Archive of Our Own

Ahn Suho had never been too drawn to relationships. Of all sorts. Platonic, romantic. 

Suho, by night, works a string of jobs tied amidst his routinely, comfortable schedule— drawing out the hours of darkness with deliveries and other dull shifts. 

Then, every morning as the sun showers the horizon in warm hues, he is obliged to trek his way back to Byeoksan High. 

By then, he tolls his day away with his head rested against soft pink plush. Nobody bothers him. And if they do want to, to fight or whatnot, well. They likely won’t try their luck again.

Even whilst at school, a place buzzing with energy and people and friends that laugh loudly, gathering at their lunch tables or the school gates, he doesn’t exactly talk to anyone. At least, nothing substantial.

Doesn’t befriend anyone.

He draws in money, enough to keep him and his Halmeoni afloat. He succumbs to sleep at the times he is supposed to be learning, advancing; but his attendance is perfect, at least.

He doesn’t mind, really. He’s friendly with his peers. Bold enough to avoid the obnoxious bullies in the corners of his classes. The teachers let him keep his head down during lessons. 

He’ll finish high school in no time; what is there to mind?

Suho was doing fine, up until his life was suddenly intruded upon by a quiet boy with bottomless, wide eyes and chapped, pale pink lips.

Yeon Sieun. Sure, Suho’s noticed him before. Noticed that look Sieun gives anybody who bothers him. Anybody, mind you— even the students without malicious intent. He’s noticed the way the boy is always studying, with this endless focus. And he’s noticed how it reflects on his grades.

“First place winner, Yeon Sieun. This award is presented to this student in recognition of their achievement in this math competition,” their teacher praises, smiling, her voice uplifted.

Suho ignores her after that, a little miffed at being awake. Rather, his gaze finds Sieun's expression. The way it doesn’t shift once. Not the slightest upturn of his dead-set mouth. He’s like ice.

While, quite frankly, staring, Suho misses the obvious agitation in Yeongbin's stance when he’s called up to the front. Third place, he wins. 

It’s not Suho’s problem if Yeongbin does anything, not really. As long as it’s not violence in the classroom —which he finds painfully disrespectful along with disturbing of his sleep— he’ll let it be.

Suho accidentally finds Sieun’s apartment. Wrong door number whilst doing delivery, and all. 

“What, it's the nerd?” he recognizes, surprisedly, when Sieun opens the door. Sieun, in return, greets him with an empty stare, eyebrows raised and gaze hollow. It’s like his eyes are missing the signature spark of life, people usually hold. He’s soundless as Suho continues, light and playfully incredilous, “Why are you here?”

Sieun selectively ignores him, apparently. Suho watches him glance down at the brown delivery bag scrunched in Suho’s palm instead, saying, “I didn’t order that.”

Suho notes that Sieun’s voice is soft, low, but no less guarded in the safety of his home. He holds Suho at the entryway. At this point, Suho has accepted defeat and figured out he, in fact, has the wrong address. But he doesn’t turn away. 

“Dang it, guess you are right,” Suho ceases, after reading out the delivery note, and on a whim, he unsubtely clears his throat, “Hey, bro. Cup of water?”

A moment passes. Sieun’s eyes flicker from Suho’s, eye to eye, and Suho wants to scrunch his nose, unimpressed. He waits instead. And he’s not surprised when Sieun defends; quite weakly, for how mean this boy usually acts, “Why should I?”

Suho pushes something out about being in the same class and how it’s rude to decline an amiable guest. 

Next thing you know, he’s slid against the wall of Sieun’s apartment, seated on the floor of his foyer.

Sieun looks at him, expression unreadable, lips parted. Suho wonders why he had bothered to enter at all, but there’s something about Sieun that sparks his curiosity in a way that simply shouldn’t. 

Really, Suho should stick to business and not get mixed up with classmates, especially Sieun; he seems a bit odd. It’s fine, though. It’s just water. He starts exclaiming theatrically, “If I get dehydrated and faint, you wanna be responsible for that?”

Sieun makes a small noise at the back of his throat, too muffled for Suho to hear properly. He turns the corner, and Suho hears the tap running, and then the soft pad of socked feet as Sieun returns with a glass and a bottle of water. Suho goes straight for the bottle. Downs it in one go, groans dramatically. Sieun calls him out, ‘Who’s rude now?’, and Suho is genuinely amused. 

When he rises, there’s an ease in his bones. Suho shoots Sieun his signature grin. Tells him to keep studying. It makes him want to laugh because Sieun is looking at him with these dead, perpetually annoyed eyes, while Suho’s teasing words are met with nothing, expectedly.

So quiet, even in his own home. Sieun kind of reminds Suho of a stray cat.

He’s awoken at the screaming of, “You lunatic!” 

And when he turns his head, Suho’s brows immediately rise.

One classmate is on the floor, a pen stabbed through his hand: the screaming one. And Sieun —quiet, dead-on-his-feet, Sieun— is whamming Yeongbin’s curtain-wrapped face with a textbook.

He watches with the rest of the class. Processing in the back of his mind, as Sieun slows to a stop and hovers over a bloodied, nearly unconscious Yeongbin with raw violence in his dropped shoulders, that Suho’s going to have to step in.

So, he’s already standing, as Sieun murmurs something akin to a threat to the bully. And when Sieun goes to drop his foot down on him on him, Suho’s hand is in the back of Sieun’s shirt and yanking. Enough for him to go sliding across the classroom floor.

“Let’s not cross the line, hmm? Enough is enough.”

His hands are in the pockets of his familiar windbreaker. A light, carefully carefree smile painted on his face.

Suho watches Sieun stand; the heaviness of his arms, the sway in his balance as he places a hand on the ground and pushes himself up, unhurried. Suho tracks the open, wild, unbridled glare of Sieun’s honeyed eyes, and the prickly, defensive posture.

“You next?” Sieun says, and Suho forgets what he replies with, in that moment. He does remember lazily throwing a paper airplane. Remembers trying to defuse the situation with a laugh and a few jokes.

And, Suho remembers all too well the look in Sieun’s eyes; frantic, angry. Blazing. A tinge of insanity.

Then, Sieun is swinging a chair at Suho with no preamble. It’s if anything, and it makes it too easy to land a punch on Sieun’s pretty face, sighing, “You should’ve stopped when I told you to.”

Sieun predictably goes careening into the lockers, chair dropping from his grasp. But he’s easy to read, and Suho can already see Sieun analyzing the room, in what he can do next and grab first. 

When Sieun rebalances himself, he rewards Suho with a deranged, offended reply, “Who are you to tell me what to do?” 

It’s followed by a tense stillness. The whole class is hushed and pensive, and Suho meets Sieun’s volatile gaze. 

He finds himself comparing Sieun’s eyes to the ones he saw the other day. Back at Sieun’s apartment, where they were tinted with something akin to that desolate version of peace you achieve only in loneliness.

