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When they met each other, Wonwoo was barely seventeen and he was trying to navigate high school to the best of his ability.
Lee Chan was fifteen and his cheeks were round and his eyes even rounder.
The first thing he ever said to Wonwoo was a sunbae-nim filled to the brim with hope and a dash of stars, the same stars Wonwoo notices swimming in his eyes.
“Oh,” Soonyoung said beside him, turning around as they made their usual way to the train station after school. “Chan-ah.”
Chan bowed politely before turning his gaze to Wonwoo again. He just noticed he was clutching a stack of papers in his hands.
“Sunbae-nim,” he repeated, his lips jutting in a pout and his eyes crinkled with worry. “I'm so sorry to bother you, but I was wondering… Well, you're good at math, right?”
Wonwoo could see Soonyoung's expression morphing from confused to amused from the corner of his eye.
“I mean, I guess you could say so,” he replied, still wondering where all of this was headed.
Chan pressed his lips in a line before bowing a whole ninety degrees, the papers between his fingers wrinkling. Soonyoung stifled a laugh.
“Please, could you tutor me?” He asked, his voice louder, making the few other students passing by turn around to look.
Wonwoo felt his cheeks heating up before digging his elbow into Soonyoung's ribs so he could act like a normal human being for once in their life .
“I don't know…” he started to say, but Soonyoung's arm wrapped around his neck with more force than a skinny and bony teen should have.
“Look at the kid, Wonwoo-yah,” he said, shaking him a little. “Besides, this is the perfect opportunity for you to have somewhat of a social life.”
And Wonwoo did look at the kid. His cheeks were flushed with embarrassment and he just looked in such despair that something tugged along Wonwoo's heartstrings, making him sigh in defeat.
“Let me see,” he said, extending a hand so Chan could lend him the papers. He skimmed over the exercises. “Yeah, fine, I can teach you these.”
When Chan smiled, his eyes narrowed and all of his teeth showed. He was eager when he saved his number in his phone and waved them goodbye before bolting in the opposite direction. Wonwoo's eyes lingered.
He didn't know it yet, but he was bound to spend so much time doing that, and only that. Letting his eyes linger.
Chan proved to be an enthusiastic student. They sat in a convenience store down the road from school every day and went over what seemed like a hundred exercises until Wonwoo could almost see the gears inside his brain turning.
It was hot and there was barely any breeze even while they were sitting outside. They had been doing that for almost a whole year now and Wonwoo felt proud, Chan had progressed leaps and bounds and it was always nice to have someone actually paying attention when he spoke.
“Let's take a break,” he said, and Chan groaned before pressing his forehead to the cold metal table.
Wonwoo went inside to buy something cold to drink and came back to Chan in the exact same position. He pressed the cold can to his nape, earning himself a surprised yelp.
“Thanks, hyung,” Chan said, and it still rings somewhat foreign. It took Wonwoo a while to convince him to drop the sunbae-nim altogether.
“You'll do fine in your test,” Wonwoo said, pressing the can to his forehead to alleviate the heat.
Chan sighs and Wonwoo feels the corners of his mouth turning up but he hides it behind the can.
“I really hope so,” Chan said, stacking his papers just to do something with his hands. Wonwoo could tell. “If I don't, my parents will make me drop the dance club next year.”
Wonwoo hummed. They drank in silence for a few beats before Chan sighed again, this time more theatrical, extending his arms above his head with one of those bright smiles that almost made Wonwoo squint.
“So, hyung, graduation is close,” he said. “Are you excited?”
Wonwoo shrugged. “It'll be weird,” he says. “I never lived far from my parents.”
Chan sighed dreamily as he rested his chin on his hand, looking at the distance. “But you'll be in Seoul. That must be so exciting.”
“I guess so.”
“What if you stumble into some celebrity?”
“I'll be busy,” Wonwoo said, with a chuckle. “You know, with classes and all that?”
Chan waved a hand like classes were a nuance and an afterthought instead of the whole reason Wonwoo was leaving town.
“When you leave,” he said, this time his voice dropping to a whisper, like he was telling him a secret, “don't forget about me.”
