Work Text:
Hwiyoung had been losing sleep.
Nothing particularly happened; but if he had to say, it all began since he got a single room to himself.
He tried all that he could think of: playlists, asmr, diffuser, incensed candles, bath salt, hot milk, or wine before bed; none had worked to bring his rest back. And the fatigue in his body had been rooting deeper.
He never realized how different it would be to have someone else in the same room with him. Perhaps it was the air they shared between their breaths, that tied tiny knots in both bodies, holding them together without them noticing; and when he got left alone, it drove him into a lonely puppy holding his own end of the thread, waiting for someone to come back.
He needed someone to be by his side, watching him fall asleep. The look of the other would wrap him in warm water like in the womb, smoothing down the wrinkles on his minds, in the end he would have finally thrown away the tension and sore into his sleep.
That someone would better be laying down next to him, their bare shoulders touching, arms, too. They would have slightly different body temperatures, so that when Hwiyoung is attacked by some nightmares of his, the other’s soft chill skin could sooth him back to peace.
His fingers would sneakily climb onto the other’s back of the hand; it would be the most innocent and pure communication by the tips of where their bodies end. Then he would just face up, shut close his eyes, just like every person that’s sound asleep. Whether or not the other one would be resting still just like him, or fixing their gentle stares on him in the dark, he would not open his eyes. And slowly, he would sink into his dreamland.
If the other one turns and wraps their arms around his body, he wouldn’t mind at all; he would move closer, huddling himself up into the hug of the other’s. He likes hugs like this: warm, loose, and don’t ask for any response, nor any explanation. He would press his forehead closer to the other’s, their hair tangling like their breaths. They wouldn’t be needing anything else in the world, in such a night.
Hwiyoung could not keep longer to admit that, he truly needed someone like this, to bring back days that he could just sleep like a baby.
And the only thing still so hard for him to affirm is that, this someone else could not be a random someone else; he knew in all these confessions accumulated inside throughout the nights, he could picture the other’s skin, flickering eyelashes, raven hair, soft lips, round and smooth fingertips, everything; even though his eyes was shut, he could just see.
It had happened before.
In that one afternoon, napping in his blacked out room, he was stroke by some nightmare, his limbs frozen and tensed, the only thing he could do was to stare into the wall on his side, and wait for his body to wake up after his mind. He proceeded to sigh, only finding out that his throat was dry and aching; he probably just woke himself up by his own shoutings.
Not having enough time to lift up his body, the door sounded.
He dropped himself down in flurry, one arm still awkwardly caught under his ribs. He heard the door slowly close, someone walked up to his bedside, mild like a feline. Hwiyoung knew this smell of the perfume, it couldn’t be anyone else besides Taeyang. The other members sometimes use that same cologne, too, but it just smells totally different on Taeyang’s skin.
He pretended to be asleep still, waiting for him to walk away. But Taeyang didn’t. He leaned closer, fingertips landing onto Hwiyoung’s eyelid, swaying across like a fluffy breeze of wind, or a feather. The skin he touched under his fingers started to blush.
“You awake? ”Of course he knew him. His voice was so light and full of air that Hwiyoung could barely hear it in his madly loud heartbeats, “just get up if you feel uncomfortable, okay? ”
But the younger boy insisted to carry his awkward pretend till the end. He didn’t move a bit, his eyes still tightly shut.
Hwiyoung knew that, Taeyang at this moment wanted to kiss him. He just knew.
He leaned so close to his body, yet didn’t give him that kiss he read from the air. He heard him carefully rise up, the door clicked, and there was again only him in the room.
Taeyang left behind a breeze of his perfume.
He slide into sleep real fast.
When did it all become different?
Hwiyoung remembered that when he was sharing that tight room with Taeyang, two twin beds that barely matched their statures were shoved together, two lean bodies shared the warmth of the nights. Taeyang was skinner at that time, but still having his baby cheeks, that got squeezed by the pillow like a dough when he turned to his side, his lips pouting more by it. Hwiyoung would reach out his hand to knead on his cheeks when they were facing each other, ignore his half sleepy stares, and press his whole palms to his face. Taeyang then would give up and just close his eyes under the younger boy’s lovingly rubbing and petting.
