Chapter Text
Beomgyu felt it then when he heard that loud snore, the resentment. He had counted — 102 in the past hour. It was loud and came right from his chest, like a low vibration. A pillow was in his hand before it fully processed in his mind and it hit Soobin squarely in the face, “Enough!”
Soobin rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes and turned his body to him. “Sorry, baby. I’m trying.”
“Trying isn’t good enough, clearly,” Beomgyu huffed. If he was standing up, he would have stamped his feet and whined to convey the desperation he was currently feeling. He couldn’t stay angry for long though because Soobin had thrown a long arm over his chest, and he felt like a furnace against Beomgyu’s skin that was covered in goosebumps.
“Tomorrow I’ll get the plugs from the chemist,” All croaky. Beomgyu used to love his voice like this; when it was all dark in the room and all he could hear was the gravel in his throat. “He said it would work better than the strips.”
Beomgyu took a good look at him now. His soft, black hair was matted to his forehead even though the fan was whirring overhead, and sweat was starting to bead against his cupids bow. He only had one eye opened like he was ready to go back to sleep whenever Beomgyu was done giving him a hard time. It was frustrating how beautiful he was sometimes.
“You should have got them when you were there, then.”
A sigh, “I said I’d go tomorrow, Beomgyu.”
He was using his full name now, no way. “Since when am I Beomgyu to you?”
This time it was more of a groan. Soobin’s arm uncurled from his waist, and he flipped back over, spine to Beomgyu. “You’re so ridiculous sometimes.”
“So ridiculous sometimes,” he muttered like an echo. “You would be ridiculous too if you had work at 8 in the morning and your husband was wheezing next to you the entire night. I even took a melatonin!”
Soobin’s legs kicked off the blankets, still considerate enough to do it gently as to not shift it off Beomgyu and grabbed for his pillow. He wasn’t angry, Beomgyu could tell because he knew him so well. He just looked tired. “I’ll be on the couch.”
The resentment left with Soobin, Beomgyu thought. When the bed got colder. His scent still lingered though – fresh laundry and soap. He dug his nose into the sheets and inhaled it and then rolled back over when he realized that might have been a weird thing to do, even though he had dated Soobin for 6 years, had been married for 3. Almost 4. Where had the time gone?
He could almost feel the sticky cotton candy on his tongue from their first date. They were best friends, but there was always something more. Beomgyu was always batting his eyelashes and Soobin was always biting his lip. Yeonjun always threw a pillow at them when they got a little too comfortable in social settings. “You both just need to get it over with and make out, already,” Taehyun said. “We can leave the room.”
Beomgyu had whined and smacked at his shoulder, but Soobin had just laughed. It would take 3 more months for Soobin to work up the courage to ask Beomgyu to come to the town fair with him. He was so shy, like they had never spoken before. It was like his 6-foot stature shrunk down, folding him in half. It was so sweet, if Beomgyu hadn’t already been in love with him, he still would have said yes.
But the cotton candy. The sweltering sun, pouring down onto the pavement. Soobin under the sun had always looked like a deity; he never told him that, there is only so many compliments he can take before he combusts into glitter and confetti. He was so beautiful that day. Beomgyu remembered the orange ice cream that stained the inner corner of his mouth and how he wanted to lick it away, but he guessed wiping it away would suffice. He could almost feel the stickiness on his fingers.
Every day with him felt like a luxury. Soobin’s rough hands and how he once built a birdhouse for Toto just because he had shown him a picture as they laid on their bed. It was painted Beomgyu’s favorite colors. When he cried, “Of course, Beomgyu. Why wouldn’t I know the little things about you?” But he hadn’t felt that kind of love, ever. The kind where he felt known and understood. Where he didn’t have to second guess himself, or his partner. Didn’t have to ask him for a thing.
