Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jay liked napping.

Wait. Let him rephrase: Jay liked napping in odd places.

Jay napped behind the couch. In the half-assed pillow fort he set up at the corner of his room or Sunghoon’s room. In his closet or Sunghoon’s closet. Under his desk or Sunghoon’s desk. In front of the heater during winter. In the small space between furniture and a wall. It was like whatever tiny spaces existed, Jay would find a way to contort his body to fit into them.

Once, Sunghoon tore their apartment upside down because Jay’s phone was on the table while Jay himself was nowhere to be found—and it was raining heavily outside and none of their friends knew of his whereabouts—only to find Jay napping inside the one storage cabinet in the kitchen they never knew what to do with. With ears blocked by a pair of earphones. He remembered getting mad, so mad he almost walked out on Jay, but Jay was quick on his feet and even quicker in resolving the tension, citing his exhaustion as an excuse for falling asleep and not realizing Sunghoon was home.

Jay also liked napping on Sunghoon. Or in the space between Sunghoon and the back of the sofa. This had drawbacks as much as it had benefits; although Sunghoon would often get roped into napping as well, which was great, sometimes it was inconvenient especially when he had to get up and do something, because God forbid someone disturbed Jay’s beauty nap.

Jay’s naps never lasted long, thirty minutes tops. Sunghoon got used to coming home to Jay occupying whichever space struck his fancy at the moment, got used to tiptoeing around the apartment so he wouldn’t wake him up.

Cats spent a lot of time napping, anyway. It just made sense that Jay shared the same habit. Jay juggled a lot of things every day, being the overachiever that he was, so it explained his need to catch some rest here and there.

Then Jay stared at him as if he was an idiot and said he wasn’t catching rest, that it was just another urge.

“Are you sure it’s an urge?” Sunghoon asked, because it didn’t sound like one. “Not just you wanting to take a nap?”

Jay confirmed that it was an urge.

“How do you know?”

Jay looked irked at the line of questioning. “Why do you sometimes feel like watching another episode of your favorite TV show before bed? Because you just want it.”

It sounded unbearably simple when put that away. Sunghoon accepted the explanation. It wasn’t like he was going to understand that ever.

Jay’s napping habit—no, urge, sorry Jay—extended beyond their home as well. The classes, the library, the cafe, the benches around campus. He only did it when he was with someone else, though, which made sense, because falling unconscious in public spaces with no one to keep an eye on you was a supremely bad idea. Anything could happen when you dropped your guard.

(While sleeping during classes wasn’t at all special since everyone else did it, Jay could sleep while still retaining the information given by their lecturers. Sunghoon jokingly likened him to a dolphin that slept with only half its brain shut down at a time. Jay calmly agreed, although he would attribute it more to his personality quirk instead of his hybridness.)

So, yeah, seeing Jay nap here and there was nothing new.

What was new and rather worrisome was, it got worse these past couple of weeks.

It started with Exhibit A: Jay going to the library and not coming back past the closing time at midnight. This, in itself, would've been totally fine, if Jay didn’t always text him about coming home late or not coming at all. But Jay didn’t this time. Sunghoon’s phone had been on radio silence since this afternoon when Jay went to the library to cram a week's worth of study materials.

He had checked every nook and cranny in their apartment to make sure Jay hadn't slipped in when he wasn’t looking, phoned their mutual friends in case they had seen him (they hadn't), and when nothing came out of it, asked the online magic conch shell if Jay was an idiot for worrying him sick like this (the shell said yes). He spent another half an hour asking the shell if he should check the library.

Was Sunghoon overthinking everything? Maybe. Was Sunghoon being too mother-hen-y? Also maybe, and it was admittedly a bit out of character of him since Jay was usually the one doing the fussing. Was Sunghoon willing to go out on this cold autumn night, trekking the fifteen minutes track to the library, with all the possibility of finding nothing because, duh, the library had closed? The honest answer was no, but his conscience couldn’t just forget the many times Jay had picked him up, wasted and drunk and everything, from whatever party Sunghoon decided to crash on the rare occasions he let go of his own inhibitions. It just made sense that Sunghoon returned the favor—relationships required sacrifice from both parties, after all.

Should he go to the library? Sunghoon pressed the button on the screen.

The magic conch shell answered yes seven times and no four times. Sunghoon asked if Jay maybe had simply forgotten to message him about his change of plan, the shell said no. Sunghoon asked again if he really should check the library, just in case the shell changed its mind, but the shell said yes and effectively sealed his fate.

Even the badly-coded shell agreed Jay was an idiot and Sunghoon should go look for him.

He also didn’t want Jay to end up being kidnapped or left in the ditch, or something serious like that.

He was halfway donning his coat when his phone chimed with an incoming message. Not from Jay, unfortunately, but from one Jeon Jungkook.

What.

Sunghoon was quite close with Jungkook, being the cousin of Jungkook’s boyfriend’s, but why would his TA message him at ass o’clock on a Sunday? Was the paper he submitted a week ago that bad it induced nightmares on Jungkook’s part?

Lowkey panicking, he swiped down on the notification to read the preview message.

Jeon Jungkook
hi, sunghoon!
sorry for texting this late. i saw jay sleeping in front of the library just now. is he okay?
[ 🖼️ photo attached]
i wanted to accompany him home but i had to catch my bus. maybe you should pick him up?

Sunghoon cursed his dumb cat hybrid of a boyfriend, texted a profuse string of thank you’s to Jungkook, and ran out of the apartment.

“Are you insane,” was the first thing he said upon finding Jay, slumped and sleeping on the bench in front of the university library just like what Jungkook’s photo showed. Jay’s body tilted sideways dangerously, one second away from bashing his head against the hard wood of the bench.

Sunghoon shook him awake, pissed and impatient. It took several tries, but he managed to pull Jay to his feet and drag him to the direction of their apartment complex.

“Why the fuck are you sleeping there, it’s past midnight,” Sunghoon scolded, tightening his coat and then his hold on Jay’s arm. He walked briskly, not slowing down despite Jay’s stumbling steps.

Jay looked mostly out of it, eyes blinking slowly as if he hadn't fully woken up. “The library closed,” he yawned. “I was sleepy.”

“Why don’t you, gee, I don’t know, come home and sleep in a real bed? I almost called the police on you!”

A little lie wouldn’t hurt. He needed the element of exaggeration.

“I think I saw Jungkook-sunbae,” Jay said in lieu of answering.

Screw worrying about Jay. Sunghoon regretted coming all the way to the library to pick him up—he could've been sleeping and well on his way to the land of dreams, for heaven’s sake. He just hoped this was a one-time thing.

It wasn’t, in fact, a one-time thing.

Exhibit B: Jay dozing off in a queue. They were queueing for coffee after class, and Sunghoon noticed how Jay’s eyes drooped and his body started to sway. Definitely a bad, bad sign. He grabbed Jay’s arm in time to prevent him from stumbling and crashing into the floor, startling him out of his almost-slumber.

“You all right?” Sunghoon squeezed his arm. “Need to sit down?”

“No,” Jay said, just in time for the cashier to wave them forward. Jay placed their orders and smiled and struck a conversation, all traces of sleepiness gone, but Sunghoon couldn’t just let it go. Jay nodding off in a queue, while standing up on top of that, had never happened before. Was this another urge?

Exhibit C: Jay sleeping on the intercity bus he missed his stop and had to take a train back two hours later. This would've been pretty understandable, honestly; a stroke of bad luck mutually exclusive from Sunghoon’s worries, but Sunghoon couldn’t help but connect it to the other mishaps that came with Jay’s napping urge going haywire.

Exhibit D: Jay sleeping at the end of his shift.

It went down similar to the library incident: Jay passing out at an inappropriate place at an inappropriate time. Only this time, Sunghoon was spared the indignity of asking the magic conch shell for advice.

He was walking home from skating practice, regretting every single decision he had made that day not to drive, when he realized he was one block away from the cafe Jay worked at.

His watch showed a bit before eleven. Jay had a closing shift today, so maybe he was still there? That would be neat, they could go home together.

He pulled up Jay’s contact and called him just in case. Jay didn’t pick up, but it was expected, he must be busy with closing up.

A few meters away from the cafe, Sunghoon saw the sign still glowed brightly. He walked the rest of the distance with spring on his step, peeking inside when he was close to the front door.

Then promptly almost died.

Slumping on one of the tables was Jay. Unmoving.

For a beat Sunghoon’s heart had leaped to his mouth, a myriad of bad scenarios running through his mind because holy shit did something bad happen that made Jay pass out like that? He almost dashed to the door, but then Jay twitched and moved slightly before settling again.

Realization dawned on him.

Jay was simply sleeping.

Sunghoon got kind of tired of this shit. He marched inside, somehow unsurprised that the door wasn’t even locked. Which was bad—if Sunghoon could get in just fine, any burglar in the area could have, too.

He stared at Jay across from him—completely passed out, dead to the world—then at his surroundings, and concluded that Jay had probably fallen asleep mid-cleaning up. What a trouble.

Sunghoon strode to the cashier register, plucked the table bell from the counter, and pressed down on it as hard as he could in rapid succession.

The noise jerked Jay from his slumber. He jerked awake instantly, shoulders hunched and arms raised in a defensive stance, eyes wildly scanning for threats before landing on Sunghoon. His startled expression morphed into confusion.

“Hoon? What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing?” Sunghoon fired back. “I was in the area. You said you have a closing shift today, so I think we could go home together, but then I arrived here and here you are, sleeping. You didn’t even lock the door! What if there was a burglar?!”

Jay blinked, taking in this barrage of onslaughts in something resembling astonishment. Sunghoon wanted to gouge his eyes out. “Oh. Right. Okay. I must be more tired than I thought.” His eyes darted to the door. “Did you really get in through the door? I didn’t hear you come in.”

“What else? Unless there’s a secret door or something, yes, Jay, I got through the door and it opened easily!” Sunghoon threw his hands in frustration. “You’re lucky I’m not here to rob you, or this cafe. What were you even thinking!”

Jay rubbed the back of his neck, looking properly chastised. “Yeah? Thank you for not robbing me, then.” Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “It’s just … I don’t know. Lately the urges to nap were unbearable.”

You don’t say, Sunghoon wanted to say, as Jay meandered to the counter to pick up where he left off. “What about you being able to listen to a lecture while sleeping but not someone literally coming closer to you in the middle of the night,” he lamented instead. “This night could've taken a drastically different turn. How are you not fired already?”

Jay threw a dirty rag at him.

Sunghoon watched him putting things back to their respective place, eyes following every of his movement. He must have spaced out, almost missed it when Jay came up to him, smelling strongly of disinfectant he used to wipe down the tables.

“You can go home first,” Jay said. He raised his hand to cradle Sunghoon’s cheek. “I might take a while.”

Sunghoon sighed, tired and irritated, but leaned into the touch. “I'm already here, though.”

“Do you know what I'm seeing right now? The biggest eye bags I've ever seen in humanity,” he barreled on before Sunghoon could reply. “I still have to wash up and mop the floor. Go home, okay? Don’t you have a morning class tomorrow?”

“Why are you closing up alone?” Sunghoon frowned, only now realizing the situation. “You said there are usually two people.”

“Sunoo’s sick,” Jay shrugged. “He clocked out early. Poor kid couldn’t stop sneezing.” He caressed the skin under Sunghoon’s eye. “So as I was saying—”

“Then who’s going to make sure you don’t fall asleep again?” Sunghoon challenged, enjoying the way Jay fought a smile. He pressed a quick peck at Jay’s cheek and shuffled to the elevated platform where the beanbags were, dropping his entire weight on one of them. “If you’re so worried about me, then hurry up.”

Jay sighed in exasperation, and maybe a bit of fondness, and it made Sunghoon feel better.

They got home without further incident, but that was the last straw. Objectively speaking, what Jay did was worrisome enough to warrant further concern. Sunghoon had to stage an intervention.

He hunted Jake in the student center during lunch hours. Jake was sitting behind one of the tables, fumbling with a stack of papers. Sunghoon quickly strode towards him and slid into the seat across the small table.

“So, what do you need to discuss?” Jake asked, referring to Sunghoon’s text about wanting to meet as soon as possible for a Discussion.

Sunghoon eyed the papers scattered around the table. They contained the logistics for a trip organized by the international office this weekend.

“Yeah, about that,” Sunghoon started. He absently organized the papers so Jake could input the data more easily. They used to do this together, before Sunghoon stepped down from the student body to focus more on his figure skating. “Does Heeseung-hyung like napping, too?”

“Yes,” Jake answered, immediately getting the context. Out of their circle of close friends, Jake and Sunoo were the ones who dated other cat hybrids. “It’s part of their urges or something. Why?”

Sunghoon told Jake about that night in front of the library and other instances where Jay’s napping urges landed him in precarious situations. Jake particularly gaped at the incident at the cafe last night.

“He usually takes sporadic naps throughout the day, but lately it’s getting … worse?” Sunghoon divided the papers into several stacks. “It’s like he wasn’t even aware he slept in the first place. I don’t know what happened. Every time I asked, he said it’s just one of his urges.”

Jake’s snicker convinced Sunghoon that he had gone through the same situation before. “You tell me about it. Heeseung knocked an entire row of books when we went to a bookstore last week. I had to stop myself from walking out of the store right that instant.”

“Yikes.”

“I know,” Jake had his thinking pose on, eyes straight ahead and one finger tapping on his chin. “Man, the sleeping at the cafe was unbelievable. What if he got robbed?”

“Exactly,” Sunghoon sighed. “I’m afraid he would end up hurting himself. Did Heeseung-hyung ever act like this, too?”

“He naps often, but never in random places or to the point that makes me worried like that,” Jake said. “Is there anything in Jay’s life right now that takes up his attention and energy? He’s got the dance performance next month, right?”

Sunghoon had suspected it himself. “You think he’s simply tired?”

“It sounds possible? Maybe he’s been compensating for the extra energy he put into dancing. Heeseung tended to sleep longer and heavier when he has many things on his plate or when he’s stressed. Sounds similar to what Jay’s going through.”

Sunghoon didn’t notice anything different in Jay’s sleeping pattern at night, nor did he see signs of stress in him. But then, Sunghoon had been having his own stress to deal with, what with competitions and training camps coming up, so he might miss the signs.

Sunghoon thanked Jake for the input and continued helping him with the papers.

He sought Sunoo after class, taking the route that passed by the cafe on his way to the rink. Sunoo looked up from the cash register when he came in, eyes wide and questioning.

“Oh, Sunghoon-hyung!” he gave a little wave that Sunghoon returned. “Are you here for Jay-hyung? His shift starts in two hours, I’m afraid you have to come back later.”

“No, no, I'm not looking for him. I know when his shift starts,” Sunghoon looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was queueing. “Can we talk for a minute?”

Sunoo looked intrigued. He passed the counter to another coworker before gesturing to one of the tables near the window. When they had sat down, Sunoo slipped him a fudgy cookie. “Have a cookie, hyung. It’s on me! Thank you for the relationship advice last time.”

Sunghoon thanked him and bit into the cookie. “Hm. This is good.”

Sunoo nodded in agreement. “So, what’s up?”

Sunghoon told him the same stories he told Jake, making sure to lower his voice when he recounted the incident at this very cafe. He wasn’t trying to get Jay fired.

