The sundae was just as sweet as Hongbin had figured it to be, seeing all the extras that Hakyeon had decided to add. It wasn’t bad though, and Hakyeon seemed to love it, and the elf ate most of it, which Hongbin was fine with. As Hakyeon finished the last of the sundae and grinned at Hongbin, Hongbin noticed ice cream that Hakyeon had missed on the side of his mouth, and before he really thought it through, he was grabbing a napkin and leaning across the table to press it against Hakyeon’s face, successfully getting the remnants of the treat off. He was vaguely reminded of the other day at the bakery, and as he paused, Hakyeon looked up at him.    

            “Thanks for getting that,” he said, softly smiling at him, voice quieter than it had been just before. Hongbin rested his hand against Hakyeon’s cheek for just another second, before pulling away and balling the napkin up in his hand.

            “Yeah, uh, you’re welcome.” He glanced away, noticing one of the restaurant workers cleaning off some of the tables. “They’re getting ready to close, we should be going.” He stood and pulled on his jacket, offering his hand to Hakyeon, who took it and pulled himself up, rising to his feet gracefully. He didn’t let go of Hongbin’s hand though, and Hongbin relented, just feeling the warmth of his palm. They bowed to the employee, and made their way down the stairs.

            Hongbin stopped in front of the main side of the building, looking down at their hands. He swallowed his embarrassment and looked back up at Hakyeon.

            “Hey, you’ve already shown me your place, would you want to come see my apartment? I mean, it’s not much, but I can make some coffee, if you’d like.”

            Hakyeon’s eyes widened just a bit, before they drew up into a grin. Hongbin had noticed that, that when he smiled it reached his eyes.

            “You have a nice smile.” He told the elf, who laughed.

            “Thanks. Some of the other elves think I smile too much at little things, and that I don’t ‘fully appreciate the bigger joys in life’,” he said, making quote signs with his free hand. “But I think I fully appreciate all the joys in life!”

            Hongbin laughed back at him.

            “Yeah, I think you do.”

            The walk to Hongbin’s apartment was quiet, and they went slow. The moon was out, hovering just past the center of the sky, with the very last of orange fading from the west. There weren’t very many stars to be seen, but that was pretty common in the city, because of all of the lights. The streetlights cast a pale yellow glow as they walked under them that faded out to darkness and then came back at the next light. There weren’t any vampires in this part of the city, and everything was calm, every once and a while a dog would bark and there would be a response from a voice. There were lights on in most of the houses they walked by, and sometimes they could hear laughter and voices coming from inside.

            It wasn’t anything like the forest, and Hongbin wondered if Hakyeon thought so too, but the elf seemed to be happy just looking around him. He was surprisingly quiet, with a content look on his face, just taking everything in. There was still that unexplainable light that Hongbin just felt coming from him, emanating from his golden skin. He was pretty sure that the sun had decided to share some light, and gave it to the elf. Watching as the light around them changed, and seeing the reflections in Hakyeon’s eyes shine, he reached out and ruffled the bright red hair.

            “Have you ever thought about silver?”

            Hakyeon turned to look at him.

            “Hmm? Silver what?”

            “Hair, you know. I think it would look nice, you’d be like silver and gold.”

            Hakyeon looked thoughtful.

            “No, I’ve never considered silver! But it sounds really nice, maybe I should do that next.”

            Hongbin nodded, and Hakyeon kept talking.

            “I’ve thought about copper too, you know, like a dark reddish color? And maybe blonde. But I don’t know if I would like the blonde as much.”

            Hongbin just smiled.

            “I think you’d look good in just about anything.”

            Hakyeon looked sideways at him.

            “But no orange.”

            At this the elf started laughing again, a deep laugh that had him stop walking. Hongbin grinned.

            “You’re right, no orange.”

            They were getting closer to Hongbin’s apartment, and the lights were going off around them as they walked. Hongbin turned the corner to his apartment, and Hakyeon paused.

            “What’s wrong?”

            He chewed on his bottom lip for a minute, looking across the street at the park that was by Hongbin’s building.

            “Can we go sit over there for a while? It’s still nice outside, and I want to watch the stars some more.”

            Hongbin was going to point out that there were probably many more stars that he could see from his room up in his tree, but he just nodded anyways.

            “Sure, there’s a little hill just a little bit from here, it’s right next to the creek that runs here.” Hakyeon looked up at him with bright eyes, and tugged at Hongbin’s arm.

            “Lead me there!”

            Hongbin started directing them to the place he was thinking of, but they passed the playground and of course Hakyeon stopped, and dropped Hongbin’s hand to go over to the swings.

            “Did I tell you the swings were my favorite as a kid?” Hongbin faintly remembered hearing something about it, but he didn’t say anything, letting Hakyeon continue.

            “I love the feeling of it, you know? Of being off the ground, defying the force of gravity. If I could, I would grow wings. I would love to fly, if I could do anything. It’s such a nice feeling, just moving through air without anything supporting you. I was always the one who jumped off the swing, none of my friends did.”

            Hongbin could absolutely picture Hakyeon sliding out of a seat and just floating for a split second in space, before dropping back down to earth. Hakyeon was doing just that, swinging higher and higher, legs pushing and pulling the swing through the air. As soon as he had deemed it high enough, he let go, and leaned forward, leaving the swing and jumping. It was almost slowed down for Hongbin, watching the way his hands spread and the way his face turned upwards.

            When the elf did hit the ground, rolling to a stop, he fell back onto the sand. Hongbin went over and started pulling on his arm.

            “Come on, you’ll get sand all over you.”

            Hakyeon stood and shook the sand out of his hair, and followed Hongbin off of the playground and back onto the grass. It wasn’t much longer until they found the slight hill, and Hongbin led him up to the top. There was a nice view of the sky, as nice as you could get, Hongbin supposed. Hakyeon flopped down again.

            “This is nice.”

            Hongbin sat down next to him, folding his legs.

            “Yeah, it is.”

            Hakyeon was humming, some tune that sounded like something Hongbin had heard back in the forest. He was pretty content to just sit there and listen, but Hakyeon swung his legs and sat up, scooting closer to Hongbin.

            “Thanks for tonight. It was fun.”

            Hongbin nodded, turning his head to look at Hakyeon, who was smiling. As he watched, Hakyeon straightened up, and sat his head down on Hongbin’s shoulder, still looking up at him. He moved again, this time bringing his face level to Hongbin’s. He was close, close enough for Hongbin to almost feel his nose brush against his cheek. His arms slid up and around his neck again, and finally pulled him close enough to graze his lips along Hongbin, who brought him back, deepening the contact. The kiss left him feeling dizzy, and this time he was sure it wasn’t just from lack of air. Hakyeon moved back just enough that Hongbin could still almost taste his lips, and smiled.

            “Now here, I would like to keep you forever.”

            Hongbin laughed softly.

            “You might as well.”

that's the end!!! thanks for sticking with it!!! i've read and reread all the comments and thank you all omg

i never really anticipated anything coming from this at all tbh i've never really written and finished a big thing

i'm sorry it took longer to get this one to you, i wanted to make sure that i got the feel that i wanted out of the chapter, and i'm pretty satisfied, i think.

i don't think i'm done writing yet though

it'll most likely be in the same universe, since i've got this one nicely developed in my head. maybe some more learning about the other boys?

that or i might just make an entire thing for just one shots that i might write. if i wrote one shots, would other pairings be open or should i just keep chabean? i dunno

maybe I'll take requests?

i dunno, but i'll get something started and posted hopefully soon!

thank you all so much for reading and commenting and subscribing and everything!

~Win