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“You’re so damn heavy,” Hyungwon heaves as he takes two more laboured steps, bending slightly at his knees before standing straight up again, the burden bounced back up higher on his back, biceps coming around Hyungwon’s neck.
He would try to turn around and find out why he’s being so quiet, but Hyungwon is barely capable of standing on his two feet with a grown man stacked on him, so he opts to proceed, letting out an occasional grunt.
He knows he should have probably told Kihyun to stop drinking at some point, but he just seemed so sad. The way the end of his lips were slightly downturned, the usual spark in his eyes put out, made Hyungwon’s heart ache for a few seconds.
They (Hyungwon) continue their hike for a few more minutes, his legs shaking as he keeps going, wondering if it’s socially appropriate to leave his friend on the side of the road until someone inevitably finds him.
Then he remembers that it’s sub-zero degrees out, and while Kihyun can be an annoying little thing at times, he’s not sure if he wants to be the one responsible for his death from hypothermia.
Kihyun’s warm breath is pressed against his neck. Hyungwon’s steps follow the rhythm of his slow breathing, hears him mumble a few incoherent words before there’s a weight on his shoulder again.
It feels nice, despite his lungs feeling like they’ll give way, or the piercing wind attacking his nose, or his throat turning parched.
It’s nice being close to Kihyun, feeling his body heat radiating off him in waves, hear his peaceful inhales and exhales as he inches closer to dreamland on Hyungwon’s bony structure.
He catches sight of his apartment building and sighs in relief. It never really did occur to him how far away Kihyun’s place was from the bar they frequented. He hooks his hands under his knees tighter and pushes him further up his back.
They stay in silence for a bit more, and Hyungwon would be happy with that, until Kihyun is murmuring about something again, his breath tickling Hyungwon’s neck.
“What did you say?”
Kihyun’s head lolls to the side, and Hyungwon can see his face if he just cranes his neck a little bit. He blinks as he realises how close they are to each other, and clears his throat before looking away.
Up close, Hyungwon can see the tiny moles printed on his clear skin, down to his pores and a pimple scar on his chin. He presses his lips together in a firm line and finds determination in quickening his pace to Kihyun’s apartment.
Any more of this proximity and Hyungwon will do the unimaginable.
“Anyone… you like…?” He barely makes out the words, and then wishes he hadn’t. Hyungwon breathes heavy, but he won’t say if it’s from the weight on his back or from the unexpected question.
A pregnant pause. Despite being drunk and sleepy, Kihyun is still a brat. His nails bite into Hyungwon’s fleshless shoulder, and the brunette hisses, having every mind to just leave him by the side of the damn road.
“Answer me!” he complains, and Hyungwon thinks he’s already out of it right now, surely he won’t remember all of this the next morning. He gives it a shot.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Kihyun does (and fails at doing) a low whistle, his chin now cutting into the crook of Hyungwon’s neck. The tall brunette says nothing, and for a moment, Kihyun grows silent too. They’re so close to his apartment building now.
“Who’s he?” Kihyun asks, his voice smaller than an ant’s, and Hyungwon’s grip on his legs tightens.
“No one you know,” he answers simply, and Kihyun’s lips protrude out in a pout, but he doesn’t press on. Hyungwon is thankful for the lack of a response.
“Is he handsome?” Kihyun asks again suddenly, and Hyungwon feels like they’re playing a very one-sided version of 20 Questions. He doesn’t reply, and Kihyun is digging his nails in his flesh again.
“Kihyun, I swear to fucking God--”
“Just answer the damn question.” He is a bratty drunk. Hyungwon didn’t think he needed this information at any point of his life, but it’s been input into his system and now he can’t delete it. Great. Just great.
He doesn’t know if he should give in, but Hyungwon makes the mistake of turning around to see Kihyun looking at him with sleepy half-lidded eyes, the lights from the streetlamps reflecting off his shiny orbs, and his heart skips more than just a beat.
