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Wonwoo
Lee Jungchan is dragged down the aisle hissing and spitting in front of dozens of South Korean elites.
His presumed father has a white-knuckled grip on his forearm, and his mother is glaring at the both of them. Most of the guests are distinctly not making eye contact with any of them. All except for a certain duo consisting of a shorter man dabbing his eyes with a tissue, sobbing that he never thought the day would come, and the other taller man patting his shoulder, saying he definitely didn’t expect it either with the blankest face known to man.
Lee Jungchan, despite his struggling, is momentarily distracted by them, and swears something fierce at the crying man. The crying man flips him off while continuing to cry. Lee Jungchan looks ready to pounce but his father is quick to drag him to where Wonwoo stands.
Passionate, Wonwoo thinks idly. His husband-to-be has a lot of fire. In his bright blond hair like the sun, in his brown eyes like molten amber, in his beautiful voice as he spits out a lovely vow that clearly wasn’t written by him. Wonwoo could do worse than someone that feels so strongly that it’s conveyed through every fiber of his being.
(Someone like himself, for instance. Someone getting married for—for such a stupid reason. That would be worse.)
“I look forward to our married life,” Wonwoo tells him quietly, after the ceremony is finished and Lee Jungchan has given him the worst kiss he’s ever received in his life. They’re dancing now, at the reception. Lee Jungchan keeps stepping on his foot.
“I look forward to our divorce more, husband,” Lee Jungchan says with a sickly sweet smile that does nothing to hide his fury.
Wonwoo, startled by his blunt words, can only laugh.
-
Chan
Chan’s husband brings him back to his apartment after the wedding.
“Well, this is home,” his husband says. Chan has to crane his neck to look him in the eye. Had to go on his tiptoes to kiss him earlier. How annoying. That’s going to get old fast. His husband continues, face blank and voice even drier, “Make yourself comfortable.”
“This looks like a prison,” Chan says flatly. Gray walls, bare shelves—does his husband actually live here? It’s as if he clicked buy now on the apartment listing the minute after they said their vows.
And now, here they are.
“The couch is soft,” his husband says.
“Oh good, the couch is soft,” Chan says. Chan assumes he means the only splash of color in the apartment—the ugly neon green couch in the center of the living room. “You can sleep there tonight if you think it’s so soft.”
“If that makes you comfortable,” his husband replies.
Chan frowns. Is he making fun of him?
“I’d be more comfortable with a drink,” Chan mutters, rubbing his forehead.
“I don’t keep alcohol in the flat,” his husband says. He’s got good hearing, huh? But more importantly—no alcohol? Oh, Chan feels sick.
He has no fucking clue how he’s going to survive this.
-
Seungkwan
“He’s been. Good. To me,” Chan says, every word halting and bitten off like it physically pains him to admit. Seungkwan raises his eyebrows. Next to him, Hansol’s mouth falls open. Chan continues, “He cooks. He cleans. He buys me whatever I want, whenever I want.”
“Wow,” Hansol says.
“Except alcohol!” Chan cries out, like it’s going to save his argument.
Seungkwan snorts. “Oh no, my parents hooked me up with an indulgent sugar daddy, whatever will I do?” he pretends to weep, sniffling dramatically.
“Fuck you, I was already rich,” Chan hisses. He groans and collapses onto the cafe table in a heap—at the same time, Seungkwan quickly moves his coffee out of the blast zone.
“You could have spilled my coffee,” Seungkwan hisses back.
“Maybe you should get a sugar daddy,” Chan grumbles, very muffled by the fact that his face is squished into the table, except Seungkwan has impeccable hearing that has been honed by years of knowing Chan and his shitty backtalk. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about one cup of coffee.”
“I can’t speak to him right now,” Seungkwan tells Hansol, breathing in deeply. “You coddle him. It’s your turn.”
“You call that coddling?” Chan asks. “Are you serious? A cactus is more comforting than you.”
“I hope Jeon Wonwoo keeps being the nicest man on Earth,” Seungkwan taunts. “I hope he brings you breakfast in bed every morning. I hope he gets all of your clothes dry cleaned and pressed every week. I hope you start to enjoy his company.”
Chan gasps so loudly that a few people in the cafe look over in concern. Seungkwan, however, only feels satisfaction at the sound.