Neither of them looks away. And just when the intensity hits its peak —Sieun moving to grab a chair, and Suho figuring he’d have to hit the boy a little harder—, the teacher bursts through the door.

There’s a pause, and there’s Suho’s easy, quick explanation. There’s Sieun’s silence. Suho turns to look at him, giving him a quizzical, ‘what do you think your doing?’ look. 

And when Suho tells him to apologize, Sieun doesn’t stay a word. He’s still, he’s static. Sieun just gazes at Suho, then around the room. Face full of expression, yet still so incomprehensible. What an oddball.

If Sieun doesn’t want to apologize, whatever. Suho gave him a chance. It’s not like they were friends, or anything of the sort.

Their next few interactions were miscellaneous. 

Sieun doesn’t get suspended or pressed for assault because, apparently, Yeongbin had drugged him during their mock exam, and that’s why Sieun was so frenzied. If Yeongbin's family had kept charge of the assault, Yeongbin would have had to face his own charge of illegal drug use. 

During the first encounter, Suho finds Sieun in an empty classroom. Sieun turns to look at him on entry, and promptly turns back, leaving Suho only with the characteristic silence when Suho asks where everyone went.

He doesn’t miss the slight shaking of Sieun's hands on his stock-still pencil, but Suho just exhales and shrugs, because it’s none of his business if something happened.

Then, there’s catching Sieun on the bus. Suho sees him, headphones in and head facing forward. It takes a few honks of Suho’s bike’s horn and overly animated waving to catch the boy's attention. And Sieun, with an indescribable expression, obeys, sliding open the bus's window. 

Suho watches as Sieun checks around him on the bus, brows raised, before turning to Suho with a slack jaw and dry lips. 

And Suho greets him, cracks a past-lover's joke, and asks Suho where he’s going after cram. Sieun tells him he’s going home. Simple and short. There’s a stall. Then Sieun apologizes, of all things. 

But Suho doesn’t really need the apology. He had figured, even without the rumours, Sieun wasn’t the type of kid to start fights without reason. Especially with his academics, and all that. 

So Suho teases him instead, tells Sieun to buy him a meal if he wants to apologize for the fight in the classroom, and then he’s calling out a farewell as the light turns green; putting distance between himself and the bus until it’s far out of his peripheral.

After that, Sieun quite literally acts on his word and eats with Suho at lunch. That was a surprise; if anything, Suho’s offer was more filler than meaning. 

When Sieun taps him awake from his sleep at the end of their shared class —poking him first hesitantly and then firmly—, Suho ignores him with a groan and something along the lines of ‘go away’. Feeling rather cozy.

When Sieun adds on, “You wanted me to treat,” he flips his head dramatically to face and squint at him, because who would Suho be if he were to refuse free food?

When met at the sight of Sieun, though, he has to stop squinting: Suho’s raising his head from its tilt to fully look at him, a furrow forming between his brows. 

Sieun is looking down at him, the same blank face tinted with an indifferent expectation. His lips are pursed. Fingers twitching where they push gently into the sides of his thighs.

Suho accuses, “Why are you looking at me like that?” because, quite frankly, it is weird. It causes this feeling in his chest, and he has no word for it. It’s like a seed, digging itself in. So Suho turns away, not giving Sieun a chance to reply, refuting petulantly, “I won’t eat.”

Funnily enough, Suho is next found in the cafeteria. Light banter, laughter, and some pleasant surprise at Sieun's dry response: “Might want to look in a mirror,” when Suho outwardly calls him a weirdo. 

Sieun is straight-faced and impassive the whole time, despite his remarks. Oddly enough, it’s not off-putting. That feeling returns. He feels it spreading, rooting itself in Suho, but it feels like warmth.

When the new transfer kid wakes him up from his sleep, it’s only fair that Suho’s displeased. The students cleaning up at the end of class didn't wake him as he asked, and now he’s being told about ‘Yeongbin is taking Sieun somewhere, and you should help him’, as if it’s relevant to him.

“Yeah, and?” he replies, unimpressed. Sure, he and Sieun sat for lunch. But it was in the form of an apology. And because of those students from earlier, he was going to be late for his shift at work. 

He tells the transfer student as much. Beomseok, if he recalls. Turns to leave. And then Beomseok is offering to pay him double his shift money, and, oh well. It looks like he’s getting into a fight today. And saving Sieun’s ass. 

Both are pretty satisfactory. Suho debates the expression Sieun will make in his head. Startled, probably. Poised, cagey. 

Next thing he knows, Yeongbin's gang of bullies is on the ground, and he’s helping Sieun up and off of it. Suho observes the way Sieun cradles his wrist, presumably hurt. At least he found him before it they went for worse.

It’s easy to adjust Sieun's jacket mindlessly, pat his arm, and face the group of fools with Yeongbin and his broken nose at the centre, reprimanding lightly, “You can stop now, okay?”

It’s less easy to deal with a random middle-aged man who knows martial arts and decided to associate himself with a bunch of high-school kids. 

So, a one versus one it is. He used to do MMA; he can handle this.

And he does have it handled. He finally halts the man with a headlock. The situation is under control, until his gaze catches Yeongbin rising from the ground after the rest of the idiots. 

He’s grasping a glass bottle, limping towards a cornered Sieun, and Suho is getting paid to rescue Sieun, isn’t he?

He barely hesitates. He lets go of the man.

By the end, they make it out fairly unscathed. Suho brings them to the restaurant where he was supposed to be working, and makes them help out on the job to balance his late arrival.

He learns that while Sieun must receive lots of praise for his academics, he can barely carry one crate full of alcohol. He learns Beomseok doesn’t seem that bad of company; if anything, despite being just as quiet as Sieun, he’s less socially inept.

Suho, unfortunately, now has the image of Sieun gazing at him like a disgruntled cat imprinted in his mind, along with Sieun’s ever-so-slightly-petulant, galling intonation: “Are your hands clean?”

What a brat. He’s just trying to show Sieun a better way to eat their meal. Even Beomseok agreed. Suho swaps hands, scrunches the lettuce and meat entirely in his palm, unmistakably, and then switches it back to reach for Sieun’s mouth, talking about some, ‘food tastes better this way’.

It’s fun. Between friends.

Then, Sieun actually opens his parched lips, almost challenging; his eyes never leaving Suho’s. And Suho proceeds to feed the bundle to Sieun.

He wouldn't exactly call it fun, then.

The tips of Suho’s fingers brush against Sieun’s cupid's bow as he presses down, dry and plush. He absorbs the way Sieun’s tongue, too pink, peeks out to bring the outer pieces of lettuce into his mouth. He tracks the way Sieun's jaw hinges, shifts, the way he doesn’t start chewing until Suho is out of his space. 

