it's that time again

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i apologise if i have uploaded this like 7 times, my internet is being ing stupid. i cant wait to get out of here

china's internet with a goddamn rake

    Sunday came and the tiny shop filled with middle aged women and young hipsters, all of them crowding around the cases with curious gleams in their eyes or shuffling through the furniture, commenting about the antiques in hushed tones to their friends.

Taekwoon manned the register as Wonsik, Hakyeon, and Jaehwan wrote out sales tags.  Sanghyuk was left to carry furniture to people's cars.

    Hongbin followed behind Jaehwan, sticking sold tags on items before finally slapping one on the older man's .

    An older woman rolled her eyes in disgust as the pair smiled cutely at each other.

    Monday, Jaehwan dragged Taekwoon and Sanghyuk around town to drop off the larger pieces of furniture with the moving truck.

    “Please, for s sake. Don't make us carry another piece of oak furniture up another five story walk up.” Sanghyuk begged.

    “Don't worry,” Jaehwan said with a grin, “no more five story walk ups… this one's on eight.”

    “NOOOOOOOOO!” Sanghyuk fell to his knees dramatically.

    Thursday came around again and Taekwoon sat in a coffee shop, sipping a latte. He was seated in a corner, organizing the information and new videos he’d compiled into folders. He wrote notes to himself, and when he was finally satisfied, he locked the folder and headed home after his weekly trip to the grocery store.

    He unlocked his front door and immediately dropped the bag in his arms. The eggs made a wet crunch noise as the parcel hit the hardwood floor.

    His apartment was empty. Completely empty.

    He ran to his landlord's office to report this.

    “Oh! Excellent. Your friend who paid off your lease said you'd be in to drop off your keys soon.”

    “Could you describe this friend for me?”

    “Five… four… three… two…” Wonsik started his countdown as soon as he saw Taekwoon's car pull into the parking lot. The front door slammed against the wall as it flew open, shaking the delicate objects in their cases and causing the mirrors to rattle.

    “Where is he?” Taekwoon snarled. He ran up the stairs and slammed Hakyeon against the wall.

    “Welcome home!” Hakyeon managed to say pleasantly before gasping for the air that had been knocked out of his lungs.

    “Put it back! Put everything back!”

    “I paid off your lease. You don't have to live there anymore,” he explained, looking genuinely confused about the fact that Taekwoon didn't appreciate his kind gesture.

    “You touched my things. You obviously had to dig through my stuff to bring everything here. I DO NOT appreciate that.” Hakyeon fought a smirk. He might be more receptive than Hakyeon originally thought.

    “You're acting like I move things like normal people do. Everything is in there, just like you had it. We didn't remove any drawers or anything. Closet is still full of vacuum shrink bags, though.”

    “My kitchen? I had expensive appliances and cookware,” he growled, trying to compose himself.

    “In the kitchen. There's a cabinet with your name on the door.”

    Taekwoon balled his fists at his side and turned to walk into his new room.

    He sat heavily on the bed after closing the door and sighed. He heard the gurgling noise of Tigger, who had followed him in, coming to sit on Taekwoon's lap. Apparently Hakyeon had thought to put a mirror on the inside of his bedroom door as well.

    “What do I do?” he asked the huge kitten, distress heavy in his voice. “I can't afford to move to a new place.” Tigger rested his paws on Taekwoon's shoulders and put his full weight on him. Taekwoon fell to his back as the tiger sat on his chest and started to purr. Taekwoon petted him behind the ears and drifted off to sleep.

    The next morning came and Taekwoon woke the gurgling noise of Tigger asking to be let out. He disappeared quickly out of sight and Taekwoon got up to inspect the bathroom. He found a cabinet with his name on it and the entirety of his bathroom was somehow in there. On the towel rack by the shower was a brand new towel with his family name embroidered on it. He looked at the other towels.  They looked new as well. Kim, Han, Lee and another Lee.

    “How do they know which one is theirs?” He mumbled softly.

    “Doesn't matter, Jaehwan and I have shared everything for years,” Hongbin said in the open doorway. Taekwoon jumped and clutched his chest. “Sorry. I was just going to swing by and tell you the common area rules.” Taekwoon nodded, paying close attention. “Obviously you noticed your cabinet. All of your bathroom things should be in there. Likewise with your kitchen things in our kitchen. The other rooms things are in your bedroom… like your couch.”

    “Was it? I just kinda fell asleep. I didn't really look.”

    “If there's anything you need, feel free to ask me or Hak-” he noticed Taekwoon’s expression darken at the mention of the other man. “Just ask me. I can get it for you.” He smiled.

    Taekwoon was automatically more optimistic. He wasn't sure. but it almost felt like Hongbin was trying to force him to be happy against his will. But that couldn't have been possible...

    “Oh right. Jaehwan hates pants. Don't be too surprised if you come out and he's half . The others just tend to ignore him.”

    Taekwoon nodded and let Hongbin close the bathroom door.

    The shower, toilet and sink were all in separate areas. Considering six men and a tiger lived there, that was a pretty good idea, he thought as he turned the shower on.

    He contemplated what to make for breakfast and froze when he heard the main door to the bathroom open. Several feet shuffled in. It sounded like two sets stopped at the sink and one went into the toilet area.

    Taekwoon went back to scrubbing his skin and listening to the conversation outside.

    “What the was Hyung thinking?” Sanghyuk asked.

    “Same thing he thought when he got you to move in,” Wonsik replied, mouth full of tooth brush.

    “No, that was a ‘keep your friends close’ kinda thing. We all knew what you were up to,” Jaehwan replied before flushing the toilet and going to the sink. “But hyung thought you just needed to be looked after… or guided onto a better path or whatever… I wasn’t paying attention when he made me set up a room for you.”