“He did what?” Sunoo looked more horrified than was understandable, and it made Sunghoon pause. He forgot that Sunoo was supposed to close up with Jay last night. “Shit, he didn’t tell me anything. I shouldn’t have left him alone.”

“Well, you couldn’t have possibly known what would happen,” Sunghoon said neutrally. “Did Jungwon ever do something like this?” This being napping in random places and risking his well-being in the process.

Sunoo fiddled with the end of his sleeves, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to recall his memories. “Not really? His sleep becomes more erratic when he has a lot in his mind, but I don’t remember him ever napping around and endangering himself like that.”

Similar to Heeseung, then.

Sunghoon relayed Jake’s suggestions for good measure. “Do you think it’s because he’s tired or stressed?”

“I would say so,” Sunoo agreed. “Jay-hyung is good at taking care of himself, as you must have known already, but it wouldn’t hurt to check if he’s got something going on? If there’s anything that would catch him off guard, it’s the stress. Have I told you about the one time he almost broke a coffee machine during finals season?”

Jay did break one of his own potted plants during the finals season last semester. He made sure to always get ones with plastic pots ever since.

Checking on Jay’s dancing practice might be his best shot at the moment. He sent a text to Niki, since they were both in the same dance club and had been preparing for the upcoming performance together. Maybe Niki noticed anything peculiar in Jay recently.

Sunghoon
Hi niki
Do you notice anything different in Jay lately
Maybe during practices?

By the time he arrived home, weary from practice and sticky with dried sweat, the apartment was silent. Jay’s door was ajar—Sunghoon peeked inside and saw him already in bed. His hand dangled over one side of the bed while his phone lay face down on the floor. He must have passed out in the middle of reading or watching something.

Sunghoon picked the phone off the floor and put it bedside.

As if on cue, his own phone buzzed with an incoming message. He left the room before opening the conversation.

Niki
SUNGHOON HYUNG
was just about to text u
jay hyung fainted during practice today :((
just thought u should know

Sunghoon
He did??
What happened

Niki
he passed out for a few minutes
but i dont think it's sumn serious
i think he’s just exhausted

Sunghoon
Somehow I can't blame him for that
Is he acting differently lately
He’s been sleeping more than usual

Niki
no? we often stay up late in the studio for extra practice but that’s nothing new
OH he cried several times this week
like in the locker room when everyone’s gone home

… Jay did?

Sunghoon
Why
Were you there when it happened

Niki
i did!
uh, accidentally. i think he regretted letting me see him like that
he had this fight with one of the dancers about the choreography
and since he’s the captain he’s got a lot to do aside from the dancing itself
like the artistic and logistics stuff
maybe it’s the stress :(

A classic case of overwork and exhaustion, then. Sunghoon understood it all too well, having gone through the same phase multiple times in his capacity as a competing athlete.

The next day was one of his rare days off. He didn’t have to be at the rink at all, and the realization gave him the leisure of waking up peacefully without any urgency digging at the back of his mind.

They kept separate bedrooms in the apartment, because Sunghoon was fierce about keeping his personal space and so was Jay. But lately they’d been sleeping in the same bed more often, alternating between Sunghoon’s bed or Jay’s depending on who went to bed first. Jay was the one who came up with the system and Sunghoon liked it. It gave him free rein of privacy while still having Jay within arm’s reach.

Jay was still fast asleep, face down with arms tucked underneath his torso and tail tucked up at his side. In other people, Sunghoon would call it a normal lying-on-a-stomach pose, but since this was Jay, he liked to think of it as the closest Jay ever came to a cat loaf. Jay only had to tuck his legs beneath him and it would be perfect.

He leaned over Jay, making sure Jay’s face wasn’t completely smothered on the pillow. Jay often did that—Sunghoon had lost count of how many times Jay woke up mid-sleeping with a startled gasp because he inadvertently blocked his own oxygen intake, lying down pressed on a pillow like that.

He thought of making Jay breakfast. Jay always insisted on supervising him in the kitchen, which was probably justified considering the number of times Sunghoon almost triggered the fire alarm (“How do you even know I almost trigger it? It either goes off or doesn’t!” “It’s the cat in me, Hoon.”). But he couldn’t be that helpless, honestly. He could manage a simple breakfast. Something that didn’t involve using the stove, like cereals. Or waffles. Or toast. If he was lucky, maybe they would still have the leftovers from last night’s dinner?

They didn’t (dammit), so Sunghoon put some slices of bread in the toaster. He might be a sworn enemy to the stove, but he knew how to toast bread perfectly. Not too brown but still crispy on the edges, just like how Jay liked.

They almost ran out of peanut jam, but dammit if Jay didn’t love peanut jam to a fault, so Sunghoon made sure to spread an abundance of it while making a mental note to buy a new jar later. He placed the slices of bread on the small plate on the table, and poured a glass of apple juice for good measure, even though he knew Jay preferred to drink straight from the cartoon.

Today was Saturday. When did Jay have to go to practice?

Sunghoon scrolled through his phone gallery, cursed at the many screenshots there, and pulled up his chatroom with Jay instead. Jay had sent him his practice schedule a while ago, which Sunghoon hadn't really looked at, and it made him feel a little guilty because Jay had his skating practice memorized probably since they had begun dating.

They hadn't had proper conversations for weeks, too busy with their own schedule to pay attention to the other. Maybe it was high time he reached out before Jay took a tumble he couldn’t return from.

It wasn’t just a dance practice, as it turned out. Jay had screen-captured his entire calendar this month, color-coded according to the types of activities, and it was easy to see how jam-packed Jay’s days were. Classes, obviously. Dance practices almost every day. Varying shifts at his part-time job. Volunteer works every other weekend, hours blocked for organizational duties, and a hodgepodge of miscellaneous activities such as grocery runs and meet-ups with friends. There were Sunghoon’s names scattered around as well, mostly denoting his skating practices, a sign that Jay always kept an eye on him despite never saying so. Was this how Jay always seemed to know when to make plans without interfering with his schedule?

It used to make him insecure at the beginning, to stand side by side with Jay who was out there juggling ten different things, and how Jay was so far out of his league. Then Jay flicked him in the forehead, harsh enough that Sunghoon yelped in protest.

“I can't believe I have to say this,” Jay said, pinching Sunghoon’s cheeks. “But you’re a goddamn athlete who competes nationally and internationally with rows of medals on your belt, and managed to juggle school on top of that. If anything, you are out of my league, Hoon.”

There was shuffling somewhere around the hallway, then a sound of running water. Jay entered the kitchen seven minutes later, face damp and clean and smelling like a toner. He must have rushed through his morning routine.

His eyes landed on the plate of toasts. “Did you make anything for me?”

“They’re for you,” Sunghoon gestured at his own bowl of cereals.

Jay mumbled a thank you, sitting across from Sunghoon and grabbing one slice. As expected, he chose the chair nearest the window where the sun filtered in the most.

“Are you doing anything today?” Sunghoon pushed the apple juice closer to Jay, just so he wouldn’t forget it.

Jay nodded. “My practice’s at ten. Is today your day off? What are you up to?”

Sunghoon took his time answering, mostly for show because he had thought about it since waking up. “I can drive you to the studio?” he suggested. “And stay and watch your practice?”

He looked at Jay, really looked, for the first time in weeks. The dark circles under his sunken eyes, the cracked lips, the lack of smile and his usual shine, the lethargy practically hanging off his shoulders. Even now he chewed his toast timidly, eyes blinking slowly as if he wasn’t really there.

Jay looked … rough. Dimmed, significantly so.

Sunghoon wondered how he hadn't noticed it sooner.

Jay titled his head to the side. “It’s your first day off in forever and you want to spend it in a dance studio full of sweaty people?”

Yes, Sunghoon would like that very much, if it meant staying close to Jay.

“I mean, I’ll never turn down a ride,” Jay shrugged, then grinned. “Thanks.”

The studio was fifteen minutes drive away. Sunghoon filled the time by asking Jay how he was doing and how the dance performance was coming up.

“Did you solve it between you two?” he asked after Jay told him about this one dancer that kept getting on his nerves. Sunghoon had to pretend to just have heard about it for the first time.

“I'm working on it,” was Jay’s only reply. They talked for a bit more, before—to no one’s surprise—Jay started to peter out and doze off in his seat.

On normal days, Jay and his crew practiced in a closed studio room with mirrors lining three out of the four walls. But today they were practicing in the indoor hall, an open space vast enough for several teams to practice at the same time. Anyone could pass by the hall and sit on the benches around it without interfering with the practice, considering how big the space was in the first place.

Sunghoon found this setting perfect for his Jay-watching today.

There were already a group of people gathered near the one mirror in the hall when they arrived. Niki noticed them first. Realizing who was walking beside Jay, he waved enthusiastically, shouting Sunghoon-hyung! so loud it almost sent Sunghoon into fight-or-flight mode.

Jay must have sensed his apprehension. He took hold of his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “They’re cool people,” he said. “They will like you.”

Sunghoon would like to believe that, but he was still nervous. It didn’t help that Niki decided at that very moment to run towards them, flinging his arms around him and Jay in a death hug. Sunghoon tried to ignore the many pairs of eyes staring at him curiously.

Jay greeted the group, then did a round introducing Sunghoon before anyone had a chance to ask questions. A loud cheer and knowing oohh erupted at the mention of boyfriend, and Sunghoon instantly knew this wasn’t the first time they heard about him.

“So you’re the boyfriend!” said one of them, confirming his suspicion.

“Jay told us a lot about you,” said another person.

“He never shut up, I felt like I've known you for a long time,” another added.

Some people recognized him as the athlete.

“I saw you on Jay’s wallpaper,” said one girl while Jay was talking to someone else, far enough not to catch on their conversation.

“You did?” Sunghoon wasn’t in the habit of looking at Jay’s phone, so this caught him by surprise. “Well, uh, I hope it was a good picture.”

Sunghoon hadn't meant to pose it as a question, but the girl nodded quickly. “It was,” she said. “You were in your skating costume, at least that’s what it looked like. I think he hasn’t changed his wallpaper yet.”

Sunghoon made a mental note to check it later.

He sat far away from anyone’s bags, and made himself scarce. He stayed there for hours, went out for lunch and came back to resume his position. Jay dropped by his side a few times for quick chats, asking his opinions or complaining about how tired he was or making sure Sunghoon was comfortable.

“You can always go home,” he reminded Sunghoon for probably the fifth time. He looked tired, sweaty hair plastered over his forehead and panting with the lethargy Sunghoon had seen this morning. It was probably expected after hours of dancing. “If you’re bored, or want to do something else.”

“I’m not bored. I bring this,” Sunghoon plucked out a rubik’s cube from inside his pocket. Jay’s eyes widened before he burst into laughter.

It was their inside joke. Jay had once brought a rubik’s cube when attending one of his competitions, because he got bored easily and watching Sunghoon was his only reason for coming, but he got too invested in solving the cube that he missed Sunghoon’s turn at all.

“How dare you,” Jay said fondly. He made to reach for the cube but stumbled midway. Sunghoon caught his forearm before anything bad happened.

“Whoa,” Sunghoon raised an eyebrow. “All right?”

Jay shook his head. “Yeah. Just got dizzy.”

“Don’t forget to drink water,” Sunghoon chided gently. “I have pocari in my car. I’ll get it.”

Jay had gone back to the floor by the time Sunghoon came back with a bottle of pocari in hand, so he put it down for later and continued watching.

Jay danced like there was nothing that mattered more in the world. When Sunghoon had complimented him for it, Jay only smiled and replied that it was exactly how Sunghoon looked at the ice rink, skating like he was born to do so. Sunghoon wondered how Jay managed to turn back every compliment intended for him into those about someone else. Sometimes he wondered where Jay learned to deflect, except he had learned that Jay wasn’t actually deflecting, but instead using himself as a mirror to reflect back what other people did best, and Sunghoon wondered how Jay managed to do it too.

Jay stood facing the mirror, leading the steps while counting one, two, three, four—

There was a loud thump, and Sunghoon lost Jay amidst the rush of bodies running to Jay after his body gave up.

Jay, the doctor in the hospital’s emergency unit said, was severely dehydrated. When he finally gained consciousness, Sunghoon stared him down, and his expression must look grave enough to warrant Jay’s hesitant touch.

“Hi,” Jay whispered, reaching for Sunghoon’s hand that hang on his side. “Did I fall?”

Sunghoon nodded. He waited for Jay to successfully intertwine their hands together, but he seemed to struggle, moreover because Sunghoon stood quite far out of his reach. Sunghoon stepped closer and grasped Jay’s fingers back, putting him out of misery.

Jay’s fingers were cold.

“You’re dehydrated,” Sunghoon told him. Jay still looked disoriented, but it was better than seeing him on the floor. “They’re keeping you at least until your saline drip runs out.”

It was trivial, but—Sunghoon tried to remember if Jay had drunk his apple juice this morning, and couldn’t remember he had.

Jay moved his finger, staring at the IV tube taped to the back of his hand. “So we can go home after that?”

“We can,” Sunghoon said. “Are you hungry?” He raised his hand to show some paper bags. While waiting for Jay to regain consciousness, he had gone down to the store area to purchase some coffee buns.

Jay nodded. “Starving.”

Sunghoon propped up the pillow so Jay’s upper body was slightly elevated. Jay bit into his bun, cautiously still, as if he tried to stave off incoming nausea that might come with eating too fast after a fainting spell.

Jay looked around his bed, at Sunghoon, at his bag near Sunghoon’s feet. “Where’s my phone?”

Sunghoon plucked said phone from his pocket. Jay nodded but didn’t take it, so Sunghoon put it back inside.

In the lull between watching the nurse tape the IV to Jay and waiting for Jay to wake up, Sunghoon had taken a look at Jay’s wallpaper. As the girl on the practice said, it was a picture of him, all geared up in his figure skating regalia. He was smiling at something off-screen, and Sunghoon knew Jay had taken this picture candidly.

It was a good picture. Even when they were too busy with their own thing, Jay still kept a part of him close.

“I’m bored,” Jay said after a while. “Talk to me.”

Sunghoon finished his bun in two minutes, crumpling the wrapper. “About what?”

“Anything.”

Sunghoon wanted to ask Jay what had pushed him to the point of fainting. Wanted to ask how he could help. Wanted to ask him to take it slow. But he said, “Namjoon-hyung is going to propose.”

“To you?”

“I wish.”

“Hey!”

“Just kidding. Or am I? He’s handsome and loaded after all—”

“Get out.”

“To Jungkook-hyung, duh.”

Jay hummed. “Is he really.”

Sunghoon squinted his eyes. “You don’t sound surprised.”

“No, I just don’t know either of them well to react better than this. But do tell. What makes you think so?”

Sunghoon toyed with the crumpled wrapper in his hand. “I visited him last week. He opened the door while holding the ring box, can you believe that? I thought he was going to go down on one knee on me.”

“Thank God he didn’t. Imagine how I would feel.”

“Thank God he didn’t,” Sunghoon agreed. “Imagine if I were Jungkook-hyung. The surprise would've been ruined.”

“Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a surprise. Maybe the plan was to propose right in front of the door.”

“It is a surprise,” Sunghoon pinched Jay’s blanket-covered knee. “He’s going to do it at a rooftop restaurant. It’s been planned and everything.”

