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“Jeno, baby, are you okay?” Jaemin asks, watching from the doorway the way that the pile of blankets on the bed stays unmoving.
A groan resounds in the room and Jaemin shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“Jen?”
Jeno’s head pops up from under the mess of blankets, his hair unruled and his eyes half-closed.
“Wha—” Jeno starts, his voice slurring because of sleep. “Yeah… I’m…” He clears out his throat before continuing, wincing at the way the words tremble and falter before making past his lips, “I think I’m just… a little sick...”
“Oh, baby,” Jaemin whispers, softly. He walks inside the bedroom and stops next to the bed, running a hand through Jeno’s hair. Jeno shivers with the touch, his eyes fluttering shut. “You were making some noises, so I came to check on you. Injunnie is making food… Do you want some? Here, let me see if you’re warm.”
Jeno shakes his head at the mention of food, staying frozen in place as Jaemin’s hand comes to touch his forehead and then the side of his neck. “No,” he moans a little, his voice hoarse. “I don’t think I can eat now… I’ll just… do that later...”
“But you need to eat, baby,” Jaemin says, tapping the tip of Jeno’s nose with his finger. Jeno scrunches up his face. “What if you tried to nibble on some fruit? Or drink something? You can’t just stay like this.”
Jeno slowly blinks his eyes open and Jaemin smiles, carding his fingers through Jeno’s hair again. But Jeno just shakes his head, not budging. “Later,” he says, “I’ll eat later.”
Though he isn’t satisfied with the answer, Jaemin bites the inside of his cheek and swallows down any nagging that might threaten otherwise to spill out. He can see the deep eyebags under Jeno’s eyes, his tired expression, and he keeps him company until he’s sure that Jeno fell back asleep, lulled by having his hair played with.
Jaemin watches him sleep for a moment. He checks Jeno’s temperature once more before leaving, not satisfied with what he finds; Jeno isn’t unbearably hot, but he’s a little too warm for Jaemin to be entirely satisfied, and he makes a mental note to check on Jeno again soon.
Being as quiet as he possibly can, Jaemin has barely finished closing the door behind himself when Renjun appears by his side, his eyes big and a frown marking the middle of his forehead, looking like he just magically appeared in the middle of the hallway.
"Is he okay?"
Renjun tries to whisper, but his voice ends up coming out louder than he probably intended to, so Jaemin shushes him, lifting a finger to his lips, and Renjun’s frown deepens. He repeats his question, lower this time, and Jaemin nods after hesitating for a second.
“I think so. He says he's just a bit sick—he’s sleeping now, by the way—but we should try to make him eat something later.”
Renjun nods. “I’m gonna call his work and explain the situation… I think we should work out a schedule to keep an eye on Jeno. How many shifts do you have this week? I can stay up if you're working during the night, and I can probably take a day off too to stay and check on him if you're—"
"Honey," Jaemin interrupts him, laying his hand on Renjun's shoulder. "It's okay. Jeno will be okay. It's probably nothing serious."
"But—"
"And if Jeno doesn't look any better by tomorrow then we deal with the situation. Worrying too much won't make him recover faster."
Renjun opens his mouth to retort, but he seems to think twice and closes it. His shoulders drop, his bottom lip jutting out slightly.
"Okay," he says, sighing. Jaemin smiles. "It's just that Jeno never gets sick, so I just… Can't help but worry."
"I know, but let's try to keep our cool, okay? You'll need to play nurse when I'm not here so you can't be freaking out," Jaemin says, a joking tone making its way into his voice.
Renjun cracks open a smile, his eyes glinting a little. His head leans forward, his body crowding Jaemin's personal space as if he's unconsciously chasing after him. "I'll try to be a better nurse than you are."
"You're a natural," Jaemin says, getting rid of the distance between them. "You don't even have to try."
Renjun sinks into his embrace, his body melting against his, his breathing grazing the side of his neck. Holding Renjun just feels right — like coming home after a long day and having all of your problems disappear. Jaemin could never have enough of it.