He was big, bigger than Beomgyu – in height and in width. Instead of reaching for the top cupboard and grabbing the jar himself, Soobin would pick him up with those strong arms and lift. There was so much love in that kitchen, both the one in their last apartment and their new home. The nights where Beomgyu played an indie song with acoustic guitar and a soft-singing man, Soobin would take his hand and spin him with only the refrigerator light illuminating them. He knew Beomgyu loved romance; he would do anything for him.
Sometimes, Beomgyu would wait for Soobin to come home from work in a lacey little thing that he had ordered in bulk online. One in every color. He would wait and wait and when he heard the pad of his feet approaching, he would be kneeling on the sofa ready for him. Soobin would take off his coat and hang it on the rack, slip off his shoes and smile. Not the sexy kind. It would be so big it would crease at his eyes; his dimples would be so deep that a second set would appear. “Can you please re-enter and come back when you’re feeling hot and bothered. You look like a kid in a candy store.”
“I’m sorry,” with his hands up in surrender. “My sexy fiancé is on my couch in pink panties. You should be glad I didn’t suffer a stroke.”
Beomgyu pouted then. “Well, that wouldn’t be any good. I prepped and everything.”
Soobin groaned and chucked his tote on the kitchen island. When he came over to the sofa, he fucked Beomgyu so good he had to be carried to bed that night. Kai would cackle the next day when he served them both at the coffee shop, “Oh, Beomgyu. What did he do to you?” Beomgyu hid his neck by pulling his long hair over the bruises, but Soobin would tuck his hair back behind his ear. Always a show off.
Now, he was in bed, and it was cold. The love of his life was on the sofa. Everything felt a little painful; his chest felt tight and if Soobin was here, he would coax Beomgyu through it. 1, 2, 3. Just like that. Keep breathing, baby. He missed him even though he was only a few feet away. He felt so much further than that lately.
Something had to be done. They used to be so in love, and now Beomgyu was scared he would lose him. So, he did the only thing he could think of. He created a group chat.
me
i know u guys don’t go to bed until like 3am. i need help.
He put his phone down on his chest, sighing. What was he doing? It pinged exactly 14 seconds later. Beomgyu counted.
jjuni hyung
What’s up????
me
everything’s up…. everything’s down…. sideways even…
jjuni hyung
Please don’t talk in riddles it’s too late to understand what you’re saying
me
i need help
jjuni hyung
We established that
me
ughhhhh this is so embarrassing
jjuni hyung
You’re literally the one who created the gc
me
soobin and i haven’t had sex in 8 months
hyukapie
WHATTTTTT 😭😭😭😭 hyung……. 😭
tyun
Jesus Christ.
jjuni hyung
I see why this was an emergency…….
Facetime?
Is Soobin next to you???
hyukapie
maybe we shld facetime and talk rly loudly so he hears
nooooo he wld be so embarrassed actually forget i said tht 🥲
me
he is on the couch
got banished because he snores
tyun
Sleeping in different rooms is crazy.
hyukapie
im sure everythng is fine
like u guys r so good together
me
we WERE good together. now he would rather do sudoku during breakfast then bend me over the oven
tyun
First of all, ew.
Second, that’s dangerous.
jjuni hyung
Look…
If its gotten stale
Just spice it up!!!!
me
how?
i feel like even if i put on sexy lingerie he would be like
oh you look cute
and then brush his teeth
hyukapie
i jst read that in soobin hyungs voice and got scared omg 😭
jjuni hyung
I don’t know
Negotiate
Goodnight.
me
what do you mean by negotiate
yeonjun hyung?
yeonjun
did he seriously go to bed?
tyun
Good luck with the sex.
hyukapie
srsly hyung if theres a couple tht can overcome smthing ITS U BOTH!!
[image attached]
love u all 🤍
Beomgyu opened the picture to find a screenshot of Kai listening to The Climb by Miley Cyrus on Apple Music. He always said that it sounded ‘crispier’ than Spotify. God, this song didn’t make him feel any better. If there is always going to be an uphill battle, Beomgyu would rather not walk up it.
Maybe that’s how he got here in the first place.
Kai and his wisdom.