“That’s nice. I hope it goes well,” Jay said. He’d stopped eating in favor of listening to Sunghoon. Sunghoon nudged at the bun and Jay resumed chewing again.

“I have a better question,” Sunghoon decided to push the topic. Jay still had half of his saline solution, anyway. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with me?”

“We can start with you fainting during practice twice in one week already? What’s wrong with that? Huh?”

“Hoon. I literally just fainted and I’m still dizzy and I still kind of want to vomit. You’re supposed to be nice to me.”

“Right, let me start over. What the fuck were you doing that made you collapse twice in a week like that?”

“Fuck off. You couldn’t have phrased it better? Asking genuine questions, instead of interrogating me? I don’t want any of this to happen either, you know.”

Sunghoon hadn't realized his tone had sharpened to the point of accusing, which irritated Jay in return. He admitted he wasn’t the best at this checking on your significant other thing.

Inhaling deeply, he dropped his head beside Jay’s hand on the blanket. He scooted his chair forward, ignoring how the edge of the bed dug into his chest. “Sorry. You gave me a real scare there, I'm still mentally recovering. Niki caught your head before you hit the ground, you know? You should thank him. Without him you would've been headless.”

Jay carded his fingers through Sunghoon’s hair. “You’re so dramatic.”

Sunghoon let the motion soothe his frayed nerves. “My question still stands. Tell me what happened?”

Jay sighed. He sounded like he had anticipated this conversation, which Sunghoon supposed he had.

“I finally got the captain role,” he feebly gestured in the general direction of the … door? The IV pole? Sunghoon wasn’t sure what Jay was trying to point at. His limb coordination often went to hell when he was sick like this. “Hoseok-hyung appointed me himself and gave me his armband. His own armband! I almost died when he gave it to me. I can't let him down, yeah? This is important. I want to do my best.”

“Who’s Hoseok?”

“The director of my dance crew,” Jay clarified. “I’ve told you about him before. The one who’s toured around the States and all?”

Ah. No wonder, then. Jay had always been one to push his limits to the brink, and being trusted with a big responsibility by his own mentor and role model only exacerbated that.

Sunghoon took this information and used it wisely. “What did he say about you collapsing, though? Twice now, if what Niki told me is right?”

Jay narrowed his eyes. “You asked Niki?”

“Why, of course. Couldn’t just stay put when the love of my life clearly exhibited signs of exhaustion, could I?”

Jay wasn’t fazed by Sunghoon’s deliberate use of corny vocabulary. “That’s a load of bullshits and you know that. You hadn't noticed anything. You only saw it now after my napping urges increased tenfolds.”

Oops. That didn’t go well at all. Sunghoon scratched his cheek with one finger. “Fine, maybe I did. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m onto your case now, though! Now that you’ve collapsed from a severe case of dehydration and overwork, how would you explain that?”

“It’s not even that severe,” Jay protested.

Sunghoon snorted loudly. “Yeah? Tell that to your boyfriend who had to watch you collapse, drive you to the hospital, and fill all the paperwork while you were hooked up to a saline drip.”

Jay didn’t challenge this argument. Sunghoon would've snapped if he had. “Sorry you have to go through all that.”

Sunghoon sighed, his agitation sapped out of him. “It’s all right. I have one request, though.”

“Will I like it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. It depends.”

“I can work with maybe,” Jay wiggled his toes underneath the blanket. “Shoot.”

Sunghoon took hold of Jay’s hand that wasn’t holding the bun, staring at his eyes to show that he was serious. “I don’t like seeing you running yourself to the ground like this, but I know you have to work hard for your performance and can't afford to be away from practice. So, indulge me? After we get home later, take it easy for tonight and tomorrow. Tomorrow is your day off, right? Sleep and eat and rest for a whole day. Let me take care of you for once.”

Jay looked like he wanted to put up a fight. His face went through a range of expressions before settling on resigned. “Did you just pull a UNO reverse card on me.”

Sunghoon chuckled, tightening his hold on Jay’s hand. Jay was referring to the many times he nursed Sunghoon back to health after a series of grueling skating practices that came with national and international competitions, the breakdowns and down in the dumps and all. Call him cheesy, but he couldn’t help but feel most loved and taken care of during those times.

“I’ll take it as a yes,” Sunghoon got up and leaned down to press a kiss on Jay’s forehead, then his eyelid, his cheek, his nose, anything he could reach. Jay squirmed underneath him, clearly unamused by the sudden barrage of affections. Sunghoon took that as an agreement that it was.

“I think it’s done,” Jay said half an hour later, pointing at his IV bag. Sunghoon checked that it was indeed empty.

“I’ll inform the nurse,” he said. “See if we can go home.”

“Hoon.”

Sunghoon hummed in response.

“Thank you,” Jay said sincerely. His ears were flat, pressed against his head, but a hint of spark had entered his eyes.

Sunghoon called him idiot, hugged him, and went to take care of his discharge.

Chapter Text

Sunghoon had a cat years ago when he was in middle school, a tabby cat who liked to chew on his little sister’s hair. He was lucky enough to escape such predicament, perhaps because she had a long hair while he kept his trimmed short throughout the years. So, no, unlike most cat owners, Sunghoon hadn't had any experience being munched on by his own pet.

He got it years later during college in the form of one cat hybrid.

Granted, Jay didn’t like chewing or—God forbid—eating his hair, but he liked playing with it. So much that he would even go as far as saying that Jay had a fixation towards his hair. It wasn’t just once or twice Sunghoon woke up from his slumber due to Jay fiddling with his hair, or dozed off because having someone play with his hair always made him sleepy.

It was mostly chill, unharmful stuff, except for the first month of dating where Jay constantly got urges to grab a fistful of Sunghoon’s hair at the most random times of day. It didn’t hurt, per se, but it was still jarring. And Sunghoon, frankly, didn’t like that. He grumbled that Jay should grow out of his ‘tug on their pigtails if you like them’ playground mentality, to which Jay took offense because how dare Sunghoon equate his urges to something childlish like that. But Jay also didn’t want to accidentally hurt Sunghoon by, say, grabbing his hair to harshly, so he adapted his urge from that inhuman grabbing to playing with Sunghoon’s hair carefully.

Sunghoon never complained about Jay coming near his hair again.

“Why do you like playing with my hair so much,” Sunghoon mumbled, head pillowed on Jay’s lap as he tried to catch some rest in-between practice. Jay didn’t visit him at the rink very often, so whenever he did, Sunghoon made sure to make the most of it, namely by using him as a pillow or his very own lunch delivery service.

(“Wow. What a way to call your boyfriend who cooked and brought you lunch. I’m never doing this again.”

“Just kidding! I love you a lot, thank you for coming here, don’t be mad.”)

Jay continued threading his fingers through Sunghoon’s hair, alternating between tugging softly at the strands or scratching the scalp. Sunghoon shook his head, reminding him that under no circumstances could he fall asleep and let hours of warm-up and practice laps go down the drain. It was difficult to get his stamina up again if he cooled down abruptly from sleeping.

“It’s the urge,” Jay answered simply. “Also, your hair is pretty.”

“It’s sweaty. I’ve been running around for hours.”

“It’s kind of gross right now,” Jay agreed solemnly. Sunghoon squeaked in protest. “But still nice.”

It took Sunghoon a few minutes to realize that Jay wasn’t just tugging and caressing his hair. The motions were unfamiliar, but when Sunghoon looked sideways at Jay’s face, he saw a couple of hair ties pinched between Jay’s lips.

Jay was braiding his hair.

“Is it even long enough to braid?”

The furrow between Jay’s eyebrows deepened. “I’m not sure,” he said, which came out muffled because he was talking with his tongue, preventing the hair ties from dropping. “Would be easier if you had bobby pins, though.”

“I do, in my bag in the locker room,” Sunghoon said, trying not to laugh at how quickly Jay’s eyes brightened then dimmed. “You bought them for me.” It had been after one of Jay’s visits to the rink. He expressed how boring that Sunghoon only used black bobby pins to pin his hair from getting to his eyes, and proceeded to buy Sunghoon a pack of colorful ones. Sunghoon still used them until now.

“Well, care to fetch them for me?”

“No.”

“How helpful,” Jay sighed. He continued struggling with the braid. “But all right. I’ll make this work. Maybe.”

Sunghoon nodded.

“Are you going to grow out your hair?” Jay asked after some time.

“I don’t know.” Sunghoon thought about it for a second. “Do you think I’d look good with long hair?”

“You’ll look good in any hairstyle, Hoon,” Jay answered promptly. The sincere honesty made Sunghoon’s heart flutter pleasantly. “You could go bald for all I know and you’d still look as beautiful.”

“You say that because you haven't seen me bald.”

“Your mom showed me your baby pictures. I think you look cute without a single strand of hair in your head.”

“Of course it’s different, dumbass—ow!” He yelped when Jay tugged a lock of hair a little too hard. Jay whispered an apology, sheepishly carressing the offended scalp. Not that it was really painful, but it was the principle of the thing.

Jay, as it turned out, really made it work. He braided a small portion of Sunghoon’s hair, and rather than weird, it looked … cute, for lack of better word. Jay took a few pictures, because surely Sunghoon had to undo all his hardwork before going back to the rink, so he would stick with some pictures as keepsakes, thank you very much. Sunghoon pointed out the passive-aggressive tone Jay used at the word “hardwork”, to which Jay denied vehemently.

Sunghoon looked at his front camera, contemplating the braid on the side of his head, and it was indeed really nice, making him wonder if Jay had secretly been practicing. Knowing Jay and his penchant for collecting random knowledge and life skills, he probably had at some point. Sunghoon wouldn’t put it past him.

He didn’t undo the braid. He got several compliments from his fellow figure skaters, especially from the girls, who in turn showed how they did their own braid. One of the boys asked if Sunghoon did it himself or was it his boyfriend’s doing. Sunghoon replied that Jay wasn’t his boyfriend, which was obviously a lie since a lot of them had been in each other’s life for so long that they couldn’t help but but befriend—or at least know—each other’s significant other if there was any, the kind of bonding that came with years of training and sweating in the same rink, fighting and helping each other to the top.

Jay looked surprised when Sunghoon came home with his braid still mostly intact. A little messy, sure, with stray strands here and there already escaping the hair ties, but Sunghoon had pinned them with colorful bobby pins. Jay’s eyes softened at the effort.

“Liking the braid?” Jay pecked him on the cheek, then drew away with a scrunched nose. “Ugh, you stink, go take a shower.”

“Rude,” Sunghoon complained, and pounced on Jay just to be difficult. Jay fought to get away, but Sunghoon enjoyed seeing him squirm. “And I am. My friends said it looked good on me. Yeonjun-hyung asked if you could do his hair, too.”

Jay gave up trying to break free from Sunghoon’s embrace. He resorted to pinching his nose, making his voice all nasal and funny. Sunghoon didn’t care and tightened his hold on Jay instead. Screw Jay’s heightened smell and everything, he needed cuddles right here right now or he might die.

“Of course it looked good,” Jay said. “And wow, the bobby pins really made the difference.”

Sunghoon nodded, chin digging into Jay’s shoulder. “You have my blanket permission to do whatever you like with my hair from now on.”

Sunghoon couldn’t see Jay’s expression, but judging from Jay’s tail that stood upright into a shape of question mark, he was ecstatic. “Are you sure?”

Sunghoon hummed his assent. And apparently, that was the only permission Jay needed to start extending his fixation towards styling Sunghoon’s hair.

Exhibit A: Jay watching tutorials.

It was a few days after he gave Jay the blanket permission. As soon as Sunghoon entered the kitchen, hands laden with grocery bags, Jay ambushed him by shoving his phone to his face. Sunghoon yelped because Jay’s footsteps on normal days were already eeriely silent thanks to his feline grace, Sunghoon really didn’t need him to sneak on top of that.

“This would suit your aesthetics,” Jay said, pointing at his screen without so much as a preambule. Sunghoon dropped the bags on the table where Jay was evidently preparing some afternoon snacks before he got distracted by whatever he was showing Sunghoon.

“What will suit my aesthetics?” Sunghoon peered at Jay’s phone. It was … a french braid tutorial. He blinked as Jay kept the video playing, then touched the screen to pause it. “Why are you watching that?”

“I’m trying to see if I can french braid your hair,” Jay said, then comically enough, his ears dropped flat against his head, along with his tail that got droopy. “If only your hair was longer,” he continued mournfully.

Sunghoon couldn’t help but laugh at the sincere forlorn and disappointment on Jay’s face, as if Jay really blamed him for keeping his hair short.

“If it’s any comfort, I won’t be cutting it out anytime soon, so you can experiment more later.”

“Oh?” Jay raised an eyebrow. “I mean, that’s great, as long as you’re happy with it.” He paused. “You're not doing it for me, right?”

“No, no,” Sunghoon was quick to reassure. “I’ve been meaning to grow it out a bit, it has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be able to reap the benefit.”

Jay clapped his hands in satisfaction. He grabbed two fistfuls of Sunghoon’s hair gently—another urge, it seemed. Sunghoon sighed as he let Jay maneuver his hair around.

It wasn’t a one-time thing. Multiple times, Sunghoon caught him watching tutorials on braiding and tying hair in various styles, even those that couldn’t be applied to his hair because, duh, he didn’t meet the minimum length requirement.

It also meant that Jay often monopolized his hair—and his head by extension—and used it as a … practice mannequin, or something. Sunghoon got used to Jay popping up behind him out of the blue, armed with a pack of hair ties and bobby pins as he started combing his hair and dividing it to several parts and putting it up into whatever struck his fancy at the moment.

Sometimes Sunghoon got a complicated-looking braid that looked impossible to pull off, and sometimes all he got was apple hair. Ridiculous, but the way Jay’s eyes crinkled at the corners at his sight made it bearable. But it didn’t mean that he would ever use apple hair to go out, not even down to the laundromat, mind you.

Jay’s biggest delight came when Sunghoon’s hair finally grew long enough for him to experiment on a french braid. Looking at the pictures Jay used as references, it looked downright impossible, because that braid looked complicated and seemed to require a lot more hair than what Sunghoon currently had at disposal. But Jay was nothing if not an optimist. After a week of fruitless attempts, countless neck pains on both parties because Sunghoon had to sit still while Jay had to duck down for a long stretch of time, and Jay pathetically practicing on their broom when Sunghoon was indisposed (“You could’ve bought a wig?”), Jay finally pulled off his dream hairstyle.

It was pretty.

The braid ran through the side of Sunghoon’s head, no bobby pins in sight this time, and while Sunghoon had never met any fairytale princes before, he believed this was the kind of hair they would wear to a coronation. When he voiced this opinion, Jay’s ears twitched in the way they did when he was happy. His tail had wormed its way around Sunghoon’s midsection, and if Sunghoon tried hard enough, he could hear Jay’s content purr.

Jay begged him to keep the braid at least until his practice ended. He reasoned that he wanted to test how strong the braid would be in withstanding Sunghoon’s practice routine, but Sunghoon knew Jay just wanted to keep his masterpiece intact for as long as possible. He didn’t need to beg, really, because there was no way Sunghoon dismissed his blood, sweat, and tears—whoa—just like that. And he did feel great about the braid.

As expected, he got more compliments from his friends at the rink. Yeonjun started harrassing Taehyun that Taehyun should do his hair too, because that was what a good boyfriend would do, and what did Taehyun mean by his hair wouldn’t work with braid? Sunghoon quickly steered clear of the bickering couple before he was forced to pick side.

