AN: nothing substantial; just felt like writing something short and sweet

It’s when Sunggyu starts shouting at Sungjong that pushes Howon’s sleep-addled mind back to awareness. He furrows his brows, eyes still closed, as Sunggyu’s loud voice echoes through the walls and somewhere in the back of his thoughts, he wonders at how a man, who could sing like an angel, can shout like Satan.

Sungjong shouts something back, but to be quite honest, Howon really doesn’t care what it is as he turns on his side, wanting nothing more than to return to sleep. If there was a schedule, an event to go to, Sunggyu or Woohyun would wake him up—but until then, all those precious minutes he can spend sleeping.

Just when his mind is about to shut back down, his eyes beginning to droop, he hears a quiet whimper—faint—and feels a hand lightly grasp his waist. A little bit awake, Howon turns and gets a whiff of cinnamon and one Kim Myungsoo.

Unconsciously, he feels his mouth smile as he takes in the messy mop of Myungsoo’s hair (it almost looks like a bird had been nesting on his head, Howon muses), the pillow-marks across his cheeks, sleep gunk in the corners of his closed eyes. The scent of cinnamon gets stronger as he moves closer, angles his arm around his boyfriend’s leaner frame.

Myungsoo’s always had a lanky body, Howon thinks. No matter how much he worked out and ate, he never grew bigger or fuller—much to Woohyun’s dismay and Sunggyu’s envy. But Howon had never minded it, if he were to be honest.

This way, Myungsoo would fit better against him.

Howon hears chinaware being set on the table and he figures that Woohyun must already be awake, Sunggyu and Sungjong blessedly quiet and maybe that’s what it is, maybe the noise that he always woke up to reminds him so much that he’s here, he’s home and—

“Hyung.” Myungsoo mumbles, sleep clinging to the thickness of his voice (it’s deeper now that he’s awake, and it never fails to send shivers down Howon’s spine). His eyes are still closed, but Howon feels him move closer, his breath warm on his neck and Howon can’t help it if he pulls Myungsoo even closer.

In that time between full awareness (Howon’s still halfway back to sleeping) and slumber, there’s a certain softness to everything. The light seems brighter, but less sharper, like a sheet had been draped over the sun. The noise is duller, and sometimes they wobble like Howon’s underwater and the scent of cinnamon (of Myungsoo) continues to ade his senses and it’s addicting, it’s tantalizing but it’s the kind of dulled craving that he gets when he remembers fond memories, when he remembers the first time they’ve kissed, the first time they’ve lain.

Myungsoo moves, and all of Howon’s sleepy focus are trained on him and Myungsoo finally opens his eyes—and Howon’s always had a thing for his eyes. They were wide, and dark, and sometimes they could get pretty intimidating but when Myungsoo smiles, or when he pouts, or when he scrunches his nose as he blinks the sleep away, all Howon wants to do is place his hands on his cheeks and kiss him.

But he resists—barely—and, instead, he waits as Myungsoo lets go to stretch and Howon feels his leg curl around his and, like clockwork, Howon’s hand start reacquainting itself with the feel of Myungsoo’s bare skin. He hears him whimper before Myungsoo latches himself closer to Howon’s side—and Howon remembers.

He remembers a time when Myungsoo’s intimate touches, his need to hold and be held, when every time Myungsoo so much as wrapped his arms around Howon, all the bells in his head would ring and before he knows what he’s done, he had pulled himself away from Myungsoo’s embrace. He remembers the confusion, and the veiled hurt, in those dark eyes but Howon had always been wary of intimacy, wary of the way Myungsoo seemed to cling to everyone around him like he’d float away if he didn’t.

It’s funny, now that he thinks about it, when Myungsoo continued to persist until Howon had given up and let him hug all he want. It’s funny, because now, it was hard—almost difficult—to let go of Myungsoo. It was almost impossible to look across the room, see him and his dark eyes and not want to kiss him, to leave him ravished and debauched. Howon thinks it’s the damn cinnamon scent of Myungsoo’s body wash.

“Do we have to get up already?” Myungsoo asks, but everything about him already points to the answer: his eyes are closed, his voice on the edge of sleep and his frame more languid and relaxed than Howon’s seen.

And Howon loves Myungsoo most when he’s like this: sleepy and sweet and smelling like home. He laughs when Myungsoo’s laughing, his face scrunched up in an expression so ridiculous that it’s hard to believe it ever happened on a perfect face like his. He feels aroused and warm when Myungsoo’s all made up before a performance—eyeliner in place, his hair delightfully tousled and, oh, those lips; Howon literally has to hold himself down before he does something ruinous (and would incur the wrath of one Kim Sunggyu; Howon’s smart, and he doesn’t want to die young).

But Howon loves Myungsoo best when he’s on the last step to slumber, when those lean muscles are covered in the soft texture of his shirt (and Howon feels like sighing at the image of Myungsoo in his shirt, slightly big on the shoulders, exposing his collarbones and Howon bites his tongue) and his warmth is like a slow-burning ember that promises to keep the cold away.

Howon loves Myungsoo best like this, when he’s in his arms, because in this moment—in this tiny window of time—Myungsoo is all his. He’s not INFINITE’s. He’s not Woollim’s. He’s not anyone else’s, but Howon’s.

“No, not yet.” Howon whispers and he tucks his head against Myungsoo’s, nose against the younger one’s hair and Howon smells cinnamon and something inherently Myungsoo—almost like chocolate—and Howon feels himself floating on the ebb and flow of that space between awareness and sleep.

He’s always loved the smell of cinnamon.