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The first thing that happens is that Sunghoon sleeps with Jungwon.
The second thing is that he tells Jay about it.
He needs to tell someone. He needs to tell someone to alleviate the itching under his skin, the way it makes him want to claw his own skin off, so tender even to his own touch that he can’t sit still. He needs to move. He needs to tell someone.
So he tells Jay.
Understandably, his initial response is slightly tetchy. Everyone knows about Jay, and Jay and Jungwon, and how Jay’s feelings for Jungwon don’t quite match up to Jungwon’s feelings for Jay. It’s old news, which is how Sunghoon ended up in bed with Jungwon. Or—it was because Jungwon asked, and Sunghoon didn’t say no, and he didn’t have to worry about what Jay would think about his best friend sleeping with his—well, Sunghoon doesn’t know what they are, exactly. He just knows that he wouldn’t want anything like that for himself, because it would probably break him to want something like that, and Jungwon and Jay were part of the reason why Sunghoon is so skeptical of love these days.
For himself, anyway.
“Just, like, why him?” Jay asks. He manages to sound totally nonjudgemental as he says it, and Sunghoon has no idea how. If it were him, he would be seething with jealousy. He doesn’t know anyone as jealous as he is, except maybe for Heeseung, who is even more jealous. He believes in true love, a real lover boy, so that’s understandable.
“He offered,” Sunghoon says. If he were cooler he would give a nonchalant little shrug, like it wasn’t actually that big of a deal to him.
Jay probably thinks that it wasn’t, since this isn’t the first or second or even the third time he’s been a sounding board for Sunghoon’s inexplicable, inescapable post-hookup anxiety. Or maybe that’s why Sunghoon can’t fake detachment in front of him. He knows too much.
Jay looks expectantly at Sunghoon for a few more seconds, like he’s expecting more of a story. Then he snorts. “You’re kind of a slut, aren’t you?” he says.
It’s true. Sunghoon had never seriously considered saying no. Jungwon had turned his big eyes on Sunghoon, had clutched the front of Sunghoon’s shirt and whispered to him. He was a little tipsy. His breath smelled sweet, and it had been very simple for Sunghoon to want him back right then. All that existed of the world was them and Jungwon was uniquely familiar, which was what made Sunghoon let his guard down so quickly.
It wasn’t that he had feelings for Jungwon—not beyond friendship, or fondness, and maybe even the tiniest bit of lust. Not like Jay, and that was all that really mattered. But Jungwon must have noticed the way Sunghoon’s gaze lingered on his smile, on how weak he was whenever Jungwon pouted at him, heat twisting in his belly when Jungwon turned his catlike eyes on him. Jungwon was needy, and Sunghoon was willing, and it just—it just made sense. So Sunghoon didn’t say no, and they slept together, and in the morning Sunghoon didn’t feel any of that heat when he looked at Jungwon anymore. Just release.
“I really am,” Sunghoon admonishes, and Jay frowns, like it’s not the answer he was looking for even though he was the one who said it in the first place.
That makes discomfort prickle in Sunghoon’s belly—this is a running joke between them, Jay’s not supposed to take it seriously. Sunghoon is a slut. Self-proclaimed. He sleeps around and then gets anxious about it. It’s a thing, and Jay is supposed to make Sunghoon feel better about it.
“It’s just—I thought you had that thing,” Jay says. Sunghoon’s brows furrow. He doesn’t follow. Jay clears his throat awkwardly, and when Sunghoon still doesn’t say anything, he speaks again. “You know. With Heeseung-hyung.”
Rumor has it that Lee Heeseung has never dated one person at a time, but what he and Sunghoon are doing isn’t dating, so it’s not weird that Heeseung isn’t seeing anyone else right now. He even told Sunghoon that he hasn’t slept with anyone since the rebound hookup after this last boyfriend, which makes sense because he’d been a wreck for months after that breakup. Heeseung doesn’t like to talk about it so they don’t ask him, and Sunghoon thinks it would be weird to know too much, anyway, because Heeseung has always been what Sunoo would call an alarmingly private person.
