Work Text:
He's good, it's bad
The best I've ever had
—
At the considerable age of twenty-three (and five months old), Sunwoo's approach to relationships is consonant with the way that he singles out his narrowed-down choices of keyboards. Nothing too broad, nothing too intricate. First time, second time, if the person meets him all the way in as effortless and light as Velocifire's compact keyboard does then job's done.
Not the wisest mechanism but no one's really diving head first to scrutinize that. There's the honeymoon-phase-hands-on phase that his friends would like to give an intervention about, and then there's the calling-until-one-falls-asleep phase that he'd think Haknyeon would already grew out of. There's the consequential-delayed-work phase that his regular clients, thankfully, mercifully, still leave five-star reviews to and another 'would def commission you again!'
Right now, he's standing on the pushing-your-boyfriend-out-the-door stage that sounds bad when taken out of context.
"Go home, you need to get changed, get to work, hyung," Sunwoo half-heartedly scolds. "Didn't your new boss say that your punctuality is abysmal?"
Haknyeon won't budge and if it isn't for the fact that it's five in the morning, Sunwoo would be so amazed at how put-together the older man looks in last night's clothes.
Actually, not really, he is amazed but the drowsy state that he's in chooses to focus on the cock of Haknyeon's head by the doorway and the smile hanging there. There's some gap between Sunwoo's inert attempt to close the door and Haknyeon's foot perfectly blocking it.
"Joonyoung hyung's work ethic is in a class of itself, I have time for one more." Sunwoo makes a moue at it, one that Haknyeon simply leans in, tips up and kisses away, feathery and fleeting. It does its trick. And then, "Okay, okay, okay, two more."
The 'two more' leads to Sunwoo letting go of the door-handle to bunch a fist on Haknyeon's shirt, pulling him in as if last night wasn't enough because as the matter of fact, it isn't. Haknyeon happily complies, moving and closing the door behind with his back, and Sunwoo is definitely more awake now, more conscious with the way he takes actions.
"I asked you to stay the night because there was a rainstorm, not for you to do this," Sunwoo says, pointless when he still keeps their proximity to an all-time low.
"You scratched my back, I'd be happy to scratch yours," Haknyeon replies. Sunwoo evidently gets red. The older man quickly retracts with a small laugh when he notices. "And I don't mean that in a euphemistic way, you did let me crash on your bed when you could've just lent me the couch."
Sunwoo sighs, kissing him light; still embarking on the honeymoon phase alright, fifteen months in. "I didn't have to, I wanted to."
Haknyeon reciprocates, cheeks getting higher and more prominent and he holds their gaze for enough time for Sunwoo to feel—ugh—shy, this is embarrassingly too much for someone who usually waited until noon to start his day.
Haknyeon calls for attention, his nose gently brushing Sunwoo's cheekbone. "Sunwoo."
"Haknyeon hyung," he murmurs.
"My baby." Nu-uh, that is the last straw, he ducks away, nothing to lean on in the middle. Haknyeon is merciful enough to let him be, laughing as he says, "I'll make it up to you, okay? Tomorrow night when you're free, anything you want."
Sunwoo blinks. Haknyeon is so handsome and he smells so good even when they use the same brand, same lemon; he is also so heartbreakingly inviting, that is not good, he might ask him to ditch work for the day instead, no.
For the umpteenth time that morning, he says, "You really need to go now, go."
Also for the umpteenth time, hundreds of time before, countless fingers and toes, Haknyeon laughs, squeezes Sunwoo's hand, and wishes him luck for tonight's stream.
—
Oh. My. Fucking. God. It's official: the means of survival has lost all of its merits, food has no meaning, someone's well-being is actually a worn-being, preying or being preyed on are equally dreadful, and the world's off a balance of a man in the woods with his gray-scaled map.
Sunwoo stares at his monitor, shoulders slouched and life-force seemingly drained as eight thousand people are watching his guy dying again for the third time in the last two hours.
Try playing this one, they said, it's such a great game. Try the survival mode, they said, pick the interloper one!
Whoever suggested that, Sunwoo would like them to know that his review of the much-praised game would just be a few short words of: yes, the story mode is a bedazzling gem. The survival mode on the other hand is being spawned in Pleasant Valley where the region is ironically anything but.
