Work Text:
over the course of time there are constants in this universe. the sun will rise and eventually fall, as does the moon. the waves will swell and crash into the shore. over and over and over. days come and go, and nights seem to stretch into the empty nothingness. nothing will ever prepare anyone for the inevitable, their own time coming to an end. but even as their end unforgivingly edges closer, junhui can only be grateful that his time has been occupied and filled by seungkwan.
0.5
seungkwan knows that he should be quiet and he knows that he gave the okay to his boyfriend to stay the night and sleep in since he didn’t start work at a korean friend chicken restaurant til the afternoon, but his bitch ass boss didn’t know that, or care. so when seungkwan is woken up by a phone call, he only really wishes he didn’t pick up- mostly because the ringing had stirred jun in his sleep, the man grumbling in his sleep before he turns over under the covers.
seungkwan’s rushing to head to work after peeling himself away from his bed and from jun, his socked feet padding against the tile of his apartment. the man uses his bathroom mirror to fix up his freshly dyed brown hair, the edges of his fringe neatly curling against the bottom of his eyebrows just how he likes it.
before he heads out, seungkwan writes a note and sticks it to the back of bedroom door for jun to find later on. he worries that it’s weird or that it’s too domestic of a message for them, since they just become official only 6 months ago, but seungkwan was never one to keep how he felt to himself.
-
jun ends up waking up a few hours later, the warm sunlight in his eyes making him stir and sit up in the now-empty bed. he sort of remembers seungkwan moving around and leaving, but he didn’t mind. he knows how annoying his boyfriend’s boss can be, and he also knows that seungkwan is just working there to pay bills until he lands a new gig.
he pushes a hand lazily through his blonde hair, his fingers combing through the tangles at the nape of his neck where the end of his short mullet was before he notes a flash of orange against the plain white of the door. jun gets up and walks over to the door, his head leaning closer to read the note written in messy scrawl.
love you, sleep well. see you tonight for dinner ☺
.
jun finishes up with work and is starving when he gets back to seungkwan’s place, his hands are full with the takeout fried chicken and jun did not want to admit to seungkwan that it took all of his willpower not to take a bite out of the soy garlic leg as the bag sat in his passenger seat. (‘all tucked in, like you asked c:’ - jun had texted a picture of the food with a seatbelt snug around it like it was a child, to which seungkwan replied ‘so responsible, like a real dad’).
seungkwan opens the door for him, his smile bright despite the tiredness in his eyes. he comes closer to take the bag from jun so that his hands are free to take his shoes off, but instead, jun steps closer to slide his arms around the other’s waist, his face coming closer to press their lips together sweetly.
seungkwan squeaks against the other’s lips, the kiss not unwelcome, but a surprise since jun hadn’t even said anything to him yet. “oh! um, hi junnie..” seungkwan’s cheeks are flushed (how pretty, jun thinks to himself) and he puts the food down on the nearby counter to return the taller man’s embrace.
“hi kwan, missed you today..’ jun smiles before he leans closer again, pressing a kiss to seungkwan forehead chastely, and seungkwan can’t help but feel like jun might be his new home.
3.
jun knows that the weekends are usually the best times for him and seungkwan to be with each other. with both of them in set careers now, the regular 9 to 5 has become something that they both loathe and appreciate.
so when seungkwan is whisked away for the last few days before their third anniversary weekend, jun is antsy to say the least. he had spent the last couple nights on facetime with seungkwan, the grainy declarations of i’ll be there soon and i miss you filtering through his phone speakers as jun’s dark brown hair bunches against the pillows.
seungkwan isn’t immune to it either, his eyes sad but smile big as he whispers his love through the phone while he is away for work. while their jobs have given them the financial stability they dreamed of in the beginning of their relationship, it has also come with its stressors.
.
jun is now waiting at the airport lobby, a bouquet of roses in one hand and his phone in the other with a flashing ‘seungkwan’ in rolling hangul, a little tangerine at the end of the name as it slides across the screen. jun’s eyes continue to scan the incoming crowd for his boyfriend’s now dark blue hair, cursing internally at every teenager that has the trendy hair color for tricking his eyes into thinking they were seungkwan.
the taller man hears the telltale “junnie!” from across the way, seungkwan’s hair actually now faded into a gray blue over the course of the past few days it seems like, which must have not been as obvious through his phone from before. jun waves his arms over his head (like seungkwan wasn’t beelining for him already) and lets out a soft ‘oof’ at the impact of seungkwan nearly running into his chest.
