Work Text:
May 2013
“I’ve been in Seoul for years and I still haven’t seen it,” Gongchan says, slouching low in a makeup chair. “And it’s right there.”
“Too bad it’s shitty outside.” Sandeul kicks a foot off the ground to spin his chair. The other members were still filming their individual scenes for the next music video.
“Banpo’s only a five minute walk away.”
“They’re just lights, Chan-ah.”
Gongchan sticks out his leg and stops Sandeul’s chair mid-spin. “If I find an umbrella, will you come with me?”
“If you find one,” Sandeul says, confident Gongchan won’t.
Barely a minute passes before Gongchan waltzes back into the room, umbrella in hand.
.
Sandeul’s older so he holds the umbrella between two of them, keeping it closer to Gongchan than to himself.
“You’re the last one who can afford to get a cold,” Gongchan argues, uneasy about Sandeul’s focus on keeping him dry.
“Shut up,” Sandeul grumbles, “you wanted to go out so now I have to make sure you don’t die.”
Gongchan wraps an arm around Sandeul’s shoulders. It feels like his way of getting more of Sandeul under the umbrella.
It turns out Gongchan massively underestimated the distance to the Banpodaegyo Bridge from the Digipedi production studio. Sandeul reminds Gongchan of it for every extra minute they walk, but his griping is way too gentle. He never would’ve agreed to follow anyone else into such heavy downpour, and the idea clings to his thoughts like the soaked hoodie against his back.
By the time Gongchan and Sandeul emerge from the underpass the fountain lining Banpodaegyo Bridge is already putting on a display of rainbow lights set to classical music. They’re not quite at the river’s edge yet, but the show’s still marvellous from a distance; the colours seem to glow brighter against the grey haze of the rain. Sandeul beams when he hears Gongchan’s impressed gasp.
“What do you think?” Sandeul asks.
Gongchan shrugs. “I dunno. They’re just lights.”
Sandeul balks and backs off with the umbrella, leaving Gongchan exposed to the rain. His hair is plastered to his forehead within seconds.
“I didn’t come out here for you to call them just lights!”
“I’m joking!” Gongchan laughs, a warm sound against the humid cold. His attempts to sneak back under the umbrella are perfectly thwarted by Sandeul’s quick steps, until Sandeul pities him and invites him back under. Under the shelter of the umbrella, Gongchan wraps his drenched arms around Sandeul’s waist.
“It’s kind of romantic,” Gongchan admits, eyes gazing over the bridge.
Sandeul, struck by deja vu, looks at Gongchan quietly.
.
January 2014
For someone whose laugh awakes the whole dorm some mornings, Gongchan is misleadingly quiet during interviews. He sits at the end, entertaining himself quietly; fiddling with the hem of his shirt or tapping a song into the palm of his neighbour’s hand. To Sandeul, who typically sits beside him, his fidgeting is barely more than background noise. Usually.
Sandeul leans out of his chair to catch Jinyoung’s every word. It's not the first time he's heard Jinyoung explain the lyrics, in or out of interviews, but his fascination in little glimpses of Jinyoung's blossoming talent never wanes. He waits patiently for a lull in the interview, for some chance to speak into his mic and urge everyone on the other side of the camera to listen to their song.
Someone's finger winds through one of his belt loops and tugs, pulling his butt back into his seat. Sandeul glances at Gongchan, the obvious culprit, whose finger stays curled around the loop.
“Sandeul." His whole body snaps back to face the interviewer. Gongchan shadows him. "You participated in your first musical last year?”
“My second, actually!” There's a thankful smile he can't stop from breaking out. “I was in The Thousandth Man last year, and Brothers Were Brave the year before that.”
“Are there any plans to do more in 2014?”
"Ah." Sandeul thinks about how to phrase his foggy plans for the future. A finger trails down an invisible path along his outer thigh to his knee. “I’ve been looking at a few auditions! We'll see.”
Sandeul crosses his legs when Gongchan's fingers curve around his knee and glide up--too high up--along the seam on his inner thigh. Gongchan's hand slides off but it remains resting on his chair, a prickling reminder Sandeul wants to shove right off.
