Hongbin winces in surprise when Sanghyuk’s phone starts ringing.

He shouldn’t wince; the sound shouldn’t be as startling as it is, he shouldn’t be so lost in his thoughts. In fact, he should be concentrating on the History notes in his hands, but he isn’t; he was thinking about snow and ice and penguins that don’t have to deal with the heat that surrounds him right now.

“Saturday?” Sanghyuk asks from the caller. Hongbin glances up at him from where his head is pillowed on Sanghyuk’s thighs. Sanghyuk looks down at him and mouths the name ‘Hakyeon’. “Okay, I’ll ask him. No, we won’t buy you anything too expensive. What, between ₩30 000 and ₩60 000? You should be happy if I don’t leave a bag of dog on your porch. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. I don’t care. Okay. Bye. Alright. Bye.”

Sanghyuk sighs as he ends the call and tosses his phone on the nightstand. He leans back against the headboard of the bed.

“What did he want?” Hongbin asks curiously.

“He said he wants to go to some club on his birthday this Saturday,” Sanghyuk replies and bends over, sweeps Hongbin’s damp bangs out of his forehead and Hongbin blushes, suddenly aware of every drop of sweat on his skin. He should long have realized that Sanghyuk doesn’t find it gross, or at least, even if he does, he doesn’t pull back, doesn’t say anything as the pads of his fingers wipe the little beads of perspiration off Hongbin’s face. “Told me to invite you, too. Wonshik is coming, he already called him, and Wonshik will try to persuade Taekwoon. You have split ends.”

“Why Taekwoon, though?” Hongbin inquires, snatching Sanghyuk’s wrist to stop him from combing through his hair. “Does he want to die? Does he want Wonshik to die? Your shampoo’s , that’s why I have split ends.”

“Hakyeon says Taekwoon has been distressed since Cinnamon, née George, was returned to his original owners. He wants to cheer him up.” Sanghyuk takes Hongbin’s fingers off his wrist and continues carding through his dark locks. “Have you ever thought about buying your own stuff instead of living off mine? Cheapskate.”

“I liked that puppy,” Hongbin says. While Cinnamon (née George) was still at Wonshik and Taekwoon’s dorm, he paid a lot more visits to his best friend. When Taekwoon had found the tiny dog, Hongbin turned down Wonshik’s offer (begging, really) to adopt the puppy, but Hongbin has missed the little guy for the last two weeks. “But I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to take Taekwoon to a crowded place in his current state. He’s quite irritable. And as long as you’re eating the food I make or bring home, you have no right to complain about me using your stuff. Shameless brat.”

“Then, excuse me, Your Fussy Grace, I have to do everything so that you will never ever have to wash your hair with my ty shampoo again,” Sanghyuk says and pulls his legs out from under Hongbin’s head, gets off their bed and steps to the closet to take a clean towel out of it.

Hongbin sticks his tongue out at him. Before he would leave the room, Sanghyuk bends over the bed and Hongbin thinks he wants to kiss him, so he decides that he won’t let Sanghyuk do that (or maybe just a little), already believes that he’s winning this battle, but then Sanghyuk presses his lips to Hongbin’s cheek, and–

“Ouch!” Hongbin yells. “You bit me!”

“Excellent observation skills.”

Why is it that he can never win against Sanghyuk?

Hongbin blinks up at the ceiling, tries to keep his eyes open while attempting to stop the tears from welling up in the meantime.

“Are you okay?” Sanghyuk asks, holding his hand.

“No,” Hongbin replies, sniffling, gaze still on the ceiling.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really, it’s just a weird feeling and I can’t seem to get used to it.”

“It’ll be better soon, I promise.”

Hongbin looks at Sanghyuk and nearly swoons.