"Yeah," Renjun murmurs. It's not true and they both know it: Jaemin is the better nurse between them, but not only because that’s also his job — Renjun is too prone to overreacting and fretting over all of them, having no patience to learn or let any sickness run through its own cycle, always wanting to speed up recovery time. "Jen is always saying I'm the best, anyway."
Jaemin smiles. It probably wasn't the wisest decision to rely on the opinion of a feverish man that babbled about anything, but whenever Jeno had been sick, Renjun was the one who spoiled and babied him the most while Jaemin just automatically had his professional side taking over. It wasn't really a surprise that Jeno preferred to get coddled by Renjun over being interviewed and prodded at by Jaemin.
"Of course he does," Jaemin replies. He hears the snicker that Renjun lets out, feeling the way his arms tighten around his frame. "I need to get more sick just so I can have you taking care of me too."
"Don't even joke about that," Renjun complains, softly pinching Jaemin's side, but there's a hint of pride in his voice about being the favourite one, and Jaemin hides a grin as he kisses the top of Renjun’s head.
“You look like shit" is the first thing that Renjun hears when he steps inside the office.
He stops in his tracks, his hand still wrapped around the doorknob, and he glares at his co-worker. Donghyuck is sitting back on his own chair, his feet up on his messy table, and a steaming mug of coffee is nestled in between his hands.
He looks like he doesn't have a single worry in the entire world.
“Well. Good morning to you, too,” Renjun says. “And thanks,” he mutters darkly, the words barely making out of his dry throat before they’re broken up by a loud yawn that he lets out.
“Fuck—are you okay?”
Donghyuck takes his feet off the table. He stands up, intending on walking closer to him, but Renjun only waves a hand, halting his friend in place.
Renjun’s desk is right next to Donghyuck’s and, somehow, his chair is a less comfortable one even if they all look the same. When Renjun’s butt meets the seat, it creaks and groans under his weight. “Jeno has been having a hard time sleeping and I’m a bit worried,” he says, sighing. A furrow appears between his brows and Renjun pinches the bridge of his nose. He pushes his keyboard a little to the side, making sure everything is tidy on his side of the room. “But Jaemin says I’m worrying for nothing. And Google really isn’t helping me.”
“Damn,” Donghyuck mumbles. He puts his mug down and walks around his desk, sitting down on the edge of Renjun’s desk and pushing the computer monitor to the side with his butt. Renjun stares at the monitor like he could keep it in place with the force of his mind. “But like, Jaemin is a nurse. He must know things—I mean, he needs to, right? So he’d say something if it was serious. And if you get more stressed then you’re just going to be sick too.”
“I know. It’s just that I can’t physically relax. I lay down in bed and I can’t sleep, and then when I do sleep I keep waking up to check on Jeno and… It sucks. It sucks bad because I trust Jaemin but then it just keeps looking I don’t, but I’m just so worried so I—” Making a disgruntled noise, Renjun presses the palm of his hands against his closed eyes. “Ugh.”
“Hey. Hey. Jeno is okay. Like, he’s legit okay, you know? Your worries must be making you see things because, yeah, his voice is scratchy as fuck and he won’t stop sneezing but he was doing an Instagram live yesterday while trying the new filters. And we also called a few days ago and he wouldn’t stop complaining about how he was shitting ev—”
“Okay, okay!” Renjun cuts him off, throwing Donghyuck a look. “So I’m the problem, then. Everyone says he’s okay and I’m just overreacting. And I know that! But I just can’t turn my mind off!”
Donghyuck’s butt pushes the monitor a little more to the side and Renjun glares down at the glass table. He brings the mousepad closer to him.
“It’s probably just your control tendencies acting up again because this, someone being sick, is something that you can’t control. Remember how you’d turn into a demon back in college because of group projects?”
“That’s different,” Renjun says. “My boyfriend has been sick for days.”
“Your boyfriend was sick and it’s recovering and your other boyfriend—who’s a nurse and a better person to judge the entire situation than you, might I add—says he’s doing good. You can’t control everything, Renjun. You’re going to end up blowing up one day if you keep going like that.”
You can’t control everything.
Renjun huffs, puffing his cheeks out. He could fucking try, though.
