Archive of Our Own

“You should have just—I told you to leave quickly,” Seungcheol hisses again.

He’d already gone over this entire spiel once while he dragged Seokmin bodily to the hotel room, positioning his body firmly between Seokmin and the hordes of “fans” who had camped outside, clamoring for a signature or a wave or a smile.

They’d been told already that tonight might be unsafe. Manager Yeongwan was with them tonight, a man in his late thirties, born with the gift of magic. Magic wasn’t unknown, but it was uncommon—and the need for that extra dimension of security was a good indication that there could be other magic users in the crowd tonight, another layer of worry. It was dangerous, especially for idols, and nobody in their group was a magic user. Seungcheol had stressed to them not to engage—to get to their rooms as quickly as possible, but Seokmin hadn’t listened.

It was disconcerting enough on its own, to return to their hotel after a busy schedule just to be greeted by a crowd of bodies pulsing with energy and know that they were expected to keep working, keep being an idol even in the spaces that they haven’t been warned about. As much as Seokmin didn’t want to encourage the behavior, he couldn’t help but give in, his smile like a mask that he wore way past curtain call, because the show didn’t end for him until his body hit the bed, until he knocked out. And these fans always drilled into his points of weakness. They would think something was wrong if he didn’t keep a smile on his face, if he didn’t go to them with as much energy and interest as he always had.

Seungcheol was understandably pissed.

It was going fine, Seokmin swears it was, but he’d smiled at somebody for a second too long, perhaps too sincere—maybe it looked like he was playing favorites—and someone tumbled into him from behind. They’d gotten through the crowd somehow, running their hands across Seokmin’s chest in a move so disconcerting and uncomfortable that Seokmin had just stood there and let it happen, bright pink spots flashing in front of his eyes like he’d been stunned, until Seungcheol had pushed them bodily away—something security should have done, but—well. It was too late for that.

Manager Yeongwan had gotten to them too slowly, after that fan touched Seokmin.

“Dokyeom-ssi,” he’d called, voice urgent, but by that point Seungcheol had intervened with a voice so commanding and sharp that it shook even Seokmin out of his daze—“Step back, please, caratdeul,” and there was something scary lining his words.

Manager Yeongwan followed them to the elevator, keeping a considerable distance behind them as Seungcheol hissed at Seokmin, “Why didn’t you leave, what were you doing still waiting there?” his eyes flitting along the planes of Seokmin’s face, across his body, cataloging, checking for signs of anything out of place.

Seungcheol wasn’t unreasonable, and underneath the anger and frustration Seokmin could read his pinched face as worry, perhaps even fear. Something shriveled up within him, small and ashamed.

“Be careful,” Manager Yeongwan started to say from behind them. “We don’t know what—Scoups-ssi—”

But by that point Seungcheol was already hanging all over him, and Seokmin’s arm was caught between Seungcheol’s elbow and body and Manager Yeongwan took a look at them pressed together with dread sinking into his eyes and said, “Okay, it’s too late to—you’ll need to stay together. Go up to your room and stay there until I call. Don’t let anyone else in the room, we don’t know if—I need to get your managers—”

He paused and peered at Seokmin, still standing a few paces away. “You’re feeling okay?” he asked carefully.

Seokmin, nonplussed, had replied, “Yeah, I’m…I’m fine.”

And he had been fine. He is fine, even, but now they’re both stuck in this hotel room waiting on Manager Yeongwan to give them a call again, and Seungcheol, stuck in that state of worry without anything to do about it, is pacing up and down the room, everything spilling out of him as anger.

“What were you even thinking, Dokyeom-ah?” he spits again. “Why do you do things like this?”

By now, Seokmin knows not to interrupt, but he can’t stop the wince. He’s too old to be chastened like this, and he’s too experienced to not know better, but—but he had a reason for the way he acted tonight, and he can take care of himself, usually.

“That’s not fair,” he murmurs under his breath.

Seungcheol stops in his tracks. “Not fair?” He looks at a loss for words, his mouth open in a round ‘O’, the inside glistening, red and shiny with spit.

He looks so pretty like this, flushed red and angry and concerned, at the core of all of it, his eyebrows pinched and his eyes all big and glassy with emotion. Seokmin feels a little stuck on each feature, his brain conjuring up contexts.

Seungcheol, flushed red on stage after they’ve just performed Hit; Seungcheol, concerned when one of them hasn’t been sleeping well, when they get hurt, when they’re feeling sick, that same pinch of eyebrows and shining eyes. Seungcheol, forehead shining with sweat as he stood in the sun, as he let his competitiveness get the best of him.

Seungcheol, lashes clumped with the sweat that fell from his forehead; cheekbones and nose bridge and the shell of his ears pink and hot to the touch; Seungcheol—

who is staring back at Seokmin now, eyes intense, dark, waiting.

Seokmin knows he’s wrong, Seokmin knows Seungcheol is just worried, but his mouth works before his brain can tell it not to. “Seungkwan was down there too. We just wanted to—”

Seungcheol makes a frustrated noise, loud, from his chest. It sounds like a groan, and the veins in his neck shine in prominence, his brows furrowed and his lashes dark and Seokmin is almost fascinated by it, the way he wears his anger. Those flushed cheeks, the pink-shelled ears, his hair in disarray. Makeup smudged at the corner of his eyes, his lipstick fading away with every swipe of his tongue across his lip.

“You can’t be—”

When Seungcheol gets really angry his mouth forms a pout on every other word. It’s almost counteractive, the way it makes him look, the way it softens the edge. His lips are bitten red and dark. Seokmin watches them shape the words that Seungcheol directs so passionately towards him.

“—yah, you asshole, are you even listening?”

“Yeah,” Seokmin lies brazenly.

He’s gotten the point, hasn’t he? Seungcheol is only continuing to yell at him now because he can.

Seungcheol gives him a look so cold that Seokmin momentarily regrets it.

He just scoffs under his breath, and then looks up at Seokmin with a frown as he says the next thing, like he knows it’ll hurt. “I was supposed to grab drinks with Jeonghannie and Mingyu after this.”

And now he’s stuck in the room with Seokmin.

Seokmin sighs, his ears flushing, simultaneously feeling hurt and caught out. “You can do that another night,” Seokmin grumbles, and then, “Sorry,” but even his first few words sound more apologetic than the last.

Seungcheol just sighs, like the fight has left him for the moment. He’s sitting on the ground now, back to the wall, tapping one foot against the ground impatiently, nervously.

He tugs off the jacket he’s wearing—still the stuffy silver jacket that they’d been given for their event, and he’s got on a shirt that looks like it feels just as stuffy underneath, but this one is sheer, and Seokmin gets a pretty good view of his arms, of his chest, his belly.

“Is it hot in here?” Seokmin asks after a moment. The nape of his neck feels flushed.

Seungcheol raises a brow at him. “The aircon is running, though?”

Seokmin is still wearing his own stuffy silver jacket, and he’s got a long-sleeve on underneath. He follows Seungcheol’s lead, shrugging his jacket off, the gems and embellishments glinting under the harsh hotel room light.