Sandeul straightens his back and feels his blush burn through layers of carefully applied make-up.
.
Sandeul corners Gongchan in the breakroom later.
“Do you realize what that looked like?”
There was a reaction he expected from him, something smirky and infuriating. Sandeul’s become a pro at cranking out the truth underneath Gongchan’s playful brand of denial, but when it’s confused innocence he sees written in Gongchan’s wide eyes, he fumbles.
“Before I crossed my legs,” Sandeul says awkwardly, because he can’t bring himself to voice it out loud, and admit that for all intents and purposes Gongchan might’ve just felt him up on public broadcast.
The gears behind Gongchan’s eyes turn and click into place.
He takes hold of Sandeul’s upper arms, the gentle but abrupt contact making his limbs go taut like a string pulled from both ends. There’s more of a height difference than he remembers. The thought that Gongchan might have squeezed out one last little growth spurt in the past year is aggravating. Everything about him is—
“I just like touching you,” Gongchan says. His confession sounds naked somehow. Sandeul’s mind goes into overdrive, looking for something to say to cover those words up.
Gongchan’s hands slide down Sandeul’s arms and stop, lingering at his wrists.
“Does it bother you?” Gongchan asks.
Which part, Sandeul wants to ask, feeling the slow stroke of Gongchan’s thumb against his palm. A hundred different answers to Gongchan’s question swirl in a puddle of thoughts; Sandeul can’t see past the chaotic surface of the water to find the right one.
“Don’t embarrass me,” Sandeul says, after some silence.
Gongchan’s face scrunches in amusement, fracturing the awkward air between them. “That would impossible.”
The mirth that sneaks into Gongchan’s voice dangles like an escape rope between Sandeul’s eyes. He seizes it, feigning outrage, and starts to steer the conversation far away.
.
October 2014
It’s been decided since day one that nobody else deserved to room with Jinyoung and Sandeul.
Unfortunately, there’s a bag mix-up when they arrive after midnight at their hotel in Nagoya: Baro’s and Sandeul’s bags were placed in the other’s rooms. After wrapping up the last stop in their tour, neither feels like dragging their bags back to where they belong. Gongchan and Sandeul end up as roommates for the night.
Sandeul does try his best to stay neat for Gongchan, but it’s so easy to forget your boxers in the bathroom sink after a shower.
“Hyung, what’s this?” A cheery voice chimes from the bathroom.
Sandeul’s stomach drops, and he pulls his covers over his head to wallow in shame. Jinyoung would never point out that he left his boxers in the sink. He would have ignored them or thrown in his own pair, starting the beginning of a boxer-hill born out of solidarity.
Grey boxers hang off Gongchan’s middle and pointer fingers when he steps out of the bathroom. “Hel-looo!” He twirls the boxers around his finger. “I’m talking to you!”
Sandeul pulls down his covers and tries his best to look like an adult that didn’t leave underwear lying around. “What are you doing with those?”
Gongchan chucks Sandeul’s boxers at his face. “What am I doing? What are you doing?” Gongchan tuts Sandeul as he walks to his side of the room. “How would you like it if I put my underwear wherever I wanted?”
Sandeul snorts. Gongchan had no idea how disgusting him and Jinyoung were.
“Go ahead. I don’t care.”
“Hmm.” Gongchan opens up his own luggage and gathers its contents into his arms. “So you think it’s okay—“ he kicks his luggage closed with his foot “—if I kept all this here?”
He dumps the pile of clothes on Sandeul—who yelps—and most of it landing on his chest and face. Some of it is definitely dirty laundry. He throws a fist full of sock that landed in his mouth at Gongchan’s head, and misses tragically.
Sandeul weighs his options while laying motionless in Gongchan’s filth. There’s only one real way to play with Gongchan, and that’s to go with the most ridiculous idea he thinks of.
