Seduction. The damned man was just pure seduction. From the tilting curl of his lips to the way he could make your inner core tremble and shake with just the mere sound of his dark voice.

                Changmin tried to ease his hands from his tight grip on his own hair. He was going to pull his hair all out at this rate, because just thinking about him was liable to make his head go bald.

                Why couldn’t he have fallen in love with someone else? Changmin thought bitterly. Anyone but him would’ve been perfectly acceptable. The freaking sad part about all this was that Changmin had bared his heart open, had confessed – he had no idea why, he wasn’t even drunk at the time for goodness sakes – and had been indirectly, though very nicely, rejected.

                The even worse part was that had he been anyone else, he probably wouldn’t have been rejected. Well, rejected from the possibility of even a one night stand at least. But the thing was, the fact that made his stomach twist the knowledge that he didn’t have much hope, that they were close friends. And Dongwook (that man who could make Changmin flush from head to toe with just one look) treated his friends with care. Dongwook knew that rejecting him as soon as possible would hurt him less than just prolonging it. Changmin scowled. Darn that considerate, y bastard.

                It was just that, every single time Dongwook would walk into a room, his hand deep in his pocket all nonchalant-like, Changmin would just… Forget how to breath. His insides would throb against his sides almost painfully, and he was unable to tear his eyes away from him. As if his occasional fantasies (the mouth that he lusted after moving over his own mouth, his soul out) weren’t already bad enough. But the thing was, Dongwook (Shichi, Changmin liked to call him, a habit picked up from when he was learning Japanese. It meant seven) was pretty notorious for his ual escapades and the trail of broken hearts that seemed to follow him wherever he went. Changmin himself was no exception. Unfortunately.

                “It’s not like I’m not attracted to you, Minku,” Dongwook had said to him, his own personal nickname for Changmin rolling off his tongue perfectly. “Because, god yes, I am. But you deserve to be loved. To be treasured.”

                Changmin felt a part of him breaking with these simple words. He fisted his hands and pressed them against his eyes. He had choked out: “I know. I know.”

                He wanted that. He really did. He yearned for the affectionate touch of someone who loved him and whom he dearly loved back just as much. But he hadn’t even realized before his heart was already in Dongwook’s hands, stolen by his Devil-may-care smiles and the caring nature he hid from most people.

                And god knows he’s tried to move on. Dating a sweet, pretty girl he met at the supermarket was one of these many attempts. He thought he had genuinely liked her, and he really did like her, he even believed that he was on the road to love. Then Dongwook had dragged him out for a congratulatory drink for getting his girlfriend (who he broke up with a month later), and all he could concentrate on was how Dongwook’s fingers (which were wrapped snugly around a beer) would taste in his mouth.

                He still hadn’t told him that he was still, after all this time, deeply and wretchedly in love with him. He hadn’t told him that even a casual brush against Dongwook’s skin felt like he was catching on fire. That he dreamed about their limbs being intertwined together until he woke up, gasping, a strangled moan cut off halfway through his throat.

                Dongwook had thought that maybe he was hallucinating for a second when Changmin, with eyes glittering from unshed tears (because he knew that he was going to get that inevitable rejection), had said, “I love you. I’m in love with you.”

                He thought that maybe, possibly, he was feeling more pain ripping him apart than what Changmin had been feeling. Because he had to watch Changmin’s pained face when he told him that no, he shouldn’t be the one who Changmin loved.

                And it was true. Changmin didn’t deserve him. Dongwook wouldn’t trust himself with Min’s heart in his hands. He knew he had broken many already, but he didn’t want one of his dearest friends to feel that pain either. Not on his hands.

                It was selfish, really, but he had wanted to keep Changmin’s heart. He wondered, so many countless times, what it would be like to taste Changmin’s skin against his tongue, to see Changmin’s face twist in pleasure. But it was for Changmin’s own happiness, he had to keep reminding himself, even when he had to plaster a fake grin on his face when Changmin introduced his new girlfriend to him and pretend like there weren’t tiny knives jabbing into his heart. The aching never went away, not even when he spotted someone (not Changmin. Never Changmin) to spend the night with.

                There was this one time. Just once. Changmin didn’t really know because he was, well, sleeping. Dongwook had barged into Changmin’s apartment, as he was wont to do at random times, and found Changmin dozing peacefully on the sofa with a forgotten book spilling across his chest. Dongwook had gently pried the book away and set it down on the glass table next to the sofa. Then he gazed, admired, Changmin’s smoothed out expression, which he knew would snarl with playfulness when he liked to make a snarky comment. Dongwook felt a deep breath whooshing out of his chest as he leaned in cautiously.

                Just one peck, one little kiss, he told himself. Let him have just this one thing – to fuel his sleepless nights. Then he would be satisfied.

                Boy, was he wrong. He had brushed his lips lightly, almost feather-like, against Changmin’s, and Changmin had let out a small sigh of content – a breath of hot air rushing into Dongwook’s parted lips, and then he was terribly lost. Intoxicated with the feel of Changmin’s lips with just one touch. Dongwook had pulled back in fear that Changmin would wake up to find that his friend had practically molested him in his sleep.  

                Changmin woke up with the feeling that his lips were going to burn off and tingles running repeatedly up and down his spine for some inexplicable reason.

                It took Dongwook maybe a year and a half before he realized, damn it, he wanted only for him to be able to touch Changmin with tenderness, to love him, to be wrapped around him every night. He cursed himself, because that realization had came too late. Changmin’s heart was probably in someone else’s hands now, especially after he had shattered it to pieces.

                Well then. He would get it back. Choi Dongwook wasn’t one who gave up very easily.

                It took three dates before Changmin realized that they were actually dates. At first, he was just kind of amused and more than a little confused when Dongwook presented him a bouquet of red roses and then whisked him of to an expensive candlelight dinner. But he had written off as some kind of phase, maybe, that Dongwook was going through, he didn’t know – maybe Dongwook had decided to take all his friends out to candlelit dinners and Ferris wheel rides? On the third date though, on a ferry with Dongwook pressing so closely against him that his heart was pounding like some kind of sugar-high drum, he looked around and knew something was amiss – what with all the couples either tightly holding hands with each other or making out around them.

                “Dongwook,” Changmin said, using Shichi’s real name on purpose, to show that he was rather serious. “…Are we on a date?”

                “Maybe.”

                Changmin twisted his body to look at Dongwook in the face. “What. Wait, seriously? Why?”

                Dongwook bit his bottom lip in slight nervousness (which did not turn Changmin on at all… Okay, maybe a little). He stared into Changmin’s eyes. “Could you give me a chance, Minku? To show you that I could be the one who would treasure you every single moment of my life. Even though your heart doesn’t even belong with me anymore.”

                Dongwook’s voice had painfully dropped a little at the last statement. Changmin was just frozen, eyes wide open.

                Dongwook laughed, almost at himself, and his voice was a little raspy with the irony of the recollection of what Changmin had said a long time ago. “Changmin. I’m in love with you.”

                Changmin was still kind of standing there rather dumbly in unmasked, unadulterated shock before finally getting his mind back. He pulled Dongwook against him until their lips met in a kiss that seared his soul and brought both of them to heaven and back.

                “Okay,” Changmin said simply when they broke apart from their desperate kisses. He hid a smile behind his hand. No need to tell Shichi just yet that his heart had always belonged to this man. Call it revenge for making him wait around so long.