As soon as they’re back to some semblance of normal, Henry’s found that his courage has burnt out. It’s been several days since the incident. The Sungmin protection plan was initially back in full force until Sungmin promised that he’ll be okay and he wants to concentrate on work for now, so all three of them dialed it back.

They’re in Taiwan now, and Henry’s breathing easier. , he could demolish some dumplings given half a chance, but that’ll have to come after the fanmeeting. One day off to go to Hong Kong after that, too! Yesssss! He’s practically in heaven already. He’s gonna eat so good.

There’ll be plenty of time to bug the others later, so for now, he falls back into the habit of going to Ryeowook’s room first. Sungmin’s been sounding in good spirits when they were messaging before they met up for the flight; Henry tells himself that he doesn’t have to feel guilty, that Sungmin’ll be just fine if he spends a bit of time with him tomorrow.

He carefully doesn’t think about the possibility of Ryeowook getting there first, or how different their activities together would be.

Only cracking the door open a sliver at first, Ryeowook opens it all the way once he sees that it’s Henry, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise for a second before his expression settles into a sad half-smile. He wordlessly steps back to motion Henry inside.

The door doesn’t quite close right, so Henry takes care of that before he turns around to fidget, not sure if he should sit down or what. He wants... nothing in particular, really, except to be here. And, like, to hopefully find out that they’re cool now. Er, okay. That they’re okay.

Perhaps taking pity on him, Ryeowook says quietly, “Go ahead and sit.” He scoots over a little on the bed. Taking the hint, Henry follows the cue to sit next to him, but not, like, right right next to him. “I’m resting my voice.”

Instantly, Henry shoots up off the bed. “I’ll get you some tea!”

It doesn’t cross his mind to look back, he’s so determined to help. He taps his foot in the elevator, gets two cups of green tea and a small orange on impulse after smelling it and finding the scent sweet, stuffs the orange in his pocket before hastily scooping up the two paper cups. The elevator feels slower than last time going back up. Eventually, though, he makes it, and this time, Ryeowook’s smile is a little less sad, more on the subdued side now.

The hardest part was actually figuring out how to knock on the door without spilling, but he got it. He’s a little proud of himself, but doesn’t know how to convey that without it sounding weird, so he settles for the warm glow suffusing his chest from Ryeowook’s soft thanks.

Retaking their positions, they sip quietly for a minute until Ryeowook finally breaks the silence.

“I keep needing to apologize to you,” he says ruefully. He sounds better after some tea. “I forget how different we are sometimes.”

“I forgive you,” Henry tells him with a gentle smile. “If we keep trying to treat each other well, we’ll learn how, right?”

The older man chuckles. “I suppose that’s true. You’re kind to bring me this.” He taps their cups together with a self-effacing grin.

Henry wants to his hair so, so badly. “Hyung’s voice is really, really important.” He nods self-assuredly. A real smile blossoms on Ryeowook’s face at that. But it doesn’t last.

He sighs, shifts his weight side to side, takes another sip from his paper cup before he continues. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything,” Henry assents, immediately feeling embarrassed. He sure was quick with that one, huh?

“So... You like women, right?” Ryeowook stares at him, neutral, but a careful neutral. Like he’s pulled back part of himself.

Oh god, Henry does not have any emotional reserve to try to figure out what he might want to hear or anything like that. “Once,” he answers candidly. “One woman.”

“And... Mm...” It’s hard to say whether it’s more painful knowing where this is going or waiting for Ryeowook to get the words out. “You... don’t like men, right?”

“Once,” Henry answers a second time. Emotion suffuses the other man’s face once more, some mix of wonder, relief, and something that might be trepidation, or could be anything, really. At last, Ryeowook settles on a small smile.

“We’re not so different after all,” he says, followed by a sharp exhale of a laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, though, I don’t like women that way.”

“I know,” Henry says casually. He’d be shocked if any of the members didn’t know that by now. Well, maybe the few straight ones haven’t caught on. They tend to see what they expect.

With an acknowledging nod, Ryeowook then says, “I’ve never felt it, but it’s not so very different. In interviews and such, it’s easy to switch a few words and pretend I’m talking about a woman. No one’s ever said something like, ‘That sounds like it was with a man. Are you sure it wasn’t a man?’” He snorts into his hand just then, which doesn’t do much to cover his subsequent loud laughter. “You know, though, right?”

“Ah, yeah. Your stories don’t sound suspicious.” What the hell is he saying? “I understand a little bit.” They sit in content silence for a little while, trading smiles between sips of tea. Suddenly, Henry moves in just the right way to feel the small orange sitting in his pocket, so he pulls it out. It looks fine, feels a little warm, is all. After it’s peeled, he pulls apart the first slice and pops it into his mouth, then holds the second up to Ryeowook’s until the other man opens up and grabs it with his teeth. “You can’t get all your vitamin C from supplements. Food is better. That’s what I read.”

