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Changbin hadn't slept.
Which normally wasn't too much of a strange occurrence. He never slept. Sometimes, it felt like he was living one of those old Tumblr posts made by a depressed queer kid whose soul was black, thoughts too dark to let me rest my weary head against the soft pillow, darkness consumes me . He was, plain and simply, an insomniac.
And he had far too many thoughts ( unlike ever ) up there, because the little workers tended to activate themselves in the dead of the night when Changbin wasn't only thinking about work, music, did those shitheads finally answer my email, I spent so much time preparing my fucking portfolio . It was both a blessing, and a curse. He didn't enjoy the act of thinking, but he also tried to pride himself in being emotionally intelligent, thus letting these thoughts run wild enough until he got to some sort of conclusion, which then would let him wake up on a clearer mind.
This wasn't the case.
He was wide fucking awake, and he was very fucking aware of the living human being laying next to him, breathing calmly, but with breaths not nearly level enough to fool Changbin into thinking the other was sleeping.
Chan had been a delight to hang out with. Such a delight, in fact, that it made Changbin... think. About things . About ex-things and feelings and whether it was fundamentally wrong to be blushing and clutching a fluttering tummy as he laughed at what was probably the corniest pickup line, paired with the single most gorgeous smile Changbin had ever had the privilege to see.
Chan was the late June breeze and the soft sound of waves crashing against the shore. He was the morning sky and a bottle of cold, crisp water after a good run by the shore. He was the color blue, and the color yellow, and his smile looked like the sun itself.
A small voice in the back of Changbin's mind, that sounded suspiciously like Jisung, kept telling him to relax. Let their arms touch. Let their shoulders press against each other. Turn over, ask him if he's awake, then ask him if he wants to go on a walk. Let him distract you. Let him prove Jiyoung wrong. Let him. He said he'd wait, don't let him change his mind .
Changbin pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes and cringed at the weird sound his eyes made with the action. He cursed at himself idly, because he knew he was going to be hyper aware of the sounds his eyelids make when he blinked.
Chan seemed to hear him.
"Can't sleep?" his voice was quiet, just above a whisper, sounding just a touch too intimate, and Changbin was far too fucking tired to try and process the fluttering feeling in his tummy.
Chan turned over the same moment Changbin did, and he found that they were laying far too close to each other than he had initially thought.
Changbin shook his head and gave Chan a dismissive 'mm' sound. A smile spread on Chan's face and Changbin found that he couldn't stop the corners of his lips quirking down, a huff leaving his nose, as he closed his eyes and let himself bask in the moment.
Chan remained quiet for another second.
"I like that," he said, and Changbin cracked an eye open. Chan still had that smile on his face, eyes half-lidded, and hair tousled. He looked like a poodle.
"Mmwhat?" Changbin asked eloquently and closed his eye again.
"When you smile like that."
"Like what?"
Changbin heard the rustle of the sheets and felt the presence of a hand near his face. He wanted to twitch, move away, move closer, take Chan's wrist and press the palm of his hand against his cheek before Chan decided Changbin wasn't worth waiting for.
He felt Chan's knuckles rest near his chin, and his thumb brush over the corner of his lips. His breath hitched, and he tried his best to not scare Chan away.
The touch felt foreign. It felt new, and scary, and like it was sending shocks of electricity down Changbin's spine.
"Like it's turned down. But I can tell it's a smile. It's really pretty."
Changbin wanted to bite down on his lower lip. He opted for discreetly nuzzling into Chan's touch.
"Mm, never really liked it. Someone told me it makes me look disgusted at everything."
Chan's finger was caressing the seam of Changbin's bottom lip. An evil little voice that sounded a lot like Minho told him to lick it and bite it.
"Don't think so.." Chan said. His voice sounded kind of distracted.
"How so?"
"Just means you're always smiling. And that someone is dumb. You can see your dimple."
Changbin half-expected Chan's finger to move to poke at his cheek. But it didn't. His heart felt like it was going to explode, because Chan's finger moved to brush across the center of Changbin's lips.