“Do you think we can—” Seokmin squints, shielding himself from the glare of the overhead light. It grates on his senses, for some reason, and his head is starting to hurt. “Can we turn that off?”

Seungcheol opens his mouth like he’s about to say something snarky.

Seokmin waits him out, knowing he kinda deserves it; but the light really does feel uncomfortable. He could get up to do it himself but Seungcheol doesn’t seem to want him to do anything else for the night.

Seungcheol watches him silently but in the end he gets up to flick on the lamp that sits beside the bed, a dimmer, warmer light, and then crosses the room to switch the main light off. He stops by the aircon unit too, fiddling with the settings for a moment.

Seokmin watches the way his back moves under the sheer shirt. Seokmin tracks his arm, the length of it, stretched out; the way he rolls his shoulders, the sweat soaking into the strands of his hair that are long enough to brush the nape of his neck, the inky black lines of his tattoo.

Seokmin clears his throat, feeling warm, uneasy. The place where he was touched—right across his chest, one side to the other—stings, a sudden phantom sensation of feeling.

When Seungcheol sits back down in front of Seokmin he’s watching him carefully, the frown still there but the fire behind the eyes dimmer.

“Thanks,” Seokmin mumbles.

Seungcheol doesn’t acknowledge that, but he asks, “How—how are you?” And then, at the way it sounds, he grimaces and clarifies, “Like—anything weird? You feel sick?”

Seokmin starts to shake his head no, and then pauses. “Well, I…I feel hot, I think. Hotter than normal. And—”

He wonders if this is an important detail, and decides to share anyway. No use keeping secrets. “When they touched me, I saw—pink spots.”

Seungcheol shares his gaze for a moment, biting his lip.That look is back, annoyance-frustration-worry-guilt. The pink spots are not a great indication that nothing is wrong.

Seungcheol sighs loudly. “Okay. Let me know if anything changes.”

He starts to scroll through his phone again, his fingers in his hair, tugging, messing up the styling. A habit of his.

His hair is pink, right now, but still dark enough to look pretty fanned out across the white hotel pillows. The pink suits him, as does the length, fringe pieces falling into his still dark eyebrows and lashes. Seokmin thinks about brushing it off Seungcheol’s forehead.

Seokmin thinks about tangling his fingers in Seungcheol’s hair and tugging until Seungcheol winces, until he bares his throat to Seokmin. Seokmin thinks about that stupidly red mouth open on a groan, about shoving two fingers in—

Seokmin blinks. What?

No. No.

He clears his throat again, loud, flustered.

Seungcheol angles a glance towards, eyebrows poised in question. Seokmin says, “Nothing, it’s nothing,” before Seungcheol can ask.

Seungcheol stares at him for a long moment, his gaze flitting from Seokmin’s eyes down to his throat for a fraction of a second and then back up again, before he drops it. Maybe he’s decided that he’s feeling nice.

Or maybe not. A moment later he mentions offhandedly, “They put Jeonghan and Mingyu in a room together, don’t know why they did that. I was gonna ask Mingyu to switch rooms with me.”

“Mmm.”

Seokmin is well aware of why Seungcheol is telling him this.

Mingyu and Jeonghan—it isn’t a secret that they don’t match up well as roommates, as much as they get along.

Seokmin himself had been planning on asking Jeonghan to switch to his room, though he supposes it may not end up mattering at all, now, if they’re both stuck in here, if Seungcheol has to spend the night taking care of Seokmin.

Still, he can’t help the knee-jerk twinge of satisfaction at not having been beaten to the punch, and the immediate guilt that follows afterwards, because Seokmin is the one keeping Seungcheol here.

The thing is that Seokmin and Jeonghan get along much better as roommates, so it just makes more sense for them to keep gravitating to each other; but Seungcheol has only ever asked to switch rooms when he wanted—Seokmin coughs.

This isn’t a thing Seokmin does, really—think about what Seungcheol and Jeonghan do when they room together.

Seungcheol is telling him this like he wants Seokmin to know, like he wants Seokmin to think about it, about what he’s missing out on.

Seokmin is not going to apologize again, but he’ll sit here and broil in the bad feelings. Maybe that was the point of Seungcheol bringing it up in the first place.

Either way, he is thinking about it now.

He’s thinking about Seungcheol’s beer-drunk gummy smile and his eyes crinkling when he looks at Jeonghan and forgets that everyone else is in the room. Seungcheol’s cheeks flushed red, and those lips again, the red wetness of them, teeth digging into the plush bottom lip of his mouth, his own teeth, or maybe someone else’s—

Seungcheol’s phone rings, cutting through the silence—a FaceTime request from Seungkwan.

Seungkwan’s face fills Seungcheol’s phone and Seungcheol angles the screen towards Seokmin.

“Are you both feeling okay?” Seungkwan asks.

Seokmin hums and Seungcheol says, a hint of impatience in his eyes that he doesn’t let bleed into his tone, “Yes, we’re fine. Is Manager Yeongwan with you? We—”

“I’m here,” his voice sounds faint, and in the background Seokmin can make out their head of security, a couple staff members, and his own manager hyung.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Manager Yeongwan asks.

Seungcheol turns the screen to himself to respond and Seokmin will gladly let him take this one. He doesn’t mean to zone their voices out, but Seungcheol is distracting, his voice a steady low hum.

If Seungcheol had gone drinking with Mingyu and Jeonghan tonight, he’d probably be in Jeonghan’s room right now. He’d probably be flushed down his throat and neck and chest, and when he finally convinced Jeonghan to come to bed with him he’d probably be so tipsy that he’d start getting pouty about it, all red cheeks and red lips and red ears, red red red and who would follow that flush all the way down his body? Map the route of it on his skin down the firm muscle and the soft belly right to the flushed head of—

Seokmin’s finger prickles with sensation, and he forces himself to stop picking at the skin there. His mouth feels dry.

“Dokyeom-ah,” Seungcheol hisses at him, gesturing at the phone with a jab of his chin.

Seokmin shakes his head and tunes in again, this time with a little more difficulty. Seungcheol tilts the phone screen so it’s facing the space between the two of them, which means neither of them end up in frame, but it’s fine, they can see Seungkwan fine.

“—Jungwoo thinks it might be the same thing as what happened to them,” Seungkwan is saying animatedly, anxiously. “Apparently they had a problem with a sasaeng, she followed them around and everything, and—well, if it is the same thing—and I think it probably is, if the symptoms match up, Dokyeom-hyung?”

There’s a pause, while Seungcheol and everyone on the phone waits expectantly for Seokmin to clarify.

He feels like shriveling up again, like he’s being silly, like he’s being slow. “Um, could you remind me what…those are?”

Seungcheol is looking at him in mild disbelief now, the anger almost softer because of how weird Seokmin is behaving. Seokmin avoids his gaze, embarrassed, unable to look at him without thinking about—

“—have you been, uh, feeling—” Seungkwan pauses and clears his throat. He’s looking for Seokmin on the screen now, but Seokmin stays well out of frame. “Well, have you—”

Seungcheol sighs and interrupts. “Have you been hornier than usual?” he asks crudely.