He heaves a big sigh, wallowing in despair and high-fledged indignation that he groans and slides down his chair for eight thousand people to see. When he idly sits back up, the chat's still flooding, most of them are even laughing, they're enjoying this shit; the headset is crookedly sitting on his head, and he laughs out, "I'm so sorry I suck at this," apologetically looking at the webcam for a fleeting moment. "You hear it from me, this is why FPS games are the best." His eyes glaze over the chat, an amused smile tugged in. "Yes, that is pretty basic, yes, I'm glad you still love watching my streams despite it, user moonsrenaissance."
It's that time of the hour. Usually, when it's already taken a whole lot of toll on him, he takes some time to just—recharge, get the battery back to a ninety-up percent. Sometimes it'll be ad breaks, sometimes it'll be a still-screen with a fifteen-to-thirty minute timer on it. It might take some more time than usual because his guy just died thrice in three different ways.
First time is being blasé enough to let his guy go to sleep with a bleeding wound and didn't wake up the next day; second time, he ran out of medicine, his guy's starving and he decided to just fuck it and gave him raw meat to keep him alive, and it backfired so bad; and the most recent one is something overly stupid like going on a pee-break without pausing the game and coming back to his guy getting surrounded by seven very hungry bears.
So. No. He's not having the time of his life. He wants some break, he needs it. So he takes a break. He just talks about what's on his mind like he does most of the times. Spins on his chair, talks some more, the chat responds, and he talks again.
"The Half-Life series are pretty good. I've only tried 1 and 2, the Alyx one is still one of my unachieved dream—mm?! If I ever gave a tour of my room, you could see that I'm not blowing it out of proportion when I say it's impossible for me to play it."
"Time-loop games? Never really tried those before, sounds kind of hectic. But I heard only the best things about Outer Wilds. Maybe I'll check it out. Thanks, chat. Don't expect anything yet."
"I could be playing Long Dark's fourth episode right now, you guys could be watching, too, we could be having our usual back-and-forth where I ask you not to spoil it for me and you guys in the chat will get excited that I'd know something good is coming. But here we are, stuck with the survival mode. Fucking interloper. I sound disappointed because I am."
"Oh, yeah, Digimon Survive was just released like a week ago? My—" his throat is so dry that he pauses to drink out of his water bottle, "—sorry, I'm sorry," it'll never feel not awkward, he laughs a little, wiping his mouth, "yeah, yeah, this friend I have, you know him. Younghoon hyung—uh, hoonsensei. He bought the Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition just days before Survive was out. And then, this hyung had a fit 'cause the Complete Edition had a big sale couple days later." He laughs again, drawn out and entertained. "Really? He went on a rant on his stream, too?"
"I will never touch Genshin Impact, you hear me? The world, scenery looks stunning but that is an unknown territory that I would like to stay far away from, I'm so sorry. I heard the gameplay's pretty monotonous, too. Hypocritical coming from an FPS fan, I know, but that's where the fun lies, the shooting, you can come at me for this one, I deserve it."
"Stray...Stray, Stray. It's been flooding my timeline for the whole week. From what I've seen, it's pretty grim? Grimly hopeful? Is that even an expression? I want my own B-12. Is that something you'd be interested in to see me play, loitering on an adventure as a cat?" A lot of 'no's and its friends pop up; some 'yesss i wanna see you cry's also show up. He narrows his eyes, promising glint no more. "You guys suck."
It's nice, for him it is. Maybe because he isn't doing this as a full-time job but it's nice. The highs are moderately above aground, the lows are pretty much out of sight. If he's in luck enough, there'll be sponsorship offers sitting in his E-mail; when he's not rushing on other deadlines, those offers would lead to actual earnings. It's the epitome of achieved stability if you would. His version of it.
Also tiny scoops of embarrassment sprinkled in here and there, definitely not far and few.
morningsunshere donated ₩22,000!
210k follows!!! Congratsss
"Shit, seriously? Two-one-o? Thank you morningsunshere for donating!" He does a small celebratory whoop, small claps because it is still awkward and embarrassing to do it alone, no matter how many times he's done it. Well. The little stickers and clapping emojis gradually showing up by far numbers help. Makes him grin, all gums and teeth. "Another milestone reached, thanks to you guys! I'll try really hard to avenge my guy's dishonorable deaths after this. Not that I wasn't already trying, mind you."