“You take all of that back, right now,” Chan demands.
“It’s too late,” Seungkwan informs him, gleefully. “I’m already manifesting.”
“I’ll manifest my foot up your ass,” Chan says.
“You can try,” Seungkwan says magnanimously.
Chan lets out an aggrieved sound.
Across from them, Hansol sighs.
-
Wonwoo
“I think my husband is trying to poison me,” Wonwoo says.
Jihoon chokes. Soonyoung and Jun are equally incomprehensible, clamoring over each other to speak. Ah, Wonwoo’s really done it now. He takes another piece of meat off the grill and shoves it in his mouth, waiting for them to compose themselves.
Jihoon beats everyone to it, his voice cutting through sharply, “Your what is trying to what?”
“My husband,” Wonwoo repeats.
“Right, okay, so that’s part one of where you’re losing me,” Jihoon replies. He plants his hands down on the table between the four of them. Then asks, rapidfire, “What husband? When was the wedding? Why were we not invited? When did you even propose—no, wait, when did you of all people meet someone to marry? And how exactly did you manage to hide this from all of us?!”
Wonwoo’s never heard Jihoon ask so many questions the entire time he’s known him. Wonwoo frowns. Is he just supposed to… answer them all in one go or…?
“My husband, Lee Jungchan—we married two weeks ago, and it was arranged a few months before that,” Wonwoo says. “I told you that. I told all of you that. In the group chat. You know, the one you all say I never use?”
In unison, Jun, Soonyoung, and Jihoon reach for their phones.
“I invited you to the wedding in there, too,” Wonwoo adds, a little annoyed that they don’t immediately believe him.
“What kind of beast doesn’t send a physical card invitation?” Soonyoung asks, not even lifting his eyes from his phone screen.
“It’s better for the environment,” Wonwoo says.
“Ah!” Jun exclaims, he shoves his phone forward at all of them, then points at a line. “Found it: You are cordially invited to the union of Jeon Wonwoo and Lee Jungchan on December the 27th, 20XX. Please RSVP by October the 5th,” he stops for a second, and then continues, his voice considerably lower, “I reacted with a crying-laughing emoji, Soonyoung reacted with a poop emoji and Jihoon gave a thumbs up.”
They all look at each other in stunned (and in Wonwoo’s case, pointed) silence for a moment.
“Okay, so,” says Soonyoung.
“I don’t remember that,” Jihoon says.
“I thought you were just joking,” Jun says.
Wonwoo shows him his wedding ring. “I wasn’t.”
Jun lets out an indescribable noise. Soonyoung leans in closer and takes his hand to examine the ring this way and that with an excited “Oh wow!”. Wonwoo smiles, faintly.
“A wedding in December,” Jihoon says, shaking his head, but his eyes are wide. “You deserve to be poisoned, for that.”
“I thought he’d like the snow,” Wonwoo mumbles. “He likes neither, I think.”
“The snow and…?”
“Me,” Wonwoo says. “Obviously.”
“Oh right, because—the poison,” Soonyoung says, and he gives Wonwoo the mobility of his hand back, looking disappointed. Sorry, Wonwoo thinks petulantly, for not giving him a romantic fairytale wedding. Sometimes some people don’t get anything anyway.
“What will you do?” Jun asks. “Like… are you going to go to couple’s therapy?”
There are few things that Wonwoo wants less than to bring Lee Jungchan to couple’s therapy. And one of those things is talking about his feelings at all ever—so. That’s a double no from him.
“No,” Wonwoo says. “I’ll just. Not eat, I think.”
“That makes sense,” Soonyoung says with a nod of his head. “Can’t get poisoned if you don’t eat.”
“Right,” Wonwoo says.
“Okay, well. Just let us know if you die or whatever, I guess,” Jihoon says. “We can’t miss both the wedding and funeral. What kind of shitty friends would we be then?”
-
Chan
“Welcome back,” Chan mumbles when he hears the front door open. From where he is, he peers as his husband ambles in, the jacket of his suit across one arm, the other clutching a briefcase, and his broad shoulders pulled back into perfect posture. Chan looks away quickly, back at the food he’s cooking.
“Where are you?” his husband asks.
