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It’s Suho’s night to make dinner.
Sieun sits on the couch, idly watching some show on the television as he awaits for Suho to be finished. Normally, he’d like to help out as much as he could, but Suho kicked him out of the kitchen, mumbling something like, You’ve been working hard, Sieun-ah. Let me handle it, yeah?
Sieun had protested that Suho had been working just as hard, but he was quickly shut down.
A sizzling drifted from the kitchen. Suho had taken inspiration from Baku and was making fried chicken. It’s not Sieun’s favorite exactly, but Suho enjoys it, so he tries to as well.
A buzzing noise has him looking away from the screen. Sieun looks down by his side to see Suho’s phone, turned upside down, buzzing.
He frowns, wondering who could be calling this late. Sieun flips the phone over, expecting it to be Halmeoni checking up on the two, or maybe one of their friends calling to talk about hanging out.
It’s none of them.
Sieun blinks. He blinks again, but the name on Suho’s phone doesn’t change.
Eomma.
Shoving away his thoughts, Sieun gets up and makes his way towards the kitchen.
“Suho-yah, you have a call,” he says as he enters. Suho’s back is turned towards him, body facing the stove. He’s wearing an apron. It’s such a domestic scene that Sieun feels his chest ache.
For some reason, he feels like he’s about to ruin it.
“Who is it?” Suho asks without turning around to look at him. “You can pick up for me. It’s Halmeoni, right? She said she was going to call today.”
Sieun hesitates, unsure if he should say anything. The phone had stopped ringing by now. He can lie and pretend it was one of their friends. He chooses not to answer Suho. He’s not really sure what to say, or rather, the questions are being lodged in his throat.
At the silence, Suho turns around, a small frown on his face now. “What is it? Is everything okay?” he asks, looking at Sieun in concern.
Quietly, Sieun hands the phone out. “It’s your mother.”
The air in the room freezes. It stays silent for a long moment, the only noise remaining being the sizzling of the chicken. Suho’s shoulders are tense, and his eyebrows are now drawn together.
With a blink of his eyes, Sieun watches the emotion wash away on Suho’s face. He wipes his hands on the apron and walks close to Sieun to grab his phone.
A smile falls onto his face, but to Sieun, it looks unnatural. “Thank you, Sieun-ah. Watch the chicken for me real quick?” Suho asks, cupping Sieun’s face for a brief second, before leaving the kitchen.
Sieun watches him go.
He walks towards the stove. He’s not really sure what to do. He’s never been good at cooking, that’s always been Suho’s thing.
A minute passes. The chicken all seem done, so Sieun one by one takes them out to plate them. He sets the table, sits down, and waits for Suho. He avoids thinking too hard altogether.
The walls are thin. Sieun can hear Suho talk in a loud whisper, the words mostly muffled through the wall separating the kitchen and the bedroom.
“—told you, it’s not just me and Halmeoni anymore, I’m taking care of others as well. I have nothing more to give you… You obviously don’t need any of it considering you guys were perfectly fine the two years I was gone… Yes, of course I’m going to bring that up.” Sieun feels his heart drop. There’s a long pause after that line.
“Eomma. Please don’t call me again asking for this. I don’t want to have to start ignoring your calls. Tell Appa that I say hi.”
It’s not hard to assume that Suho hung up after that line, so Sieun just waits for him to leave the bedroom patiently.
Suho enters the kitchen with a smile on his face, albeit strained. “Sorry, Sieunnie. Thank you for finishing up for me,” he says, giving Sieun a kiss on top of his head as he passes by. Suho sits down and immediately begins serving himself and Sieun.
“Come on, eat,” Suho encourages, putting down more chicken on Sieun’s plate. “I worked hard on this. I got some tips from Baku—”
“Why didn’t you tell me your parents were alive?”
The question makes Suho falter in place. His smile falls just the slightest, and his eyes lose their light. He clears his throat. “I didn’t think it was important.”
Sieun just stares, not really sure how to articulate his thoughts.
It’s his first time being in any type of relationship, but Sieun had thought that couples told each other things like this, that they show and tell each other the good and the bad parts of each other.
Sieun has been willing to give Suho every part of him possible. He thought Suho felt the same way.
Had he been wrong?
“You know about mine,” Sieun points out, swallowing harshly. He remembers the uncomfortable conversation he had with Suho about his parents, talking about all the absent days and the feeling of being a burden to the point where Sieun made sure he knew how to take care of himself.
It had been uncomfortable and hard, but a needed conversation that Sieun felt good about afterwards. Because now, Suho understood him better, understood why he reacts in certain ways or why he can’t find it in himself to care about some things.