He rounds up as much of Gongchan’s laundry as he can fit in his arms and springs out of bed. He just manages to prop the balcony door open with his elbow before Gongchan’s arms clasp around his waist, pulling him back. Sandeul drops Gongchan’s clothes and starts to walk backwards, surprising Gongchan when their feet tangle together. Gongchan’s focus switches to not tripping, giving Sandeul the chance to wiggle out and leap on to his bed as if it were a fortress.
Sandeul’s heart is pounding, and it only beats faster when Gongchan tosses his head back to stare into Sandeul with an intensity that makes him feel very, very small. “Wow,” Gongchan pants. “Someone thinks they’re slippery.”
Gongchan pounces on Sandeul so fast he can’t help but squeak in surprise. It's a cheap move, but Sandeul kicks one of his legs to knock Gongchan off balance. After that, wrapping his legs around Gongchan’s waist and rolling him over is easy.
In the end, Sandeul is perched on Gongchan’s back. “Got you,” Sandeul sings.
Gongchan, disappointingly, doesn’t put up much of a struggle in this position, and Sandeul can only guess he’s tired from their touring. Sandeul tries to reposition himself, deciding to get comfortable if they were going to stay like this for awhile. The askew position of one of his legs disrupts the process, and he ends up generating a bit more friction than he was hoping for.
“Please!—“ Gongchan’s voice goes unnaturally feminine “—Please be gentle with me, oppa!”
Sandeul recoils, nearly falling off Gongchan. He regrets it immediately, because without Sandeul’s weight on his back, Gongchan’s able to turn around and wrestle Sandeul into the mattress again. They take turns rolling the other over, yelping and using their knowledge of hidden tickle spots to play dirty. Gongchan pinches a sensitive spot on Sandeul’s thigh and nearly paralyzes him, clearing the way to the top.
“I’m oppa now,” he says triumphantly, sitting on Sandeul’s chest.
Sandeul gasps, “Get off oppa, I can’t breathe!”
Gongchan moves down his chest slightly, without apologizing. Sandeul’s chances of escape should be better in this position, but he’s so worn out that even his most earnest attempts resemble a fish flopping uselessly out of water. All that flopping stops as soon as Sandeul realizes that Gongchan’s poring over him like he’s under a microscope.
On his last attempt at freedom, Sandeul moves a little more fluidly, curves his back a little more, and watches Gongchan’s eyes grow steadily darker. This wasn’t deja vu. He knew what this was.
“Um.” Sandeul’s not entirely sure how he’s supposed to broach the subject. Truthfully, between Gongchan’s gaze and arched body above his, he’s never been so blatant in his intentions. “This is kind of. . .”
“Kind of what?” Gongchan asks, impatiently. Sandeul chokes.
Gongchan never says anything. He waits, fingers clenching the comforter on either side of Sandeul.
His face is still too close.
“It’s late, Chan-ah,” Sandeul struggles to say at last.
Gongchan deflates. He gets off Sandeul’s chest, only to take a seat at the edge of Sandeul’s bed instead of moving to his own. Keen eyes cloud over with thought. Sandeul wonders how distant their minds are from each others in this moment.
To Sandeul, it all feels like a infringement on what he already knows is between them: something precious and stable and safe. He doesn’t want to step outside that, even if it’s Gongchan of all people that’s trying to pull him out.
.
June 2015
There’s a small celebration being held in the new company building’s breakroom -- an intern he only met a handful of times got accepted to a business school abroad and they’re seeing her off. Sandeul attends because there’s too much free time between promotions now, not because there’s three different cakes being served (though that is a bonus).
Jinyoung and Gongchan tag along, neither knowing the intern any better than he did. The foosball table is crowded so they spectate from afar, the three of them nestled onto a small sofa. Jinyoung unsurprisingly takes the centre seat.
They forget about foosball entirely as their conversation falls to familiar topics. Sandeul plays with his own fingers, hands feeling restless. Agitated and looking to stretch his legs, Sandeul offers to fetch beers for the three of them.
A few members of the company’s freshly debuted girl group huddle by the drink table, and they struggle to keep their giggles hush relative to the rest of the room.
“Sandeul,” Seunghee yells, “Arin says she’s going to do vodka shots tonight!”
