Chapter Text
Yeonjun stares at his reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink. If he's being honest, he looks better than he has in weeks. It turns out that sleeping well instead of passing out drunk every night can do wonders for the bags under his eyes and the sallow tone of his skin. And the freedom to be in his own home without the nagging tension of walking on eggshells means he no longer looks a little crazy, no longer walks around with a set jaw and gritted teeth.
The problem, though, is the hair. And the fact that most of it rests in clumps in the white bowl of the sink, or scattered all over the tiled floor, or tangled in the dull hair scissors resting on the ledge of the counter. The dusty, faded blue is gone, but what's left behind is just enough to send him over the edge.
He'd been doing so good. Not talking to Beomgyu, baring his soul to Soobin, calling his doctors — all of that done without a hitch, without a single tear. But seeing too much of his own forehead? Well, so much for not looking crazy anymore.
"Fuck."
He turns away from the mirror, unable to look at himself anymore, and pulls his phone out of the pocket of his pajama bottoms. He absolutely cannot go out looking like this, with bangs chopped straight across his forehead. What the fuck had he been thinking?
But Wooyoung — Wooyoung can come to him.
He answers on the first ring. "You never call," he says, his voice taking a comedically suggestive tone. Yeonjun can hear San in the background asking who it is. A rustling, which Yeonjun can only imagine is Wooyoung shoving San away. "Are you finally going to confess?"
Despite himself, Yeonjun laughs. He feels incredibly stupid right now. "I need your help."
"You know I'd do anything for you. What is it?"
"I need you to fix my hair."
Wooyoung snorts, nearly blowing out Yeonjun's eardrum. "I thought this was something serious," he says, a shade disappointed.
"For some reason, I thought I could just trim off the blue, but..."
"Didn't you already do the whole rock-bottom post-break-up thing?"
"I just booked my surgery."
"Shit."
Yeonjun couldn't agree more. He still feels a little shaky, a little nauseous. Half of him wants to call back and cancel the appointments altogether. After the accident, he had a handful of surgeries back-to-back, and the hospital smell clung to him for ages afterward. The depression that followed lingered even longer. He doesn't want to go back there, to that version of himself, but he knows deep down the only way he's going to get better is if he goes through it.
Still, he sinks into a crouch, back against the cabinet. The door handles dig into his shoulder blades.
"Okay, we'll be there in a few. Cut? Color?"
"Both. And before you ask, you pick."
Wooyoung arrives some 30 minutes later, San right behind him, carrying an armful of black plastic bags. They set it all out on the kitchen table: Wooyoung's tools, his gloves, his hair color.
"Pink?" Yeonjun asks, inspecting the bottle, eyes flitting back and forth between the label and San's magenta head.
"Not the same pink. Peachy."
Yeonjun is suspicious, setting the dye back in its place. "Let's just keep it black for now. Where do you want me?"
Wooyoung is quiet while he works, humming to himself as he assesses the damage Yeonjun inflicted upon himself. San takes a joint from the stash in the kitchen and lights up, and he and Yeonjun pass it back and forth around Wooyoung as he circles Yeonjun's chair. He stays quiet, too, like Yeonjun is a souffle that might cave in if they make too much noise.
But once the dye is properly set in his hair, his head an array of foils, Wooyoung slumps into the chair across from him and finally asks the question Yeonjun has been hoping to avoid.
"How are things?" So simple, but so loaded. Pointed, too, when Wooyoung looks at him like that.
"Terrible," Yeonjun says, rubbing his hands across his face.
"They have to be better than the last time I saw you. I saw Soobin came home..."
Yeonjun heaves a sigh, sitting back in his chair. "Yeah... we talked some things out."
"So why is everything 'terrible' then?"
Yeonjun opens his mouth to answer and snaps it shut again immediately. How can he explain all of the conflicting thoughts that crash together in his head every day? "Things are better with Soob," he says finally, trying like hell to pick his words carefully. "But I keep coming back to something Beomgyu said to me when Soobin caught us. That I've been trying to repay Soobin, ever since..."
"The crash. Right."
Yeonjun swallows. He and Wooyoung haven't talked about Beomgyu since the night of his friend's party. He can't imagine Wooyoung's opinion has changed much, so it's a subject Yeonjun skirts around. But there's no ignoring it, at least not with the mood Yeonjun is in today.
"You know, he's right."
"What?"
"Beomgyu's right," Wooyoung repeats. "Soobin helped you because he loves you. You would do the same thing for him, a thousand times over, and never expect his undying devotion for it. You wouldn't feel like he owed you anything."
"Of course not. You're being very heavy-handed here, you know?"
Wooyoung laughs. "I'm just saying — it's not transactional. Sometimes he's going to do more, sometimes you're going to do more, sometimes he's going to fuck up, sometimes you're going to fuck up."
Yeonjun hangs his head in his hands. He knows Wooyoung is right, logically, but he wonders how long the guilt is going to hang on.
"What about Beomgyu?"
"You don't want to talk about Beomgyu," Yeonjun says, waving his hand dismissively.
"If I didn't, I wouldn't have asked, asshole!"
Yeonjun groans. "Is this your way of trying to distract me from thinking about my surgery?"
"We can talk about that if you want to."
"Absolutely not." When it becomes clear that Wooyoung won't be backing down any time soon, Yeonjun goes on. "Soobin asked me how I plan to get Beomgyu back, but I don't think — I think I've fucked with him enough, I should just leave him be."
"That's the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life," Wooyoung deadpans.
"The whole time he and Soobin were together, I always told myself I'd be better. I'd be a better boyfriend, I'd treat him better, I'd never hurt him. But I did. He deserves better than all of the bullshit I put him through while we were sneaking around, and all of the shit that came after, too."
"So be better." Wooyoung shrugs like it's just that easy.
"It's not that simple."
Wooyoung casts a glance over to San where he's fast asleep on the couch by now. San lets out a loud snore, and Wooyoung rolls his eyes. "I did it."
Yeonjun feels his own eyes bulging out of his head. His jaw drops. "You guys finally..."
Wooyoung nods and rests his chin in his hand. His face is terribly serious. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this way, but you and I... we have to end things."
Yeonjun lets out a loud snort and quickly claps a hand over his mouth to shut himself up. But he instantly feels better, like laughing has physically lifted a weight off his shoulders, even if he's still skeptical about pretty much everything Wooyoung has said to him today. He sighs.
"I'm sorry I called you over for this. I didn't expect to be this emotional and boring."
"You know, we don't have to party every time we see each other," Wooyoung says, gentler than Yeonjun's ever heard him. "Let's go rinse your hair."
