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His scarf is stuck. Yeosang sighs to himself, quiet so no one will notice. He’s sticky with slowly cooling sweat under the suit jacket and white shirt of the stage outfit, his hair feels scratchy and crusty with the amount of fixing spray it takes to keep it from frizzing up into a fluffy cloud around his head when it’s bleached this dry, and his ears are still ringing a bit – kiss, kiss, the whole crowd chants – even if an auditorium isn’t as loud as an arena, and exhausted energy still buzzes under his skin, and he really wants to go home and shower. But he doesn’t want to complain, he gets to do what he loves and see it make people happy, even if it leaves him sticky and overheated and too keyed up.
So he shrugs the jacket off first to cool down while he goes back to untangling the scarf. It looked so neat and pretty the way the stylist noona did it up for him and held up well all through the performances and the hugging, right up until Yeosang tugged at it to get it off and he isn’t sure how it turned into such a mess. He hopes he can get it undone quickly, the others will want to go home and shower too and Yeosang doesn’t want to slow things down. He can already see Seonghwa suddenly manifesting in front of him to help undo the stubborn knot with all the seasoned efficiency of a mother of six.
...what doesn’t help is suddenly finding his arms trapped against his own chest by another pair wrapping around his torso from the back.
Despite having silently resolved to himself that this year he’ll learn not to, he still freezes before tensing, his shoulders pull up and his head ducks before he even realises it’s happening, even though the arms are familiar and warm.
San smells good. Like that perfume he usually wears these days, the one he also picked as his gift for the Atiny winning the fanmeet’s raffle.
Yeosang wonders for a moment if he smells good too, but at least he probably doesn’t smell bad because he can feel San’s nose brushing through his hairline and making no move to breathe fresher air as San nuzzles the back of his neck. Yeosang really tries not to squirm but it tickles.
“San-ah…” he murmurs plaintively, because maybe it will do the trick this time.
“Yeosang-ah.” San returns and sounds too happy to be right where he is. “Today was fun, wasn’t it?”
Yeosang didn’t really think it was going to work anyway. He hums in vague agreement and this time lets himself squirm to get at least his hands a little freer to keep working on the scarf that has somehow gotten even worse. The way San starts happily rocking him from side to side a little might keep making it even worse, or at the very least it’s not helping either. San is also very warm, and Yeosang already feels even stickier.
“Did you have fun too?” comes the follow-up question. It means that there’s something specific San wants to get to, or he would’ve been satisfied with Yeosang’s hum, he doesn’t do this just to get Yeosang to talk.
It takes a little more squirming through the tightening of San’s hold and giving up on the scarf for the time being, but he manages to twist around enough to look at San while he waits for what the actual question will be. He gets squeezed instead.
“I did, I did. It was fun.” he hurries to confirm, patting a little awkwardly at San’s collarbone since that’s all he can reach with only his wrists free to move.
San looks happy at that. He hasn’t really stopped looking happy, so he really must’ve had fun, cheeks dimpled and eyes scrunched up cutely and his smile looks like the kind that comes from deep inside and doesn’t let itself be stopped, and it twitches, refusing to give up its hold on San’s lips even as he tries to pout the way he usually does when he wants something from Yeosang and that something is usually affection.
“Yeosangie~” His eyes close contently when Yeosang makes a conscious effort to un-tense. It’s easier without being looked at. It makes it much easier to look at San too, at the familiar sharp contours of his face that people sometimes say don’t match his soft personality but Yeosang thinks complement it instead, at his hair now just about long enough to start falling over his eyes, at the pink of his lips – kiss, kiss, chants the crowd still ringing in his ears. Easier, but still not easy, and Yeosang looks away. It’s really hard not to tense up again.
“Ah?”
He gets nuzzled a little more before the question San has had on his mind is finally murmured into the scarf around his neck, the fabric keeping him from feeling San’s breath with it. It probably would’ve tickled otherwise. It would’ve been warm, too.
“Did you mean what you said on stage?”
There isn’t all that much uncertainty in the question, not as much as there might be if it’d been anyone else, and San’s eyes remain closed and the dimples on his cheeks.
He knows Yeosang after all. They know each other. They all do. Years on planes and in practice rooms and at photoshoots and in each other’s pockets, off and on so many stages they sometimes start to blur together like the faces in the chanting crowds. Everyone is a little different on stage and in front of the camera than when it’s just them, but in different ways. Some of them find it easier to pretend, to say things they don’t mean beyond making Atiny happy, but that doesn’t come naturally to Yeosang. It often just doesn’t occur to him in the moment, so it’s easier to be honest.