Again, he gets that feeling in his chest, distinct and undeniable. He dismisses it. It’s the one that really likes to suffocate the words in his mouth, the feeling that makes his heart beat unbearably fast. Too loud in his own ears.

Suho considers the way Sieun doesn’t look away, once. The minuscule quirk of his lips, the meagre crinkle under his eyes. The moment is over far too fast, and yet it drags on far too long. 

Suho moves on with a smile and a teasing ‘I told you so’. Beomseok laughs. They all go back to eating.

He can’t get rid of the image of Sieun's wary but almost content gaze, no longer lifeless but rather limitless, trained on Suho. With Sieun’s dark, heavy eyes, sheen with the restaurant's lights, they now reflect the prominent spark Suho had found Sieun was at first devoid of. Sparkling, even as Sieun diverts his gaze away.

It makes Suho warm. That elated, warm feeling that grasps you from the inside, that makes you feel light and tranquil. 

Sieun brings warmth to their newfound trio. And more so, warmth to Suho.

Basically, Yeongbin knew the middle-aged man named Seokdae, and Seokdae got them threatened by an absolute psycho named Gilsoo.

Shit proceeds to go down with Gilsoo and the other related delinquents. 

Gilsoo is knocked out between them, and Suho and Sieun are catching their breath, chests heaving. The heat doesn’t help for anything, and the empty amusement park yields nothing but the distant ring of sirens.

“Hey, have you lost your mind or what?” Suho pants, after a minute passes, “Why would you go by yourself, huh?”

Suho speaks, and can’t seem to look away from Sieun; he finds himself observing. Admiring. Sieun is, in fact, insane, but Suho thinks he’s known that for a while.

There’s a cut on Sieun's face, his chapped lips newly bloodied and split, his tongue pushed against his bottom lip. Sweat beads on his forehead, where his eyebrows are set high, intoxicated by the adrenaline. His body is tilted, his stance staggered and swaying, and when Sieun swallows thickly, Suho tracks the movement at his throat. 

He can hear Sieun’s laboured breathing.

(For some reason, he wants to hear it closer to him, in a whole new context. Suho ignores this. There’s blood rushing against his ears. The thought probably stems from the epinephrine, from Sieun, from both.)

Sieun’s eyes flit over him with intensity, pupils blown impossibly wide, and Sieun looks crazed. 

And then Suho hears, “You came.”

As if it were a given.

His chest is being strangled, looking at Sieun, hurt. But there’s pride knowing he was here for him, that Sieun trusted him to follow.

(Yet the idea that Sieun knew Suho well enough to know Suho would chase after him, only made that feeling squeeze tighter. Wrapping itself around his heart. Lodging itself in his throat. Sharp thorns making themselves known in his most important organ, that he knows he’ll never get out.)

It definitely was a given.

Next thing he knows, stuck in the hospital for a night, he’s seeing Sieun smile.

Sieun is warm-hearted. Tender, at his core. His actions have been shifting from being ice-cold and defensive to a now familiar warmth that seeps into Suho at every corner, every edge. Filling the gaps in his soul. A contrast to when they met.

Now? Sieun is looking at him, and Suho can’t help but compare him to a cat, once again. Performatively, stingy and guarded. But once you win it over, with patience and care, well…

Sieun is silent, as always, but it’s softer. Sweeter. Expression slightly surprised— confused, you could say, as Suho rambles about Sieun's new, suspiciously loving behaviour. Tells him, “Ah, what is this feeling?”, and it’s too close to a confession. He tells Sieun about his eyes and his heart, and all of these things that Suho had never expected from him when they first met—

“It makes me cringe,” Suho finishes. It’s not the right word. Suho knows it’s not. He doesn’t think he could get the right word out of himself, not yet, but he knows it’s far fonder than ‘cringe’.

But Suho doesn’t have time to reflect on that, because suddenly, he’s stunned by the beautiful sight of Sieun, his Sieun, smiling. 

It’s almost ridiculous to look at. Like a lowly servant infringing on a banquet for kings. 

It’s lovable. It makes Sieun radiant. If he were being dramatic, it’s a smile people would kill to receive, especially for how utterly rare it is.

He must say, “Hah?” at least three times. He has no other words when faced with the squint of Sieun's eyes and the way his lips twist in the most adoring, downturned smile, drawing out full lips.

Suho remarks on the way Sieun immediately dodges Suho’s eyes the moment it breaks across his face, as if it wasn’t meant to happen. The way he angles his head away. 

If Suho weren’t so speechless, he’d reach for Sieun's chin and inspect his face, looking for any signs of a doppleganger. Or, maybe, he’d do it just to hold him and see Sieun glow, like that, up close.

Siuens' eyes are so big and pretty, the skin underneath tinged a gentle hue of red. Suho feels like he’s being drowned. He has to work to swallow. Unable to take his eyes off the risen apples of Sieun’s cheeks and just—

Wow. He seriously can’t breathe.

Sieun shifts to sit on the edge of Yeongi’s bed, facing Suho, and softly tells him to eat, shoulders loose and the mirth lingering. He seems almost embarrassed, but looks so happy, as Suho watches the light red dusting his cheeks work its way up to shade the tips of Sieun’s ears. 

Suho allows himself to watch Sieun a few seconds longer. A few seconds. Only a few, and he then has to drag his gaze away— lest he say something he shouldn’t. He feels the words rising to his tongue. Maybe some more praise, or maybe something more. 

Instead, he expresses his satisfaction with the food through a happy groan, the rich scent filling him with spirit as he unties the plastic bag. Emotions coursing through him, like a dam suddenly broken by a raging river.

He’s stuck. Stuck on the thoughtfulness of the food, the idea that Sieun had left, yet had returned on the whim, remembering and buying Suho the things he had huffed dramatically about in passing.

Stuck on how this is the first time he’s seen Sieun smile. Stuck on how Suho was the one to make him smile.

Beomseok has been agitated recently.

Suho thinks Beomseok is being a straight-up asshole. He doesn’t quite know what Sieun thinks about him, but he does know Sieun is giving him far too much leeway. 

But it’s fine, at least for now, because he has Sieun here, at the underpass by water, bathed in the morning blue-hour light while they work on his fundamentals. 

“All right, stand up.”

“You just told me to run. There’s more?” Sieun almost sounds like he’s sulking. He’s clearly not a morning person.

That, or his strong aversion to running.

Either way, Suho knows he doesn’t like either prospect. For how introverted and reticent the boy is, he can be incredibly snarky.

Suho had clapped his hands in reply, promised to teach the basics of hand-to-hand, and lifted Sieun up.

And now he’s faced with a dead-silent Sieun. Pure fatigue and exacerbation.  

He looks cute.

Suho tells him where to direct his feet. He’s countered with Sieun’s weak reasoning, “You can stop anytime. You have to be tired. Go home and sleep.”

Sieun is trying to plead to call quits without literally calling quits, and the effort is charming. 