Sanghyuk’s eyes are framed by the same pitch-black eyeliner Hongbin has around his own eyes, both pairs of eyeliner applied by Cha Hakyeon, who was determined to put it on all five of them, and is now working on Jaehwan’s face. It was a horrible idea and none of them were happy about it (“It’s my birthday, though!” Hakyeon whined), except for Wonshik who’s used to some black colouring his waterline. Taekwoon is still not perfectly okay with the thing; he’s sitting on his bed, takes deep breaths every now and then, waiting for his turn. He only agreed to let Hakyeon ‘make a clown out of him’ (Taekwoon’s words) because Hakyeon promised him that he would ask Cinnamon’s (George’s) owners to let the puppy spend a week long vacation at Taekwoon and Wonshik’s, and knowing Hakyeon, he will actually make that happen. As Hongbin sees, Taekwoon has also learnt that this is how Hakyeon works over the month Hakyeon and Wonshik have been maintaining something that can absolutely not be called a relationship, even though there are a lot of things in it that strangers or even friends don’t usually do. And Taekwoon, poor thing, is probably forced to witness more of that phenomenon between Wonshik and Hakyeon than he deems necessary.

So now Sanghyuk stands in front of Hongbin with his eyes emphasized by the heavy black eyeliner and he looks breathtakingly gorgeous to the point Hongbin finds himself panting a little from the sight.

“Don’t worry, it’s waterproof,” Hakyeon calls from where he’s sitting on Wonshik’s bed, wiping smudged parts off the corner of Jaehwan’s right eye with a q-tip.

“That’s very reassuring, considering that we have no makeup remover at home,” Sanghyuk replies sarcastically.

Hakyeon stops fixing Jaehwan’s eyeliner and reaches into the duffle bag he took with him, fishes out a bottle and tosses it to Sanghyuk.

“We’ll just use Wonshik’s,” Hakyeon says, glancing at said person, receiving a nod from him.

“Are you all going to sleep here?” Hongbin inquires.

“Yeah, are you?” Taekwoon asks softly, looks up from the carpet he was examining. He’s visibly worried he will have to sleep in the same bed with Jaehwan.

“We are,” Hakyeon replies, patting Jaehwan’s cheek as he finishes applying the eyeliner.

Jaehwan takes his phone out of his pocket, turns the front camera on and examines his face, says, “Holy , I look hot!”

“Jaehwan?” Wonshik raises his eyebrows at Hakyeon.

“I have a sleeping bag,” Jaehwan replies, pointing at the object rolled up next to Hakyeon’s duffle bag. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“Good,” Taekwoon mumbles, shuffling over to Hakyeon who’s motioning for him to take a seat in front of him.

Roughly half an hour later they are all sitting in a taxi. Hongbin is playing with Sanghyuk’s hand in his own nervously, looks out the window while the others are drinking from Hakyeon’s hip flask.

He’s not sure if this whole thing is a good idea. To tell the truth, a few days ago, when Sanghyuk received the phone call from Hakyeon and told Hongbin what his friend wanted, Hongbin already felt the anxious hit in his stomach. He’s not the club-goer type; there are lots of people there, lots of things that can go wrong, lots of opportunities for something awful to happen. He feels nothing short of hatred for clubs, has felt it since long; went to places like that a few times and always regretted doing so. Just the sight of drunk people around him, all of their minds hazy enough to risk anything they could just because they’re high on whatever alcohol contains (he’s never been a fan of chemistry), those images make him dizzy.

He only said yes when Sanghyuk asked him if he would come because he had turned him down so many times before. He would say “I’ll be okay, you just go have fun!” with fake cheerfulness in his voice and an even faker smile, neither of those caused by jealousy or selfishness but by regret and disappointment that he couldn’t get himself to go, even if it was for someone who meant so much to him. Sanghyuk always obeyed with a smile at least as insincere as Hongbin’s and always returned home two hours later at most.

Hongbin doesn’t want to back off now. He wants Sanghyuk to be able to have fun with him, even if he himself doesn’t–won’t–feel happy at all.

“Whisky?”

Hongbin looks at Sanghyuk and his palms become clammy, because, , he forgot Sanghyuk has that goddamn eyeliner on, and now he has to realize it again, beautiful, so beautiful, Sanghyuk looks so hot it feels like someone is setting fire to Hongbin’s insides. He pecks Sanghyuk’s lips, leaves the boy blinking at him in surprise, but he doesn’t want to do anything else here, lest Hakyeon starts bothering them. He grabs the hip flask from Sanghyuk’s hand and gulps down some of the burning liquid before he turns to face the window again.

The club is a little less crowded than Hongbin thought it would be; there’s a fair amount of sweaty people dancing on the floor, it would still be hard for him to follow Sanghyuk if he weren’t holding his hand, but it doesn’t seem as suffocating as he imagined. That’s a relief.