And yet he knows, deep inside, that Donghyuck is right. There’s nothing that he can do about the situation; it’s something way out of his power.
The feeling of powerlessness gnaws at him on the inside, making his mind run wild as it sorts through all the possibilities to find something — just something — to do and make Jeno feel better. To bring him some kind of comfort.
But as much as Renjun would like, it’s not like he could chase Jeno’s sickness away and make his boyfriend all healthy and good in a single second, all with the power of his mind.
Renjun groans. He hates feeling useless.
Donghyuck finally slides down from the edge of Renjun’s desk and Renjun is able to bring his monitor back to its original position. “Am I finally seeing the light of realization shining behind your eyes or are you still in denial? You know I’m right. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Fuck off,” Renjun grumbles, directing Donghyuck towards his chair. He pointedly ignores Donghyuck’s gloating look. Letting Donghyuck know that he was right and successfully getting inside of Renjun’s mind would only urge him to keep meddling in his life more, Renjun’s sure of it.
Renjun is very bad at hiding his feelings and Jaemin absolutely adores that about him. It’s easy to read him, to know what’s going on in his mind, and there’s a kind of bravery in his vulnerability that always manages to knock the breath out of him.
Renjun had been clearly trying to give some breathing room to Jeno. He hadn’t taken Jeno’s temperature in over 4 hours and didn’t nag him about the room’s closed curtains. He also didn’t try to convince them to light a special candle to clear Jeno’s clogged nose, but Jaemin noticed how restless Renjun was, shifting and moving all the time, unable to stay still in just one position, avoiding everyone’s eyes while also looking intensely at Jeno when he thought no one was paying him any attention.
“Do you want to give me a hand?” Jaemin asks, a brief smile crossing his lips.
Renjun almost gasps, caught off guard. Jaemin doesn’t look back, doesn’t look over his shoulder, but he can see Renjun’s shadow displayed on the wall, his nervous stance being easy to discern. Even if he hadn’t made any noise when entering the room, Jaemin could feel the shift in the air, the weight of a pair of eyes gazing at his back.
A soft moan rips through the air, Jeno’s voice breaking the silence when Jaemin kneads at the muscles of his back just in the right way, his fingers dissolving the tension that resides in Jeno’s body.
The low sound of footsteps approaching is all the answer that Jaemin gets before the mattress dips under Renjun’s weight. He stands close to the end of the bed, careful of Jeno’s body, of touching him, and Jaemin can’t help but laugh at that — there he is, sitting on the back of Jeno’s thigh and mercilessly rubbing his back, using his strength and not hesitating about that, while Renjun is uncertain of even jostling the mattress.
But the fact that Renjun didn’t bolt out of the room or went on a rant about how Jeno needed to sleep and rest as much as possible shows Jaemin that Renjun is making an effort, that he’s trying not to treat Jeno like he’s made out of glass and something delicate, something that needs to be protected.
“What should I do?” Renjun whispers. He shuffles closer to Jeno’s side, his knees pressing down on the mattress and trapping the end of the blanket under him.
Jaemin doesn’t stop moving his hands, working on a persistent knot that doesn’t want to go away. “Do you want to give it a try?” He asks, almost slipping out from Jeno’s thighs before he stops himself and decides to wait for Renjun’s answer. At Renjun’s hesitation, Jaemin suggests a gentler approach that might suit Renjun better: “If you play with Jeno’s hair, he’ll probably fall asleep right away.”
But maybe Jeno had been closer to falling asleep than Jaemin had thought, because at the sound of his voice Jeno grunts and mumbles something unintelligible before he tilts his head a little to the side. “...Jun? You here?” The words slur past his lips, sleepiness clouding his tone, but there’s a hint of joy in his voice that makes him perk up even when he’s laying down on his belly.
Jaemin is in the perfect position to see how Jeno’s obvious excitement about Renjun’s presence there brings a smile to Renjun’s lips and makes his eyes lit up, something comfortable and familiar flooding his body and melting away his tension.
“Yeah,” Renjun says, stretching out his hand to lay his fingers on Jeno’s nape and gently squeeze there. “I’m here, Jeno-ya.”