They haven’t even kissed. Maybe it’s presumptuous of Sunghoon to think that Heeseung wants to kiss him, but he’s pretty sure that’s the direction they’re going in. He’s gotten efficient at telling when people want him, and he thinks that Heeseung does. It’s why he’s been giving Sunghoon so much special treatment recently.
Heeseung announces his presence with a loud sigh as he dumps his bag onto Sunghoon’s table. Sunghoon startles slightly. He hadn’t even noticed Heeseung coming up behind him, even though he’d turned the volume all the way down on his headphones.
Heeseung slides into the chair opposite Sunghoon’s, taking in his startled expression. “I didn’t scare you, did I?” he says. He retrieves his laptop from his bag with another drawn out sigh.
He’s looking at Sunghoon all softly, his dark brown eyes fond at the corners. Sunghoon’s fingers twitch on his keyboard. He isn’t used to Heeseung looking at him like that, like how Jungwon looked at him over the weekend before he put his hand down Sunghoon’s pants.
Sunghoon wonders if Heeseung knows. If he cares, and what it would mean if he did.
Sunghoon looks away and picks at the hangnail on his thumb. He really needs to oil his cuticles, or check out the new hand lotion Sunoo had recommended to him.
“Not at all,” he says. One less thing to be afraid of, he decides. And this is their routine, anyway: every Monday and Wednesday, after Heeseung gets out of his Access and Equity in Music Education class, he meets Sunghoon at their table in the library, and they study together until Sunghoon has his Perceptual Motor Learning class in the late afternoon.
Usually, they spend the two hours they have together sitting in near-total silence. Sunghoon doesn’t feel like he has to fill it like he does with other people because he knows that Heeseung will always come back next time, and probably spend half the weekend at the apartment Sunghoon and Jongseong share anyway.
Today, though, Heeseung starts fidgeting after only fifteen minutes together. Sunghoon takes off his headphones, still silenced, and Heeseung shuts his laptop.
“Will you go to lunch with me?” he says. “My treat.”
He reaches across the table for Sunghoon’s hand, lying next to his laptop. He touches his fingers to Sunghoon’s knuckles. They’ve never gone out to eat together, just the two of them. Jake or Jay is always there, or both of them, or it’s all seven of them. Never just Heeseung and Sunghoon.
“Sure,” Sunghoon says, and he thinks that he must sound at least a little bit cool, like he never can around Jay. Heeseung’s smile, heart shaped, makes him feel cool.
The first time they kiss, Sunghoon makes him bleed.
He tastes copper before he registers Heeseung’s sharp inhale. Everything comes through a haze, everything muted except for the softness of Heeseung’s lips, and the firm grip he has on Sunghoon’s waist.
“Aahh,” Heeseung whimpers, and pulls away. His mouth is crimson, his own blood smeared over his lips. One of his hands burns against Sunghoon’s skin. He lifts the other and dabs at his mouth with the corner of his sleeve. It’s a little gross. It should be, anyway, but Sunghoon can’t look away. He wants Heeseung’s mouth on his again. He wants Heeseung to touch him again.
“I hurt you,” Sunghoon whispers. His hands curl in the front of Heeseung’s shirt. Heeseung hasn't moved away, still has Sunghoon pressed up against the wall in their private study room. One of his thighs is sandwiched between Sunghoon’s.
“Not really,” Heeseung says. He licks his lips. “Felt good.”
He touches Sunghoon’s face, thumbing over his cheek, over the mole on the bridge of his nose. Then he slides Sunghoon’s lip back and presses the pad of his thumb to the sharp tip of Sunghoon’s canine.
“You’re like a vampire,” he says. “Fangs. Sleeps all day. Unreal beauty.”
He leans in until his mouth is just a breath away from Sunghoon’s. “The most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” he says.
Sunghoon trembles. No one has ever called him beautiful before. Handsome and hot and pretty, but never beautiful. Beautiful is the way Heeseung looks at him. The way he kisses him, the way he holds Sunghoon’s chin and admires him like he’s some kind of god—
A pinprick of blood wells up on Heeseung’s lip. Sunghoon leans in and licks it away.