Yeonjun's new party-free, alcohol-free, fuck-around-free life means Saturday nights are spent home alone in his bed, hunched over his laptop, glued to the newest in a long line of dramas sitting in his to-watch queue. This week it's an office romance set at a publishing company, and he is pretty sure the two leads are on the brink of a very dramatic reveal. He sits up in bed, one hand raking through his freshly shorn hair over and over again in an attempt to quiet his nerves, teeth digging into his lower lip. And then his phone buzzes.
Kai's name lights up the screen with a text and Yeonjun is forced to pause the show and check on him, grumbling under his breath.
Hyuka: yeonjunnieeeee come get us
Yeonjun can recognize Kai's drunk texting with his eyes closed. Three dots dance along the bottom of the screen to indicate he's still typing, and a few seconds later, a photo comes through. It's blurry and badly lit, yellow fairy lights in the background casting circle halos around everything — and the everything in question is Beomgyu. His face is mostly hidden by his hand, but the long brown hair, with newly added blond streaks, is instantly recognizable. Yeonjun's throat goes dry.
Yeonjun: where are u?
Hyuka: house party
Yeonjun: that doesn't tell me anything
Yeonjun: how about an address? whose house?
Yeonjun waits for a few minutes, tapping the screen every time it goes dark, but Kai never answers. He finally gives up and braces himself for something else entirely: checking to see if Beomgyu is still sharing his location. Yeonjun wishes he could say he hasn't been looking at their messages, but it's a daily routine for him now. The last time they texted was while Beomgyu was staying here at Yeonjun's apartment — the very last message is a selfie they'd taken together wearing the matching sweaters. It's a kick to his gut no matter how many times he looks at it.
Yeonjun does his best to ignore the picture and focus on the task at hand, and he breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that yes, Beomgyu is still sharing his location.
The party is at the very end of a row of townhouses, not terribly far from Yeonjun's apartment, but far enough that he gets caught in weekend traffic. His anxiety ramps up the longer it takes to get to Beomgyu and Kai; it may have been weeks since they last spoke comfortably, but he'd still drop everything for them, still worries about them like they aren't grown adults capable of taking care of themselves.
Yeonjun is somehow lucky enough to find parking right out front, and the house is unmissable. People spill from the front door along with that golden light that filled the background of the picture Kai sent, and music thumps loud enough to hear it down the block. Yeonjun keeps the car running.
He finds Kai and Beomgyu on the back porch after fighting his way through the throng inside. They're on an ugly wicker couch patterned with yellow sunflowers, Beomgyu leaning on Kai's shoulder while Kai scrolls through his phone.
"You can look at Twitter but you can't answer your texts?" Yeonjun asks, kicking Kai's boot.
Kai smiles brightly up at him, much more sober than he'd been letting on. Yeonjun frowns. "I knew you'd get here eventually."
"Is he alright?" Yeonjun asks, nodding at Beomgyu.
"He had a lot. Like a lot."
Yeonjun sighs. He crouches down in front of Beomgyu and pushes the hair off his face. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, his cheeks are red, and his makeup is messy, black streaks of mascara smeared toward his temples.
"Hey, hyung."
It's a two-man process to get Beomgyu to the car. Yeonjun's pretty sure he falls asleep a handful of times between the back door and the back seat. He and Kai dump Beomgyu in there as gracefully as possible, doing everything they can to avoid smacking his head on the door frame, and then Yeonjun strips off his coat and rolls it up under Beomgyu's head to act as a pillow.
Yeonjun's feeling mildly successful when they shut the door on his sleeping form. But then Kai turns toward him with a look like a kid about to be scolded by his mother.
"What?" Yeonjun asks cautiously.
"So, I'm not coming with you." He's smiling brightly again like it's a joke they're both in on.
Yeonjun's eyes dart toward Beomgyu still sleeping in the car. "What?"
"Well, this is my sister's house, so I'm staying the night."
"Which means Beomgyu could have stayed the night, too." Yeonjun lets out a long sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. "What the hell?"
Kai shrugs, and it's the first time he's looked apologetic since Yeonjun arrived, despite being a menace. "You guys need to talk."
"I'm supposed to talk to him like this?" Yeonjun waves wild hands at the car.
Kai's face is all sympathy. "Just take care of him. Show him you still give a shit."
Well, that stops Yeonjun in his tracks. He swallows, his throat aching. "Oh."
"Yeah, oh. Now go."
Back on campus, Beomgyu is much more lucid. But he is also much more handsy, so getting him inside the building and into his single is its own kind of difficult, especially when he seems to have lost any trace of a filter. Once they're inside, Yeonjun kneels down to help unlace Beomgyu's shoes, slipping them off carefully so Beomgyu doesn't lose his balance.
Beomgyu rakes a hand through Yeonjun's hair. "Haven't seen this in a while."
Yeonjun tries not to laugh but fails entirely. "Beoms, you're going to kill me."
"Sorry." But he doesn't sound sorry at all.
From there, Yeonjun helps him out of his jacket while Beomgyu makes a joke about undressing him, and after lots of bargaining, he's able to drag Beomgyu to the bathroom.
"I can't stand anymore," Beomgyu whines, leaning all of his weight against Yeonjun. He's burning hot and smells like a distillery.
"Alright, up you go."
Yeonjun lifts him by the backs of his thighs and sets him carefully down on the edge of the counter. Beomgyu immediately leans back against the mirror, his head lolling from side to side while he smiles like a drunken idiot. Which Yeonjun supposes he is.
"I'm trying to get this makeup off your face, Beoms," Yeonjun says, his hands flat on each of Beomgyu's knees.
Beomgyu hums, mouth splitting open with a toothy smile. "I think you should mess it up some more."
Yeonjun rolls his eyes. "Come on, I need to get in the medicine cabinet."
But Beomgyu's not budging. He's just staring at Yeonjun, his face serious for the first time all night. He reaches an unsteady hand up, tracing the shape of Yeonjun’s lips with the tip of his finger. Yeonjun can’t move — he can’t even breathe, like all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room at once.
“You’re so pretty, Yeonjunnie-hyung,” Beomgyu says with a smile on his face, lopsided like the slur in his words. “I wish I could kiss you.”
Yeonjun closes his eyes for a moment, letting out a long breath through his nose. “You can,” he says, knowing Beomgyu will be too drunk to remember this conversation in the morning anyway. “When you’re sober.”
“Not fair. I should be allowed to do it whenever I want.”
Yeonjun doesn't take another breath until Beomgyu's makeup is finally wiped away and Beomgyu stumbles to his bed. Then he stands in the doorway, watching as Beomgyu hangs half off the mattress.
"I can't sleep in jeans," he teases.
"You know exactly what you're doing," Yeonjun says. He stands over Beomgyu with his arms crossed for a few seconds until it becomes clear that Beomgyu really will make Yeonjun undress him. "It's not gonna work."