“Uh, um, yeah, I guess?” Of course he stutters. Hyungwon frowns, wondering why this suddenly bothers him now. Or why Kihyun had found a need to ask this question now.
Kihyun sniffs. Hyungwon is at his building, looking as the automated glass doors slide open. “More handsome than me?” Kihyun asks again, and Hyungwon thinks his questions are stupid, almost as stupid as Kihyun himself, but he humours him.
“I think I’d give you two the same score.”
Kihyun looks intrigued, his eyebrows raised, shooting Hyungwon a suggestive little look. “What score would you give me?”
Hyungwon chuckles lightly, doesn’t know how to get out of the hole he’s just dug for himself. “I’m not nearly drunk enough to tell you that.”
Kihyun looks overly sober for a man who can barely walk in a straight line. Hyungwon is starting to think he’s just feigning it to earn a piggyback ride home. “So a high score, then?”
Hyungwon jabs at the number ‘9’ by the lift and turns his head away. Not making that mistake again. “Nope. Not talking about your score.”
Kihyun laughs, throws his head back. Hyungwon falls silent again.
“Well, you’re an 8 for me.”
Hyungwon almost cannot believe his ears. “An 8?” He screeches, and Kihyun, who is a little inept at dealing with loud sounds even though he produces most of them himself, winces. “I’m an 8?” Hyungwon asks again, and it’s just his question echoing in the lift and the rattling of mechanical parts.
“I dunno if you think that’s too high or too low. I think 8’s pretty decent.” He states matter-of-factly. His syllables slur in a chain of still-distinguishable words, but his eyelids are drooping slowly, and Hyungwon is suddenly morbidly afraid of finding a mark of Kihyun’s dried saliva on his coat.
He gives it a moment before he realises Kihyun isn’t going to remember any of this, and it’s ultimately pointless to pick a fight with a drunk man anyway. He shrugs, and Kihyun falls a little further down his back.
“I don’t know.”
Kihyun just hums in response, his chin resting completely on Hyungwon’s left shoulder, his head tilted to the side and he breathes against Hyungwon’s ear. The brunette shudders, but they’ve finally reached his floor, and Hyungwon is trying to catch his breath.
Hyungwon balances Kihyun as well as he can while he attempts to pull out a hand from under his knees. He pulls up the plastic cover of his automated lock, and stares at the number pad.
“Hey.” He nudges Kihyun, his thumb poking at his jeans, the man just whining low in his throat at the interruption of his sleep.
“Hey, lazybum. Tell me your pin for your apartment.” He pinches him lightly on his thigh, and the man huffs angrily, exaggerating as usual. He blabbers, and Hyungwon can only make out ‘no’ and ‘stop’.
“I’ll stop if you just tell me your code for the door. Come on.” He urges again, feeling like his arms and back might just break right now, and he just really wants to go back home to his comfortable bed.
“Kihyun, please.” He knows how the man is. Even in his drunken stupor, Kihyun is someone who doesn’t do well with threats. He likes being convinced, likes it when people grovel at his feet, appeal to his sense of sympathy. Likes it when they ask him for favours instead of telling him that he has to do it or else.
“Kihyun?”
He drawls. “Chae birthday.”
Hyungwon completely freezes for a whole five seconds, before he breaks into a forced smile. “Okay, that’s not funny. What’s your code?”
Kihyun just wants to sleep, his cheek squished up from against Hyungwon’s shoulder, his lips already falling slightly apart. Hyungwon grows desperate; what if he’s carried him all the way back only for them to sleep outside of his apartment in this cold?
“Kihyun.”
“Mm?”
“Your door code.”
Kihyun doesn’t take one second to reply, even if his words are all mushed up. “Chae’s birthday.”
It can’t be, that would be stupid. But there’s only one way to find out.
Hyungwon blames it on the cold when his fingers are trembling as he presses the numbers in.
940115.
There is a cheerful melody that seems to be mocking him, and then the door clicks open.