“Great, thanks,” Chan replies. He stirs the stir fry harshly, it sizzles loudly. “Can’t complain.”
His husband wanders into the kitchen and raises an eyebrow.
“Oh, sorry, I was preparing my answer for ‘how are you today?’. You know, just in case someone asked me,” Chan says.
“You’re cooking,” his husband says, leaning against the threshold.
Chan sneers. “Nothing gets past you, Sherlock.”
“I’m more of a Nancy Drew, I think,” his husband says.
“You’re a nerd, that's what you are,” Chan tells him. There is a split-second where Chan thinks he sees the ghost of a smile on his husband’s lips, but it’s gone when he blinks again so he may have just hallucinated it. Not for the first time, Chan wishes his husband was easier to read. “Are you hungry?” he asks.
His husband’s stomach growls.
“No,” he says. “I’m not hungry right now. I had a late lunch.”
It’s another night where his husband refuses his cooking, then. Whatever. Chan doesn’t care. He doesn’t usually make more than one serving anyway.
He did this time though.
“Well if you get hungry later,” Chan says, carefully not looking at his husband and his cold, sharp eyes. He bends down to grab a container out of the cupboard. “I’ll leave the leftovers in the fridge.”
“Okay,” his husband says.
-
Hansol
“I don’t get it,” Hansol says, “If you hate him, why do you want him to eat your cooking so bad?”
“It’s not about the cooking, Hansol,” Chan says. “He’s—he’s trying to make me depend on him for everything. That’s a red flag, you know. He thinks he can get my guard down by doing everything for me and then I won’t expect—it.”
“Expect what?”
“Falling in love with him!” Chan exclaims. “Obviously! He’s trying to prove he’s so domestic and handsome and nerdy just to make me fall in love with him so our marriage looks real. Well, he can’t fool me. I’ll never give him the satisfaction.”
That’s a little dramatic, Hansol thinks privately. Besides, Jeon Wonwoo doesn’t need to do all of that to make their marriage real because—despite whatever idea Chan has—the vows, kiss, and documentation did it all for him.
There is most likely something deeper going on here. In Chan’s mind. Hansol can’t read minds though and he’s certainly no therapist who can try to come close to it. He does the next best thing.
“Yeah, men suck. You wanna go out tonight?” Hansol asks.
Chan brightens immediately. “Yes, please.”
-
Wonwoo
Wonwoo comes home to an empty loft.
If this were a few weeks ago, that would not be surprising. But these days Wonwoo is a married man—and married to an unemployed man at that. Lee Jungchan is usually here, humming and swaying in the kitchen or living room to a melody only he hears.
Now it’s strangely, uncomfortably quiet.
He shuffles forward, leaves his jacket on the coat rack, shucks his shoes off, and there on the counter when he glances over, is a note.
I’ll be back soon, is all that it says. Wonwoo furrows his eyebrows. Not even a mention of where he went—he didn’t even sign his name. Wonwoo sighs and places the note back on the counter. He takes his glasses off and rubs the bridge of his nose.
He’ll just… make dinner for one, he supposes.
-
Chan
Right now, Chan could make out with god and get a million blessings for it—he feels so good, and looks so good.
“I’m gonna get more drinks,” Hansol yells, though Chan barely hears him over the heavy bass in the background.
Chan nods excitedly. “Yes,” he says, elongating the ‘s’ at the end. He kinda sounds like a snake. Chan giggles. Anyway, more drinks sounds great.
He dances some more, loves the press of bodies around him swaying and enjoying the melody of whatever song the DJ’s playing. Here, he doesn’t have to think about anything more than the rhythm. It’s easy to lose himself, to free himself. Away from that gray, bland apartment and his cold, bland husband.
Out here it’s colorful. Flashing neon lights, of red, blue, green and everything in between. Chan dances underneath it all like they were a spotlight. His vision swims every so often and his consciousness hides away from him too, but that only adds to the fun. The crowd sings and buzzes.
There’s so much buzzing, like a beehive or something else that has a lot of buzzing. His phone, maybe.
No, wait.
That is his phone buzzing.
Chan stares at his phone in his hand, uncomprehending. But the caller ID tells him his husband is calling and it does not change no matter how many times Chan blinks.