The next morning was, for lack of better words, damp. The sun filtered through the blinds in a way that hit him right in the eye. Groaning, Beomgyu pulled the blankets back over his face. From the world above he heard a gentle voice, like a bird. A low toned, rumbly bird. “I’m going to work now. I’ll see you when I get home.”
And then the click of a door.
Oh.
It wasn’t the kind of alone that Celine Dion mused about, but it was pretty close, Beomgyu thought. It was the kind where he felt like the silence had a voice if he really listened. Like his house was just white noise, static. It was waiting for someone to fill it; was waiting for Soobin’s laugh that boomed like bass, waiting for Beomgyu’s shrill shout as he felt arms wrap around his waist. A sentient home that they had become the heart of, beating.
He hasn’t quite mastered the art of being alone – he felt solace in his home, in the warm safety of his bedroom, but even that wasn’t his. It was theirs. A shared space of comfort where what’s mine is yours. Beomgyu felt like a we, and when that was gone, he realized he didn’t really know what to do with himself.
Beomgyu wanted to think that he was still a we with Soobin, but it was hard without a kiss goodbye.
So he took the day off of work.
He moped for the first quarter of the day, whilst the sun was still rising. He turned on his saddest playlist to brush his teeth to and realized quickly that he might gag on his minty toothpaste if he got too choked up.
As he cleansed, he wondered if maybe they just needed to look through a Kama Sutra – like, maybe what they needed were sex tips all along. Beomgyu didn’t think it was necessary, Soobin was good at what he did, and he put in work. It just felt like they were years into their relationship and happily married. Which made sense, as he believed both of those things to be true.
Truth be told, Beomgyu was spiralling.
And that is what initially drew him to Party City to collect streamers and party poppers and then to his local bakery where round-cheeked Hyunjoo told him that an extra carrot cake was on the house because Beomgyu was always so lovely when he came in. He made sure to stuff $50 in the tip jar, anyway. “Hyunjoo, you’re buttering me up!”
When Beomgyu went back to his home, it was as if he was running on autopilot. His brain was taking too long to catch up to what he was doing, and he forgot to put on deodorant this morning, so he just prayed that Soobin liked the smell of his natural musk. When his phone chimed, he looked at the Jjuni Hyung printed across the screen and let it ring out.
He wanted to answer and thank him for the expert suggestion. Spice it up! Negotiate! Such a generous offering of knowledge, and what has led him to this current moment as he blew up helium balloons and even considered watching tutorials on how to make animals.
It was a little past 4 in the afternoon when Soobin walked through the door, tugging at the cashmere sleeves of his coat. He hadn’t even looked at the house or he would have noticed the cake and big paper sign with COUPLES INTERVENTION scrawled across it in terrible, bleeding pink ink. He had even made one of the balloons into a sword, it didn’t quite resemble anything in general, but the goal was a sword and he knew Soobin would appreciate it once he told him. Beomgyu had to show him that he meant business.
"Surprise!” The pop of a streamer.
Soobin looked up, startled. His hands were still stuck in his sleeves so he was standing at an awkward angle. His tongue lulled out to wet his dry lips, “Hey.”
Beomgyu patted the seat next to him, “Sit.”
"I’m not going to lie,” he stepped out of his loafers and tucked them into the shoe rack. “I’m getting scared.”
“No need. This is a good day. The best, even.”
Soobin walked over tentatively. He almost looked like he wanted to turn back and run; but there was cake.
“Couples intervention,” He breathed.
Beomgyu nodded despairingly but smiled at him brightly right after. He wondered if this was giving Soobin whiplash. “Couples intervention, yes. This is kind of the most important thing we are ever going to have to do in our relationship so please take this as seriously as I am.”
Soobin eyed the decorations strewn around the room, fingers winding around an un-popped cracker. He tugged at it and jumped at the sound, yellow confetti raining upon them and onto the red velvet cake – Beomgyu thought the red symbolising love would be a good omen, the carrot cake could wait for another day. “Yes, this is very serious.”