Sandeul watches in amusement as Arin weakly shoves Seunghee before covering her face in Hyojung’s sweater, who coos at her.
“Oh? I’ll join you Arin, if you want,” Sandeul teases.
“What, no!”
“You don’t want to drink with me?” Sandeul asks, pouting.
Arin buries her face in her pigtails in agony. “Oh my god.”
Someone suddenly bumps into Sandeul right arm and starts boldly tugging at his hoodie sleeve. When he looks down, he’s not surprised to see who it was.
“Hey.” Jiho speaks in a loud whisper. “Why are you letting Gongchan sit alone on the couch?”
“He’s not—“
He is. He twists his neck to see where Jinyoung went, and spots him on the balcony speaking on his phone. Gongchan seems to be scrolling through an app. As if on cue, he looks up to hold Sandeul’s gaze. Sandeul regretfully forgets he’s standing amongst what are practically his adopted younger sisters until Jiho nudges him again.
“Go!” Again with Jiho’s nudging. “Arin can bring the drinks over to you two.”
“Stop!!“ Arin screeches.
There’s something about the way Jiho says “you two” that makes Sandeul want to reprimand her, but it’s also not a topic he wants to broach with any of them. He figures he should at least be thankful none of them commented on palpable length of eye-contact they’ve indulged in their presence. Sandeul waves the girls and their (frankly unnecessary) suggestions away and makes haste towards the couch, without beers, praying no one actually forces Arin to follow him with beers in hand.
Sandeul sits down right beside Gongchan, and he’s not surprised that Gongchan tries to scoot even closer to him. He angles his body to face as much of him as he can, and their knees graze each other.
“Hi, ” Gongchan say, with an inflection that makes it sound like he was greeting him for the first time tonight.
Sandeul plays along. “Gongchan! I haven’t seen you in awhile.”
“Too long,” Gongchan says. He leans in so close their personal bubbles may as well have merged together. “I’ve missed you.”
The fake sincerity in Gongchan’s voice is convincing enough to make Sandeul feel properly flushed. Gongchan’s warm breath against his cheek is doing nothing to help cool him down. He’ll go dizzy if he dwells on it.
They’re completely engrossed in their shared alternate universe. Sandeul acts impressed when Gongchan starts speaking about business travels in countries he’s never been to, and Sandeul badgers him to list off all the times he thought of him.
“Mm, Niagra Falls, for sure,” Gongchan says after some thought.
“Why?”
“It’s huge.”
“Oh, just like my ass, got it.”
Gongchan struggles to contain a laugh but it comes out anyways, sounding sickly like a wheeze. When he catches his breath he doesn’t rush to say anything, but looks up at him from under his brow with an expression Sandeul struggles to call anything but affection. “Right,” he finally says, voice unsteady. “That’s exactly what I was thinking about.”
Sandeul bites his lip. For the first time tonight he’s at a loss on where to take the conversation. He takes a moment to focus on getting more comfortable instead, and props on of his feet on the couch behind him.
He doesn't realize it until then, but even though the couch is made for at least three people, no one has even approached it the whole time they've been absorbed in each other. It hits Sandeul then, that people are making a point to leave them alone.
Sandeul grows increasingly self-conscious as he reflects how his dongsaengs teased him for not sitting with Gongchan, as though he was meant to. He takes a good look at the crowd for the first time since sitting down and easily spots Jinyoung talking with staff members. Did he get caught up in conversation with someone else, or was there a reason he didn't return to the two of them?
Gongchan's placed his fingers underneath Sandeul's chin to turn his head away from the crowd, reigning Sandeul's attention back towards him. It doesn't displace the realization gnawing at the back of his thoughts: learning how others see their relationship, and the dissonance between what everyone thinks and what Sandeul understands to be between them.
That dissonance stirs something inside Sandeul.
Sandeul slides his fingers through the ones Gongchan's placed under his chin, and and rubs his thumb against the side of Gongchan's palm.
"Have you noticed," Sandeul whispers, his heart dangerously close to flying up his throat and out of his mouth, "no one's tried to interrupt us?"