Then Sunghoon went for another national competition and had to chop off a big chunk of his hair.

When he relayed this news, Jay didn’t bother hiding his disappointment.

“But what about my urges,” Jay sulked the night before Sunghoon went to the barbershop. He’d been clinging to Sunghoon’s side all night, grasping his hair as if holding on for dear life. How dramatic.

“You can still play with my hair,” Sunghoon suggested, poking Jay’s tummy in endless amusement. “It’s just, well, say good bye to the french braid.”

Jay looked awfully dejected at the prospect of losing his … plaything? Stress ball (hair)? Sunghoon didn’t know how his hair fitted into this specific urge of Jay.

After the cut, Jay still played with his hair, only this time gone was the impromptu braiding workshop. Sunghoon kind of missed it, and he knew Jay did, too. But there was nothing Sunghoon could do about it.

When Sunghoon considered going blond, Jay positively went batshit crazy.

His reaction was rather unexpected, considering the multiple times Jay had expressed his fondness of Sunghoon’s jet black hair.

“Have you picked the color?” Jay asked after Sunghoon managed to trap both his wrists in his hands, lest Jay would start scratching the couch from how excited he was.

“Uh, I do?” Sunghoon frowned. “Blond, I literally just told you?”

Jay tsked loudly, as if Sunghoon’s lack of knowledge in the hundreds shades of blond was personally insulting. He pulled up an online catalogue where he showed Sunghoon what shades would fit what skin tone, what shades would look fantastic—Jay’s word, not his—on Sunghoon, and what shades would look absolutely horrendous on him (which weren’t many). After an hour of intense perusal, Sunghoon chose to go with platinum blond.

“How do you know so much about this anyway?” Sunghoon asked eventually, after enduring another hour of Jay’s lecture on the history of cosmetology.

Jay looked at him as if offended. “Of course I do! I study this, remember?”

“You major in fashion design, not cosmetology,” Sunghoon pointed out.

Platinum blond, as Jay had promised, looked fantastic on him. He looked softer around the edges, blended seamlessly with the ice rink, and even got scouted by a modelling agency while walking down the street. Sunghoon was flustered by the latter, and when he told Jay about it, Jay beamed and asked if Sunghoon would take the offer. It could be a great opportunity, Jay encouraged. Maybe not now, Sunghoon said, and he didn’t throw away the name card.

So, the new hair was nice.

But it also meant this.

Sunghoon woke up to an odd sensation on top of his hair. He’d fallen asleep with his face smushed against Jay’s collarbone, so he thought it was Jay playing with his hair as usual—then he realized that both of Jay’s arms were wrapped around him. And Jay didn’t have a third arm.

It took another second for Sunghoon to realize what it was: Jay was munching on his hair.

“What the fuck.”

Jay stopped his movement. If Sunghoon didn’t know better, he would think Jay was playing dead. Sunghoon used the opportunity to shake himself off Jay, sitting up and glaring at him in disbelief. Jay had the decency to look sheepish.

Sunghoon poked him hard in the ribs until he yelped. “Why are you eating my hair?! Have you been secretly doing that when I’m sleeping? How much of my hair have you eaten? Is my hair some sort of midnight snacks to you? Am I going bald anytime soon?”

“I’m not eating your hair!” Jay sounded defensive, rubbing at his sore ribs. “I didn’t even use my teeth.”

Sunghoon patted around his head. There was no trace of chewing, no leftover saliva or anything. If Sunghoon hadn't woken up and caught Jay red-handed, he wouldn’t have suspected anything.

So maybe Jay wasn’t actually chewing on his hair, let alone eating it. Sunghoon couldn’t imagine eating hair would be healthy for any living beings, humans and cat hybrids included.

He squinted in suspicion. “Then what were you doing?”

Jay pouted. “It’s the urge.”

“I know it’s the urge. What exactly were you doing?” Sunghoon furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you teething?”

“What? No!” Jay actually balked at that. The audacity. “Your hair looked biteable. But I used my lips.”

Sunghoon blinked at him, unable to process the vague explanation. “What?”

Jay waited for a few seconds, as if hoping Sunghoon would understand given time. When nothing of the sort happened, he raised one of his fingers to his mouth, tucked his lips inside so all his teeth were hidden, and bit down on the finger. With his lips.

Understanding dawned on Sunghoon’s face. “Ooh.”

“Yeah.”

“That looks a lot like teething.”

“I’m not teething.”

“Then what? Lips-ing?”

“That’s weirder.”

“Munching? Chewing? Biting?”

Jay huffed. “Can we go back to sleep?”

“You’re the one who woke me up with your teething,” Sunghoon poked his ribs again, unable to suppress a chuckle. “That’s cute. Just don’t drool on my hair, that’s gross.”

Jay didn’t answer. Instead, he tucked in his lips and planted his open mouth on Sunghoon’s scalp with such blunt force that Sunghoon yelped indignantly.

“Yah! You said you’re not eating my hair, you evil feline!”

“It’s the urge, Hoon.”

Chapter Text

Jay never kissed him on the lips.

Early into their relationship, Sunghoon noticed that although Jay pecked him here and there, he tended to stray away from his lips. Even after his former roommate moved out and Sunghoon moved in to take the place, after sharing a living space for a month, he flat out never kissed him on the mouth. On the occasion that Sunghoon did kiss him on the lips, Jay did kiss back, but he never initiated one himself.

Not that Sunghoon minded, or anything like that. He understood that Jay might have a different idea of skinship or display of affections. Pushing Jay into doing something he didn’t want was the last thing in his mind.

In place of a kiss, Jay liked bumping his head to Sunghoon’s.

No, really.

Sunghoon didn’t think about it much in the beginning. So what if Jay liked knocking their heads affectionately? Maybe he just wanted to be close. Maybe it was his way of grabbing Sunghoon’s attention. Maybe he was establishing some sort of connection. Or maybe it was anything else that had nothing to do with Sunghoon.

Long, long ago, Jay had commented that Sunghoon could be amazingly perceptive at some things but incredibly dense at others. This, unfortunately, was an example of the latter.

The first occasion went like this:

Sunghoon was in the living room, watching a recording of his latest skating run through with such devoted focus that he didn’t notice Jay approaching from the periphery of his vision. He was jolted out of his bubble when a pair of hands pressed on his stomach and back, and he almost knocked Jay’s chin in the process by how quick he whipped his head to the side.

“Posture,” Jay said calmly, referring to how Sunghoon had been hunched in front of his laptop for a solid twenty minutes. The hand on his back pushed forward, making him sit straighter. He blinked when the simple adjustment instantly rid him of the dull pain in his back.

“Uh, thanks?”

Jay patted his back twice, bumped his forehead against the side of Sunghoon’s head, and went back to the kitchen to finish his lunch.

Sunghoon wasn’t one to dwell on interaction for longer than was necessary, because thinking had never done him good other than giving him spiraling thoughts, so he resumed the video without filing the gesture for perusal later.

The second realization was more obvious, but not blatant enough for Sunghoon to notice anything peculiar. It started with him commenting how ironic it was that Jay decided to pick up volunteering at the local cat shelter on the weekend.

“What do you mean by irony?” Jay pinched Sunghoon’s cheek, just because he could and Sunghoon’s face was literally under his fingers. He’d been trying various shades of eyeshadow for Sunghoon’s upcoming championship, having borrowed the palette from his cousin who was a makeup artist.

They were sitting cross-legged on the floor of their living room. For the past months, Jay had taken to helping Sunghoon with his makeup for competitions. A trial run where Sunghoon gave him free rein to his face such as today had quickly turned into some sort of a therapeutic at-home date for them. Jay liked experimenting and Sunghoon liked having his face tended to, so it was a win-win solution.

“Okay, maybe not ironic,” Sunghoon absently caressed Jay’s bare knee. “But it’s cute?”

“Humans take care of other humans all the damn time. Is that cute?”

“No, but—” Sunghoon had no idea how to rebuke that statement. “Um. I guess you’re right.”

“It’s not ironic at all. It’s literally the best idea. I'm a cat hybrid, I understand cats better than most people combined. And since I can telepathize with them—”

Sunghoon opened his eyes so fast Jay almost shrieked. “You what?”

“Close your eyes, you mess up with the line,” Jay tsked. Sunghoon obeyed quickly. “What, I really haven't told you?”

“No? Literally never?” Sunghoon’s frown deepened. Jay put a finger to smoothen it out until Sunghoon relaxed. “What do you mean you can telepathize with fellow cats?”

“Every hybrid can telepathize with their animal counterpart to some extent,” Jay tilted Sunghoon’s chin up by a centimeter, concentrating on nailing the eye tail. “It’s like a shared consciousness, I’d say.”

Sunghoon leaned back to peek at him. Jay glared because it prevented him from continuing his work. “Wait, so if I met an alligator hybrid, I could take them to a swamp or something, and they’d be able to strike a conversation with the alligators on the swamp?”

“First off, don’t take anyone to a swamp ever, unless you want to be mistaken for a serial killer,” Jay sighed, drawing Sunghoon’s jaw closer. “And that’s not exactly how it works. If you ever see me stop and talk to cats—”

“—That was you communicating with them?!” There was no way Sunghoon’s voice could get any more hysterical than this. Jay gave up trying to make him sit still. “All this time you can communicate with cats and I didn’t even know? Damn, I’m so missing out.”

“The difference lies in the degree,” Jay allowed. “I'm not exactly able to communicate with them, per se. Cats didn’t communicate like humans did. I can pick up their general moods or intentions, but not their exact thoughts—that’s more of Heeseung’s area.”

“Heeseung can what?”

“We can keep talking as long as you let me finish your makeup, dummy,” Jay gestured at his brush and palette. “Why are you so far away? Come here.”

Happy at the promise of getting more information, Sunghoon scooted forward until their knees overlapped once again. “Okay, what about Heeseung?”

Jay gently tilted Sunghoon’s head to the light. “There was this one time. We bypassed a cat stuck in a tree on the way to class. I guess the cat had been stuck for quite a long time, because he sounded pitiful and its general mood was terrified. Heeseung literally held a full conversation with the cat, persuading him to come down.”

“No way,” Sunghoon snickered. “And then?”

Jay hummed, flicking his eyes between the palette in his hand and Sunghoon’s half-done eyelids. He decided on a color and started poking it lightly with the small brush. “The cat jumped down and Heeseung caught him. Which was great, but the cat followed us—Heeseung, to be precise—everywhere, even to the class. Hyung had to sit in the front row with the cat on his lap because apparently the professor was a cat person herself. Some students took pictures, I think I still save some of them.” Jay chuckled at the memory. “It was going well until the cat started meowing and interrupting the lecture, so eventually Heeseung had to put the cat out. Shame, I know. He came back with multiple scratches. Apparently, the cat didn’t want to separate from him and insisted on holding onto Heeseung with its claws.”

“Poor hyung,” Sunghoon’s eyes shuttered closed when Jay’s brush drew near. “That’s so cute. Did Jake know about that?”

“Absolutely. You should've seen how red Heeseung’s face became when Jake teased him about it for weeks on end,” Jay put down the brush. “Okay, I think it’s done. Here, take a look.”

Sunghoon in the mirror looked exactly like himself on normal days, but the shades had given him an ethereal look, like someone who came straight from a dream. He didn’t know how Jay had taken to know his preference for a lighter color or if it stemmed from his endless reservoir of knowledge, but he knew the combination between his hair and this look would be deadly.

“I like it,” Sunghoon squeezed Jay’s knee. “What do you think?”

Jay didn’t answer right away. Instead, he rose to his knees and took Sunghoon’s face in the palms of his hands, taking in every inch of his face like he was a puzzle to solve.

“I think you’re perfect,” he whispered eventually, before bumping his forehead to Sunghoon’s gently.

Again, Sunghoon didn’t take notes of the odd gesture. Which, in hindsight, turned out to be a grave mistake on his part, because it kept happening and he had no idea how to react every time. It seemed to happen whenever he dropped his guard: when he woke up in the morning all disoriented while Jay was all dressed up for class, when Sunghoon toppled on the bed after a grueling practice, when Jay gave him directions to help in the kitchen and he got too invested in peeling the potatoes the right way—you name it.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Sunghoon asked one time after he had narrowly spilled a whole container of water on the floor. Jay had managed to catch him in time, preventing the disaster from happening.

“Doing what?” Jay nudged him in the direction of the stove, smoothly asking him to put the water on or they would never eat come morning.

Sunghoon dutifully followed the silent command. “Bumping your head to mine.”

Jay eyed him carefully. “You don’t like that? I can stop.”

“Absolutely not,” said Sunghoon. Something in Jay’s expression seemed to close off. Realizing what he had said, he rushed to rectify his awful wording. “Wait, that’s not what I meant! Absolutely not as in, no, I absolutely don’t want you to stop! Not as in I don’t like what you do.”

Jay’s ears perked up, looking hopeful. It was a beautiful look on him. “Yeah?”

“I like it,” Sunghoon said, because it was true. I like everything about you, but that goes without saying, he added internally, deciding that such confession warranted a more appropriate time and place. Definitely not in the kitchen at ass o’clock when both of them were too hungry and tired to do anything other than whipping up some instant ramyeon.

“Okay,” Jay said, and maybe just to prove it, stepped closer and bumped his forehead to Sunghoon’s temple. If Sunghoon let out a funny squeak, neither of them felt compelled to point it out.

He only realized it was a thing when he accidentally saw a couple from across the street doing the same thing Jay often did. The girl was a cat hybrid, it was clear enough, holding hands with a human boy. Sunghoon wasn’t purposely staring at them—he just happened to look in their direction when the girl stood on her tiptoes and bump her head to the boy’s in a gesture that screamed tenderness.

Sunghoon stood there, jaw dropped and brain stopped working.

So maybe it was a thing. Not just Jay’s thing, but cat hybrids’ thing.

He found out what that Thing was when Jay dropped him off at the ice rink for the first time. Instead of dropping him off at the front gate as he requested, Jay pulled up in the parking space.

“I want to see the place that shaped you into the person you are right now,” he said simply, almost killing Sunghoon by the sheer sincerity of his words.

It was Jay’s first visit at the—his—ice rink, the first of many. There should be something about that, he figured; to let Jay into one of the most intimate parts of his life, to let Jay meet his fellow figure skaters and befriend them in no time at all. But Sunghoon didn’t want to think about it, not right then, not ever. He just had to let it be.

They spent the spare time Sunghoon had sitting at the seating area lining the rink. Jay watched him putting on his gears with interest, and an idea formed in Sunghoon’s head.

“We should do a skating date sometimes,” he said, looking at Jay while tying his skates.

Jay raised his eyebrows, face contemplative. “I’ve never skated before.”

“That’s all right,” he patted Jay’s knee, straightening up. “I’ll guide you. You’ll be in good hands.”

“Is that an excuse to hold my hands?”

“Please get lost.”

Jay laughed cheerily. Sunghoon didn’t fail to notice the way Jay’s eyes brightened at the suggestion, and the enthusiastic agreement that followed.

On the other side of the rink, he saw his coach and the swift movement of his friends.

