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The sound of gently sizzling eggs was interrupted by a knock on the front door. Black eyes flicked in the direction of the sound, his lips pressing into a thin line as his irritation flared. Lee Sa-young pushed the pan he’d been making a rolled omelet in to a cold burner, stepping back from the stove top as he was forced to temporarily abandon making breakfast.
The knocking had apparently not gone unnoticed, and he could hear movement from the direction of the bedroom he shared with his partner, but he was closer to the door and got there first. After giving himself a moment to steel himself and wrangle some approximation of a polite smile onto his face, he opened the door.
“Team Leader Jung Bin,” he greeted the S-rank, and current number two in South Korea, on his doorstep. At least he man had the presence of mind to look abashed at making a house call, but it did nothing to ease the simmering annoyance Sa-young felt. “What a surprise.” It was, in fact, not a surprise at all.
Cha Eui-jae had chosen to wait out of view until he knew who was at the door, and when he heard Jung Bin’s name the bedraggled top ranked hunter finally emerged from the bedroom and shuffled towards them. Usually Eui-jae was relatively put together, at least before he went diving into whatever dungeon or rift was on the list for that day. Today he looked like he’d been dragged unwillingly from the bed he’d planned to spend several more hours in despite it already being late morning, clothing currently askew and hair ruffled as he came to stand by Sa-young’s side in the doorway.
A pale hand slid around the hunter’s lower back, fingers slipping up and under the material of his shirt to trace the scars beneath. It was such a common action that Eui-jae didn’t even seem to notice, although Sa-young watched as Jung Bin’s eyes tracked the movement until his hand disappeared under the fabric of the top. The Unawakened man wasn’t above putting his possessiveness on display when Jung Bin made a house call to drag his husband into a dungeon.
Even on normal days the amount of messages on the pager from the Awakened Management Bureau made Sa-young want to crush it, let alone the one day that Eui-jae had requested off in over a year. It was a conversation he’d brought up with both men on many previous occasions, and one he continued to try and champion despite both Eui-jae and Jung Bin desperately trying to ignore it.
“Ah, J, I paged you a few times earlier, a dungeon has opened and we were wondering if you would be able to take care of it. I’m sorry, I know it’s your day off, but…” Jung Bin trailed off, his eyes flicking up to Sa-young’s narrowed gaze, the black haired man’s lips pressed together in an annoyed line.
With a confused noise, Cha Eui-jae turned away from the door, Sa-young’s hand sliding over skin as he pulled away and headed back towards their room, leaving him with Jung Bin in the doorway.
“Would you like to come in?” He quietly hoped Jung Bin would say ‘no’, but wasn’t surprised when the man thanked him and stepped into his home. If he forced the team leader to stay outside much longer he’d never hear the end of it.
Closing the door behind Jung Bin, he slipped past him into the kitchen to wait for Eui-jae’s return. He wasn’t much longer, carrying the pager in his hand, moving to sit in the chair between Sa-young and Jung Bin.
“Oh, the pager’s battery died,” Eui-jae murmured, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “I changed the battery last night, it must have been bad.”
Jung Bin glanced between the pair, shifting his weight as he moved awkwardly in the chair he was occupying. “Well, I texted Lee Sa-young as well…”
“How unfortunate, my phone’s battery must also be dead.” He flashed a narrow-eyed smile as Cha Eui-jae shot him a pointed look when Jung Bin’s attention was drawn down to his phone as it pinged to indicate he’d gotten a text. Eui-jae distinctly remembered Sa-young quietly wandering into their bedroom in the dark that morning and stuffing his vibrating phone as deep into their dresser sock drawer as it would go, but chose in that moment not to point that out.
When he noticed the glare his partner gave him the annoyingly innocent smile he’d been wearing sank into something slightly more unapologetically menacing as Eui-jae kept his attention on his husband while Jung Bin attempted to put out whatever fire was happening in his text messages.
As Jung Bin sighed and set his phone face down, crisis temporarily averted, Sa-young pushed back from the table, putting some bread in the toaster and pulling out jars of jam from the fridge and setting them down between the two men. When the toast had finished he delivered it to the table before returning to wait for more, listening to the pair talk about the dungeon Jung Bin was attempting to drag Cha Eui-jae into this time.
“Mm, the jam is very good. Not too sweet, where did you get it?” Jung Bin asked around a mouthful of toast.