Heeseung doesn’t start seeing anyone else, not even when the kissing escalates to heavy petting, not even when he goes to that party over the weekend and two girls give him their phone numbers. He doesn’t even save them. He goes home alone and texts Sunghoon good morning instead, and then they study together in the afternoon, and Sunghoon skips his class so that Heeseung can take him to dinner.
I thought you had that thing, Jay had said. With Heeseung-hyung. But it isn’t a thing. If it were, Sunghoon would be freaking out about it on default. And he isn’t. He isn’t freaking out about it at all, not about the study dates or the lunch dates or the kissing or the good morning texts. They’re just things now, that happens, that Sunghoon happens to like. A lot.
It’s too hot for clothes. This must be why Heeseung is so keen on taking Sunghoon’s off.
“You’re so modest,” he says as he carefully unbuttons Sunghoon’s shirt. He goes one button at a time, drawing it out so painstakingly that Sunghoon, out of his mind with how much he wants it and how desperately he’s trying to suppress it, pinches his lips together to stop himself from begging him to go faster. “And with a body like this? Most people would want to show it off.”
Heeseung hasn’t touched him yet. There’s just this—his knuckles brushing against Sunghoon’s chest, down his belly, as he works his shirt off. Even so, Sunghoon is shaking. He’s shaking from his fingertips to his knees, and Heeseung must be able to feel it, because after he pushes Sunghoon’s shirt off his shoulders, he cups his face with both hands.
“You’ll show me, won’t you?” he says. “Just me?” and Sunghoon nods.
He takes off all of Sunghoon’s clothes before he touches his own. The air conditioner raises goosebumps on Sunghoon’s skin, and he resists the urge to cross his arms over his chest. He wonders for a second if Heeseung won’t undress at all, but it’s too hot not to. Instead, Heeseung is distracted at the sight of Sunghoon’s cock until Sunghoon touches his shoulder and he curses quietly under his breath. He sheds his own clothes without a hint of hesitation and then pushes Sunghoon to his bed, haphazardly made. No more drawing it out.
Sunghoon wishes that the sheets were smoother underneath him as Heeseung climbs on top of him, but then Heeseung is mouthing at his chest, the soft wetness of his lips against Sunghoon’s collarbone. His hips land in the general region of Sunghoon’s groin, making Sunghoon inhale sharply. He fists one hand in Heeseung’s hair and commits to memory Heeseung’s resulting gasp.
“Show me,” Heeseung breathes. His lips catch on the bud of Sunghoon’s nipple, his hand spread across Sunghoon’s abs. He grinds his erection into Sunghoon’s thigh, a steady, addicting roll of his hips that makes Sunghoon throw his head back, his cry muffled in Heeseung’s pillow. It smells like him, like cotton candy and summer.
He’s done this before, with different people—not too many, he thinks—for different reasons, but he feels virginal as Heeseung works one finger, and then two, and then three into him. He’s gentle, unobtrusive, as he spreads Sunghoon’s legs and fits himself in between. He doesn’t kiss Sunghoon until the moment it’s time to fit himself inside, slicking his cock in one hand and touching Sunghoon’s lips with the other.
“Yeah,” Sunghoon whispers, and Heeseung exhales deeply, stroking Sunghoon’s cheek, closing his eyes and shivering as the head of his cock disappears past Sunghoon’s rim.
Sunghoon feels pressure, and fullness, but blissfully no pain. He hears Heeseung’s uneven panting, a soft groan when Sunghoon clenches involuntarily, the squelch of lube when Heeseung bottoms out.
Sweat drips along the dip in Sunghoon’s spine and it’s all sticky, the sheets clinging to his back as his body is jolted with the force of Heeseung working his hips, building up a rhythm that makes stars burst behind Sunghoon’s eyelids.
His nails dig into Heeseung’s shoulders. He can feel the muscles shifting under Heeseung’s skin with each of his thrusts, his whole body responding to the pleasure that Sunghoon’s gives him. “Hold me,” Sunghoon says, “please, hold me,” and Heeseung does, catching Sunghoon when he lurches up into his arms, sitting back on his haunches and letting Sunghoon settle in his lap.