“I’ll eat it well and be healthy, doctor,” Ryeowook tells him with a grin.

“One for me, one for you,” Henry says in English, distributing them in turns.

Ryeowook seems at once flustered and delighted, gamely opening his mouth for each one until it’s gone. They otherwise sit in companionable silence. It’s something Henry only feels able to do with Ryeowook; sometimes, even his closest friends, no matter that they’re unaware of it, expect him to be energetic and entertaining like all the time. Ryeowook proves with his laughter that he likes it when he is and with his soft smiles that he still likes Henry when he isn’t.

When the fruit is gone, Ryeowook’s got the kind of expression he gets while gossiping, which is kinda scary. He’s put his hands together, leaning those and his forearms on his crossed legs. “So you said you’ve liked one man before. What’s your type?”

Aw crap. Um. Well, Henry figures the truth has worked for him so far, might as well stick with it. “I, um, don’t have a type? It’s... If the feeling’s there, that’s enough for me. Then the person becomes beautiful to me.”

“Aww, I didn’t know you were such a romantic!” Ryeowook playfully smacks his arm. Henry whines, which wins him Ryeowook rubbing the spot he hit while laughing and calling him a baby. He grimaces, but he’s not exactly unhappy about it.

But he’s gotta know. Here goes nothing. “Do you have a type?” Oddly enough, Ryeowook giggles. He puts what remains of his tea down on the nightstand. Henry drains the last of his so he can free-throw it into the tiny waste basket. He makes it and does a little fist pump, so Ryeowook joins in with one too and an enthusiastic “Yeah!”

So cute, Henry can’t help but think. “Come on, I was honest with you! It’s your turn now.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about the guy you liked!” Henry gives him a childish look of irritation, pursing his mouth exaggeratedly so that it’s obvious how not serious he is. “A type,” Ryeowook says thoughtfully after a pause. “I don’t know if I do... I mean, the guys I’ve slept with have been pretty varied.” He says that so casually that the gulf between them is practically visible. “But I know what Zhou Mi-hyung would say. ‘You so do have a type!’” He does a surprisingly good imitation, hand gestures and all, though he breaks it with another giggle. “He would say, right,” snort, “he would say, ‘You like cute men with youthful faces. And you like them to be needy.’ He can be so mean! I love him a lot.” Ryeowook sighs contently. “Just as a hyung, though. But, I think... I do prefer the older age role when dating.”

For some reason, he’s looking off to the side, like he can’t look Henry in the eye after admitting that. Or he’s... shy. Which he never is when it’s a group conversation. That’s interesting...

“You’re good at taking care of people,” Henry says at last. His head’s spinning a little, trying to figure out what to say to all that. Ryeowook takes care of that by singing most of the chorus of ‘Be Mine’, flaring his hand out on the high oh!s and everything, which, for whatever reason, gets them both laughing uncontrollably until they’re bent over double with it.

They taper off naturally. Henry leans back on his elbows, though not for long. Warmth from Ryeowook’s hand descends on top of his, and the smile Ryeowook gives him, sweeter than before, has him shooting back up.

“Henry-yah,” Ryeowook says slowly and deliberately, rather than the reflexive way it usually comes out.

“Yes, hyung?” Henry asks, his heartrate shooting up. The other man leans closer and closer to him, their gazes locked onto each other. Could it be...?

“One day, I’m going to make you tell me all about the guy you like.”

Henry answers solemnly, intoning each word with feeling, “Not. In. A million. Years.”

In the half tickle fight, half wrestling bout that ensues, they’re both losers, but also both kinda winners. The younger complains of his stomach being tired from laughing too much, so Ryeowook deliberately rests his calves there, and Henry doesn’t have the heart to move him. Also, he’s all around tired, and dinner’s soon. He’d roll to the floor to escape his captor, but it’s gotta be pretty gross down there, so. Meh. Not worth the effort.

Back in his own room, he hums as he gets ready, feeling light and free.

-

He gets out of the van after Ryeowook, hopping down onto the sidewalk. Almost knocks into him, too, when Ryeowook stops all of a sudden, cocking his head. “Ah, that’s a nice song,” he says dreamily, and even the thought of his smile, of his entire face glowing with his eyes closed in contentment, has Henry scrambling to get his phone out to identify the song in question.

Ryeowook continues on inside after another couple of seconds, failing to see him do that, which is for the better, really. The seed of an idea is growing, but it’ll have to wait until Henry can listen to the whole song alone.

Quite happily, he lets himself get swept up in conversation, though in lulls, he has odd thoughts like, Does he think it’s weird that I’ve only been in love twice? and Not fair, he never said anything about what kind of guys he’s dated and What does all that stuff he thinks Mi would say mean? Does it mean anything? Am I overthinking this?