Ah. That would—explain some things.

His ears feel warm as he nods. “Yeah, I—I guess so,” he mutters. Seungcheol gives him a considering look. His cheeks are pink, too. Seokmin thinks he’s better off not looking at that, so he looks away.

“And you saw the pink spots, too, right?” Seungkwan adds.

Seokmin nods, his gaze fixed on the wall behind Seungcheol, and Seungcheol translates for him, “Yeah, he’s nodding,” and then, verging on sulking, “I told you that he told me he did.”

“Just checking, hyung,” Seungkwan huffs lightly. “And, Seungcheol-hyung, did they—touch you, too?”

“I don’t remember them touching me,” he responds carefully, “But—I think maybe they got to me when I wasn’t paying attention—”

Seokmin is startled into looking up at Seungcheol. “Are you—” he starts to ask, but Seungcheol isn’t looking at Seokmin anymore, and he doesn’t give any indication that he heard Seokmin ask him anything except for the minute shift of his jaw, and the way his brows draw together ever so slightly.

His expression is concentrated and steady, and if Seokmin stays looking any longer his brain is going to start conjuring up scenarios, and imagine that furrowed brow and that intensity and the steady rock of his body against—

“Okay,” Seungkwan says. “There’s no easy way to say this, really.”

Seokmin braces himself, and he feels Seungcheol do the same, even without looking. Even while they both pointedly don’t look at each other.

“It’s some sort of lust spell, inducing feelings or urges so strong until it becomes unbearable,” Seungkwan says in a remarkably steady tone of voice, all things considered.

“Well, more precisely,” he continues, pointedly ignoring the way Seungcheol has broken out into a cough and is trying desperately to suppress it, “Jungwoo said the, uh, only solution is to…fuck it out.” He barely stumbles through the sentence, even though his face is very pointedly devoid of expression. “Manager-nim was explaining something about, some people want to push their desires onto—the people they idolize, sometimes they want that power over them…”

“...Ah,” Seokmin says weakly. “Got it.” Seokmin’s own ears are red hot now.

“Though, Jungwoo did say—um. Just once did the trick, it's just the release that the curse is looking for. So—”

There’s a short silence while it sinks in, while their managers give Seokmin and Seungcheol time to come to terms with this.

Seungcheol starts to say distractedly, “I guess I could call Han—”

“Oh,” Seungkwan says awkwardly. His eyes flit towards Seokmin’s direction.

The implications only sink in belatedly, as slow as Seokmin is right now.

Seungcheol stops talking then, maybe out of guilt, or out of desire for privacy. Either way, his eyes flash up towards Seokmin once and then he looks back down at his phone just as quickly, and Seokmin doesn’t have to be a genius to guess what he was about to say.

Seokmin knows Seungcheol, and Seungcheol is so easy to read.

Something sours in his stomach, unreasonable. “It’s okay, hyung, I can just go to Mingyu’s room,” Seokmin says. His tone comes out all cold and twisted.

Seungcheol doesn’t bother to hide his reaction when he looks up sharply at Seokmin, lips so downturned it could read as disgust. Seokmin meets his eyes defiantly, the silence loud between them.

Mingyu is a calculated choice on Seokmin’s part, yes, but Seokmin doesn’t think Seungcheol has a right to the tick of hurt near his eyes, the way his lips downturn ever so slightly, bitter.

Seungcheol already chose Jeonghan first, didn’t he?

Seokmin’s manager’s voice is tinny over the phone as he offers slowly, “Do we need to call somebody? A service, or something—?” The question tapers off.

Seokmin feels even worse about that option, itchy behind his collar and a constriction at his chest.

Seungcheol makes a sound. “Is it a good idea to involve outsiders like that?” he asks gruffly. “We don’t know who did this—and we shouldn’t—”

“Yes, I would advise against that, Scoups-ssi, Dokyeom-ssi,” Manager Youngwan cuts in, and Seokmin feels a little sick. “The problem is that we don’t know if this particular strain of curse is—contagious.”

“—What?” Seokmin blurts, shocked.

Seungcheol is sitting extremely still in front of him.

Seungkwan makes a concerned noise, and Manager Youngwan continues, regretful, “Ah, there are—some curses that are contagious. Not all are, and at its most basic, the lust spell is not, but the way Jungwoo-ssi explained it to us makes it seem that the curse has been mutated…and given Scoups-ssi’s proximity to you earlier, Dokyeom-ssi, and his symptoms now…”

So even if that fan hadn’t managed to touch him, Seungcheol caught the curse because he was holed up in here with Seokmin all this time.

Seokmin’s stomach feels rotten, something heavy and sick swirling through him. Seokmin was the reason that Seungcheol—

It’s horrible timing that he looks up and makes eye-contact with Seungcheol then, his wide eyes and his puffy lips, and the first thing that flashes through his mind is that he wants to kiss him.

That’s horrible, he’s horrible.

“So what—” Seokmin’s voice comes out hoarse, his tongue dry.

“How—how does it spread?” Seungcheol asks, his tone so carefully even that Seokmin hides a wince. “The curse. How contagious is it?”

“Unfortunately, it’s quite immediate. You contract it upon physical contact and you will stay contagious for as long as you go without release,” Manager Youngwan confirms. “But once you contract the curse and fulfill the requirements of it, you can't be affected again.”

“So," Seungcheol asks, “Even if we did involve anybody else...they'd be cursed, too."

"If that's what you choose to do, we will figure something out," their manager cuts in gruffly. "The priority here is making sure you both can overcome this curse."

But something about that feels so bad.

Seokmin wouldn't be able to live with that, hoisting this off onto some unsuspecting person who should never have been involved in the first place.

Seokmin has already done that once tonight.

“Um,” Seungkwan hedges, and both of them startle. He winces slightly and tries to recover. “You both could—just help each other,” he suggests, though his intonation makes it sound like a question, hesitant for good reason: Seokmin’s eyebrows shoot up, and he doesn’t want to look to see what expression Seungcheol is making. “I mean, you’re both already affected, and you can’t be cursed again.”

Seungcheol’s manager looks just as flabbergasted as Seokmin thinks he’s feeling.

“Seungkwan-ssi, that's—” somebody coughs. Seokmin recognizes him as Seungcheol’s manager. “I mean, is that—safe? What about—is there really no other way to break this curse—?”

“The rules of the curse are simple,” Manager Yeongwan sighs. “There’s only the one way to break the curse, and the alternative is…not pleasant.”

Seokmin’s own manager speaks up at that—“Well, think about it, hyungnim…what Seungkwan-ssi suggests is smart; we don’t have to alert anyone else about what happened, and they both can resolve the curse quietly and efficiently. It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

Seokmin thinks about him and Seungcheol resolving this quietly and efficiently. Seokmin wonders how quiet Seungcheol would really be, if he’d muffle his noises or if he’d let himself get loud like he does when he’s whining about losing, when he’s being a brat; Seokmin wonders if it would take his hand across Seungcheol’s red mouth as he fucked him into silence—

Their manager is nodding thoughtfully now, reconsidering.