and in the busy lobby, they felt home. jun’s free arm wrapped around seungkwan’s shoulders while his other arm cradled the bouquet. seungkwan pulls away first, all bright eyes and pink cheeks as he tilts his head and goes on his toes to slot their lips together in a sweet kiss, one that made jun know that anything would be okay with them together, one that made seungkwan’s heart swell into three times its size in his chest.
seungkwan breaks the kiss to carefully pull the roses away from jun’s arms and press his face close to the petals, inhaling quietly at the sweet smell. seungkwan looks up again, almost shyly, before his smile melts into something warmer. “happy anniversary, junhui. i love you.”
junhui smiles widely, his body thrumming as he presses in closer again, his lips pressing a warm and firm kiss to seungkwan’s forehead, just how he liked it. “and i love you, seungkwan. to many more.”
6.
this has gotten easier, so much easier, and yet new challenges arise just the same.
seungkwan and junhui are still tender and a bit rough around the edges after a disagreement the night before. seungkwan’s sister trying to pull them into a family gathering that they didn’t tell the pair about in advance, jun’s family visit just so happened to be in the overlapping weekend, and of course, the both of them love so fiercely and so whole-heartedly, that they have their priorities in different places.
seungkwan hasn’t seen his family in a few months and with a health scare that his mom just went through, he is eager to just say yes and spend the entire weekend with his family back home. but, as jun said through a tight smile, his breathing evened out, he hasn’t seen all of his family together in at least a year.
seungkwan is impulsive, his voice coming out like a firecracker against pavement in frustration. and if seungkwan was the wave, jun was the shore. waiting and receiving, but always present. jun knew how seungkwan got when he was high strung, and he knew that they couldn’t talk about this right now.
and so they slept separate like how they usually do whenever they need the space. its a healthy practice, they’ve come to realize. both of them coming back together because they really want to and not because they are made to.
seungkwan slept over at dokyeom’s, his coworker with a big heart and a bigger apartment to share with his equally big husband, mingyu.
jun had stayed in their apartment, sleeping on the pull out couch because he fell asleep watching a show to calm his nerves.
when seungkwan rolls in the next morning, he spots junhui on the couch, the sunlight filtering through and casting streaks onto his nose, his face, his silver engagement ring on his finger, and on his shoulders where the tank top he wore exposed his skin.
seungkwan sighs to himself already feeling out and tumbling the apology in his mind, when he sees jun stir in his sleep. his partner’s now shifted so that his face was smushed into the pillow, a line of drool dried onto the side of his mouth as he snores loudly once.
seungkwan takes his shoes off to slide into his slippers before he walks over to the couch, crouching next to it to rest his chin on top of his arms, which were now folded on top of the cushion close to jun’s head.
he sits quietly for god knows how long, the sun shifting in the sky and tilting new lines over jun’s face. it isn’t for a while until jun wakes up on his own and he blinks the sleep out of his eyes, his gaze focusing around him before it shifts onto seungkwan, the latter smiling softly.
“oh- kwan when did..” jun starts to get up, but seungkwan reaches out to rest a palm on his chest, coming in closer to press a kiss to his cheek. jun smiles at the feeling of his fiance’s lips on his skin, the warmth blooming in his chest as he sits up properly now.
“a while ago. im sorry for yesterday. lets talk about what we can do together?” seungkwan’s gaze shifts up with jun’s movement, his eyes sincere and voice apologetic.
jun nods, opening his arms as an invitation to which seungkwan happily accepts. they talk, really talk, and decide to compromise with a couple days with seungkwan’s family, and five days with junhui’s, using their week off that they got for the holiday in a way that made sense to both of them. and the next holiday, seungkwan would leave earlier to spend time with his family and jun would catch up after he spent time back home with his own.
the younger man smiles to himself, knowing that despite the challenges that came with being with someone for so long, he would choose junhui over and over. in this life and the next.
8.
the few years have come and gone, more and more of seungkwan and junhui’s friends have gotten into relationships or marriages or families or none of the above in the time they had been together.
jun’s hair has gone through so many styles that if seungkwan went through his photo gallery, he could make a timelapse of trendy hairstyles that would align perfectly with his husband’s face. and junhui could do the same for seungkwan and his hair colors, knowing that whenever his husband was in a mood he’d come back with a fresh streak of color or in some cases, a whole head of dyed strands.
seungkwan would never live down the spring he came home with a light pink undercut and a blonde overlay, junhui following him around and calling him ‘strawberry shortcake’ for a good few months until seungkwan was sick of it and he had come home with rainbow color streaks throughout, to which the taller of the two responded affectionately, “is this you coming out to me?”
seungkwan was at the salon again this time, his hair longer than usual since he felt like growing it out for the winter, his layers curling over his ears and at the nape of his neck. junhui loved seungkwan in all of his styles, but this one he seemed to be particularly fond of if it wasn’t obvious how his fingers curled into the strands when they were together in bed.
seungkwan feels himself flush at the memory of last night, but refocuses when his stylist comes closer to card her fingers through one side.