    “But now you're training him,” Wonsik stated as if it was a dumb idea.

    “Might as well help me be as useful as possible. Free place to live, free food and Hyung pays me way more than my last job. I’d like to try to make it up to him.”  They continued talking as they left the bathroom and Taekwoon realised that because he had stopped to listen, he currently had a large handful of shampoo.

    “Whoops,” he said softly, getting some back into the bottle.

    Hakyeon didn't seem like such a bad person when they put it like that. He just had no concept of boundaries… and was so frustrating… and beautiful. Taekwoon shook his head. He wasn't going to jeopardise his career that he’d worked so hard for just to get laid. He lathered the soap in his hair, wishing his mind wouldn't wander where he didn't think it should go when he was alone.

    He rinsed the shampoo and his mind decided to throw him an image of Hakyeon pressed against the shower wall, his head tilted up, gasping for air as he slowly palmed himself.

Taekwoon's face grew hot as he ran conditioner through his hair, wondering if the other man tasted as good as he smelled.

    … . It really probably can't be good to this often.

    He went downstairs and Wonsik immediately asked everyone for help bringing in new arrivals and packing some items for delivery the next day.

    “Hyung, please don't pick up anything heavy,” Wonsik said.

    “Please, this isn't heavy-” Hakyeon tripped and wobbled. Taekwoon caught him in time to make their descent less painful, but not fast enough to stop the armload of packages from falling on them with a big, dusty cloud.

    A moment later, Hakyeon and Taekwoon opened their eyes. Their faces were mashed together in an awkward kiss. Hakyeon pushed up and rolled his hips fast enough for Taekwoon to think it was his imagination.

    “Uh… thanks,” Hakyeon finally mumbled.

    “Maybe you should shake the dust out of your hair,” Wonsik said, trying to diffuse the awkward situation. One of the boxes had a bunch of old hair brushes and combs in it and Wonsik handed each of them one. “Maybe that'll help.”

    Hakyeon tried to pat the dust off of Taekwoon as well, all that did was make the younger man sneeze all over him.

    Hakyeon sat on the floor with a stunned expression for a moment before a high pitched noise that sounded like a cross between a bird of prey and a wail of despair bubbled out of Hakyeon's throat.

    He rushed upstairs shrieking “unclean!” until his bedroom door slammed shut.

    “He'll be scrubbing that off for a while,” Wonsik chuckled.

    Sanghyuk realised that most of the dust was from the box of old hair care products.

    He picked up a jar and his eyes blanked.

    “Comb through and shampoo thirty minutes later for desired effects,” he mumbled.

    “What?” Jaehwan asked.

    “Did I do it again?” he asked, looking a little disoriented.

    “This time you got instructions instead of warnings.” Jaehwan grinned. “Maybe we can get the full set next time.”

    “Maybe.”

    Taekwoon looked confused about the whole exchange, but brushed the dust out of his hair anyway.

    He helped unload the truck and started to unpack the boxes when nearly half an hour later he started itching.

    “I'll be back. I really need a shower.”

    As soon as Taekwoon left, Sanghyuk's eyes glazed over again.

    “Use with comb set for desired colour.”

    “Comb...set?” Wonsik dug through the boxes and saw that the box of combs that went with the powder was missing two. “”

    Each comb had a different colour name on it.

    In the shower, Taekwoon watched as the sludgy water started to go down the drain before he started to shampoo his hair. When he was done he thought the texture felt odd, so he washed it a second time. It felt closer to normal this time and his mind wandered again as he was running conditioner through. He couldn't have been imagining the hip roll that Hakyeon snuck when he was getting up. And it wasn't really a kiss… it didn't mean anything, right?

    He imagined a real kiss between them, getting more heated and desperate. Not caring who watched them.

    Taekwoon let out a loud breath. It was fine as long as these thoughts remained thoughts and he didn't act on them, right? He hated not having control over who he found attractive. And damned if he was ever going to admit out loud that he was attracted to Cha ing Hakyeon.

    Oh gods, he was in such deep . He was attracted to Cha ing Hakyeon.

    Taekwoon rinsed the dust off of the comb Wonsik lent him and stepped out of the shower.

    He dried off and went to comb his hair into some sort of order. He dropped the comb into the sink and stared in disbelief at his reflection. He pulled the strands in front, looking at them for himself. He ran his hands over his face and closed his eyes.

    “I'm gonna open them on the count of three and this is gonna be a hallucination. One… two… three.”

Bright

ing

Red.

    He frowned and combed his hair. He rinsed off the comb, wrapped the towel around himself and ran to his room.

    He emerged a short time later with clean clothes and Hakyeon was writing a shopping list.

    “Peppers, tomatoes, apples…” he turned to ask Taekwoon what he wanted, “what do you think? Strawberries … too?”

    Taekwoon's scowl deepened. He barely noticed that Hakyeon's hair was a light plum tint.

    “Holy , you're hot!” Hakyeon exclaimed.  Taekwoon glared. He didn't want to say that the purplish tint looked good on the other man, but it did.

    In the amount of time Taekwoon was thinking, Hakyeon had crossed the room and held tightly to his hips pulling him closer.

    “Goddamn, I must have you. Right. ing. now.” He actually snarled in Taekwoon's ear before taking his earlobe between his teeth and tugging.

    Taekwoon gasped and stepped back. His eyes were wider than he would have cared to admit. He quickly made it to his room, trying not to look like he was running away.

    It was almost like Hakyeon was acting like a predator and Taekwoon was the prey.

Taekwoon locked his door and sat against it for good measure. He brought his knees to his chest and tried to calm his racing heart.

    Hakyeon knew exactly which buttons to push and that made him really dangerous.

He just had to keep his distance. He'd be fine if he could keep someone between them... at all times. He was so ed.