“Well,” Seungkwan says hastily. “It’s up to you, ultimately, hyungs.”

Seokmin swallows past the rocks in his throat.

Seungcheol is at the worst stage of upset, the one where he won’t look at Seokmin because he’s angry for real. Seokmin wants him to look. Seokmin wants to look away from him, but he keeps getting stuck on his lashes and his cheeks and the softness of his lips, his chest twinging, the pits of his stomach churning.

“If it’s contagious, I’m not passing it on to anybody else,” Seungcheol responds quietly. “If Dokyeom-ssi is okay with it then I am, too.”

It feels like a slap in the face.

Seokmin nods slowly. His chest is starting to ache, an unfamiliar burning feeling, across the same path that the fan had marked him. “I’m okay with it, too.”

—

The call ends and Seokmin makes no motion to move.

Seungcheol is quietly seething.

It’s a new kind of hell, the awkwardness that comes with knowing what comes next but devoid of all the good bits, the anticipation, the excitement. Seokmin keeps seeing Seungcheol’s bare skin in his mind but it feels so detached from everything else, snippets of film that he has no control over pausing or playing.

Guilt and homesickness and anxiety bubbles in the pit of his stomach along with something suspiciously molten and hot.

Seokmin tries not to think about that last thing, but the problem is that it feels somehow like that the curse has multiplied tenfold in the last two minutes.

Seungcheol is fiddling around on his phone when Seokmin looks up at him. A flash of his screen confirms that he’s texting Jeonghan.

Seokmin wants to be patient with him. Seokmin is costing him his night, costing him an experience and forcing a burden onto him in the same breath.

Seokmin also feels supremely sick now. Every single pore on his arms and legs feels open and raw, somehow, kind of like how it feels when he’s been freshly waxed but also kind of a lot worse than that. His entire body feels hot, to the touch and from within him, as if his insides are filled with lighter fluid and he’s just swallowed a lit match.

Seungcheol is still in that all see-through shirt, and Seokmin can’t not look at him.

Every time Seokmin glimpses a sliver of skin his mind goes crazy with it, flash after flash of images and sounds and sensations, Seungcheol’s tan skin and the red of his tongue, the sensation of his palm across the nape of Seokmin’s neck, the roughness of his body when he collides with Seokmin and doesn’t hold back his strength—

“Are you—” Seokmin tries not to sound impatient. His voice is rough.

Seungcheol finally looks up. “...Sorry,” he mutters insincerely, placing his phone down and walking to the foot of the bed, looking at Seokmin all red-faced and frowny.

“If you wanted someone else here—” Seokmin starts, and he can’t hide the accusation, the sharpness to his tone.

Seungcheol scoffs. “Me? You sound like the one who isn't okay with it.”

Seokmin doesn't respond like he wants to, that it just feels shitty to so clearly be unwanted. They both know who Seungcheol would’ve chosen to be in this room with, and it isn't Seokmin.

“And if you really weren’t okay with it you should've just said something.” Seungcheol is still muttering to himself, sounding more like he hates that this was mandated for them, rather than like he’s saying this out of courtesy or to give Seokmin an out.

“I said I’m fine with it,” Seokmin defends. You’re the one that was forced into this.

“Well, then,” Seungcheol shrugs and leaves it at that.

Seokmin feels stupid when he asks, but he needs to know that he isn’t alone in this. “Aren’t you feeling the curse? How bad is it for you?”

“I’m fine,” Seungcheol says defensively. “It’s probably worse for you right now.”

He’s not looking at Seokmin sitting on the bed when he says it; he’s focused on a spot to the right of him, so infuriatingly intent on the fucking bedding, of all things.

There's an angry red flush down his neck and chest that gives him away. Seokmin's eyes linger on Seungcheol's skin, the sweat that has gathered at the divot below his Adam’s apple.

All at once, Seokmin is too tired, a heaving feeling cresting in his chest if he lets himself think about this for too long, if he tries to parse the source of his want, if he draws lines of cause and effect because all of them are pointing a glaring red arrow back at him.

“Fine, whatever,” he huffs. “Can we do this while you take your clothes off?”

He starts shucking off his slacks to hide the hitch in his voice and falls inelegantly onto the bed, scooting up higher to make space for Seungcheol, rubbing a hand through his hair to get the sweaty strands off his forehead, feeling so stuffy and warm. “Pretend I’m someone else, I don't care, but it's starting to—”

All of a sudden, there's a ringing in Seokmin’s ears and his eyes are stinging. He can barely breathe past the heavy, suffocating feeling in his lungs.

At the same time a tremor of something seems to wrack Seungcheol’s frame, and he closes his eyes for a moment, like he’s dizzy.

Seokmin thinks he understands, he feels so hot that he thinks he’ll burn a hole into the mattress.

When Seungcheol opens his eyes again they’re red-rimmed, like all the heat is sinking into them, settling from his forehead. He shakes his head, a quick, sharp movement no. “When did I say—” he grits. “That’s not—”

He has a knee on the mattress. Seokmin can almost feel the heat of it from here, even though none of their limbs are touching, even though they’re still on separate ends of the bed.

He wants to touch.

He needs to feel Seungcheol’s skin under his fingertips, the corded muscle of his thighs beneath the stupid fancy jeans that they’d been forced to wear for their event, his stomach and his chest and his shoulders and his own hands, hot on Seokmin’s skin—

“—ugh, forget it—” Seungcheol makes a noise, almost crazed, frustrated and angry and needy all at once and all of a sudden Seokmin feels sweet relief spread down his body from the nape of his neck.

“—Hyung,” he chokes out. “Oh my god.”

“Fuck,” Seungcheol gasps, and then he’s fully on top of Seokmin, his thighs pressed flush against Seokmin’s own, his weight heavenly atop Seokmin’s.

All the heat and frustration and the aching melts away like honey, finally soothed.

They barely have time to properly revel in the feeling, because Seungcheol is tugging Seokmin’s t-shirt off, and Seokmin gets stuck trying to tear Seungcheol’s stupid shirt off, all those fucking buttons.

“This stupid shirt—” Seokmin grunts, and then Seungcheol’s hand clasps Seokmin’s own, clammy palm against Seokmin’s knuckles and somehow Seokmin feels that touch in his chest. Seungcheol’s other hand takes the other side of his shirt between his fingers and he pulls, tugs Seokmin’s own hand in counter-movement, brute force that causes all the buttons snap off, his shirt ripping loose.

Something lodges itself in Seokmin’s windpipe, inexplicably difficult to swallow around and embarrassingly obvious. Seungcheol spares a moment to smirk down at him, a little mean, a little angry, and Seokmin could get angry back.

He could, but he chokes down any attempted response in favor of returning to his previous task—mapping out all that skin in front of him firsthand, hands first.

Seokmin smooths a palm across Seungcheol’s chest and watches the way Seungcheol starts to shudder from the crown of his head, his chin jutting out and head tipped back as if Seokmin was tugging him down from the strands of his hair at the back of his head.

Heat so sharp it stings interrupts Seokmin at the thought of tangling his fingers in Seungcheol’s hair and the same train of thought for the second time this night might be indicative of something, he thinks vaguely, so he should get back to that later, if he remembers to.