He pushes his way off the dancefloor, and clicks accept in the hallway next to the bathroom. It’s not a good place for a call but Chan is too shocked to do anything else.
“Hello?” his husband says. His voice is deeper than usual, making it even harder to hear him. Chan presses his thumb to up the volume and holds the phone even closer to his ear. “Jungchan?”
“I’m here,” Chan confirms. “Is there… something wrong?”
“No,” his husband says, clearing his throat. “No. Nothing’s wrong. It’s just—I went to bed a while ago but I woke up just now and you still aren’t home. It’s 2AM, so I was worried.”
Chan doesn’t know what to say to that. He has no script or angry comeback. He’s never gotten a call like this before.
“Are you still there?” his husband asks.
“Yeah,” Chan says. He bites the inside of his cheek and leans back against the wall of the hallway as someone brushes past him into the bathroom. “I didn’t mean to worry you. Hansol’s with me, so I’m not alone either way.”
“Your friend?”
“Mm,” Chan replies.
“Good,” his husband says. His voice, though still deep, softens into something almost… sweet. Chan can’t see his eyes right now, but he wonders if they would still look cold. This is getting weird, he thinks. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
He’s not going to yell at Chan for worrying him? He’s not going to tell Chan he’s a good for nothing heathen? He’s not going to demand Chan be back in 20 minutes or he’ll cut him off from his card?
“Alright, I’ll see you then,” Chan says, and then hesitantly, he adds, “Sleep well.”
His husband thanks him and hangs up. What an odd man.
-
Stranger in the Bathroom
She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop.
She’s stumbling, the world a bit tilted when she brushes past a man on her way to the bathroom. He’s dressed up like everyone else, tan skin on display due to his sleeveless shirt, pretty hands wrapped around a phone next to his ear—she nearly takes a fall from the sight. Her friends would be laughing their asses off if they could see her now. So handsome men are her weakness; sue her.
She rushes past him and makes it into the women’s room just in time. The music is just a bit quieter here, and the walls are just a bit thinner here, so she happens to hear part of his conversation.
“I’m here,” he says, soothingly. “Is there something wrong?”
Taken, she thinks immediately and her shoulders slump.
“Yeah,” he continues, “I didn’t mean to worry you. Hansol’s with me, so I’m not alone either way.”
“I’m so single,” she says to herself in the mirror while washing her hands.
The man does not hear her—and very rudely, says another sweet thing to his partner like, “Alright, I’ll see you then, sleep well.”
“We get it,” she mumbles. “You’re married. No need to brag.”
Then she sighs, and fixes her hair. Ah, it’s such a shame. Still, there are plenty more men in the sea or whatever the saying is. Actually though, there’s plenty of men here in this club too, and that’s much closer.
-
Wonwoo
Wonwoo wakes up to the smell of delicious food, and has the immediate despairing thought, oh no, Lee Jungchan is cooking again.
He reaches for his glasses on the nightstand and absently runs a hand through his messy bedhead. He grimaces. It’s like a bird’s nest.
Wonwoo shakes his head to wake himself up further, even slaps his own cheeks. It’s not very helpful so he resigns himself to get coffee.
Lee Jungchan isn’t facing him when he reaches the kitchen. He’s humming and swaying and this time there’s actual music playing to match. Something light with a guitar and a sweet voice. Wonwoo leans against the doorway for a moment and just watches him.
Lee Jungchan brings color to the apartment. The bright yellow of his hair, the rosy pink of his cheeks, his flashy clothes. Wonwoo glances at his gray walls, and the color is something he’d never really given a second thought to, but Lee Jungchan makes the dull, bland contrast extremely apparent. And he thinks of last night—Lee Jungchan picked up his call in a nightclub and Wonwoo had felt something bitter in his stomach hearing the muffled music, though he really only has a document and a living space tying him to Lee Jungchan, nothing more than that.
It’s different now. He thinks Lee Jungchan belongs in a place like that, colorful and fun. Not trapped in a drab, dull apartment.
“You’re cooking,” Wonwoo says.
“Ah, Nancy Drew, you’re awake,” Lee Jungchan replies. Wonwoo huffs out a laugh. “Hungry?”
Wonwoo’s stomach growls. “Yes,” he says.
Lee Jungchan blinks, like he hadn’t expected the answer. Then he perks up and nods.
