Chapter Text
There was a low hum to the courtyard, the kind that belongs to college campuses and sunny days— the thrum of half-laughter, birds, and students sighing into their salads. Spring was trying its best. There were blossoms overhead and bees that keep mistaking the edges of paper cups for flowers. The ground was warm, the benches were stone, and the boys were exhausted.
Jongho flops backward onto the grass like he’s just returned from war.
“If I ever take another 8am seminar, please just kill me.”
“Wasn’t it your idea?” Mingi snorts, opening a bag of chips.
Jongho doesn’t answer. He groans instead.
“I like it,” Yunho says, popping a clementine into his mouth. “The professor used the phrase ‘ cultural masochism’. That’s awesome.”
“You’re deranged,” Wooyoung says, not looking up from his phone.
“You’re failing the class.”
“I prefer not to engage with colonial frameworks. That’s my truth.”
“Your truth is you haven’t opened the book.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m just saying, if I’m pulling a double shift tomorrow and still showing up to lecture, you all can manage ten pages of reading.”
They descend into a bickering mess. Yeosang is half-asleep in the sun, headphones around his neck. Wooyoung convinces Jongho to balance a yogurt cup on his knee. The world blurs in quiet contentment.
At the edge of the group, Seonghwa is curled like a question mark.
He’s in a dove grey cardigan, legs crossed, hands around a drink that might’ve once been tea. His lunchbox sits open but untouched beside him— a neat arrangement of things that have barely shifted since they were unpacked. There’s a little apple in the center of the group, too, peeled and cut in spirals by San with absurd care.
“Didn’t want it,” San had said with a shrug, placing it between them. “Take it if you want.”
No one does.
Yet.
“You guys going to the party this weekend?” Wooyoung asks suddenly, spraying crumbs.
“What party?”
“Some guy’s birthday thing,” Mingi explains. “House party. DJ, lights, free pizza—”
“—Cheap beer and sweaty regrets,” Jongho mutters.
“Exactly,” Wooyoung says proudly. “Who’s in?”
Yeosang raises a hand lazily from beyond the grave. “I could use a night off.”
“I’m going,” Mingi says, mouth full.
“If there’s music, I’m dancing,” Wooyoung declares. “If there’s dancing, I’m drinking. If I’m drinking, I’m making bad decisions.”
“We know,” Yeosang says flatly.
“It’s the highlight of every party,” Seonghwa murmurs, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“ Thank you, ” Wooyoung gasps, grabbing his arm in mock swoon. “Are you coming or are you going to mysteriously ghost again?”
“I’m akin to a breeze.”
“You’re anti-social. ”
“They’re synonymous.”
Hongjoong shifts slightly, elbow resting near Seonghwa’s cup. He hasn’t said anything yet. Just watches the way the other’s fingers tap the side of it. Restless. Rhythm, rhythm, pause.
“You going?” Yunho asks him.
Hongjoong blinks like he forgot he was even present, let alone addressable. “Yeah,” he says. Then, after a pause, “I’ll go.”
“He’s only going if you go,” Wooyoung stage-whispers toward Seonghwa, who gently thwacks him with a paper napkin.
“You’re so annoying.”
“And yet,” Wooyoung sighs, leaning into Seonghwa’s shoulder, “you love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
Hongjoong smirks faintly but doesn’t deny it. His gaze flicks up again — not at Wooyoung, not at anyone else. Just at Seonghwa’s hand, still drumming soft against the cup from its hiding place of his sweater.
“ Well?? ” Mingi asks Seonghwa. “What’s the verdict?”
He hesitates for half a beat. Hongjoong notices.
“I’ll think about it,” Seonghwa says eventually, voice light. “Depends how dead I am after my morning shift.”
“ Please come,” Wooyoung pleads dramatically. “We’ll dress you in glitter. It’ll be healing.”
They all laugh again. Another bag of chips opens. Jongho’s complaining about exams and picking up too many credit hours. Yunho’s making plans to pregame and balance his morning presentation the next day. Seonghwa’s leaning into the sun a little more now, sleeves still long, hands still hidden — but something in him has loosened.
When a gust of wind catches his bangs, he lifts a hand to tuck them behind his ear. Yunho wordlessly passes him a napkin like he always does, a habit more than a thought. Seonghwa smiles at him, grateful, and folds the napkin carefully on his lap.
Hongjoong watches all of it.
He tries not to. He peels the label off his soda bottle. He tosses crumbs to the ants near his shoes. He forces himself to laugh when Wooyoung makes a stupid joke.
But when Seonghwa leans forward to throw away the limp lettuce scraps, his sleeve drags back.
Just a little.
And Hongjoong’s world tilts.
A single line — thin, bright and red, too fresh to pretend it isn't new — sits stark against the soft inside of Seonghwa’s wrist. It's gone again in a blink, swallowed back into the grey when San carefully tugs his cardigan back into place for him, but Hongjoong feels like it’s been seared into him.
His gaze snaps up — and finds Seonghwa already looking back.
Seonghwa doesn’t flinch. He hadn’t moved to hide himself, either.
Instead, he tilts his head a little, a barely-there smile curling at his mouth. Knowing. Calm and almost challenging.
Are you going to say something?
Hongjoong’s throat tightens. He bites down on every instinct clawing at his ribs, and he looks away first.
The older simply reclaims his seat, sips his tea, as if nothing at all had happened.