“What the actual hell.” He mutters to himself as Kihyun is now fully asleep on his shoulder, his breathing calm and his lips a little blue from the cold.
Hyungwon decides to leave the fact that Kihyun’s door code is set for his birthday in a small box and shoves it into the back of his mind. He instead heads straight for the sofa and sets the man on it gently. Kihyun grunts, but returns to sleep quickly, soft wheezing sounds leaving his lips.
Placing his hands on his hips, Hyungwon doesn’t know what to make out of this situation. He probably shouldn’t stay, but he also doesn’t trust Kihyun to find himself painkillers in the middle of the night without cracking his skull in the kitchen.
He’ll play it by ear, he decides, and turns on the thermostat before debating on whether or not he should leave the man here in the living room.
After a very passionate mental discourse with himself, Hyungwon walks over to Kihyun and throws the man’s arms around his neck. He then hooks his arms beneath his small frame and carries him up, heaving as he does.
He wonders if the conversation when he’s woken up should be one where he tells Kihyun to go on a diet, or one where he tells himself to start working out.
Kihyun snuggles closer to him, still mumbling something under his breath as he presses his nose against the crook of Hyungwon’s neck, warm puffs of air raising hairs.
Hyungwon hisses as he steadies himself, dropping Kihyun onto his bed inelegantly, the man immediately reaching for his body pillow and curving into it. He buries his entire face in the cotton, his eyes screwed shut.
Hyungwon stands there for a few minutes simply observing before padding out of the bedroom and fetching a glass of water and two tablets of aspirin.
“Hey. Kihyun?”
“Mmm?” The man hums, but doesn’t move from his position, and Hyungwon sighs. He holds onto Kihyun’s arm and turns him around forcibly, smiling a little at the frown Kihyun is wearing. People are supposed to look like angels when they sleep, but Kihyun looks horrible, like his face has been pummeled by the sheer force of his slumber, his eyes still shut tightly.
“Drink some water.” He tugs onto his arm again, and Kihyun shakes his head. “Noooo,” he resists softly, pulling his arm away from Hyungwon as he returns to putting his face to his pillow, but Hyungwon is not taking any of it.
“Please, Kihyun? You’ll feel better in the morning,” he coaxes, pulls on his arm again, and Kihyun whines, a long nasal sound as he pounds his fists against the bed in opposition.
“Noooo.”
“C’mon, be good, and just take it. It’ll just be like, two seconds.” Hyungwon is really not one for cooing (or nice words in general), but it’s that or dealing with Kihyun’s wrath when he wakes up at 5AM with a violent headache.
“Sing me a song.”
Hyungwon blinks, doesn’t know if he’s hearing wrongly, or maybe Kihyun’s sleep-addled brain is just spouting bullshit at this point. Not that anything he’s said before this point was vaguely useful, really.
“What.”
“Song. Then water.” He pouts, and really it should be adorable, and Hyungwon should be starry-eyed from his cute little antics, but he’s tempted once again to just pour the water over his face and tell him that he can wake up with a pounding migraine for all he cares.
But Hyungwon is Hyungwon, and while he rolls his eyes and huffs, disgruntled, he sits himself on the carpeted floor next to Kihyun’s bed, and rests the tablets and the glass on his bedside table.
He wouldn’t put it past Kihyun to go to sleep right after his song, but there’s something soft in this interaction. Something in Kihyun’s short stubby fingers clinging onto his body pillow, eyelids loose, eyelashes fluttering over his eyebags, blabbering about something he can’t recognise.
“Just one song.”
Kihyun nods, smiling so widely the ends of his lips are almost pulled up to his ears, and he snuggles back into his pillow. Hyungwon just sighs. It’s been a long day, followed by a long night, and it’s only going to be a long morning, but Kihyun just looks so satisfied.
Like he’s just completely content and pleased with everything and everyone, and Hyungwon thinks he can deal with a bit of serenading if it means it helps sustain Kihyun’s happiness for just a little longer.