Jeno hums, the side of his face squished against one of the pillows, his eyes closed shut. “You’re here,” he repeats, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Jaemin presses down on his shoulder blades, feeling the heat of Jeno’s body against the palm of his hands. “I’m glad…” he trails off, grunting again when Jaemin’s fingers dig deeper.
The room seems a little brighter. The bedside lamp isn’t shining stronger, but it’s almost like the happiness that they feel, the love and affection that they share and that runs deep inside of them, turn the place into something more — blazing and golden and unstoppable.
Renjun doesn’t grab the bottle of oil or change places with Jaemin. He chooses to lay on his side on the bed, next to Jeno, their faces close to one another. Renjun’s fingers brush Jeno’s hair away from his face, running through the dark strands until Jeno gets lulled into an easy sleep.
Jaemin feels his heart flutter.
Watching the people he loves taking care of one another makes him brim with energy. It fills his lungs with something warm and light and it coats the back of his throat with sweet words that he wants to share, but as he feels Jeno’s body relax under his hand and as he watches Renjun’s eyelids flutter shut as he strokes Jeno’s hair, Jaemin doesn’t say anything. He merely observes, his heart pounding against his chest, his mind filled with confessions he’ll share in another moment.
“Welcome home, sweetheart. Come eat dinner because we have a surprise later for you.”
Renjun arches one eyebrow. “For me? What is it? What did you both do?”
Jaemin and Jeno are both sitting down at the table and grinning too wide to not be plotting something. By now, Renjun has learned to not trust Jeno’s puppy-like eyes.
“It’s a secret!” Jeno exclaims, using his feet to push back the chair so Renjun could sit down. “Come on, I’m starving.”
That prompts Jaemin to stand up — though not abandoning his glass of wine — and walk back into the kitchen. He comes back with a boiling pot in his hands and his favorite blue oven gloves on just as Renjun finishes washing his hands and putting his bag away.
The table had already been set and Renjun’s amazement is even more pronounced when he sees that they’re using their fancy plates. It’s not their anniversary or someone’s birthday, so it only makes his curiosity increase more and more until he blurts out:
“Okay. What are you guys planning?”
Jaemin comes back again from inside the kitchen, this time with his glass and a new bottle of wine, his oven gloves left behind. “Don’t be a spoilsport,” he says. “We’ll tell you later.”
Renjun can’t help but pout a little — it’s his secret weapon and everyone knows that. Jeno, very pointedly, averts his eyes. Jaemin suddenly looks very interested in filling Jeno’s bowl with food.
“Come on,” Renjun whines out the last word, borrowing his shame deep inside of him for a second when he pouts again, “can’t you just tell me one thing, at least? Just one?”
Jeno looks at Renjun and he furrows his brows. “It’s ju—” His words are cut off by a loud sneeze, his chair being dragged against the floor.
Jaemin takes the opportunity to fill Renjun’s bowl and push it in his direction. “It’s a surprise,” he repeats, his eyes glinting with mirth. “Later.”
Renjun can see when he’s defeated so he slumps back on the chair and crosses his arms against his chest. “Mean.”
Jaemin had outdone himself with the food. Everything is colourful and hot, the fumes going up towards the ceiling, the scent of spices making his mouth water, and Renjun quickly gives up on his act and takes his first spoonful. He can’t waste any more time when it’s about Jaemin’s food.
Renjun notices that there’s no playlist playing in the background this time, but when the silence falls in between stories of their workplace or news about the world, it doesn’t feel like something uncomfortable. They share silent smiles and soft looks with one another, their cheeks full of food and glasses filled with wine.
He and Jaemin finish the bottle mostly by themselves. Jeno sips a little, but he stays with his glass of water, and Renjun feels content with him being careful and not overdoing it when he’s just getting better now.
The tiredness that had accumulated from the entire week slowly starts to seep out of him as they talk and dine, any reminder of the outside world fading away from his mind. For a moment, the entire world is there inside of their apartment, revolving around them three.
When Renjun finishes his dessert and he’s sipping on his glass of wine, making eyes at Jeno and rubbing his toes against Jeno’s calf under the table, Jaemin pushes his empty plate to the side and proclaims, “Now take off your clothes.”