Compared to Younghoon's already-big-and-still-growing channel, Sunwoo's sub-count and follows are okay. There are three or four usernames that he recognizes that are still around, even from his days of two-hundred follows, and that fills him with something so warm and fluffy.
It pains him to admit it but it really makes him like a very, very minor celebrity. And it's nice, and it's fun. Being interactive with his viewers are probably his favorite part of it all. They choose what games he'd play, they know not to overstep their bounds thankfully. It's like their own little club—granted, a para-social one but a club's a club. They still won't let go of the fact that he overlooked the 200k-milestone but that's become more of an inside joke than anything.
A more present example of the tiny scoops embarrassment, after talking some more about the mechanics in The Long Dark that he's still getting the hang of (the 'Cabin Fever' because he doesn’t really get it, if it were him, staying at the cabin beats the wilderness), a few people in the chat-box start to mention something else.
"Yes, I did change my settings, yeah, lowest rates. 24-fps, yeah. I had to, guys, this thing has been around since I was still in high-school. The GPU doesn't really hold up anymore, if I can even get it to run smoothly on a 60-fps I would. I was hoping it wouldn't be excessively obvious but damn." He thins his lips, mulling and thinking. His phone suddenly pings. "You know what, hold on, let me just."
It's almost ten, nine-fifty-two approx. 'I'm still at the office,' it reads, 'on a personal break right now 30min of bliss'
There's questions he wants to ask, a frown he has to wipe off and an audience to get back to. So a little quick, hovering response of 'what are they keeping u so long for, had dinner yet?' is the only thing he can afford. That's his fifteen minutes already came and went. He does some stretches, straightening his back, arms pulled and all that, and rolls closer to the desk.
Sunwoo has never whipped his head so fast at another ping. Joonyoungggg hyungg called a meeting with the regional directors for establishments reviewals it's dull :,)
Another ping. Dinner can wait don't mind me :,,)
And another that makes Sunwoo bites down on his smile. Actually think about me :,,,) i'll be comforted enough
When he looks at the monitor again, the game's settings menu in view, he actually grins. "Okay, we're just going to ignore the blatant red on screen, and I'll try to run the game on sixty again. Let's cross our fingers." He leans forward, squinting at the chat-box. "And the person who keeps asking for me to play MADiSON, jichang98, I appreciate you, dude, but don't waste your energy, don't hold your breath."
Twenty-three-year-old him has yet to recover from the traumatic experience of playing White Noise 2 with the lights off with his family's out to attend his uncle's wedding while he's pretending to be sick, just to satisfy his follows of a total of ninety people. Yes, nineteen-year-old him was dumb. One good thing came from it (kind of): it hoarded him a lot more viewers than expected.
It takes him a good ten-minute to wander through Forlorn Muskeg before the game starts lagging and for his CPU to start singing an unasked for opera on its own. It's funny at the beginning, he laughs at glitching movements and lagging graphics but when the blizzard starts to wind up again, it's not funny anymore. Hell no to dying #4.
"Aaand it's a no, my PC build can't—I gotta lower the settings, hold on a sec." A few tinkering seconds later, lower rates are back, he clicks his tongue. "Sorry, guys, bear with me until I can afford to buy a new one."
NoneCents donated ₩17,800,000!
"Well, I—Holy fucking shit?" Sunwoo halts, double-checking, just making sure that his screen isn't suddenly hijacked or something like that. "I—" he stops again.
He reads the attached message below.
BongoSchmock: GOD?
valor_god: ?!?!?!?!?!?!
alreadyover: that's crazy that's literally crazy
alreadyover: he's blushing guys lolololol
snoozebutt0n: o...oh...(smirking emoji)
epigonesheel: holy fuck thats???
mobgo100: WAIT did anyone read what it said
kesshinspirit: BABY
mobgo100: BABY?
listliselice: BABY
lightcannonsupreme: wtf are u all on about THATS A WHOPPING AMOUNT OF I COULD BUY MY OWN CAR YK
mobgo100: BUT BABY
When Haknyeon had previously said this morning, that he would want to scratch Sunwoo's back as well, that he wants to make it up to him tomorrow, he had expected something like breakfast or dinner, or just going to the mall—well, tomorrow.