Wonwoo looked at him and something he could not name stirred inside his chest. Chan's school shirt had a few buttons undone, letting his clavicles peek. A drop of sweat ran along the column of his neck. His cheeks were slightly flushed and his hair tousled, his fingers drumming the can. Wonwoo noticed then that Chan picked at his cuticles.
He considered what to say. I don't think I could even if I tried. Or I'm so used to you now that it'll be weird existing away from you . Or even You're destined to such big things, I'm sure you'll have Seoul wrapped around your finger by the time I get my degree.
“I won't,” he ended up settling with. It was enough, if Chan's satisfied smile was any indication, before he got back to the numbers in his notebook.
It was his last day in town. He barely slept, he spent almost the whole night staring at the ceiling. He'd wake up at dawn and his dad would drive him to his new dorm to meet his new roommate and settle into his new life.
There were way too many new for him to be comfortable with.
Even after the exams were done and Chan aced them, they kept their little routine of walking home together. Chan would talk and talk and talk and Wonwoo never got tired of the sound of his voice, filling every step of the way. Or the way the sun setting made his dark hair sparkle. Or how he turned around to look at him, his eyes crinkling in a smile when he'd caught Wonwoo already staring at him.
Their last time together had been awkward, to say the least. Chan wished him a good trip and Wonwoo thanked him. They stood in front of each other where their paths diverted and stared. There had been so much staring .
In the end, Chan had smiled, a small thing, so strange in his features too used to big demonstrations of happiness.
Words had piled on Wonwoo's throat, so jumbled up together he couldn't pick one from the other so he didn't say anything. He only nodded when Chan wished him well and that had been it. That was it.
Until it wasn't. Until Wonwoo found himself opening his front door to a Chan covered in sweat and with a ragged breath. His hands were on his knees and the sun was barely a hint on the horizon.
“What are you doing here?” He asked, his grip on the doorknob tight, his socks sticking to the wooden floor.
Chan straightened and looked at Wonwoo. Sweat damped the ends of his hair. Even before sunrise, the heat was atrocious, and humidity made everything stick to the skin.
“I wanted to say goodbye.”
Wonwoo knew that wasn't all. He knew there was a lot Chan was keeping from him.
But he'd take it. It was enough, for today, to only have those words hanging between them.
After a few seconds of hesitation, Chan crossed the distance in a few strides and pulled him into a hug.
“I'll miss you, hyung,” Chan said in the crook of his neck, and something in Wonwoo's chest screamed in pain.
“Me too, Jungchannie,” he replied.
The moment prolonged until it got awkward. Chan pushed himself away and took a few steps back, his eyes lingering on Wonwoo for a few more seconds before he whispered bye .
Then, he took off. Wonwoo's goodbye hung from his lips as he watched Chan disappear on the next turn, his feet hitting against the concrete in a rhythmic thud thud thud.
Wonwoo hadn't thought of Chan in probably years by now.
He was staring down at the frozen produce at the grocery store, the basket handle uncomfortably cutting the blood circulation in his hand. He didn't remember for the life of him if his mother asked him for peas or lentils for that night's dinner.
Wonwoo was twenty-three now. He had a degree, an apartment back in Seoul that he shared with Soonyoung and this new guy named Jihoon they found on Facebook when they were searching for another housemate to split the rent, and whatever sexual tension was between them that Wonwoo couldn't find in himself the strength to care about.
He had a job. A nice one, since he could afford the gamer PC he had always dreamed of. And he liked his developer job, even if most people squinted in confusion when he tried to explain in detail what he did for a living.
Wonwoo decided to play safe and grabbed one bag each before tossing them onto the basket. He closed the freezer door and made his way to the cashier, a lovely elderly woman who had known his family since they moved to the neighborhood.
“Such a nice son,” she said as she packed his stuff neatly into plastic bags. “Your mom is so lucky to have you.”
“It's just groceries,” he mumbled, but either she didn't hear him or didn't care.
“How long are you staying in town, sweetheart?” She asked, handing him back his debit card with a smile.
“Just the weekend,” he replied, pocketing back his wallet.