Beomgyu giggles as Yeonjun quickly works open the button fly of his jeans and unceremoniously tugs them down his legs. He's less than helpful, his body taking on a kind of liquid-dead-weight quality. But finally, finally, Beomgyu is tucked comfortably in his bed, and Yeonjun kills the overhead lights.
"Will you stay?" Beomgyu asks. His voice is quiet, and in the pale moonlight, Yeonjun can't see his face to make out an expression.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Beoms."
"But what if I puke in my sleep and die? Then my death will be on your hands."
"Unlikely." Yeonjun drops to a crouch beside the bed. He brushes the hair out of Beomgyu's face for the hundredth time that night, his touch lingering on the soft, smooth locks, swiping his thumb across Beomgyu's brow over and over again. Beomgyu's eyes flutter closed and he hums, leaning into the touch. "You'll hate me again when you wake up. I don't think I should be here for that. But text me in the morning so I know you survived the night, okay?"
Beomgyu's breath has grown steady and even, so quiet, Yeonjun thinks he must have fallen asleep again. He looks so peaceful, it cracks something open in Yeonjun's chest. Fuck, he's missed him. He's known this, it's not a surprise or a secret, but seeing him tonight sharpens that pain.
He swipes his fingers through Beomgyu's hair one more time, just because he can, just because he's selfish like that, and then makes his way over to the door. Just before he's about to leave, he hears a faint little, "Hyung?" so quiet he could almost miss it.
"Yeah?"
"I could never hate you."
"Where were you so late last night?" Soobin asks the following morning. He leans against the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee warming his hands. His eyes are puffy, like Yeonjun wasn't the only one out late.
Yeonjun is much too tired for this conversation. He slept like shit, tossing and turning all night, checking his phone every hour or so to make sure there weren't any missed text messages from Kai or Beomgyu. Replaying that "I could never hate you" over and over again in a loop in his mind. He shoulders past Soobin with a grunt, hands outstretched for the coffee pot.
"I thought you quit partying."
Yeonjun throws him the meanest glare he can muster and takes a long sip of his black coffee. "I was at Beomgyu's."
"Huh?"
He clears his throat and then he says it again. "Beomgyu's. I was at Beomgyu's."
At this, Soobin sets his mug down and crosses his arms over his chest. Yeonjun cringes.
"It was nothing," he rushes to say before Soobin can add his two cents. "He was drunk and I helped him get home. He asked me to stay, but I left, clearly."
"He asked you to stay but you left. You are stronger than any soldier."
Yeonjun lets out a huff of a laugh, collapsing into one of their kitchen chairs. "Shut up."
"So what does this mean for you guys? Are you talking again?"
Yeonjun groans. He rests his forehead on the table for a few seconds to collect his thoughts. "It doesn't mean anything. He was just drunk and I was there — he didn't even ask for me, Kai did. I told him to text me in the morning and he still hasn't, so I think that's that."
As soon as the words leave Yeonjun's lips, echoing against the surface of the table, his phone chimes. He sits up, his eyes darting to Soobin, who's looking at him with wide eyes, his brows lost behind his bangs.
"Are you going to fucking check it or are you gonna stare at me?"
"But you're so pretty."
"Hyung!"
Yeonjun makes a noncommittal noise back at him, fishing into his pockets with shaky hands. It probably isn't Beomgyu at all, but his heart is racing, and he's allowing himself to hope.
Beoms: thank you for last night
"Well?" Soobin's tone is urgent, insistent, and too impatient, he's hovering over Yeonjun's shoulder in seconds.
"No big deal," Yeonjun says, flashing Soobin the screen. "See?"
"You're the most annoying person I have ever met, hyung."
"What?"
Soobin lets out a long-suffering sigh, lowering himself into the chair opposite Yeonjun. "Look, he misses you."
"One thank you text does not mean he misses me. And even if he does miss me, that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean he wants me back, it doesn't mean he wants to fix things. Some things are unfixable."
"Not this." Soobin looks like he's going to kill Yeonjun any second now, out of sheer frustration. "I have been trying to be subtle about this. I have tried keeping my mouth shut. But I can't take it anymore. You both want to be with each other, dude, so get your shit together and fix this."
"We both?"
"He has told me, he has told Kai, he has told Taehyun, he's probably told anyone who would listen except for you."
Yeonjun sags in his seat, staring down at the text message still lit up on his screen. He takes a sip of coffee; the scorch of it as it goes down his throat almost feels good. It's something, at least, to battle the numbness taking over. "It can't be that easy."
"It probably won't be, but killing yourself over every relationship you have isn't healthy, dude."
"Shut up," Yeonjun laughs. "I don't know where to start."
"Well, you're probably not going to like this but I do have some insider knowledge on what Beomgyu likes. Romantically, I mean. But also—"
"Stop. Stop."
"Alright, alright," Soobin laughs, his hands in front of him in mock surrender. "But I mean it. He likes simple, thoughtful. How did your relationship start? And I don't mean that first hookup, I mean how did it become more? Start there."
It takes ten full minutes of sitting in the dark parking lot outside of the campus recording studio for Yeonjun to find the courage to go in. Ten minutes of hyping himself up and talking himself down, ten minutes for Beomgyu's food to grow colder and colder in the passenger seat. But he does it. With Soobin's encouraging text to stop overthinking hyung replaying in his mind over and over, Yeonjun finally drags himself inside.
Beomgyu is sitting at the reception desk as usual, the tabletop littered with his homework. He's hunched over a paperback, the cap to a bright yellow highlighter braced against his bottom lip as he scowls at the text. When the door swings open, he looks away from his work, and his face morphs from the scowl to a mask of confusion, to a megawatt smile that nearly knocks Yeonjun over.
It's been so long since Beomgyu last looked at him like that. He's forgotten what it felt like.
"What are you doing here?" Beomgyu asks, dog-earing the page of his book.
Yeonjun lifts the black plastic bag in his hands. "Thought you might be hungry."
"You thought right."
Beomgyu clears his desk off and offers Yeonjun a chair before diving into the food, reaching first for the white can of Monster and gulping at it like a frat boy chugging a beer. They're quiet for a while, and the silence is painfully awkward until Beomgyu offers a bite of the tteokbokki.
Yeonjun waves it away with a dismissive hand. "I'm sorry, I can't keep quiet anymore: I cannot eat that."
Beomgyu fixed him with a puzzled frown. "What?"
"It's too sweet! I don't know how you do it."
Beomgyu laughs at this, taking the bite for himself instead. "You've eaten it every single time I've offered."
"I know — I was trying to get you to like me, but I think we're past that."
Beomgyu snorts and he looks dangerously close to choking on his food. "You're crazy. Has anyone ever told you you're crazy?"