Renjun chokes. He puts down his glass, trying not to spit out wine while wanting to cough his lungs out at the same time. He kind of does both, swallowing as much as he can while trying to cough and covering his mouth with both hands. Jeno pats him on the back.
“What?”
“Take off your clothes?” Jaemin repeats, lifting his eyebrows slightly. Renjun can clearly see the shadow of a smirk on his face and he knows that Jaemin is doing that on purpose. Jeno, totally unbothered, resumes eating his dessert after patting Renjun on the back once more.
“Uh… Now?” Renjun asks, his voice breaking because of all the coughing. “I’m not finished though.” He points at his glass, thinking how wine stains on bed sheets wouldn’t be something he’d look forward to dealing with.
“You can take it with you.” Jaemin gets up from the table, grabbing his plate. He catches Renjun’s gaze and smirks. “It’s a bath. Don’t expect too much, love.”
Renjun flushes a little, his mind filled with different ideas. He eyes Jeno and licks his lips, unsure on what to do. Jeno hasn’t finished his dessert yet, but it’s almost like he can read Renjun’s mind because he says: “Go ahead. I'll finish this and then I’ll join you both. Enjoy your surprise, Junnie.”
Renjun feels his heart stutter once. “My surprise?”
Jeno nods, his eyes softening at the edges. “You’ve been so tired and stressed lately. You deserve to have a nice time and just relax.”
Renjun would like very much to argue that Jeno is the one who should get that bath. Who deserved to be pampered and taken care of. To be spoiled rotten.
“Let’s go?” Jaemin asks, coming back from the kitchen. He has a new, unopened bottle of wine in his grasp.
But a bath does sound very tempting, so Renjun hesitates only for a second before following Jaemin’s steps. Jeno nods his head once more when Renjun looks at him over his shoulder, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, and he ushers Renjun forward with a wave of his hand. Renjun holds his glass and goes.
Inside, Renjun finds the bathroom thoroughly decorated with too many candles for it not to be a fire hazard. Renjun eyes all the decorations, catching the small paper hearts scattered over the sink and their fluffiest towel next to the bathtub. The mirror reflects Jaemin’s big smile, so proud and bright, that Renjun can’t help but reciprocate it.
“You guys didn’t have to…” He starts, but then shakes his head, changing subjects. “When did you both find the time to do this? Like, I'm pretty sure we didn’t have this many candles this morning… You didn’t let Jeno go out all by himself, did you?” He asks, raising an eyebrow.
Jaemin winks. “I’m not saying anything. Now strip.”
Renjun sighs in exasperation, swallowing down any complaints. It’s not the time for that. His boyfriends had made a surprise for him, had taken the time to create something special, and arguing about how he didn’t agree with Jeno getting out of bed and running around the city wasn’t the way to go with that night.
He puts his glass of wine next to their toothbrushes and starts to undress while Jaemin fills the bathtub, the sound of running water taking over the bathroom.
"I'm feeling like a child with you drawing the bath like that," Renjun mutters when he’s naked, taking a sip of wine.
The corners of Jaemin’s lips curl up, his eyes glinting. "But you are my baby."
Renjun huffs. He takes another gulp, using the opportunity to not say anything about that.
"Aren't you getting in?"
Jaemin shakes his head. "Nah. Today is all about you and Jeno,” he says. “But don’t tell him that—he thinks it’s a surprise only for you. I wouldn’t be able to convince him to just relax otherwise. He’s getting all antsy to get back to work already.”
Pursing his lips, Renjun says, “He should rest a little more. He’s still sneezing like crazy.”
“His sick leave ends this weekend, though. I don’t think he’ll accept staying home anymore… But anyway, this is for you who has been too stressed and for Jeno who needs to be babied every day. It’s for you both."
Renjun’s heart swells and he quickly blinks, trying to will the tears away. It’s true that Jeno should be spoiled every day, but Jaemin also needs it. There was only so much make-up that he could wear to try and hide his eyebags; he was overworked with both his shifts and looking after them both — Jeno being sick and Renjun being stressed and a mess all around.
