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Soobin doesn’t remember how it all started, really. Can’t recall the exact moment he first noticed Yeonjun’s fondness for (more like, obsession with) Soobin’s hands. If he thinks about it hard enough, though, a few images do spring to mind.
Maybe it was during one of their pottery classes, with Yeonjun paying too much attention to the way Soobin pressed into the pliant clay on the potter’s wheel, his fingers appearing firm yet graceful as they pulled and molded the material into more complex shapes.
“Do you get it now, sunbae?” Soobin asked after the nth time of demonstrating the beginner clay-throwing techniques to Yeonjun. His hands were more than a little sticky, and frankly, a lot sore at that point. “I mean, you could always ask the instructor for—”
“Uh-huh,” Yeonjun muttered absentmindedly, interrupting him, and Soobin could see the bump in his neck bobbing when he visibly gulped. “No, could you, uhm, could you show me again? What if I—” He shifted his position on the chair, hands hovering over his own mound of clay as he started spinning his turntable. He chewed on his lip, as if in heavy consideration of what he was about to say next. “What if you were a little more hands-on this time? Maybe that’d help. Sorry I’m such a slow learner,” he shrugged, trying to appear bashful with a chuckle, but Soobin saw the suggestive glint in his eye as he said it.
Still, “Sure,” he responded, promptly shuffling to move behind him.
It didn’t help, by the way, because Yeonjun still kept making mistakes, sometimes so comical, that Soobin just knew he was doing them on purpose—not that he called him out on it, though, nor did he really mind.
So maybe it was that, or maybe it was when Yeonjun ended up failing that course at the end of the semester (and the way he didn’t seem to be the least bit bummed out about it).
Or maybe it was during their first date, when Soobin finally gathered up the courage to ask Yeonjun out on one, having bought two tickets to a re-screening of La La Land at their town’s local cinema beforehand.
“I remembered you mentioning that you never got the chance to see it on the big screen, hyung, so when I saw that it was showing, I just jumped at the opportunity.” Soobin tried to appear nonchalant when he said it—all cool and confident as he waved the tickets in front of Yeonjun’s surprised face at the café they frequented—although the warmth creeping up his neck suggested anything but.
And when Yeonjun beamed—all squishy cheeks and adorable teeth as he clasped Soobin’s hand with both of his, exclaiming, “Yes! Of course I’d go on a date with you!”—Soobin just stopped trying altogether, the tips of his ears a vivid shade of pink, his smile a dimpled mess.
What a relief, Soobin thought. How so endeared, he felt.
As they sat next to each other at the movie theater later that week, shoulders and elbows bumping as they shared their popcorn in the dark, Soobin felt his heart leap to his throat when Yeonjun leaned in close during the second musical number. Along with his breath grazing Soobin’s neck came a whisper, significant: “Can I hold your hand?”
Then came a silent nod, equal in weight.
And after that: a slotting of palms, an interlocking of fingers, the most momentous event of all, lasting the entire duration of the film—and then some.
Somewhere in the middle of the movie, Yeonjun guided Soobin’s hand to his face, rubbing his cheek against Soobin’s palm. Soobin’s eyes remained on the screen in front of them, but his fingers seemed to take on a life of their own, his pinky—the smallest yet bravest—tracing the outline of Yeonjun’s mouth: the dip below his nose, down to his cupid’s bow, then along the slope of his upper lip, one corner widening as Yeonjun slowly parted his mouth, the tip of Soobin’s finger hitting teeth, pad pressed on his lower lip. His other fingers followed suit, each of them landing on Yeonjun’s mouth with a familiarity that reminded him of late nights staying on campus to work on his sculpting projects, flesh replacing earth.
Soobin noted the softness of Yeonjun’s lips, committed them to memory; then he found that there was a slight callousness to them, too, a fact he also stored away for future reference.
So maybe it was that, or maybe it was how Soobin barely remembered anything from the movie that day; though the melody of City of Stars did manage to stay in his brain for a while, but only because of what Yeonjun’s lips spilled into the pulse of his wrist while the scene played, voice low yet clear enough to hear, to sear into Soobin’s mind.