Sunwoo, "I-I—thank you...so, so much..." with everything that he has, "uh, user—sorry, user, I didn't really...catch your username but," tries not to blurt out 'hyung', "thank you. Thank you, you really didn't have to. Really. That is...I appreciate that. Thank you."
On the other hand that's also as equally as important, he wants to be able to fathom what he has just read.
There. In big, bold betters. Just under big, bold numbers. Floating on his screen for the past five seconds that feels so fucking long.
You're doing so well baby
Bastard, not literally, not even figuratively the right way to describe Haknyeon, but right now, Sunwoo is kind of on some edge that he can't quite process yet, so yeah. Bastard.
Bastard, personal break should be coffee and scrolling through social medias or actually having dinner or something, bastard.
His phone pings, the screen lighting up. Haknyeon sends him one simple 'need new pcs?' and he short-circuits again. He just freezes in place for a couple of seconds. Apparently, there's also the boyfriend-suddenly-dumping-money-on-you-just-because stage that he didn't take into account.
He blinks into reality at the annoyingly familiar sound-effect rippling through his headphones.
The screen's pitch black, only glaring red words of 'You faded into the long dark...' are there for him to blink at a few more times.
"W-Well," he immediately clears his throat when his voice cracks and he's so embarrassed, he just died (again) and his voice just cracked and people are watching this horseshit, "let's move on, shall we? We shall, we shall."
When did Haknyeon even make an account? Better yet, when does Haknyeon even watch his stuffs? In the fifteen months that they've made it official, it has not come up even once. Yeah, he always asks about what Sunwoo's playing, he's always asking and listening with those eyes that shimmer and glimmer and that smile that leaves Sunwoo breathless, and those melodious hums of his, fucking bastard, why is he so attentive?
"Chat, I need some guidance here. Watch my back, this not a one-person job, I am not made for having to look after my guy in these living conditions."
It's not that he hasn't been informed of the long, long depth of Haknyeon's pockets from the longer, deeper depths of his parents' and grandparents' velvet receptacles. But it's usually fancy restaurants once in a while and spending some weekends at his beach house and birthday gifts like the chair that Sunwoo's currently sitting on. And one time, it meant buying a ticket and a good-seat for Sunwoo to go home for ancestral rites and New Year's.
"Does anyone know how to contact the studio? Because, man, I need them to nerf some of these shits, come on, if drinking herbal tea can improve my guy's condition just like that, then a little fall from mountain-goating down a cliff would just...just give him some brief afflictions."
Oh, man, there's gonna be a video of him blankly staring into nothing for thirty seconds just floating around later for someone to stumble upon, isn't there?
"I'm not a wuss." He pauses, his guy is lacking some much-needed layers of clothing as he eats the dog food and beef jerky that Sunwoo found in some empty homes, the chat-box keeps repeating 'food poisoning #2 alert'. Sunwoo tries not to focus on the ones saying 'sugar mommy'. "I am not going out, I'm not letting him go back out there without a proper weapon, it's from a logical point of view."
"Guys, guys, there's the—it's a fucking miracle, look at it, look what I found. Water purification tablets. I don't care it's useless here, I literally died trying during the Whiteout challenge looking for these."
"There's a fucking what and where? Flashlight? Flashlight? Flashlight! Thank you, almost missed that."
And Sunwoo is finally back into it, into his headspace, engrossed to set a new record of staying alive past three days and he's still on day one, this is excruciating yet fun. Fun as long as he still lives, but that's not really exclusive to The Long Dark, it's like the point of all games. Something about it being in a survival simulation game makes it just a bit more fist-biting.
PostNutClarity donated ₩13,000!
yooo can't wait to watch you play Darkwood
"Thank you," how do you even say that without laughing, "PostNutClarity." That shouldn't be funny but it is and he hangs his head low, trying his absolute hardest. "Thanks for the donation." He takes some deep couple of breaths, a smile breaking out. "'Can't wait to watch you play Darkwood', is that also a survival game? I did say I'm planning on playing those more. Yep. I did—I said that. Again, thank you for that. Never change the name, don't do some dumb shit."