So he sings, his voice soft and hesitant when he begins, but he picks up in volume. He’s a little pitchy, but then again, his throat is a little scratchy from the few drinks he’s had.
He sings louder, doesn’t even know if this amounts to anything, but as he vocalises note by note, it calms his nerves, and Hyungwon is almost distracted by the way Kihyun presses his face deeper into his pillow with a hint of a smile.
Hyungwon doesn’t sing often, not entirely confident in the way his voice travels, oftentimes finding himself sitting in a corner clapping his hands mindlessly during a karaoke session as Kihyun belts out high notes.
He knows his singing isn’t as good as Kihyun’s, but it doesn’t change the fact that he enjoys it despite their difference in ability. So he mouths the lyrics carefully, taking care of his pitch as he strikes out each note with clarity.
Kihyun’s smile dims as he sinks deeper into his sleep. His arm goes slack and he looks like he’s at peace, the smidgen of sadness when he was drinking all but wiped off from his pretty face.
Hyungwon stops abruptly in the middle of a line, and stares.
He doesn’t know what else to do but stare. At Kihyun’s sharp jaw, his tall nose, the little mole above his upper lip. Somehow remembers the geography of his features, the shape of his ears, the smoothness of his skin.
Hyungwon thinks he’s clearly going insane, but in this moment, he really wants to kiss Kihyun on those thin, pink lips, see if they taste as good as they look.
But he doesn’t, because Hyungwon is Hyungwon, and while Kihyun will probably remember nothing about tonight, he will not stoop this low. (Even if Kihyun is currently swiping his tongue over his bottom lip like he’s asking for it.)
“Hey.” He pushes gently, and Kihyun makes a low whimper, swatting at the air in front of him as he tries to go back to sleep.
“Hey. Water. You promised.” Chae Hyungwon is a lot of things at once, but he’s more persistent than any of the other things, so when Kihyun tries to dodge him and return to burying his face in his pillow, Hyungwon almost breaks his arm as he fishes him out from his pillow.
“Eat this and sleep. It won’t even take you long.” He shakes Kihyun, wonders if this is retribution for all the times he’d ignored Kihyun waking him up when they shared a flat together with Minhyuk. It apparently is, and Hyungwon is suddenly made aware of just how much torture he had put Kihyun through by refusing to get up in the mornings.
Another full minute of tugging -- a miracle in and of itself, considering Kihyun is a light sleeper -- and Kihyun sits up on the bed with his hair a mess atop his head, growling in resentment.
Hyungwon just passes the painkillers over without a word, stares as Kihyun pops it into his mouth and swallows it with a gulp of water. Hyungwon takes it over as Kihyun opts to glare at him with his half-opened eyes, and he huffs.
“You’re such a horrible person,” he states, and Hyungwon is really considering pouring the water over his dumbass head.
“Yeah okay, tell that to the guy who saved you from the Headache of the Century.” He shoves Kihyun back to lie on the bed, the man ready to protest, only to realise that he’s comfortable and tired, and arguments with Hyungwon can wait a couple of hours.
“You’re the Headache of the Century,” he retaliates before throwing his leg over his body pillow and pushing himself against it, closing his eyes as he lets sleep drift him away.
Hyungwon just stands there at a loss of words, mostly exasperated, but he, too, is weary from the day’s events, and would prefer to not wage a war at 3 in the morning.
“Goodnight, you asshole,” he throws out before closing the door behind him, turning off the light in Kihyun’s room.
*****
In a not very surprising way, Hyungwon had barely gotten any sleep. He was a little caught up with speculations as to why Kihyun’s house door code was his birthday, and why he had thought to ask Hyungwon about a potential crush.
Hyungwon isn’t even one for much optimism, but the clues seem to look him in the face, and he would be an idiot to deny it. (But also, he isn’t really a narcissist.)
He feigns sleep when he hears a deafening grunt from the bedroom, soft padding of feet, and then a flush of the toilet. He doesn’t know why he chose to sleep on Kihyun’s sofa when he could have gone home to his bed that wasn’t ⅞ of his total height.
