Work Text:
Wonwoo wakes up two hours earlier than usual with his entire mind racing as his subconscious chases after the last remnants of sleep.
"Oh my god, shut up with your gay crisis," Mingyu groans into his pillow.
Wonwoo would like to argue that it's far better than whatever current ongoing crisis Mingyu has going on. There are at least three to choose from.
Still, he keeps quiet as he exits their shared bedroom— neither of them have gotten quite used to the silence that fills the spaces at night— as he reviews today's itinerary. There's no point; he already has it etched into his brain since the day Chan said he was free.
It's hard for them to find free time these days. They have a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there. If they're lucky, they may get an hour to stare at the ceiling and dissociate. Wonwoo doesn't like dissociating so he spends that time playing video games instead. He spends what time he does have grinding on levels.
"Left or right?" Wonwoo asks, once he's come back from washing up. On the left hanger, he has a simple gray, almost black, jean jacket. On the right hanger he has his favorite black sweater.
"Left," Mingyu mumbles.
"You didn't even look," Wonwoo sighs. He places the right hanger back into his closet and spends more time fidgeting with the cuffs of his jacket than he needs to.
"You look good, hyung," Mingyu says. His back is still facing Wonwoo. "You see Chan almost every single day even though we don't live in the dorms anymore. Stop stressing, you're going to give me a pimple."
Wonwoo presses his lips into a small smile. He tugs on the cuffs of his jacket one more time. "Does my hair look okay?"
Mingyu groans again. Loudly, just so Wonwoo knows how fed up he is. He throws the blankets back and makes sure to roll his eyes as soon as he's facing Wonwoo. Still, he beckons Wonwoo to his bed so he can lean over to fix Wonwoo's hair. When he's done he shoves Wonwoo away half-heartedly before flopping back under the covers.
Chan looks good. He’s wearing some old flannel with a pair of wide-legged black jeans. His hair remains unstyled and his face is bare but he glows with a radiance unparalleled to anything Wonwoo has ever seen.
“You look good.” Wonwoo swallows the lump in his throat.
“So do you, hyung,” Chan laughs. He leans over to tug on the hem of Wonwoo’s jacket. Wonwoo averts his gaze so Chan can’t see how far the smile spreads across his face.
You always look good, Wonwoo wants to add. The words remain lodged in his throat the entire subway ride.
Caps pulled down low and masks on, their first stop on an early Tuesday morning is the nature zone. Chan is immediately drawn towards the glass with Wonwoo only a few steps behind. He busies himself reading the signs because he’s afraid that someone will catch him staring for far too long if he does watch Chan. Still, it doesn’t keep his eyes from darting upwards every few minutes as Chan gazes at the sea creatures with utter fascination.
“Hyung, hyung!” Chan says. “Aw man, you missed it!” Chan tugs on Wonwoo’s arm so they’re both on the same eye level.
“What exactly am I looking for?” Wonwoo asks.
“The cownose ray,” Chan says.
“The one right in front of us?” A smooth, pink with a slight gray-tinged head passes by them. The ray’s singular eye fixates as they pass and if Wonwoo gives it a moment, he can see how the slight curve to the ray’s mouth makes it look kind of cute. It’s a bit of an acquired taste.
“No, you have to wait for it to swim by so we can see its entire head,” Chan huffs.
The two of them wait. The cownose ray takes a few more laps around the enclosure before it swims upwards. Chan bursts into laughter as he snaps a photo. His shoulders bump into Wonwoo’s as he shakes with laughter. The cownose ray does have a pretty peculiar face from the front.
“Isn’t it hilarious?” Chan turns to him, once the laughter has subsided.
“It’s pretty funny,” Wonwoo agrees.
The two of them continue to walk through the rest of the exhibit. Chan’s eyes are wide with fascination each time they approach a new display tank. If it weren’t for the little kids crowding around the sea creatures, Wonwoo is certain that Chan would also be pressing his face up against the glass making oohs and aahs.
“Hey, let me take a photo of you,” Wonwoo says after they’ve walked through more of the exhibit. He nudges Chan’s shoulder with his arm and Chan spins around from the display case of fish.
“Next to the sea otters?” Chan asks, incredulous.