A few moments later, he abandons the game just to stare at the webcam, and says, "Horror? The genre's horror? My dude, you have not seen clarity yet, please wack your meat with a little more effort."
prod__sang donated ₩100,000!
Love to see that you're doing well! Fighting!
"Holy—Sangyeon hyung, thank yoouu, you didn't have to, why are you watching this? That's so sweet, hyung. We should do another stream together sometime! Guys, if you leave right now and check out Sangyeon hyung's channel, you would not regret it, I mean it. It's really—how do you say it—like, it's so engrossing to see him work." Okay, he can't hold it anymore, he's happy. "Fucking message making me shy, shut up."
He tries not to let his eye twitch at moonsrenaissance commenting, 'sugar dad????'
"Hey, do you guys see that?" The screen's showing his guy's current body chart. "My guy's running super low on calories, we're close to dying in a new way and it's still day one, I suck so bad. I miss the story mode so much, you don't know how it feels."
When he does, inevitably enough, let his guy's life gone to the Heavens after and after spawned incarnations, it's with another sigh and a lot of questions and aimless pointings, and narrowing eyes. "Tell me, what are you even watching anyway? What is entertaining about this? Guys, it's almost three hours, how are you not bored with me restarting it over and over? Complaining about the same thing again and again. Of course, I'm being a wuss, do you know how hard it is to forge a knife with very limited resources? There are no guns around in this mode, and you want me to kill a wolf with a knife with my guy being sicker than the girl from Clannad. Why do you like seeing me going through it? This is not entertainment."
The chat-box floods with laughing syllables and sympathetic tears of parentheses.
"Just so you know, I'm waiting for someone, just for one of you to ask me to continue on with Wintermute. Or ask me to play Stray. Rather than watch me doing these shits, stressing my stress, giving my guy dog food because I don't want to hunt bears and wolves, and shits and get killed again. You can watch me destress as a street-cat."
He squints again, the rapid comments is a fucking riptide, getting progressively harder and harder to read.
A lot of words, a lot of nothings, and it gradually mellows out that he feels so hopeful at a couple of people saying that they've been curious about how he'll play the fourth episode of The Long Dark's story mode. Good people still exist out there, he knows that now.
"Thank you, lifesavers literally, thanks for taking a pity on me. Wintermute it is!"
The game's main menu gracing his monitor is the enlightenment that makes everything worth it. He drinks some more before starting, the bottle's running out of water.
And when he's just about to click start, something else pops up on his screen.
NoneCents donated ₩25,000,000!
Play Stray for me
Bastard, what is he still doing here? It's been almost an hour since he said he went on a personal break, that's a lot of minutes more than thirty.
realjaehyunW: i cant fucking breathe wire that to my acc rn
chaniii_: lololol that's more than what i make in the last three years lololol
sonofjae: hello best friend it's me your best friend so you know how i've been wanting the batman hot toys collectible set
sonofjae: hooh crayzzz
alreadyover: the Gang's suddenly all here i smell jealousy
realjaehyunW: WHO WOULDNT BE?
realjaehyunW: sunwoo check your phone
hoonsensei: bro u gotta teach me how to do that
R4PTUREE33: what what's hoonsensei doing here 😭
gappingthemoe: he's watching susunkim's stream on his stream 😭😭
His phone keeps pinging—oh, his notifications are blowing up, this is embarrassing. Sunwoo takes one more look at his phone, a grimace is painted on his face, and it takes a turn when not even some seconds later, another big, bold letters pops up.
NoneCents donated ₩5,000!
Dinner tomorrow? I'll cook
"Wait, hyung—" he flushes, he feels hot, his phone won't stop pinging, fuck The Long Dark, fuck this stream, "fuck, I mean, tipper-nim—"
listliselice: hyUNG?
mobgo100: HYUNG?
kesshinspirit: HYUNG?!?!?!
snoozebutt0n: OOOOHHH /NOT/ SUGAR MOMMY
valor_god: i'm actually the homophobic dog meme right now what GOES ONNN WHAT IS THIS
morningsunshere: yall getting into shock that it turns out he's into guys honestly same
gintokitsura: the juice is sweet yummy yum yum and the juice SPILLS OVER
mieunnyyy: are we just going to blatantly ignore the fact that he does have a sugar daddy bcs that's a lot for me to take in
lightcannonsupreme: so is the 4th ep walkthru still happening or
realjaehyunW: fucking tipper nim CHECK YOUR PHONE
Fuck everything. He takes off his headphones, the weight of it resting around the scruff of his neck, and he groans into his hands, his very balmy, very clammy hands.