“Okay,” Sunghoon said, standing up and dusting off the imaginary lint on his pants, suddenly nervous about how to proceed. What did you do when your boyfriend dropped you off at practice and made friends with your team as easy as breathing and accompanied you benchside before your practice started? Say thanks? Right, he should probably do that. “I have to go. Thanks for dropping me off.”

“Sure,” Jay followed suit, shouldering his own bag and getting his key out of his pocket. “Do you need a pickup later?”

“No,” Sunghoon shook his head. “I’ll take a bus.”

He was taller than Jay by a few centimeters. It didn’t make much of a difference, but Sunghoon secretly relished it nonetheless, including right at this moment when Jay pushed down on his shoulder. Sunghoon ducked obediently, hopeful for a kiss when Jay’s face drew near, but also apprehensive because why would Jay initiate a kiss right now of all times and places?

It threw him completely off guard when Jay bumped their foreheads instead. A soft touch, maybe a little playful, but a whole lot affectionate. It felt like a blessing.

“Have fun,” Jay murmured, so delicately that their noses brushed, and drew away, leaving Sunghoon in a daze. And then it struck him that there was a name for this specific gesture thing.

“Did you just … headbutt me?” he asked, long after Jay was gone. Yeonjun yelled from across the rink, and Sunghoon hurried to go down.

On his way home, he finally decided to do his research. And by that he meant pulling up the search page.

Why does my cat headbutt me?

… a cat’s way of choosing you

… connecting to you through scent and bonding with you

… a proper feline welcome

… sign you’ve been accepted into their inner circle

… the highest form of compliments

… cat’s very respectful way of showing affection

… a very affectionate behavior to their companion

… headbutting makes you special

Shit.

Now, fundamentally, Sunghoon knew cats and cat hybrids were two different things. Jay had chided him multiple times when he dared treat him like he would a cat, and it even had been the cause of some of their fights (“We shared some characteristics, sure, but it didn’t mean what works in cats automatically works in me, dumbass.”). But still. Sunghoon almost teared up reading the explanations. A very respectful way of showing affection? Screw Jay and his damn sweet actions, dammit.

“Is that why you don’t kiss me?” Sunghoon blurted out later, not even bothering with announcing his presence, because who had time for that when there were more pressing matters at hand.

Jay was startled at the sudden greeting, clearly not expecting Sunghoon to storm into the kitchen seconds after coming home. His hand paused its stirring motion on the glass. Sunghoon could smell the tea from he was standing. “Welcome home?”

“I'm home,” Sunghoon nodded solemnly. Then charged again, “Is that why you don’t kiss me?”

“Is what why?” Jay looked bewildered. Sunghoon didn’t even blame him. “What are you talking about? Wait—before that. If you can hang your umbrella somewhere not here to dry that would be great, actually.”

Sunghoon looked at the umbrella dripping water all over the floor in his hand. He trotted to the living room, hang it near the balcony as instructed, and came back.

Jay had finished stirring his beloved tea and looked more ready for this so-called confrontation. “So what is this about—”

“You always headbutt me,” Sunghoon cut straight to the chase. He pointed at Jay’s head, then his own, then to the space between them. “When we’re together, when you greet me in the morning, and many more. Is that your way of showing affection? By giving me a headbutt?”

“Headbutt—well, I guess that’s one way to call it,” Jay said, understanding dawning on his face. “I was wondering when you would catch up.”

Sunghoon couldn’t believe it. “So it’s true?”

Jay eyed him critically as if judging his reaction—which consisted of mostly flustered out of his mind—and set his spoon aside. “Yeah? That gesture means a whole lot more than kissing. Do you want me to kiss you instead?”

“Yes—I mean no!” Sunghoon needed to sit down for this conversation. Or completely disappeared into thin air. “I mean, no more than what you can give me. What we have now is fine. With the—headbutts, and all.”

Jay let out a breath. “Okay.” He nodded once to himself, then smiled a tiny smile. “Okay. That’s good.”

Something about Jay’s relief and quiet acceptance made it difficult for Sunghoon to breathe. “Is it?”

“My previous partners didn’t like it,” Jay’s fingers skittered around his glass. There was a new bandaid on his pinky, a byproduct of fixing their window a couple of days ago. “You’re the first who said you do.”

Sunghoon didn’t know which one was worse—or better, for that matter: being denied the truth, or hearing Jay so easily confirm that it was a gesture of affection way more meaningful than he could ever hope for.

He wanted to meet them, those previous partners of Jay, maybe give them a piece of his mind. “How stupid of them,” he commented, aiming for dismissal but ended up with a little too much heat. “It’s their loss.”

Jay ducked his head, hiding his perfectly radiant face, as if suddenly bashful. Sunghoon thought he might be. “It is, isn't it?”

Sunghoon learned to notice the pattern after that. As Jay had said, more often than not, he preferred to headbutt Sunghoon instead of kissing him. It could be careful, soft, delicate. Or it could be quite violent.

Such as today. Jay headbutted his forehead after sacrificing him to shoo out the tiny bug perched on the window of their living room. The headbutt was violent enough that Jay’s own glasses flew off his face while Sunghoon stumbled and bumped his head on the windowsill.

Sunghoon stared at him in disbelief. “What the fuck. I killed the bug for you and this is what I get in return?”

“You didn’t kill the bug,” Jay pointed out. “Look, it’s flying away. Bye, bug! Never come back again. Oh, shit, please close the window, it looks like it might come back.”

“Good luck killing the bug next time,” Sunghoon bit out, but went to close the window nonetheless. “Aren't you supposed to be the predator—”

“Finish that sentence and I’ll knock the entire jjajangmyeon I’m cooking off the pan.”

Needless to say, Sunghoon bent easily under the threat.

Sunghoon had to confirm to Jake if this whole headbutting—both the delicate and violent ones—was a normal or concerning trait. Jake, ever the helpful friend who probably had been an angel in his previous life, explained the many ranges of behavior in which cat hybrids demonstrated affections, and theorized that Jay’s headbutting might be one of them.

“Jay hates it when I do that,” Sunghoon felt it necessary to point out.

“Do what?”

“Mansplaining cat hybrids’ behavior to him.”

“Because you liken him to a cat?”

Sunghoon’s silence was answer enough.

“I can see why he hates it,” Jake continued. “You would think being cat hybrids would make them act similar to cats, but it’s never that simple. Moreover, you and he didn’t start on good terms. Maybe he still holds leftover grudges from the old days where you, quote unquote, often reduced him to his hybridism,” he paused. “Wow. Actually, that’s something you two should probably talk about at some point.”

Sunghoon filed it for later.

“It’s cute, that Jay headbutts you as a way of showing affections,” Jake chuckled. Sunghoon mumbled it is under his breath. “Heeseung liked giving me massages. You have your headbutts.”

“He’ll give me bruises one of these days,” Sunghoon complained. Except he didn’t really.

The headbutt slowly wormed its way into Sunghoon’s life. Or maybe it had always been there, Sunghoon just never paid attention until he did. A bump on the forehead, on the temple, on the back of his head. A happy Jay was more susceptible to these displays of affections, usually when he was in a good mood or just accomplished something worth celebrating. Jay who just finished practice was often too worn down to do anything, so Sunghoon took the initiative to knock their heads when proximity allowed. And when Sunghoon was the one feeling down, Jay would resort to pressing little pecks around his face, and lately there was more kissing on the lips, much to Sunghoon’s delight. These gestures never failed to turn him into mush.

“Can I sleep in your room,” Jay nodded to his own door one night, left slightly ajar. “My room is kind of a disaster right now.”

“There’s a reason this building doesn’t allow pets,” Sunghoon acknowledged graciously. Jay had snuck in a kitten earlier this afternoon, claiming he was taking care of her just for that afternoon as a favor for a friend. It would've been all fine if he hadn't fallen asleep midway babysitting (catsitting? Kittensitting?) and inadvertently given the kitten blanket permission to wreak havoc in his room. “I’m sleeping early, though. I have to be at the rink at six, can you even imagine? Six, on a Saturday.”

“Yikes,” Jay said, as if he hadn't done the same with his morning run around the complex. “Good luck with that.”

Sunghoon was reading a book Jay had recommended to him several weeks ago when Jay slipped into the room, a tape measure dangling around his neck. Then the tape got caught in the handle. Jay staggered to unhook it before plopping beside him.

“Not asleep yet? Good. I need your opinion,” he held out two pieces of paper, one in each hand, displaying two clothing sketches. “Which one do you like better?”

Sunghoon took less than three seconds to understand what he was looking at. The telltale was at the bottom: both figures in the sketches wore a pair of skates. “Are you … making figure skating costumes?”

“It’s for my midterm,” Jay explained. “I thought, why not use you as a muse. I kind of drew some inspirations from your old costumes and combined them together? Did I violate some kind of moral code of figure skating championships by doing that? God, I hope not. I won’t have the energy to redo this entire project.”

“Let me see,” Sunghoon caught Jay’s wrists to bring the sketches closer. “So that’s why you asked for my pictures a few days ago.”

“Exactly. Now tell me which one looked marginally less horrendous.”

Sunghoon traced the sketches with his fingers, contemplating the meaning behind them. There should be something to be said about Jay drawing these with him as the muse. It might be the most convenient way to do a project, if Sunghoon had to admit. Pick something closest to you. Something familiar, something easy that you didn’t have to work on from the ground up. Jay had picked him, because Sunghoon and his championships were a set of performances, one Jay had witnessed throughout the time they’d been together. If Sunghoon looked carefully, he could see the resemblance of his old costumes, could recall with perfect clarity to what championships and competitions each of the costumes belonged.

It felt special, in a way. Seen. Acknowledged. Validated.

“I like this,” he said, choosing the left one.

Jay flipped the paper to check the sketch. “You really think so?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Because I like this better too,” Jay’s lips curled up in satisfaction. “Any thoughts on the design?”

“You could draw the skates better,” Sunghoon flicked the bottom of the paper. “What kind of figure skates have blades like that? They will kill the skaters. Haven't I told you the one time I almost sliced open my skating partner because of blades gone wrong?”

“That—that really happened?”

“Not really. But you get the point. Revise those blades, if you don’t mind.”

“Geez, okay, Your Highness, duly noted,” Jay rolled his eyes. “Anything else? Preferably costume-related?”

“Did you really think of me when drawing them?”

“Of course I did. Who else would be my favorite figure skater if not you?”

“Ew. Cheesy.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“Think you can do it someday?” Sunghoon asked, staring Jay straight in the eye. “Making my costume?”

“There’s no stopping me from making you a penguin costume for your future Olympic, but sure,” Jay replied, cackling when Sunghoon threw a pillow at him. He stacked both papers and made to get up. “All right. Go back to sleep, or read, whichever you were doing before I came in.”

“Jay.”

“Hmm.”

“Sometimes,” Sunghoon swallowed all his pride and inhibitions, “people would give their partner a goodnight kiss, you know.”

Jay stared at him. He sat back down, putting his designs aside. “Do you want me to?”

Screw his pride. “Gimme.”

And Jay indulged him, because when would he not?

His hands reached Sunghoon’s face first. Jay hovered above him for a tad moment too long that made Sunghoon gulped in uncertainty, torn between almost asking what’s wrong or kicking Jay out of bed entirely because a suspended moment like that was jarring, something he could never deal with. But then Jay met him halfway and he was everywhere: pressing kisses on his cheeks, and his nose, and his eyelids, and the space between his nose and upper lip. He kissed his lips last, chaste and lingering, his fingers a grounding force, before he moved south and rested his head on Sunghoon’s shoulders. He moved his head so slowly that it took Sunghoon a few moments to realize what Jay was doing.

“Are you nuzzling me?” Sunghoon squirmed, unaccustomed but not really trying to get away. He couldn’t suppress a laugh when Jay’s eyelashes tickled the side of his neck, raising his goosebumps. “Is this another urge?”

Jay’s content humming was answer enough.

Later, when they lay in bed, entirely naked under the blanket, Sunghoon caught himself reading into Jay’s fingers delicately tracing his back. He was on the verge of sleep and his half-awake brain thought Jay was doing it out of habit, lulling him to sleep because Sunghoon slept best when pressed against Jay’s warm body and soothed into unconsciousness, but then he realized Jay was carving words.

—Sunghoon

I'm drawn to you

I care about you

You’re precious to me

I cherish you.

Sunghoon’s breath caught in his throat. He pulled Jay closer by the waist, smushing his face on the skin just beneath Jay’s collarbones and trying to will away the embarrassment rising to his face.

Judging from the smile pressed on the top of his head, Jay knew that his messages had come across.

Chapter Text

Tail was an important part of Jay’s anatomy. Much like in normal cats, it helped him to balance. It gave him an extra grace when dancing, made it possible for him to jump high in the air and land without losing his footing.

Jay’s tail also gave a clear indication of his mood and emotional state. Sunghoon learned to take notes of the signs over time. Happiness and confidence manifested in an upright tail coupled with a little flick here and there. When Jay sulked or wanted affection, he would curl his tail somewhere around Sunghoon, usually his hand or his side or the front of his torso. If Jay was worried about something, wasn’t sure how to act in certain situations, or simply feeling negative emotions, he would tuck his tail lower or underneath his body. Jay with a puffed up tail screamed don’t come near me or I might commit murder in the near future, a clear enough sign for Sunghoon to give his boyfriend some space or he would be the receiving end of a nasty scratch. Or four.

This wasn’t a nonexhaustive list, let alone a one-size-fits-all. Sometimes Sunghoon got it all wrong (“What the fuck, Hoon, touch my tail once again and I’ll bite you.” “Uh, I thought—right, sorry.”), but he’d been learning. He asked Jay directly, read up on stuff online, or simply took notes for future reference. It helped that he had had a cat as a pet in his teenage years, so he already had some experience in decoding the body language.

Although tail was an important part of Jay’s anatomy, it was also the most annoying.

A combination of Jay’s tail and urge was never a good thing—

THUNK.

Sunghoon sighed loudly. “Jay!”

“Sorry!” Jay shouted from somewhere in the apartment.

When Jay gave into his urges—which, Sunghoon had learned a long time ago, was natural in cat hybrids and wasn’t supposed to be suppressed or it would create an unbearable itch—it would only mean mess. Things knocked over were common, and although Jay always cleaned up after himself, Sunghoon had grown into the habit of picking things off the ground.

It was manageable. Jay never did something too destructive that he broke things around the house. He didn’t knock over glassware, probably because cleaning it up was bothersome and they had to buy new ones. There were some occasions when Jay spent time cooking and just knocked it off the counter because he got the urges. Those times were the hardest and Sunghoon had to take several extra deep breaths to get his head out of a funk.

But most importantly, it was the thumping.

Jay liked thumping him. His chest, to be more specific, and wherever Sunghoon happened to be at the time notwithstanding. Sunghoon once told Sunoo, jokingly, that Jay liked thumping him so much that he developed bruises from the impact. Sunoo only chuckled in response, but frankly speaking, the truth wasn’t so far away from that. Jay thumped him when they curled up on the couch, when they slept, when Jay had his usual bouts of insomnia, when Sunghoon was brushing his teeth. Jay rarely did it when they were out or in a public setting, but he made sure to make up for it when they got home.