Right now he feels too good to do anything but blindly touch.

Seungcheol looks like he feels so good, too, pleasure down his spine that Seokmin can feel, Seungcheol’s body so reactive under Seokmin’s fingertips. Seungcheol’s pleasure seeping up through Seokmin’s finger pads, crisp coolness pleasantly tingling all the way up Seokmin’s veins, through the heart of him. It’s as much a reprieve for him as it is for Seungcheol, the touch of skin on skin.

The sick, all-consuming feeling is back in the pit of his stomach, and it feels like hunger now.

Seokmin makes a noise, desperate, a little ugly.

Seungcheol meets his eyes all sharp and angled, his brow stormy. He’s still upset, he’s still—Seokmin’s head hurts too much to parse how much Seungcheol hates that he has to be here. He feels horrible as it is.

“We’ll need more than this—” Seungcheol says hoarsely. He moves away from Seokmin for a mere moment, trying to tug his pants off, and then he’s doubled over, groaning in pain.

The change in proximity hits Seokmin like an anvil to the chest. He coughs and feels it all through his ribs, shuddering through his bones to his fingertips.

“—Hyu—hyung,” Seokmin mutters. He reaches out, almost blinded by the pain, just to try and grab onto Seungcheol’s arm or shoulder or any part of him, just to touch as much of him as he can again. “Don’t do that, hyung, come—”

The curse is getting nastier, morphing into pain twofold even when they remain untouching for just a few seconds. Every time Seokmin breathes in he feels it in his lungs like smoke, like ash; and Seungcheol may have started to feel the effects after Seokmin did, but the curse seems to be growing in him at double speed.

Seungcheol moans again and Seokmin says, harsh, impatient, pained, “—come back, hyung, please—”

Seungcheol does, leaving his briefs and jeans caught somewhere near his knees.

Relief is instantaneous when they touch—but Seungcheol is just as frantic as Seokmin is now, and Seokmin knows they barely have any more time left.

Seokmin thinks he’s fully hard now. He didn’t quite register it before this, not lust like he’s known it to be, but when he grabs Seungcheol by his hips and ruts against him, he feels Seungcheol’s matching hardness against his own and it hits him, then; he feels it all over when they rub together, fuck, that’s skin on skin, that’s Seungcheol against him and he’s just as turned on—

“Dokyeom-ah, you’re so—” Seungcheol chokes out, and Seokmin just does it again, his fingers everywhere, Seungcheol’s palms against his bare chest. The friction feels heavenly just as much as it makes Seokmin itch, all that heat above him, on him, around him, but he needs something inside him, Oh, he needs something inside him, he didn’t realize it until right now but—

“I need,” Seokmin hiccups. “I need, hyung, hyung, I—”

The words feel foreign to his own mouth, at least like this, with present company, and there’s a thrill in that, saying this to Seungcheol. Seungcheol who is so eager to give Seokmin what he needs—

“Okay—” Seungcheol grunts. “Okay, I’ll have to—” He makes a considerable effort to look Seokmin in the eyes, stilling Seokmin’s frantic movements with a hand grasping and holding his jaw in place.

The constriction feels nice, Seungcheol’s fingers pressing deep into Seokmin’s skin, grounding, so Seokmin doesn’t put up a fight.

“If I—if I’m fucking you—”

“—yeah,” Seokmin moans uncontrollably, and he doesn’t even have it in him to be properly embarrassed about it. “You should hurry up—”

“—I’m trying,” Seungcheol grasps Seokmin’s hand and drags it up to the space on the bed by his ear, holding his arm down with just those fingers circled around Seokmin’s wrist. “I don’t have anything to—”

“Use your fingers,” Seokmin gasps out, grabbing Seungcheol’s other hand, tugging his fingers to his lips and sucking two into his mouth, his tongue working the skin between.

Seungcheol’s brow furrows even more and his jaw drops.

A beat passes and Seungcheol’s eyes darken as they hold Seokmin’s gaze, and then he adds a third finger in with the rest, pillowed on Seokmin’s tongue first and then pushing past the ring of his lips, careful but insistent.

Seokmin makes a noise at the back of his throat and his hold on Seungcheol’s hand tightens, his chest on fire, but Seungcheol just keeps watching him, a ghost of a smile on his features.

When Seungcheol pulls his fingers out again they’re glistening, covered with Seokmin’s spit.

“Careful,” Seungcheol remarks lightly, his tone all gravel, “We don’t want to damage your throat.”

The audacity of him. Seokmin raises an eyebrow, and his voice is shot when he says, “I can handle it.”

He lays back against the mattress and makes sure to drag Seungcheol with him, still touching at all the points that they can. He brings a knee up, worming it into the space between their bodies, brushing along the length of Seungcheol’s torso as he does.

He doesn’t feel so exposed, here, because Seungcheol is laying against him, atop him, and every point of contact feels so soothing, almost healing—like the curse wants.

Seungcheol’s fingers touch his rim and he jolts and it feels so fucking good. “Just—do it,” he gasps, writhing, and he watches Seungcheol’s pupils dilate so much that they look black.

Seungcheol can’t see what he’s doing like this.

“Turn around,” he says. “Dokyeom-ah—” His hands move to Seokmin’s waist, and he twists him slowly, keeping them touching as much as he can. “It’ll be easier if you turn around.”

Seokmin manages to worm his way around, his back up, his face against the pillow, Seungcheol’s chest pressed to his spine. They don’t have anything to use, a clear oversight on their part, but Seungcheol seems to know—

He rears his chest away from Seokmin’s body for a moment and Seokmin wails, “Hyung—”

Seungcheol spits, loud and dirty. Seokmin feels suddenly wetter between his legs, and then Seungcheol’s fingers are breaching him, the feeling so wonderful, so overdue.

“Ah,” Seokmin chokes, and Seungcheol just continues working him open, fingers flexing and stretching him, only a shadow of what Seokmin really needs but he already feels so much better like this.

“Okay,” Seungcheol grunts, and it feels like it’s been way too long and barely any time at all, but Seokmin has started to feel antsy with it and his hips keep bucking into the mattress below him. “Okay, I’ll—”

Even through the haze of half-attended lust and ever-growing hunger, Seokmin has it in him to scoff. “You’ve been saying you will for the past—”

Seungcheol’s head breaches his rim and Seokmin’s words fall apart, dissolving into a long, drawn out sound.

Seungcheol huffs again, like he’s suppressing what he really wants to say in favor of warning, “It might hurt. Tell me when to stop.”

“Keep going,” Seokmin hitches. It’s a hard stretch, especially dry, especially when it’s been way too long since Seokmin has done something like this.

But Seungcheol eases into him with a control that Seokmin envies, and somehow every further press of him fills the ache of what Seokmin has been needing so desperately that he barely feels the pain of it, the curse reacting to the intrusion beautifully, turning pain into pleasure, into medicine.

He exhales when he’s fully sheathed, and Seokmin shudders, warm all over. “Good, right?” Seokmin murmurs.

