Chapter Text
Perth had planned to stay for just an hour.
He hadn’t even unbuttoned his cuffs. Still in his pressed slacks and a white shirt he never bothered changing after a dinner meeting, he leaned against the glass railing of the second floor, beer untouched in his hand. Below, the bar churned with bodies — sweat, smoke, and neon-throbbing music that had no interest in conversation. It was Pond’s night. Pond’s party. Another excuse for a night out. Perth came because he always did, like gravity.
And then he saw him.
Santa walked in like he owned the floor.
No warning. No soft music swell. No cinematic framing. Just a body in motion, all legs and curves, his shirt hugging a little too tight across the chest, collarbone exposed and glowing under the pulsing lights. His hair was swept back, earring catching silver from the rotating strobes, eyes painted just enough to make people wonder if he was trouble — and by the way heads turned? Everyone wanted to find out.
Perth forgot how to breathe for a second. Not because Santa looked good — though he did. Devastatingly so. But because the boy who used to sneak glances at him across family dinners had grown into a man who now had the world looking.
Three years. It had been three years since Santa and his family moved cities. Three years since the night Santa kissed him with all the passion of youth and said, “Wait for me.” And then left.
Perth never told anyone what that kiss did to him. Not Pond. Not Ohm. Not even Joong, who saw too much with too little effort. He shoved it away, convinced himself it was a crush the younger had — one-sided, naïve, and mercifully over.
Until tonight.
Santa made his way to the bar with a confident saunter, sliding onto a stool like it was a throne. Perth watched from above as a stranger approached — too fast, too familiar — and whispered something into Santa’s ear. Santa only laughed, tilting his head, accepting a drink like this was routine.
Perth didn’t know what snapped in him. Maybe it was the way Santa looked too young and too exposed all at once. Maybe it was the voice in his head whispering that this wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.
Because then he saw it.
A hand. A drop. A movement too subtle for the average drunk. But Perth wasn’t drunk.
His beer bottle hit the table with a dull thud. Feet already moving before his mind caught up. Down the stairs, across the floor, and straight through the crowd like a knife through silk.
Santa was smiling when he reached him — dazed, flushed, with pupils just slightly too wide.
“Phi Perth?” he said, half-slurring, blinking like a dream.
“Come with me.” Perth’s voice was low, firm. No room for refusal.
Santa didn’t protest much. Didn’t even question how Perth knew. Just leaned into him, limbs turning heavier by the second.
The private room upstairs was dimly lit, music muffled behind the thick walls. Perth shut the door with a kick, sat Santa down on the leather couch, already pulling out his phone with one hand and handing him a bottle of water with the other.
“Drink this nong. Don’t fall asleep. The doctor’s coming,” he muttered.
Santa stared at him. Too long. Too quiet.
Perth looked up. “What?”
“You remember me,” Santa said, voice softer now. Slower. “You really do.”
That’s when Perth saw it — not just the high flush in his cheeks or the shimmer of sweat on his neck. But the recognition. The weight of history behind those half-lidded eyes.
Santa leaned forward.
Perth’s breath caught.
Slim fingers traced up his chest, stopping just below his collar. “You look the same,” Santa whispered. “Except you don't.”
“Santa,” Perth warned, tone shaky. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
“I am.” A hand cupped his jaw, feather-light. “More than you think.”
Before Perth could react, he was kissed — lips pressing against his with surprising clarity. Not the sloppy, drunk kind. No. This was deliberate. Like memory and fire mixed together. Like Santa had waited years to collect a promise, and tonight he came to claim it.
Perth froze. Not because it was wrong, but because a part of him — the part he buried under practicality and age and Pond’s name always echoing beside Santa’s — didn’t want to pull away.
The second kiss burned.
The third nearly undid him.
Perth’s grip tightened at Santa’s waist, an anchor to stop himself from slipping under — but it was already too late. Santa’s breath ghosted along his cheek, dangerously close. The younger's fingers dragged a slow trail along his jaw, lingering where they shouldn't, bold where Perth had hoped they’d never reach again.
Then came the whisper. Quiet. Steady. Devastating.
"I'm older now, phi Perth."
Three words. That's all it took.
Not please. Not do you remember. Not I waited — though all of it sat beneath the surface, humming like a warning before the storm. No, it was those four syllables, spoken like fact, not plea, that undid everything Perth had built to forget.
He felt the world tilt — not from alcohol, not from the heat of Santa’s body flush against his, but from the brutal truth in that line.
He was older. No longer the kid who used to trail after him during game nights, or look at him with wide, shining eyes from across the room. No longer the boy who confessed love under the stars and left Perth wrecked and confused in his wake.
This was a man now — bold, assured, and dangerously intent.
Perth’s chest tightened. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t stop the surge of feelings roaring past the walls he’d built.
Santa leaned in again, his lips a breath away.
“And I still want you.”
That was the crack — the final splinter in Perth’s restraint.
It wasn’t just a kiss anymore. It was a promise kept. It was the start of something messy, forbidden, and irreversible. And as Perth closed his eyes — whether to ground himself or give in, he wasn’t sure — he finally let the truth settle in his bones: He was fucked.
And more terrifying still — He didn’t want to be saved.