(Suho ignores that feeling in his chest at the strong thought that he can so clearly read Sieun by the set of his eyebrows, his slow blinking, the slightest shifts in the tone of his monotone voice.

The fact that Suho knows Sieun, to the point he can understand him without hindrance, in the times where Suho once would’ve thought the boy to be indecipherable.)

Suho’s more than up for this, though. If anything, he quips, “I’m not tired, don’t worry. I’m amused.”

He tells Sieun, “Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart,” and exhales as Sieun's deep gaze breaks away from him for a moment to adjust his feet. 

Sieun sighs, dragging his feet as if a zombie, and Suho fights a smile.

Sieun is as jumpy as a cat, and if he were to tease, the lesson would probably end early with Sieun’s annoyed huff. And he’d rather teach Sieun some self-defence than nothing at all. 

So Suho moves on. Reaches for Sieun's chin, positions it easily, lets his hand linger, if only for his own benefit. Siuen just looks at him. Endlessly. Suho then explains the art of using your arms to protect your chin. 

Sieun is as slack as a ragdoll. Suho’s hands go to circle Sieun’s wrists now, his palms appearing large around Sieun’s cool, smooth skin, and Suho pretends not to notice.

He manoeuvres Sieun's hands to knock at his own cheeks instead, sinking into the plush skin, and Sieun is vacantly staring forward, like he’s trying to see straight through Suho’s chest.

Suho wonders if he’s going to have to hold Sieun up so he doesn’t fall, with the way he stands so emptily. He’s tempted to pinch Sieun's cheeks, to wake him up. And maybe, selfishly, to do it for Suho’s own enjoyment.

Again, Suho thinks, how cute.

He explains some more, and then he releases Sieun, stepping back. Sieun's eyes bore into him intently, a little helpless, a lot resigned, while Suho describes a scenario, “Next, imagine there’s a punk in front of you,” Suho makes a hand movement, “He’s threatening to beat you to death, you’re not gonna live, etcetera.”

Sieun is still and wordless, his body language slumped, even as he keeps his half-hearted stance. 

The magnitude of Sieun’s gaze is making it hard for Suho to keep his voice steady.

Suho purses his lips and inhales, “When this happens, you don’t want to look into his eyes. Look at his shoulders instead.”

Sieun obeys, and Suho is granted reprieve from the eye contact as he continues, “Watch me.”

Then, he’s demonstrating a punch for Sieun's shoulders. Sieun’s eyes deviate to his fist. Suho’s lips twitch in either entertainment or exasperation. Probably both.

He repeats for Sieun to keep his gaze focused on his shoulder. He tells him, when the hit comes, to duck and go for the waist.

On an impulse, Suho demonstrates this as well. Hips shifting, evading down and letting his arms wrap around the back of Sieun's thighs, counting Sieun down before gently pushing him back against the ground.

And Sieun falls like it’s the best part of their morning, with a soft thud and the rustle of clothes, all loose-limbed and soft. Arms supporting him from behind, knees slightly bent. Sighing.

He’s been silent, defiant in his compliance, the entire time. A lazy cat who woke up from their nap too early. The air around them is warm and sweet for how early it is— if anything, Sieun is the warmth. 

“That’s called a takedown.” Suho is grinning, and then he isn’t, “The next step is to take your fists and beat…”

His voice stops in his throat, and his words change course, “Never mind. Run. It’s better to just run. Run away while the other guy is down.”

Sieun is looking up at him. Wide-eyed and awaiting. He does that more often. Looks at Suho with melodious eyes and his pretty face and his chapped lips. 

(When Suho’s alone, he sometimes thinks of ways he can help with the dryness around Sieun's full mouth. Guilty, his methods aren’t always simple enough to be platonic.)

Suho’s voice goes serious, his lips pursed. The image of Sieun, bloodied and bruised, and somewhere Suho can’t run to him, can’t help him, can’t protect him —the sole person he finds worth protecting—, digs itself into the recesses of his mind. So rather, he tells Sieun, “Because you might get hurt fighting him.” 

Suho sighs. He looks away, like a coward. He doesn’t want to brace Sieun's angelic, doe-eyed expression.

Really, it's a matter of how Suho has to look away when faced with the same gaze that unravels him, that makes him fear his tongue going a little too loose. It makes Suho fear that he’ll say something he doesn’t quite understand himself yet.

He pulls Sieun up, mindlessly rattling something about going to visit Beomseok. A strong tug, and Sieun is standing, in his galaxy, in his solar system, in his orbit, and Sieun seems to be all he can process.

Suho steps away first. Leads them to his bike.

(In the way he doesn’t want to let go of Sieun, the way he wants to hold him closer than what would be normal and defend him through and through, all and everything— Suho thinks he’s beginning to understand.)

Some time passes.

Turns out, Beomseok decided he wanted to go be friends with those jerks. Decided that he wanted to be an asshole to Sieun, who was only trying to mediate.

Apparently, Beokseok seemed to have forgotten that it was because of those same jerks he now calls his ‘friends’ that had Beomseok running to Suho, to rescue Sieun. 

But maybe that flew over his dense, insecure head.

He wasn’t here to have sympathy, or patience, or any of the sort, for people who didn’t want it.

Suho’s stealing Sieun for a late-night ride from his cram school when he finally understands what this feeling is.

He swings his legs around his bike, where he had been waiting. Picks up the helmet. Strolls the few steps towards Sieun. Tells him, “It’s Friday night, let’s go for a drive.”

Sieun only stares at him. Open, unfiltered honey-brown eyes, plush lips almost in a pout, cheekbones highlighted by the warm glow of the streetlights. All his attention trained on Suho. Undivided. 

Suho’s envisionment of cat Sieun has gone from a stray feline to an attention-starved housecat.

Sieun doesn’t move. Suho slides the helmet onto Sieun himself. Slaps the cover down, buckles the strap. 

The picture of Sieun with stupid lips and stupid hair overfringing upon his stupidly, stupidly gorgeous eyes —protected by the slanted helmet, his helmet, Suho’s helmet— is illustrated so angelically in his mind now, he knows it’ll never leave. He may as well have it tattooed onto the back of his eyelids.

Suho feels so much in that moment, that he would think he’d be drowning.

“Cute,” he says, out loud, passive and teasing, nowhere near reflecting the vines upon vines that are within his chest, circling his heart, predatorial. 

Suho doesn’t let it show on his face. He gestures to the space behind him after he maneuvers onto the bike. Sieun complies.

And after, when they reach their destination, when they slide off the bike, Sieun stands and waits for Suho to take the helmet off for him. He doesn’t even bother to raise his own hands.

(Suho knows Sieun's has scarcely calloused hands, soft from all his studying, from all the time he spends over his desk.

Where there are no hard ridges, there are sweet hands and blunt, bitten nails and skin. A prominent writer's bump on the left side of his right middle finger.