He won’t admit that it’s to keep a lookout for Kihyun and his potential 6AM throw-ups in the bathroom, where Hyungwon has to push his fringe back from his face like how girls help each other hold their hair. (Fortunately for the both of them, Kihyun isn’t the kind.)
There is another low groan as the faucet is turned on, and Hyungwon finally finds sleep in the soft noise of Kihyun moving around, the domestic sounds of footsteps and lights turning on.
Drowsiness catches on in tiny waves and Hyungwon is drifting away slowly when he feels a weight on his body, soft and cosy. It wraps him up in warmth and he drowns in it, letting out a sigh that had been in his system for a while now.
There’s a light chuckle, but the lure of slumber calls for him, and soft fingers through his hair is the last thing he remembers before falling into deep sleep.
*****
“Chae. Wake up.”
“Nnngh.” Hyungwon raises an arm and waves it around, futile attempts at pressing the snooze button on his human alarm clock.
“Chae. You’ve been asleep for hours. Come on, lazybum.”
“Go away.”
A small chuckle. “You’re still the same after all this time. Come on. Get up.”
“Nooooo.”
He clicks his tongue, and then there is peace and quiet for about half a minute, before Hyungwon feels a spray on his skin, and he shrieks, flailing his arms as he tries to dodge it.
“Wake. The. Hell. Up.”
The Nozzle of Death is relentless, and Hyungwon finds himself half-drenched by the time his senses come back to him. He doesn’t know how else to welcome the disturbance except for a laser-like glare.
“I can’t believe I’ve finally gotten rid of you and you’re here to haunt me again.”
Kihyun laughs, throws his head back as his chuckles remind him a little of an evil mastermind. “I didn’t exactly invite you to sleep on my sofa, so you kind of asked for it.” He folds his arms together, looking all smug, while Hyungwon just rubs his eyes.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to carry a deadweight for 10 full minutes, and deal with someone being a bratty drunk and refusing to take his painkillers.” Hyungwon presses onto the bridge of his nose as Kihyun reddens.
He’s suddenly exceptionally silent, and Hyungwon opens his eyes to look up at him. He looks embarrassed. A little flustered, even.
“I didn’t say anything silly, did I?”
Hyungwon smiles, mischief in his eyes. “Depends how you define ‘silly’.”
That seems to plunge Kihyun further into his uneasiness, and his cheeks are scarlet. He shifts his weight from his left to his right, trying very hard to look like he’s keeping his cool. Hyungwon just tries his best to not explode in laughter.
“You’re just shitting with me, right?”
Hyungwon blinks, pressing his lips together as he muffles a laugh. He coughs. “Well. You demanded to know what score you would be out of 10.”
Kihyun stills. Hyungwon looks at him with wide eyes.
“Apparently, I’m an 8.”
Kihyun’s face becomes like a tomato, the tips of his ears turning pink as he covers his face with his hands, his eyes wide from shock.
“Yeah. And apparently you think 8 is a pretty decent score.”
“Fuck.” Kihyun says, and he just continues blinking incredulously into his own hands, Hyungwon’s turn to cross his arms across his chest.
“Yeah, same,” he says nonchalantly, and cannot help the throes of laughter that burst out when he sees Kihyun lose his composure, his eyes screaming panic.
“Wow,” Kihyun says, his cheeks still blazing hot as he tries to cool them down with the back of his hand, “you’re an asshole.”
Hyungwon grins. “I’m an asshole that’s a solid 8, which is pretty decent.”
And Hyungwon properly screams when Kihyun lunges at his neck with hands ready to strangle.
*****
“So what other embarrassing thing did I do yesterday?” Kihyun has given up by now, surrendered, laying breathlessly beside Hyungwon as he’d failed to murder the brunette. “Just expose me now, once and for all.”
Hyungwon is still breathing heavy from their childish little duel, his heart racing.