The new angle sinks Heeseung’s cock deeper. Sunghoon whimpers.
“I’ve got you,” Heeseung murmurs. Sunghoon squeezes his eyes shut and claws at Heeseung’s back and Heeseung kisses his temple. He presses his hand against the small of Sunghoon’s back, the tips of his fingers falling into the crease, the sweat beading on his skin.
It’s dirty. Sunghoon wants more. He clutches Heeseung to him, so close he could be under Heeseung’s skin. Heeseung’s other hand slides under Sunghoon’s thigh, urging him to move. Guiding him.
“I have you,” he says, and Sunghoon braces himself on his knees, tipping his forehead against Heeseung’s. It’s too hot. “So good.”
Sunghoon doesn’t know if Heeseung is referring to the sex or Sunghoon or—whatever this is. Whatever they are. All he knows is the sensation of Heeseung’s cock dragging against his walls with each twitch of Sunghoon’s hips, with each of his breaths, the moan ripped from Heeseung’s throat as Sunghoon presses forward and connects their lips.
All for Sunghoon. All his.
The morning after they have sex for the first time, Heeseung takes Sunghoon on a picnic. He holds Sunghoon’s hand on the walk to the park, making sure he doesn’t run away.
Heeseung isn’t much of a cook but he’s good when he tries, which is apparently what he’d been doing while Sunghoon was asleep in his bed. He cooks, and then he holds Sunghoon’s hand, and then he makes him laugh until he can’t breathe.
It’s nice. Peaceful. Sunghoon likes that he doesn’t think about his existential dread when he’s with Heeseung. He only thinks about it after, when he’s alone, which means that maybe he should never leave Heeseung’s side, and then he’ll never feel like that again. It’s a decent theory, seeing as the evidence hasn’t changed in all the months Sunghoon has been keeping track.
After they eat, Sunghoon sprawls out on Heeseung’s picnic blanket and lies with his head in Heeseung’s lap. He weaves dandelions into Sunghoon’s hair and Sunghoon closes his eyes so that he isn’t overwhelmed by the way Heeseung looks down at him. The delicate way he touches Sunghoon’s hair is already too much.
He feels like he’s in a movie. Maybe he is, and everything is a simulation, and maybe the universe just wants to see how long Sunghoon can last without freaking out when he’s given a good thing. Something real.
“Sometimes I wish I could start my whole life over,” Heeseung murmurs, and Sunghoon opens his eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asks. He’s never had the same thought himself—it’s too impossible, and he doesn’t spend much time thinking about things that simply can’t be.
Heeseung shrugs. He doesn’t stop petting Sunghoon’s hair, and the movement of his fingertips across his scalp send dizzying little pricks of pleasure down Sunghoon’s spine. It’s difficult to keep his eyes open. “I think about what it would be like to live as someone else, and sometimes it makes me wish I’d made different choices,” he explains.
“Like what?”
Heeseung shrugs. “Where I went to school. My extracurricular activities in middle school. My personality.”
“I like your personality.”
Heeseung shrugs again. He chews on his lip. “I just feel like I could be better if I could do it all over again,” he says. “And I would now, but it’s too late to change my image. Everyone’s already made up my mind about me.”
The movement of his hand stills. Sunghoon closes his eyes and leans into his palm, and Heeseunng resumes petting him absentmindedly.
“But I wouldn’t have any of the things I have now if I changed things,” he says. “I like most things. I can’t change the rest.”
He brushes his knuckles over Sunghoon’s cheek. Sunghoon reaches up and grabs his wrist, holding him there.
“You don’t have to,” Sunghoon says. “You’re so good.”
Heeseung’s hand twitches and squishes into Sunghoon’s cheek.
“I would keep you in my life, if I got to choose,” he says. “No matter where I am, I’d want you there, too.”
Sunghoon tugs Heeseung’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles. Heeseung’s cheeks are a rosy pink, and he glances away when Sunghoon blinks up at him. Vulnerability softens the lines of his face.
“Take me, then,” Sunghoon says. “Take me everywhere.”
