be real.
“I love you,” he says, and Hwitaek’s fingers grow tight again, then slowly relax. His face softens, younger than it has been in forever and a minute. Hyunggu is bleeding all over this damn desk and the floor, and Hwitaek will just have to take it; he is responsible for this mess, after all.
“Baby,” Hwitaek breathes, and pulls at Hyunggu’s knee, then stretches his hands out for him, and Hyunggu comes easily, a wave pulled to the shore, flowers in the face of the sun. Hwitaek grasps his face and the back of his neck, and rests his forehead against Hyunggu’s as soon as he is close enough to do so. When he tries to look at him now, he is sure to go cross-eyed, but he does so anyway. His gaze hangs on Hwitaek’s lips, like a compass pointing north.
“I love you too.”
Hyunggu worries his bottom lip between his teeth. He squeezes his eyes shut, or he will shatter.
“I don’t want you to go,” he says, and Hwitaek pulls him impossibly closer, Hyunggu’s legs over his lap, half on his chair. It’s far from comfortable, but he doesn’t care.
“Me neither,” Hwitaek admits, here, in the twilight, suspended in time. When his mouth finds Hyunggu’s, he is already anticipating it, a desperate press of lips. Hwitaek does taste like the coffee he had and faintly like mint, and Hyunggu angles his head, so he can lick into his mouth, an act full of unpent desperation and the need to pour himself into every inch of Hwitaek, of this man, that he has lost his heart to. It lacks finesse, but neither of them care; Hwitaek’s fingers are running through Hyunggu’s hair, pulling at it to tip Hyunggu’s head back, grip strong and sure as he takes over and Hyunggu allows him to. This is a dance they have done countless of times, every step taken blindly.
Hwitaek is warm and familiar where Hyunggu touches him, smells of soap and laundry detergent, and Hyunggu wants to drown in him, never come up for air again, only to miraculously reappear like a shipwreck in the night when his light is calling.
“Please,” he pleads, and presses his mouth to Hwitaek’s cheek, the sharp curve of his jaw, the corner of his mouth. Returning like the tides to the center of the universe. Hwitaek’s inhale is unsteady, shaky. “Come home. I want you, let’s go to bed.”
To his surprise, Hwitaek yields easily this time, and Hyunggu is glad. He doesn’t know, if he could have taken more. His patience is running thin, and he is running ragged, and he needs Hwitaek more than he would have ever thought reasonable, more than even three years ago, when he thought it couldn’t possibly get worse.
These days, all he is made up of is longing, melodies and eight counts, and the sickeningly sweet stench of a yearning heart. It permeates the air, wherever they go.
“Alright,” Hwitaek says, and he sits up, so he can save all his files and close them, shut off his computer. Hyunggu sits by and watches him, until he gets up to gather their things, which is mostly Hwitaek’s stuff anyways: his backpack and his coat, and he slips on his own winter jacket.
When he stands, his joints crack, and they both have to laugh.
“I’m not getting any younger,” Hwitaek says wryly, and Hyunggu snorts.
“You do look amazing for your age, though.”
Hwitaek smacks him but misses completely, perhaps intentionally, and Hyunggu holds out his coat for him to get into. “You’re such a brat,” Hwitaek says fondly, and Hyunggu couldn’t help his grin if he tried.
“But you love me,” he replies easily, and when Hwitaek turns around to look at him, Hyunggu leans in to kiss his forehead and then the tip of his nose.
“Yeah,” Hwitaek agrees, and the sound of his voice is so rare, that no recording has ever captured it, something that exists only between them. “I do.”
When they step outside the company, the air is thick with the promise of snow, and the night shimmers golden. They’ll never see the stars in Seoul, but Hyunggu doesn’t mind it that much tonight; he’s got everything he needs in the palm of his hand, literally, as Hwitaek intertwines their fingers, and it’s a simple touch of divinity. He thinks, there is nothing that could ever compare to this. And, no matter how long it takes, I will wait for you, because I know you will wait for me.
Later, when they lay in bed curled around each other, and everything is quiet, Hyunggu can count his breaths in time with his heartbeat. It is in that moment, that Hwitaek whispers, “I would marry you, if I could. You know that, right?”
The world doesn’t feel so scary just then, their future not as fragile, and Hyunggu closes his eyes and nods his head. He knows. He’s maybe known for a while now, he’s not stupid. There’s not a person who is made more of love, of poetry, than Hwitaek. He lives and breathes it, like the music flowing through his veins.
“Yeah,” he says, and in the darkness, it feels like something else, that is entirely theirs.
Hwitaek’s fingers flex against the bare skin of Hyunggu’s hip, the flutter of butterfly wings. “I just wanted you to know.”