He wants to hold Sieun's hands. Warm up the ever-cold skin, interlink their fingers. Keep him close, in the way Suho craves to be around him, every day.)

Sieun lets Suho flick the helmet visor up, and Sieun looks back, gaze revealed from the plastic, reflective film. His expression is indifferent as ever, his eyes far too tender, gleaming with warmth. God, Sieun is his warmth. 

And Suho’s lips part, his breath hitches, and he’s caught in Sieun's eyes like a fish to a hook. Sieun is watching him, quiet, searching. Suho watches his eyes flicker, as if he’s studying Suho’s face like one of his language tests, following Suho’s most minute movements when Suho doesn’t do anything—

Suho tracks a step backward. As if he’s been punched, but there’s no physical force. He knows what a punch feels like. Knows it like the back of his hand. 

Yet this still manages to take the breath out of him.

Suho wants to kiss Sieun.

Suho. Wants to kiss. Sieun.

Suho turns away, abruptly avoiding Sieun’s eyes, guising his expression with a grin. Because how does one react to that? His mind is racing like he’s in a race with his life on the line. 

(It’s different when he’s playing scenarios like this in his head. It’s different than standing here, in front of Sieun, where they’re too close and alone, and Sieun is the best thing in his life right now, and it’s gone far, far past being best friends.)

Sieun hasn’t said a thing. Suho still has to say something.

He grabs a bag out of the back of his bike. Makes his face as aloof as he possibly can, and instructs Sieun to go do a delivery. When Sieun accuses him of making him work, on their supposed night drive, looking at him like an abandoned kitten, Suho interrupts Sieun’s inquiry: ‘it’s for exercise’, and ‘he should take the stairs’.

But more than that, he simply can’t handle the way Sieun’s eyes follow Suho’s every movement with parted lips. The way he keeps staring into Suho, fully immersed in Suho’s presence, like he’s really followed Suho out here for just the two of them— none of his notebooks or his pens. 

The way Sieun appears a little irked now, his brows the slightest bit furrowed, and, well, holy shit, he’s now had multiple revelations and needs to breathe because, oh. 

Oh. 

“I gotta make a stop over there,” Suho says, and he’s on his bike and gone. Sticks his tongue out. Tries to be a little normal.

Ahn Suho is absolutely in love.

That feeling that makes him feel like his body is being eternally swallowed whole by so many syrupy emotions when he thinks about his Sieun has a name.

The roots of the thorned flower have grown, branched out into every one of Suho’s cells, and Suho is in love.

Love, because what the fuck, it is love, he is in love—

He is in love with his best friend, Yeon Sieun. 

Suho doesn’t know if he can work around this.

Love hasn’t been a thing he’s familiar with. 

Nothing further than the periodic pieces of media he consumes and maybe the people he sees around Seoul.

His parents left early on. He’s only had his halmeoni, and even then, it’s only ever been her, since she took him in.

His platonic friendships never stood strong. Jealously, insecurity. Take Beomseok, for example.

Despite having people around him, Suho has always stood on the precipice of loneliness.

And now he has Sieun. Steady. Affectionate, through his layers. Sieun has always been on a different level than the others. Than Beomseok, Yeongi. Not because of some rendition of favouritism, but because Sieun shines in a completely different light. He’s eternally bathed in warmth and vibrancy and the soft colours of a flowery meadow, through Suho’s eyes.

He didn’t think much of it at first. Ignored that feeling, the feeling of love, as it weeded its way into Suho, from the very first spark of curiosity.

Suho overlooked it, as it grew, as it strangled him, as it made him hesitate on words and his heart beat faster and—

Suho didn’t know what this form of love felt like. How unyielding it was, how powerless it made him feel.

Until Yeon Sieun.

It’s normal. He finishes his delivery, breathes, recollects, and meets Sieun back where he dropped him off. When he sees Sieun, he notes his empty hands and shoots him a teasing grin, saying something about how he better have taken the stairs and not the elevator. 

They finish a few deliveries. Buy drinks outside of a convenience store.

Talk about Beomseok.

It hurts. It does. Just because Suho doesn’t excuse or ignore Beomseok's newfound asshole behaviour, it doesn’t change the fact that Beomseok had been their good friend.

Sieun tells him what he’s been noticing, and Suho considers, “What if Oh Beom’s taking advantage of them?”

He knows Sieun is compassionate. Humane. Suho can acknowledge the connection between Sieun and Beomseok; the mutual understanding the two hold.

But Suho is realistic, and while Beomseok can have shitty things happen to him, shitty things happen to everyone. What makes him special? Because Beomseok was the one who didn't want to communicate, even when they offered him a chance to explain.

Beomseok likes being surrounded by these delinquents because he craves this variant of redemptive popularity. Maybe he feels obligated to compensate for what happened in his old school. Maybe the cruelty is a projection of his father’s treatment.

It makes sense. He tells Sieun as much. That, maybe Beomseok latched onto them from the start. Sieun blinks slowly, “You really think that?”

Suho doesn’t look at him, but can feel Sieun's gaze all the same. Suho only shifts on the bench, wipes his lips of the residual sweet drink, and sighs.

There’s an incident in the cafeteria.

Beomseok is trying to be a bigshot, or something, and it's agitating. It crawls under Suho’s skin.

In a flash, Beomseok is on the ground, and Sieun is beside him.

“That’s enough,” Sieun asks. Because it’s not a command, but it’s not a polite request. Suho doesn’t listen. He knows what guys like this are capable of. 

Beomseok walks away.

Suho finds his left leg is in a cast soon after— a crash off his bike.

When Suho limps into class late, attracting the eyes of every student, Sieun doesn’t look away once. Even when the teacher calls out, ‘eyes in front’, Suho can feel the way his gaze lingers. It takes a second commandment for Sieun to break eye contact. 

Suho sees Sieun's lips purse with what seems akin to curiosity and worry. He turns to the board, as well.

At the end of class, Sieun is at his desk. 

“What happened to your leg?” he murmurs, hands in the pockets of his gray jacket. His eyes examining, his eyebrows raised. Suho notes the features of a concerned, expressive Sieun. Commits it to memory.

Suho smiles at him, tells him it’s no big deal. 

But when Beomseok makes his way out of the classroom, he tells Beomseok to fuck off and quit the staring problem.

“It’s nothing,” Suho hums when Sieun asks. Confident in his assurance, but maybe not in his statement itself. Suho knows Sieun well, but that means Sieun knows him just as equally.

Sieun clearly doesn’t buy it, his eyes still swimming with unease.

They go for lunch, and it doesn’t come up again.

Yeongi had left earlier with an abrupt phone call, and it left Suho to play video games with a critically inept dumbass. 

“You can’t go there,” Suho informs. For someone so smart, it’s painful to watch Sieun play.