“Yeah, they look just like you.” Wonwoo bites down on his smile as Chan rolls his eyes. It’s a comparison Wonwoo hasn’t been able to get out of his head since Seungcheol once gave them a breakdown on the members and their fan-assigned emoji representation. Otters have rapidly become Wonwoo’s favorite animal since that insightful dinner.
Chan fixes Wonwoo with a look but he still obliges and moves towards the otters. “You can barely see my face with the mask and hat,” Chan says.
“That’s okay,” Wonwoo says as he snaps another photo. He doesn’t need to see Chan’s smile to still be blinded by the sun. He already has the curve of Chan’s smile, the way his front teeth will stick out, how his lips continue to stretch and stretch and stretch all memorized.
Chan’s body seems to move of his own accord as he shifts into another pose. Wonwoo takes another five photos.
When Chan is finished posing, he marches up to Wonwoo and holds out his hand. “Are you not going to let me see them?” Chan asks.
“No,” Wonwoo smirks. “Did you know that the Asian small-clawed otters here are the smallest breed of otters? So it’s perfect for you.”
“It would be better for Jihoon,” Chan mutters. Still he doesn’t seem too displeased as they continue to the next area.
They decide to get coffee as they wait for the aquarium feeding times. Or rather, Wonwoo had spent an obsessive amount of time scrolling through internet forums and anonymous replies to see if watching the feeding at the Lotte World Aquarium was truly worth it before he decided, fuck it, Chan deserves the whole experience. Much to Chan’s chagrin, Wonwoo gets a pastry as they sip on their respective iced Americanos.
“You’re still stealing bites of mine,” Wonwoo points out.
“Well, I don’t want you to not have an appetite when we get lunch,” Chan defends as he tears off another teensy tiny corner of Wonwoo’s red bean sandwich.
“I’ll still eat lunch, don’t worry,” Wonwoo insists. What he doesn’t add is that he’ll still make sure he eats since Chan is choosing the restaurant. He’s more of a person that grazes throughout the day, but if it’s to bring a smile to Chan’s face, then Wonwoo will finish his lunch instead of poking at his food for half the meal like he usually does.
Chan snorts before he tears half of the sandwich off for himself. Somehow, the red bean paste tastes even sweeter on the next bite.
They watch the sea lions get fed from several rows back. It’s equivalent to a front row view because only children and the occasional parent occupy the haphazard lines formed in front of them. Even Chan towers over most of the parents as they watch the sea lions clamber towards the variety of fish.
“Sea lions are usually fed four times a day, but the aquarium only allows us to observe two of their feeding times,” Wonwoo says as he watches the sea lion closest to the glass gobble up the herring that was dropped into the water.
“We should feed sea lions during a Going Seventeen episode,” Chan muses.
“Do you want someone to die?”
Chan’s entire body is thrown back into laughter. “Maybe, but it’d make for great content, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Wonwoo agrees. Privately, he thinks that Chan would be one of the first members to get booted out, but he doesn’t voice that thought aloud. He’s too distracted by the crinkle of Chan’s eyes and the warmth of where Chan’s hand grazes his.
The touch of skin sends shivers up Wonwoo’s spine. He steadies himself by placing a hand on Chan’s shoulder. Chan turns around, looking at him inquisitively. Wonwoo shakes his head and Chan turns back around. To Wonwoo’s delight, Chan doesn’t move his hand away.
“Maybe we can do a fishing episode. Or go digging for clams and eat all the food afterwards,” Chan says wistfully.
“Someone would get a fishing hook stuck in their leg,” Wonwoo snorts.
“Okay, maybe not, then,” Chan says before his attention is pulled away by one of the sea lions diving into the water.
It’s no secret that Wonwoo likes Chan.
“Your heart eyes are literally on display for all of South Korea to see,” Seungkwan had once told him after a particularly grueling dance practice that Chan had led them through. Even Jihoon and Seungcheol were exhausted from the relentless drilling and nitpicking. Chan’s attention to detail can’t be superseded. The only person that makes a scarier dance instructor than him is Soonyoung.
If Seungkwan and Mingyu are to be believed, Wonwoo had spent over seventy percent of that practice straight up ogling Chan. Mingyu called him out later that night for looking so besotted and worse than a lovesick puppy. He frequently does that, whenever he thinks Wonwoo is being ridiculous.
