Work Text:
“Wonwoo-ya” Seungcheol walked to him, eyes full of happiness with a bowl of fruits.
“Have some, You’ve been working since morning without a break” he need not say any more words as he simply dragged a chair next to Wonwoo’s and sat, lips still curved.
Wonwoo can’t pinpoint when in the time scale of his life he came to the conclusion that emotions are an imitation game. It was an easy conclusion to arrive at when he remembered he only smiled because his mom did and he felt more comfortable when his mom was happy which was a direct cause of smiling. He grew up from diapers to onesies to shorts as he judged everyone’s behavior, noticing a pattern and fitting himself in the pattern because that’s just how the world is.
Teenage Wonwoo shat his pants when he realized humans also do it because that’s what they feel, which is so weird, because why would you simply want to show your teeth to a kid in your class if not for some social points of having friends? Well, he could kind of get around that point when he realized wanting to show your teeth at humor is of a different kind and probably helps in sorting what social community one can be from. Wonwoo was undoubtedly one of the unpopular silent kids who were together because they had ‘dark humor’.
“Hm” Seungcheol hummed, his fingers reaching for Wonwoo’s hair. “What are you thinking so deeply about?”
His high school friend Jeonghan always asked him that, and again by noticing patterns he understood it was better when he started ranting which usually helped him find people who thought along the same lines as him. And of course, communal sense always made him seek for more people to talk to.
Probably that’s when Wonwoo started talking so much or just thinking so much out loud, and it continued deep into his adulthood even though his need for more people weakened as he aged.
“My emotions” Wonwoo cleared his throat. "I feel like I rationalize them too much, even though I know nothing about them is rational or logical."
"Oh, why?" Seungcheol looked genuinely curious and Wonwoo felt like plucking out every single hair on his body in a very torturous way. "Why do you rationalize them? and how?"
"I don't know why, I really don't" Wonwoo controls the urge to tell Seungcheol that it's just a joke, I'm just convincing myself that I'm too rational and logical to look cool , even though it's not true at all. That comes from the self-hate that has parental routes, thank you very much. "But I do it in such a way that I feel like every 'emotion' I portray is not original, doesn't even feel like me to me. And I'm probably only doing it because that's what a normal human being does in a situation"
"Oh my god, Wonwoo" Seungcheol smiled at him, a little fond which is very odd. "Emotions are not supposed to make you feel unoriginal, no one can love me like you do even though loving can be considered an emotion" he then moved close to Wonwoo. "Got it?"
"Did you just validate the love I have for you?" That obviously made Seungcheol roll his eyes. "Validate you say?"
"Psst. Fine" Wonwoo leaned in and kissed him, Well, usually his brain would again scream at how he's only kissing Seungcheol because that's what movies taught him. But he could feel the brain's voice lower as Seungcheol slowly pulled him in and kissed him harder.
"Your love is original, and only for me. Okay?"
"Doubly"
"Love you" Seungcheol placed one last kiss before letting Wonwoo get back to his work.
But there's a question itching in the same warehouse of a brain "Hyung"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think I should write about this?" His voice was a little expectant, and he really needed Seungcheol's approval because if he was ever going to write about it, the inspiration would be Seungcheol.
"I'd love to see that, Wonwoo-ya. I'm serious. That idea is so original" he smiled his billion-dollar smile that permanently increases the dopamine in Wonwoo.
"And you know I'd use you for inspiration, right?"
"Can't ask for more" Seungcheol yelled, now almost at the other end of the flat. Wonwoo simply smiled to himself.
It was a Saturday morning when Wonwoo felt like a marinated shrimp as he watched his beloved boyfriend cook breakfast for him.
“Oh” Seungcheol’s eyes widened in shock as he turned to Wonwoo. “Didn’t you invite Jeonghan and Seokmin over for lunch today?”
“I invited Seokmin, yes. I stopped doing ‘inviting Jeonghan’ once I turned 21.” Of course, Jeonghan has seen him growing up from shorts to dress pants and sometimes even without pants. So, Jeonghan gets offended when Wonwoo puts a time constraint on when he can show up at his place.
“Is it takeout then?”
“Less takeout, because we have leftovers from last night, right?” Wonwoo turned to the refrigerator hoping it’d have some food.
“What do you think I’m cooking now?” Seungcheol had his hands on his hips now. Wonwoo hates himself, mostly.