“Well good, because I’m making omelets,” he says.
“Well good, because I’m hungry,” Wonwoo replies.
“You already said that,” Lee Jungchan says.
“Do you like painting?” Wonwoo asks. Lee Jungchan blinks again. Wonwoo knows he’s not really being fair right now, but he enjoys seeing all of Lee Jungchan's colors so he can’t help himself.
“I’m no Picasso,” Lee Jungchan warns him. There’s a bemused smile on his lips though, and Wonwoo feels satisfied at the sight of it.
“That’s a shame because I’m da Vinci,” Wonwoo tells him.
Lee Jungchan shakes his head. “You’re a nerd,” he corrects.
Wonwoo smothers his grin into his first bite of omelet.
-
Chan
“When you asked about painting I didn’t think you meant painting our whole apartment,” Chan says, feeling a headache coming on and not just due to the open buckets of paint and their fumes. “This is crazy.”
His husband pauses with his paint roller on the wall. It’s going to build up and smudge if he keeps doing that so Chan reaches for his arm and pulls it away. Seriously, doesn’t this guy know anything?
“Why is it crazy?” his husband asks. He glances down at the hand Chan has wrapped around his wrist. Chan lets go of him quickly.
“Because—because, it’s a serious commitment that you decided on in like 10 minutes!” Chan says. “You’ll have to look at these walls everyday, you know.”
“So will you,” his husband shoots back. He nudges his glasses higher up on his nose with his forefinger and it leaves behind a cream color on the frames that they’ve been painting onto the wall. Chan carefully does not tell him about it. His husband continues, “You didn’t like the gray walls, right? Me neither.”
So suddenly? Chan thinks, skeptical. You don’t like them but you’ve put up with them much longer than I have, so why now?
Whatever.
“Well if you’re gonna do it, then do it right!” Chan tells him. He moves purposefully to one window and opens it, and then another, and continues on like that. “It wouldn’t do for us to pass out from the fumes.”
“Ah, Lee Jungchan is funny when he nags,” his husband says as he starts rolling paint on the wall again. Chan spins around on him.
“What did you call me?” he asks. The rest of his sentence doesn’t even register. He’s too distracted from the chills down his spine. “Did you just say Lee Jungchan?”
His husband nods hesitantly.
“Ew, don’t call me that,” Chan says, shuddering. “You sound like my parents. Call me Chan. All my friends do.”
“Okay… Chan,” his husband says.
Chan nods firmly. “Better. Now let’s paint these walls.”
They work in silence for a while. Chan wasn't kidding when he said he was no Picasso, but he remembers painting when he was a kid and it’s easy on such a wide surface, especially when your mission is just to cover it up. Eventually he sets up a speaker to play music while they paint. He hums along to it and his husband taps his foot. Chan half-smiles at the sight. Even this grump can’t resist good music.
“Woah,” his husband says suddenly. Chan looks over to find him staring back. “Are you sure you aren’t Picasso?”
Chan then looks at his own work on the wall, where he’d been painting in single streaks. “Shut up,” he says, embarrassed.
“Sorry, sorry,” his husband says. His nose scrunches up as he grins at Chan. Is that what he looks like when he’s happy, Chan wonders? “I shouldn’t rush perfection, right?”
Chan isn’t in control of his own actions when he does what he does next. He flicks his paint brush at his husband, flecks of paint now spotting on his messy overalls. His husband gapes at him. Chan kind of misses the nose scrunch but this is funny too.
“Oops,” he says.
“It’s like that?” his husband asks, raising his eyebrows.
“I don’t know what you mean,” says Chan.
“So it is like that,” his husband concludes.
He stands up slowly, pushes up his glasses, and then tackles Chan.
Chan bowls over immediately. The wind is knocked out of him as a large body presses him to the floor. He squirms and pushes against his husband desperately. He’s stronger than he looks though and doesn’t really budge.
That doesn’t stop Chan from trying.
“Hey!” Chan protests. His husband presses painted fingers into his sides, making a mess of his admittedly already messy clothes. But it isn’t until his husband swipes a glob of paint onto his eyebrow that he really fights back. “Are you serious?” he demands. The paint is cool and slimy on his face. “It’s on.”
