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He stirs in the wake of the early morning sun, overwarm from the clump of blankets his legs are tangled up in. Outside, through the blackout curtains and the tinted plate glass, rain streaks through the light with the sluggish, rolling patience of a storm in no rush to thunder.
Blindly, he reaches out—and his palm makes contact with Jeonghan's shoulder, warm and present. It doesn't take long for Seungcheol to take stock of where their limbs are; he finds the heels of Jeonghan's feet tickling his ankles, Jeonghan's elbows dug awkwardly into his hip, Jeonghan's hair caught in the corner of his mouth.
Jeonghan wakes too, and Seungcheol reaches out again. Once more, with purpose.
They navigate around each other, careful of the stretch and pop of Seungcheol's still-healing knee, cautious of the way Jeonghan sweeps his ankle beneath himself as he tugs Seungcheol close to kiss him, to touch him in all the ways he knows how. The blankets shift and flop. Jeonghan's palms kiss the mess of scar tissue along Seungcheol's surgery site. Seungcheol tucks Jeonghan's hair back and breathes him in.
"Will you like me even when I'm bald?" Jeonghan asks. His hands idly massage at Seungcheol's thighs. Seungcheol catches his hands and pulls them back up—Jeonghan moves to put them around Seungcheol's waist instead, fingers reaching for the tattoo on his back. Stroking along the outline of it firmly, as if he's trying to map it for his memory. To learn its width and its breadth, to know it by feel when his eyes are closed, when Seungcheol is away.
"I won't," Seungcheol says. "I'm gonna buy you a bunch of beanies to wear out so no one sees your egg head."
Jeonghan's eyebrow quirks up. "So you're the only one who gets to look at it?" He closes his lips over the peak of Seungcheol's Adam's apple and huffs a wicked little breath when Seungcheol shivers. "But what if I want everyone to see my egg head. What if Soonyoungie wants to rub it like a magic eight ball."
Seungcheol snorts. He pushes himself up on his elbows, hovering over Jeonghan to smack a kiss to his forehead. The sound of it is loud despite the unending pour of rain. Jeonghan looks inordinately pleased. "I'd like you even if your eyebrows fell off."
"I can make that happen," Jeonghan says.
"Please don't." Seungcheol presses himself close, close enough to feel Jeonghan's next breath, and says, apropos of nothing, "I'm sorry we can't go in together."
Jeonghan rubs a thumb over his cheek. His finger is rough, skin feathered in places where he'd spent yesterday gripping the back of a chair for his mobility exercises. "It's not your fault," he says quietly. "How many times have I told you that already?"
Enough. He's told Seungcheol this more than enough times. And yet—Seungcheol will never be rid of that feeling. The feeling that he's leaving Jeonghan out to dry, the feeling that he's missing out while Jeonghan goes into uncharted territory all alone. They've always taken their first steps into deep water together—hands linked, a carbon-copy marching beat in both their chests, all the same hopes and dreams and wants irrevocably tying them together.
Jeonghan will be gone for two years, and Seungcheol will just be here.
"I'm gonna shave my head to match yours," Seungcheol says instead. "That'll make up for it."
Jeonghan hums. "I think you'd look good," he says, running one hand up the back of Seungcheol's head, tugging lightly at his hair. "Handsome. A handsome egg." He smooths his palm down to the nape of Seungcheol's neck and asks, "Magic eight ball, do you love me?"
Outside, the rain comes to an abrupt halt. Drops linger, a slow descent from the clouds, catching on the window the way Jeonghan's lashes catch on Seungcheol's when he shuts his eyes to meet his mouth. In this moment, there is only this: the silence that draws out between them, never uncomfortable, always easy. The vastness of the bed they share, swallowing them up in a mess of pillows and sheets. Jeonghan's body, every inch of it known and understood by Seungcheol.
To be known is one thing. To be understood is another.
It is what Seungcheol accepts of what he knows and understands, that makes all the difference. I accept all of you, he acknowledges. The way you accept all of me.
Do you love me?
(Do you accept me?)
"Ask again later," Seungcheol says, chest full to bursting with words unsaid, pressing Jeonghan deeper into the mattress.
(It is decidedly so.)