“Do you want something to drink?” Sanghyuk yells into his ear, but it sounds like a mere whisper through the blasting music.

“Yeah. A beer.”

“Okay,” Sanghyuk replies smiling, and presses a kiss to Hongbin’s neck before he starts making his way towards the bar.

Hakyeon and Wonshik waddle off as well and so Hongbin gets left alone with a weirdly tottering (dancing?) Jaehwan and Taekwoon who stands with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, eyeing the crowd in a way that feels a little unsettling for Hongbin, his gaze made even more intense by the eyeliner. All in all, Jaehwan looks stupid and Taekwoon looks intimidating, and Hongbin doesn’t really want to be associated with either of these adjectives.

Someone bumps into him and he apologizes, but his voice gets drowned out by the music. There’s a hand on his backside, and another one on his shoulder, and when he turns around to see what’s going on, he’s faced with a young woman who examines him from head to toe, the right corner of her blood red lips curling upwards.

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Hongbin mumbles, probably inaudible as he starts backing away from the woman. She casts him a scornful look as if she expected something else and clears off.

Hongbin is shivering but he has no idea why; he has no idea how he can be so scared of a woman who most likely thought she might have a nice one-night stand with him. He turns back to Jaehwan and Taekwoon; Jaehwan is dancing away on his own but Taekwoon is staring at the woman and then glances at Hongbin–a question: are you okay? Hongbin averts his eyes, he doesn’t want to know that his awkwardness or whatever is so visible that even Taekwoon can see it.

Hands everywhere, all over him, hands and other bodies; he feels someone’s breath on the nape of his neck and Sanghyuk comes back just then with two bottles of beer in his hands, gives one of them to Hongbin who presses closer to him, hugs him by the small of his back and closes his eyes, tries to shut off the sounds (the music, the laughter, the singing), burying his face into the crook of Sanghyuk’s neck. He feels his face heating up even under the layer of cold sweat that forms little beads under his fringe.

“Hey,” Sanghyuk says with a little laughter in his voice. “Hey, are you all right?”

Hongbin sighs into the shoulder of his black button-up, no, he isn’t, but Sanghyuk looked so happy when they arrived, he just has to endure a little longer.

“I missed you,” Hongbin says, pulling away, a jittery smile on his face.

“Ew, cheesy,” Sanghyuk replies, ruffling Hongbin’s hair in a way that makes Hongbin furrow his brow in irritation.

Sanghyuk joins Jaehwan in the dance, his moves somewhat less ridiculous than Jaehwan’s, but Hongbin still feels embarrassed to do anything like that. He wishes he could just be like Taekwoon: repelling people with his stare and not expected to do anything apart from standing still in the middle of the dance floor.

Hongbin gulps down most of his beer like it’s water, hopes it’ll help him be less nervous. It’s always this, always the alcohol, he keeps thinking that will help and it helped once or maybe messed things up, but he’s together with Sanghyuk, isn’t he? Now, maybe alcohol can do wonders and will actually get him out of this very annoying shell he lives in.

But a beer won’t do that, and he knows.

Still more hands, still more bodies and Hongbin turns his face upwards, wants to shout, to scream at people to take their ing hands off him, but then there are fingers tickling his skin under his shirt and he looks down to see a stranger man’s wrists. Someone breathes into his ear, body flush against Hongbin’s and he hears the whisper: “Hello, pretty boy”, and that’s what terrifies him so much he drops his beer bottle, the green glass shattering on the floor by someone’s sneakers and he starts pushing through the crowd as fast as he can, trying to inhale, but he can’t–there’s not enough oxygen, he’s going to die.

Well-lit hallway, yellow and bright, a solid wall against Hongbin’s back as he crouches down, hugs his knees, tries to become as tiny as possible. He rests his forehead on top of his knees, takes deep breaths and attempts to exhale slowly, but he’s unable to do that and his chest start heaving with the exertion to make his body do what he wants it to do.

He’s disgusted and feels filthy in a way he doesn’t understand, because nothing happened, but the man whispering into his ear was too much, it pushed him over the edge and he wants to get out of this place, but has no idea how to do that, because he only knows of one way out and it’s through the crowd.