Heeseung nods, small and resolute. Sunghoon dozes in his lap, his hair full of dandelions.
At the crux of it all: Sunghoon has never been good at letting go. He thinks that maybe he’s never let go the way he should, always letting people take away chunks of his heart that don’t belong to them, lingering in places that no longer exist anywhere but his head, a little too focused on the what ifs instead of what he has.
It happened with figure skating. It’s happened with every person he’s ever touched. He plots whole conversations in his head and they never go according to plan because people are never what he expects them to be, always more unpredictable, rougher around the edges than they should be.
He’s never been courageous enough to ask for anything different, and he knows he wouldn’t get what he asked for if he did.
Heeseung doesn’t bring up the thing with Jungwon until they’re on the beach, walking the shore as the sun dips low on the horizon.
“Oh,” Sunghoon says, and blinks. “I kind of forgot about that.” Then he realizes how that sounds and adds, “Sorry. I’m kind of a slut.”
Heeseung turns his head and looks at Sunghoon with a vaguely unreadable expression. “You shouldn’t call yourself that,” he says. “It’s okay to want things.”
It wasn’t wanting them that was the problem, Sunghoon thinks. It was why. He thinks of how to say as much, practicing the dialogue in his head until it sounds right to him, but by the time he’s ready to say it out loud, the moment has passed. Instead, Heeseung speaks.
“Promise me,” he says, grabbing Sunghoon’s hand and twisting their pinkies together, “if anything ever happens, we won’t do that again. The hookups with strangers. The rebounds. It wasn’t good for you.”
He says it almost like a joke even though Sunghoon knows that he’s serious—that he means what he’s saying wholeheartedly, because he always does. It’s probably a cruel thing to joke about. A cruel thing to say at all.
“It wasn’t good for you either,” Sunghoon says, and Heeseung hums noncommittally, his pinkie still laced with Sunghoon’s. He kicks a pebble into the water.
They walk a while longer, and eventually Heeseung’s hand slips out of Sunghoon’s. It’s such a small thing, and it means nothing. Sunghoon has always been certain that Heeseung would come back to him, but this time panic bubbles up in his throat and makes his chest tight. Suddenly, he can’t breathe.
“You can’t leave me,” Sunghoon blurts. “I probably won’t ever get over it if you do. It’ll hurt a lot and then it’ll sting forever and it’ll ruin our friendship because I’ll never be able to look at you the same way again. So. You can’t.”
It’s the closest Sunghoon will ever muster to a confession. I like you doesn’t have the same edge to it. I like you doesn’t say any of the things that make Sunghoon insane about Heeseung, like that he didn’t think it would ever be worth it to have this heart broken again just for love but Heeseung made him try again, and if Heeseung broke his heart he would be used and washed up and devastated for the rest of his life for real. Sunghoon can’t control it at all, that’s how bad it is.
It’s so bad that it keeps Sunghoon up at night, with pains in his chest that echo just like heartbreak do. It’s as though he’s preemptively mourning the thing he’s so afraid of happening and he hadn’t even realized when it had started to mean so much to him. He never would have let it happen if he’d thought that it could, because he believes with equal and absolute certainty that he won’t be enough, that Heeseung will move on just like the others did, that something so good couldn’t possibly be real, not for him.
“No, you would,” Heeseung says. “Everyone gets over it eventually. You would.”
He’s standing very close to Sunghoon, and he must not know how this makes his heart race. He smells like candy, like something from Sunghoon’s childhood. Bubble gum? Cotton candy. Sunscreen, his face is glowy with it. His voice wavers when he speaks.
“Not over you,” Sunghoon says.
Heeseung blinks. He’s startled. “Well, I’m not going to leave you,” he says, very simply.
It sounds real. Sunghoon should probably expect more, would usually need more, but Heeseung says it like he says all the things he’s certain of. He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it.
Sunghoon’s hands are sweating. He wipes them on his pants. “Good,” he says. It’s enough for now.
“Good?” Heeseung confirms.
Sunghoon nods. Heeseung reaches for his hand again. It’s enough.