Even if that sometimes comes with a twinge in his chest made of that mix of excitement and anxiousness he also knows from just before he steps on stage every time. Even if it makes him laugh to dispel the nervous discomfort. Even if it makes the stage make-up feel cloyingly thick as it hides the heat of his face.
San is so lovely, and so cool, and so cute, and sweet.
And Yeosang wants to tell him that more often this year, until words like this slip easier off his tongue, because San deserves to have the affection he pours out so freely and wholeheartedly returned. Until he can look San in the eyes while he says them, the way he couldn’t quite make himself today. Maybe until he stops wanting to squirm out of his skin with every hug too.
Kiss, kiss, Jongho eggs the crowd on.
Well, maybe not that.
“O-of course. You’re very- very cute. And lovely. And cool.” he answers, only a little bit halting, and the dimples deepen immediately.
He immediately gets squeezed again too.
“Not as cute as you. Or as lovely. No one is as lovely as my Yeosangie.” Smiling lips turn round and puckered and before Yeosang can stop himself he’s straining away as far as the strong arms around him will let him without freeing himself. But San being San doesn’t push it, and Yeosang can’t even feel all that regretful about it because San doesn’t even look disappointed beyond the token little pout that doesn’t even erase the dimples and doesn’t dim the bright happiness in San’s eyes at the earlier confirmation, even as he asks, “But you didn’t mean the other thing?”
The stage makeup he hasn’t had time to remove yet because he hasn’t even managed to undo his scarf to get changed might feel thick and cloying on his skin, but Yeosang is glad it’s still there because he knows no blush shows through it. He also knows exactly what San is asking about.
“Wh- what other thing?”
“Yeosangie…” San whines, cuter than he should be with his sharp features and his broad shoulders, squeezing him yet again, “You don’t want to kiss me?”
“I-I…”
It burns a little in his chest, that weird excited anxiousness that always reminds him of pre-concert jitters, not really pleasant but not bad either. Just too warm, like a too long hug. Yeosang wishes he could take the scarf off.
Wishes a little more that he could find the right words to answer before the silence gets awkward.
It’s not like he doesn’t want to kiss San. But he doesn’t quite want to kiss him either.
He wants it like he wants to return San’s I love yous even though hearing them makes Yeosang want to not meet his eyes, wants it like he wants San’s hugs, wants to relax into them instead of tensing with the way his body tries to pull into itself, but it’s not easy when there’s a part of him that thinks I love you at the same time as it thinks you’re too warm and I want to scrape you off with a spoon and that somehow isn’t a contradiction. There aren’t any good words to explain that though, or at least if there are, Yeosang hasn’t found them yet.
He wants the dimples and the brightness in San’s eyes when Yeosang lets him hug him and brings himself to hug back. He wants the joy on San’s face when he wheedles an I love you out of Yeosang.
Maybe he doesn’t so much want the kiss as he wants to see that slack-jawed, stunned, sheer happiness on San again that he got just from Yeosang telling him he wants to kiss him.
Kiss, kiss, chants the crowd.
Kiss, kiss, Jongho encourages them.
Kiss, kiss, San plays along and doesn’t bother to hide his eager hopefulness at all.
San sighs a little but it’s just as much a token thing as the pout was, not actually sad, not actually disappointed, just for show. He squeezes Yeosang yet again, but this time in that particular way he has before he lets go, like he wants to steal one more extra cuddle while he can get away with it. He still looks happy, just like Yeosang always wants to see him. Probably is happy with all the affection he’s gotten to give and receive today and the way Yeosang still hasn’t really tried to squirm away. He’ll let go in a moment and Yeosang can go back to trying to undo his scarf to get out of the too warm too sticky too restrictive stage costume. He doesn’t have to answer at all.
But that expression still replays on a loop in the back of his mind and Yeosang has never seen San that happy before and he wants to see it again. Maybe it all isn’t so complicated. Maybe this matters too, even if Yeosang still isn’t sure how much he wants the kiss for its own sake.
Then do it, Yunho mutters into his mic from the side.
San’s lips are pink and smiling and soft but a little too warm and the lip gloss neither of them wiped off yet has left them sticky. There’s a small sound, somewhere, from someone, along the way, hard to hear over the ringing in Yeosang’s ears. San’s arms that were in the process of releasing him halt halfway, freezing briefly before one settles on Yeosang’s shoulder. The other one tangles in the scarf that’s a lost cause now.
From somewhere off to the side there’s a short yell of surprise. Jongho starts chanting “Kiss, kiss, kiss,” again with Wooyoung joining in immediately and then someone starts clapping and it all devolves into general commotion from there.
Yeosang’s face feels way too hot again when he pulls away as far as he can while San still hasn’t let go and doesn’t seem like he even remembers he was going to. He’d really like to finally get the scarf off.
But the look is back on San’s face.