Chan puts his all into knocking his husband off of him and he succeeds. His husband falls backwards and Chan reverses their positions from before. He straddles his husband, legs slotting on either side of his waist as he reaches for his fallen paint brush and holds it above his husband as a threat.
“You wouldn’t,” his husband says.
Well, that’s the wrong thing to say to Chan who’s built a life on accepting all the wrong challenges in life—and he doesn’t intend to stop here.
He brings the paint brush down and paints a streak on his husband’s jaw, down the side of his neck.
“Ah,” Chan says.
He looks down at his husband. Glasses askew, a wide-eyed expression and he doesn’t seem so cold now. He looks like you’d never expect him to be cold at all. And there is the cream colored streak of paint on his jaw and now he just looks silly.
Chan giggles. Then starts to laugh freely and loudly. He looks so shocked and funny.
“You’re so handsome, husband,” he says, between chuckles and the ache in stomach from laughing so hard. He throws the paint brush to the side and clutches onto his husband’s chest to support himself, when the laughter starts to turn his limbs to mush.
His husband freezes, then looks up at him wondrously. As if he’s never seen Chan before this moment. Chan laughs harder at the expression. Did he prove him wrong somehow? Is he thinking something really interesting right now? Chan wants to know.
And then, he doesn’t get a chance to ask because his husband is laughing too. He tucks his hands over Chan’s and his nose scrunches.
-
Jihoon
“I’m not going to ask,” Jihoon says, “But just know, I am judging you so hard right now.”
Wonwoo had walked in 10 minutes late to a meeting with a patch of the skin on his face a full shade lighter than the rest of him, and a grin so wide and toothy it could warn off a tiger. He still sat down and led the meeting like nothing was wrong so Jihoon didn’t say anything then.
Now, in the privacy of Wonwoo’s office, he’s really trying to ignore it.
“Okay,” says Wonwoo, as he flips through the papers on his desk.
Jihoon sneaks a peek at him again. “ But really… is this how a CEO should keep appearances?”
“I had a concealer malfunction,” Wonwoo says.
“I had a concealer malfunction,” Jihoon mimics, making his voice as low as possible. “You’re grinning like a loon.”
“I’m not.”
“Married life changed you,” says Jihoon, just to get a reaction. And he does.
Wonwoo drops the paper in his hands. “It didn’t.”
His eyes shake behind his glasses. Too obvious, Jihoon thinks. He snickers.
“Sure, sure. Well, I’m just glad the poison scare didn’t last,” Jihoon declares.
“Me too,” Wonwoo mumbles.
-
Wonwoo
“I don’t know how to dance,” Wonwoo admits quietly.
“Yeah, I could have told you that,” Chan replies.
“What do you mean?”
“Husband,” Chan says, as if he were imparting some grave news, “Just look at you.”
Wonwoo should be offended but he’s caught up by the word husband. Something light and giddy picks up in his chest. It’s a far cry from the way Chan had said it immediately following their wedding. It sounds fond, friendly.
They’re dressed up. Chan is taking him out clubbing—he had looked shocked when Wonwoo said he wanted to try it, but recovered quickly with a considering expression. Then he raided the closet and now Wonwoo is wearing a bright purple crop top and tight pants. Chan is sleeveless. Every time Wonwoo looks at his biceps, he has to swallow involuntarily.
“You’ll teach me?” Wonwoo asks.
Chan perks up at the question. He nods rapidly. Excitement is a good color on him too, makes his cheeks red and he looks so alive.
“Duh,” Chan says.
-
Chan
Seungkwan is staring so hard that Chan thinks he’ll burn a hole through the side of Chan’s head.
From anyone else, Chan might get uncomfortable and confront them. But Chan is good at many things, see; dancing, drinking, talking, and most importantly, ignoring Seungkwan. He grabs his husband’s hand and runs for the dance floor.
His husband is laughing and the sound is mesmerizing and warm. He pulls him close, just cause he can.
“I told you, I don’t know how to dance,” his husband says, still chuckling.
“It’s best to jump right in,” Chan tells him.
“I’m not usually someone who can do that,” his husband replies.
“That’s fine, you have me, so I can help you,” Chan says. He reaches for his husband’s arms, pulling them to wrap around his waist. He has big, warm hands. Chan then lifts his own arms to place them on his husband’s shoulders. “Like this,” he says, “Now we can just… sway.”