She cooed at him some more, reminiscing about when he was a kid and came to the store to buy ice cream with his younger brother before she let him escape.
He came out to the fresh summer air and to the cicadas singing. It was later than he thought, the sun had set and his mother would scold him if he didn't come back in the next five seconds with the rest of the ingredients she needed.
Wonwoo turned to head back home when he collided with another person. He opened his mouth to say sorry but what left his lips instead was:
“Chan?”
The same smile of curled lips hung from his mouth as he helped Wonwoo stabilize himself with both hands on his arms.
“Wonwoo hyung!” He replied, and Wonwoo's eyes lingered. “What are you doing here? Are you back from Seoul?”
“I'm just visiting,” he said, way too aware of the shape of Chan's fingers through the fabric of his t-shirt.
Chan peered at the grocery bag hanging from his hands.
“Are you busy?”
Wonwoo looked up at the moon. It was a perfect summer night. He said no.
That's how he ended up sitting down in the same convenience store as all those years before, with the same boy he used to sit with. Unless he was not a boy anymore. Chan's shoulders were broader, his jaw was more defined, and his hair was colored a honey shade of brown. He still had those mischievous eyes and full cheeks.
“I'm just visiting too,” he said, after a sip from his soda can.
“Are you living in Seoul now?” Wonwoo asked, doing his best to not let hope shine through his words.
It was nice, sitting with Chan and talking just like all those years before. Even when they promised to stay in touch, it had all been too much. Wonwoo was trying not to drown under the load of his new responsibilities and at the end there was so much he could have in common with a high schooler. So they fell out of touch. As far as he knew, he was still friends with Soonyoung, but Wonwoo never asked about him.
Chan hummed, his eyes on his fingers drumming his can, a smile tugging on his lips. It was a sad kind of smile.
“No, actually,” he replied. “I got a scholarship in Tokyo.”
“Oh,” Wonwoo replied. “So just passing by?”
Chan nodded, still the sad smile on his lips. “I leave tomorrow first thing. I have a dance showcase next week.”
Wonwoo turned the can between his fingers, just to have something to do with his hands.
“Congrats,” he said. There was an edge to his voice that not even himself could entirely decipher. “Glad to hear you still dance.”
The color came back to Chan's cheeks.
“You should come see me sometime, hyung,” he said. His smile was more genuine.
Wonwoo's eyes lingered on it.
“I'll contact you next time I have time off from work.”
Chan extended his hand and Wonwoo passed him his phone. They both ignored his mom's text asking where her peas were.
“There you go,” he said, his fingers touching Wonwoo's skin when he gave him his phone back. “I hope to hear from you.”
They said their goodbyes, again, standing in front of each other at a fork in the road, the street lamps drawing orange sparkles from Chan's eyes.
Again, Chan approached him first. He closed the distance but instead of pulling Wonwoo into a hug, he stood in his tiptoes and kissed his cheek. It was a sweet, gentle thing. Wonwoo kept staring at his back as he left.
There was too much to say. Or too little, between two strangers. Wonwoo stared at the contact info Chan saved as his mother scolded him for taking too long. The peas weren't frozen anymore.
There were things that didn't translate too well to other settings. Wonwoo couldn't imagine Chan in any other place that wasn't their hometown, so he'd rather bury him there, with whatever left unsaid that remained, he thought as he packed his bags and came back to his apartment.
The text chain between them remained silent.
Wonwoo was twenty-seven when he let Jihoon and Eunji drag him to one of their work events.
Eunji left their ensuite bathroom while putting on her earrings to find him sprawled on their bed with his phone in his hand playing a video game.
“Help me with my zipper,” she said, struggling with the clasp of her left earring.
Wonwoo stood up to do so, closing the zipper of her red dress and letting his hands linger on her shoulders.
“Remind me why am I going,” he asked in a playful tone.
“Because you love me,” she said in the same tone. “And you're a supportive boyfriend.”
To that, Wonwoo couldn't argue. So he followed her to the car and assured her the lipstick matched her dress perfectly and held her hand when she was introduced along Jihoon as one of their best producers at their label.
