“Do you know what this makes right, right?”

There were dozens of possibilities that raced into his head. He had to be honest with himself and admit that he hadn’t envisioned himself in the position that he was in.

It was one thing to fumble around as ually deprived trainees. It was one thing to be a wide-eyed nonconformist, and foolishly believe that anything was possible. This was something that he hadn’t dreamed of: being on the other side of thirty years old, and still just as in love with the other man as he had been at twenty, or at seventeen.

Or at fifteen.

Jesus.

“Two middle-aged men who refuse to age gracefully?”

Now, he knew he didn’t fit most expectations of heterouality. He was normally fine with that. Normally, he wore it as some defiant badge of honor, perhaps to rub it in the faces of the people that said that he would never be able to achieve his dreams because he wasn’t normal.

But the noise that he let out when Seunghyun’s large hand smacked against his was so effeminate that even he was embarrassed by its pitch. The crack of flesh against flesh reverberated in his ears, throughout the room, and he was so taken in by it, and the feeling that it unleashed in his gut that he was sure that he would never forget it as long as he managed to live.

“We are not middle-aged men.” Seunghyun punctuated his words with alternating slaps to his , first between his right cheek, and then to his left. “And even if we were, it wouldn’t matter, you don’t die when you hit thirty, you’re only dead when you actually die.”

By the time he finished, Ji was utterly breathless, panting in his pillow. He might have even started to grind into the mattress.

He might have.

That was if he didn’t have Seunghyun’s full weight on the back of his legs and thighs, pinning him face first into the mattress. Again, in hindsight, it was a position that he never thought he’d be in, at the very least, not a position that he’d be in at that point in his life.

There had been a time when he’d thought that Seunghyun would have eventually found a nice girl, or, god forbid, guy, to settle down with. Yet here he was, still pinned underneath him.

And it was perhaps then, more than any other point in his life up to that point, that clearly illustrated what the older man would always mean to him. No matter how much time passed, no matter how many visions of the future he would have, he would always be enthralled with him.

Gravity was keeping them locked together, no matter what happened.

Ji gasped suddenly as he felt Seunghyun’s weight press down against his back, and his breath against his ear. It was still very new to him, still very anxiety inducing to have them in this position when there wasn’t a camera on them, when they were free to be themselves.

“What does that make us?” Ji finally gave in.

“Boyfriends.” Seunghyun chuckled and caught his earlobe between his teeth.

There was something so bubbly about the word, something so absurd, that it forced a shock of laughter up to the surface. It was just so crazy, the entire thing; them rolling around, in the sheets, like they were teenagers, still in love like they were still teenagers.

After only a few moments, they were both shaking with laughter, both beside themselves.

“Hyung, I’ve always been your boyfriend,” Ji fought down his laughter as best as he could possibly manage. “The only difference now is that when you do for me, I get to your as a thank you.”

He fell face forward into his pillow, his sides shaking in laugher.

“Sweetheart, you could’ve always done that, you only need to ask.”

If Jiyong could have, he would have kicked him.

He wasn’t an idiot, he knew it wouldn’t be as simple as accepting what would come.

After all, they had to keep the lights on, they had to keep going, they had to keep moving forward or they would die. Maybe it would be easier, now that they were older, and the business that they were in was an entirely different place compared to how it was when they entered it.

It was still a path that was fraught with danger, risks innumerable, but the payoffs were almost infinite.

Seunghyun took a drag off his cigarette and flicked the ashes carelessly to the ground.

He did give up drinking, but every so often, he would indulge in a smoke.

He wasn’t a chain smoker like he used to be, there were a lot of things that he used to be that he wasn’t anymore that he couldn’t afford to be anymore, but whenever things got tough, he would find himself craving one.

That was why he tried to always keep an emergency pack on him.

They all had secrets, most people in their line of work did.

He knew idols that had crippling addictions, diseases and phobias. He knew that those people would sooner cut off their own arm then have that information become public knowledge.

Seunghyun had secrets.

Fortunately for him, most of them were public knowledge, most of the public understood that he had his problems. His problems had been played out in the public eye, in the press and in the popular collective consciousness of his fans. There was very little left in his life to get out, and it made him feel invulnerable in a way, perhaps to his detriment, but it was still a real thing.