Gongchan raises his eyebrows. “I wasn't really paying attention to anyone else," he admits.
"Let's go somewhere else," Sandeul whispers in his ear. He doesn't wait for Gongchan to respond, and stands, pulling Gongchan up with him. He's known Gongchan long enough to know that if he goes somewhere, Gongchan will follow.
Sandeul's bravado doesn’t last long, though, running out by the time they're out in the hall, and he wishes desperately he had some drinks in him. Gongchan's looking at him expectantly, while every nerve in Sandeul's body feels like it's freezing up.
He chokes when he realizes what's happening, what he’s doing. He’s baiting Gongchan, without real intention of reeling him in. He's not ready to change things between them on some kind of adrenaline-fueled whim.
Sandeul lets go of Gongchan's hand, and Gongchan makes no attempt to hide his disappointment.
"You still don't know what you want?" he asks.
Sandeul is starting to think he know what he wants, but he's grown too used to denying himself of it. So he stays quiet.
Gongchan exhales shakily. "Okay." His voice has a tired, but rehearsed sort of acceptance to it, reminding Sandeul that this isn't the first time he's pulled something like this.
He can’t help it, though. "I’m sorry."
.
That next morning, Sandeul relentlessly replays the previous evening in his head, each play-through bringing him more agitation than the last.
He hates that things between them have stagnated, and he hates how much of it is his fault. Gongchan’s made it clear for a long time now that he is ready to move forward whenever, yet all the while Sandeul still feels like he’s haphazardly tumbling through the motions, like a rock tossed into the rapids, instead of someone with a say in what happens between them.
He has lunch plans with Gongchan, and he waits until the last minute to cancel them. He cancels because he can’t stop asking himself what they were supposed to be, and it was very possible he would end up blurting out these questions over their order of cold noodles.
Sandeul realizes that being left alone to his own thoughts might not be beneficial, and so he calls some other friends for lunch, to distract him.
There must have been pictures posted on Instagram, because Gongchan texts him later that afternoon, to tell him that cancelling their plans to have lunch with other friends wasn’t really the best idea.
.
Sandeul's notifications are muted, though his eyes still linger on his phone's little flashing blue light. He entertains the thought that it could be a message from Gongchan, but Gongchan holds on to grudges as as strongly as Sandeul avoids heart-to-hearts, and two days probably isn’t enough time to warrant a “what’s up?” from him.
"Do you need me to hide your phone for you?”
"It's fine," and Sandeul can't tell if he's being honest. Sitting across from him, Ken taps his spoon against the edge of a stone bowl.
"I wouldn't have asked for you to join me, if I knew you'd spent the whole time moping around feeling guilty." Sandeul frowns at him, but honestly Ken is too good a friend to sugar-coat things for him.
"I'm not."
Ken swiftly reaches his arm across the table to grab Sandeul's phone. Sandeul lets out an annoyed sound but doesn't try to stop him.
The message is from his sister: it's a picture of their dog, dressed in a red doggy-parka. Ken tosses the phone over so Sandeul’s able to send her a quick reply. He ends up shoving his cellphone into his back pocket, well beyond where the corner of his eye can be tempted by a blinking notification light.
“You guys really piss me off you know? You’re always doing this,” Ken says.
Sandeul’s doesn’t protest. It’s not as if he hasn’t already lived out this exact scenario, enjoying gamjatang in a hole-in-the-wall with Ken because he came too close to having a heartfelt confrontation with Gongchan.
“It’ll be like nothing ever happened, next time I see him.” Sandeul rests his head on his hand so his knuckles push up comically against his fat cheek.
Ken puts down his chopsticks and crosses his arms, sitting back against his chair. Sandeul recognizes his body language; Ken never looks at him directly when delivering a truth bomb.
“Look, I know it’s not my business —“ he quickly looks over to gauge Sandeul’s reaction, looking for signs to continue “—but I’ve had to put up with your… weird relationship issues for a year now. Maybe more, I don’t know.”
Sandeul breathes in and braces himself for an uninvited truth bomb.
“Gongchan feels like he can’t push you, yeah?”