“Fine, we’ll do full takeout” Wonwoo quickly took his phone to look at options, and Seungcheol, mostly forgetting about leftovers that were heating up, sat next to Wonwoo to choose what Seokmin would prefer.
“Hyung” and because Wonwoo’s brain is a calculator that keeps calculating instead of being useful just for the boobies joke, he had to ask him a question that burned him last night as he was writing. “I think caring is the least logical emotional action, and you care so much.”
“Are you calling me illogical, Wonwoo-ya?” Seungcheol laughed playfully.
“No, hyung. I’m illogical. All these days I thought I only care about things because I get something from it when I care. But-” Wonwoo is still a slave to conventional emotional actions, so he pushed a strand of hair behind Seungcheol’s ears and continued, “I see you and when you care you feel like the least selfish person alive. Maybe you’re too good at hiding your own needs and motives. I don’t know how good that is.”
“I do tell my needs and motives to you, don’t I?” Seungcheol's hands now sat on top of his own. “I care for you because when I do, you look so happy. And according to your mindset of emotions being an imitation game, I feel happy when you’re happy. In the end, it’s also my happiness, I’m also a selfish person.”
“No” Wonwoo doesn’t want to believe that whatever he has been thinking all these days is true. It’s good when it ends with Wonwoo being constipated when it’s emotions and not Wonwoo’s smart and he’s right. “Don’t try to prove my nonsense, hyung. I’d like to think I’m considered weird because I’m wrong about so many things.”
“But you’re my weirdo and nothing feels wrong about the things you say”
“Please stop flirting with me when I’m deep tunneling a philosophical hole” Wonwoo sighed, making Seungcheol laugh and put his head on his shoulder.
“You can deep tunnel-”
“No, ssh. Don’t be competitive for humor points.” Wonwoo shut his mouth, “Bad humor points”
Seungcheol simply chuckled more and placed a kiss on his collarbones and nose before walking away to check on the hopefully not burnt leftovers. Wonwoo felt his stomach churning, he probably did a deep tunnel in the wrong direction. Like scuba diving in a sea of his own so-called profound thoughts to find a truth.
As already established, Jeonghan is a very important person in Wonwoo’s life. And in a not-so-rational sense, a better beta reader for whatever Wonwoo writes.
“This is harder than high school history” Jeonghan sat before his desk, scrunching his eyes real hard as he tried to read. “What made you write this?”
“My Seungcheollie”
“Great” Jeonghan sighed, “Make him read it. I can’t do this”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, Wonu. It’s like-” Jeonghan rotated in his gaming chair. “I don’t think I am someone who thinks too much about my emotions? I don’t think I’m the right audience for this so I really don’t get the vibe.”
“I don’t think anyone is the right audience for this, I genuinely can’t see anyone who’s not me enjoying this piece” Wonwoo pulled a chair for himself and sat next to Jeonghan. “It’s probably so cringe of me to just put my nonsense out on a document and expect it to make any sense. Some things are better unsaid.”
Jeonghan looked violently offended. “I’m in no way criticizing how your art should be. Oh my god, Wonu, you cannot be insecure about what you create because you don’t create because you want to please people. You create because you want to. There’s a difference, and that’s why I really love everything you do.”
“I do it because I want to?”
“Yeah, and that’s the most original thing an artist can do” Jeonghan held his shoulders, “if not for having emotions that make their art so original”
“So you’re telling me I have emotions that I learned by imitating that make my art original?” Wonwoo knows he’s probably deep tunneling the wrong hole again, but it’s fine because he has to tunnel every direction to know if it’s wrong.
“I don’t know that much, but just like how art doesn’t have conventions, emotions don’t too. Your rational thoughts can still be an emotion for you if it’s not for others. You can never know the truth here, Wonu-ya.” Suddenly Jeonghan felt like he was six feet taller than him, like a huge statue of consciousness patting his head in an ‘oh you curious kid’ way. “But do write what you want to write. Even if Seungcheol is not impressed, it’s fine. You wrote it, so you own it despite what people think about it.”
“Love you, Jeonghan-ah” Wonwoo didn’t even recognize himself saying it until he said it.
“Love you too, Wonu-ya”
The same evening, once Seungcheol was back in Wonwoo's arms still talking about how funny watching Seokmin and Jeonghan bicker which always ended up with Jeonghan flirting with Seokmin shamelessly, Wonwoo felt the fullest.