“I can do that,” his husband confirms, but he’s hesitant in his movements, Chan can feel it. He doesn’t push though. Since this is so new to him. His husband looks around the club, at the people around them and the bright flashing lights, and then his eyes meet Chan again. “Do you come here often?” he asks.
Chan laughs and then pinches his shoulder.
“Not like that,” his husband says quickly, clearly embarrassed, “I mean… you go dancing a lot, don’t you?”
“Mm,” Chan hums. “I’m surprised my parents didn’t tell you when this was arranged. They never stopped complaining about it when I lived with them.”
“They didn’t tell me much about you,” his husband says. “I asked about your hobbies and likes, but all they told me is that you are very free-spirited.”
So they cleaned up their tongues around his future husband, then. Good for them. Chan is more than that though, not that they ever bothered to care.
“Well, you know I’m a painter, too,” Chan says. His husband laughs, and Chan laughs with him.
“And a good cook,” his husband adds. “But, really—I’m glad they didn’t tell me everything. It’s better to learn from you directly. I hope this doesn’t sound too forward, but I want to learn even more about you.”
Too forward? Chan thinks blankly. We’re married.
But still, his cheeks heat up at his words.
“That’s—that’s fine, I guess,” Chan stutters.
-
Seungkwan
“Look at them being all romantic,” Seungkwan says to Hansol, pouting. “I hate couples.”
“Sure you do,” Hansol says, patting the back of his hand.
-
Wonwoo
There’s a new frame on the wall of their apartment.
It contrasts with the cream color wall it rests on. The painting is made of billowing strokes of blue, black, and yellows. A starry night over a village, dreamy and mellow.
“Oh, do you like it?” Chan asks. “It’s da Vinci.”
“Ah,” Wonwoo says. “It’s actually Van Gogh.”
Chan’s cheeks turn red. Wonwoo, for a brief moment, wants to taste that color. Instead he remembers a conversation of Chan calling himself Picasso, and Wonwoo calling himself da Vinci, and thinks oh.
Well, that’s—
“Really?! Agh, I meant to get a da Vinci,” Chan exclaims, he runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the strands, frustration etched into the lines of his face. Wonwoo thinks, don’t do that, and before he knows it, he’s grabbing Chan’s wrists and pulling them down.
His hair’s a mess, his cheeks are ruddy from embarrassment, his eyes are wide. His color is fascinating.
Wonwoo kisses him.
Chan makes a shocked noise that Wonwoo swallows happily. He lets go of one of Chan’s wrists to hold the back of his head, getting a better angle.
“Wonwoo,” Chan whispers against his lips.
Don’t get Wonwoo wrong. He likes the sound of Chan calling him husband, but there’s a hunger that gathers deep in Wonwoo’s soul that threatens to consume him at the sound of his name on Chan’s lips. He swoops in again—but Chan takes Wonwoo’s glasses off before he does, holds it in a fist that he then rests on Wonwoo’s chest. Wonwoo kisses him hard, claiming the pink of his lips, the pink of his tongue with his own.
Chan’s fingers curl in the grip Wonwoo has on his wrist, so Wonwoo slides his hand up, letting them intertwine. His hands are soft, his mouth is wet. Wonwoo wants more sensations, more feeling—he guides Chan’s head upwards by his silky, grippable hair and he leans downwards. Chan is nearly on his tiptoes.
They part soon after, needing air.
“Wonwoo,” Chan murmurs.
Chan is a bit of a blurry sight, even so close in front of him. But Wonwoo has never liked such a view more in his life.
“I…” Chan says. He pulls away from Wonwoo, shoves his glasses into Wonwoo’s hands. “I’m sorry…” he says and then, he runs away.
-
Chan
Chan sprints to his room and slams the door shut behind him.
He just—
He just kissed his husband.
He just kissed Wonwoo.
And he liked it, no, more than that, he loved it. He wants more of it, but…
Isn’t this just what Seungkwan said?
“I hope Jeon Wonwoo keeps being the nicest man on Earth. I hope he brings you breakfast in bed every morning. I hope he gets all of your clothes dry cleaned and pressed every week. I hope you start to enjoy his company.”