He peeks through his fingers, muffled when he leans into the microphone at the side and says, "I'm so sorry, guys, I'm gonna end tonight's stream early," he sighs, even more muffled, "you fuckers in the chat are eating up this shit, aren't you—no! I won't play Darkwood or MADi-fucking-SON to get you people to stop."
"Bye!"
—
Sunwoo's immediately greeted by the sound of Haknyeon trying to suppress his laugh when the older man answers the call after the first ring.
"So about that dinner."
Bastard. "Y-Yes! I'd love to!"
Haknyeon skirts around his firsthand contribution to the fiasco and Sunwoo not-so-subtly grumbles, asking if he already had eaten yet instead, half-irritated, half-worried.
"Mm-hm. Delivery chicken." Haknyeon decides to ask, "What about you? Ever had your post-nut clarity?" and that's so unfair because Sunwoo turns his grumble into little snorts.
"Hyung!" The little snorts lead to mirth spilling over without permission. "The good kind or the bad kind?"
"The walk-of-shame kind."
Sunwoo pulls on the strings of his hoodie, it's hard to keep the smile off of his voice. "I just had it last night. You were there, you should know."
Haknyeon makes noises of utter disbelief. Sunwoo's smile widens at what comes next. "I want to believe that you're kidding but if you're not, tell me where I went off the road."
It is so bad, he likes the way phone-calls filter the sound of Haknyeon's voice—lower and breathier than it is—way more than he minds the hefty donations that will probably rack through his mind for the rest of the night. Maybe his friends that are blowing up the group-chat are partially right, split it even and call it a day. Maybe he should transfer it back to Haknyeon's account. Haknyeon would just spend them on him, it's counterproductive.
Maybe a big part of him wants to see his mom react as badly as he did if he told her to check her balance.
"Hyung," he calls, ultimately cutting through Haknyeon's hums of some song that Sunwoo thinks he's heard on someone's public playlist. "You're not a bastard."
Haknyeon good-naturedly laughs, sounding amused, confused, and he sounds so nice. "Okay?"
"I'd like to eat your beef stew tomorrow please."
"Okay, baby, okay."
"You are not allowed to call me that for the next couple of days."
The call lasts for five more minutes before a distant voice from Haknyeon's end calls for him. There it is. The why-why-why-can't-I-manage-to-stay-mad-at-him stage.
—
And he's so nice, it's sad
He ruined all my plans
—
Five days later, Sunwoo does fulfill the requests from that stream, hastily titled: Thursday streammm long dark ep4 & stray - I'M LATE SORRYY
"Before you guys bombard the chat-box," which is probably too late to say, "I want to apologize for calling you 'fuckers' on our last stream. And for my breakdown. And for abruptly ending it. But mainly for the first one because that was not in good faith." He blinks up at the webcam, maintaining a neutral expression as he points a finger. "And over here. We're all about good faith. As you can see, this apology is badly butchered and not scripted so I also apologize for that."
morningsunshere: did anyone hear that someone just laughed
kesshinspirit: thank f god i thought that was just me oml
PostNutClarity: yooooo about time for a collab stream again
R4PTUREE33: HOONSENSEI?
BongoSchmock: imagine if it's buildwithJuy my prayers would've been answered
gintokitsura: speaking of does anyone rmb buildwithJuy's collab with prod__sang
alreadyover: i was just watching thattt before coming here did they actually sit in total silence beside each other doing their own thing for the whole stream?
BongoSchmock: the whole four hours
alreadyover: that is wild susunkim's right it's so engrossing but why
Here's the thing.
Sunwoo prides himself as being a private person. His social medias are there, out and about for everyone to scrutinize over the pictures and half-hearted captions, and quips and replies to his friends and the occasional fans but it's still weird to call it that. Yes, he shares some things like the ice cream that he happens to be having, or look! New shoes! If he's feeling like it, he'd answer some questions about himself, like why he dropped out of design school, why he doesn't do daily streams.
