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Haru fell in love like falling into bed, warm and soft, the easiest thing to do after so long. Haru let it envelop them, kept it as a charm, when the days were long and work hard they returned to their love and collapsed into it’s comfort.
Wumuti fell in love like falling off a cliff, clawing and screaming, dirt under her nails and bruises on her knees, and landing at the bottom breath pushed from her lungs wondering “how did I survive?”
It was the curve of their nose, or the way their lips move, it was something in the way they bat their eyelashes over dark eyes, or how they tense their hands under their sleeves. Haru was a specimen that Wumuti studied like a scholar. Indexing their every action, how they looked in every light and how their face scrunched for every emotion. Wumuti was a hard working expert in the field of Haruology.
Haru curled between Wumuti’s knees, on their phone while Wumuti watched a documentary. They leaned back against Wumuti’s chest every so often to catch her eye and make her smile. Reminding her that they were there, like she could ever forget.
Wumuti couldn’t tell you a single thing happening on the tv, watching Haru just as much as she watched the film. They were scrolling through instagram, looking at their friends' stories and texting their friends in another tab. Wumuti tried not to pry but she wanted to know everything. To have boundaries meant there were parts of Haru’s life that she would never be privy to, and her mental encyclopaedia of Haru would never be complete.
Haru’s nose twitched and Wumuti reached for a tissue the second they began to sneeze. Haru bent forwards with the force of the sneeze, leaving a cold spot on Wumuti’s chest where they’d been. They took the tissue from her graciously, rubbing their nose and staring at Wumuti slightly too long, head cocked to the side like a confused dog but with a goofy grin slipping onto their lips. “That’s so weird,” they giggle, smile too big for their face. “You did that before I even sneezed.”
“A mother’s instincts,” Wumuti teases, pinching Haru’s cheek just to annoy him. It works and Haru makes a strangled back-of-throat noise and pulls away, laughing.
“You’re so weird,” Haru said through peals of laughter, “we spend too much time together.”
Haru did not move out of the cradle of her legs and Wumuti did not pull her knees up to her chest, they stayed tangled together, even knowing they were far too close. Wumuti obediently tried to focus on her documentary and not what Haru and the new friend they met on Show Champion that they’d been texting every day this week were saying to each other. Her lacking Japanese reading skills saving Haru’s privacy even as she was desperate to know more.
Haru yawned, tucking their phone into their chest and twisted to watch the movie. With a little shove from Wumuti, they ended up curled with their head on one of her shoulders and a hand rested on her chest, eyes fluttering sleepily as they drowsed off to the sound of an interview about historical Mongolian textiles.
Against her will Wumuti’s heart clenched. Her hands itched to touch all across Haru’s body, her chest burned with the weight of her love, she could do nothing but wrap her arms around them slightly tighter and press her lips against their brow bone. Haru made a little noise like a cat being woken up, their eyes creeped open and they smiled.
Wumuti’s eyes burned suddenly, she pushed another kiss to their face and pulled back to watch the way their face twitched as they laughed. Their mouth fell into a perfect little oval, pulling over their teeth that always looked a little too big for their mouth, their cheeks creased and their eyes were pressed into little crescent moons with thick lashes hiding the sliver that remained open. Wumuti wanted to cry.
Haru looked up to see Wumuti release a shaky breath and squeeze her eyes to fight back the sudden onslaught of tears, she did not watch the minutiae of their expression as they tried to study her face while scrambling to hold her tighter and wipe her cheeks, she felt their hands come up to her face and the gentle warmth as they cupped her cheeks. She felt their weight shift in her lap and their knees move to bracket her hips as they stabilised themself to support her better. She heard their voice crack as they tried to comfort her, softly as they could, voice shaking with shock.
“Mama? Muti? It’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay,” they murmured, tipping her face up to meet their eyes. “It’s okay, don’t cry, you don’t have to cry.”
Wumuti wrapped her arms around their waist and buried her face in their chest, holding them so tightly they almost overbalanced. “I love you,” she mumbled into their chest. “I love you so much.”
“I-” Haru relaxed in her arms, sitting back on her thighs, “oh Muti, I love you too.”
They stroke her hair until her tears stop, slowing their breathing so she would breathe with them, her sniffles slowed and they pressed on her chin to make her look up at them.
“I-” they kiss her nose, “love,” they kiss her cheek, “you,” they kiss her forehead, “so much, mama.”
“I love you too,” Muti giggles wetly. “I don’t even know where to keep all my love for you.”
“So you have to let it out sometimes?” Haru asks, petting her hair.
