Sehun could almost feel against his skin the fire in Tao’s eyes as they moved up and down his body. “I just....” Tao whispered and shook his head. “I just…don’t have the words.”

Sehun’s breathing stuttered and he swayed into Tao’s touch. As he stood under the shower spray, taking pleasure in the familiarity of those slippery hands spreading soapy bubbles on his skin, it flitted through his mind that Tao was very loving tonight.

It was no secret; Tao was love. It shimmered around him, and the people he loved, his parents and his family of EXO brothers, felt the blessing. But the love he gave to Sehun was different, the sensation was profound, the colors deep. Sehun coveted it and nurtured it to the best of his ability.

Fingers on his jaw aligned their mouths and Sehun searched his hazy mind for something that might cause this curious light in Tao’s eyes. He was used to having Tao’s undivided attention, took for granted the blaze of Tao’s love that blanketed him, imbued him, banishing all shadow and leaving behind only happiness, but there was something different here.

His stomach quivered under the extraordinary softness of Tao’s kiss. A whimper escaped his mouth and he put his arms around Tao’s neck to hold himself up. Tao pulled him in tight, skin touching skin from the press of their lips to where Sehun had his leg locked around Tao’s calf. It wasn’t close enough. He wanted to crawl inside Tao; feel that warm, blissful, safe place in which only Tao could shelter him.

Yet there was something here. He pulled back just a hair’s breadth. “Tell me?” he said without giving up Tao’s lips completely.

Then thought followed the bubbles down the drain as Tao pressed his lips to his neck. Tao held them there leaving Sehun to shiver under the puffs of hot breath under his ear. It never got old.

“I love you so, so much,” Tao breathed into his hair.

Sehun’s head cleared a bit. There was definitely something different. Tao was very generous when speaking his heart, but this seemed to be something else. He snuggled his head into Tao’s shoulder and wondered what more tonight would bring than was already planned.

Tao pulled back and finished washing and rinsing both of them. After he let Tao do what he wanted, which was to take care of Sehun with a fluffy hotel towel, he was pulled into the bedroom. Still with no idea where this was going, but sensing that he needed to wait before pressing for intimacy, he crawled onto the bed and lie serenely on his side as Tao joined him.

They lie like that for a short while on their sides facing each other. Tao reached out and traced a finger down Sehun’s side.

“I’m going to find a way to get you more calories.”

Sehun wasn’t offended. All of EXO struggled not to look like racks of bones. Dance practice alone used up most every calorie they ate; baking under grueling performances nearly every day took them to the brink and resulted in costume fitting and refitting and refitting again. But this was Tao. Once you were swept up into his universe, he watched out for you, protected you, and cared for you tirelessly. Tao would find a way to get Sehun more calories.

“You too,” Sehun said. Tao made an absent hum and he knew that Tao was still focused on taking his measure.

Then Tao’s focus returned to Sehun’s face. He dropped his head onto his arm and reached out for Sehun’s hand. Tao separated one finger, Sehun’s index finger, and brought it to rub the masculine, gold band around his wrist.

Sehun became very still and he looked at Tao’s face with widened eyes. This was the bracelet that had caused a buzz throughout the civilized world. This was the piece of jewelry marketed by Cartier as a promise of inseparable love. This was the luxury item that Tao had assured the world was just an interesting piece that had caught his eye. Asia could relax, Tao had assured, he wasn’t seeing anyone.

This was the same piece of jewelry whose white gold twin was tucked in a box under the pillow by their heads.

Tao reached under his pillow and Sehun felt a small tremor when he saw the tiny screwdriver that turned the bracelet from an extravagance into much, much more.

Tao scooted closer. “Sehun, will you accept this from me?”

As though his life depended on it, Sehun snatched the screwdriver and hugged it to his chest. He made a distressed noise and almost darted off the bed with it when Tao reached out and pried his fingers open taking it back. Sure that he looked possessed, he clenched his fists and hugged them to his chest to keep from grappling the thing back into his possession even if it meant doing Tao bodily harm.

“Wait. Listen to me.” Tao looked down at the bedspread and Sehun calmed; Tao was nervous. Finally Tao looked back at up, reached out and wrapped Sehun’s fingers around the screwdriver.

“Before you accept this,” Tao swallowed, “I want you to know that, to me,” the utter focus on Sehun was back, “it means we’re married.” Tao tangled their fingers around the tiny gold symbol of his heart. “Forever.”

Fuzz filled Sehun’s head. He had put the word marriage out of his vocabulary when he was a teenager and had fallen for Tao. As the realities of that relationship had formed in his mind, it became a useless term that didn’t pertain to him. Yes, he had absolutely thought about commitment to Tao, especially when Tao had bought that blasted bracelet, but he hadn’t named it. His lips twitched because, actually, he had come to find a word for commitment to Tao. That word was ‘Cartier.’