But never things like hey, how come you never say anything that you have an SO?
This event can only come to occur because of a couple of things including, but not limited to: his social medias being tagged or mentioned in everything that has to do with that stream, people making speculations of their own like a clip of him smiling at his phone for too long, and his so-called friends coming to his defense with arguments that ended with 'i'm kidding,,, or am i?'
The breaking point was of his own slip-up of sharing a picture that he's at a components store for you guys, and someone replied to it saying, I WAS JUST LITERALLY THERE? did you come with someone i swear there was someone else
"You're so stiff, relax a bit." No, he can't just relax, fucking two thousand people are watching this and it keeps adding up by the minute. Haknyeon has a teasing smile as he asks, "Is it because of me?"
Sunwoo lets out a small defeated laugh, eyes clutching shut. "I feel so exposed." And he is so inclined to just drop his forehead on Haknyeon's shoulder that is just right there if it wasn't for the blinking webcam.
Haknyeon simply shrugs, looking very comfortable sitting in Sunwoo's old chair. He hasn't taken his eyes off of Sunwoo for a second. "This was your idea."
Why does this feel so intimate, they're not even doing anything. "It sounded reasonable in theory."
He's had other people to share the screen with before, collaborations and Youngjae's adamant persistent to be his first-ever guest on his channel, and there was planning and they always talked beforehand about what to do, this and that. But this time around, it has already been a couple of moments of just looking at Haknyeon's eyes and erupting into little laughs here and there.
Sunwoo's pretty sure that there was even a moment where he kind of forgot what he wanted to say, what was it, it's there on the tip of his tongue.
One glance at The Long Dark's main menu just waiting to be clicked gets it rolling.
"Okay, hyung, we are going to play two games tonight," Haknyeon's gaze is so intense, "we've got two games to play tonight."
And Haknyeon is so natural, as if the public's eye is no different to friends and families. "Okay, how do you wanna go about it? Rock-paper-scissors, or..." he trails off, evidently very amused when Sunwoo doesn't get the message. He titters for people to see, and his laugh is always so contagious that Sunwoo almost doubles his regret about inviting the older man on. "How about I try to play the survival simulation game and you can play the cat game for me after?"
Haknyeon titters again, not really trying to suppress it this time. "Sunwoo?"
Yeah, he did not think this through far enough. "Yes! Yeah, whatever you say, hyung, let's do...do just that."
alreadyover: i've never seen him like this he can't even articulate properly
alreadyover: this is the best day of my life,, which is kind of sad
morningsunshere: he looks so happy...like a puppy...a happy puppy
mobgo100: get yourself an attentive sugar daddy people, it's the road to self-care self-love 101
gappingthemoe: time flies but so does 💸💸💸💸
valor_god: doesnt the sugarpap look too young to be called that
kesshinspirit: @valor_god don't u mean too cute
mobgo100: ^(2)
listliselice: ^(3)
mieunnyyy: i still can't believe this is happening 5 days is not enough to process this
"Oh! I am not Sunwoo's sugar daddy as most of you keep saying and with all due respect to the content creator, neither is Lee Sangyeon-ssi, I saw someone commenting that. I wouldn't mind if I was, but I am his boyfriend so that's more than I could ask for."
valor_god: yeah too cute
Sunwoo has the pleasure of answering Haknyeon's questions about the mechanics and the gist of the plot, and watching as he gets sidetracked to do the side quests. He's in his everything-your-boyfriend-does-look-endearing phase like the concentrated pull of his brows and his tendency to wander around anywhere he can like the main plot is non-existent.
Surprisingly enough, Haknyeon gets the hang of it pretty quick. "Whoa, how come you know how to handle the timber-wolves?"
"Your trials and errors during the third episode stream help a lot."
He has the displeasure of being painfully flustered after hearing that. "You watched that one?"
"I watch all of your stuffs," Haknyeon replies, smiling at their guy—Will—close to having forty-percent risk of hypothermia for some reason. "Not live, rarely ever. But I watch the past ones whenever I can. Last week was a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity."
"...That is not something you just spring up on someone," Sunwoo cries.
Haknyeon only laughs. "What's the matter?" This time, he does loll forward, resting his forehead on Haknyeon's shoulder for long seconds.