He cursed him into loving—liking—Wonwoo, and now, the fruits of that curse have come to…! Fruition! Chan screams into his pillow. He can’t let Seungkwan win!
But Wonwoo is a really good kisser.
Fuck, he thinks. What is he going to do?
-
Soonyoung
“I kissed my husband,” Wonwoo says.
Soonyoung nearly drops his phone.
“The one that tried to poison you?!” Soonyoung asks excitedly. “That husband?”
“I’ve only ever had one,” Wonwoo says.
The attitude is so not appreciated, but Soonyoung will let it slide just this once because Wonwoo looks really upset.
“Was it… good?” Soonyoung asks.
Wonwoo sighs. “Yes,” he says gloomily.
Soonyoung is clearly missing something here.
“I’m sensing a problem, but I’m not hearing one,” he says.
Wonwoo sighs again. “We kissed but he ran away afterwards and locked himself into his room.”
Soonyoung whistles. “Damn,” he says. “You must be a terrible kisser.”
Wonwoo sticks his boney elbow into Soonyoung’s side. Soonyoung crumples a little bit.
“Ow?!”
“Sorry,” says Wonwoo. “My arm slipped.”
“Maybe that’s why he ran away,” Soonyoung says, holding his stomach, “Because you only tell people what you mean when they coax it out of you. Jeez, I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t even know you liked him before you kissed! Not like you told him that after either, right?”
Wonwoo stares at him, and Soonyoung stares back.
“Sorry,” Soonyoung says, relenting. “That was a bit harsh.”
“No,” Wonwoo says. “I’m just surprised because I think you’re right.”
Soonyoung laughs and then stops. “Wait, why is that surprising?”
-
Wonwoo
Wonwoo goes home like a man on a mission.
He grunts at his neighbors on the way inside the building. He pets the stray cat that the landlord lets live in their halls just once. That’s how serious he is.
He only has one thing on his mind. Find Chan and tell him how he feels.
“I’m home,” he says, bursting into the loft. “Where are you?”
“I’m fine,” Chan calls out. “Can’t complain.”
Wonwoo follows the sound of his voice out to the balcony. It’s dark out, raining instead of snowing because it's gotten warmer as the weeks have gone by. Chan’s out there alone.
“Which is the answer, I’d have given you,” Chan continues loudly, until he notices Wonwoo standing at the threshold of the balcony. He looks embarrassed, and says, quieter now, “If someone had—”
“Asked how you’ve been,” Wonwoo finishes for him. “How was your day today?”
“Good,” Chan says, his eyes squinted like he’s suspicious. Then he looks away, into the night sky. His hands clench on the balcony rails. Wonwoo’s breath starts coming out in short bursts. “How was yours?”
“Bad,” Wonwoo says.
Chan turns to him again, concerned. “What happened?”
“I made a mistake,” he says, “A stupid mistake.”
“Oh…”
“But I want to fix it,” Wonwoo says.
Chan laughs. Wonwoo remembers the first time he heard Chan laugh. All those days ago when they painted his apartment. This is not the same sound.
“That’s what I like about you, husband,” Chan says. “You take responsibility.”
No, Wonwoo wants to shout, don’t call me husband—say my name like you did before.
“Not really,” says Wonwoo. “But I want to start now. I like you, Chan. Like a husband should like his husband.”
There, he thinks, it’s out there now, no way to confuse th—
“I would hope so,” Chan says. “We already are husbands.”
“No. It’s different,” Wonwoo says. “Let me put it in simpler terms: I don’t just like Lee Chan because I like my husband. I like my husband because he’s Lee Chan, and I like Lee Chan.”
“That doesn’t sound simple at all,” Chan complains but he’s blushing. A pretty color that makes Wonwoo reach out, rest his hands on either side of Chan’s face. Chan lets him.
“Well?” Chan says. “You said all of that, aren’t you going to kiss me now? I like you too, so kiss me already!”
Wonwoo grins at his demands, bringing them close together and gladly dives in.
-
Chan
Okay, Chan thinks, so maybe Seungkwan being right isn’t so bad after all.
-
Seungkwan
“So,” Seungkwan says, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. He glances down at Wonwoo and Chan’s intertwined hands and asks, smirking, “When’s the wedding?”