Suho shakes his head. “Sieun, please,” he says with a tone of finality.
The way Suho says it has Sieun taken aback. He feels his stomach twist into a knot, and a taste of bitterness climbs up his throat.
Sieun drops it.
Dinner is eaten in silence. It’s odd, because they’re normally anything but. Yet, Sieun can’t find it in himself to talk. Suho hasn’t really shut him down like this before, and Sieun feels all weird.
Hurt, maybe.
As he mulls through his feelings, he loses his appetite half way through his plate. “I’m full. Thank you for the meal. I’m going to wash up.”
Suho frowns at him, but Sieun quickly rises, avoiding eye contact as he leaves the kitchen. Suho doesn’t say anything either.
He showers, taking longer than usual, falling lost in his thoughts. He understands it’s a sensitive topic, but Sieun still can’t help but feel hurt. He tries to think of reasons why Suho wouldn’t tell him, but they tell each other everything to the point that Sieun fails to find one.
He finishes washing up, leaves the shower, and gets dressed. When he exits the bathroom, Suho is sitting on the bed, evidently lost in thought. When he hears Sieun enter, he looks up with a small smile and holds up a towel in his hand. “Let me dry your hair?”
Sieun takes a moment to pretend to consider it, despite already knowing the answer. “Okay.” He sits next to Suho, back turned to him.
Gently, Suho begins to rub the towel onto his hair, the moisture quickly dampening the towel. From the mirror across the room, Sieun can see the softness in Suho’s eyes as he focuses on his task.
The smell of his shampoo lingers in the air. He feels Suho pause in his task before he says, “Somedays, I don’t remember what they look like.”
Sieun tenses as the towel begins to rub through his roots. “You don’t have to—”
“But I should,” Suho interrupts. “I’m sorry for earlier, baby. I just didn’t know where to even begin. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings at all.”
Sieun leans into Suho’s presence behind him, locking eyes with him through the mirror. “I was thinking and… I was kind of upset. But, I’m allowed to be upset and you’re allowed to not want to tell me, too. Both things can be true.”
Suho pauses in his drying task once again. He pulls Sieun closer to plant a kiss onto his collarbone. Sieun can feel the smile on his lips pressed onto his skin. “My Sieunnie is so smart.”
Feeling the corner of his own lips tugging up, Sieun shrugs Suho off. “My hair is still wet. I’ll get sick if you don’t dry it better.”
Chuckling, Suho sits back up. “I’ll tell you a story while doing so, then.”
Sieun nods, feeling the towel being gently tugged along his hair once again. “About your parents?” Sieun asks.
Suho hums. He takes the towel off to run his fingers through Sieun’s hair, gently detangling the knots along it. “They left for Japan when I was young. They had dreams to open up a restaurant there, so they did.”
“What about you?” Sieun can’t help but ask as he feels himself frown. He can’t help but envision a little Suho watching as his parents walk away from him, too young to fully understand what’s going on. It tugs at his heart.
Rubbing the towel onto Sieun’s scalp, he gives a small scoff. “Well, they told me that once their restaurant was successful, they’d try to bring me there too.”
The thought makes Sieun suck in a deep breath of air. He can’t imagine how different his own life would have been if Suho had gone with his parents, or how different Suho’s life would have been. Would he have been less lonely? Less hardworking? Maybe happier?
“I started working at a young age, around 10, I think? Halmeoni didn’t like it one bit, but there was a family restaurant across two streets from where we lived that always was understaffed. I didn’t get paid much, but they let me help out,” Suho continues to explain. “And, well—I thought it was good practice.” Suho goes silent, and Sieun sees the way his eyes are crinkled in thought through the mirror.
“For what?” Sieun questions as the silence stretches.
Suho drops the towel. “For once I finally got to Japan, for working in my parents’ restaurant. I was forever convinced that they still wanted me and Halmeoni there, too. But their restaurant… it struggled.”
Please don’t call me again asking for this, Suho had said in the call. It’s not hard to connect the dots.
Sieun turns around, mouth turned into a frown. “You started sending them money.”
Suho laughs, all bitter and hurt. “Yeah, basically. The restaurant almost went bankrupt when I was 13, and I had to send them everything I had, along with Halmeoni. That’s also kind of where I gave up on school and started working full time anywhere that would pay me under the table, since I couldn’t work legally yet, and I didn’t bother applying for a permit since I knew I probably wouldn’t qualify.”
Sieun can’t understand. “But, why? You didn’t have to do any of that. Shouldn’t they just have come back here instead?”