The laugh they share eases the tight feeling in Yeonjun's chest, making it easier to breathe, easier to settle comfortably into his seat. He's not used to this, not with Beomgyu, but he knows a convenience store dinner isn't enough to get them past the hurdles they'll have to climb to go back to the way it was before — before all the stupid decisions and the lies.
When Beomgyu's finished eating, he shoves his containers to the side, props an elbow up on the desk, and rests his chin in his palm. He looks at Yeonjun quietly for a while, studying him like he'll find something in Yeonjun's eyes.
"What is it?" Yeonjun asks.
"I'm sorry about last night."
Yeonjun wonders if Beomgyu can see the relief on his face. "You don't have anything to be sorry about," he says. "And now we've both acted out of line while drunk."
"Sure," says Beomgyu with a sly smile, "but you have to admit yours was way worse."
"Yeah." Yeonjun sighs, leaning back in his chair. He toys with the plastic straw wrapper on the desk in front of him, thinking about Beomgyu's words the night of the dance dorm party, or the morning Soobin found them. I wanted to be wrong about you and protect myself from you. He grimaces. "Do you really think I'm that bad?"
Beomgyu lets out a little huff through his nose. "I did see you with that girl before Yunjin stopped you."
"Nothing happened, though."
"Yeah. Because Yunjin stopped you. "
Beomgyu's frustration is clear in his voice and there is nothing Yeonjun can do to stop it from bleeding into him, too. "Beoms, you do it, too," Yeonjun grits out, staring down at the table between them instead of meeting Beomgyu's eyes.
"Not since you!"
"Well, me either!"
"What about Wooyoung?"
Yeonjun hangs his head in his hands, raking his fingers through his hair. "The last time with him was just a few days after the first time with you. I thought with you — I figured it was only going to be the one time, and I was doing anything I could to get my mind off of you. But Beoms... I'm only explaining myself because I really, really want you to understand. I don't have to justify that, just like you don't. I can't expect fidelity from you after one night and neither can you, especially when neither of us asks for it or brings it up."
"Hyung, I—"
"Please, let me finish, okay?" Yeonjun takes a deep, steadying breath. He hates this, he hates this so much, but he knows that the only way to deal with any of this is to face it head-on. No more dodging, no more pretending the problems aren't there. If he wants to fix things with Beomgyu — and he does — then he needs to lay it all out on the table. "This is something you do, Beoms. You say one thing, but you do another. You get jealous, but you don't commit. I hate to bring him up, believe me, but it was the same when you were with Soobin."
Maybe he took it a bit too far in bringing up Soobin, but he doesn't know how else to explain himself, to show Beomgyu this pattern. Yeonjun braces, sure that Beomgyu is going to bite his head off.
"You're right."
"What?" There's no way he heard that correctly.
"Don't let it get to your head," Beomgyu teases. "But you're right. And I don't want that toxic back and forth again, especially not with you."
"So you do want to be with me." Yeonjun says it in a sly, teasing tone, but the giddiness behind the words is all genuine.
"That's not what I said!"
"That's exactly what you said."
Beomgyu gives him the most affronted look Yeonjun has ever seen, opening his mouth for a comeback, something bratty probably. But then he’s cut off by the sound of his alarm and his face falls. “I have to go kick those girls out and then close up.”
The lightness Yeonjun feels doesn’t dissipate at all. “I can wait. I’ll drive you home.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
It takes about half an hour for Beomgyu to close up, and in that time, the lateness of the hour sets in. Yeonjun stifles about a hundred yawns between the door and the car, and even more as they wait for the engine to warm up. By the time they make it back to Beomgyu’s building, he’s half-tempted to go inside and sleep there.
“I’m glad you came tonight, hyung,” Beomgyu says, his voice soft.
“Me too. Guess we should thank Kai for helping us break the ice, huh?”
“He deserves more than just a thank you for putting up with my bullshit the last few weeks. A whole gift basket.”
Yeonjun smiles. He doesn’t want the night to end, but Beomgyu’s eyes are puffy with exhaustion, and besides, he knows it’s better to ease back into this, whatever it is, with Beomgyu.
“You’re working again tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah. Will you come back?”
Yeonjun nods. “Goodnight, Beoms.”
“Goodnight.”
An icy chill breezes into the car when Beomgyu lets himself out. He huddles, tiny in his padded coat, and when he gets to the door of his dorm hall, he throws one last smile over his shoulder.
Yeonjun is exhausted, still groggy from sleep, when he pulls up to the studio the next night. The shorts he’d been sleeping in do little to fight off the cold air blasting from the heating vents, and he’s pretty sure he still has bed head, but he made it on time and that’s what counts.
Beomgyu is vacuuming the sad beige carpeted hallway when Yeonjun lets himself in, and he smiles up from his task when he sees him.
“You’re late! I had given up hope,” Beomgyu shouts over the din. He cuts the power and wraps the cord around the handle.
“I had a really, really rough day,” Yeonjun says. It’s true. The only thing that could have dragged him out of his bed tonight was the idea of seeing Beomgyu.
“So you’re just here to drive me home?”
“I guess so.”
Beomgyu hums his response, and Yeonjun tries not to read anything into it. He leans against the vestibule door while he waits for Beomgyu to finish closing up. All that’s left though are lights and locking the door — he really only made it just in time.
In Yeonjun’s car, Beomgyu leans back in his seat and looks up at Yeonjun through bright but sleepy eyes. “I don’t want to go home.” There’s mischief on his face, the innocent kind, like they’re sharing a secret.
“Where to then?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t want the night to end yet.”
“Would it be sleazy if I invited you back to mine and said my roommate isn’t home?”
The apartment is dark and quiet, empty of Soobin just like Yeonjun promised. Beomgyu drops his bag on the back of a kitchen chair and disappears down the hallway the moment they get in. Yeonjun doesn’t think anything of it, not until he nearly drops the joint he’s rolling when Beomgyu reappears a few minutes later clad in Yeonjun’s clothes, an oversized black t-shirt and sweats. He clears his throat.
“Are you really that easy to impress?” Beomgyu laughs.
Yeonjun can feel the heat on his cheeks from blushing so hard. “I’m a simple guy, what can I say?”
He tries his best not to stare as he joins Beomgyu on the couch. With his eyes on his hands dedicated to his task, he lights the joint and passes it over. Beomgyu looks so soft, so comfortable, so at home in Yeonjun’s clothes, curled up in a ball on Yeonjun’s couch — all Yeonjun wants is to reach out and touch him. But Beomgyu’s keeping a safe distance between them, and so Yeonjun keeps his hands to himself.
“Tell me about your rough day,” Beomgyu says through a hazy cloud of silver smoke.
Yeonjun lets out a long huff of air, settling back into the couch as he takes the joint from Beomgyu’s outstretched hand. “Bad PT session. Brutal. And then I spent a few hours on the phone with my parents explaining why I took yet another leave of absence.”