He lifts his hand, fingers stretching out to touch the back of Jaemin’s shirt, an invite on the tip of his tongue, but he stops himself. Jaemin had done so much, making sure to surprise him with a bath and a dinner… to surprise them both, actually. The least that Renjun could do was to come up with something special for Jaemin later. Renjun is sure that Jeno would have some good ideas for what they could do.
“Are you sure?” He still asks, his heart hammering against his chest. He can’t help but feel a little guilty for just laying back and relaxing while Jaemin is doing so much.
But then Jaemin smiles. It’s not a big grin or something playful like he tends to do, but a small smile, something gentle and fond that raises his cheekbones and crinkles the corner of his eyes, making Renjun feel warmth pooling in the pit of his stomach.
“Let me take care of my babies, please,” Jaemin says, as if he could read Renjun’s mind and see what he was struggling with. As if he had every emotion displayed on his face.
Renjun swallows. Well. If Jaemin wants to, then who Renjun was to deny him that? He could only promise himself that he had to make sure that Jaemin felt just as special as he tried to make him and Jeno feel.
Renjun tests the water with his hand after the bathtub gets filled, passing his glass to Jaemin so he could get in. The warm water against his skin melts all of his fatigue away, his body going lax and his muscles relaxing as he leans back, sighing in satisfaction.
Jaemin moves around in the bathroom after giving Renjun back his glass, tidying up things that didn't need his attention, moving candles slightly to the side before bringing them back to their original place, some weird jittery energy taking over him until Jeno strides in.
Looking around himself with an awed look on his face, Jeno exclaims, “Whoa. It ended up looking a lot better than what I imagined.”
Jaemin grins, his shoulders lowering. His eyes fixate on Jeno, on his slightly flushed face and on his bare chest, his pants halfway to the floor already, and Renjun feels that familiar warmth taking over his body again when Jaemin and Jeno exchange loving smiles, bodies drawing close to each other as if there was something bigger that couldn’t keep them apart even for a second. Even if they tried to.
Jeno finishes undressing quickly after he gets a peck on his lips, slipping inside of the bathtub as Jaemin leaves the bathroom, saying something about changing his clothes.
Sitting across from him, Jeno glows under the light cast by the candles, his skin bathed in gold and his eyes set alight. Renjun had seen him in many different ways, in many different moments, but Jeno never failed in making him lose his breath and feel his heart squeezing tight inside his chest — as if air wasn’t enough for him anymore; as if there was something about Jeno that fueled his lungs and dictated the rhythm of his heartbeat.
“What are you thinking about?” Jeno asks, bringing Renjun back from the wanderings of his mind. Their legs brush against one another and Renjun wants more than anything to have their bodies pressed tight together.
He drinks a little more of his wine, staring at Jeno’s face. His cheeks are flushed from the water, his hair all messy, but his eyes are clear. Renjun lets his gaze trail lower, focusing on Jeno’s lips.
He wants to kiss him. Wants to kiss him so much that it’s all he can think about for a moment — warm lips against his own, a breath grazing his cheek, a tongue tracing his lower lip. Renjun can almost imagine how Jeno would taste like after the dessert and the wine, how he’d shudder with a hand around his waist and fingers entangled in his hair.
“So?” Jeno asks, cocking up an eyebrow. His lips quirk up as if he thought about a funny thing and Renjun was the only one unaware of the joke. “What’s on your mind that got you looking like that, hm?”
Their legs brush together once more and Jeno’s feet push Renjun’s legs apart.
“You.”
Jeno smiles at his answer, his eyes crinkling at the corner and teeth grazing his bottom lip. He looks relaxed, his body entirely submerged and only with his head above the water, the tip of his nose red.
“Cheesy,” he says.
Jeno crosses the distance between them slowly, letting Renjun’s eyes trail over his form until he settles between his open legs, their bare chests pressing against one another. Renjun’s breath hitches and he swallows hard, his fingers faltering their grip around his glass of wine.
“Hello, there,” Jeno says, all playful-like. His moment is broken by a sniffle, but Renjun smiles at that, at his cute red cheeks and cute pouty lips.