There were still a few things that he’d managed to keep to himself.

They were precious secrets, things that he’d built his entire adult life on.

Growing up where he did, in a single parent home, chubby and socially awkward, he’d never really had it easy. It had been the highlight of his life when he’d met Kwon Jiyong, and though he would never openly admit it to him, meeting him set the course for his life. Meeting Jiyong had been the most impactful meeting of his entire life, it defined everything afterwards.

He had been so damn sure that he would spend his life in some sort of dreadfully boring middle management job, live a normal life, live a simple life, until he was ready to retire from it.

And when he finally reunited with Ji years later, and strived to change his life, his suspicions were already patently confirmed: he was in love with him, so irrepressibly in love.

Ji had been his first love. That first love might have been something of a childish infatuation at first, but Ji was the beginning, he was the end, he was everything in between.

“You’ll catch your death out here.” Ji’s amused voice sounded from the door.

Seunghyun took a drag, and turned to face him.

Dressed in his robe, with his hair in ten different directions, he looked so endearing, so like himself. It would be easy to forget the reality of the situation, the pain, the silence, the pining that they had both trudged through to get to that very critical moment in insanity of their lives.

“It’s just a little chilly,” He blew the smoke out in a different direction. “You want one?”

Ji shook his head. “I guess we both gave up something.”

Seunghyun chuckled and turned back to the vast cityscape of Tokyo.

It would be so easy to get lost in it, a city of countless inhabitants. He had to confess that it wouldn’t have been the first time that he’d thought as much, but it was the first time that he’d thought of Jiyong getting lost with him, somewhere in the seemingly endless maze of the city.

“You’re thinking too hard.” Ji chastised as he stepped forward.

Seunghyun extended his arm, and Ji stepped underneath it without missing a beat. When Ji laid his head on his chest, he sighed deeply and pulled the smaller man tighter. It was a night that was both rapturous and nerve wracking, and what the dawn would bring was still enough to drive him to the brink. He knew Ji well enough to know that the other man was just as beside himself. The difference was that he could remain calm, cool and collected under the most intense pressure. This time he would do his best to do the same thing, to pay him that same respect.

“The scariest part is not knowing if this’ll work.” Ji admitted softly.

There were so many layers of complication to the formula, it was hard to settle on just one reason why it was so damn dangerous. It wasn’t to say that he didn’t fear any of the other possible consequences, but it was that one that he feared the most, above all others.

He didn’t know how to live without the smaller man in his life.

But it simply didn’t matter, the gains outweighed it all.

If they didn’t work out, love didn’t exist.

“We both know that we’ll still have the group, in the unlikely event that happens.”

We’ll always have Paris.

He cracked an involuntary smile.

His own inner monologue sounded so morbid, so macabre over the future, but it was so unwarranted. Ji and he couldn’t not work, they so many things to each other, but incompatible was not one of them. They might very well rub each other the wrong way some of the time, but who didn’t? Who wasn’t to say that the occasional bit of disagreement wasn’t the mark of a healthy?

And if people doubted them — they could go screw themselves. That was how they’d both approached people that had opinions about them, and it would be no different.

Seunghyun took one last drag off his cigarette, and before tossing it over the balcony to parts unknown, quickly blew out smoke, and made a point of drawing Jiyong closer to him. He took something of a particular delight in the almost mystified look in the younger’s eyes.

Ji probably didn’t believe that this was happening.

He smiled.

“Last chance to back out,” Jiyong cautioned.

They were way past that point, the last few hours had cemented that.

Seunghyun shook his head, without saying a word.

“You know if this backfires, I’m still blaming you?” Ji drew closer.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, dollface.” Seunghyun grinned.

Jiyong rolled his eyes, and pulled him in by the collar of his nightshirt with for a kiss.

When he looked back on the story of his life, he always thought that this portion of it, the time of life when youth would slowly dwindle, would be filled with unparalleled uncertainty.

His hands snuck around to the other man’s waist and pulled him closer.

God, I love you.

Maybe he was still uncertain, but if Ji was next to him, he could handle it.

I’ll love you for the rest of my life.

Like he always had.