Beomgyu’s eyebrows shoot up. “Another one?”
It’s hard to put it into words. The shame is overwhelming. Yeonjun takes another deep pull from the join, biding his time. But when he can’t hold it in any longer, he plows ahead. “I haven’t been back to class in, I don’t know, a month? And I scheduled surgery for my knee, but the closest date they had available overlaps with finals.” He shakes his head. “There was no way I was going to catch up just to miss exams anyway.”
Beomgyu whistles, long, trailing with smoke. “That is a rough day… How are you feeling about the surgery? I thought your doc recommended against it?”
“Well, you know how I stopped dancing,” Yeonjun says. Beomgyu nods along, even though it’s not a question. Of course, he knows. “I did it so I’d get better, but I haven’t been getting better — well, it’s more like two steps forward one step back anyway. What I’m doing isn’t working.”
“I hope you get what you need from it, hyung.”
The mood is far too heavy for Yeonjun. He can feel the weight of what’s ahead of him pressing down on his shoulders. And the soft, sad look Beomgyu is giving him isn’t helping either. “I’m looking forward to you nursing me back to health,” he says slyly.
It works, Beomgyu laughs immediately. “Yah, isn’t that Soob’s job,” he says, throwing a pillow at Yeonjun’s face. And then before he can hide it or snuff it out, he lets out a wide, jaw-splitting yawn.
“I’m sorry my trauma is so boring.”
“Fuck you, you know it’s not!” Beomgyu whines.
“I know, I know.” Yeonjun pauses, watching as Beomgyu struggles to even keep his eyes open. “I can’t drive,” he says apologetically.
“That’s okay,” Beomgyu says around another yawn. “I’ll take the couch.”
Yeonjun almost asks if he’s sure, but judging by the way Beomgyu sinks deeper into the cushions, letting out a contented sigh, the answer seems clear. He gets up and puts the last bit of the joint out in the ashtray, and because he can, because he can’t help himself, he ruffles Beomgyu’s hair.
“Goodnight, princess.”
“Goodnight, hyung.” He offers Yeonjun one last, sleepy smile before he’s out for the night.
“This is the fifth night in a row,” Soobin shouts over the blaring music from the television. Zombies scream, gunshots blare. “Doesn’t he have a home?”
Yeonjun frowns, plucking his keys off the table and shoving them in his pocket. “Did I say shit like this to you when you were dating him?”
Taehyun laughs, earning himself some kind of punishment from Soobin that happens under the blanket they share, huddled on the couch together. He squeals.
“So you’re dating him? Officially?” Soobin asks. “Then why is he always on my couch?”
Yeonjun blinks, presses his lips into a thin line to bite back the attitude. “I haven’t even kissed him.”
“What the fuck?”
“This is pathetic,” Taehyun laughs.
Yeonjun pinches the bridge of his nose, and can feel himself blushing. “We’re friends. Friends is good.” Then he grimaces, and pushes out the next words through gritted teeth: “I thought he might want more after that first night, but he hasn’t hinted at that at all since.”
“Hyung, I didn’t realize you were this dumb.”
Yeonjun lunges, ripping the pillow out from behind Taehyun’s back and whacking him with it. “Don’t you have a home?”
“Don’t you remember a single word I said to you last weekend?” Soobin asks once Taehyun’s cries of distress have died down. “He wants you! Everyone knows it except you, apparently. Stop being a loser and make a move yourself.”
“What the fuck.”
“He’s right, Yeonjun-hyung,” Taehyun says, his voice suddenly kinder than it’s been this whole time. “You’re not gonna get anywhere if both of you are sitting on your asses waiting for the other one to do something.”
Yeonjun rakes his hands through his hair and stares at the ceiling, deliberating on Taehyun’s and Soobin’s advice. They’re right, of course, but he can’t help but wonder, like he’s been wondering since the day he and Soobin made up if it can really be that easy.
But maybe it doesn’t have to be that hard. Maybe he can just let himself be happy for once.
Yeonjun arrives at the studio just in time for Beomgyu to wrap up his shift. Beomgyu’s smiling when he hops in the car, his cheeks red from the cold wind. They don’t even have to talk about it before Yeonjun drives off in the direction of his apartment; it’s a nice routine now, and Yeonjun knows their schedules won’t allow for it forever, but he’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
When they get home, Taehyun and Soobin are still on the couch, the sequel to the zombie movie they’d been watching just starting up. They’re spread out across the cushions and hardly look up when they hear Beomgyu and Yeonjun come in.
“Hey, you guys wanna join us?” Taehyun asks.
This is new, a disruption to the routine. Beomgyu looks at Yeonjun with doe-wide eyes, and Yeonjun shrugs.
“Maybe next time?” Yeonjun says it like a question, his eyes locked with Beomgyu’s, and all he gets in response is a nod. He’d hoped Soobin and Taehyun would have fucked off to Soobin’s room by now, but apparently, they can’t take any hints, even bright glaring neon billboard-sized hints.
If he expected the awkwardness to die down once they were alone again, he was sorely mistaken. Yeonjun thinks about the last time they were here in his bedroom together and how different it had been: everything was easy for that one, perfect week. He wants so badly to go back to that — anything but this tension, this avoiding each other’s gaze, this ocean of cotton bedsheets between them when they do climb under the covers and turn off the lights.
Beomgyu connects his phone to Yeonjun’s speakers and plays something quiet and calm, just enough to cover the noise from the movie playing in the living room. Then he turns on his side, the sharp angles of his face highlighted by the blue-silver moonlight pouring in through the window.
Yeonjun could stare at his face forever and still find new ways to be surprised by his beauty. He’s striking; so much so, that Yeonjun can no longer keep his hands to himself. He reaches across that wide gap between them and tucks Beomgyu’s hair behind his ear, revealing the breadth of his brow and his cheekbone. Beomgyu smiles, leaning toward the touch.
“Do you remember what I said when I was drunk?” Beomgyu asks, his voice just above a whisper, though there’s no real reason to keep quiet.
“Do you remember what you said when you were drunk?”
Beomgyu laughs, ducking his face down. “Stop.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Beomgyu’s hand lies halfway between them and Yeonjun covers it with his own. “Which part?”
“How I wish I could kiss you whenever I wanted to.”
Yeonjun’s heart picks up, hummingbird-quick. He wonders what emboldened Beomgyu tonight and quickly decides it’s better not to question it. This is what he wants, and he’s not going to lose it again to overthinking.
“You can do whatever you want, Beoms, I’m yours.”
Beomgyu swallows. “Really?”