Seungcheol doesn’t answer his question right away. He’s holding still, giving Seokmin time to adjust, panting, but under his breath he sounds like he's cursing. "Fuck, look at you–"

Suddenly, he leans back down, the whole length of chest pressed against Seokmin’s back, like the contact is a drug and he needs a hit. Seokmin swells with it too, tingles all over like Seungcheol is directly in his bloodstream somehow—

“Fuck, hyung, hyung, hyung—”

Seungcheol has to straighten up again to fuck into him properly, but he’s slow and steady with it and Seokmin feels his mind go empty, fully focused for a blissful moment only on how Seungcheol’s hips work against him, on how Seungcheol’s chest presses down onto him each time he thrusts, how the warmth of him feels ten times hotter now that he’s in him, too.

This isn’t going to take long.

Seungcheol is making small grunting noises into the nape of Seokmin’s neck, little puffs of air that warm up the skin there, little hitches in his voice.

He sighs when Seungcheol’s fingers tighten against his hip, turning his head to rest his cheek on his pillow, wetness collecting at the corner of his open mouth as his body turns pliant, loose, all the tension being slowly fucked out of it.

Seungcheol notices. He chuckles like he’s forgotten not to, a sound that reminds Seokmin of Seungcheol in all the other contexts that he knows him, all their shared history, a sharp pang of feeling in his chest.

“Faster, hyung,” Seokmin breathes, trying to distract himself from it.

“Okay,” Seungcheol says, “Okay, Dokyeom-ah, I’ve got you,” and it feels for a moment like all the bite has been forgotten as he follows direction so earnestly that Seokmin feels it all over, in his stomach and down to his fucking toes and all through his lungs, too. The hunger within Seokmin seems to have died down now, and all Seokmin feels in its place is pleasure, warm and content and easy, soothing everything from before.

He’d asked once already, about if this was okay for Seungcheol too, hadn’t he? It’s hard for Seokmin to remember properly, his head this clouded with pleasure, but—

He’ll just have to ask again, then. Seokmin got them into this, so he’ll have to draw the pleasure out for the both of them.

He works back into each thrust now, meets Seungcheol for every movement, turns his head so that he can reach back and place a hand on Seungcheol’s thigh, so he can press down and feel each finger sink a burning print into the skin there.

It feels good to touch Seungcheol, and Seokmin doesn’t know why. Seokmin doesn’t know if it always feels this good to touch Seungcheol.

What he says, though, is, “You feel so good, hyung, you feel—”

But Seungcheol’s eyebrows furrow like he’s said the wrong thing, like he fucked up somehow.

“You get this easy with Mingyu too?” Seungcheol asks instead, his voice a low hum, but it gives Seokmin pause.

This feels bitter, it feels like a dangerous question. It doesn’t feel like Seungcheol has quite forgiven him, but Seokmin answers anyway, trapped in pleasure underneath Seungcheol, wondering what the point is of doing anything else.

“I, ah, wouldn’t know,” Seokmin says, as casually as he can manage when his breath is being punched out of him with every thrust. “I’m—ah—fucking him, when we—”

Seokmin has a feeling that the silence apart from the sounds of their bodies moving together would feel twenty times more stifling if not for the state he’s in right now.

As it is, Seungcheol just makes a quiet, clipped sound in response. “Are you close?”

Seokmin is close.

Seungcheol wraps a hand around him even without Seokmin having to ask.

It’s a foreign feeling—of course it is, of course his leader’s hand around his cock is a foreign feeling, the soft fingers and the cold of the ring on his pinky against Seokmin’s flushed skin.

Seokmin’s moans rise uncontrollably, his head falling back onto his shoulders—and Seungcheol is there, right behind him, his sturdy, wide chest and his cheek pressed to Seokmin’s ear and his hands working him deftly, not saying a word but his breaths are loud, heavy, deep.

Seokmin can feel the curse leaving him, the buzz of it collecting at the pit of his stomach and warmth all down to his toes as he comes, and then the stark laxness of after—the absence of the curse is so much more noticeable now that he isn’t feeling the fervor and the pain and the discomfort.

“...It worked, I think.” He murmurs the words into the pillow, something stopping him from turning around to say them to Seungcheol’s face. Something about coming has been weirdly sobering.

Seungcheol inhales. “...Good,” he says. His voice trembles, and Seokmin can tell his breathing has gotten worse, and he can feel the tension in the way Seungcheol is holding himself so still above him.

“...Hyung—?”

Seungcheol is still burning up, all the parts of him that are touching Seungcheol are sticky with sweat and sweltering, and Seungcheol still seems—

“You didn’t—” Seokmin realizes. “You didn’t…come?”

“I couldn’t,” Seungcheol chokes. “I can’t—the curse is—”

That gets Seokmin moving, faster now that he doesn’t feel so curse-sluggish. He meets Seungcheol’s wild gaze. “It worked for me, I’m sure it—”

He remembers what Seungkwan explained to them, something about the curse wanting power over them, the desires of the sasaeng.

“I think—” Seokmin’s voice cracks. “I think I need to be the one to—”

Seungcheol is unspeaking for a moment, his face unreadable. He’s not letting Seokmin in, he won’t look at Seokmin properly, and it isn’t that Seokmin doesn’t deserve this but he just needs Seungcheol to look at him—

“Fuck,” Seungcheol whispers, so quietly that Seokmin more sees his mouth shape the word rather than hears him say it. “Fuck—” He closes his eyes, head swaying like he’s dizzy.

Seokmin’s chest stutters, his hands at Seungcheol’s jaw, at his neck. “Your turn,” he says quietly. “Hyung.”

Seungcheol lets Seokmin move him, and Seokmin is straddling Seungcheol before he realizes what that means, how that feels.

Even here, Seungcheol is ever the leader, the hyung, tending to Seokmin before dealing with his own curse, withstanding until Seokmin felt good, making sure he felt good because that’s his duty, that’s what he does for them.

What does Seokmin do? Seokmin just gets the others around him in trouble, Seokmin makes Seungcheol pick up after him and deal with the pieces of fallout, and he’s only here because of the curse—when it’s done he’s going to be done with Seokmin, too, so where does that leave them? Where does that leave Seokmin?

Seungcheol chirrups, uneasy, when Seokmin leans down to tug his pants all the way down and Seokmin rushes back to him guiltily, rubbing hands across Seungcheol’s chest to soothe him. Seungcheol’s eyes go hazy and unfocused as he shudders.

“Have you done this before?” Seokmin asks, his voice hoarse. Seungcheol’s cheeks are flushed red and his lashes look as dark as ever.

Seokmin still wants to lean down and bite at those lips.

The shock of that fizzles through his core. Oh. Oh. A muscle jumps near his jaw and he tries to hide it with a swallow.

“Only once,” Seungcheol says quietly after a beat. “With Jeonghannie.”

Where Seungcheol had brought Mingyu up like an accusation, Seokmin thinks of Jeonghan and Seungcheol now and feels such a sharp pang of jealousy streak through him, a feeling that gouges through his chest.