“Probably”
“And you’ve bitched out of making it happen yourself God knows how many times.”
“Hey—”
“So!” Ken asserts, slamming his palms on the table. “It hurts to say this, but it’s officially become my responsibility to fix things between you two.”
Sandeul scoffs at Ken’s bravado. “How?”
Ken pauses, because to no one’s surprise, he didn’t bother to think out his claims this far. Sandeul doesn’t pester him while he thinks, and sips at his soup instead. It’s spicier than he expected.
“I’ll buy you guys dinner,” Ken declares. “If you guys, you know, go official on the whole couple thing.”
Sandeul is taken aback by how lame Ken’s solution sounds. “You think I wouldn’t pay for our first date?”
“You think I wouldn’t pay for our first date?” Ken mocks him.
Sandeul considers that maybe simplicity is what Gongchan and he need. “Fine,” he concedes. “I’ll tell him. Today.”
Ken raises an eyebrow, surprised by the effectiveness of his proposal, but doesn’t probe Sandeul further. Sandeul doesn’t reveal that the band has to stop by the WM building later that day for a schedule anyways. Thankfully, they don’t talk about Sandeul’s dumb relationship issues for the remainder of their lunch together.
.
When Sandeul pulls up behind the company building a few hours after his lunch with Ken, there's there's a road-bike toppled over in Sandeul's usual parking spot. He honks his horn at it, for what little it was worth, and drives into another spot. He could’ve guessed who’s bike it was, without seeing the black and red frame.
He enters through the backdoor to walk up the narrow back staircase. He’s not alone; it sounds like someone else is making their way down. A shy smile peeks out over the metal bannister on the next flight of stairs above Sandeul.
"I saved your spot for you," Gongchan says. The simple comfort of being next to him, following the couple of days he spent lamenting the ambiguity of their relationship, is an unsteadying bit of mental whiplash.
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I could’ve destroyed your bike. ”
Gongchan hops down the stairs in his usual impatient way, two steps at a time, until he’s only a few above Sandeul.
“I wasn't worried about that,” Gongchan says. He starts to lean forward towards Sandeul, his torso hovering over the steps separating them. “You're a good driver."
Gongchan is gripping the bannisters on either side of him for support, but it still looks dangerous, so Sandeul presses his hands against Gongchan’s chest for extra support.
"Stop it,” Sandeuls says.
He tries to push Gongchan back into an upright position, but the Leaning Tower of Gong shifts his centre of balance even closer to Sandeul, and now Sandeul’s stuck holding up more of his bodyweight. Their faces are close enough now that Sandeul barely needs to look up to talk to him. “For someone who’s been pissed off the last few days, you sure have a lot of trust in me.”
Gongchan's eyes crinkle, turning into the cute cheery crescents Sandeul is so fond of. The affection it stirs in Sandeul almost detracts from the horror of watching Gongchan take his hands off the rails, removing his own support in order to wrap his hands around Sandeul's wrists. Now Sandeul really is all that’s keeping Gongchan from breaking his neck. "I don't know what you're talking about,” Gongchan breathes. “I’ve always trusted you.“
"You're crazy.” The muscle in Sandeul’s forearms shake, and he laments all the gym days he skipped this month. “I’m going to drop you. I swear to God."
"No, you won't."
Sandeul sighs and wishes his threats had more force behind them. The earlier conversation with Ken springs into memory, giving Sandeul an idea for how he can gain gaining the upper hand in their squabble.
“You know,” Sandeul says, “Ken said he’d buy us dinner if we went on a date.”
Sandeul knew very well that Gongchan didn’t expect him to broach the subject here, let alone in any other context. So he should have known Gongchan would slip and lose his balance, and that pain was imminent for the both of them.
Gongchan repositions his feet quickly enough to prevent faceplanting, but his save adds to their downward momentum, bringing them toppling down onto the small landing adjacent to the second floor back door. Gongchan lands right on top of Sandeul, who is reconsidering if the rare taste of catching Gongchan off guard was worth the physics lesson and constellation of bruises that were starting to form along his leg.