The action took Changbin off guard, and it made his lips part a bit, the tip of Chan's finger dipping in the space for a moment. It moved away, brushing across the underside of Changbin's upper lip, and, this time, Changbin's breath very audibly hitched.
"...Is this okay?"
Changbin opened his eyes and promptly decided it was the worst fucking decision he had ever made.
Chan looked delicious . His bottom lip was pulled taut behind his teeth, and his gaze seemed zeroed in on Changbin's lips. Changbin wanted to move forward. Say, fuck it , and kiss Chan like he deserved to be kissed.
Except he wasn't brave. And Chan was far too compassionate.
Changbin nodded mutely. Something lit up in Chan's eyes as he tilted his head.
"Words, Changbin." He said, his tone playful, but the sound of it threatening to send Changbin into cardiac arrest.
He was going to die. There, and then, he was going to die. That was it.
"It's okay," Changbin croaked out, wincing at the little Jisung in his brain that seemed to be laughing at how wrecked he sounded because of somebody doing the bare minimum.
Chan let out a low hum, one that came from the back of his throat and made Changbin want to swallow up and end up at the back of his throat. He wasn’t really sure when he started allowing himself to think like this, but it was far too late and he was far too tired to even attempt to stop himself. Chan looked delectable. Changbin wanted to push him away, perch himself on top of his lap and kiss him.
He spoke up again, instead.
“Do you want to go on a walk?”
A small part of Changbin wanted to deny the mild disappointment that seemed to flash in Chan’s eyes. Surely, the older didn’t expect much from this exchange. Not more than Changbin did, at least. Who would? Changbin was the definition of ‘brick wall’. He locked up, he stared, and his mouth hung open at the slightest hint of pseudo-romantic affection that came his way. Surely not, right?
Chan smiled and retracted his hand from Changbin’s lips. Changbin immediately regretted ever listening to the little Jisung up in his brain. He proceeded watching Chan get up and head over to where he had thrown his work shirt away, a black polo that, Changbin liked to joke, made Chan look like he was an eighty year old man in a gay bar. Chan would regard him with a playful scoff, and something ( if Changbin could allow himself to dabble in the art of delusion ) akin to fondness swimming in coffee brown eyes.
Changbin liked coffee.
The non-bitter type, the aromatic one that made the little caffeine addicted worker up there in his brain sing with joy.
He also liked Chan’s eyes.
Not bitter in the slightest, sweet in the way that made Changbin’s little lovesick heart sing with joy.
Changbin watched Chan get dressed. He did realize that was a pretty weird thing to do, but Chan had never been shy with exposing skin in front of others. In front of him. Lean muscle moved beneath velvet-soft skin. Green-blue veins spanning beneath porcelain-white skin, little brown dots spreading over the tops of his shoulders, atop his arms and across his gorgeous nose, like little kisses left from the Sun.
Changbin sometimes wished he could trace them with his own lips, then leave his own. Little freckles, barely-there, but marking every single spot of skin Changbin wanted to kiss and adore.
He realized how fucking creepy he sounded.
He decided to ignore it. He got up with a huff and didn’t bother changing from his ripped up sleep-shirt. He decided to ignore it when he felt Chan’s gaze burning holes into his skin, piping hot coffee spilling across his back and shoulders where Chan’s eyes followed him as he picked his phone and keys up. He noticed Chan’s cigarette charging on the floor in the corner of the room, and before the other could, he went to grab it for him. And as he held it out, box of cigarettes perched atop the device, he hoped that could convey a message Changbin hadn’t even formed in his mind yet.
Chan gave him a smile, one that seemed a bit reserved, but still as warm as the morning sun.
Changbin followed him out. Silent, as they shoved their bare feet in their sneakers. Silent, as Chan held the door open for him. Silent, as Changbin watched Chan lock it up. Silent, as they went out.
The weather was about as uneventful as the night was proving itself to be. A light breeze that made the sweat on Changbin’s skin feel cold, and the song of the cicadas following them as they walked.
Chan lit himself a cigarette and Changbin swung his arms by his sides.