Perhaps because he knew it annoyed Sunghoon, and the fact that it was the easiest ways to tear Sunghoon’s attention from whatever he was focusing on. In the very beginning it happened, Sunghoon once made the mistake of grabbing Jay’s tail when Jay thumped him, and it ended up in a scuffling. Jay glared at him in offense, tail all puffed up as if he was ready to attack, while Sunghoon held up his hands helplessly in surrender.

Sunghoon had learned to live with it. On normal days Sunghoon would consider the gesture endearing. Cute. Devastating. And other positive adjectives that described adorableness. But today wasn’t one of those days.

Thing was—he messed up in practice a lot more than usual. His knees throbbed in pain, he hadn't stocked up his cold packs, and he spent the whole way home trying to ward off any incoming breakdowns.

Today had been awful, and he really could do without Jay thumping him first thing after he collapsed on the couch.

“Hoon.”

Jay’s tail was hovering over his back, before the first thump made contact with his shoulder blades. Sunghoon groaned internally. Jay was just trying to strike a conversation, but Sunghoon was this close to lashing out.

“What,” his response came out muffled. He didn’t want to raise his head.

“What do you want for dinner?”

Even dinner didn’t sound enticing. He just wanted to go to sleep, preferably in the next thirty seconds. “Anything.” Thump. Thump.

Jay hummed, scrolling through his phone absently. “That’s not helpful. Work with me here.”

Thump. Thump. Sunghoon balled his fists, pressing down on his frustration.

“Or we can just order in,” Jay thumped him again on the shoulder, his tail swishing Sunghoon’s hair, and that was the last straw. “Anything in mind—”

“For God’s sake, stop thumping me!” Sunghoon snapped, sitting up so fast it startled Jay. Jay’s face fell and his relaxed demeanor vanished. Then his eyes hardened.

“Wow, sorry, didn’t realize you were in a bad mood.”

Sunghoon scoffed. “Of course you don’t. And go eat whatever the fuck you want, I’ve already had dinner.”

He hadn't. He had skipped lunch earlier and he was, in every sense of the word, starving. But his pride took precedence, and he pridefully strode into his bedroom and slammed the door shut.

He didn’t need to slam the door. It was just his pettiness speaking.

As quickly as it came, his anger deflated by the time he sank onto the bed. He pressed his palm against his eyes, trying to will away the early onset of headache and Jay’s crestfallen expression. Ugh, why was he acting like an asshole just now? Jay was just asking his opinion for dinner. Dinner which he really needed right now or he would wake up with an empty stomach and a raging headache in the morning. He wasn’t too keen on getting sick now of all times.

His knees chose that time to remind him that they needed attention. Sunghoon sighed tiredly. He hadn’t stocked up on his cold packs and accidentally left some of his usable ones at the rink, and going back out to the kitchen to make makeshift compresses wouldn’t do well considering his outburst just a minute ago.

When he opened the medicine cabinet, however, he noticed a brand new box of instant cold packs. It wasn’t there when he left this morning. Jay must have bought it.

Way to go, Sunghoon, he patted himself on the back. Here’s to yelling at your partner when all they did was making your life easier.

He took the longest shower in the history of longest showers. It was enough to sap his leftover irritation of the day. When he settled on the bed with the cold packs, he saw a yellow sticky note stuck at the side of the box:

Good luck at practice and don’t forget your cold packs! I don’t know if this is the brand you usually use though :( Let me know if I get it wrong.

Jay didn’t get it wrong. This was the brand Sunghoon usually used when he didn’t have time to prepare his usual compress.

Sunghoon felt even more like an ass. He also wanted to cry. Or hug Jay to death. Whichever he could attain first.

After an hour of alternating a cold pack from one knee to another, all the while listening to the faint sound of Jay going about in the kitchen (most likely making dinner that he didn’t get to eat, screw him), Sunghoon steeled himself and faced the music.

Jay didn’t spare him a glance when he entered the living room. He was working on his laptop with the television on low as background noise. There was a plate of half-finished japchae on the couch right beside his thigh, because their coffee table wasn’t big enough to house a laptop and a normal plate, something Jay often expressed displeasure over.

Sunghoon looked at Jay’s tail. It was thumping on the back of the sofa restlessly, a clear indication of his sour mood.

He took a deep breath. Then promptly burst into tears.

Jay mustn’t have seen it coming. His tail froze and he looked alarmed, clearly expecting Sunghoon to either ignore him or spew an apology instead of crying of all things. Sunghoon expected himself to spew an apology instead of crying of all things! “Whoa, Hoon? What’s happening?”

You happening! Sunghoon wanted to scream, but it only forced another fresh batch of tears to the forefront of his face. He pressed his arm to his eyes, trying to stop the tears so at least they could have a proper conversation, but Jay beat him to it. A pair of arms wrapped around his hunched figure, and Sunghoon let himself be reeled in, pushing his face against Jay’s neck and crying there.

Jay coaxed him to the couch. He pushed his plate to the far side of the couch and made room for them to sit—or in Sunghoon’s case, collapse. As Jay kept his arms around him, a band of soft fur made its way around Sunghoon’s waist, and Sunghoon instinctively shrank into Jay’s side, letting everything about Jay ground him.

Jay gave the best cuddles in the world, sue him.

“I really want to handle this conversation like an adult,” Jay murmured, but Sunghoon heard a note of fondness in his voice. “But it’s difficult when you’re bawling like this.”

Sunghoon hiccuped. “I’m not bawling.”

“Sure you’re not.” Jay tugged at his hair softly.

Sunghoon eyed the plate of japchae. “Did you really not make me dinner?”

“You said you’ve had dinner.”

“I lied. I skipped lunch and I’m so hangry.” Sunghoon wiped his face on Jay’s shirt. Jay let him, although Sunghoon could imagine Jay was rolling his eyes. “I messed up at practice and my knees hurt and you bought me cold packs, I saw them, they’re the right brand, my knees feel better now. Don’t just eat whatever the fuck you want, because the last time you did that you got food poisoning so bad I had to take you to the hospital.” Sunghoon wiped his face again, uncaring of the mess he made on Jay’s shirt. Yuck. “Thank you for the cold packs. You’re the best and I’m sorry for snapping.”

Jay had started massaging Sunghoon’s nape while he was blurting out his speech, perhaps realizing Sunghoon’s tendency to ramble and go off topic when worked up and untethered. Sunghoon slumped into him, going putty under the ministration.

Jay hummed under his breath. “Hangry, hm? Did you apologize just to persuade me into making you dinner?”

“No?” Sunghoon frowned. “Unless you’ve changed your mind?”

“After the stunt you pulled? No,” Jay scoffed, but didn’t stop massaging Sunghoon’s nape. “I made dinner for me. You can order in or make something yourself.”

Sunghoon sniffled. “You never let me near the stove without supervision.”

“Who says I’m not going to supervise?”

Sunghoon huffed in defeat. Jay pressed a kiss on the damp skin under Sunghoon’s eye, still swollen and tender from crying, and smiled. “You’re forgiven, big baby,” he whispered fondly. Sunghoon closed his eyes at their proximity. “But I’m still not making you dinner. I’ll supervise, though. Wouldn’t want you to trigger the fire alarm.”

Sunghoon nodded, because he didn’t want to reinvoke Jay’s wrath and he was actually hungry.

He glued himself to Jay’s side pretty much all through the dinner preparation, still feeling raw from their confrontation, and only leaving his side when Jay instructed him to wash this or chop that or bring things over. He didn’t say anything about how Jay practically made the dinner himself, what with the amount of help and supervision he gave.

He was doting like that.

Chapter Text

Then Jay went ahead and got his tail injured.

Sunghoon was asleep when it happened.

Jay had been pulling all-nighters lately. Not a healthy habit at all, Sunghoon had pointed out multiple times, after unsuccessfully dragging his boyfriend to bed for the umpteenth time. Jay attributed his ability to stay late to his cat nature, citing how convenient it was when he had a pile of schoolwork and tutoring jobs and organization duties and volunteer work to meet.

Sunghoon understood how it felt to have your agenda jam-packed to the brim. He made sure there were enough tea and snacks in the kitchen in case Jay got hungry during his all-nighter spree.

Tonight was no different. Sunghoon was doing the dishes when Jay started bringing out his bag to the living room, setting up his workspace for the night.

“Do you want tea,” Sunghoon asked, rinsing the last plate and putting it on the rack. He moved to the cabinet where they kept their tea and snacks.

“Later,” Jay replied. Sunghoon nodded but prepared the water regardless.

The bags under Jay’s eyes were even more prominent than yesterday, making Sunghoon almost wince at that. He crouched in front of Jay and reached out for his face, scratched the underside of his jaw until Jay started to purr. Sunghoon knew how much Jay loved the gesture—it instantly disarmed him, made him listen. Jay’s tail poked him in the face as a reply to the affection.

If he left his bedroom open because it felt lonelier to sleep without Jay at his side, Jay was none the wiser.

He didn’t know what woke him up later—the room was dark without any trace of sunlight, so it couldn’t have been morning already. He checked his phone to find it switched off, so it couldn’t have been his alarm or a phone call either. Then what?

He perked up when he heard a low whimper, like someone was hurt. It sounded suspiciously like Jay’s voice. His sleep-addled brain registered late that it couldn’t be anyone but Jay.

He bolted from the bed and out of the room, almost catching his forehead on the threshold, and his heart must have stopped for a beat when he saw Jay on the floor, curled up in himself, whimpering in pain. Sunghoon rushed to his side.

There were tears in Jay’s eyes. Sunghoon felt his heart tighten painfully, heartbreak and fear seizing him in a vice grip as he checked for injuries. Jay didn’t look good—he had broken out in a cold sweat, his breath coming out in ragged, shallow bursts. Jay was cradling his tail in a manner someone did when their body part was hurting, and this almost sent Sunghoon into overdrive because an injured tail was never a good thing for cats in general, and he didn’t even want to think of what it meant for cat hybrids like Jay.

“Jay,” he whispered, touching Jay’s cheek where a tear track had formed. “What hurts? I can’t help if I didn’t know what happened to you. Can you tell me what happened?”

Jay scrunched his eyes shut. His expression flitted back and forth between hurting and exhausted, adrenaline running the gamut while he fought the shock. He pointed feebly at the swing door that separated the hallway from the living room and the kitchen. “My tail,” he whispered in a small voice, confirming Sunghoon’s fear. “It-it caught on the door.”

Sunghoon remembered the suffocating fear and pain of landing wrong on his foot after a triple spin and the injuries that followed. Jay was probably feeling along those lines, scared and panicking and hurting. Sunghoon had to keep him calm. But first ….

“I’ll grab my phone, okay?” Sunghoon whispered. He didn’t wait for an answer before dashing to his bedroom, grabbing his phone and turning it on as he ran back to the hallway.

He didn’t dare move Jay too much, knowing that an injured tail meant Jay’s balance was shot while touching it without finding out the problem first was a recipe for disaster. After some careful maneuver, in which Jay hadn't stopped whimpering and Sunghoon kept up his litany of soothing words, Sunghoon succeeded in putting Jay’s head in his lap. Jay’s hand that wasn’t cradling his tail latched onto Sunghoon’s, as if he was looking for something to ground himself. Sunghoon couldn’t do anything but squeezed his fingers back.

“Jay. Breathe, okay?” Sunghoon murmured, careful not to aggravate Jay’s sensory inputs that were probably already overwhelmed at this point. “I’m here. Breathe, baby. You’re going to be just fine.”

He ran his fingers through Jay’s hair, murmuring consolations and sweet nothings to distract him from the pain. It took a while before Jay started to calm down, his breath evening out as his whimper slowed to a stop.

“Can you get up?” Sunghoon asked, eyeing Jay’s tail to try to determine the next step. The tail looked normal to Sunghoon, with no outer injuries or bent at an odd angle, but maybe it was because he had no idea what to look for. “Should I call someone? Are you able to go to the hospital?”

Jay nodded. His grasp on Sunghoon’s fingers lessened as he started to sit up. Sunghoon’s hands hovered over him, ready to catch him if he fell. Jay didn’t, but he slumped against the wall from exertion, his tail stretched limply on his side. Sunghoon never saw it so listless before.

The drive to the hospital was short, what with it being in the middle of the night and Sunghoon breaking the speed limit. He had given Jay painkillers, but even with the painkillers to take some edges off, Jay still looked like he might pass out in the next second.

Jay’s tail wasn’t broken, thank fuck for that, because it would've meant a more fatal injury and even longer recovery. It had to be bandaged and Jay had to stay away from dancing for a while to give his tail time to heal, but other than that and a few pills to take twice a day, he was good to go. The tail hurt like hell and gave Jay (and Sunghoon by extension) such a scare because the door caught right on the spot where his tail had once broken when he was a kid.

“I don’t have a high tolerance for pain,” Jay sighed on their way back to the car. “Thank you for doing this.”

He must be still reeling from what happened, because he tried to open the door before Sunghoon even unlocked the car. Sunghoon suppressed a laugh when Jay stumbled.

“Anytime,” Sunghoon caught him on the waist. He dropped a kiss on his shoulder, careful and tender, a reassurance to himself that Jay was here and not in pain anymore. Jay tilted his head to the side to make room for him. “Wait, no. Never do that again. You scared the shit out of me! I might have aged ten years tonight alone.”

“Never,” Jay agreed. “Hurt like fuck.”

After the tail incident, Sunghoon made sure to babyproof their door (“No, Jay, it’s catproof—ow—why are you scratching me!”). Jay laughed about it and went along with the idea, while Jake complained about how they were such a married couple for doing that (“You babyproofed your door? What’s next, putting corner guards on every furniture? Oh—shit, I just gave you an idea, didn’t I.”).

Sunghoon almost took to following Jake’s unsolicited idea, but Jay immediately vetoed the plan before it saw the light of day.

Chapter Text

When Sunghoon’s cat was still alive, his cat could detect when he was sad or sick.

Later, he found out that not that cats were able to detect an illness or a change of emotion in humans. Instead, they were creatures of high senses and awareness, highly curious and attuned to their surroundings. His cat didn’t detect his illness, rather, she could smell a change in his hormone when illnesses struck him. Same with sadness; she noticed the changes in his pattern of activities, his facial expressions, and his emotional cues when he got sad.

There was no better way to say this, but the same characteristic applied to Jay as well. It seemed like he had catalogued Sunghoon’s every single behavior and categorized them based on the frequency of occurrence, urgency, or whatever else he might deem important; keeping everything like a database so he could pull them out when the situation warranted.

In short, Jay was one perceptive motherfucker. He had a radar that picked up Sunghoon’s change of moods. But despite being attuned to his emotional state, Jay didn’t always do something about it. He might be able to sense when Sunghoon was having a bad day and preferred to hole himself up in his room until he felt braver to face the world once more, but it didn’t mean Jay would always interrupt or cheer him on or try to draw him out of his bad thoughts. Being perceptive meant Jay also understood when Sunghoon needed someone to hold the door open for him and when to leave him alone.

Sunghoon admired Jay for it, because unlike Jay, he never quite knew when to push and when to stand back.

Sometimes Sunghoon wondered if Jay was observant by nature or if he was observant because he was a cat hybrid. He never voiced out this inquiry, however, because Jay might get mad at him for trying to reduce him to his hybridism. (Sunghoon wasn’t. He was simply curious, but maybe there was some internalized bias there that Sunghoon didn’t realize, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.)

This observant nature especially came in handy when something was wedged in their relationship, or one of them was close to bursting out.