“Yeah,” she nods. “That’s all.”
Haru nods. “Me too, I understand.”
Wumuti pulled them back into leaning against her, very awkwardly since they’d shifted up quite a lot in the drama, but they settled back into her chest comfortably, and she rewinded the documentary so she could at least pretend she was listening.
“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Haru asked, muffled into her shoulder.
Wumuti's heart throbbed with pain. “Always.”
“How to stop loving someone?”
Separate, focus on other relationships, make yourself like them less by focusing on their faults.
“How to stop loving someone when you love them too much to stop?”
Google had no answer to that. Wumuti felt like a teenager again, trying to get over a crush on an older trainee who had a secret girlfriend, not like a full grown adult who had gone through enough relationships to know how to handle liking someone.
Liking Haru. It felt illegal, wasn't Haru her baby? The little kid who could barely speak Korean who looked edgy to hide how cute he was? Wasn't he the 17 year old who needed to ask his parents to see Wumuti on tour? Wasn't he the 18 year old that hid behind Wumuti's arm when he was nervous around other people? Wasn't he the 19 year old who had to get cuddles when he was embarrassed? When did that baby that Wumuti loved so much become a grown up?
This baby had become a grown up who knew how to read emotions like an art and who took all his time caring for his hyungs. When Hyun was tired he called her on her runs to ask for things on the way home because he knew it would make her not go to the gym after. When Rui was feeling too much Haru would tease her until she was laughing too much to feel sad. Right now Haru tugged Wumuti out of her desk, promises of hot pot if she stopped working.
“Aren’t you hungry now, little princess?” he teased. His arms wrapped around Wumuti’s neck in a gentle hug. “Come on, I’ll make hot pot but I need my Muti, I can’t cook without her.” Wumuti couldn’t say no to that cute face, nuzzling her cheek and speaking in the rumbly part of his chest voice right in her ear. She stood and pulled him into her side with an exasperated sigh, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly as he tugs her into the kitchen.
He didn’t seem young anymore, he grew out of his babyface and into his body, the arm around Wumuti’s waist was strong, muscles defined despite Haru’s abject aversion to the concept of exercise or healthy food. He walked a little more confidently, touched Wumuti with the comfort of a friend, not a son. Wumuti couldn’t help but mourn her baby who was gone now.
And then he wheeled on her and pushed her against the counter, hands on her waist, and said with the confidence of a 12 year old about to learn an important lesson about their own mortality “Let me pick you up.”
Nope, still a baby, a silly, strong, overconfident baby, who slid his hands down Wumuti’s ass and onto her thighs, squatted to get below her centre of gravity, and hoisted her onto the counter like she weighed nothing.
She was too stunned to react, her stomach did a flip, and then when she was stable on the counter, ran around in circles doing an entire tumbling routine just for good measure. Her face must’ve been making some completely unsanctioned expression of bewildered attraction because Haru looked appropriately flustered.
“I- uh. I wanted to know if I could do that?” He says by way of an explanation.
Wumuti finishes her brief but catastrophic gay panic and dissolves into giggles, bending in half clutching her traitorously butterfly-infested stomach. Haru returns to crowding against her, stealing into her arms and hugging around her waist. He slides her head onto his shoulder and lets her giggle into his neck, grinning like the kitten that got the cream.
After their giggle fit ended, the pair began cooking, (Haru cooked, Wumuti sat, talked at him, and looked pretty.) Haru found any excuse to return to her embrace, stealing away whenever he could to melt into her arms for a cuddle. Wumuti’s assessment of how she should feel about him flipflopped with almost every action he took. Taking care of her, cooking her favourite food, hoisting her around like she weighed nothing in deceptively strong arms? But giggling and demanding cuddles and getting nervous too easily. In some ways he was getting older, in others he was still her baby.
Wumuti remembered the secret desire she had when inviting Haru to xlov, not only was he a perfect idol and her beloved son, but he was so… pure. So untouched by idoldom. Even Rui, who only trained for a year before Boys Planet, and had the shortest training period out of the three of them had some of their sparkle stripped away by the process. A sparkle Wumuti fought tooth and nail to return to them, and was still fighting to give back to Hyun.
Haru’s sparkle never dimmed, he shuddered from the rejection of Boys Planet and then immediately returned to burning brightly. A pure being untouched by pain and cruelty. Wumuti admired his innocence, wanting to keep him pure, not let him be twisted to fit the idea of an idol that companies imagined.
That innocence, the ‘baby’ that Wumuti saw in his smile and his cuddles and his innocent enthusiasm, that was what she had worked so hard to keep unharmed.