“Sehun,” Tao whined.

Sehun tapped Tao’s lips with the screwdriver and then set it on the bed. Tao looked like he was going to cry so he quickly shoved his hand under his pillow and pulled out a red leather box emblazoned with “Cartier” in gold script. He opened it one handed and mistreated the ridiculously expensive precious metal pieces by dumping them onto the bed.

He sat up and Tao followed suit a moment later. “Help me with this?"  He held up the gleaming loop. "Make it nice and secure so it never, ever, ever comes off?”

Tao’s hands shook as he fitted the pieces around Sehun’s wrist and reached for a screwdriver. He picked up the gold one without noticing.

“Nope!” Sehun seized the gold screwdriver out of Tao’s hand. “Mine.” He picked up the white gold one and held it out. “This one’s yours.”

Then Sehun was being crushed in a hug.   He heard Tao sniffle and maneuvered them so that he was holding Tao’s head to his chest. He liked this because it wasn’t often he had something to give to Tao. When Tao had relaxed in his arms, he decided that, examining the progression of this evening’s events, now was the time for that intimacy he had put off.

Feeling giddy, he pushed Tao onto his back and straddled his hips. “Up for a honeymoon?” He was not surprised when Tao’s expression changed slightly to the look that said his brain had just found a piece of business that needed attention. Tao grabbed his hips and started to roll them over.

“No,” Sehun said. He pulled Tao’s hands free and pressed them over his head. Tao opened his mouth but Sehun stopped him again. “No.”

He knew what Tao’s objection was; this position that Sehun pressed for was generally one-sided working to Tao’s advantage and Tao just didn’t work that way.

“Please,” Sehun said quietly. “I want it. I want to be able to watch.” Tao closed his eyes and his blush bloomed scarlet.

It was an interesting thing that only Sehun knew. Selca, Instagram, Weibo, chameleon king of the Kpop world, Tao came across as a shameless attention , brazenly throwing himself in front of every camera in sight, including his own. Sehun and those in his close circle knew that Tao did none of this without forethought and a plan.

Tao was brought into EXO, but was not a singer or a dancer. He couldn’t even speak Korean. SM gave him a very specific job, as EXO's lightening rod, and then had put their faith in him. Tao knew that, at least in the beginning, he needed to build his brand without any skills pertinent to Korean pop music. It was the job assigned him and it was work, and Tao was afraid of neither. EXO’s ability to set itself apart in the crowded Kpop universe depended largely on Tao.  All Kpop groups had singers; all Kpop groups had dancers.  Only EXO had Tao.

He proved that he was a genius. He made sure that all eyes were eventually drawn to him. In photos and videos, he smiled when EXO was serious; he was serious when EXO laughed. He looked moody and then giddy.  He looked manly and then girly.  He often looked like he didn’t understand what was going on around him. He sprinkled social media with silliness, wisdom, love and righteous indignation. He made himself a bridge between countries and cultures.

No matter what, the next day, Kpop fans were talking about Tao and since he was truly upright and honorable, the feedback was seldom negative.  So armed only with his looks, his back-story and his personality, which was, by and large, associated with a heart the size of an exo-planet, “Tao” was now a much-loved household name in a dozen countries and he was taking EXO, and Sehun, with him.

So Tao was comfortable in front of all those cameras because he was presenting an image and selling it. While it was the real Tao, it also was not. But this, here in the privacy of this room, just the two of them, Tao was exposed. Sehun was able to look into his face and see the makeup of every molecule that comprised Tao. And Sehun would accept nothing less.

So when Sehun wanted to forgo his own pleasure in order to watch Tao’s, Tao turned inexplicably, charmingly shy.

The emotional pleasure Sehun felt some while later, the supreme satisfaction he knew, the pride he felt from being the only one to know Tao like this, knowing how to move, where to touch and probe in order to achieve this totally blown look on Tao’s face, made him so happy.

He leaned over Tao with his hands on either side of Tao’s face.

“Married,” he sighed, then grinned. “Husband?” From the look on Tao’s face, he guessed that while the word ‘married’ had rattled around in Tao’s head, ‘husband’ had not. He smirked and raised his eyebrows.

After several moments, Tao grinned as well, but his was tinged with a trace of evil. He reached up and put his hand on Sehun’s cheek.

“Wife?”

Ten minutes later, Suho pounded on the hotel room door and yelled, “The entire floor can hear you two yelling and destroying furniture. Stop it!”