“Beomgyu… I’ve loved you since high school. Since before I knew that love was what I was feeling. I’ve always been yours; I’ve just been waiting for you to have me.” As he speaks, he twines their fingers together, studying the bird-fine tendons and bones along Beomgyu’s hand with the tips of his fingers. It feels like he’s flaying himself, leaving himself bare and entirely at Beomgyu’s mercy. But he knows he’s in good hands.
“I think I’ve always known,” Beomgyu says. He’s staring at the point where their hands meet rather than looking Yeonjun in the eyes. “I thought things would be different when I came here, I thought that would finally be our time. We kept going back and forth, you know?”
“I know.”
“But then I saw you with Wooyoung.”
“When?”
“That first night, at the party. I looked for you and I found you with someone else.”
Yeonjun doesn’t need to say it; they both know that the very same thing happened to him too: searching for Beomgyu and finding him with Soobin. For a moment, he’s quiet, allowing himself a final few seconds to mourn what could have been before he shoves it aside and focuses on what they have now.
“I was really fucked up back then,” he says, his throat constricting.
“That was before the accident, though.”
“The accident… that was a wake-up call. Took me too long to answer, though.”
Beomgyu shuffles in closer, so close that Yeonjun has to let go of his hand and settle on his waist instead. So close, Beomgyu’s soft hair tickles Yeonjun’s nose, their legs tangle together beneath the blanket, and the world narrows down to the dark pools of Beomgyu’s eyes.
"Would it be cringe if I said something like maybe we were supposed to wait all this time?"
"No, it's cute," Yeonjun says, squeezing Beomgyu's sides.
He's not sure if he believes it — after all, he went through a lot of heartache to get here, and if given the choice, he'd prefer to skip it all. Finding Beomgyu with Soobin, the car crash, the recovery, everything else. Who knows what could have been different if he'd just kissed the right person that night? Maybe everything. Or maybe he has always been on this collision course with himself, and having Beomgyu along for the ride would have been even more ruinous. He doesn't know. There's no way he could ever know.
"I'm just thankful we're finally here," he says. "Every bad call and stupid decision led us here, right where we're supposed to be."
Beomgyu leans in first, his mouth dropped open in a vulnerable little o like he's afraid Yeonjun could ever deny him this simple declaration of affection — or anything at all. And like everything else has been, this kiss is easy, picking up right where they left off, with Beomgyu's lips soft against Yeonjun's, parting to let him in. With the rumble of Beomgyu's sigh in his chest when Yeonjun captures his face in one hand and rakes his hair back with gentle fingers.
Beomgyu pulls away first, too, and now his lips are curved into a smile pretty beyond all reason.
"I've missed you so much." He clings to Yeonjun's shoulders, fists balled in his shirt, and presses their foreheads together. "Every day without talking to you I thought I was gonna go crazy. I must have picked up my phone a million times to text you before I'd remember. And I was so scared — I was terrified that that was the end."
Yeonjun lets out a breath of laughter, fully endeared, and pulls Beomgyu in a little tighter.
"What's so funny," Beomgyu whines.
"Nothing, nothing," Yeonjun says, but the smile won't go away. "It's just that we were always right there on the same exact page but could never open our mouths and just say it to each other."
Beomgyu settles, letting Yeonjun's words sit for a moment. Then he pulls back, looking Yeonjun in the eyes. "No more, right?"
"No more keeping secrets. Not from each other or from anyone else."
This time Yeonjun dips down for the kiss first, Beomgyu's arms circling his neck, Beomgyu's mouth etched with a smile. Endless smiles, smiles Yeonjun has missed so terribly, smiles so precious he wishes he could bottle the feeling they give him and save it for a rainy day.
Beomgyu loosens his hold on Yeonjun and instead, runs his fingers through Yeonjun's hair. With a leg thrown around Yeonjun's waist, he pulls Yeonjun on top of him. The smiles are gone now, replaced by something more urgent, something that Yeonjun has missed, too.
Yeonjun breaks the kiss, their mouths still so close together he can feel the warmth of Beomgyu's panting breath. "I get it now," he teases. "All that nice stuff you said was just so you could get in my pants."
"You could get into mine. I'm not picky."
Fuck, Yeonjun has missed this, too — has missed the feeling of Beomgyu's body moving against him; the familiar pattern they fall into as they kiss; how perfectly and easily Beomgyu fits in his arms. But Yeonjun is so nervous, like it's the very first time, the importance of the night rendering him terrified to fuck it up.
If Beomgyu notices, he doesn't say anything. Instead, he dives for Yeonjun's neck. The prick of sharp teeth; the ache of a bruise. Sensations Yeonjun hasn't felt for a long time, seeds whose blooms he won't need to cover up in the morning.
Beomgyu tugs at the hem of Yeonjun's shirt until Yeonjun sits up and lets him pull it off. When he settles back onto the pillows, Beomgyu is openly staring at him, his hands roving over the planes of Yeonjun's chest, the tips of his fingers rough little calluses. In the limited light from the moon, it takes Yeonjun a moment to realize Beomgyu's eyes are wet, his lashes clumped together with tears. Beomgyu notices him noticing and gives him a small, quick shake of his head.
"You don't — we don't have to," Yeonjun says, his voice thick.
"I want to," Beomgyu answers. He rubs an affectionate thumb over the height of Yeonjun's cheekbone. "Let me."
Beomgyu leans down to kiss him one more time, the ends of his hair ticklish on Yeonjun's face. Yeonjun feels the kiss through his entire body, his nerves flaring to life, and he grabs Beomgyu by the hips, holding him in place while he grinds upward. He earns a gratifying gasp from Beomgyu, right against his lips.
When Beomgyu recovers, he meets Yeonjun's eyes one more time before he shuffles backward, down the length of Yeonjun's body. This is new. Another disruption in their routine, one that leaves Yeonjun feeling more vulnerable than he's used to. He can distract Beomgyu with his mouth and his hands but not like this, not with Beomgyu taking the lead, not with Beomgyu shushing him when he opens his mouth, not with Beomgyu's hand pressed to his sternum to keep him still. There is nowhere to hide like this, but the moment that thought enters Yeonjun's mind, he quiets it with the assurance that there is no need to hide, either.
Beomgyu pulls Yeonjun out of his head with a firm grip on his cock, squeezing him over the thin layer of his boxers. Even with the fabric between them, he can feel the heat of Beomgyu's hand searing on his skin and his hips cant forward, searching for more. But Beomgyu likes to tease, and so he lets go, tracing just one finger up and down the length instead. It takes everything in Yeonjun to hold back from what he usually does, to stop himself from rolling them over, pinning Beomgyu down, and showing him what he gets for teasing.
There will be time for that another night.