Mere seconds after he flops down onto his bed, the urge to do something propels him back up. He opens up his laptop to type the song from earlier into a search. It’s not the easiest thing, because he really doesn’t know his characters all that well, so he quickly gives up and emails it to himself from his phone. His inbox is a mess, so as soon as he’s plugged the title into a search, he closes that tab so that he doesn’t have to look at it.

So, first problem: there’s a lot of electronic stuff going on underneath the singing. That wasn’t exactly obvious through the din of the crowded streets.

His brain loading circle spins for a few seconds, some stray wave of fatigue or post-dinner slump catching up to him. Spin spin spin- Duh! There’s an obvious solution. Just make it acoustic. That ’s preeeetty romantic, even. (He didn’t just think that. He did not.)

As soon as he thinks of it, though, his fingers itch to have lacquered wood under them. It smells so good, too, and he gets lost in deciding between spruce or mahogany, comparing in snippets in his mind. Until he realizes the song finished who knows how long ago and he doesn’t remember any of it.

How gone is he that he’s obsessing over this stuff?

Deep breath.

Upon giving the song a second listen, it turned out to be really sappy. Like, if Ryeowook’s Chinese were any better, Henry would scrap covering it entirely. Lucky for me, most of hyung’s vocabulary is food.

Like he really needed to be smacked in the face with yet another reminder of how he pays too much attention to Ryeowook. Well, whatever. To take his mind off of that, he starts messaging to see which of his friends is awake, letting the song churn away in a far-off corner. Just in case, though, he keeps the tab open.

-

When April came around, he got a frantic wall of text from Ryeowook, telling him that Sungmin is leaving as my co-DJ soon and I’m not quite ready to do this by myself, not just yet, could you come on as a guest the day after Sungmin’s last day? and that Eunhyuk-hyung has already agreed, and it’d be good because your solo album will be soon, right? people will be more familiar with you. have the writers already talked to you about doing a segment where you teach english? it'd be good, right?

That was a lot at once; still, he felt kind of... touched that Ryeowook showed this vulnerable side to himself. So he agreed. Sure, the reasoning was sound, but he wasn’t about to pretend that was the only thing influencing his decision.

Something about Sukira soothes him. He’s still nervous, feels every bit of awkwardness that he’s sure everyone can see, leans too hard on honesty a time or two as if his entertainer mask had crumbled in his hand under the time pressure. But it’d be no surprise if what’s keeping him on an even keel, as much as is possible, is that this is so clearly Ryeowook’s domain, which brings with it its own sense of safety. He doesn’t mind, can’t mind being the of the joke as long as he’s steered back to where he should be.

In a flash, he knows exactly what he’s gonna do tonight.

Sitting still is even harder after that, staying mindful of the limited view of the cameras here and all the audio equipment, too, but he adapts soon enough. Anyway, so, during one of the breaks, he tells Ryeowook, “Hyung, let me know when you get home, okay?” Ryeowook chuckles, then sweetly agrees, slipping out of his voice for radio guests for a couple seconds there.

Beside them, Eunhyuk starts saying, “...You two...” But he quickly shakes his head. “Never mind.” He glances at the guests and staff around them, his mouth tightening in a way that seems like it’s supposed to convey something, and doesn’t finish whatever he was going to say.

Ryeowook suddenly turns to chat with one of the guests, his back to them both. Maybe he understood.

Without being fully aware of it, Henry follows his lead after a second, turning away from the distraction of the way Ryeowook’s jeans frame his hips and legs the way one might tear themselves away from a stunning work of art in a museum, to strike up a conversation with the staff about the segment Ryeowook had mentioned.

On top of that, Ryeowook shows him off - there's no better way to describe it, really - to the fans who came to watch the show, warm hand hardly straying from his shoulder, all three of them smiling and waving. Ryeowook and Eunhyuk tell the crowd all the right platitudes before they head home; it takes maybe thirty seconds, all in all.

to head their separate ways after all that, but Ryeowook reiterates his promise to message him and briefly squeezes his hand, so it’s okay. It’s okay.

Henry’s distracted the whole way back to his apartment. When he gets the long-awaited message, though he couldn’t have actually been waiting that long, he instantly sends back, I’m going to video call you now ^^

Actually, he waits a minute first, but it’s really hard, so he starts trying every few seconds until he finally gets through. Ryeowook’s fondly scolding voice comes through clearer than his mock-pinched expression showing the same, but even tired, even having parted not that long ago, something still lodges in Henry’s chest from it. “What was so important that you went this far, hmm?”

Turning on a lamp behind him, Ryeowook’s more clearly visible now, nothing about him holding the tension of true irritation. After all, the older man stays up for a couple of hours yet, typically, and if he was at risk of missing something he was planning on watching or listening to, he’d say so without compunction.