But he always leaned closer when he was asleep.
Taeyang slept on the inside, but couldn’t just stick to his wall, instead he’d always turn to Hwiyoung, press his arms, knees, face, the whole body, toward the younger boy’s back. Hwiyoung could only move toward the outside, and Taeyang pressed close again, until he got pushed onto the edge of the sheet. Hwiyoung could do nothing but turn toward him, wrapping him into his arms, and woke up the next morning to Taeyang’s complain about their sweaty skins.
He never realized that he can get addicted to these. All these, with Taeyang.
After Taeyang moved out their room, insomnia came and took his place. Hwiyoung wanted to blame the fully packed work schedule, but down in his heart he knew exactly where his symptoms came from, and his only cure; both are all that one person.
He finally got Taeyang’s attention one morning, after infinite fights and fails with his lost of sleep. He shove his face into the scrambled egg, showered by the other boy’s stare, and the question finally landed, “Did you have nightmare last night? ”
“No. ”He said, still facing down, strings of hair fallen behind his eyes.
“Didn’t sleep well? You eyes are kinda swollen. ”
“I can ice it, and it won’t show after we get our makeup. ” He mumbled, poking around with chopsticks the last bit of eggs in his plate. Taeyang’s hand reached close; he then lifted his face up obediently, to let the fingertips land on his closed eyes. He supposed that Taeyang wanted to kiss him at that moment, too, from the touch of their skins; he just knew.
But Taeyang didn’t give him any kiss, as always, he just took back his hand. Hwiyoung glanced over him, and that was everything he’d ever want for all the long nights: his fluffy unstyled raven hair, the ocean-deep eyes, the naked breathing skin, and his gaze.
He suddenly felt very, very drowsy.
Taeyang’s voice was like honey flowing into his dreams, “You want me to come over? Tonight. ”
So he nodded as if he was fainting, feeling like a child who didn’t want to admit that he was so attached. He bowed his head and a small muffle rolled out of his throat, "Sure."
Taeyang was already leaning against his pillow when he got out of shower that night. He looked so ought-to-be there, just like all the time they shared in one room before; Hwiyoung only just remembered when Taeyang looked up from his phone, that he was just “coming over” to him. Some subtle shame crawled up his face, burned his cheeks and ears in the dim light.
“What was it? ”Taeyang put down his phone, reached out to grab the towel resting on his head, gently rubbing on his wet hair, “You can’t sleep well? How long has it been? ”
“A few days. ” Hwiyoung kneed down by the bed to allow him drying his hair more, secretly narrowed his eyes under the towel like a kitten; he almost purred, “Actually, for this whole week I think. ”
“Ya, Youngkyun can’t sleep well alone? You still need me then. ” He teased, and it was not funny at all, because it was too true. Hwiyoung looked up at him, and he felt it again: Taeyang must have been wanting to kiss him.
The kiss might land onto his wet long hairs, or his forehead, the middle of his brows, his temple——where he kissed Taeyang once as a birthday joke. Or it might be somewhere else on him, and it didn’t matter, what mattered was that Taeyang wanted to kiss him, and he knew it.
…Or maybe, it could be the opposite.
His eyes strayed onto the tiny tease remained at the corner of Taeyang’s lips; he, too, wanted to lean closer and lick onto the pair of lips, paint them wet, then spread them up, taking over Taeyang’s breath by the tip of his tongue. He wanted to use up all the air inside Taeyang’s mouth, and pull out his sweet airy moans and groans, crushing all the indistinct obsessions down between their teeth.
He didn’t do it.
Hwiyoung pressed closer when Taeyang’s hands slide down to the sides of his cheekbone, landed his lips right into the cavity between Taeyang's collarbone, right next to the little mole on the shimmering skin.
The hands hesitated, then tightened up behind his blushing ears. His lips caught a shivering inside Taeyang’s chest, that quickly climbed up through the older boy's throat, sighed onto his face like a warm breeze. It smelled like Yoo Taeyang.
At that moment Hwiyoung just knew that he could be sound asleep tonight.