“Ah.” Seokmin swallows again past the dryness of his throat. “I’ll need to—”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol chokes. “Yeah, whatever—I’ll—”

He lifts a knee to his chest, holding himself open with one hand while Seokmin lays over him and touches him everywhere, and Seokmin almost blacks out, everything at such odds with what he knows of Seungcheol, his hyung, his Seungcheol hyung who is so firm and difficult, sometimes, especially when it comes to Seokmin—

“Please,” Seungcheol whispers, like it’s costing him everything. His eyes are squeezed shut. “Just hurry.”

—his Seungcheol hyung who also gives in so easily, when it comes to Seokmin.

But the thought dissolves into something uncomfortable almost immediately. He’s here with Seungcheol because he has to be, and Seungcheol is turned on because he’s been cursed, and all of it is so fucked up and Seokmin can’t help the bitterness at understanding that this scenario exists all due to circumstance.

Maybe if Seungcheol were here with Jeonghan, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Maybe Jeonghan would have never let Seungcheol get infected.

Maybe Seungcheol wouldn't have cared, if it was Jeonghan who passed the curse onto him.

Seokmin can’t help but wonder if he’s the problem. Would anyone have chosen him as their counterpart to this situation? It’s not fair to ask, but it stings to know that he’s nobody’s first choice.

“Yeah,” Seokmin’s hands brush down Seungcheol’s side with a tremor. “I will, I got you, hyung, I’m so—”

I’m sorry.

Seokmin swallows and wills his eyes not to blur.

Spit alone doesn’t seem to be enough. Seungcheol is tight, and Seokmin’s fingers are slender—though possibly around the same size as Jeonghan’s, he thinks, black fog all up in his lungs.

Surely there would be something in this hotel room to help ease the sting—but Seokmin doesn’t want to move away from Seungcheol, not now, and Seungcheol needs him to get inside, Seungcheol needs Seokmin—

Seokmin’s thighs are still sticky with his own cum, and in a flash of dirty-sick-desperation he runs his fingers through the mess and brings it down to Seungcheol’s puckered hole, his chest beating erratically.

It feels so—Seokmin’s cum in Seungcheol like this even if it couldn’t be for real—an indisputable mark of Seokmin on Seungcheol that the curse has no bearing on, a truth that remains past the fake desire that they’ve been forced into tonight.

Seokmin watches Seungcheol’s face pinch when he enters him with two fingers, those dark furrowed eyebrows and his bottom lip between teeth, and it’s only when Seokmin is rearing back that he realizes he was too close, close enough to kiss.

Seungcheol doesn’t seem to notice. He’s slowly relaxing now, opening up easier because of the curse, because they’re satisfying its hunger.

And—of course that means this is an unfair observation, all this manufactured lust and desire—but Seokmin can’t help but think that Seungcheol looks so good like this.

Seokmin moves to three fingers quickly, four fingers efficiently—Seungcheol would’ve been proud, if he were anything other than so caught up in pleasure right now that he’d become whiny with it regardless.

“Hurry up,” he says. “Hurry up, Dokyeom-ah, c’mon.”

It’s all too easy to imagine this voice in a different context now. Seungcheol, bratty when he’s losing a game. Seungcheol, hungry and impatient.

Seungcheol under Seokmin because he wants to be here, opening up so well for him because he loves it, the feel of it, that it’s Seokmin.

“Good, hyung?” Seokmin can’t help but ask again when he enters Seungcheol, that stupid, useless question, because Seungcheol’s answer now means nothing. Seokmin isn’t good, nothing Seokmin has done tonight has been good—

But Seungcheol moans so pretty when he’s speared on a cock, doesn’t he. Seokmin’s heart is loud in his chest, his breaths even louder in the space between them.

“Yeah, yes, yes,” Seungcheol babbles. “Come on, c’mon—hah—Min-ah, it’s good,” and Seokmin flushes with it, gratified even if he has no room to be, because he can’t help how he reacts when he’s told he’s being good, all instinct.

It isn’t Seungcheol’s fault that Seokmin’s mind starts to wonder.

Seungcheol is doing so well, taking Seokmin so well, warm under his fingers and so receptive to it and his other leg wraps around Seokmin’s back carefully and this is all for Seokmin right now, but—

Seungcheol turns his face into the pillow behind him and he makes a sound, soft, and Seokmin reads—misreads—hallucinates—his lips shape the word: Hannie, Hannie.

Seokmin’s hip stutters and Seungcheol whines again. “Don’t—”

“Sorry,” Seokmin says, the first time tonight—or, the first time he means it, and it still isn’t enough. “Sorry,” Seokmin says again, all broken up sounds, and he picks up the pace, he fucks Seungcheol better.

That’s the problem, isn’t it?

It’s the same thing everywhere, it's the same thing every day—Seokmin, surrounded by people who don't mind him but who just want a little more or a little less or a little different.

Seokmin can try and do better, try and change, try to mold himself to the things that others want—but Seokmin can’t not be him, and that’s where it all goes wrong.

Seokmin, so pathetically himself that he makes others hurt with it.

“Can you come, hyung?”

Seokmin’s hand hovers over Seungcheol’s hip. He would touch—he should help—but Seungcheol should ask him for it first, shouldn’t he?

Seokmin’s mental is hanging on by a thread now, and Seungcheol, too, though for a very different reason. Their escape is so near—Seungcheol will be free of him soon, so soon.

“Touch me,” Seungcheol demands, easy, unabashed. How aware is he, that he’s asking for it?

He looks at Seokmin, suddenly, his eyes an inky black, blown wide. Seokmin sees himself reflected in his pupils, and Seokmin’s stomach turns again.

“Touch me, Dokyeom-ah,” Seungcheol repeats, and he drags Seokmin’s hand to him.

“I am,” Seokmin mumbles. “Okay, okay.” Seokmin touches him carefully, though it turns out he doesn’t need to.

Seungcheol seems to like it fast. He moves Seokmin’s hand for him and all Seokmin can do is be moved, do his best to hold Seungcheol in one hand and to thrust into him carefully and to savor all the points of contact because he thinks he might like it now even without the curse—it’s hard to tell, but Seokmin knows above all Seokmin wants to be good at this.

He wants to be good for Seungcheol, he wants this to be good for Seungcheol, and he doesn’t want to wait and watch that fire in Seungcheol’s eyes die when the curse leaves him, when he realizes he doesn’t want to—he doesn’t need to—be here any longer.

Seungcheol comes quietly, his jaw dropped open to that red, red mouth of his.

If Jeonghan were here, maybe he would’ve leaned in to kiss.

Seokmin gives it a beat, watches Seungcheol’s lashes flutter as he catches his breath, and then moves away before Seungcheol has to ask.

—

It takes two days—they’re busy with schedules the following morning, and after the initial once-over from their managers and a hasty explanation to the group members who were out of the loop, both Seokmin and Seungcheol barely see each other.

But it isn’t right for them to let things lie without hashing it out. That isn’t how Seventeen does things, and that isn’t what Seokmin wants for them, either.

He isn’t quite able to get himself to send a message to Seungcheol—what would he even say?