He wants nothing more than to call Sanghyuk, but he feels that would be an egoistic move. Sanghyuk is having fun and a nervous wreck like Hongbin should not distract him from that. All of them are having fun, all the people in the club, maybe not those that are retching in the corner (Hongbin needs to swallow down his own urge to puke when he sees a boy who’s doing exactly that), but they’re good, they aren’t shivering by the wall like a scared little forest bunny that just encountered a malicious hunter.

They most probably aren’t so shaken up by their own fright as Hongbin either, they most probably don’t loathe themselves at the moment as much as Hongbin does, they’re managing to feel good in the crowd, they’re surviving each other and Hongbin is slowly drowning in his sea of nervousness in the hallway, miserably alone.

He feels the weight of a hand on his right shoulder and untangles his arms from around his legs at the speed of sound, jumps away, looks at the person that touched him horrified.

“Taekwoon.”

He pulled a muscle on the back of his neck, that’s how fast and convulsively he reacted.

“Are you okay?” Taekwoon asks as Hongbin massages the spot on his nape.

Hongbin looks around quickly like he’s paranoid, and maybe he actually is. Taekwoon steps closer, examines his face, his gaze flicking from Hongbin’s right eye to the left one and back like he can read his mind.

“Sanghyuk is looking for you,” Taekwoon says. “Do you want me to–“

“Hongbin!” Hakyeon calls from the end of the hallway, from the doorway that leads into the men’s bathroom. He clings onto Wonshik and they both look like they went out in a tornado: all ruffled hair and creased clothes that stick out where they should be tucked in. He raises his eyebrows at the other man. “Taekwoon?”

“Call Sanghyuk,” Taekwoon tells Hakyeon who furrows his brow as the two lovebirds step to them.

“Why, is he–“

“Look at me!” Wonshik’s voice is firm as he cuts Hakyeon off, shoves him aside from Hongbin almost unnoticeably as he cups Hongbin’s cheeks, looks deeply into his eyes. “Are you all right?”

It feels like his heart can finally throb freely again as he looks into Wonshik’s dark, warm  eyes, familiar and safe, eyes he cannot lie to. He shakes his head violently and presses his forehead against Wonshik’s chest; breathe in, breathe out, repeat. Muffled voices surround him as the others talk, but he has no idea what they’re saying, his face is buried into Wonshik’s T-shirt, his best friend’s arms wound around his shoulders protectively.

“Hongbin-aaah!”

Hongbin looks up from Wonshik’s chest to see a pretty sloshed Sanghyuk and a giggling Jaehwan.

“You need to take Hongbin home,” Taekwoon tells Sanghyuk.

“Home?” Sanghyuk mumbles. “Now? It’s not even 2 a.m. yet. Bin-ah, is something wrong?”

Hongbin pulls away from Wonshik and glances at Sanghyuk, trying to communicate without words that everything is wrong. Sanghyuk grabs Hongbin’s hand, blinks at Wonshik to give him room so that he can step closer to Hongbin.

“What’s the matter, love?” Sanghyuk slurs, his free hand combing through Hongbin’s hair.

“I want to go home,” Hongbin mutters, looking into Sanghyuk’s unfocused eyes, attempting to see how far gone his boyfriend is (the word ‘love’ suggested too far, because Sanghyuk knows exactly how Hongbin feels about those terms of endearment). “I need to go home.”

“I’ll go call a taxi,” Taekwoon announces and disappears from the hallway.

“And I’ll bring you some water,” Wonshik says, earning a grateful glance from Hongbin.

“Why do you want to go home?” Hakyeon asks.

“I don’t feel very well,” Hongbin replies, avoiding Hakyeon’s eyes, because telling Sanghyuk that he’s a train wreck is one thing, letting others know as well is another. “Can we go home?”

“The place is great, though,” Sanghyuk says with a grin. “We should stay some more.”

“Sanghyuk, I’m scared, okay?” Hongbin hisses into his boyfriend’s ear. “People are everywhere, they’re– they’re touching me and I feel like throwing up. Please, please, let’s go home.”

“Do you want to run away?” Sanghyuk asks, his grin fading. “This is a good opportunity for you, Hongbin. Look, the more time you can spend in this place, the stronger you’ll become. Trust me, it’ll become better if we stay.”