Shrugging, Suho says, “I don’t know. I was still convinced that if I worked hard, they would try to take me in as well. And Halmeoni felt terrible, of course. You know her, her heart is too big. So she sent them as much as she could, and had no issue with me doing so too.”
Grabbing Suho’s hands, Sieun gives them a small squeeze of support as he tries to comprehend it all. “So all this time you’ve been working, you’ve been supporting you and your Halmeoni, and your parents?”
Suho gives a small nod. “Yeah. I got so busy I stopped calling them, and they never called either to check up, unless I missed a week or two with the money. That was until the… the coma,” he says, the last word coming out strained. Even Sieun stiffens just the slightest. “Obviously, the money I was sending them stopped coming in, so they called to ask what was going on. When Halmeoni told them about my situation, they didn’t…” Suho trails off, and Sieun sees him poking his tongue with his cheek.
“It’s okay, take your time,” Sieun says, rubbing his thumbs across Suho’s hands. The rough callouses on them appear larger than ever in the air of the current topic. Sieun for a brief moment wonders about the variety of jobs Suho must have worked.
“I don’t want to say they didn’t care, because they did,” Suho continues, a shuddering breath coming out of his mouth. “But it was pretty obvious they cared a bit more about the money. When Halmeoni asked if they would be coming in to see me, they just said something about how they couldn’t close up the restaurant with no notice and how it would make things harder for them. Well, something must have happened within these two years, because as far as I know, they don’t need any more money.”
Sieun’s mind drifts back to the phone call. “But they keep asking you for some?”
“Yup. They say it’s so that they can buy a bigger house so I can finally come there,” Suho explains. “As if I’d believe any of that bullshit now.”
Sieun doesn’t know what to say. He’s never been too great with words. His chest aches, a dull, heavy feeling in his chest for the little boy Suho had been convinced that hard work and money would eventually bring him back to his parents. He thinks about the years Suho sacrificed and lost—even without the coma—and the loneliness he must have carried.
He leans into Suho, resting his forehead on Suho’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Suho-yah.”
Suho gives a small chuckle despite everything, running his hand through Sieun’s hair. “For what, baby?”
Recognizing the sting behind his eyes, Sieun blinks rapidly, willing the burn to go away. “For how lonely you must have been despite all the hope you wouldn’t be anymore.”
Suho inhales, sharp and shaky. He buries his face into Sieun’s freshly washed hair, inhaling deeply. “I’d go through all that again if it meant I got to meet you.”
Furrowing his eyebrows, Sieun pulls back to meet Suho’s eyes. “What if you still had the opportunity to go to Japan to live with your parents?” he asks, because it makes the most sense, despite it overwhelmingly filling Sieun up with fear at just the idea. It was everything little Suho wanted, why wouldn’t he still?
But Suho’s answer comes without hesitation, cupping Sieun’s cheek. “Why would I want to do that? They were barely there for me, Sieun-ah. How could I ever go back to them now?”
That made sense. He remembers how his own mother tried so hard to care about him, but it was in all the wrong ways and all too late that Sieun would rather she never cared again.
He grabs Suho’s hand on his cheek. “Thank you for telling me, Suho-yah.” He thinks for a moment before he adds, “I understand you better now.”
Suho’s tendencies to not let anyone else overwhelm themselves, to make sure they take care of themselves, to be the leader and the one to volunteer to do anything… It all stemmed through his past, from habits he learned way too young that he can no longer break.
Suho smiles, booping Sieun on the nose with his free hand. “Thank you for listening, Sieun-ah. There’s no one I trust more to tell anything to.” He leans in to give Sieun a peck, but Sieun leans in for more, deepening the kiss. All he can think about is how much he wants to show how loved Suho is, how he’ll never be alone again, how he’ll be loved by Sieun for the rest of his life. Suho must get the memo, because he presses his mouth just as hard onto his, but moves gently through the kisses, hands going onto Sieun’s waist to bring him onto his lap.
They break away for air. Suho buries his face into Sieun’s neck, squeezing Sieun closer to him. “You smell good,” Suho mumbles onto his skin.
“I showered, that’s why,” Sieun states. “You should too, you smell like fried chicken.”
Suho pulls back with a laugh. “Alright, but only if you promise to stay awake until I’m done. I want you to watch that one movie I’ve been talking about.”
Sieun hums. “Alright, hurry up then.”
Suho gives Sieun another couple of loud, wet pecks, one to his lips, another to his cheek, and finally onto his hair, inhaling the smell of shampoo once again. “I’ll be back,” he says, feeling giddy.
Later, when he returns, Sieun is splayed across the bed, eyes closed with small puffs of air leaving him. Suho gives a small smile, unable to bring it in him to wake him up.