Beomgyu finally dips his fingers into Yeonjun's waistband and tugs his boxers down. The sudden cool air on his cock makes Yeonjun shiver, goosebumps erupting across his skin. The contrast of Beomgyu's breath, hot on the head of Yeonjun's cock with his mouth so close Yeonjun can practically feel a phantom touch, is more than he can handle. He lets out a rasping gasp.
The first touch of Beomgyu's lips to his skin is a trail of delicate kisses, from the base to the head where it rests against Yeonjun's abdomen. He smiles up at Yeonjun as he drags his lips across the crown and wets them with the precum beading there. It isn't his usual bratty smile; it's softer than that, fondness shining through even as he sinks his mouth down onto Yeonjun's cock.
He's off just as quickly, and Yeonjun's voice breaks, choked up in his throat. He shuts his eyes tight and does his best to give himself over to this feeling — Beomgyu's fingers wrapped around his shaft, his mouth sucking a wet kiss to the very tip. Yeonjun's cock thoroughly slicked with spit, Beomgyu strokes him, slow at first, tightening his grip as he edges toward the base. He thumbs over Yeonjun's frenum over and over again, until Yeonjun has no choice but to stuff his own knuckles in his mouth and bite down on the sounds he might make.
Beomgyu has other ideas, though. He reaches up for Yeonjun's hand and braids their fingers together. "I want to hear you."
Yeonjun can give him this. When Beomgyu has given him everything from his trust to his body to second chances, Yeonjun can give him letting go, he can give him the reins, he can give him his trust. Yeonjun can give him anything he wants — it's all his for the taking anyway.
Yeonjun's knuckles ache, twined with Beomgyu's as they are, by the time Beomgyu has found himself a comfortable rhythm. He relaxes his jaw as he sinks lower and then hollows his cheeks, tight and exquisite, each time he comes up. Yeonjun's trembling, sweat filming his entire body. He reaches down with his free hand to pull the hair back from Beomgyu's face and what he finds hidden beneath those dark bangs is a vision: red cheeks and redder lips and thick eyelashes darkened with more tears. The sight of him fully engrossed in enjoying Yeonjun's body has Yeonjun's stomach clenching, that familiar coil tightening through his cock.
"Fuck, Beoms, I'm—"
Yeonjun's voice dissolves before he can finish warning Beomgyu, but he thinks his point is clear enough, and apparently, Beomgyu doesn't care. He hums, the rumble of his voice setting Yeonjun right over the edge, and then he keeps Yeonjun in his mouth through the orgasm. When Yeonjun's breaths even out and he flattens back down on the mattress again, Beomgyu swallows and pulls off. He licks the rest of Yeonjun's release up lazily, each lap against Yeonjun's cock edging him closer and closer to oversensitivity. He must realize it, and finally, with one last kiss to the head, he crawls back up to kiss Yeonjun's lips too.
The taste of Yeonjun's cum on Beomgyu's lips and tongue bolsters a new fire in him. Beomgyu kisses him desperately, uncoordinated and graceless, his breath ragged when they part.
"Hyung," he says, his voice hoarse. He can hardly hold himself up, his weight falling almost entirely on Yeonjun. His hips dance in tight circles, his cock rock hard through his underwear as he grinds it against Yeonjun.
"I know."
With one hand on the nape of Beomgyu's neck, Yeonjun slides the other down between their bodies. He pushes down the waistband of Beomgyu's boxer briefs, freeing his cock. It's blazing hot in his grip, and Beomgyu buckles as Yeonjun strokes him.
All of that composure Beomgyu held onto when he rolled himself on top of Yeonjun and said, let me, is completely gone now. He rests his forehead against Yeonjun's, each breath out of him raspy and deep. When Yeonjun lets go of him — only long enough to fumble with the bottle of lube in the drawer beside the bed — he whines, his fingernails digging sharply into Yeonjun's shoulder.
Yeonjun takes him in hand again, slicked with lube this time to ease each long, slow slide. Beomgyu meets his grip with a tiny, aborted thrust.
"That's it, princess."
Yeonjun takes Beomgyu by the hip and guides his movements, pulling him forward to fuck into his hand. Beomgyu nuzzles into the crook between Yeonjun's neck and shoulder, his breaths loud in Yeonjun's ear. The sounds he makes, all breathy, higher than his speaking voice, pitch even higher, and Yeonjun knows he's close.
"Come on, baby, almost there," Yeonjun whispers into Beomgyu's ear, following it with gentle hums of encouragement.
Beomgyu's hips stutter. He digs his teeth into Yeonjun's shoulder. And then he spills between their bodies, white-hot and wet and so perfect, so, so perfect, Yeonjun is sure there is not enough room inside him to contain everything he is feeling right now.
He's still muttering gentle encouragements when Beomgyu peels himself away and rolls onto the mattress beside him. Yeonjun does his best to put them both back together with only one clean hand, but Beomgyu will need a new set of clothes entirely, and as for Yeonjun himself, well, a trip to the bathroom wouldn't hurt.
"You okay?" he asks as he climbs out of bed, his knee stiff, his wrist aching from the awkward position he'd just been holding.
Beomgyu's head lolls to the side and he fixes Yeonjun with one of those billboard-bright smiles. "So good."
Yeonjun snorts. He digs through his closet for one of his oversized t-shirts he knows Beomgyu likes to steal. "Here," he says, tossing it onto the bed. "Get changed, I'll be right back."
"Yes, sir."
Yeonjun rolls his eyes, but he can't even pretend to be put out anymore by Beomgyu's teasing. It has been sorely missing from his life over these past weeks.
The living room is dark when Yeonjun ventures down the hallway, and he sighs, relieved. He doesn't think he can face Soobin and Taehyun right now, though he knows, of course, he'll have to eventually. Probably first thing in the morning. He can already imagine the judgemental looks he'll get from them, never mind the ribbing and the less-than-gentle teasing. Might as well put it off for as long as he can.
When he gets back to his bedroom, Beomgyu has changed and righted the pillows and blankets. He's on what Yeonjun had begun to think of as Beomgyu's side of the bed, tucked against the wall, the blankets kicked off and rumpled by his feet. It's such a relief to see him here, though Yeonjun knows he couldn't have left in the last two minutes; the idea that he had ever come close to never having this again nearly bowls him over.
"Hey," Beomgyu says, his voice still gritty.
"Hey."
Yeonjun climbs into the bed and slides right up next to him, capturing Beomgyu's lips in a kiss. Beomgyu is all soft and pliant now, melting into the pile of pillows, sinking in deeper underneath Yeonjun's weight. He wraps his arms around Yeonjun's neck and drops his lips open, ready for him.
When they break apart, Beomgyu pushes Yeonjun back a fraction so their eyes can meet. "I love you," he says, his words a little wobbly. "You said it earlier, you know, and I never said it back. I love you."
"I know," Yeonjun says before he dips his head back down for more.