“Soobin-ah. You used to play the piano as a kid, right? Can you show hyung some time?”
“Uh, sure, but how? I didn’t exactly bring my keyboard with me to the dorms.”
“That’s okay. There are other ways to show me how good you are with your hands. Maybe we can try those instead.”
Or maybe it was during their fourth date, when they went to eat lunch at a nearby diner, both of them having ordered ice cream for dessert.
“Ah, you’ve got something there,” Soobin instinctively reached his arm out with the intention of wiping it away, an old habit he had obtained from his older siblings who used to do the same thing to him when they were younger.
He paused when Yeonjun grabbed his wrist, willing his hand to stay there near his face, thumb gently pressed to the corner of his mouth, frozen as Yeonjun used his lips, his tongue to clean Soobin’s finger of all traces of vanilla—his gaze focused on the expression that clearly gave Soobin’s thoughts away (read: holy shit what is he doing we are out in broad daylight but uhm i can’t stop looking at him he’s so hot seriously though who allowed that how is this real).
“You’ve got something there,” Yeonjun pointed out when Soobin yanked his hand away in embarrassment.
“Huh? Where?” Soobin all but slapped his face, his nose squishing beneath his palm.
Yeonjun laughed. “Ah, sorry, I thought you had strawberry syrup on your cheeks.”
Soobin looked down at their food. “But we didn’t order anything with…” he trailed off when Yeonjun leaned across the table to pluck a cherry out of Soobin’s sundae bowl.
“Exactly,” he said, winking at him before popping the fruit into his own mouth.
So maybe it was that, or maybe it was everything that happened after: their first kiss in the alley beside Yeonjun’s apartment building (“Grab onto my waist”), that time Yeonjun offered to give him a hand massage (“You have such prominent veins”), that one weekend they decided to watch a horror flick full of jumpscares (“Don’t even think of letting go of me”), their date at the roller skating rink (“Let hyung lead the way for you”), the evening Yeonjun basically told him just that (“Your touch drives me crazy, Soobin-ah”); or maybe it’s everything that’s happening now, the constant reminders, steady reinforcements.
“Wait. Is that me?”
Soobin almost jumps out of his seat, tools tumbling out of his grip, dropping on the table with resonating clanks of wood on wood. His ankle hits one of the table’s legs, causing the armature on top to teeter, although he securely grabs on to it in time. He turns around in his chair, surprised to see Yeonjun looking over his shoulder toward the unfinished, barely started bust behind him—the shape of a head and neck, with only the lower portion of the face molded into detail, the familiar features of nose and lips and jaw on display. It’s late and he’s the only one left in their class work station, and this is his boyfriend in front of him—not some stranger or teacher—but he can’t help but feel a little vulnerable.
“I don’t know,” Soobin says, shrugging, a grin threatening to escape his pout. He places his clasped hands between his knees. “It’s not done yet.”
“You don’t know,” Yeonjun sing-songs, “but aren’t you supposed to be the artist?” He rests his forearms on Soobin’s shoulders, dropping his lids as he tilts his head. “Won’t you be a dear and tell me who the muse for this piece is? It’s alright; you can tell me. I’m not the jealous type.”
Soobin slowly wraps his fingers around Yeonjun’s wrists, his thumbs feeling for the light hum underneath the skin, blood and bone replacing polymer and wire. Once he finds it, he presses firmly, returning Yeonjun’s gaze and trailing his eyes to his lips. “You,” he says. “Only you,” he adds after a breath.
Another breath, deeper this time, one from Yeonjun, chest rising and falling before he leans down to kiss Soobin on the mouth.
“My flatmate went home for the weekend,” he says, taking Soobin’s earlobe between his teeth. “Keep me company?”
This is what keeping company means for the two of them: Soobin finding solace in Yeonjun’s mouth—the solid of his palate, the roof; the satin of his cheeks, the walls; the warmth of his tongue, the floor that grounds him, shakes him enough until he stumbles, lying on his side, Yeonjun next to him in bed. No longer a guest, nor something temporary. Belonging, Yeonjun flowing into his cupped palm like a river greeting the ocean. Welcome back, Soobin imagines himself saying, it’s always a pleasure to have you here.