He glued himself to Soonyoung, looking equally awkward in his suit as Jihoon's guest while both their partners navigated the more luxurious side of their jobs.
He was about to take a sip from his glass when Soonyoung elbowed him in the ribs, making his teeth hit the rim.
“Isn't that-” he gasped. “He is! Yah, Lee Chan!”
Before Wonwoo could even process the words that had just left Soonyoung's mouth, he was waving across the room. Then, soon enough, from the crowd emerged Lee Chan.
His smile curled up on his lips and his eyes were shiny, his fringe falling onto them, and Wonwoo was twenty-seven but his eyes still lingered.
Soonyoung hugged him and Chan laughed in his ear at whatever he told him. Wonwoo stood there, like struck by lightning, his glass hanging from his fingers.
Chan redirected his attention to him and he wrapped him in a hug too. He was wearing a different cologne and his shoulders were even broader.
“What are you doing here?” Soonyoung asked, his eyes almost disappearing with the width of his smile.
“I work here,” Chan shrugged, but his smile betrayed how proud he felt. “As a choreographer.”
Soonyoung gasped even more loudly as he wrapped him with an arm.
“My dongsaeng from the dance club,” he said, faking tears. “You really made it, Chan.”
“Congrats,” Wonwoo said and Chan redirected his smile at him.
“Oh?” Eunji said as both she and Jihoon approached them. “What's this?”
Wonwoo felt dizzy as introductions were exchanged. He hadn't thought of Chan in a long time, too caught up with work and life and then he met Eunji through Jihoon and the whirlwind of their relationship took him to the motions and now he was here, years after the last time he saw Chan. The light drew sparkles from his eyes that were too different from the ones from the lamppost and they kept mentioning people they worked with he didn't know and Chan was not the boy who sat beside him with a stack of numbers in front of him.
Chan lingered, telling stories about Tokyo, about friends from college, about an ambiguous name that kept getting brought up in conversation that he couldn't decipher what his place in his life was. And Wonwoo didn't know the man standing before him, with a hand in his pocket and his confident smile and his nose that he scrunched when something was particularly amusing to him.
The night dragged on and Soonyoung flagged down a taxi for him and Eunji, pushing him to the back seat.
“Don't worry, we'll make sure Chan gets home safe,” he said, as Wonwoo looked up his shoulder to see Chan and Jihoon talking by the sidewalk. “I know he's a precious dongsaeng for you.”
Eunji took off her earrings as the car drove off, handing them to him for safekeeping inside his pocket.
They went through their night routines in companionable silence, dancing around each other and smiling whenever they caught sight of the other in the bathroom mirror.
“Chan seems like a nice kid,” she said as they settled under the covers. He didn't even bother to tangle his legs with hers anymore. “Very nice and polite.”
“I wouldn't know,” he replied, folding his glasses to leave them on his bedside table. “We haven't talked in years.”
“Maybe we should have him for dinner sometime,” she hummed, before turning around.
Wonwoo observed the line of her back for a few seconds, until her breathing told him she was asleep.
And he loved Eunji a fair amount, but she had never made him feel… whatever he felt when Chan parted the crowd like a messiah with his smile and his shining eyes.
It would be messy, he thought. He'd have to find a new apartment, but maybe that would mean that he could finally adopt a cat, since Eunji’s allergies never allowed him to do so before. He couldn't for the life of him remember who originally owned the kitchen table or who had bought the dishware. He'd probably leave all there for her, anyway.
Wonwoo grabbed his phone from the bedside table and squinted at the bright light. He scrolled through his saved contacts until he found his name. His finger hovered over the text button but he ended up not pressing it.
When Wonwoo was thirty-five, he was assigned his best friends’ best man.
He spent the whole day running around, in between corralling the grooms’ families into their spots, finding Soonyoung's missing shoe, or tying Jihoon's tie up because he was so nervous his fingers were trembling.
By the time the ceremony was over, he was ready to clock out and go home to pass out face-first on any horizontal surface, it didn't even matter if it was bed or not.
Jihoon and Soonyoung just had their first dance and Wonwoo had just downed his third drink of the night when someone cleared his throat behind him.