“He’s right,” Jaehwan trills, tugging at Hongbin’s hand and Hongbin gives him a sharp look, shaking Jaehwan’s fingers off him.

“I’m terrified of going out there,” Hongbin says, tears stinging his eyes as he looks at Sanghyuk. “I want to go home, please, let me.”

“It’s a great therapy, Hongbin, you should stay,” Sanghyuk says. His hand slides from under Hongbin’s hair down to his waist and he starts pulling him towards the dance floor. “I’ll protect you from those evil people, okay?”

“No!” Hongbin exclaims and tears himself out of Sanghyuk’s arms. “Stay if you want, but I’ll get the out of here.”

“Hongbin!”

He hears Sanghyuk, Hakyeon and Jaehwan’s voices as he pushes through the first few sweat-slick bodies, head tipped up to be able to breathe, but he’s shaking so hard it probably looks like he’s having a seizure. Their voices soon die out and Hongbin gets out of the dance floor, out of the club as he all but falls onto his knees on the pavement in front of the door. He finds Taekwoon standing among the smokers–he drops his cigarette and steps on it to stub it out. He notices Hongbin and points at the taxi parking on the side of the road in front of him.

“Thank you,” Hongbin mumbles while opening the door of the car.

“Be careful,” Taekwoon says in return, leaning against the car when Hongbin gets in.

“Yeah. Tell Wonshik I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait for him to get back.”

Taekwoon nods, and closes the door, sending Hongbin a small, understanding smile before Hongbin gives his address to the driver and finally gets away from the deepest pit of hell.

That night, after he takes the eyeliner off with the help of Hakyeon’s makeup remover and some tissues more or less effectively, brushes his teeth and takes a shower (scrubs until he has red marks on his stomach, tears at his skin with his blunt nails–disgusting, revolting, a ing coward), he puts on a clean shirt over his boxer briefs and climbs into bed, pulls the blanket over his head, hides under it like he did when he was little, because blankets keep monsters out.

Except when they’re inside you.

The guilt gnaws at his guts for hours; when he sleeps, it’s fitful and he wakes up when Sanghyuk stumbles into the bedroom, sighing loudly and taking deep breaths, fumbling with his clothes until he manages to peel them off and falls into bed in his underwear.

There are no ‘I’m home’ kisses on Hongbin’s back and the shell of his ear, no arm wrapping around his middle or little nuzzles on the nape of his neck–there’s nothing but the movement of the mattress as Sanghyuk rolls onto his other side, lying with his back to Hongbin’s.

He can’t fall asleep until the sun is already high up on the sky and Sanghyuk snores next to him like nothing ever happened.

He sits in the armchair in the corner of their bedroom in the afternoon, his fingers moving on the strings absently, the guitar propped up on his knee. His eyes are fixated on the window opposite him, gaze flicking up and down on the wrinkles of the curtain, but he can’t see any of the patterns on it.

He hums the song to himself, but he’s not even sure if it’s actually audible.

Wrong chord.

Damn it.

Again.

The bedroom door opens and Hongbin almost drops the guitar. He clutches it as hard as he can, looking up at Sanghyuk, feeling anger boiling in his veins as he does so.

Sanghyuk wasn’t at home when Hongbin woke up, but there was a box of Chinese takeout on the kitchen counter with a note on the top of it, informing Hongbin that Sanghyuk went to retrieve his phone from Hakyeon who found it on the backseat of the taxi they took to go home from the club, and a postscript: ‘It’s your favourite, eat it all up!’ The food ended up sitting on the top shelf of the fridge, untouched.

He turns back to his guitar now, adjusts his hold on it and starts playing again from the middle of the song, probably, he has no idea, and he feels self-conscious of his talent in Sanghyuk’s presence.

“I bruise easily.”

Hongbin stops, lets out a deep sigh.

“It’s a great song,” Sanghyuk says, sounding almost defensive, and Hongbin almost lets his anger dissolve in the pool of affection that grows inside his chest upon hearing the gentle tone in which Sanghyuk says that, because it’s an apology. It’s a begging for forgiveness. “And you’re playing it amazingly.”

“No, I’m not,” Hongbin replies, fiddling with the position of his instrument like it needs to be corrected.

“It sounded perfect to me.”