“I don’t want to sleep with you,” Sunghoon blurted out, then promptly regretted his wording. He scrambled in the face of Jay’s confused and slightly hurt expression. “Wait, that came out wrong. What I mean is, I just want to … sleep alone? Tonight? And maybe for a few days?”

Jay blinked, admittedly taken aback by the statement. To be fair, he shouldn’t have been surprised—the entire purpose of maintaining separate bedrooms was specifically for allowing them time and space to retreat when being together felt too much. It was just—the last time they slept separately was probably more than four months ago.

“Okay,” he recovered quickly. If Sunghoon noticed his disappointment, he didn’t say anything. “Sleep well, Hoon. Scream if you have a nightmare and I’ll come rescue you.”

Sunghoon puffed out his cheek. “As if.” He made an aborted movement to turn back. “Uh. Night, Jay.”

Jay waved at him. Sunghoon could feel his stare boring hole at the small of his back, but didn’t feel like addressing it. He had also wanted Jay to ask him why the sudden change, and felt rather disappointed that Jay decided to let it slide rather than push for an answer. Because if there was one thing that separated them, it was their way of asking for comfort.

Jay was out there. He was talkative to the point of suffocating, able to talk a mile a minute without losing his train of thoughts. He got along with most people, even those he considered annoying or didn’t particularly like. Put him in a queue, in a crowd gathering in front of a venue, in a group of strangers that met for the first time to work together for the foreseeable future, and he would make ridiculously a lot of friends by the end of the encounter. Sunghoon liked to drag him along to any social outing as a buffer, because Jay alone was enough to carry a conversation for both of them and Sunghoon could participate as a silent audience.

Sunghoon sat at the opposite end of the spectrum. He was reserved, liked to keep it to himself, and rarely went out of his way to make friends. He was good at initiating conversations, but only when he thought it strictly necessary or if he could gain something out of it. It used to give him a lot of trouble during school years, making him feel out of place in a sea of students that talked and made plans together and hang out. His many absences due to practice or competitions certainly didn’t help, although, if anything, he welcomed it as a reprieve from the tiring pressure of socializing.

When Jay wanted comfort, he would ask for it, serving it under Sunghoon’s nose and giving him options to take it or leave it. If he ended up not doing that and instead kept going until he collapsed, it was because he genuinely thought he could handle it, not because he was purposely hiding his struggles.

Sunghoon was different. When he wanted comfort, he would deny he needed it in the first place. He avoided like a plague any conversation that edged on speaking about his struggles and feelings. It took him a long time to open up, and even longer to ask for what he wanted. What he needed.

When Jay had asked him to take a love language test together, Sunghoon tried valiantly to evade the proposition.

“Why do we have to?” he tried to reason. “You know what my love language is and I know yours.”

“Really?” Jay’s tone shifted into the one he usually used when challenging an argument. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and leaned over the kitchen table. “Then how come I don’t know what really makes you happy? What you’d like to do for our dates or days off? How to treat you right when you’re angry, because the things I do only make you even madder?”

“I was just not in the mood?” Sunghoon answered lamely.

“And what is my love language?”

Sunghoon’s mind blanked out. He rummaged through the specific part of his brain that was labeled ‘Park Jongseong’. “Gifts?” He remembered how Jay’s eyes lit up whenever Sunghoon bought him little trinkets and souvenirs from traveling for competitions.

“Last time I checked that’s my fourth.”

Oops.

“See? We need it. It’s a simple test,” Jay got up from his seat across Sunghoon and dragged his chair so they were sitting side by side, bumping their shoulders in the process. “Here, I have the site open already. Fifteen questions. I’ll drive you to the rink later.”

“I'm fine with taking the bus.”

“Hoon.”

Sunghoon tightened his grip on his spoon, all thoughts of finishing dinner now a vain imagination. “I don’t know. That sounds awfully—vulnerable.” There. He said it.

Jay’s eyes softened. “Oh, Hoonie,” he nudged Sunghoon’s cheek with the tip of his nose. “If we want to do this whole relationship thing, we have to learn to be vulnerable with each other, yeah?”

Sunghoon relented eventually, because what else could he do? But he made sure to increase Jay’s stake by adding picking him up from the rink and buying him tteokpokki on the way home and—

“Geez, okay, I’ll buy you anything you want later,” Jay jabbed his fingers to Sunghoon’s waist cruelly. “Now, question number one.”

It wasn’t half bad, Sunghoon had to admit. The questions were straightforward, if somewhat vague, but Jay was good at reading between the lines and they made do with that. He found out Jay’s primary love language was physical touch followed by quality time. He also found out that his own love language was different from his expectation, discovering acts of service and words of affirmation occupying the podium.

“You didn’t even know your own love language,” Jay said, somehow finding a way to say I told you so without saying it. Sunghoon used his newfound knowledge of Jay’s inclination towards physical touch by pressing a quick peck on his cheek.

Jay accepted the bribery in stride. Sunghoon took it as a win.

“If I could add something to this,” Jay added after some time, his eyes still on the webpage that displayed both their results. “I think one of the biggest love languages there is would be learning your partner’s native language.”

Sunghoon wondered if Jay had had a stable relationship during his time in the States before he came to Korea and transferred university. “Was it one of your old relationships?”

“No, no,” Jay said, absently reaching for Sunghoon’s hand as if sensing where his mind had wandered to. Sunghoon didn’t feel unsettled, but the reassurance was appreciated all the same. “It’s my parents’. My dad learned Korean when he started dating my mom.”

This was the first time Sunghoon heard about it. “Did he sweep your mom off her feet that way?”

“I like to think he did,” Jay wore this one smile that Sunghoon associated with fond sincerity. “Shame I can't learn your native language, though, I’ve already spoken it. And you can speak mine, too.”

Sunghoon nodded solemnly. If he immediately thought of another universe where he was born somewhere else and acquired a different native language, Jay was none the wiser.

“Do you want to check out another test?” Jay asked, hovering over the bottom of the page that linked to various other relationship tests. Lulled by the comfortable mood, Sunghoon agreed without a second thought. He regretted it not long afterwards.

“Your go-to defense mechanism was pretending nothing happens and hopes for the best. You should consider communicating your needs with your partner better,” Jay read his result. Sunghoon didn’t appreciate his vulnerabilities being shoved under the spotlight like that, but before he could express his displeasure, Jay continued. “I mean, I already know. I don’t need this test to tell me that.”

Sunghoon was mortified, but okay. He never said he was the best at the whole communication-is-the-key thing, an area Jay was more excelled at.

That was in the early days when they had just started dating. In hindsight, it could've been one of the first things that indicated Jay’s eerie perceptiveness, that Jay easily admitted he had known Sunghoon’s tendency towards closing off long before that dumb relationship test.

So when Sunghoon started to fall into his habit of retreating and shutting people out, trust Jay to recognize the telltale and execute damage control.

Recently, it happened when Sunghoon was spacing out in the middle row of his class, absently thinking about the person sitting in front of him and how nice her hair was. Had she dyed it herself? He wondered what Jay had to say about Sunghoon highlighting his hair like that. Jay had said he would rock many kinds of hair colors, but would pink work, too? Was his hair even long enough for a highlight?

The lecturer moved to the next slide. Sunghoon distantly registered the material as one he’d never heard before. He shoved a hand into his backpack in search of a notebook, but froze when his knuckles bumped into a plastic container instead. It felt light and sounded vacant, like it was only filled with half or even less its capacity. He furrowed his eyebrows and opened the bag wider.

It was a lunch box containing several packs of granola bars and a green apple. A lunch box that didn’t belong to him, that he didn’t remember packing.

The sticky note on the lid read

Don’t forget to eat. You apple-solutely have to take care of your core strength :)

in Jay’s handwriting. Even without the signature chicken scratch writing, the awful puns would've been telling.

Sunghoon forcefully shoved the box to the bottom and zipped his bag closed, before he did something stupid like tearing up in the middle of the class or calling Jay right there and then to convey his neverending devotion.

After the class ended, he took a picture of the lunch box and sent it to Jay with a short thank you. Jay reacted to his message with a smiley emoji.

Sunghoon liked it. The sneakily packed lunch made his days a little brighter. And other days, the flowers too.

“I thought we were going home,” Sunghoon said in the sulkiest tone he could pull off. He was tired from a day full of practice, gliding and jumping and choreographing his movement, and was happy when Jay offered to pick him up, because there was no way he could make it to the bus stop with his limbs feeling like jelly.

“We are,” Jay emphasized. “But first, I want to make a stop.”

“I'm tired.”

“I know. Sorry. Here, drink this.”

Sunghoon sipped on Jay’s bubble tea, instantly mollified and a little more forgiving. Jay chuckled at his instant change of mood, reaching out to ruffle his hair.

He pulled up in front of a place Sunghoon was more than familiar with.  Sunghoon stared out for a good three seconds before asking what the hell they were doing.

“What else?” Jay said, as if visiting Sunghoon’s old workplace that had gone out of his business a while ago was totally normal. The building was pretty much the same, but the name of the place was different. “I want to buy you some flowers.”

It was no secret that Sunghoon liked flowers. Sunghoon had made it clear when he’d taken up a part-time job at a small flower shop, one that used to be here but not this one. The decision stemmed from a leg injury that had forced him to take a three-month break from skating. Jay remembered how devastated Sunghoon was at the beginning, refusing to leave his room other than for going to class. He also remembered the sheer joy he felt when Sunghoon told him he landed a job as a florist, because Sunghoon who was out and about was a thousand times better than Sunghoon who looked forlorn every ten seconds and snapped at practically everything.

What then followed was a six-month period where Jay received a rose or carnation or calla lily or whatever Sunghoon managed to acquire after his shift. An unbearably sweet gesture, and Jay even learned to create an arrangement under Sunghoon’s supervision so their only vase could hold the many flowers Sunghoon brought home. (“Can we retake that love language quiz again?” Jay said jokingly, after the third time Sunghoon gave him a tiny carnation arrangement that week. “Are you sure your love language isn't flowers?”)

Jay also knew how dejected Sunghoon became when the shop went out of business. It had been Sunghoon’s source of happiness during his break, taking his mind off the injury and absolute inability to step on the ice for an extended period of time, but unfortunately some business simply had to go. Jay’s only regret was that it had to be Sunghoon’s workplace.

Jay had joked, the one time he stopped by during Sunghoon’s shift, that Sunghoon looked fitting in the sea of flowers. You could've been displayed in one of the vases, he said, then threw in a pickup line if I’d give you eleven roses, what would you see in the mirror? A dozen roses that absolutely embarrassed Sunghoon in front of his coworkers.

Sunghoon looked like that right now. He looked like he belonged here, standing close to the flowers and fiddling with them like he used to. His eyes swept the entire interior and stored it as a memory. The shop was bigger than when he used to work here—no, not here, it was the same place but a different shop—and Jay noticed the way Sunghoon’s eyes lingered at the plaster wall that used to reduce the space by half. He couldn’t tell if Sunghoon felt delighted or—melancholic, maybe, from seeing this flower shop find a way to expand when his old workplace didn’t.

He let Sunghoon wander and peer at the rows and rows of steel vases lining the wall while he stuck to the succulent shelf. One of the florists approached him, asking if there was anything he could help, to which Jay gladly said yes. How often should a succulent be watered again?

Sunghoon had gathered the flowers he wanted and was standing near the arranging table by the time Jay found his destined succulent. Jay heard him asking some questions about how long this flower shop had been established.

“Are you hiring?” Sunghoon asked, not really meaning it but curious nonetheless.

The girl smiled politely, sparing him a glance before going back to the arrangement. “I'm afraid not at the moment, but I'm sure we can make some exceptions for someone as pretty as you.”

Sunghoon almost choked on his own spit, totally not expecting the girl to seriously answer his question and threw in a flirting for good measure. A few steps behind him, Jay had to exert a considerable effort to suppress his laughter.

“Uh,” Sunghoon said intelligently. “Thanks. That’s very—kind of you.” He bowed and bolted out of the shop as quickly as was humanly possible, clearly forgetting the bouquet in his haste to escape. Jay settled the bill and picked both the bouquet and the succulent and made his way to the car.

“Are we going to get another florist Sunghoon era?” Jay nudged his side gently while settling in the driver's seat. He handed Sunghoon the bouquet and put the succulent in the middle console. “I miss having my daily dose of flower, arranged by the prettiest flower of all.”

Sunghoon tried to subtly hide his reddening face behind the bouquet, focusing his attention on the purple hydrangea. It was a sad attempt.

They were back on the road when Sunghoon spoke up. “Jay.”

“Hmm.”

“I didn’t pick this yellow carnation.”

“Uh, yeah? I grabbed it because it was pretty.”

“It symbolizes disappointment, just so you know.”

“… Oh.”

“I worked as a florist for almost half a year. I would think you’d be more careful when picking flowers for me.”

“… Oops?”

“Is this saying anything about our relationship?”

“No, no, no! It’s an honest mistake, I swear! Dammit, why didn’t the florist say anything?”

Sunghoon relaxed on his seat, hugging the bouquet to his chest. The yellow carnation could be dealt with later. “A good florist would tell you when your flower orders seem off.”

“Speaking from experience?”

Sunghoon sniffed. “Yes. Kind of like your case here. Buying yellow-themed flowers without knowing jack shit about the meaning behind them.”

The flowers were a nice gesture. Sunghoon unraveled the ribbon and the wrapping and put the flowers in a vase, diligently cutting small parts of the stems each day to keep them alive for as long as possible. He only threw them out when the petals had wilted beyond saving.

Jay stared at him blankly, then at the organic dustbin where the flowers met their fate, then at him again. “How dare you.”

“Why? It’s dead.”

“You threw away our children. Your children.”

“My—”

Sunghoon also took to photographing Jay during his plant-watering routine. His favorite picture to date was Jay, hair tousled and face puffy from sleep, holding his brand new succulent in front of his face with that signature little pout of his. Sunbeams peeked from the corner of the picture, drenching him in the soft glow of early morning. Jay hadn't even noticed the camera when Sunghoon pressed the capture button about ten times in succession.

Sunghoon’s mood saw improvement, although not entirely. He went back to sleeping with Jay and didn’t push back when asked how his day was, but he still looked fairly somber most of the time and spaced out even when being spoken to.

It came to a head when Jay received a text from Yeonjun, right when he had dismissed his dance team for the day. They rarely heard from each other, so to have Yeonjun suddenly reaching out to him was enough to make his alarm bells go off. He read the message and immediately discarded all thoughts of going home.

Sunghoon and leg injury simply couldn’t exist in the same sentence. Jay had been worried over the possibility of Sunghoon having to go through another slump, but thankfully the verdict was better than last time. It still put Sunghoon out of commission, but surely four weeks of physiotherapy and recuperation was preferable to six months of staying out of the rink completely. Sunghoon’s next championship was still a few months away, giving him enough time to get back on his feet and resume where he left off.

Sunghoon seemed to think differently. By the time Jay thanked the doctor, Sunghoon was already out of the door and halfway across the corridor. It was impressive how fast he could move with a crutch when amped up in rage.

“Hey. Slow down,” Jay said, one hand hovering at the small of Sunghoon’s back for lack of anything better to do. “You heard what the doctor said. It’s not severe, but don’t put too much pressure on it.”