When he turned around he found two sparkling eyes that were both familiar and strange in the way only Lee Chan could manage.
Lee Chan, who kept waltzing in his life for the shortest periods of time to leave it for years and years.
“Hyung,” he said, with a smile that reached his eyes, offering him one of the two glasses he was holding.
“Lee Chan,” Wonwoo nodded his head, accepting the drink.
It had been around eight years, give or take. Wonwoo's eyes lingered on the way Chan's posture was still perfect, on his dark hair falling in his eyes, on his sharp features and sharper eyes. He also noticed how there were new wrinkles around his eyes, that he didn't seem to pick at his cuticles anymore, and how, unlike last time, there wasn't a silver ring in his middle finger.
Chan smiled around the rim of his glass, pointing at the couple in the center of the dance floor with a nod of his head.
“They're made for each other, those hyungs.”
Wonwoo forced his eyes to leave Chan, convincing himself by sheer willpower that he wouldn't disappear in a cloud of smoke as soon as he turned around.
“They are,” he replied, with no little happiness for his friends.
“So,” Chan said after a few beats of silence. “Last time I heard about you, you were in the States.”
“Yeah, a good job opportunity came, and since Eunji and I had just broken up…”
“Ah, yeah, I heard about that too,” Chan's tone didn't betray anything of what he was thinking. Or maybe it did but Wonwoo didn't know how to read it anymore.
“I have my own company now,” Wonwoo said, to which Chan smiled genuinely. “I'm settling back here permanently. What about you?” Wonwoo asked, if anything just to fill the silence, at most because he really wanted to know. “Do you still own the dance studio in Gangnam?”
“I do. I'm going back to Japan, actually. To branch out. It's a whole thing.”
“Wow. That sounds amazing, Chan.”
“Mhm. My partner didn't seem to think so,” he replied, touching the space left by the ring as if it was instinct. Like he was not yet used to the vacant space.
“Sorry to hear that.”
Chan shrugged like it was not a big deal even though it was. It definitely was.
“How was the trip over here? Busan is pretty this time of the year,” Chan asked, visibly trying to divert the conversation. Wonwoo was glad to comply.
“Soonyoung drove me over, so you could say we're lucky there's even a wedding.”
Chan laughed, this whole body thing, wild and beautiful and his canines seemed sharp and Wonwoo's eyes lingered in his lips and his whole body ached.
But Chan's fingertips found the empty space left in his finger again, like a ghost, on reflex, and it's fine, Wonwoo thought.
It seemed like they only got the timing wrong.
They seemed to gravitate towards each other the whole night. After Soonyoung drunkenly dragged him to the dance floor to humiliate him, he found himself searching for Chan in the crowd. He found him not too far away, flailing one of Soonyoung’s nieces in the air while she laughed delighted every time he would set her back on the floor.
“God, is that still going on?” Soonyoung laughed close to his ear, his body weight against Wonwoo.
“What?” Wonwoo asked, his eyes still lingering in the way Chan's eyes crinkled in the corners whenever the little girl laughed.
“Go save that guy because none of us is getting any younger and Chan might pull a muscle if she keeps insisting on getting carried,” Soonyoung said, patting him on the chest with all the wisdom someone drunk in happiness and vodka cocktails could muster.
“I thought we were dancing?” Wonwoo insisted, but Soonyoung only laughed, his eyes disappearing with the force of his happiness.
“I'll go find my husband now,” he said before he gently pushed Wonwoo in Chan's general direction.
It didn't take much convincing the little niece to stop terrorizing Chan, only a few Oppa will dance with you again later and a promise of Wonwoo letting her have his piece of cake until they were lingering on the margins of the dance floor again.
It was nice, Wonwoo thought, to be able to stand next to Chan, to feel the warmth radiating from his body, to pretend that time didn't pass them by even though it was pretty evident it did.
Soon enough, it was only Soonyoung and Jihoon on the dance floor, hand in hand, after most of the guests had left, talking in soft whispers as the hotel staff dismantled the wedding paraphernalia around them.