Yeonjun rushes to get ready, nearly colliding with some poor old man on his way through the locker room. He skipped his last physical therapy session to hang out with Beomgyu — it was Beomgyu's only day off from both work and class the entire week, and Yeonjun didn't want to miss a single second. But since today is the last one before his surgery, there was no skipping out. Or being late.
Hyejin is waiting near the reception desks, a white puffy coat folded over her arm. "I thought we'd take a walk today."
"But it's cold outside," Yeonjun complains.
"Alright fine, to the leg press."
"No, no, no, a walk is fine, a walk is great."
Outside it is atrociously cold, just like he'd said. The flurries from this morning have turned into proper snowfall. Beomgyu had woken him up before the sun to drag him out onto the balcony and catch the first white flakes of the season. They were just a dusting then, but as tired as he was, Yeonjun was thankful they got to see it together.
"How did pre-op go?" Hyejin asks.
Yeonjun pulls his coat tighter around his shoulders. "Healthy enough to go under the knife to fix my health."
Hyejin gives him a sidelong glance. They pass a group of nurses in sunshine-yellow scrubs as they round the corner of the hospital complex. "You're trying to be funny," he says once they've passed, "Which must mean you're nervous."
He is. He's worried about bad reactions to the medications; he's worried about being around the pills that had him in a chokehold not even that long ago. He's worried about looking weak and frail to people he wants to be strong for. But there is one worry that overpowers all the rest of them, one he's been too afraid to say out loud to Wooyoung, to Soobin, even to Beomgyu.
"I'm afraid it won't work."
Hyejin nods, like she'd been expecting him to say as much. "I've been thinking about that. Not about it not working, but about you being worried it won't work." She loops her arm through his and pulls him in closer. "I can tell you the stats on this procedure, and even your surgeon. I can share the stories of other patients I've worked with and their outcomes. But none of that really matters. You can't control what your doctor or other patients do. You can control what you do though. This time, take it seriously. Listen to your team. Don't skip PT to hang out with your boyfriend."
Despite the cold wind, the warmest part of Yeonjun's body must be the apples of his cheeks, heated from blushing. "I'm sorry," he groans.
"I just don't feel up to it," Hyejin teases, using the voice she always uses when she's making fun of him. "And then an hour later, a post on Instagram. He's out of your league, by the way."
"Hey!"
When their laughter dies down, Hyejin stops them, turning so they're facing one another. "I'm glad you have him. Use him, lean on his support. And your friends, too. You don't have to do any of this alone anymore."
There's an ache in Yeonjun's throat that always appears when he doesn't know what to do with someone else's unexpected kindness. Hyejin saves him from the humiliation of saying anything in return by pulling him down into a hug surprisingly tight for someone so small.
"You can go home."
It's only now that he realizes they've circled all the way around to the front doors they left through. "There's still time, though?"
"Rest up before Friday. And call me, let me know how it goes."
A party was probably not what Hyejin had in mind when she told him to rest up a couple days ago, but there's hardly any avoiding it when the party is hosted at Yeonjun's own apartment.
When Yeonjun and Soobin moved in together ages ago, Soobin had proudly declared he wanted to host a regular game night at their place. Yeonjun hadn't minded — first of all, he normally wasn't home anyway; but back then, those game nights were five people maximum, not including Soobin and Beomgyu. They were smaller, quieter, tidier in every way.
What's going on tonight is a far, far cry from Soobin's proposal all those months ago.
There aren't too many people — it's not full like one of the campus dorm parties. But still, Yeonjun doesn't even recognize everyone here. And there's more drinking than there is any actual game-playing, and soon, Yeonjun is one of the very few sober people left.
"I'm sorry," Soobin whines, throwing his arms over Yeonjun's shoulders.
Yeonjun pinches his side, and Soobin yelps. "I don't think you are."
"You're right."
"Mhm."
It's hard to actually be mad, though. Yeonjun doesn't really care what Soobin gets up to when he's not here, and he's not planning on hanging around very much longer now that Beomgyu is out of the shower and searching the room for him with those tea-saucer-wide eyes. When he does spot Yeonjun, a smile dawns on his face as bright as sunrise and twice as beautiful.
Beomgyu picks his way over to where Yeonjun is in the kitchen, and the moment he's within reach, Yeonjun snags him by the wrist and pulls him in until their bodies are flush together. He wastes no time in planting kisses on Beomgyu's lips, much to the chagrin of everyone around them.
"Is this what I enabled?" Kai complains, cracking open a fresh can of beer.
But Yeonjun ignores him. His arms tight around Beomgyu's waist, he squeezes and asks, "Are you ready?"
"Let's go."
It's not that Yeonjun can't be at parties or around people drinking anymore, though it's hardly his favorite thing in the world these days. He would much rather be with Beomgyu, though, and when Beomgyu suggested they spend the night before his surgery alone together, he could only think of a million reasons to say yes. Beomgyu grabs his backpack and they both slip their coats on, and they're gone before anyone around them even knows it.
The drive up to the scenic overlook is quiet, but a different kind of quiet from the last time. Yeonjun holds Beomgyu's hand over the center console while Beomgyu watches the trees go by the passenger's side window. There is no uncertainty anymore, no room for it in the overflowing wellspring of affection that Yeonjun has found between the two of them. He squeezes Beomgyu's hand once before breaking away to pull the car into the spot beneath the sign, just like last time.
"It's probably too cold to get out this time," Yeonjun says, cranking the heat so they can at least take off their jackets.
"That's alright." Beomgyu reaches up to pull back the visor on the sunroof and now they can see the stars in here instead.
"And I can't smoke like last time, either. But you can, if you—"
"Hyung, stop. It's fine." Beomgyu is laughing and his smile is so infectious that it cracks through whatever anxiety Yeonjun had been feeling without even realizing it. "I just want to be with you."
They leave their stuff up front and curl up together in the back seat instead. Beomgyu's weight as he leans on Yeonjun's chest is familiar and solid, an anchor to hold him through any storm, and Yeonjun wraps his arms tight around Beomgyu's shoulders. He kisses the crown of Beomgyu's head as Beomgyu fiddles with his phone. A few seconds later, a familiar synth plays through Yeonjun's speakers.
"The final version?" Yeonjun asks.
Beomgyu beams up at him, nodding. "We just finished it today."
"I love it."
"You haven't even listened to it," Beomgyu laughs.
"I know it's great because it's yours."
Beomgyu rolls his eyes but the blush on his cheeks is plain to see even in the moonlight. He is perfect like this, in Yeonjun's arms, the air full of the sounds of his creativity, his talent. Yeonjun dips his head down to meet his lips in a sweet kiss. He can't resist him, and he doesn't have to. In the sea of uncertainty that waits for Yeonjun tomorrow, this is one thing he can count on.