"What did Jeonghan say about your writing? You guys were talking for a long time" Seungcheol eased them to what Wonwoo wanted to talk about, he always does that in the best way.
"Jeonghan couldn't do it, he said my writing is harder than high school history" Seungcheol chuckled a little at that. "But he did tell me if my inspiration was someone called Choi Seungcheol, it may be better if the same Choi Seungcheol read it."
"Are you asking me to read your writing?" Seungcheol's eyes glowed in the yellow lighting of their living room. "Please don't joke about things like that"
"I'm not!" Wonwoo smiled because Seungcheol's billion-dollar smile was on again. "And yes, I want you to read it. Anytime though, no pressure-"
"Are you kidding me? Send me the document right now." Seungcheol took Wonwoo's phone, tossing it at his face so he could send the document to Seungcheol.
"It's more romantic if you sit in front of my desk and read it from my computer though"
"And you think you're too logical with everything you do" Seungcheol smiled. "Take me there"
"As in, lift you? Bridal carry you to the desk?"
"Yeah, if you care about being romantic, you should care about this too." Seungcheol just stood there with his arms raised and who is Wonwoo to deny it? He picked Seungcheol up bridal style and took him to his desk.
It was a two to three-minute job of opening the document. While Seungcheol did wait patiently he was smiling the whole time. A little too excited to read Wonwoo’s Chaos.
“You’re really excited, isn’t it hyung?” Wonwoo smiled and pulled a chair for himself for the second time that day and sat next to Seungcheol whose eyes sparkled as he looked into the digital screen.
Except for a hum from him, there was complete silence as Seungcheol’s eyes traveled around the sentences. Wonwoo knew he was staring, but he couldn’t help it. Wonwoo’s charisma that made Seungcheol develop a crush on him was his ‘choice of words’ after all. But whenever Wonwoo thinks about it, it’s such an amazing thing. He literally saw a man who smiled at any time and as long as he could, also carried a buzz of energy everywhere like he was a bee collecting nectar from flowers. Wonwoo can’t say much about what type of a flower he is, but Seungcheol definitely got the nectar in his heart and now Wonwoo feels his chest heavy a little less in a good way.
It’s almost like Wonwoo thinking of himself as emotionless and making it logical is what makes him crave Seungcheol more and more. The more he realizes how much he likes Seungcheol gives him a (maybe) faux feeling of having emotions or just feeling original things. And maybe, just maybe that’s why Wonwoo feels empty, because Seungcheol does it all for him. Seungcheol has enough emotions for both of them. Maybe that’s the nectar Wonwoo sacrificed.
“Yeah” Seungcheol hummed. “What did writing all of this make you feel like?”
Wonwoo got out of his trance and focused on the sentence Seungcheol was pointing at, the last line of the document that said ‘What did I win? What did I lose?’. Honestly, Wonwoo stopped thinking it was a win-or-lose situation, at least after talking to Jeonghan. But again, Wonwoo also doesn’t know what he felt now that his mind is probably deep tunneling in the right direction.
“I don’t know” he answered honestly.
“I just feel like I took a deep look into your brain and now I crave for more” Seungcheol held his hands, his eyes were more fond now. “Apart from all the opinions I have as a genuine fan of your art, I also think it’s such a privilege I have you as my boyfriend. Like, I cannot imagine being with someone who won’t think about the love they have for me this much that they wrote an almost thesis-looking thing about it?”
“Thesis looking thing? Hyung, c’mon” Wonwoo smiled, and Seungcheol mirrored him.
“No, but I’m serious”
“You don’t think I’m a weirdo for this?”
“You’re Wonwoo, and you think about the love you have for me so much that you wrote about it and still keep thinking you’re emotionless” Seungcheol placed a kiss on one of his knuckles. “You’re so full of emotions, Wonwoo-ya. You just have a very big rational brain that translates everything to a very practical explanation.”
“I think so too, but still take some credit for yourself. You’re the ignition to my emotions that I don’t express properly” Wonwoo wanted to kiss him on the lips, so he leaned in, only for Seungcheol to stop him halfway.
“Goes both ways. Your so-called improper emotions are what makes me love you so much.” Seungcheol pulled him in and kissed him on the lips. “I love you, Wonwoo”
“I love you more, hyung.”
Another kiss on his lips only made his chest less heavy, and Wonwoo hoped for this to continue until he would feel nothing in his chest.