Chan's hair was messy and he had undid a few buttons of his shirt. His eyes were glossy and his cheeks were flushed.
And he was so beautiful under the venue's lights that shone like stars in his eyes.
And the timing was just all so wrong.
“Where are you staying?” Chan asked, hands in his pockets. A little bit of his heart peeking.
“Here, fifth floor,” Wonwoo replied, keeping his cards close to his chest. Chan quirked an eyebrow.
“So, not staying over at Jihoon's parents place?”
“They are hosting relatives, I figured it was easier. Besides, it can get a little awkward if he's not around.”
“I get it,” Chan nodded before tearing his gaze from Wonwoo. “I got an Airbnb not too far.”
When Chan sighed, Wonwoo knew he also knew. They both knew the night rang with the promise of fulfilling a long-suffering wish, but they also knew… It was not the time. No when Chan was visibly nursing a very fresh wound, and they deserved to be more than just that. One night.
“It was nice seeing you, hyung. Glad to see you are doing fine.”
“Same, Chan. Let me know the next time you're in Seoul. We could catch up, have a drink.”
“Of course.”
Chan hooked his chin on his shoulder when he enveloped him in a hug. He was not the same person Wonwoo had met all those years ago and something in Chan's eyes let him know that he was thinking the same thing. They were both a little battered up from living their lives and their comings and goings and even though Wonwoo knew it was for the best when Chan left his side to bid his goodbye to the couple, he still wanted. He wanted so badly that his gums ached and his hands itched and the drink in his glass turned sour in his mouth.
It makes sense when it ends like this.
Wonwoo is thirty-nine. When he looks at himself in the mirror he notices all the places that are different from what he was used to seeing. The new wrinkles, the smile lines, the occasional gray hair.
Every sign of the passage of time that translates in his skin, he has earned. He is proud. He is fulfilled, he is secure, he is perfectly fine.
He is astonished when he opens his door and finds Lee Chan standing on the other side. Wonwoo is too old. He feels young, all too young, like the day the sun was setting over their hometown and Chan was asking if he could tutor him. Like he was sealing both their destinies, like something down to their atomic level knew that no matter how many times the timing would be wrong, at some point, it was bound to be right.
He is astonished even if Chan sent him a text the day before asking him if he could swing by.
Hi, hyung. I'm coming back home. Are you still up for that drink offer?
Chan follows him to the kitchen and watches him place the takeout food on actual dishes. Wonwoo can't help but feel a little self-conscious, even if it was his idea to have Chan over instead of meeting him in a more neutral place. He keeps thinking of how this must look like to him, pushing forty and still hopeless in the kitchen. But Chan only smiles and there are wrinkles in his eyes but the way his lips curl up is the same from all those years ago.
They sit on the kitchen island and Wonwoo can't help himself but stare. He stares at Chan as he recounts one of his many adventures in Japan, gesturing with his chopsticks to go along with his story, his voice filling his usually quiet apartment.
“So,” he asks, because he needs to know before he continues this interaction, he needs to know where they stand. “Are you planning on sticking around this time?”
Chan’s eyes narrow and his smile turns playful before he replies, seizing Wonwoo up like he is prey and Chan is a cat that likes to play with its food before eating it.
“That’s the plan, yes,” he says, without breaking eye contact and Wonwoo feels ancient but his ears still have the ability to turn red, to his big dismay. “I think I found a good enough reason to finally stay in one place.”
“That’s nice to hear,” he plays dumb, as if there’s any case scenario where the mouse successfully escapes the cat, “we could do this more often.”
“Yeah, hyung. It’d be nice having you back in my life.”
It takes Wonwoo by surprise the bluntness of the statement, the way Chan says it so matter of factly and straight to the point. He realizes, maybe with a little delay but still, that this man sitting in front of him hiding his smile with his glass as he keeps staring at him, in some ways is the Chan he knew but in others, he’s not. And what a wonderful thing, to have so many new things about him to discover. Wonwoo yearns for it, to unravel all Chan’s secrets and quirks and habits, to keep them safe, like a dragon hoarding its treasure. To learn how he likes his breakfast in the morning, or his preferred temperature for a shower, or which drama he is binge-watching before bed every night. He yearns for a collection of all the things that make Chan… well, Chan.