“Why do you like my hands so much?” Soobin finds himself asking out loud instead—not as romantic, he admits, but it is what it is—Yeonjun’s mouth busy drinking in the joints of his thumb. He’s never posed the question before, fighting the urge with the hypothetical, theories that only barely made sense in his head—a childhood that resulted in an oral fixation, Soobin’s penchant for sweet pastries unknowingly making his fingers taste like candy, perhaps some pseudo-cannibalistic tendencies on Yeonjun's part. Each one ridiculous, probably all wrong, the reality much simpler.
Yeonjun momentarily lets him go, his smile enough of an answer. “Because they’re yours,” he says, easy as ever, the sheen on his lips housing a dozen more stories, Soobin wanting to invite all of them in. “You make things with them—wonderful, beautiful, grand things. You even make me.”
“I make you?” Soobin arches his eyebrow, stroking Yeonjun’s cheek.
Yeonjun hums, “Yep, you make me.” He guides Soobin’s hand so that it covers almost his entire face now, and for a silly second Soobin worries he might accidentally smother him from the weight of his palm, seeing as how Yeonjun’s eyelids start to fall.
But he can feel him inhale, can feel him run his lips along the lines of his skin, teeth grazing the crevices, signs of life speaking to the certainty of how real, tangible, present this all is. Yeonjun is here—under him, beside him, around him, with him.
“You make me feel,” each word is accompanied by a peck to his palm, “glad, happy, safe, thankful, excited, alive, hot—” he opens his eyes, peeking through the gaps between Soobin’s fingers, eyelashes tickling them. Soobin presses his own lips together in anticipation. “In love,” Yeonjun finishes, and Soobin feels as much, maybe feels something stronger, harder to control, even harder to say without thinking that he’ll burst at the seams as soon as he opens his mouth to form the words.
So instead of saying anything, he allows his hands to communicate for him, letting them find their way back home, thumb pushing down on Yeonjun’s tongue as his fingers catch the drop of his jaw; his other hand taking their spot behind Yeonjun’s neck, where he senses the red coursing through his veins, a current; sees it bloom across his face, whitewater; hears it in his gasp when he removes his thumb, falls roaring why’d you stop?
But the truth is Soobin didn’t stop, will never stop, won’t even pause to take a break; always available, forever making space, vast and deep and waiting, wanting. He closes the distance between them, and this time it’s Soobin who drinks—kissing and taking and more kissing—way past quenching initial thirst now, gulps and breathes Yeonjun in until he’s overly full, a quiet burn in his lungs, salt and spring.
Do you even know what you do to me, he tells Yeonjun with his eyes, something like primal need glazing over them when he pulls away. Of course I do, Soobin-ah, he can almost hear him replying in that knowing tone of his. And I won't stop until you’re done for.
He already is, actually; he’s so far gone, in fact.
Gone as soon as Yeonjun wrote his name on the enrollment sheet for the pottery course he ended up flunking. Gone as soon as he entered their classroom and took his place next to Soobin, adjusting his chair just an inch closer to him. Gone as soon as Soobin asked him about it the following sem, “Why did you even take that elective when you didn’t need it?” and as Yeonjun answered matter-of-factly, “Because you were there.”
And it’s going, an unrelenting stream that Soobin keeps following—there he goes, gone but remaining when he falls asleep to the curves of Yeonjun’s face, to the waves of his voice, still there behind the darkness of his closed lids. ‘You make things with them—wonderful, beautiful, grand things. You even make me,’ he recalls him saying.
Yeonjun: So wonderful. So beautiful. So grand. So much more than the limits of adjectives, than the boundaries of words and shapes; Soobin reminds himself, in front of him lies Yeonjun: A person he’s fortunate to know. To hold. To love. Someone who exists beyond these fingers, outside of these lips, who’s been beautiful and wonderful and grand even before he laid a single hand on him.
And what a relief, he thinks. How endlessly endeared, he feels.