Just fifteen minutes ago, he was considering pushing Chan on his back and kissing him.
Just fifteen seconds ago, he was regretting ever letting his mind take over and stop him from doing just what he wanted to do.
He wasn’t a second-thinker. Hell, he hardly tended to even think once . Seo Changbin was born and bred to do what he wanted, and to fight for what he couldn’t have.
He didn’t know what happened, and what went wrong along the line, because Seo Changbin was nothing without his confidence. Without his bravado. Sometimes, he even wondered if he was only able to get to where he was with music, just because he knew how to act like he had his act together. He sometimes wondered if there was a person more deserving of what he had, and he had just wormed himself in their spot without doing so much as looking back on himself and considering that, maybe, he wasn’t the one who deserved to be here.
He knew he had two little voices that liked to narrate his life. An angel and devil on the shoulder situation, in the form of a little Jisung and a little Minho. Somewhere down the line, he noticed a third, louder voice that liked to mock his life. One that sounded way too much like him.
Chan’s knuckles brushed across his.
He nearly jumped, but he managed to collect himself as his head snapped to look at Chan. He wasn’t looking at Changbin. In fact, he had his phone out, and was idly scrolling what, from Changbin’s position, seemed like Twitter.
His hand didn’t move. Their knuckles kept knocking together, a light touch that made goosebumps rise on Changbin’s skin, one that not even the cool breeze against his hot skin could achieve.
Changbin wanted to move his hand. Just a tiny bit to the right and he’d twine their fingers together. Just a small touch, and he’d be able to squeeze Chan’s hand and try to establish the first human to human bluetooth connection so he could send over every single thought that was sprinting across his mind.
He was a lyricist, and there he was. At a loss for words.
But his hand moved, almost by itself, pinky raising, twitching, closing that little space between their hands and brushing across Chan’s middle finger. Changbin’s other hand twitched, and he wondered if he was completely lying to himself about not realizing what his body was doing. Maybe, just maybe , something deep in his subconscious, deep in the part of his mind that wasn’t so fucking scared of letting it all happen was taking over, directing his limbs and loosening those knots in his shoulders.
Changbin wondered if Chan would pull back. Instead, he heard a small intake of air, before Chan’s own pinkie twitch against the back of his hand. He thought they’d leave it at that, the irrational part once again taking over as he imagined Chan retracting his hand and scoffing, because how dare Changbin think anybody would wait, let alone somebody as wonderful as Chan? How dare he imagine he was worth waiting for? Nobody wanted sloppy seconds. Nobody wanted spoiled leftovers. Nobody wanted him– but Chan’s pinky twitched, and brushed across Changbin’s.
The whole thing about fireworks exploding and electricity crackling between lovebirds in movies always seemed like a bit of a stretch to Changbin. A poor attempt at calling an overused trope symbolism, a neglectful way of adding some spark into an otherwise bleak, washed out romance film. In that moment, Changbin felt like the depiction was nothing more than an understatement, because his heart felt like it was going to explode. The world was about to curl into itself and simply cease to exist, taking every single little pathetic organism that roamed it.
Chan’s pinky wrapped up around his.
Something in Changbin’s heart seemed to melt. The barrier that Jisung fondly and jokingly liked to call the bars of self loathing seemed to bend around the shape of Chan’s pinky, giving space just so it could reach in. Just so it could nestle itself, and brush across Changbin’s poor, beating heart, sending it into overdrive and calming it all down at the same time.
He could sense apprehension, insecurity, but Chan kept his head high as he used that same pinky to bend those bars so they’d fit the shape of his body. So they’d fit him and nobody else.
They walked with their pinkies interlocked until they reached the beach.
“Rocks or sand?” Chan broke the silence like a sharp knife slicing through paper, and Changbin finally regained some of his consciousness. Most of his focus had been taken up in trying to not squeeze and leave Chan without a finger with how hard he was gripping at it with his own.
“Hm?” he hummed, before the question registered in his mind, and he turned to scout their surroundings. They hadn’t taken any towels, so sitting in the sand would only result in having to get sand out of extremely questionable places in their shorts.