“this is starting to grow out more than usual, kwan! did you want to cut today? or are we just switching up the color?”
seungkwan hummed to himself, tilting his head and turning it to inspect the side that she was looking through.
“actually.. maybe not a color today, can we-”
.
junhui arrives in the salon parking lot despite seungkwan insisting that he could grab an uber to their place. if jun could delete the rideshare app off his husband’s phone and drive him around forever he would, and he just might do that someday.
the older of the two gets out of the car to go inside the salon, his gaze peering around before he spots his husband’s usual stylist with her back to him.
“hey kwannie, hi taeyeon, whats the progress-” jun walks closer before he feels like the air was punched out of his stomach at the sight, his eyes comically widening.
seungkwan is spun around in the chair just in time, seungkwan’s smile wide under the new style.
his fringe is cropped a little under his eyebrow, just how he likes it, but his hair on the top of his head was just slightly shorter, the stylist ruffling up seungkwan’s hair to reveal an undercut, the hair closely shaved but just enough.
“oh wow.” jun’s mouth is open, he knows it. and he knows everyone in the shop is just laughing to themselves. you’d think that they were a new couple by the look on his face.
“you like it? i wanted to keep the length.” for you, the words have the undertone. seungkwan’s smile bashful in the attention.
jun nods dumbly and comes forward, only barely letting seungkwan get up before he reaches up with his hands to card through the soft undercut and press a kiss to his husband’s temple.
“love it, love you,’ jun pauses, his eyes shifting to the stylist as she smiles bigger, knowing that her client’s ideas never did her wrong (as proven by the fat tip seungkwan always left her), ‘love the stylist, this is some good stuff, taeyeon.”
taeyeon laughs loudly and waves a hand before pointing towards seungkwan with it. “love on your husband, jun. this was all him. had a reference picture after a minute too.”
seungkwan smiles smugly at the incredulous noise that jun lets out.
the smugness is gone later in the day, when jun shows seungkwan just how much he likes his new hair - much to the chagrin of their next door neighbors.
10.
seungkwan and jun are on a vacation, and the sun warms up their skin where its exposed to the salty beach air in the first day that they are there together. they don’t mind that the sand gets inbetween their fingers where they’re interlocked, or that there are particularly loud children that run by them on the beach- lingering conversations from their past about family building being echoed silently between them.
that was their first day, and now, a few days into their vacation, seungkwan is sleeping in for once, the years with junhui teaching him that all time is precious and that rest was precious- given the few fainting spells he had suffered from overworking in his early career.
junhui had stepped out in the early morning for a trip to the resort’s gym, wanting to take a jog that was in an A/C’d room to escape the mugginess that came with the beach town’s weather. he comes back to their resort room, his long sleeve dri-fit still clinging to his biceps and shoulders. he looks towards his husband, peacefully asleep on their bed, his hair still ruffled and exposed skin looking soft in the low light of the room.
jun comes closer, his hand coming forward to gently push seungkwan’s hair away from his face. seungkwan grunts quietly, the touch waking him but not in an unfamiliar way, his eyes still half-closed as he moves his head so that his cheek is cradled inside of jun’s palm.
junhui could write songs and poems and monologues about how the gesture makes him feel. the taller thinks that in a past life, junhui was probably seungkwan’s royal charge who would sacrifice himself and more to protect the softness that surrounded the man. but in this life, they are together and they choose each other every single day.
seungkwan turns his head to press a soft kiss to the meat of junhui’s hand and the latter’s heart soars in his chest, his breath coming out in a quiet huff. the horizontal of the two finally opens his eyes to meet the other's, lips pulling into a wide smile, all warmth and peace.
“hello, love. happy to wake up to you today, as always.”
junhui comes closer, crouching down to cage seungkwan into a soft embrace as his face curls into the younger’s neck. his smile presses against the skin there and seungkwan reaches up with an arm to wrap it around jun’s waist, his hand sliding against the dri-fit material easily.
jun sighs softly, his heart growing for the nth time that day, week, month, year, lifetime.
“like the waves to the shore.”