Henry clears his throat in order to convince himself to not waste the opportunity staring. “I have a surprise for you. Um. A present. As, uh, as a thank you for having me on today.” To avert what feels too much like a squeak coming on, he quickly clears his throat again. “Also for suggesting the segment so I could be on regularly.”

However pleased Ryeowook looked before, he positively melts upon hearing that. “You’re so sweet,” he coos, slightly distorted through the speaker. “Hyung promised you, right? That...“ His profile when he looks away is as stunning as ever; Henry looks his fill and then some. How he wishes he could reach out through the screen, trace the elegant curve of Ryeowook’s nose, his lush lips, the half-rough, half-smooth line of his neck. “I wouldn’t let them hide you away.”

Ryeowook looks fiercely angry for a moment, his jaw clenching so tight that the ripples of tension are visible through the good-but-not-great connection, then it’s gone as quickly as it came. He composes himself into a smile, his words hanging between them for another couple of seconds until he can turn said smile to face his camera. “You deserve to be successful,” he finishes.

Henry swallows hard. “Thank you,” he says, touched beyond words. Ryeowook’s smile grows beatific. Suddenly, what Henry’s putting on offer seems so small compared to the totality of what he’s been given.

“Come on, don’t keep me waiting!” Ryeowook implores, bouncing in place.

“It’s nothing big. Just, um. Maybe you’ll recognize this?” Henry re-tuned before the call, so he doesn’t worry about that, just goes right into it instead. Unlike those early fumbling tries, the chords are muscle memory now, the words coming easily. Once he got the key change down, it was a matter of practice, when he wasn’t working on the album or recovering from that. Whatever time he could squeeze in would... it’d have to be good enough.

All too soon, he was finished, letting the last note ring out softly. It takes everything he has left in him to open his eyes. Their gazes meeting seems to be Ryeowook’s cue to clap excitedly.

“So good!! Wow, Henry-yah, you’re too talented!” The other man is beaming, unabashed, all teeth and the adorable gentle crescents his eyes make when he’s genuinely happy. “What was that from?”

Henry can feel himself turning red. “Uh...” He tries for a teasing smirk, though he’s positive he doesn’t succeed. “Hyung doesn’t remember, huh?”

Ryeowook tilts his head when he answers, “Sorry, no,” his smile dimming a little as his eyebrows furrow together in apologetics.

Crap. “No, please don’t feel bad!” Henry blurts out before he can stop himself. “Ah, um, it’s- from a restaurant.”

“Huh?”

“In Taiwan. I think. When we were all going to dinner. You stopped to- to listen to a song playing outside.”

Ryeowook ducks his head, his countenance pleased and embarrassed and a bit shy all at once. “I forgot about that,” he says quietly. “You...” He slowly looks back up. His mouth hangs slightly open, emphasizing his wide-eyed expression of surprise. “You remembered such a small thing because of me? Because I liked it?”

“...Yeah...” Oh god, was it too much? It was too much, wasn’t it? And now things’ll be weird between us. Okay, so Henry’s panicking a little. He squeezes his eyes shut, not on purpose, but it’s too much to handle. On the tip of his tongue is an explanation, downplaying it, ready to say how he had his phone look it up and it wasn’t anything, really, it was just for fun, something to let off some steam. None of that comes out.

He doesn’t get a chance to, because Ryeowook’s thanks is so full of emotion, even compressed through the video call, that it almost sounds like wailing. Henry opens his eyes at that, sees how Ryeowook’s lip is jutting out, too, like he really is about to cry. He tries on a wobbly smile; it’s a relief to get one back, only in part because it avoids the upset of red eyes or a puffy face.

God, how he loves this man. Emotional, vain, temperamental, doesn’t matter. Nothing slows down the feeling welling up in his chest. Whether he likes it or not, he’s all in. “I’m glad you liked it.” Unexpectedly, he yawns right then. A nap doesn’t sound half bad.

“I liked it a lot. But you should rest. You’re not used to this yet, right?”

“Hmm. Maybe.” Henry wants to say something playful, or funny, or start up another topic of conversation, though he’s suddenly so drained that he can’t manage to poke back against such a strange notion, as if they haven’t both dealt with worse. Still, maybe it’s not an accusation of weakness, but an expression of caring.

“You rest up, okay? You worked hard today.” With Ryeowook’s voice gone all high and sweet like that, Henry doesn’t stand a chance against it. “Come over next time so I can make you as many hotteok as you want,” he teases. “When you’re not busy with your album, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, yawning again. “You can pick what to listen to, if you make a lot for me. I love you.”

Ryeowook’s answer of the same only registers after Henry’s disconnected the call. He lies down, his arms behind his head, playing a rerun of the entire exchange. He’s looking forward to the next time, and his first segment, already picking out what he’s gonna wear as he drifts off.