Which made this whole exchange sound a lot more different than what it actually was going to be. The rocks were wet, but no sand was involved, and anything that didn’t involve sand was immediately better than anything involving it.
“Uh, rocks, I think. No sand in our asses.”
Chan’s pinky squeezed a bit, and nearly sent Changbin into cardiac arrest when he remembered they were partaking in pseudo hand-holding.
“I second that. Come on. I’ve come here a bunch already, so I have a nice spot in mind.”
It sounded a lot like Chan had planned on taking Changbin ( or somebody else? Changbin immediately hated that idea ) there, so he didn’t protest when Chan hid his face from Changbin’s vision and began leading him towards a nearby cliff that teenagers liked to pretend to be immortal as they jumped off of.
Changbin let himself be led by his pinky, body finally lax as he followed closely behind Chan and took high steps to avoid getting sand in his shoes.
Mildly sweaty feet and sand sounded fucking horrendous.
There was a little indent in the cliff, one that Chan had to take Changbin’s other hand to help him get up some steep rocks to, but once they were there, Changbin noticed it was kind of like a little cave in the side of the cliff, acting as an awning for whatever extremely dedicated fisherman decided they wanted to partake in mild rock-climbing to get a good, isolated spot that nobody could get to. It wasn’t really high up from the water, a pretty decent height, a little bit above sea level. Enough for them to be able to wet their feet in the crashing waves if they decided to do so.
“Woah, the fuck is this?” Changbin found himself expressing his thoughts out loud as Chan let go of his hand, but still tugged him closer by his pinky. He hadn’t let go the entire way there, and it didn’t seem like he was planning to.
“Pretty rad, huh? Found it accidentally when I was out diving with Lix one time.” Chan spoke with a grin, voice low, in the back of his throat, a harmony along with the crashing waves that sprayed water on their legs, “Wanna sit with me?”
“Yeah– let me just take my shoes off.”
Changbin lifted his foot up behind him, so he could use his free hand to take it off. He wobbled on his leg for a second, and he was focusing on balancing himself so he didn’t take a horribly wrong step and end up sopping wet in the sea, but Chan’s hand kind of repositioned itself, almost too naturally, so he could hold Changbin’s hand properly, palms now pressed together, so he could balance Changbin better.
The touch felt even more intense than the initial pinky-holding. It made Changbin wobble some more, but it wasn’t in the way that was going to make him stumble, and fall into the water. Fall, in a different way, perhaps, but not physically. An evil little voice that sounded like his own laughed at how clammy his palms were.
He took his shoes off in record time, and promptly realized he could have probably toed them off instead of doing all of this, but the deed was done, and Chan was still holding his hand.
Unlike Changbin, he went for the more logical way of taking his shoes off, that Changbin had established way too late, before tilting his head towards the ledge.
They sat with their feet dangling where the waves crashed against the cliff.
“What are you thinking about?” Chan asked, braver than Changbin to cut through that silence between them. Changbin stared ahead, and shrugged.
How could he go about explaining this?
Oh, yeah, I’m realizing my feelings towards you are way stronger than what I initially thought, and that’s fucking terrifying, considering it was the reason why I was dumped the way I was by my ex.
That didn’t sound logical, now, did it?
He opted for a general answer.
“Everything. Nothing. Y’know.”
“Ah, yes. Every writer ever, sounds like.”
Changbin found himself smiling, lips turning downwards as he huffed out a small laugh.
It was true, wasn’t it?
Always fighting to find the right words that expressed the right emotion in a way that made sense to the general public but also still held authenticity and truth that didn’t take away from the writer’s own experience.
Looking into the vastness of the sea, trying to dig some sort of metaphor about something that had happened recently out of the sandy sea-bed. Trying to tie the darkness of the sky and the contrast of the moonlight into something he had briefly thought about on the toilet and had written down so he wouldn’t forget.
Everything, and nothing, at the same time.