“Yes!”
He waited, for Beomgyu to continue, but he didn’t really know what comes next. He didn’t plan that far ahead, so they sat and stared at each other.
Until, “Beomgyu. What is this about?”
“We need,” Beomgyu’s breath caught. “We need to spice things up, Soobin. The last time we had sex was October 29th.”
Soobin smiled, gleefully. “Not like you were counting, or anything?”
“I was counting. Every day!” He threw himself back into the sofa cushions with his head in his hands.
Pushing his fingers away, Soobin made eye contact with him through the cracks. “Okay.”
“That’s all you have to say? Okay?”
Soobin lifted his eyes in thought, bringing his lip into his mouth. He could see his two front teeth working at it. “I think so. Unless you have something else to say?”
He was starting to feel frustrated again. It was the resentment from last night, he felt it boiling at the surface and he wanted to tuck it away for the benefit of the conversation at hand. It was just too hard. “How do you not care that we aren’t intimate anymore, Soobin?”
Soobin ran his hand through his hair and sighed, the messy strands coated in this morning’s gel falling in bits away from his forehead. “Do you remember your birthday dinner?”
“Yes,” Beomgyu answered slowly, not knowing where he was going with this.
“We went out with the guys, right? They got you a pink vibrator as a joke." Before Beomgyu could groan, Soobin continued. “They all laughed, and your ears were bright red, and I said— What did I say?”
Beomgyu tried to remember. In a deep tone, one he called the Soobin Special, “We’ll use it tonight.”
Soobin laughed at the vibration in his voice, “And what did you do that night?”
“I… I went home and took off my shoes. I read a book, I think.”
“Yes, Beoms. And then you went to bed,” Soobin was looking at him like he was waiting for him to react. As if he had just uncovered an unsolved mystery.
“So what?”
A deep, guttural groan. “What do you mean, so what? That was a few months ago. I tried; you just didn’t want to. I remember kissing you on your shoulder, cuddling up, and you shooed me away.”
Beomgyu pouted, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
They stared at each other, until they started laughing. Soobin fell back further into the sofa and writhed around. “This intervention sucks.”
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t plan this far,” Beomgyu collapsed on top of him and kissed at his chest. He was always so warm there — right next to his heart. “You still love me, though. Don’t you?”
Soobin’s fingers were thick and coarse in his hair. His touch was gentle as it always was, and he massaged the pads of them into his scalp. It always felt like a welcome home when they were like this, like everything melted away into the floorboards and it was only the two of them, just touching. “I’ll love you forever. I’m sorry I don’t say it enough, and I’m sorry you haven’t felt it lately.”
Soobin said I love you in different ways. It came in the form of ‘You want to eat on the table together tonight? I have some stories from work’ and ‘Did you want the last slice?’, and moreso in the form of ‘I’ve been thinking about you.' Beomgyu was spoilt really, having a love like this. He just wanted more sex, was that so bad?
“What did you plan, anyway? You just hoped saying we are having an intervention would cut it?”
Beomgyu slapped him on his pec lightly, laughing. “I had a whole Notes app script.”
Soobin’s eyes widened and his full lips formed a pout, “Let’s hear it, then.”
“Well now I’m embarrassed.”
“You’re never embarrassed,” Soobin ushered him off his body until they were both sitting cross-legged on the couch facing each other. “Tell me.”
Beomgyu unlocked his phone, swiping away the picture of the two of them on a beach somewhere in Vietnam. “That was a nice trip!” Beomgyu said before Soobin groaned, “Beomgyu, stop stalling.”
He didn’t know why this was embarrassing, maybe it was because his husband was staring at him with those eyes that felt like they were power drills boring through him. “Okay. Let me read in a round-a-bout way because I wrote this at 8 o'clock in the morning and I was still sleepy so it might not have made sense—“
The phone was in Soobin’s big hands before Beomgyu could tell him not to and he was scanning the page urgently. His look of nervousness made way to an even bigger smile, beaming arrogantly. “5 things?”