Haru slid between her legs and rested his head on her chest, smiling like a fox. And Wumuti studied him again. Maybe he wasn’t going to grow out of being like this, and maybe he didn’t have to. Wumuti saw those traits he cradled into adulthood and allowed herself to fall in love with them too.
She pressed her lips to his head and he purred. “Food will be ready soon.”
“It can take it’s time.”
He held her hand, it was not unusual for him to but today it felt different.
“Let’s go on a date, mama.”
They said it often, date, it was their way of saying they wanted time together, alone. It had no double meaning, to all of them a date was just a day out together.
So why had her heart leaped when he said that.
He took her to the harbour on a busy Sunday, they had a staff member accompany them just in case because they were now popular enough to need it. Despite the crowds, and the staff, and the possibility of being recognised, Haru held her hand.
He didn’t let go unless they were doing something that demanded two hands, even when eating their far too large seafood boil Haru let his hand rest on the table so she could rest her on top.
Neither of them said anything about it, about how different they’d both become. Haru made Wumuti pose with the sugar sword he won her, and she made him take pictures of her against the lowering sun.
It was way too easy to imagine that she was his girlfriend, that they were going on a romantic date alone, and that their interlocked hands meant something else. It felt scandalous, like if Wumuti were a girl, or a boy, or something other than Wumuti, that Dispatch would photograph them to announce them on New Years Day. Maybe if Wumuti were anyone else Haru wouldn’t hold her hand, because it would mean something else, something deeper than he meant it to mean with her. Or worse, maybe he would, maybe to Haru he could love confidently and outwardly despite his idol status, knowing that his group and his company would let him.
“Let’s stop here,” Haru interrupted her spiralling thoughts, taking her to the end of the pier. Despite the crowds and the beautiful view they were blissfully alone. Their staff leaned comfortably against the railing, watching them out of the corner of his eye while he admired the lapping waves. Haru pulled her to sit down, tugging on their joined hands.
“It’s so pretty,” Wumuti commented, for something to say.
“We should go out together more often,” Haru nodded, “pretty things are prettier with you.”
Wumuti turned to squint at Haru with a budding smile. “You’re a terrible flirt.”
Haru huffed, losing his prince charming exterior. “Maybe you just need to get an appreciation for a good corny line.”
Wumuti belly laughed, leaning into his side. “Maybe you need less corny lines, hm?”
“Ah but, corny pickup lines are prerequisites to dad jokes, which means my terrible flirting is just evidence that I am an ideal mate.”
Wumuti snorted, “what sort of alpha-bro nonsense have you been listening to? Ideal mate. If you’re looking to procreate you’re barking up the wrong sex.”
“I think that’s just a lack of creativity, aren’t you yourself a mother of three?” Haru stared down Wumuti with a stupid grin, fighting the urge to laugh, his eyes squeezed into crescent moons.
“Well then maybe you should stop hitting on your mother?” Wumuti wheezed, Haru frowned, contemplated what he’d said, and then frowned harder.
“Hey! That’s not- I’m not- I’m not really your son though,” he argued, suddenly incensed. “ Don’t make it weird!”
“You should think before you speak then, baby,” Wumuti giggled, fighting back mirthful tears.
“I don’t wanna be your son, or only your son… I just wanna… you know.” Haru was suddenly a lot quieter, staring at his hands like they owed him money.
Muti cocked her head. There were so many things this sudden declaration could mean but despite that her brain circled one like vultures over a carcass. He wants me like I want him. It was a thoroughly delusional conclusion based on nothing but blind hope, but it didn’t stop her from swarming it and picking it clean.
The team of her heart argued he feels the same! This is proof! Just ask, what could go wrong. And almost as soon as the question was asked the team of her brain started listing every single way it could go wrong.
There was something strange about being in the sort of friend group where casual romantic intimacy was too normal to mean anything. Wumuti kissed Rui when she was drunk, and called Hyun her husband, and Haru now used pick up lines on her. It meant nothing, but also it piled up in Wumuti’s chest, evidence or fodder to feed the flames of her highly questionable crush.
“I- you understand right?” Haru continued, searching her face for answers, if the outside of her face was anything like the inside he probably found an enormous “404 Wumuti not found” error behind her eyes while her logic and emotions waged a civil war.
“I think I do?” Wumuti ventures, her voice soft, keenly aware of their assistant leaning not 3 metres away.
Haru follows her eyes and flicks towards and then away from their staff, leaning in closer to Wumuti, licking his lips absentmindedly.
“I don’t just wanna be a baby to you,” he murmurs, studying her expression carefully. “I can.. I can be both, your son and, and something else.”