Well, watching his screen is painful. Suho watching Sieun play is different, though. Sieun’s adamant gaze is fixated on the TV screen, eyes sparkling with the reflection, body hunched over, and his bottom lip almost in a pout as he continues failing the fundamentals of a video game, of all things.

(He could watch Sieun all day and never feel bored. Is that what it means to be in love?)

“You’re not supposed to plan when you play. Hey, look, look,” Suho sighs, lighthearted, when Sieun drives over hills, away from the main directive, “Don’t treat gaming like you’re studying, okay?”

He looks over at Sieun, whose arms are in front of him, his controller sideways. Dry lips now parted in focus. The tip of his tongue peeking out from over his bottom lip. Ignoring Suho.

“Ugh. Give me that,” Suho resigns, as Sieun continues to struggle. He takes the controller straight out of Sieun's weak grasp, their fingers brushing. He begins to fiddle aggressively with the buttons.

Sieun slowly glances at him for a moment, dazed, and Suho can see him out of his peripheral. Suho redirects and asks when Yeongi is returning. Tells Sieun he’s starving. Continues playing the game on the screen when Sieun makes a quiet noise, looks away, and then back at Suho.

“We can bring out the cake later. Or should we just eat first?”

Suho’s head swivels immediately, but he keeps his face serious, his tone unreadable, “Seriously?”

Sieun gazes at him, puzzled and expectant. His wide eyes, pursed lips, and loose, relaxed body that’s gradually leaning away from Suho in Sieun’s perplexity. His hands limp in his lap.

(Suho notes how Sieun feels comfortable with Suho, so clear in the sense of his body language, in the exposed emotions saturating his expressions. The vines around Suho’s heart don’t hurt when they squeeze his chest. If anything, it’s pleasant.)

They gaze at each other for a few seconds too long. 

Suho stupidly wonders if Sieun's eyes are actually government cameras, for how beautiful and alluring, they are. It’s as if he’s drowning in an ocean of honey, but the quicker you are to try to escape, the harder it is to get out.

(And Suho’s fallen so far, his head is barely above the surface. But he can’t find it himself to try and escape, not when the honey is warm, sweet, and loving.)

He’s playing with Sieun, though, and won’t refuse food anytime— the energy returning to his voice: “That sounds like a brilliant idea, bud. Sounds like a plan.” 

So, Suho clicks his tongue and animatedly rises from the couch to warm up pizza. Sieun makes a noise, akin to an exhale, and then tells him that he’ll give Yeongi a call. 

Suho can’t stop thinking about how pretty Sieun looks in their domesticity. It makes him feel light. Content. Full, of Sieun's heady presence.

Sieun tells him he’s going for a convenience store trip. 

Alone, Suho takes a nap. Wakes up, with the windows dark. The room is still empty. Alone, still, then. He sighs.

“Hey, Yeon Sieun,” he calls, then more faintly, “Hey, Yeon Sieun-ah.”

It’s fine. Suho scratches the nape of his neck and stands. He wasn't initially planning on doing this whole celebration thing, anyway. 

When Suho is abruptly woken from his sleep in class the next day, Sieun isn’t in his seat.

Which doesn’t make sense, for Sieun’s academic track record. The uneasiness within him blooms, and only worsens when he looks at Beomseok's spot next, also empty.

The facts don’t have to connect. But his next conclusion —that there was some misunderstanding, and they forgot to inform Suho— is blown away next. Sieun doesn’t pick up his phone, nor respond to his texts. Sieun may not be the best communicator, but he’s never been heartless.

Okay. Something happened. Or maybe a joke? Yeongi answers that assumption, once Suho finds her, working her shift. She tells it to him straight and then gets up to leave. More or less dismisses Suho. Clear message. Ditching him, and now bluntly ignoring him, is no prank. 

His unease evolves into a white noise of distress and apprehension. Worry, for Sieun. It’s eating at him, ravenous. The branches stemming from his heart feel less like a fulfilling, decisive weight and more like a sickening, piercing pain.

Suho goes to Sieun’s home. Sieun doesn’t answer his door. He sighs, steps back. Gives the apartment one last defeated look, as if the inanimate object can answer Suho’s questions, or settle his inner turmoil. 

He’ll have to figure out what happened himself.

It all breaks over when Suho shows up at Sieun's apartment, a second time. Mid-day. He plans to do something that is ridiculous and stupid, but something that feels so right.

(It’s for Sieun. If it’s for Sieun's sake, can it be anything but right?)

The fury is crawling under his skin, a low, constant hum that makes him tense, strained. Restless. Not even the judicial violence of beating and scaring the shit out of those filthy punks could take the edge off of him.

One more time. Hopefully, Sieun will open the door. He knows, from Yeongi, that Sieun will be home this time. That he had been hospitalized. But if Sieun doesn’t greet him, Suho will see him tomorrow.

Sieun does come to the door when Suho rings the bell. “Who is it?” Suho hears. He feels both overwhelmed and simultaneously soothed by the hesitant chime of Sieun’s voice.

“Delivery,” Suho calls. 

Sieun greets him dullly, almost defensively, “Hey, what's up?”

“What do you mean, ‘what's up’? I’m thirsty. Give me water,” is Suho’s reply. He won’t have this conversation behind a closed door.

Sieun is in front of him a moment later, swinging the door open on his hinges only the slightest, too purposeful. Reminiscent of their first interaction, Suho observes him. The raw pink circling his full lips, the downcast set of his lashes as he avoids Suho’s eyes, as he refuses to look Suho in the eyes for more than a second. 

When Sieun finally looks up, Suho smiles. Notes how Sieun looks far more exhausted than usual. Suho huffs a laugh, “You doing all right?”

Suho is met with a murmured, “Sure, yeah.” It makes Suho want to laugh, or cry, because Sieun is swallowing hard, the movement striking against the delicate skin of his throat. His body angled to hide behind the door, as his eyes —guarded, melancholy— divert again, and he says, “Why are you here?” as if Suho is a stranger.

At the least, Suho knows Sieun wouldn’t be so cold without reason. So he can’t be upset about it. He nods his head down the hallway, a lazy gesture, “I was just in the neighbourhood.”

And when he looks back, Suho catches sight of Sieun's arm in a cast. He knows Sieun sees the way his Suho’s eyes drift down, too, and in response, Sieun tries to hide his broken arm, tries to shift it behind his back. 

For some reason, that’s what hurts most. Worse than their stilted conversation and the walls that Sieun seemed to have built back up between them. After all they’ve been through. He bites his tongue, heart pounding. He keeps his tone light, “Are you okay?”

Sieun doesn’t answer him. Rather, he asks, “Why?”

Why? Why Suho, his best friend, who is in love with him, is now here, at Sieun's doorstep, is asking if he’s okay? Suho asking if Sieun’s okay isn’t even a scratch off the top of things he has to say. The things he has to say before they build up in his heart and his throat like fallen flower petals, all the way until he chokes on them.