“I can see your cogs turning, Changbinnie,” Chan hummed out after another beat of silence, and Changbin turned to look at him this time. He wanted to say the action was involuntary, but he couldn’t lie to himself and say he didn’t want to see Chan’s face beneath the glow of the moon.
He twisted his hands in his lap, and saw Chan’s gaze flick towards them. He saw the way his eyes darted between his hands, before he felt Chan’s own hand reach out and take Changbin’s right.
The contact was still electric. Nothing had changed. No moment of silent realization had made this feel less intense, and Changbin felt like a schoolgirl with a crush on an upperclassman. He trembled as Chan’s hand picked his up by the wrist, and place it in his own.
“Everything, and nothing, Hyung. It’s okay.” Changbin whispered. The sound almost got lost in the crash of a wave against their feet, but he knew Chan had a knack for hearing even the quietest of sounds. It was too much. It felt like speaking normally would burst this bubble, take the magic of it away. Like the vibrations would bend the self-loathing bars back in place and leave Chan out before he could even consider stepping in.
Chan’s ankle knocked against his.
Changbin didn’t jump, and he didn’t retract his hand from Chan’s. Instead, he let it relax, letting Chan hold it up between his palms.
“You’ve never been here before?” Chan whispered as well, and Changbin didn’t have to strain to hear it, because every single part of his body was tuned into Chan. Into how warm his palms felt. Into how he was pressing their ankles together, and how Changbin was pressing back. Into how one thumb brushed over Changbin’s knuckles, while the other swiped across his wrist.
Changbin shook his head with a small, humorless laugh. He looked out, watched waves crash into themselves out in the sea, before looking back into the warm brown of Chan’s eyes.
“You’d be surprised at how willfully ignorant I am to what’s right in front of me.”
A beat of silence.
Chan’s eyes flicked between Changbin’s, in the way Changbin imagined his own did before he found out eye contact didn’t mean switching between looking into each eye of the person in front of him, and instead meant looking in the general area where the eyes were.
He moved closer. Shins pressed together. Then thighs. Their shoulders were touching. Every single inch of Changbin’s skin felt like it was freezing cold and burning hot at the same time. Every point of contact made electricity sting him.
Chan was no longer patiently waiting for the bars to bend, and instead was gently coaxing them apart. Guiding them with gentle hands, carving a space out for himself.
That was figuring Changbin hadn’t pried the bars open himself prior to that, the shapes jagged and a bit inaccurate, but enough to fit Chan.
“Yeah?” Chan’s voice was lower, hushed, like the entire world had gone silent, and everything would come apart if anybody heard him, “And how’s that going for you?”
Changbin watched as Chan’s eyes lost his gaze for a moment, focusing on something underneath. They were so close that Chan was nearly going cross-eyed with what he was trying to look at.
He didn’t dare hope Chan was looking where Changbin wished for him to be looking.
Be brave, Jisung’s little voice chided, fuck’s sake, hyung, since when do you think before you act?
Changbin was starting to wonder if Jisung’s little voice was a sad attempt at getting to hear what he couldn’t tell himself. He was starting to wonder if it was some sad metaphor for how unwilling to let himself be he was, and how he was his own biggest critic. It would make sense, if he was to start unpacking why the critical, mocking voice sounded like his own.
He wanted to be brave.
He wanted to deserve his own surname.
He wanted to let Jiyoung go. He wanted to smooth out the shape of him that was only just starting to go away.
So he took a breath. He closed his eyes for a moment, and released it, and when he opened them, he finally saw what Chan was so intently staring at.
“Why doesn’t the object of my blissful ignorance decide that?”
Chan’s gaze flickered up, meeting Changbin’s. It was heavy. Boiling hot coffee spilling all over Changbin, soaking him down to the bone and burning every single inch of his skin up. His thigh pressed up against Changbin’s, deliberately.
He’d wait for you. He is waiting for you. Let him. Stop being a fucking pussy , Minho’s voice spoke in his brain.
Changbin looked at Chan’s lips.
“Tell me to stop.”
Changbin looked back into Chan’s eyes. He could feel his breath on his face, mint mixing in with cigarette smoke.
