Chapter Text
Being openly affectionate comes as easily to Jaehyun as breathing. He’s always been this way; an arm around the shoulder, a casual peck on the cheek, or, Taesan’s absolute worst nightmare, prolonged eye contact and sentimental words. God, the way he looks at him sometimes.
It’s overwhelming in the best ways, and he’s not entirely sure when he started craving more after each little touch, but he’s also very sure he’s not ready to confront whatever the feeling is that he’s managed to keep pushed deep down thus far.
They’re filming for a show when Jaehyun puts his hand on Taesan’s thigh while sitting on a couch talking and he almost jumps out of his skin. He’s instantly glad he’s wearing jeans, because if this is enough to leave him breathless, he’s not sure what Jaehyun’s touch on his bare skin would do to him right now. Probably kill him, if he were to hazard a guess.
He’s so dazed for a moment he doesn’t register that Jaehuyn has stopped speaking and it’s his turn to say the next line. His mind goes completely blank, nothing but the words ‘Jaehyun, hand, thigh, Jaehyun’ playing through his brain like a broken record.
“Uh, Taesan. Next line,” a staff member calls, and Taesan snaps back to reality.
He clears his throat with a cough, but his voice still comes out more squeaky and unstable than he plans. “Oh, right. Uh. Sorry, can we go from the start?”
Jaehyun just laughs and takes his hand away to mess with Woonhak instead, completely unaware his touch has left a hot brand on Taesan’s skin and the flutter of something warm and new.
&&&.
It’s not like Taesan is completely incapable of affection, he just finds it that much harder to openly express it. So, he laces his teasing remarks with a fond softness and puts his love into objects, little gifts left on bedside tables or slipped into bags when no one is looking.
He makes a custom keychain for Jaehyun once, a little brown and white plush puppy that he sews together himself. Taesan shoves it into his hands while they’re at the studio, just the two of them (he’s not sure he could take the others teasing him about it right now, not when Leehan has already been giving him odd looks every time he laughs a little too hard at one of Jaehyun’s jokes).
“Made you something,” he mumbles and immediately pulls his headphones back over his ears so he doesn’t have to hear Jaehyun’s reaction. Out of the corner of his eye he sees him examining it, turning the plush toy over in his hands and cradling it like it’s his first born child.
Jaehyun tugs one side of the headphones away from his ear. He’s grinning and his eyes twinkle with excitement. “You made this? Yourself? This is adorable.”
“Yeah… You can give it back if you don’t like it.”
“Give it back? Are you kidding? I’m going to treasure this forever.”
Taesan scoffs, but a smile tugs dangerously on his lips. He covers his lower face with his sleeve so Jaehyun doesn’t see. Jaehyun spends the rest of the night fiddling with the puppy, propping it up in different places around the studio, sitting it in his lap, taking selfies with it.
Taesan finds that the lyrics for their new song flows so much easier to him for the remainder of the night.
&&&.
It would be okay if Jaehyun was putting it on for the camera, but he’s such a genuinely bright and loving person that, even at the dorm with no cameras or staff giving them a nudge, he’s driving Taesan absolutely insane. It’s frustrating. Not because Taesan doesn’t like it (sometimes he lets Jaehyun’s hand linger on his waist before he pushes it away), but because it’s so casual and easy and not near close enough to what he wants it to be, wants it to mean .
They’re in the dorm, blinds shut to shroud the room in darkness, with some sort of action movie playing on their TV. Taesan isn’t paying attention, though, too enamored by the way the screen dances lights across Jaehyun’s face and reflects in his eyes. They’re sitting next to each other on the couch, and the gap between them is both too close and not close enough.
And it’s crazy how Jaehyun took his hand so easily in the vlog they were filming earlier but Taesan can’t even reach across the space between them and slip his fingers between his. He wants to. He wants to so badly it hurts.
He almost does. He wriggles his fingers across the couch but barely manages a brush of their pinkies before he snaps his hand back like he’s been burnt.
“You can hold my hand if it’s too tense,” Jaehyun laughs, breezy, not even looking away from the screen and Taesan’s heart almost stops. He knew he shouldn’t have been staring so hard.
The movie isn’t tense (Taesan is, for entirely different reasons). He doesn’t want to overthink it, not when Jaehyun is like this with all their members, but part of him hopes maybe it’s just an excuse to hold Taesan’s hand. Or, maybe Jaehyun is the one tense at the movie. Either way, he feels that prickly feeling of embarrassment crawling up his neck and his hoodie feels too hot all of a sudden. Thank god it's so dark.
He’s about to pretend nothing happened when Jaehyun takes his hand, locking their fingers together. His hand is soft and warm and Taesan swallows the scream caught in his throat.
Amazing, how Jaehyun could do so indifferently what Taesan has been agonizing over for the past hour. Annoying, how Jaehyun has him feeling like a blushing teenager with a first crush (which, technically, Jaehyun is his first and only crush, though he’s still not quite managed to admit that to himself yet).
He trains his eyes back on the TV, but it’s even harder to concentrate on the movie now he’s got the warm weight of Jaehyun’s hand in his own and his thumb rubbing circles over his knuckles. They’re not even halfway through. He can’t tell if he wants to rip his hand away to kill the sparks shooting up his arm and the butterflies in his stomach, or if he wants to drag Jaehyun closer and kiss him right there. A bit of both, he thinks.
Maybe for a little while longer he’ll be content with just this.