“Oh, Sa-young makes it himself.”
“That’s very impressive.”
Sa-young turned his head slowly, fixing Jung Bin with an icy black stare. “Well, I do tend to have a lot of free time.” Jung Bin choked on his toast, downing an entire glass of water to get it down as Sa-young turned his attention back to waiting for more toast from the toaster and pointedly ignored the coughing coming from the golden haired man.
He scrubbed his eyes as Cha Eui-jae patted Jung Bin on the back, the pair immediately going back to discussing the dungeon. When he heard the scrape of a chair he whipped his head around, watching the movement, his brain struggling to catch up to the last of the conversation. “Let me get dressed.”
No. Absolutely not. Sa-young ground his teeth together for a moment, options flying through his mind before he finally settled on the only one that felt like it was actually viable. The only one that would hopefully be enough to get his husband out of this mess, even if for just one day.
His knees buckled, arms flying out as he tried to catch himself on the counter but collapsed to the ground regardless with a grunt. “Sa-young!” A hand reached out to catch his head before it could hit the ground.
Strong arms wrapped around him, hauling him into Eui-jae’s lap, his head gently cradled against the older man’s chest. “Is it your eyes?” He gave a weak nod in return, covering his eyes with his hand, glasses having abandoned his face for the floor.
Eui-jae lifted him and settled him on the couch, pulling a pillow behind him to prop him up against the arm of it, darting off in the direction of their bedroom.
A gentle hand fell on his shoulder, and for a moment Sa-young wondered if he should be feeling guilty in this moment as he listened to Jung Bin crouch next to him. “Are you alright?” There was genuine worry for him behind the tone, and he had to press his lips together and swallow before he could speak, beginning to feel a little bad for the position he’d put the other man in.
“My head…You know it happens sometimes,” he mumbled.
“Well it can’t be helped,” Jung Bin responded as Eui-jae returned with his medicine in hand.
“I’m sorry, Jung Bin, I can call Aunt to be with him…” A bitter taste rose up in Sa-young’s mouth and he had to force his lips to stay shut against spouting a rage fueled tirade.
“Ah, no, please don’t apologize. And I can call Matthew and see if he’s available, you should be with your husband when he’s in this state. If it got any worse and he had to go to the hospital…” The man trailed off before standing. “If you replaced the battery in the pager, I’ll take my leave and let you know if I need anything further today. Take care of yourself, Lee Sa-young.”
“Thank you, Jung Bin, I’ll make sure to keep the pager nearby,” Eui-jae called as the golden haired man started for the door and let himself out, busy administering the drops into Sa-young’s eyes.
Sa-young did his best to listen for the car tires on their driveway pulling away over Eui-jae’s fussing, and as soon the car went from reverse to drive and started off, he was back on his feet looking down into Eui-jae’s baffled face.
“Sa-young…” There was no use hiding it, he’d never recovered this fast before, and it took only moments before the other man’s face went blank as he stared up at his miraculously recovered husband.
He reached into his pocket before holding out a closed fist towards Eui-jae, waiting patiently until the other man reached up to take whatever he held, dropping a round, silver battery into the waiting palm.
“Sa-young,” he hissed, looking down at the fresh battery after it landed in his palm. “You can’t swap out the batteries in my pager!” The black haired man watched in silence as the older man shot to his feet, struggling with his anger in that moment, teeth grinding together so hard that even he could hear it as an Unawakened.
“It’s a low level dungeon, I made sure to actually read Jung Bin’s texts before ignoring them. The Awakened Management Bureau contracts with the guilds but never asks them to help. Let one of them pick up the slack for once.” He waited a few more moments, watching the litany of expressions cross Eui-jae’s face before he seemed to just settle on irritation.
“Hyung.” He waited for their eyes to meet before leaning in with the intention of a kiss, only to be met with a hand in his face holding him back.
He turned his head enough to nibble on the finger partially covering his mouth, tongue flicking out to lick the spot he’d bitten when Eui-jae didn’t immediately pull his hand back. With a sigh of exasperation, Cha Eui-jae finally let his hand drop, glaring up at his husband.
“You could have told me.”
“No, you would have just run off again as usual.” The accusation was plain and there was no argument offered for that, they both knew it was the truth and there was no use fighting now. Eui-jae collapsed onto the couch with a groan, all energy suddenly leaving his limbs.
