Work Text:
People speak of lover’s gazes and lover’s kisses, but no one has told him of lover’s hand winding through his own. Dongsik’s palms are cold-rough. December is never kind on the backs of his hands, yet he refuses Juwon’s hand cream every single time. He likes to claim that he has never worn softness well. (Bullshit. Juwon has a careful curation of Dongsik out of the shower, just woken up, toothbrush dangling from his mouth, cooking—he could go on ; the evidence is insurmountable.)
The coarse tips of his fingers are ridged with toil and heartbreak. Juwon has touched the scars with lightness unbecoming of him many times.
“It’s cold,” Dongsik says.
It’s a new thing between them, this holding hands bit. Their affection lingers on the side of understated and this—Dongsik catching his freezing fingers in the middle of the street—is anything but.
“If you’d remembered the gloves, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Juwon says. When he glances down, he drags a fingernail down that yewberry skin.
“I can’t feel my hand.”
“You would if you put it in your pocket.” Juwon can’t feel his own hand either. He flexes his fingers once to confirm they’re still attached and hides a smile at the squeeze he gets back. “This is just stupidity.”
“This is romantic ,” Dongsik corrects him. “Ya, aren’t you the younger one? Are all young ones like you these days? Where’s the romance, huh?”
Juwon doesn’t have an answer to that. He doesn’t know about anyone else, but he’s always thought of love as a nebulous thing that happens to other people. Something to be watched from a distance only, pole-armed, because of course it won’t happen to him. It has always felt like something made up for stories. It has never happened to him until it has happened to him and now he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be doing about it.
Is he supposed to be like the male leads in dramas? Is he supposed to open his coat and offer Dongsik refuge in it? Is he supposed to hold his hand until frostbite claims him?
“Couples holding hands in subzero weather is foolish not romantic, Dongsik-ssi,” he settles on saying, sliding his eyes to watch the bob of Dongsik’s head as they walk.
“Well, great, then, isn’t it? I seem to recall a certain fool running to my house through a storm—”
“Alright,” Juwon interjects. He can feel the beginnings of embarrassment crawling up the back of his nape. “Why don’t we…”
“Your coat is big enough,” Dongsik says. There’s a hint of a coo lingering on his tender-steamed voice, lilting with amusement.
So they stand in the middle of the damned street like that—Dongsik, trying to fit their joined hands into Juwon’s coat. It’s a tight fit and they have to walk awkwardly close and Dongsik’s elbow is raised, but Juwon can feel the top of his left thigh burn with the combined weight of their hands.
The thing is this: Dongsik fills the spaces between his fingers and his heart with tender curls that sting. Juwon wants to pick apart his winter-bright smile and wants to ask why holding hands feels so important. He wants to ask if they can get a coat big enough for both their palms and their knuckles and the mountainous feeling between them. He wants to ask if Dongsik thinks the snow would unthaw on his skin when he’s filled with nervous heat like this.
“You were right.” Dongsik’s hair blows in the breeze. How long have they been blocking this footpath for now? “This isn’t comfortable.”
“Told you.”
“Yeah, yeah, our Juwonie is smart,” Dongsik laughs. He draws his hand back and shoves it into his own pocket. Juwon wonders if the bereftness shows on his face as strongly as it rings through his heart. Perhaps it does, because he feels those familiar eyes skid over his face before they turn forward. “Tell you what—I’m tired. Let’s go to a cafe. My treat.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. You can have my hand all to yourself there.”
“Who said I want that?”
(He does.)