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“Hyung, can you imagine if I’d turned out short?”
Sanghyuk’s sleepy voice rumbled against Taekwoon’s neck and Taekwoon paused slightly in his absentminded playing with the soft hair at Sanghyuk’s nape. He’d thought Sanghyuk had dozed off in his arms, half-sprawled over him – the boy could fall asleep anywhere, which is why he was the only candidate to room with the snoremaster Wonsik – even as Taekwoon had chosen to lay awake concentrating on feeling Sanghyuk breathe against him. Sanghyuk was so rarely still and quiet like this Taekwoon almost felt like he needed to take a picture for posterity.
Sanghyuk didn’t really wait for an answer from Taekwoon before he continued, the quietly amused look Taekwoon sent the top of Sanghyuk’s head unseen in the sepia stillness of their stolen alone time together.
“Like, Director-nim says he didn’t particularly choose members that were over 1.8 metres tall but I don’t believe him. He must have known it would look good. But I was still only seventeen and shorter than all of you by so much. What if I’d stayed that height? Somebody was really taking a gamble on me.”
“It would have been cute if you had,” Taekwoon mused regretfully, thinking about it. “The tiny maknae. Too bad you didn’t stay that size.”
“Aw, come on, you like that I’m big,” Sanghyuk replied, and Taekwoon can feel Sanghyuk’s knowing grin against his neck and the blush creeping up his face on cue. I’m a twenty-six year old man, and this hellhound can still make me blush with just one sentence. Taekwoon pinched his neck.
“Shut up. And now you’re bigger than everyone,” Taekwoon said, not bothering to hide the resignation in his voice. “And terrorising us all. Me especially.”
“Because I love you. How else can I show you you’re special?”
Taekwoon pinched harder. Sanghyuk continued grinning.
“Hongbin hyung made me watch this video of myself the other day. It was debut era and we were on some show, and I was dancing to Apink sunbaenims’ Hush and I nearly died watching it. I can’t believe I used to be that small and scrawny. My god,” Sanghyuk pressed one hand over his face in embarrassment and Taekwoon laughed silently, arms tightening around Sanghyuk’s body in a warm rush of affection.
“You really were scrawny,” Taekwoon agreed, reminiscing. “I remember that time Jaehwan tried on your high school uniform and nearly ripped the blazer across the shoulders because it was too small for him and he started panicking-” he had to stop, giggles getting the better of him.
“What? When was this?” Sanghyuk pushed himself up to look Taekwoon in the eye, shaking in laughter at the memory. “Nobody told me!”
Taekwoon looked at him, appraising. “About seven centimeters ago.”
Sanghyuk settled back down on Taekwoon’s chest with a harrumph, Taekwoon sliding his fingers into Sanghyuk’s rumpled hair tenderly. Tender, affectionate, fond; he tried to keep his feelings small and contained for fear of how large and unruly they might grow if released free into the world. Sanghyuk easily threw around ‘I love you’s’ and talked about moving in together in future and travelling to far-off countries; Taekwoon allowed himself hope, but in only very small quantities. By luck and cosmic goodwill he’d managed to share five years of Sanghyuk’s life so far and every passing year made him throw more and more caution to the wind and give more and more of his heart away.
“You’ve grown up well,” Taekwoon whispered after a sweet interval of silence, Sanghyuk tracing nonsense patterns into the skin of Taekwoon’s hip with light fingers; Taekwoon drifted a thumb softly over Sanghyuk’s perfect cheekbone in answer. “You’re a man, now. No longer a boy.”
“Have I gotten more handsome?”
Heartbreakingly so. “Mm.”
“And more sexy?”
You drive me crazy wanting you. “Mm.”
“And more-”
Taekwoon smushed his palm into Sanghyuk’s face just to mess with him, knowing Sanghyuk would retaliate by biting his hand and complaining loudly nevertheless when he did.
Sanghyuk silenced his whining by reaching up to kiss him. Taekwoon immediately went quiet, savouring the kiss and Sanghyuk’s scent on his clothes and his skin, in his nose and head. They had barely another twenty minutes before they had to go – they might already be late as it was – and they were supposed to be going through the programme for the Japanese variety show they were filming later but Taekwoon would gladly endure two hours of being confused and unprepared for another twenty minutes with his Sanghyuk kissing him in this bed.
Five years from awkward seventeen to confident, magnetic, attractive twenty-two - current Sanghyuk was a dream made real.
“You know I love you,” Taekwoon whispered against Sanghyuk’s lips. He could say it because it’s only the two of them here, cupped safe in the four walls of their hotel room.
“I don’t think so,” Sanghyuk frowned, acting clueless. “I think you’ll have to tell me one more time. Also how much you love me.”
Taekwoon kissed him again while cuffing him on the head, Sanghyuk’s indignant noise of protest muffled between their mouths. Taekwoon poured every bit of adoration and want and worship he could muster into the kiss, cradling Sanghyuk’s head as gently as anyone would hold a precious thing.
“I give that kiss 7/10,” Sanghyuk said once they had finally broken apart. “Slightly too much saliva.”
“You may be taller than all of us,” Taekwoon replied, “But you’re still a little shit.”
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