Their tumble was loud. The door beside them opens, revealing a handful of trainees who were not expecting to see their seniors tangled together on the concrete floor.
“He’s trying to kill me,” Gongchan tells them solemnly.
They trainees nod awkwardly and one even apologizes before quietly closing the door on them.
“You heard Hyojin say sorry too, right?” Gongchan asks. Sandeul watches the corner of his mouth slowly rise into a lopsided grin. “I wonder what for.”
Sandeul doesn’t have to wonder. He cups his hand at the back of Gongchan’s head and without hesitation, pulls him forward. Gongchan practically dives into the kiss on his own.
Sandeul pulls away, because he really wants to look at Gongchan, see how he’s reacting. The meeting of their eyes gives Sandeul pause; it almost stings to see the tenderness written so blatantly across Gongchan’s face. It’s a face that should be kissed again, Sandeul thinks.
Unfortunately, Gongchan starts talking before Sandeul can kiss him again.
“Did you forget we have a schedule to go to?” He asks. Sandeul is in disbelief that Gongchan’s voice sounds as smug as it does.
“You thirst after me for years and when I finally kiss you, you remind me of schedules.” Sandeul grins despite Gongchan’s sass. “Wow.”
Gongchan wiggles off of Sandeul without taking his eyes off him. He grabs his hand and they stand up, together. Sandeul is already impatient for another kiss, but Gongchan dodges Sandeul’s mouth to whisper something in his ear instead.
“Don’t worry.” Sandeul feels Gongchan’s toothy grin against his cheek.”I’ll be expecting a lot more later.”
The secure hold of Gongchan’s hand is definitely all that keeps Sandeul from imploding while they walk up the stairs.
.
When night falls, the two of them are nestled under a shared blanket on Sandeul’s living room sofa. Empty cardboard boxes and Diet Coke cans are discarded on his coffee table, and neither of them show any sign of moving to clean it up. Gongchan’s head rests against the crook of Sandeul’s neck and shoulder, and he sighs, content, while Sandeul’s fingers weave through his hair. The TV is playing some kind of documentary that they only show passing interest in.
“… and three course correction burns to facilitate its trajectory to the moon. Once out of Earth’s orbit, the rocket engines are turned off and the spacecraft coasts according to the laws of inertia... ”
In the past, whenever Sandeul felt bold enough to think about moving forward with Gongchan, he imagined a lot more kissing afterwards. What he should’ve expected was this: them relaxing together, as they’ve almost always have, with their stomachs stuffed too full of delivery fried chicken to jump into a frenzied act of passion. Not that they weren’t planning on it, but Sandeul is happy to bask in the persevering aspects of a camaraderie he spent years worrying he could ruin.
Hopefully next time they kiss Gongchan won’t taste like pickled radishes. It’s unlikely, since Sandeul definitely plans on kissing him again tonight.
Kakao!
If Sandeul’s phone wasn’t resting on the arm of the couch, Sandeul probably wouldn’t have made an effort to check who’s messaging him. “Oh,” he says. “Ken’s asking me how it went today.” Kakao! Kakao! Kakao!
Gonghcan snickers at Ken’s impatience. “You should tell him we’ve been making love for hours.”
Sandeul lightly kicks Gongchan under the blanket for his cheek. “You wish.”
“I do, actually.”
Sandeul snorts. It doesn’t escape him how much less bashful he is when faced with Gongchan’s frankness now, now that he’s breached the glass ceiling of their relationship.
A flurry of high-pitched notifications overwhelms Sandeul’s phone, and Sandeul tries stifling his laugh. Gongchan lifts his head off Sandeul’s shoulder to look at him, confused.
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him nothing happened.”
Gongchan blinks. “Why?”
“I bet if it drives him crazy enough, we can get him to fork out more than just a cheap dinner for us.”
Gongchan stares at Sandeul, mouth slightly agape. “Sorry,” he says, “but when did you get so devious?”
“I probably learned it from you.”
Gongchan buries his head into Sandeul’s neck, and Sandeul feels the words I love you tickle against his skin.