And there it is: the kindness, the benevolence in Sanghyuk’s voice; the fondness and the will to make peace, but it only makes Hongbin even more enraged.

“It wasn’t,” he says, glancing back up at Sanghyuk. “It’s never going to be perfect. It can’t be perfect, because I’m never going to be able to play the chords perfectly.”

“Hongbin…” Sanghyuk steps into the bedroom, sits down on the bed, hovering over the mattress tentatively for a second as if Hongbin would kick him off it. (He pretty much wants to, but he’d never do that to Sanghyuk. Not out of sheer violence, at least.) “I know we ed up. Jaehwan and me. We were forcing you and we didn’t really think about it, and–“

“It’s not Jaehwan and you who should have thought about it,” Hongbin cuts in. “It’s only you. You should have ing thought about it.”

“I know,” a gulp. “I know, but I couldn’t really… I can’t imagine how it feels for you, Hongbin, I don’t know how you feel when you’re out there and so I have no idea what might be so triggering for you that it pushes you over the edge, and–no, let me speak–I wouldn’t do these things if I knew how it works. I want to help you.”

“Why?” Hongbin asks, voice a little shaky but stronger than Sanghyuk’s.

“Why?”

“Yes. Why? Why do you want to help me? Why do you think I need help? It’s something that exists with me, it exists in me, and you said– you told me you liked everything about me, even the things you hate. So why do you still want to change me?”

Sanghyuk furrows his brow. He looks utterly confused.

“Hongbin– what? You’re… but you don’t feel well when we’re at places like that.”

“So?”

A long moment of silence. Sanghyuk looks like he wants to shake Hongbin by the shoulders, to tell him to cut the act, because he doesn’t understand what’s going on. And Hongbin stares at him, wants an answer, demands a logical explanation, one that will set him at ease.

“Isn’t it natural that I want to pry you out of this thing?” Sanghyuk asks finally. “I want to do everything I can to make you feel relaxed outside this bedroom.”

“And why do you think pushing me into situations like this would make me feel relaxed?”

“, I don’t know!” Sanghyuk throws his arms into the air. “I’m so clueless about what I should do; if only you could give me guidance–“

“Don’t you ing think that if I knew what to do I’d do it myself? Is that how weak I seem?”

“No! Damn it, no! You’re stronger than anyone I know because you’re afraid of going out into the crowd–you said you are, these are your words–but you still do! But you’re suffering and you obviously want to get better at socializing, and I want to help because I can’t ing bear seeing you suffer!”

“So it all comes down to you feeling bad.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sanghyuk mumbles, but his voice trembles with fury like he actually wants to yell at Hongbin. “Are you saying that I’m selfish because I don’t want to see you looking at every person like they want to murder you? Because if you are, then you’re right. And, for the millionth time, I have no idea how to stop this thing for you, so last night I thought ‘hey, maybe if he goes out more, if he stays longer at places like this, he’ll get better by time’ and it sounds stupid, I know, but this one was my only idea and I wanted to give it a shot. Look, I’m trying, but it’s hard.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Hongbin almost chokes on the words. He holds the neck of the guitar so tight he can feel the pattern of the strings getting imprinted in the skin of his palm. “But, you know, it’s not like you need to do this. I told you at the very beginning that I was a failure. I’m a ing train wreck and anyone who gets close to me takes a huge burden onto themselves. There’s a load of things I can’t help and I’m always so damn anxious and I’m sorry for making you feel like it’s your job to play the psychotherapist. It was not my intention, but we can still quit this whole thing.”

Sanghyuk opens his mouth and then closes it right after. Hongbin clenches his jaw, his teeth hurting from it, the angry tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and he can see the same thing on Sanghyuk: like the mirror image of his own expression.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Sanghyuk asks slowly, whispers it into the heavy air.

“I just want to make you feel relaxed.”

Sanghyuk stands up from the bed and Hongbin follows the movement with his gaze. Sanghyuk steps to the door, keeps his eyes on the carpet under his feet.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

Hongbin might be imagining it, but it seems like Sanghyuk shudders a little as he presses down the door handle, and Hongbin wants to scream at him, wants to yell at him to get his back into the room, that he doesn’t mean it, not now, he meant it a few seconds ago but not now.