But the thing about the sun is that it hangs in the sky for all to see. Its light is warm and envelopes the earth with a kind embrace. It’s hard not to be drawn to the sun.
Beside him, Chan looks mesmerized by the circular glass of the tunnel and the sea creatures swimming around them.
“This is so cool,” Chan breathes. The dappled light hits his face, lighting him up. Shades of cerulean and dark blue dance across his face as a school of sardines swim past. Sunlight can reach over a thousand meters below the surface of the water.
“Yeah, it’s really amazing,” Wonwoo breathes. He’s going to burn alive, just like Icarus and his wax wings.
It’s a good thing that even this deep in the ocean, the sun shines.
“I wanna take a selca of us,” Chan says, “for the memories. I’ll send it to you later!” He pulls Wonwoo towards the curved glass and yanks down his mask. Too stunned to speak, Wonwoo yanks his down too. Before he knows it, Chan is dragging him towards the end of the tunnel.
Wonwoo can’t see Chan’s smile but it still brightens the entire room.
They rush through the remainder of the aquarium because they still have a schedule later this afternoon, so they both need to head back to get ready. It’s okay because Wonwoo has Chan’s face pressed up against the purple-tinged glass in front of the softly glowing jellyfish ingrained into his memory. He’ll cherish the memory of Chan’s mesmerized expression and the way his eyes dilated underneath the soft glow of the aquarium lights. He may also conveniently choose to forget how he spent two nights searching Naver and memorizing facts about jellyfish because all that information has been suddenly wiped from his brain.
“Are you okay, hyung?” Chan asks later over lunch.
Wonwoo has barely made a dent in his rice and has only eaten half of his pork belly. He’s been too preoccupied categorizing the events from today and building up the courage to finally reach out and grasp Chan’s hand in his. It shouldn’t be that hard. Maybe if he just accidentally-on-purpose grazes the back of his hand against Chan’s a few more times on the way back, he can—
“Hyung?” Chan repeats, eyes widening in concern.
Wonwoo coughs into his elbow. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“You did that before you asked me to come with you to the aquarium too,” Chan says. “You were so quiet the entire meal, I was really worried for a moment!”
“Ah.” Wonwoo says. He never knows how to handle Chan’s earnesty when it’s directed at him. His throat feels ridiculously dry and it’s like his entire lexicon has been reduced to an elementary schooler’s.
Wonwoo looks back down at his food. He eats another piece of pork belly with rice underneath Chan’s discerning eye. Really, it is a problem that this flustered feeling still hasn’t gone away.
“Sometimes I just. Am. Thinking. You know,” Wonwoo mumbles.
“That’s okay. I just want to make sure! And you can tell me your thoughts any time, hyung,” Chan says.
When Wonwoo dares to look up, Chan’s grin is on full blast. Wonwoo smiles back.
“I guess this is it,” Wonwoo says once they’ve reached the lobby of Chan’s apartment. He averts his eyes the entire elevator up to Chan’s apartment. For some reason, the pounding of his heart has been amplified tenfold since they exited the aquarium.
“See you in a couple of hours?” Chan jokes. The back of his palm brushes against Wonwoo’s before he turns around, keying in his apartment code.
With each punch, Wonwoo shifts his weight from one leg to the other. There’s no reason for him to be nervous; he’s had Mingyu talk his ear off for an entire week about actually taking action and the entire time at the aquarium seemed to have gone well. Maybe Wonwoo is overthinking, but Chan’s body seemed warmer than usual and the number of times he leaned into Wonwoo on the walk back—
“Hyung?” Chan asks.
Wonwoo clears his throat. “Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit.”
Chan takes two steps to cross the distance between them. There’s a hand on the back of his head, tugging him down— then soft lips meeting his for a second too short. Wonwoo’s glasses dig into his nose. When he blinks back to reality, Chan is already in the foyer of his apartment.
“Thanks for today. It was really fun,” Chan says.
“I enjoyed it a lot too,” Wonwoo croaks. He forces his lips to curl up into a smile to match Chan’s beaming face.
Only after the door shut does Wonwoo put his fingertips to his lips. If there’s an extra skip to his step when he gets back to his shared apartment, Mingyu doesn’t comment on it.
Outside, the sun continues to spread its golden glow.