“Shut up.”
“Okay,” He started. “So, you want to write a list of 5 things to spice up our sex life? That’s it?”
Almost solemnly, Beomgyu reached into his back pocket and pulled out a narrow notepad with a pen attached. “Stop laughing,” he said. Soobin didn’t stop laughing — he couldn’t help but clutch at his chest as he started to cough, his throat scratching. “If we, like, collate our ideas I think that we can do some things that we both individually like as well as the things we jointly like.”
Soobin leaned over to press a sloppy kiss onto his cheek, “Of course, darling. This is a great idea. Where should we start? Double-ended dildos?”
“If you aren’t going to take this seriously, I’m going to be a bit peeved.”
He always said Beomgyu looked like a bear cub when he was upset, but this time, he didn’t. He instead sat up straighter and nodded. “What’s your idea?”
Beomgyu reached for his glasses and let them perch low on his nose, “Well I thought we’d start small. Maybe going to a bar together? Pretending we don’t know each other? It always looks fun in the movies.”
“Good idea. Can I choose the bar?” Soobin reached around and let his hand rest on Beomgyu’s hip bone, nuzzling his dimpled cheek into the wool of Beomgyu’s sweater.
A nod and the pen shoved into Soobin’s hand, “Your turn. You do number two.”
Soobin tugged his bottom lip into his mouth again and chewed on it. It was almost as if Beomgyu saw the thought pop into Soobin’s mind in real time, the way his eyes lit up.
“I’ve always kind of wanted a mirror on the ceiling.”
Beomgyu guffawed. “Of course you did. Perv.”
Soobin’s lips turned sideways, and his tongue was between his teeth, “Isn’t that what this is all about?”
Snatching the pen back, Beomgyu beamed. In black scrawling ink
3. BEOMGYU TOPS
Now it was Soobin’s turn to choke on his breath. Really. He was choking, and Beomgyu had to clap him on the back. “You okay?”
Soobin clutched at his throat, his voice barely there, “That’s number three?”
“Well, that’s like, halfway through.”
“Just seems like we moved really fast into that is all I’m saying,” Soobin was still trying to catch his breath in his throat. He was straining, “What the hell am I going to write for number 4?”
Beomgyu taps his feet as he waits for Soobin to write something, he was just currently sitting with his lip in between his teeth, and it looked like it hurt. “It’s not that serious, relax. Just write something you’ve really wanted to do, and you were too embarrassed to ask me.”
“I’m not embarrassed of asking you anything,” Soobin muttered shyly.
He still wrote though, Beomgyu angling himself to look at what he was scribbling down. Get high together. Beomgyu almost wanted to coo at him – and wanted to slap himself for writing such a horny list when all Soobin wanted to do was have fun with his husband. It was the power of his clove scent that blanketed him as they sat so close. All spice and gingerbread, it was like poison gas but in a way that made Beomgyu feel hazy in the head, the good and sexy kind.
Soobin gently placed the notepad and pen down on Beomgyu’s lap, “Last one.”
What did Beomgyu really want out of this? Sex, of course. But wasn’t the goal to get close to Soobin? To rekindle? What did rekindling even mean when Beomgyu already felt like he was weft into Soobin’s DNA? He didn’t quite know any of the answers to his questions, just that he wanted to feel Soobin’s fireplace hearth warmth and know that he was loved back.
So Beomgyu picked them up and placed them on the table, tapping the pen once to close it. “How about we leave it tentative,” he said. He would think of the answer when they got there – when the answers were laid in front of him, and his relationship was unmasked once and for all. The answers to when it all went stale, and why Soobin loved him at all.
A nod, and Soobin rapped his fingertips on Beomgyu’s knuckles before getting up. His shoulders were deliciously broad in his work shirt and Beomgyu couldn’t help but glide his eyes down to his ass that was packed into those too tight pants.
He called out behind him, “Can’t wait for number 3!”
Soobin’s middle finger receded down the hallway.