Suho aligns a smile across his face and moves on. Asks if Sieun is coming to school tomorrow for exams. Suho is friendly, and Sieun is back to giving him one-word answers, evading Suho’s gaze every time he responds to him. 

And when Sieun tells him that he’s got to study? He doesn’t know if he wants to walk away just yet. Before he goes to the boxing ring and ends this roundabout of bullshit. 

To end it, so he can keep this hurt and withdrawal away from Sieun.

But how could he step away when he has Sieun, in front of him, the Sieun who likely went through an unbearable amount of pain to protect Suho’s well-being? 

The Sieun, with the low-set brows and chapped lips and pretty, pretty eyes, who lied to Suho so he could have peace on his birthday, who ghosted him after, so Suho wouldn’t go through any worse.

Sieun, who, despite trying to be distant, only has the most authentic version of understanding, of kindness, of grace, behind all his intentions. 

And the image of what Sieun must’ve looked like, cradling his arm, lying fetal on cold concrete, bloodied and bruised and alone, without Suho even knowing, makes it hard to breathe. The single thing he wanted to avoid.

And his Yeon Sieun has an unreadable expression painting his face. Suho hasn’t found Sieun unreadable for a long time. Is it Apprehension? Breathlessness? Is he waiting? 

The flowers bloom around his heart. He can’t breathe. And he can’t leave, lest they wilt, without Sieun’s steady warmth to keep them sanctioned.

“Let me in.”

“What?” Sieun sounds stunned. Incredulous. An alarmed cat, with its fur spiked.

“Yah, come on, I’m not going to bite. Or don’t tempt me,” Suho says, jokingly, and his palm is flat against the apartment door as he squeezes his way around Sieun.

Suho watches as Sieun's lips part, as his nose scrunches, as his eyes go shiny, and his voice wavers, “What are you doing?”

They stand together in the doorway. Suho closes the door and moves to peer around Sieun and past the foyer, “I’m entering your apartment, hmm? What did I say earlier? I’m thirsty.”

Sieun is silent. He’s always silent; sometimes it’s serene and soft, sometimes it's flustered and embarrassed, but now, the silence is loud. 

“Sieun?” Suho turns around.

His smile disappears.

Sieun is looking at him as if Suho hung the damn moon. Tears welling in his lower lashes, threatening to spill. His lower lip was trembling.

“Oh.” Suho exhales, his throat tightening up, “Sieun-ah.” 

Suho steps towards Sieun, and Sieun steps back. Blinking, a tad bit too fast, trying to dispel the tears before they fall. And then, “I’m sorry.”

“Hah? For what? What’s wrong?” Suho says, stricken with thorns at the sight of Sieun’s tears. Because Sieun isn’t in the wrong for anything that happened, he thinks. To Suho, Sieun has never done anything blatantly wrong.

Suho takes another step. Fights the urge to cradle Sieun's face in the palm of his hand, run his thumb over the high of his flushed cheekbones, over his furrowed, hurt face. His expression makes Suho heartsick. 

But Sieun ducks his head, takes a step back himself, says, “Nothing,” and turns his head out of Suho’s line of sight. There’s a miserable slump to his posture. “I’ll get you your water.” 

“Hey,” Suho says, his heart lurching at the separation. He reaches out, lightly grasping Sieun's wrist. Cold, per normal, but in a way, also colder than usual. His tone lilts into a half-hearted tease, “Do you think you’re running away in your own house?”

“No.” Flat as ever, but it falters.

He finds himself speaking a little pleadingly when he asks, “Look at me, Sieun.” He hopes Sieun can’t hear the unchecked infatuation in his voice.

Suho watches Sieun’s fingers twitch, the way his chest rises, uneven breathing, visible from his side profile. So he repeats himself, and Sieun finally turns around. Heavy eyes and tears streaking his cheeks. It’s like a sharp branch spearing him through and through and through—

Suho speaks. “I know you told Yeongi to keep it a secret. I know it was Beomseok and his lackeys. I know they,” he pauses, wincing, “I know they hurt you, Sieun. And I know you’re avoiding me.”

Sieun is looking at him now, tentative. His gaze, so sincere and expressive, even when his words aren’t. Like he’s hoping with those wide, doe-eyes, glossy with tears, that Suho can understand him. Wordlessly communicating.

But Suho has one more thing to say, something that has stuck to the inside of his throat like glue. It tears off skin as the words find their way to the tip of his tongue, and Suho just can’t seem to keep the vulnerability out of his voice.  “Why did you hide this from me? I would’ve protected you.”

To this, Sieun finally has an answer. His raw, parched lips part, and the words blurt out, firmer than anything he’s said as of yet, “They were after you. I don’t regret it.”

“Characteristic,” Suho sighs. His hand loosens from where it encircles Sieun's wrist, but he doesn’t let go, “You don’t get to decide that for me. What if something happened to you? Something worse. It would’ve been my fault, you know? You don’t know how much you mean to me.”

Suho can see where Sieun's breath hitches, where his eyes widen. When Suho approaches him again, hesitant but calculating, backing Sieun into the wall, Sieun doesn’t step back with avoiance— but rather allows Suho to slot himself into his space with resignation, affection. 

“Suho-yah,” Sieun whispers, when they’re too close for comfort. His voice is so awed, Suho thinks, as he brings his spare hand to Sieun’s cheek. Trying to swipe away his sorrow with his mere thumb. As if the warmth Sieun provides him could travel through layers of flesh and bone, down to his heart. 

And, as Suho caresses the high of Sieun’s cheek with the care you’d accord a priceless sculpture, as Sieun looks at him, gaze a tempest of emotion; it takes great attention not to seize Sieun’s jaw and kiss him senseless. To make Sieun’s burden of guilt he’s carrying be washed away by the love Suho feels pouring over.

Their proximity is intimate. It makes the spines and thorns melt back into a cascade of flowers. It makes Suho let go of Sieun's wrist, reassured that Sieun won’t distance himself, again, now. 

Both of Suho’s palms allow him to cup Sieun’s face. “Don’t cry. Yah, why are you crying?”

Sieun appears so utterly conflicted. Crestfallen. The tears have stopped, lessened to puffy, misty eyes. He follows the movement of Suho’s hand, and Suho watches his lashes flutter when he gently directs Sieun’s head to look at him straight on.

Sieun obeys Suho’s silent directive, gaze flicking from watching Suho’s affectionate palms, to locking onto Suho’s eyes, like a moth to a flame. There’s a certain pain, a certain desperation, in Sieun’s eyes. Accompanied in the way Sieuns' brows tilt up, the way his throat constricts as he swallows thickly, audibly. 

The intensity is crushing. 