But Sanghyuk has already closed the door after him.

Hongbin lets go of the guitar’s neck, places the instrument into the stand and collapses on top of his knees, presses his arms against his abdomen to stop the tears that are bubbling up from God knows where, takes a few deep breaths and waits for the sound of the front door opening and then closing.

Maybe it has already happened, he just missed it.

He missed the opportunity to stand up and run after the only person who is willing to rack his brains trying to find solutions for his problem–his problem, not theirs. Theirs in the sense that he successfully extended it over Sanghyuk, over their relationship because that’s how horrible a person he is. Probably the worst human in the entire race.

He’s not even angry with Sanghyuk, not really, not anymore; he was angry with everyone last night, because he was hurt and felt guilty, but now he only feels hatred for himself, is furious that he has to live with being a coward who is unable to take care of himself, and as soon as someone starts caring about him, he pushes them away. Pathetic and disgusting.

“Actually, it’s not okay at all.”

Hongbin jumps in surprise and straightens, wants to find where Sanghyuk’s voice is coming from, but he has no time for that, because Sanghyuk presses his lips against Hongbin’s hard, like he wants to beat him up somehow this way, like he could leave bruises with his soft lips, like he wants to punch Hongbin but can’t get himself to do it, so he hurts him with a kiss instead.

And it does hurt like a , although, not on the surface but inside Hongbin’s chest, in his stomach, in his arms that he wraps around Sanghyuk’s neck, in his fingers that pull at Sanghyuk’s hair just a little, the way he likes it. It hurts in his neck where Sanghyuk’s palm rests and on the line of his jaw as Sanghyuk brushes a thumb over it, and it hurts in his legs when he stands up, and in his back that hits the mattress when Sanghyuk pushes him down on it, lips never leaving his.

Sanghyuk tugs at the hem of Hongbin’s shirt and Hongbin sits up a little to help him get it off. He has no time to see where it lands when Sanghyuk throws it, because he’s being kissed senseless again, Sanghyuk’s tongue brushing over his lower lip and into his mouth the next moment, dancing with Hongbin’s in the same pace it always does but differently, always differently, always making their kisses feel anew. He bites down on Hongbin’s lower lip when he pulls back a bit to tilt his head to the other side and kiss again while his right hand caresses Hongbin’s torso, touches it everywhere, makes Hongbin’s fingers tighten around his locks more and more with every line he over the skin covered in goose bumps.

There’s a peck to Hongbin’s cheek and another one to the corner of his mouth, and then Sanghyuk nibbles on his neck, at it, leaves a hickey there: a mark that will embarrass Hongbin when he looks into the mirror a few hours later, a mark that right now means Sanghyuk wants them to stay together, a mark that serves as a seal on their relationship almost falling apart but being saved by the sheer fact that they are both in love with the other.

Hongbin’s breaths come in little puffs when Sanghyuk moves downwards, tongue darting out to at his collarbone. He wants to speak–he needs to speak before his mind gets too hazy from everything Sanghyuk: from the scent of his perfume to his tender touches.

“I’m s-sorry for being so ungrateful,” he stutters out finally, fingers curling into Sanghyuk’s hair and the fabric of his T-shirt on his back. “I’m an , I’m sorry. I’m so ungrateful.”

Sanghyuk presses a kiss to his shoulder and draws back, looks at Hongbin with his eyes glazed over. It’s not the same look Hongbin gets when Sanghyuk is just plain aroused; it’s filled with so much love and caring it almost breaks Hongbin’s heart.

(Funny, Hongbin thinks, isn’t a lack of those things supposed to break one’s heart? But to him, it definitely feels like the pressure of his feelings inside is cracking the walls.)

“You are,” Sanghyuk says, voice surprisingly steady, for which Hongbin hates him a little. “An , I mean. I messed up, so there was nothing you should have been grateful for. I do think the way I thought about the situation was an move too, not caused by the alcohol at all, so… at least this trait we share.”

Hongbin grins with his mouth stretched so wide the corners of it almost reach his ears, and Sanghyuk smiles down at him, kisses him with the smile still intact, his hand coming up from Hongbin’s side to cup his cheek.

“I love you so much,” Sanghyuk whispers into his mouth.

“I love you, too. You are my everything.”

“And you are mine.”

End