"Wait, doesn't that mean you knew already what the story mode is about?"
"Don't worry, you didn't waste your breath." Sunwoo doesn't know what to make of that. "I like having my baby explain things to me." Haknyeon pauses the game then, turns to look at Sunwoo with big, apologetic eyes. "That just slipped out, I swear."
He's been standing on the heart-fuller-than-a-king's-feast stage for a long, long time. He smiles. "Ban's lifted."
lightcannonsupreme: ...........it's not fun when we can't clown him anymore
morningsunshere: icb it took someone's donation ping for him to snap out of it he's so whipped
kesshinspirit: any of yall noticed how he hasn't addressed us at all other than at the very start we're invisible
epigonesheel: he didnt even complain that none of us pointed out he got a new pc build already...what is happening which susunkim variant has taken over ours
morningsunshere: the whipped variant
Haknyeon gives in to his glaring, watery eyes an hour and a half later. Respawning in the last checkpoint for the second time is Sunwoo's cue to—in the older man's own drawled-out words with his cheek smushed on Sunwoo's hooded shoulder—take over the dead and bring it back to life.
The cruel thing is, he really, really likes it when Haknyeon relies on him. He wants to show off a little, make Haknyeon's impossible possible and all that shit, the story mode is set on 'capable survivor' level of difficulty, it's his zone. But he wants Haknyeon to have fun even more while he's accompanying Sunwoo on the job, give and take, that sort of thing. Like how Haknyeon was at his side at all times when he had brought Sunwoo as his guest to an office party.
So he closes The Long Dark and loads up Stray instead, during which he finally remembers the existence of literal other people watching, and very much so heats up at some embarrassing facts that should remain nameless.
He says, "I'm so sorry, guys," to a flooding chat-box, and flushes even more when Haknyeon points out that they're calling him whipped.
Thankfully, the game finishes loading soon after. The mechanics are...fairly so much easier, it's straightforward, there's not really a lot going on, and Sunwoo likes this game already even when he's only been playing for about ten minutes. Haknyeon's unfaded comments and coos, and reading off of some chat makes it even more fun, he's interactive, he's such a natural, there's not one single thing that he can't do—Sunwoo wants to fucking gush.
He reaches one point in the game where the cat affectionately cozies up against a droid's leg and the droid suddenly has a heart popping up on its monitor, and yeah, it's a cute moment in a rather bleak game.
But Haknyeon's coo is even more so as he says, "Ahhh, I'm not even a cat person but that was so cute."
"This makes me want to get a one," Sunwoo says, humming in agreement. "Just pick it up off the streets, give it a better home."
He can feel Haknyeon's eyes on him. "Really?"
The cat's resting on a cushion now, curled up as Sunwoo leaves it to its own device, and turns his head to squint at his boyfriend. "Knowing what you're capable of doing now, I'm gonna go with not in the near future."
Haknyeon's entertained and he's not afraid to show it, he laughs, he raises his brows and a certain look swims in his gaze with his knee propped-up and a chin resting. "You're making it sound like I'm some feared supervillain."
It makes Sunwoo short-circuits. A supervillain alright, changing the trajectory of his mind just like that. "You're so distracting, hyung, stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?" Haknyeon titters out, cocking his head.
"That—like that." Sunwoo laughs, too, accusingly pointing at Haknyeon's unchanging gaze.
He takes a hold of Sunwoo's finger. "Whatever, you're also looking at me like that."
Because of Sunwoo's unmoving hand on his prided Velocifire's compact keyboard, the cat on screen stays asleep on the cushion for some time. And the current number of viewers slowly decreases, clicking off to watch some actual gaming happening.
chaniii_: kinda regret setting them up now
realjaehyunW: you should
chaniii_: it's alr so inconsiderate that they're like that in front of us now they're like that for the entire world to see
realjaehyunW: shouldve retitled it to how to make people feel so single that they want to give you an intervention for it
sonofjae: these hyungs, just get off the stream and go outside and meet people
There's the looking-at-each-other-with-stars-in-your-eyes phase. Maybe it won't be just a phase, maybe it'll be a long-term thing for them. He won't mind it actually.
Not at all.
—
And he just makes me so crazy
I know everyone sees
That he'll be the death of me