As they start to tidy up, Wonwoo’s eyes linger on Chan’s hands, on how he brings the dishes to the sink and starts to pull up his sleeves to wash them. After some bickering and Wonwoo insisting he is a guest and therefore he is not allowed to wash anything, they end up settling in a compromise. Wonwoo washes and Chan dries, and even if it’s the first time they do such a thing together, it feels familiar, so familiar that Wonwoo’s heart even forgets to skip a beat.
Chan dries the cups they just used and places them carefully where Wonwoo points and yeah, he thinks. He could get used to this, to having Chan fill in the empty spaces of his life, to see to the full extent the man he became, to come back home to him in the kitchen or his living room or his bed.
So he gives a little prayer to ask that please he didn't read the signs wrong and lets his hands finally reach for Chan's waist. His fingers curl around the fabric of his shirt and Chan doesn't even seem fazed when he turns around and leans on the counter.
Chan looks at him and his eyes linger on Wonwoo's face until his hand comes up to push a strand of hair behind his ear.
“Hi,” he says, still smiling, and Wonwoo wants in a way he never has wanted anything before in his life.
Wonwoo presses his forehead against Chan's, lets his warmth slip to his skin, closes his eyes so he can remember better that moment. Chan's hand moves from his hair to his neck, he gently presses two fingers on Wonwoo's pulse point. He is sure he can tell how his heart is about to beat out of his chest causing him to bleed all over the countertop and his recently remodeled kitchen floor.
“I will kiss you now,” he says, and he feels a little dumb saying it out loud but the laugh he gets from Chan is enough compensation.
“Hyung,” he replies. “ Finally .”
Then Wonwoo closes the distance between them and kissing Lee Chan isn't this huge earth-shattering thing that tilts the world on its axis and makes everything change. No, nothing like that. It's soft and gentle, easy, like he finally made it back home after a long day at work, like finding the puzzle piece that was missing to complete the picture, like oh, right, this was missing all along .
Sadly, air is still a thing that human beings need, even with technology advancing in leaps and bounds and Wonwoo wishes there was a way he could spend his days with Chan's lips on his but he needs to pull away to breathe. He discovers quickly that it isn't such a terrible loss as Chan pushes him closer to him and buries his face on his chest. His own arms wrap around his shoulders and they stay like that for a few seconds. He might be too stunned to speak.
“I was hoping I could stay the night,” Chan says against the fabric of his shirt and Wonwoo can't help but laugh.
“At this point, I would be offended if you didn't,” he replies before nuzzling Chan's hair just because now he can.
Chan laughs and the sound somehow gets lodged inside Wonwoo’s ribcage. Or, actually, it becomes updated, cataloged along with all the other Chan’s laughs that he always had stored for safekeeping in his heart.
Wonwoo realizes then and there, with Chan's lips trailing kisses along his clavicles, that he probably spent most of his life a little bit in love with him.
They don't even have sex, that first night. They lay in Wonwoo's bed with their shirts off and the curtains drawn to let the moonlight in, in something that feels far more intimate than having sex.
They relearn each other, the cadence of their voices, the way their eyes spark while lying on their sides looking at each other. They learn for the first time the way their bodies slot together as if they are a perfect match, and how it feels to sleep curled around each other.
They learn how it is to wake up beside the other and to navigate Wonwoo's kitchen in perfect tandem, attuned to the other. As if that's how it was always meant to be, as if every step of the way was meant to take them to that moment in time, with Wonwoo's hands lingering in Chan's bare waist as he hums a tune under his breath and makes breakfast.
Wonwoo is thirty-nine and his left knee hurts when it's about to rain and he is too old to go out of his way to find love and certainly for believing in such a thing as first loves or soulmates but he believes in the man handing him a bowl of steaming rice and he believes in his calloused hands when they grab his and he certainly believes when Lee Chan looks at him, the same boyish expression in his sparkly eyes than all those years before, and says:
“I've been waiting for this for so long.”