Changbin was nothing, if not a disobedient piece of shit.
“Don’t stop.”
Kissing Chan felt like walking in from a run, and letting the cold air from the AC cool the sweat on his skin. Kissing Chan felt like flying too close to the sun, and like the cool morning breeze. Kissing Chan felt like a gulp of fresh air after feeling like he was suffocating for so fucking long, something that made his entire body relax as oxygen flooded his brain, cleared his vision up, and let that panic waste away in a forgotten pit in the back of his mind.
Kissing Chan made sense, because kissing him was always what was meant to happen.
His lips were soft, plush, and he tasted like what Changbin figured the first bite from the Apple of Eden tasted like. It tasted like his eyes finally opening, and the fog finally clearing up. It tasted like all of the answers in the Universe, and then some.
One of Chan’s hands let go, moving from the top of Changbin’s, towards his cheek. Changbin let his eyes fall closed, and he felt the bony knuckles of Chan’s fingers press up against his jaw, directing him so he could lift his chin. Tilting his head a bit, as Chan finally coaxed the bars apart, and easily stepped over the threshold as easily as coming home felt.
Changbin’s free hand moved to hold at Chan’s hand that was resting against his jaw. He felt Chan’s muscles twitch, hand moving and snaking out of Changbin’s hold so he could twine their fingers together, resting their hands in his own lap.
He held Changbin like he was something precious.
He held Changbin like he was something worth losing.
He wrapped himself up around Changbin’s heart and cradled it like it was a treasure worth losing his life over.
The kiss was slow, and it felt like the world finally caved in, and swallowed Changbin up whole. Chan moved his lips deliberately, mapping out Changbin’s mouth like he was burning it into the back of his mind. He kissed him with the intensity of somebody starving, but with the speed of somebody set on enjoying every last second of their meal.
Changbin itched.
Move closer, his mind, in no particular voice, supplied, Take, give, feast.
Chan’s tongue swiped over Changbin’s bottom lip, and promptly disconnected when a pitiful noise left Changbin.
And just when Changbin’s own voice in his mind was about to start spewing, he met Chan’s gaze.
Burning-hot, and so, so fucking comforting.
He wondered if he had some sort of heat-based kink.
He couldn’t get enough of it.
“What was that about being ignorant?” Changbin croaked, and promptly cursed out loud when his voice cracked. Chan broke out into giggles, high-pitched, a string of notes that Changbin wanted to tattoo onto his skin so he could replicate them on his computer and keep them tucked away in a folder only he knew about.
He was aware they had to talk about this.
Reality was settling in the cracks where the magic was starting to seep out, but Changbin didn’t feel nervous. Talking to Chan felt like breathing. It felt like second-nature. Chan filled in every crack that had made its way onto Changbin, filling them in perfectly. Like he was made to be Changbin’s to have. To love.
They could talk on their way back. They could talk when they collapsed in bed. They could talk over coffee in the morning, and then on the way to the beach. They could always talk.
“You tell me,” Chan finally answered when the giggles died down. When they both took a deep breath and let it all settle into their bones.
Changbin looked down at their hands. Conjoined, connected in every possible way. Chan followed his gaze, and smiled, as he moved the hands that weren’t intertwined a bit. Changbin watched as Chan brought his hand up to his lips, and pressed a kiss to Changbin’s knuckles.
“Don’t think there’s anything left to say about that. You showed it to me.”
Chan pressed another kiss to Changbin’s knuckles, before wrapping his pinky up around Changbin’s.
It felt loaded.
It felt like Changbin’s dumb little metaphors weren’t meaningless.
It felt like he had found the words he needed, after spending so much time and energy searching for them.
“Showed you what?”
Changbin looked at their pinkies. Chan’s was bony, pale skin stretching over bone, wrapping up around Changbin’s like it was meant to be there.
He brought their hands to his own lips, and pressed a kiss where their pinkies met.
“Dunno. That I should stop looking for dumb fucking metaphors, probably.”
He felt satisfied when Chan barked out a loud laugh, as he bumped his head into Changbin’s chest.