“It’s not really an embarrassing thing as much as it’s… strange.”
Kihyun sniffs. “Strange how?” He spritzes a pump of the spray in his face and Hyungwon can feel the tension in his muscles, in the air, in Kihyun’s frozen frame beside him.
“Your, uh-- I, uh--”
Kihyun laughs. “Very eloquent, Chae. Remind me how you’re a lawyer again?”
Hyungwon punches him in the arm. “Shut up. You’re the one who has my birthday as your door lock code.”
Oh .
“Oh.” Kihyun says, and Hyungwon rolls his eyes.
“Because oh is so eloquent.”
He doesn’t read the mood very well, because Kihyun’s face is a bright red again, and Hyungwon is still muttering something about Kihyun needing to be less snarky, and that he’s done him a huge favour by not letting him die in the streets.
“Is that--” Kihyun inhales, pulls his knees up to his chest. “Is that… weird?”
Hyungwon shuts up, and then he turns to look at Kihyun, who is staring blankly into space, looking mildly unsettled.
He blinks. “I--” Blinks again, for clarity’s sake. “I--” No, eloquence isn’t his strong suit today. “No.” He says decidedly, and then Kihyun looks at him with a little glimmer of hope in his eyes. Hyungwon’s heart is in his throat.
“No, it’s not weird.” He doesn’t reveal much emotion, but he does shift a hair’s breadth closer to Kihyun. It’s not entirely an invitation, but he doesn’t deny Kihyun when the black-haired man moves closer to him too.
They stay like that in silence, a little too close for comfort, and Hyungwon is so near Kihyun that he can feel the rises and dips in his frame as he breathes.
“Kind of… cute, actually, now that I think about it,” Hyungwon says slowly, and is relieved when Kihyun chuckles at his conclusion.
“Is it, now?”
Hyungwon shrugs. “A little bit, I guess.”
“Just a little bit.” Hyungwon finds a need to clarify, and Kihyun laughs, lighter than before, the strain in his shoulder all but disappeared.
“And I guess, I don’t know. I like it?”
Kihyun can’t help the ends of his lips pulling up. “Yeah?”
Hyungwon smiles. “Yeah.” They stay in silence for a bit, and then there is a hand on Hyungwon’s, soft, unfamiliar, but warm. Hyungwon breathes, his chest tight with anticipation.
“I guess you have to like a person a fair bit before deciding to use their birthday as your lock code, huh?” Hyungwon flips over his hand under Kihyun’s, palm upwards, and his fingers move up to interlace with Kihyun’s.
A smile surfaces on the other man’s face, but he turns away briefly.
It’s Kihyun’s turn to shrug, poker-faced. “They’re alright, I guess.”
“Just alright? I thought they were an 8.”
Kihyun smacks him on his shoulder, and Hyungwon laughs easy.
So Hyungwon scoots closer, and Kihyun lets him, and by the time they’re shoulder to shoulder, Hyungwon is a strange mix of grins and laughter, and Kihyun follows suit, just calls him ‘silly’. Hyungwon sees this look on Kihyun often, but only now does he properly recognises it as endearment.
He’s leaning in, so close to Kihyun he can smell a hint of citrus and mint on him, jumping a little as he feels static shock. He sees it again, the same features, the same tiny mole, the same pair of thin, pink lips.
“Between the both of us, though, you’re a 10 for me,” Hyungwon whispers.
He tries his best to hold back a smile. “Wow, you’re a massive idiot.”
“But I’m a massive idiot that’s only just an 8.” Hyungwon feigns a pitiful look, and Kihyun slaps him on his arm, but there is no hostility in him, just amusement, and to a certain degree, some level of fondness.
He laughs, and while he finds an excuse to look elsewhere, his eyes always come back to land on Hyungwon’s bow-shaped lips.
“Actually shut up, and kiss me.”
Hyungwon beams.
“Okay.” (And Kihyun’s lips do taste as good as they look.)