“You haven’t been able to enjoy a day off in so long. I know how those dungeons are affecting you, what good is a hero if he can’t perform anymore due to the stress? Taking days off to recover should be understandable, even to someone as stubborn as you.” He’d stepped closer as he spoke, standing over the older man, a leg on either side of his knees. When Eui-jae stayed quiet he pressed the issue, “You’ve been blacking out more often, you can’t keep going on like this.”
He watched as Eui-jae’s face went blank and he could imagine what the older man was thinking of. About eight months ago he’d woken up to his partner panicking next to him. For someone Unawakened it was a dangerous situation to be next to the strongest Awakened person in the country, and yet he’d reached out and held Eui-jae as he tried to calm him down. What was a light shove from Eui-jae was more than enough to send Sa-young to the hospital.
He’d woken up in a setting that was now annoyingly familiar with its white, sterile walls and the scent of disinfectant and bleach. The pain, though, was different from his usual symptoms, and it took some time for the memories linked to this hospital visit to come back. It seemed it didn’t take long for the man sitting in a chair at the side of his hospital bed to realize he’d woken.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Sa-young.” He turned his head towards the voice, frowning when he saw his husband, curled in on himself in a cheap hospital chair, head in his hands. “I hurt you, I broke your ribs just with a shove.”
The bitter laugh that bubbled up in response brought with it a wave of agony, bringing tears to his eyes as he moaned in pain. Despite his words about leaving, Eui-jae dragged the chair closer, a gentle hand landing on Sa-young’s shoulder. “Like I’d let you leave,” he finally ground out, turning his head to face the man hovering next to him.
“I’m serious.”
“Oh, I know you are. You’re welcome to try to run away to some place you think I won’t find you. I’ll just track you down anyway.” He meant it, and he could see by the way Eui-jae’s lips pressed into a thin line that the older man also knew that. Silence stretched between them for a few moments before Sa-young lifted a hand, wincing as the movement disturbed his side. Getting the idea of what he wanted, his husband leaned in to gently rest his cheek in the open palm, resting his own hand over it and threading his fingers through Sa-young’s, holding it there so Sa-young didn’t need to use his own strength to keep his hand where it was.
“Besides, losing you would hurt more than a few broken ribs.”
“And a punctured lung.”
Rolling his eyes, he rubbed his thumb against his partner’s cheek. “Whatever, the sentiment still stands.”
Even now, fully recovered and back at home, there was occasionally the ghost of pain in his side. He could always feel eyes following him whenever he instinctively reached for his ribs when a pang went through that area.
“Hyung,” he called, not wanting to leave Eui-jae drifting through useless memories for too long.
Eui-jae had been scrubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms, and he let them fall away as Sa-young called out to him. He could tell the other man was still angry with him, most likely debating what to do about this situation.
“Are you going to run off even though Jung Bin said he’d ask Matthew from the HB Guild to deal with it?”
“…No.”
A wide grin spread across his face, eyes closing slightly in the way that Eui-jae always found endearing.
Sa-young had been so focused on keeping an eye on the older man’s face he hadn’t noticed the hand reaching out to take his own, a thumb running over his knuckles and giving a gentle tug. The invitation was clear, and he stepped forward, lifting one knee and letting it settle on the couch next to Eui-jae’s hips before moving to do the same with the other, perching on his husband’s knees.
Curling forward, he rested his forehead against the other man’s, their noses brushing for a moment before he threaded his fingers in Eui-jae’s hair, tugging until the other obediently tilted his head back. Sa-young captured his lips with his own as soon as the angle allowed, his tongue sliding into the already parted, expectant mouth. Eui-jae tasted slightly sweet, just like his jam.
The dark haired man pulled his mouth away, grinning as Eui-jae tried to follow. He leaned back in to nip at his lower lip once, then taking it between his teeth, pulling back until it slipped from his bite. Finally, he stole one last kiss, unable to stop the smile that spread against his husband’s lips.
“Today you’re mine and I won’t share you with anyone.”
“Yeah,” came the quiet response, their eyes meeting before Eui-jae reached up to gently cup his cheek. “All yours.” He wrapped his arms around Sa-young’s lower back, standing up from the couch as the younger man dropped his head into the crook of his neck, laughing into his shoulder. Eui-jae also couldn’t help his bubbling amusement as he walked them back to the kitchen so Sa-young could finish breakfast, their laughter mingling as the shared a day together.