Sunghoon didn’t bother to look at him, keeping his pace brutally fast for the scale of his hurting ligament. “Yeah. Very not severe, very lucky. Of course I'm not supposed to be sad about this, right?”

“I'm not saying you can't be sad over what happened. I'm asking you to slow down.”

Sunghoon winced when he accidentally put too much pressure on his leg. “Four weeks is a fucking long time. This is stupid, stupid leg and stupid injury, if only—”

“Hey, none of that now, please,” Jay dropped his tone to a coaxing one. “Your health is important. You’ll fully regain your motor functions in no time.”

“But—” Sunghoon gritted his teeth, tamping down an urge to throw his crutch because he actually needed it to stay upright. “Forget it. Can we go home?”

“Here, let’s sit down while I call us a taxi, okay? Can you do that?”

“Of course I can do that, don’t treat me like an invalid,” Sunghoon snapped. Jay raised up his hands, silently accepting the ire.

Sunghoon’s mood continued to be the sourest it had ever been. He held onto his crutch like a sworn enemy, didn’t talk much, and he might as well erect a wall around himself from the way he cut off communication with the people around him.

Jay knew it wasn’t so much about the injury as much as it was about Sunghoon’s perception of himself. His injury must remind him of the time he had to take time off from competing. Sunghoon had built his whole identity around his figure skating career, and having it snatched away—even if it was temporary—tilted his world off its axis and he was left to scramble for what gave him a sense of achievement and joy. And when Sunghoon felt untethered with nothing to tie him down to the ground, he couldn’t see past the failures and the fall downs, zeroing on and picking apart what he could've done better to prevent himself from falling in the first place.

Jay didn’t like it. But he also didn’t want to stake interference where one wasn’t asked. He tried his utmost best to provide comfort, careful in its delivery so he wouldn’t come across as overbearing, but it was getting increasingly difficult day by day. Sunghoon became easily agitated and less understanding, and he picked a fight at the slightest inconvenience. Jay could count on one hand the number of times they sat down and had a peaceful interaction longer than ten minutes, before Sunghoon’s bitterness threw it all out the window.

He didn’t want to make this about himself, since Sunghoon suffered the heaviest brunt of it all, but this version of Sunghoon was the most exhausting to be around.

This afternoon was especially tough. Sunghoon came home from physiotherapy all taxed and irritated, slumping on the couch without a single hello aside from slamming the door shut in his entry. There had been too many instances of that lately.

Jay asked if he’d like to talk about his session or do anything else. He belatedly realized it wasn’t the wisest thing to say when Sunghoon scoffed in annoyance.

“As I've told you yesterday and the days before that, it’s fine,” he said curtly. “Were you even listening when I was talking to you.”

Jay frowned. “You don’t have to be a jerk about it, I was just asking.”

“It’s not like the routine’s going to change,” Sunghoon sent a steely glare his way. “Stop asking me about my session every time, Jesus.”

Jay stiffened. Something about Sunghoon’s condescending tone rubbed him the wrong way. “If you don’t want me to keep bugging you with stupid questions, then stop acting like a child.”

“I'm acting like a child? Do you even hear yourself? I'm going to physiotherapy and do my best to heal and get back to competitions, in case you forgot. It would help if only you’d stop smothering me with the most stupidest shit.”

Jay felt his own anger rose. “I get it, you’re hurting, I was the one who took you to the hospital and filled all the paperwork in case you forgot. I'm doing all the fucking chores around here because you’re too busy with your recovery and can't be bothered with helping me.”

“Wow, sorry you’ve been holding grudges all this time?” Sunghoon raised his voice. Jay grimaced—he’d never been good with loud noises in general. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been to physiotherapy before, but it’s fucking taxing, and balancing it with college and everything else is a chore in itself. Maybe have some understanding?”

“I've been nothing but understanding to you!” Jay snapped back. “You’re just too wrapped up in your misery to notice that. This world doesn’t revolve around you. You’re not the only one struggling.”

“And how’s your struggle coming along? At least you don’t have a fucked up ligament and a crutch to handicap you every second of the day?”

“See what I mean? Stop being so childish. I'm not faulting you for getting hurt or having a hard time! I just—I don’t know, Sunghoon, I'm trying my best to be there for you, but you make it so difficult for me.”

“So why not stop?” Sunghoon said scathingly. “No one asked you to do that, stop pretending to be so noble. I'm never asking you to babysit me through all of this. If it’s too much for you, you can walk out now, see if I care.”

It stung. It really fucking stung. Jay clenched his fists, willing away the frustrated tears pressing at the back of his eyes. “I think we should stop,” he said tiredly. “Before we say anything we regret.”

Sunghoon got up to his feet. “Bold of you to think I haven't regretted this.”

Jay kept his eyes trained on the ground as Sunghoon hobbled away on his crutch. He almost panicked at the sound of a door swinging shut, but when he ran to the hallway, he saw Sunghoon’s shoes by the front door. He turned to Sunghoon’s door, and noticed Sunghoon’s penguin keychain was swaying on the handle. It started as a dumb joke a few months prior, after Jay walked in on Sunghoon attempting a handstand—for whatever reason—with the door as a support. It had almost ended in tragedy. Afterwards, Sunghoon hung the keychain as a door hanger to indicate when Jay wasn’t permitted to enter. He never got around to taking it off. It struck Jay how ironic it was to see it now.

He trotted back to the living room, throwing himself on the couch and letting out a breath he didn't realize he’d been holding. If he stayed there and cried for a bit, no one had to know.

The thing about Sunghoon was his outburst left as quick as it entered him. If Jay didn’t know better, he might have thought Sunghoon had foregone any thoughts of the fight and slept on it. But Jay had been living with Sunghoon for a while and in love with him for longer, so he knew how Sunghoon got after a fight: agitated, restless, guilt-ridden. Regretful, more often than not. And he was quite a crybaby too. Jay couldn’t remember a single instance in which Sunghoon didn’t shed tears after their fights.

This wouldn’t do, he decided, getting up from his bed and going to Sunghoon’s room. He knocked once, twice. When Sunghoon didn’t answer, he pushed the door slowly, giving Sunghoon time to shout and tell him to go away if he so wanted—though Jay highly doubted that.

The room was empty.

He retreated to the hallway, glancing at the shoe rack just in case. Sunghoon’s shoes hadn't moved from their spot.

It took him a few moments to notice that the hallway was colder than usual. And a little windy. Which meant there could only be one explanation for that.

The door to the balcony was wide open. Sunghoon was sitting on one of the two chairs with his back turned on him. The chairs were originally dining chairs in the kitchen, but realizing there would be little use in having four dining chairs in an apartment for two, they had dragged the two chairs out to the balcony along with a cheap foldable table they had bought at the nearest hardware store.

Jay went back to his room. He shrugged on his thickest hoodie and plucked his blanket from the bed.

Either his footsteps must have been quiet or Sunghoon wasn’t in touch with his surroundings, because he jumped when Jay dropped the blanket around his shoulders. It was in the middle of November. Sunghoon only wore a wool cardigan on top of his sleeping shirt. Maybe it had something to do with years of training at an ice rink—the routine might have thickened his skin to the point of being resistant to the biting cold of autumn.

Or maybe it hadn't. When Jay brushed Sunghoon’s bangs from his forehead, he felt his temperature running slightly warmer than usual. He also, although faintly, emitted a specific scent that only came out when he was under the weather. Jay filed this for later.

“Penny for your thoughts?” he settled on the chair beside him.

Sunghoon didn’t answer right away. He drew the blanket tighter around him instead, as if trying to protect himself from the imminent conversation. “Just thinking.”

Jay let the silence suspend for another minute, giving Sunghoon an option to address the elephant in the room. When nothing seemed to come forth, he decided to push first.

“Hoon,” he said gently. “It’s not your fault. The injury, you taking time off—it’s not your fault.”

Sunghoon quickly rose to the topic. “How is it not my fault?”

“You’ve been working too hard.”

“And who are you to decide that for me?”

“I can see that. Everyone can see that,” Jay said. “Yeonjun told me you’ve been running yourself to the ground. He was the one who told me about your injury. And it’s—heartbreaking when he said you didn’t want to tell me at first. That didn’t even make sense, you know, because eventually I would’ve found out. Hell, we’re living together.”

“You don’t know about that,” Sunghoon’s eyes darted to his crutch settled beside him. “You don’t know anything.”

“I don’t want to fight again,” Jay said. “I just want you to be all right.”

Sunghoon looked like he was trying his best not to lose composure. A minute passed, and his entire body sagged as he curled into himself, looking tired and resigned. “I don’t want to fight too.”

Jay nodded in relief. At least they were back on the same page.

He went inside to make two cups of tea. Sunghoon hadn't even moved an inch by the time he came back and put the cups on the small table in front of them. Sunghoon mumbled a quiet thank you.

“So,” Jay started, picking his words carefully. “Was it the competition blues?”

Sunghoon fiddled with the handle of his cup. “Maybe. You know how it was.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t, and it’s probably the reason we fought in the first place,” Jay reminded gently. Sunghoon didn’t react, which meant he mostly agreed but didn’t want to admit it out loud. “Now. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I'm fine.”

“You’ve really got to stop doing that.”

“Doing what.”

“Telling me you’re fine, only to lash out later, and then I’ll find you crying yourself to sleep at night.”

Sunghoon tensed. “This is why I’ve been sleeping alone. So you won’t ask questions.”

“Hoon,” Jay reminded gently. “You know you can tell me anything.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to,” Sunghoon muttered.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” Jay said. “But when it starts mucking up our relationship, makes us want to hurt each other, don’t you think we should talk about it?”

Sunghoon didn’t answer. He refused to meet Jay’s eyes, instead casting his eyes on the faraway light on the building far across from theirs.

“Remember when we took that test? Your result?” Jay reached out for Sunghoon’s hand, loosely intertwining their fingers together. Sunghoon didn’t grasp him back, but he didn’t withdraw either, and Jay took it as a good sign. “Even without the test, I’ve known you. You have a tendency to push people away when you’re in a bad place. You’re doing it right now, you have been for a while. It’s not good, yeah? You have to let people in so they can understand you. You have to let me in.”

"Who are you, my therapist?" Sunghoon said, narrowly avoided lashing out for the second time.

“I'm someone who cares for you, and literally has been living with you for almost a year,” Jay slid his hand upwards, subtly seeking Sunghoon’s pulse. It was beating frantically. “I want to know how you’re doing. I want you to tell me when you’re not okay, when it gets too much. And if you just want someone to lean on for a bit, that’s okay too, I’ll be that person for you. Just don’t shut me out.”

Sunghoon didn’t say anything. His fingers made an aborted movement to reach back for Jay’s.

"You can hug me, you know," Jay said, because Sunghoon sometimes needed the reminder that someone was there to catch him when he fell. “And if you don’t want to, or if you’re afraid I’ll judge you for wanting something that I’m more than happy to give, then I’ll ask that of you. Can you hug me?”

That did it for him. Sunghoon’s bottom lips quivered—then he launched himself into Jay with so much force that the momentum almost toppled them backwards. Jay’s hands shot out to catch Sunghoon, reeling him into the depth of his arms. His spine throbbed from the impact with the backrest behind him and ow, that really hurt, but he didn’t say anything, didn’t protest, not when he had a lapful of crying Sunghoon to tend to.

Sunghoon cried like he did everything else: quietly, heartbreakingly, but somehow louder than anything.

“I just,” he sniffled. Jay distantly wished he had grabbed a pack of tissues beforehand. “I feel stupid and angry and embarrassed. My leg hurt and I didn’t make any progress today. It sucks, feeling like this sucks, and I just wanted to take it out on you. Sorry I said all those mean things. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just tired and angry and—I just wanted to hurt you.”

Jay tightened his embrace. There was a hot pressure building at the back of his eyes. His tears escaped easily and landed on Sunghoon’s hair, and he couldn’t stop himself from making a sniffing noise. Sunghoon must realize it too, because he whimpered and tightened his grip on Jay’s hoodie.

“It’s okay,” Jay whispered. His voice cracked, laden with emotions. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Sunghoon shook his head, his cheeks rubbing roughly against the fabric on his shoulder. “It’s not okay.” Another thing about Sunghoon was he could be as reserved as a rock at the best of times, but once the floodgates to his unexpressed thoughts were tapped, it was like a giant dam bursting open. “You're not smothering me. You check up on me often, ask me how my days are, make sure I'm doing well. It’s—nice, that you always show you care even though I've been shit to you. But trust me when I said I didn’t realize I've been that bad and leaving all the chores to you. You’ve done and helped me so much already since this stupid injury—it’s not fair, and you’re right for getting annoyed. Thank you for picking up my slack. I will do better. Don’t wash any dishes tomorrow or I’ll be mad at you.”

Jay chuckled wetly. “All right, I won’t.”

“I'm serious. I swear to God I’ll be so mad.”

“I would pinky promise you, but your fingers are tearing holes on my hoodie.”

Sunghoon dug his face deeper into the junction between Jay’s shoulder and neck. “I don’t care. You can buy a new one.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Do you forgive me?” Sunghoon asked timidly.

“Of course. As long as you forgive me in return,” Jay pressed a kiss on top of Sunghoon’s head. “Sorry I said all those mean things to you, too. I didn’t mean to belittle your injury or your struggles. They must be a real pain in the ass, and you’re strong for getting through them every time. You got this. I’m proud of you.”

“Apology accepted,” Sunghoon hiccuped. “Ugh. You’re going to make me cry again.”

“Then cry, baby. No one’s stopping you. I'm sure my hoodie will agree,” Jay said, referring to the state of his hoodie that bore the brunt of Sunghoon’s crying. “Actually, let me get you a tissue first.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You literally just word-vomited how grateful you are about my general existence.”

“Well, I guess you’re not so bad,” Sunghoon said sulkily. Jay laughed, dragging a hand up and down his back in a soothing motion.

They stayed that way for a while, pressed comfortably against each other. Jay coaxed Sunghoon to drink the tea to soothe his throat after the crying fest he had, to which Sunghoon refused vehemently because he didn’t want to let go of him, not just yet. Jay ended up holding the cup to his mouth while he took tiny little gulps. You big baby, Jay murmured, while Sunghoon only stuck out his tongue.

He hummed a comforting tune while Sunghoon dozed off. It turned out to be not the best course of action, because instead of slipping off deeper into slumber, Sunghoon jerked up and complained he wasn’t a toddler that needed a lullaby before sleep. Jay ignored this token protest completely.

He made sure the blanket covered Sunghoon’s shoulders. Sunghoon hummed sleepily, tired and weary, but at least he was content. They were content.

When Sunghoon coughed and his body started to shake minutely, Jay nudged him awake. “Let’s go inside,” he said. “I think you’re running a mild fever. If we don’t take care of it right now, it’s going to be hell in the morning and you’re going to be super cranky and throw an even bigger tantrum.”

“I'm not throwing a tantrum,” Sunghoon pouted, but Jay could feel a ghost of smile pressed to his shoulder. “How did you even find out?”

“Your smell,” Jay nosed at his hair. “When you’re sick, your chemical and hormones went out of whack, it’s almost impossible to ignore. Sorry to disappoint, but you can't hide from me.”

Sunghoon nodded. He turned his head sideways, pressing a tiny kiss on Jay’s birthmark on his neck. “Wouldn’t dream to.”