Wumuti’s voice is a hoarse croak when she forces out. “Something else?”
Haru’s eyes are wide and vulnerable, all of his emotions on display, despite his fox-like appearance he looks every bit a prey animal baring it’s stomach.
“Whatever you want,” he says simply.
Wumuti bites her lip hard enough to bleed and nods.
“I understand.”
Haru leaned against Wumuti with his full force. A hyperactive puppy. They tried to restrain their enthusiasm but it was too hard to hold back from her. She enveloped him so naturally it didn’t even seem that she was aware she was doing it, her arms, her scent, her warmth, all of it wrapped around him and pulled him further in.
“Happy birthday, mama,” they grin. Wumuti melts completely, her eyes that seem to sparkle even in the darkest rooms disappear into her cheeks. She leans in and kisses their head.
“Thank you baby.”
They have schedules today, they were invited to tour the Empire State Building and visit the Marylin Monroe museum, but Haru wanted to monopolize the morning. Rui was still asleep, and Hyun was going for a walk, so they had Wumuti alone for as long as others would permit. They greedily wanted her longer but they knew as soon as Rui woke up they would have a hard time wrestling to get Wumuti’s attention.
Haru pressed their face into her neck, letting out a small squawk with all their emotions parcelled inside. Sometimes they loved Wumuti so much it was impossible to hold it all inside their body, too small to fit everything they held for her.
Wumuti sighed and relaxed more into Haru’s hold, resting her face in the crook her arms made around their neck. “Do you want anything this morning, baby?”
“Just you,” they answer immediately, no doubt in their mind. “For as long as you’ll have me.”
Wumuti’s face moves, but Haru cannot see her expression where it is hidden in their neck. “You’ll get sick of me far before I ever get sick of you,” she said, voice tinged with something acidic.
Haru twists so she has to pull her face back and look at them.
“Never.” they say, very sternly. Holding her eyes until she turns her cheek.
“I dunno baby,” she laughs, “I don’t think you understand how long I’d keep you if I got my way.”
Haru huffs, “has turning 27 made you senile too?” she snorts and a hand comes to cover her face as she giggles. “I want you for the rest of my life, Muti,” Haru is not laughing, they cup her cheek and turn her to face them. Chasing her eyes until she finally meets theirs.
“Even if I’m a senile old man?” she asks, she is still joking but the acid beneath her words is still burning Haru’s eyes.
“Forever. I will never ask you to go.”
There’s a war behind her eyes that Haru is not privy to, her expression morphs and shifts through emotions Haru cannot name. They wish they could crack open her skull and see why she is hesitating, why she cannot help fighting whenever Haru says they love her. Instead they use their words like a nutcracker, trying to find the combination that will pierce her thick exterior and finally let her see what they’ve been trying to say the entire time.
“Princess,” Haru starts, no more words forthcoming. Muti studies them and collapses back into their arms with a shudder. Shrinking into their arms, their poor helpless princess who needs her knight. They take the role of protector with glee.
“Haru has you, hyung, I promise I’m never letting go.”
“I know,” she whispers, voice layered in emotion. “Neither am I.”
They don’t break her walls, but they press their lips to her temple and let her relax fully into their hold. And that’s almost as good.
“Do you know how much I love you?” Muti asks, voice thin. She’s no longer leader-producer or mother, she is the delicate little thing Haru covets, a transformation from a being who protects into one who needs to be protected.
“I think I do,” Haru says, quietly so as to not scare her. “I think you love me as much as I love you.”
She looks at them, expressive eyes letting Haru peer inside of her for a second, they try to parse through the wave of emotions and find something they can soothe, but she blinks and the entryway is closed.
“Do you? Do you know what that means?” She is so cautious, holding her hand out for Haru to sniff hoping that they will not bite.
Haru leans in and rubs his face across her fingers, and with a swell of undue confidence, nods. “I do.”
And presses a fleeting kiss to her lips.
Her lips part, gloss keeping them connected even as Haru pulls away. They force down their anxiety and hold, the rock that she can lean against even as their knees feel like jelly.
Her eyes open, a sliver then fully, and she looks up at them.
“Haru…”
They do not waver, they quiver inside, heart squeezing and stomach aching, but they stay firm in their grip around her waist and stability against her weight.
“Muti.”
She raises out of their arms and all their strength leeches with her, all their false confidence falls back and they use their last dredges of strength to fight the urge to collapse and beg for her forgiveness.
And then she wraps her arms around their neck tighter and kisses them. And they don’t have to fight at all.