Suho has always considered Sieun a man of not many words, but right now, it’s as if Suho can see the words circling in his head, threatening to come through. And when they do, they’re slow to drift in the sparse space between them, in Sieun’s low, secure voice, that causes Suho’s heart to pound, “I’d rather it be me than you. I’ve drawn you into this mess, and I don’t know what they’ll do to you.”

The words make something click within Suho. He tilts their foreheads together. He can see, can feel, can hear, Sieun. Down to his beating heart, to his restrained, shuddering breathing, to his marble skin. Sieun’s eyes, those beautiful, forsaken eyes, that make Suho feel like he’s drowning in the tangible light of the sun. 

Sieun looks like he’s searching for something, in Suho’s expression. And Suho can’t help the way his gaze falls to Sieun’s lips. Full. Kissable. The outline of dry, agitated pink. The hint red from where the chapped skin bleeds.

Suho yearns to soothe them. He thinks he might. Sieun is temptation incarnate, and Suho is nobody if he doesn’t yield. “Sieun-ah. Can I kiss you?”

Sieun nods.

And then, Suho is kissing him like a man on the verge of death. 

Where Sieun's lips are dry, they’re plush, giving as Suho presses their mouths together, tilts their heads, closes his eyes. Inhales Sieun’s warmth as if Suho is a lone soldier, under barren, frosted lands.

He feels the flowers blossom fervidly within him, pushing at his skin; he feels the petals flow through his lips, love, trying to pour through their connected skin. And as Suho drinks in his fill of sunlight, he feels insatiable.

Because Sieun is with him, kissing him, making these ever soft, quiet sounds as his hands find Suho’s shoulders. The proximity of their bodies, pressed against each other, is intoxicating. One of Suho’s hands slips up from Sieun’s jaw to cradle his face.

Sieun tastes like spring after rain. 

The season of first blooms.

Suho kisses him intently, as if his devotion can be conveyed through the sliding of their lips. It’s passionate, ardent, romantic, in its intensity. And Sieun meets him with just as much magnitude— earnest and exhilarating. 

How can he put his emotions into words when he feels them in prismatic colours? How can he speak his words, when all he is is the scent and sound and taste of a kaleidoscopic Sieun? 

“Sieun-ah,” Suho pleads, voice cracking when Sieun gently tilts his head away, forcing them apart. Suho is breathless to the point of lightheadedness, his chest heaving. He chases Sieun’s lips, places one more chaste, fond kiss to where they’ve grown red and swollen.

Sieun is faring no better. Nearly gasping, eyes scrunched shut. Trembling, ever so slightly. One of his hands had entwined in the hair at the nape of Suho’s neck, the distant strain an inebriating pressure against Suho’s scalp. 

Sieun’s lips are no longer dry, but slick with Suho’s saliva. A full flush to his cheeks. A crimson hue colouring his ears. It makes Suho’s heart flip. Suho could kiss him for hours. Who needs oxygen, when you can kiss the very person who brought meaning to your life? 

And Sieun —his head against the wall, pupils are blown impossible wide, palms flat and firm and a sweet sensation against Suho’s body— looks ethereal. Seraphic.

Suho is so enraptured in Sieun’s gaze that he has to wonder if he’s dying. “This feeling. Do you know how pretty you are? The way you talk, the way you look. Your eyes. Sometimes I can’t breathe when you look at me.”

Sieun makes a broken noise at the back of his throat. His eyes are so openly affectionate, his expression a weave of revelation and something that Suho wishes, hopes, with all his twisted, flowery soul, is love.

Because Sieun is the one person whom Suho can find solace within. Where Suho finds his heart grows efflorescent, where Suho feels intangible when bathed in Sieun’s warmth. 

It should be an arcane concept, with Sieun’s abstruse, enigmatic attitude, but Suho knows more than anyone how warm-hearted he is. And Suho finds himself smiling, in the absurdity of the moment, his voice shaky but fluorescent, “You’ve never dragged me into anything, okay? Don’t be a fool.”

Sieun looks away. Suho can see the signature squint of Sieun’s eyes, the trivial tilt of the corner of his lips. That radiant smile, the one he’s trying to stifle, the one that only comes out around Suho.

Suho feels like he’s floating, and he lets out a quiet laugh. Sieun smiles so beautifully, and it makes Suho so mesmerized, so extraordinarily happy. He’s so high on this moment, holding Sieun close, framing his face with his hands. Being able to feel with his palms the pull of Sieun’s cheeks as his expression is painted by a brilliant, shy grin, where Suho sees the flash of his teeth and the content, soft look of his eyes.

Suho can read the coalescense of emotions knotted in the words tangling his gaze. And Suho is so enamoured in Sieun's presence, in the aftermath of a kiss that he doesn’t know the meaning of but knows it has the aftertaste of love, that he can't hold his tongue. “I love you.”

Suho senses his own face being fallen by surprise, the words unintended, too incisive for the cottony space between them, but Sieun’s reticent smile doesn’t falter. Rather, he reaches up, arms slipping around Suho’s neck, and Suho is being kissed again by his pink, supple lips. And this time, it’s far more sweet, velvety. Slow.

Suho dips into the kiss obediently, eyes falling closed. Their lips slide together, and Suho can feel Sieun’s faint smile against his mouth, and as Sieun closes his eyes, delayed, Suho can feel the delicate tickle of Sieun's lashes.

When they part, again, Suho can barely hear anything but his heartbeat pounding against his chest. But there’s an instant clarity, when Sieun murmurs, in his symphonic, quiet voice, “I love you too.”

Suho smiles, inescapable and so immense that Suho can feel the ache in his cheeks— he’s speechless, in the best way possible. 

Suho can feel the way his ineffable love overspills at the edges of his body, too immense to fit. Suho’s feelings are so vivid, so fierce— but they’re also a pleasant hum under his skin, a peace that he never wants to let go of. 

Suho finds warmth basking in his veins and flowers filling his heart with silky, loving mass. The vibrant joy lingers.

Sieun’s lips are twisted downward in his pure, ephemeral smile, but his wide-eyed gaze looks up, right through Suho, open and ardent and tender and unconstrained. He’s angelic. Breathtaking.

Suho is hit by a sensation of opia. 

Ahn Suho is in love with Yeon Sieun.

And Yeon Sieun loves him.

See, Suho didn’t mind his empty routine, devoid of authentic smiles and words and friends. Now that he’s has it, he thinks a part of him would die if he had to go back.

He hoped he wouldn’t have to.

It hurts to not tell him, Sieun, where he’s going when he finally leaves. But he knows it would hurt more to let Sieun get involved further in this mess; not his Sieun, with his kind intentions and soft doe-eyes and tactful words.

And when Suho finds himself in the boxing gym, when he gets cheated to the ground of the ring, when he feels his vision go fuzzy, and his ears relinquish him no sound but ringing, he spends his last conscious moments flooded with apology and love and adoration.

But no regret. The thought is unfathomable— because it would always be worth it, if it’s for Sieun.