As if he hadn't cracked something open inside Hongjoong and smiled while doing it.
The banter rises again, tugging the moment back into the sun. Plans are tossed around between bites of food and lazy bickering— what time to meet, who’s bringing what, who's gonna end up dragging Wooyoung out of whatever trouble he gets himself into.
Seonghwa listens, his sandwich untouched in his lap, sunlight glancing off the curve of his cheekbone. Every so often, he glances at Hongjoong, and every time, he’s already looking at him.
Neither of them says a word.
The sun is beginning to slip lower by the time they start packing up.
There’s a lazy shuffle of notebooks being crammed into backpacks, half-finished drinks tossed into trash bins, groans about classes they don’t want to go to. The whole group moves together across the courtyard like a slow, tangled current, spilling out toward the academic buildings.
Conversation bounces everywhere — San and Mingi roughhousing at the back, Wooyoung hanging off Yunho’s shoulder, Jongho arguing with Yeosang about whether or not its truly his turn to do the dishes again .
Seonghwa drifts with them, quieter but smiling when someone nudges him or pulls him into the conversation. He walks with his arms folded loosely in front of him, sleeves tugged over his hands again.
Hongjoong is nearby. Always. He doesn't jostle or shout like the others, just moves like a shadow a few steps away — close enough that Seonghwa would only need to reach out a little.
And slowly, one by one, the others peel off.
First Jongho with a quick wave, darting into a classroom. Then Yeosang and Wooyoung, arguing about study groups. Then Yunho, Mingi, and San, all tumbling toward the business building with a promise to meet up later.
Until it's just the two of them.
Seonghwa slows, his steps phantom light against the worn path. The courtyard's quieter now, emptied of the midday rush, filled with the far-off hum of cicadas and the crackle of leaves in the breeze.
Hongjoong stops, too.
There's something quiet and heavy between them. Hongjoong can feel it in the stretch of his rib. There’s a prickling of heat under his skin. His hands curl into fists at his sides without him meaning to.
Seonghwa watches him for a moment longer — eyes soft, lashes low.
Then he tilts his head. Smiles. And without a word, he lifts his hand toward Hongjoong.
Palm open. Fingers slightly curled. An offering.
Hongjoong doesn't even hesitate.
He steps forward and takes it— wraps his fingers around Seonghwa’s— and tugs him off the main path without a sound. Seonghwa follows without resistance, letting himself be pulled along, their shoulders brushing.
The campus feels huge and empty around them, hallways echoing hollow with their footfall, until Hongjoong finds what he wants— a tucked-away classroom in the music building, with the door propped half-open.
Outside, the world moves with students rushing to class, voices laughing, a bird chirping near a window.
In here, time stops .
The click of the latch is soft. The room, quiet. Dust hangs in the slant of sunlight cutting across the floor, and Seonghwa’s fingers curl slightly where they’re still tangled with Hongjoong’s.
Hongjoong’s thumb brushes over his knuckles. Not speaking yet— not because he doesn’t have words, but because he needs a second . Because the moment Seonghwa smiled at him on the lawn, tilted his head and offered his fingers, Hongjoong’s heart had started pounding so hard he thought he might throw up.
Now, they’re alone.
And Seonghwa’s eyes are on him. Patient and familiar.
He already knows .
“When?” Hongjoong asks, voice low. There was no fear, no disgust, but something in his tone was soaked dark. Aching .
Seonghwa blinks, like the question startled him. Then he follows Hongjoong’s gaze to his own arm, still half-wrapped in that soft dove sleeve, and laughs.
That gentle, lovely sound he always makes when something surprises him but doesn’t bother him. Like this— like Hongjoong’s interest— isn’t a threat, but a given.
“Oh,” Seonghwa breathes. “You saw.”
Hongjoong doesn’t say yes. He just takes his wrist again and gingerly traces the hem of the sleeve.
“You didn’t tell me.” Hongjoong murmurs. He isn’t being accusatory.
“I wanted to,” Seonghwa says, voice warm, fingers brushing against his. “But I wanted you to find it first.”
He lifts his sleeve.
The new mark is delicate. Red. Fresh. A single, clean line on pale skin. The others are older, scattered like constellations — some faint, others still healing. A map only Hongjoong knows how to read.
“...Was there a reason this time?”
Seonghwa smiles, slow and sweet. Like he’s won. “Just wanted you to see it,” he hums, looping his arms around the other’s shoulders like a noose. “Wanted you to know I was thinking about you when I did it.”
Hongjoong shivers .
“You’re sick,” he whispers, voice ragged. “You know that?”
Seonghwa doesn’t recoil. Just ghosts his mouth to Hongjoong’s ear, feather-light.
“And you love it.”
Hongjoong swallows hard. His breath catches, shaky in the still air.
Seonghwa leans back, just enough to meet his eyes again. His smile, a known constant like the stars in the sky, never wilts.
Outside, a bell rings. Faint. Distant. The world calls for them to return.
But for a second longer, neither of them moves. It’s only the hum of their breath. The space between them left charged and crackling.
Then Seonghwa steps back— gentle, unhurried— letting his hands fall away. The sleeve slips back down, concealing the marred flesh once more. As it’d never existed.
“Walk me to work?” he says softly, like nothing happened.
And Hongjoong, still reeling, still burning, only nods.
They leave together the door clicking softly behind them— a secret sealed in sunlight and dust.