Sungmin's like a midsummer night dream, Kyuhyun thinks, a delicate butterfly that momentarily lands on his palm, allows his caresses, but veils his innermost within flaps of shimmering wings, painfully elusive. 

It has always been like this as far as Kyuhyun remembers, a push and pull dance that the other man sets the rhythm for and he follows. It's Sungmin who whirls into and out of his reach, who tempts him with a touch here and a brush there, and it's Kyuhyun who's left with trying to grab hold of dissolving smiles and the lingering scent of musk and rosewood.

Ryeowook tells him in the beginning, that he's acting out of character, logic be damned - snap out of it Kyuhyun, he'd only break your heart, he says, eyes sad and strong. But it's so hard to follow the rules when he falls a little one summer day when their gazes first meet, then trips completely, irrevocably in love, and then he doesn't care anymore. He musters up enough courage, exactly two weeks and a half after the first of innocent smiles and fleeting looks, and kisses Sungmin after class, hard and insistent and probing. 

Sungmin's hands on the nape of his neck travels down to grip his hips, burns against his skin and soon Ryeowook and the universe disappear and he doesn't hear anything else but the rush of the blood in his veins.

Sungmin looks up at him, swollen lips and breathy gasps. "Took you long enough," he murmurs nearly incoherently, and then a smile, blinding and genuine, before he reaches up to claim Kyuhyun's lips and then Kyuhyun falls in love again. 

(He falls in love a second, a third and countless other times after that.)

He sometimes wonders, on sleepless tepid nights and a cold empty space next to him, if he meant more to Sungmin than a passing breeze, a tally mark on his sheet. He doesn't let the thought linger and closes his eyes, imagining the heat of a body nestled into his, silky locks tickling his chin and soft in his hair to lull him to sleep. 

(But Sungmin smiles at him, wide and trusting, and his lips scorch down his spine, and he doesn't wonder anymore.)

Kyuhyun finally loses his cool in six months, five months and three weeks longer than any of Sungmin's other lovers lasted, and he sees red when Sungmin comes tumbling in at four am, tired lines around his eyes and tie askew. The blonde smells of alcohol and men, and he's harsher than normal when he questions his lover about his whereabouts.