“Hi,” Renjun replies, wrapping one of his arms around Jeno’s neck. His fingers find themselves in between the strands of his hair, lightly scratching his scalp. “Thanks for this.”
“Hmm…” Jeno’s chest vibrates with his humming, allowing Renjun to feel it against his own skin too. The vulnerability of being so open to someone like this, of being so close together that no reaction goes unseen, is exhilarating and it makes Renjun’s head spin.
Jeno’s fingers press against his skin, clutching his waist, and Renjun needs to consciously remember to not drop his glass when Jeno’s lips find his, swallowing down his gasp. His mouth is warm and it sets Renjun’s body on fire, a spark running down his spine when Jeno’s tongue licks the roof of his mouth.
He tastes of wine, of the sugary dessert that Jaemin had made. He tastes of happiness and of love, of something addictive that keeps Renjun wanting more and more and more.
When they pull apart, Jeno doesn’t say “I love you”, but his eyes are soft and he looks carefully at Renjun, like he’s mapping his features and saving all of them inside of his mind. His hands settle on the side of his face, gently caressing his cheeks, and Renjun lets out a shaky breath.
Jeno’s Adam’s apple bobs up once before the distance between them doesn’t exist anymore. He pecks his lower lip, then his upper lip. The corner of his mouth. His chin.
Words aren’t necessary when his actions speak so loudly, and Renjun lets himself be wrapped in Jeno’s affection, his eyes slipping shut as his body burns.
Jaemin arrives back in his pajamas and with a chair from their living room that he puts next to the bathtub. He rolls back the long sleeves of his shirt and motions towards Renjun. “Let me wash your hair, love.”
The feeling of Jaemin’s fingers on his scalp, massaging and carding through his hair, added to the cosy atmosphere and warm water around him, makes Renjun sigh. He’s sitting up as close as possible to the edge so that Jaemin doesn't have to lean forward so much.
It feels good — so good that all that Renjun can do is to lean more against Jaemin’s touch, feeling almost as if he’s melting away under his fingertips.
A hand touches his arm and Renjun jerks away, eyes opening wide. When he blinks, Jeno is closer to him than before and his hand is curled around his wrist, steading the glass on his grip that had started to tilt sideways.
“Don’t go falling asleep now."
Jaemin finishes with him and Renjun fights to maintain his eyes open while Jaemin does the same thing with Jeno. Now, with his belly full and body entirely relaxed, the prospect of sleep is almost too tempting not to succumb to.
Jeno smiles with the tending he receives. Jaemin talks low about something that Renjun can’t make out with his foggy brain, but they look so happy, so in love, that it makes Renjun feel all warm and fuzzy inside, sighing fondly at the view in front of him.
They get out when the water starts to get cold and Renjun's glass is fully empty. By then, Jaemin had refilled it for him a few times before saying that he was feeling too lazy to get up again, but Renjun could see his eyelids dropping close for the span of a second, just for Jaemin to snap his eyes open right away and try to shake his sleepiness away. Jeno seemed to be the only one mildly awake.
Getting the fluffiest towel of them all, Renjun feels like he’s a new man; like all of his fatigue had slipped away from his bones and he was made anew.
Jeno settles in the middle of the bed because Jaemin and Renjun always have to leave the bed first in the morning and don’t want to bother him. With the blankets wrapped around him, drowning in a t-shirt too big for his frame, Jeno looks soft and comfortable, and Renjun quickly abandons his fluffy towel on the floor (he’d deal with that first thing in the morning) to join him in bed.
With his hair falling gently on his forehead and a yawn crossing his features, Jeno looks at him with his eyes half-closed shut. His cheek is squished against the pillow and Jaemin is behind him, arms wrapped around Jeno’s waist and cuddling him with all his might. He’s the first one to start snoring.
“Night,” Jeno mumbles, voice low and throaty, eyelashes fluttering against the top of his cheeks.
Renjun can barely keep his eyes open anymore, sleep clinging to his frame just as tightly as Jaemin is to Jeno. He thinks he says something back, maybe leans forward to kiss Jeno goodnight, but it’s all fuzzy around the edges as sleep claims him.