But no sooner has he tucked his phone away than is Seungcheol knocking on his hotel room door, expectant and careful. He’s bare-faced, his hair still drying, dark shadows under his eyes that seem worse in the half-light of Seokmin’s room.

“Can we talk?” Seungcheol asks.

Seokmin gestures wordlessly to the bed—and promptly wishes he’d directed Seungcheol somewhere else, anywhere else.

Seungcheol sits anyway, a soft huff falling from his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Seokmin says quietly, once Seungcheol settles in next to him. “I never said it properly. I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Seungcheol looks at him when he talks, now. His voice is still guarded.

“For—” Seokmin’s voice breaks again, but who is he if he can’t even say it? “For getting you infected. For forcing you into—”

Seungcheol’s lips draw tight.

“I said I would do it. I said I was okay with it. I was okay with it.”

“I know. I know, it’s not like that, but it was still not—I know you didn’t want to be there.”

“I’m sure you didn’t want to be there either, Dokyeom-ah,” Seungcheol says heavily. “It’s not like it was an easy choice for either one of us, it was that sasaeng—”

“I know, but—” It all comes tumbling out of Seokmin, suddenly, silly and emotional and all the worst parts of him thrown up in front of Seungcheol as he tries not to be sick for real. "I shouldn’t have gone down there at all—I should’ve gone straight to my room, I know I'm difficult, hyung, I know I don't—you shouldn’t have had to be there dealing with me," he has to pause to heave a breath, his chest aching right in the center like he’s just run a mile.

Seungcheol looks distinctly worried. He makes an aborted movement to get up, like he wants to come closer to Seokmin.

Seokmin decides to bridge the gap, scooting closer to Seungcheol himself.

“I’m not angry anymore,” Seungcheol starts with a sigh.

“I know,” Seokmin says, watery.

Seungcheol levels him a look, his eyebrows doing a little dance. “Are you crying?” he asks warily.

“I’m not,” Seokmin promises, his voice garbled. Seungcheol peers at him. “I’m not, I’m not! Really, I’m okay.”

“You aren’t difficult, Dokyeom-ah,” Seungcheol says, and this time his voice is so earnest and gentle and firm like Seokmin knows it to be on the best of days, and a tear does fall from the corner of his eyes.

He wipes it away as discreetly as he can manage.

“I know you only went down because of what that manager said to you,” Seungcheol says quietly.

Dokyeom-ssi must be tired lately, hmm? Where’s that smile?

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Seokmin murmurs. “You were telling me for my own good.”

Seungcheol exhales, tapping his foot. He takes Seokmin’s hand in his, a simple grip. “What I am worried about is you thinking you need to keep giving pieces of yourself up to others who don’t deserve it, thinking you need their approval.”

Seokmin nods. “Hyung, too, right?” he asks, because he knows Seungcheol, too.

That’s how the two of them are similar. They understand how it feels, wanting to shed all the part of themselves that others don’t like to turn into somebody others want, only to keep falling short every time.

“...I don’t have all the answers, either,” Seungcheol says.

“It’s hard to stop wanting it, though, y’know?” Seokmin’s chest still feels tight.

“I know,” Seungcheol squeezes his palm. “That’s what got us here in the first place.” Always wanting to be first choice, always wanting number one.

There’s silence between them for a beat.

“Hyung,” Seokmin asks, and his throat feels all dry again. “Did you hate it?”

Seungcheol looks at him sharply. “No—Seokmin-ah, I didn’t.”

“You didn’t really seem to enjoy it, though.”

Seungcheol doesn’t say anything in response, and Seokmin’s stomach sinks. “We should’ve just called Jeonghannie-hyung—”

“You keep bringing him up,” Seungcheol huffs. “Dokyeom-ah…”

Seokmin feels so stupid. “—Tell me you wouldn’t have preferred that.”

Seungcheol looks at him with a grimace, “What are you trying to do, Dokyeom-ah, this isn’t fair—”

“I just mean—” Seokmin huffs, frustrated at how nothing is coming out right. “I know I wasn’t—you wouldn’t have wanted me there if it wasn’t for—everything. And I—”

He’s finding it hard to explain why he wants Seungcheol to have wanted this too, why it’s so important to Seokmin that it’s Seungcheol. Seungcheol, who Seokmin knows is good, who takes care of Seokmin and who only wants the best for him.

“—was it burdensome that it was me?” Seungcheol asks. His tone isn’t defensive; he’s asking like it’s important for him to know.

“It isn’t that,” Seokmin tries. “...I just can’t help thinking that at least you would have had a better time with Jeonghan-hyung, or even Mingyu…”

“I didn’t enjoy it because we were forced into it,” Seungcheol says emphatically. “I didn’t—I couldn't trust that you wanted it for real, I didn't enjoy looking at you and thinking that some–some sasaeng forced you to do what they wanted, that they touched you like that and I couldn’t stop it—”

He’s almost out of breath now, and that dark look is back behind his eyes. Seokmin’s heart skips a beat again, at the fire in Seungcheol’s eyes and the way he looks at Seokmin now, all focus and intensity.

“Do you think you—could have enjoyed it otherwise?” Seokmin can’t help himself from asking, and immediately feels so stupid for it, so desperate.

Seungcheol’s eyes widen slightly. “Do you—do you want that?”

“Never mind,” Seokmin says hastily, turning and pulling his hand out of Seungcheol’s grip. It feels cold without Seungcheol’s warm palm around it. “Never mind, I didn’t mean—”

“We can—work our way up to that, can’t we?” Seungcheol asks softly. He gives Seokmin a considering look.

Seokmin must look really surprised.

“Did you really think I’d say no?”

“Well, you haven’t asked me to before—”

“You haven’t asked me to either,” Seungcheol’s voice grows louder. He’s frowning now, but this isn’t like yesterday, this is what Seokmin is used to, this is Seungcheol being whiny because he knows he can. “You don’t even call me to dinner, let alone—”

Seokmin could almost laugh with it, the relief he feels. “I’ll ask you, then,” he says, combative just because he can be.

Seungcheol snorts at him. “Fine,” he says, and the smile peeks through, like he knows what Seokmin is thinking. “Ask me, then.”

—

“The person who wants to join me for dinner after our schedule~?” Seungcheol calls, booming and already half-pouting, like he’s expecting all their No’s.

“I’m tired, hyung,” Seungkwan says, frowning at him. “Jeonghan hyung and I are just going to head back home.”

Seungcheol rolls his eyes and opens his mouth.

Seokmin catches his eyes from across the room, and Seungcheol, inexplicably, starts to pinken, his mouth still open, poised to whine.

Seokmin has a moment to consider. Seokmin thinks of Seungcheol, red-faced, red-lipped, hazy and beautiful.

“Take me with you, hyung,” Seokmin calls, surprising even himself. In his periphery, he can make out that Mingyu's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Seokmin ignores him. “Hyung is treating, right?” he grins, false bravado.

Seungcheol gives him a look, silent for longer than this conversation warrants.

“...Whatever, you brat,” he says.

When he turns away Seokmin catches the smile he can’t quite hide, his cheeks high and the back of his neck flushed red.