Work Text:
There’s something objectively funny about bringing on a Korean man and a Taiwanese man to do commentary on a baseball player’s surprise marriage announcement on local news, Nicholas has to admit that. It’s funnier because that aside, they’re two single guys in their early twenties who do a little song and dance and larp as werewolves for a living. They are so not qualified to talk about marriage on television.
So maybe it’s not that surprising, all things considered, that something goes wrong. Well, wrong feels like an exaggeration. Wrong implies it’s bad. What happens makes Nicho’s tongue stick to the roof of his mouth but it isn’t bad.
No, Euijoo gets asked if he likes people who are fun to be with and it’s so clearly in a romantic context— Nicholas doesn’t have to be a native speaker to get that— but Euijoo in all his wide-eyed sweetness turns and looks into Nicho’s eyes and tells the panel that he likes Nicho because he’s fun, and Nicho seriously considers ducking under the desk and crawling off the set on his hands and knees.
Not as in marriage! Euijoo exclaims when he realizes the way everybody’s reacting and Nicholas touches his arm.
Not marriage, Nicholas reassures himself even as his mouth suddenly feels like it’s filled with glue.
Their van back home is a reprieve, the radio filling the space with music that Nicholas doesn’t really hear. The manager closes the partition window between them and it’s a breath of relief after all those eyes on them. Euijoo had turned so pink the rest of the time on set, Nicholas wonders if it showed up on camera under the bright lights. He wonders if he turned pink too.
Nicholas laughs and it catches in his throat a bit. “Language got you a bit fucked up today, huh?”
It wouldn’t be the first time, not for either of them. It’s hard being here sometimes. The little nuances can slip by. He’d thought it’d been clear enough— they were just talking about marriage, after all— but Euijoo had misunderstood. It happens. He gets it, but he’ll still give him shit. That’s something only the two of them really get to do to each other. Still, he slips back into Korean because it’s their strongest middle ground and Euijoo probably needs it after the fumble on TV.
Euijoo just looks at him, chewing on a piece of dried fruit. “Huh? No, I got it.”
“Clearly,” Nicholas says dryly. “You like me, huh? Now people who don’t even know who we are are going to think you’re in love with me.”
Euijoo holds out his snack to him as an offering. When Nicho doesn’t take it, he shrugs and goes back to eating it himself.
“I just said it without really thinking,” Euijoo says, and Nicho watches him tear a chunk off and chew, watches him swallow, and traces the bob of his Adam’s apple as it goes down. “I meant it.”
“Not romantically,” Nicholas says, then recalls Euijoo’s words, “Not marriage.”
Euijoo sets his bag of dried fruit down in his cupholder, turning to look at Nicholas with a serious crease to his brow that makes something in his gut twist.
“You’re an idiot,” Euijoo tells him, and for some reason he’s heard Euijoo call him that a hundred times but this time it feels like being kicked. “How much more straightforward do I have to be? I just said I like you on TV when somebody asked me about something I like romantically. It slipped out but it was real.”
Nicho tries again, voice suddenly hoarse. “Not—” Not marriage. Not romantic. Not like that. Not like me.
“Nicho.” Euijoo’s steady in a way that makes Nicholas feel even more off-balance in comparison. “I’m not just going to admit I meant what I said on broadcast.”
Nicholas swallows thickly and he’s briefly worried he’s going to choke on his own tongue because it’s too heavy and his mouth is suddenly so full of cotton, and Euijoo is just looking at him now. Patiently. He called him an idiot but he’s looking at him like he’s waiting, like he’d wait for Nicholas for eternity if he needs it.
He opens his mouth to speak, to laugh, but Euijoo’s eyes make it hard to do much of anything.
What on earth is he supposed to say to… this?
What he settles on is, “I don’t get what there is about me to like so much.”
Fuck. Fuck, that sounds bad.
And Euijoo is frowning, and Nicholas must’ve just fucked everything up. He doesn’t even know what he fucked up— why is he so scared he fucked things up, what’s wrong with him? Why does this feel like life or death to him suddenly?
“Dude,” Euijoo says finally, “I don’t just like you. I’m in love with you.”
He feels like he just got the wind knocked out of him, but the words that leave his mouth come anyways without permission, “I was joking earlier.”
“I’m not,” Euijoo says, and the way he says it— Nicho knows he means it.
He swallows again. He feels parched.
The music drowns out their soft voices. The van’s partition is closed, blocking them off from their manager. It’s not much, but it’s some sort of privacy. More than they’d get in the dorm, probably.
“Would you be mad,” Euijoo asks softly, “if I kissed you right now?”
Nicholas tries to think about it because this is something he should probably have to think about, right? This is a crazy thing that Euijoo is asking. Instead, there’s nothing in his head except a wordless, narrowing focus on Euijoo’s mouth and an accompanying tightness in his chest.
“Okay,” he says weakly, which doesn’t answer Euijoo’s question but seems good enough for him.
Euijoo crosses that line between them, seatbelt straining to reach into Nicholas’s space, and then his mouth is against his. Euijoo’s eyes are closed. Nicho’s stay open. He doesn’t know why but something in his brain won’t let him, wants to see everything that’s happening. He’s been close to Euijoo’s face before but now he can count every eyelash if he wanted to and he doesn’t know where that thought comes from.
Euijoo is careful. Mouth closed. Nothing too forceful. Maybe not enough. Nicholas is grateful. Nicholas is hungry. Nicholas doesn’t know what to do other than ball his hands up in the fabric of his sleeves and keep them on his knees.
Then Euijoo’s hand is on his cheek, the gentlest touch Nicho has ever felt in his life, and— and Nicho sighs into Euijoo’s mouth, lips parting and eyes fluttering shut as Euijoo takes it as an invitation to deepen the kiss.
And then Euijoo’s pulling away and looking at him, and Nicho’s just staring at Euijoo, mouth still open like an idiot. Whatever Euijoo sees in Nicho’s face, he must be satisfied because he hits him with an easy smile.
“Now,” Euijoo says, and before Nicholas has a chance to close his mouth there’s a piece of dried fruit being shoved into it, “shut up and eat snacks with me.”
So Nicho does, because at the end of the day, how can he ever say no to Euijoo?