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“Ok, break!”
When Soonyoung claps his hands together to signal the end of their practice, Hansol bends at the waist, gripping his knees. Chan pats his back a few times as he passes by to retrieve his water bottle.
It’s not long before a water bottle is shoved in his face, forcing Hansol to stand up straight as he tries to avoid having his face smashed in with the plastic.
“What’s your problem, huh?” Hansol deadpans as he snatches the water bottle out of Seungkwan’s hand.
“You looked like you were about to die, Hansollie,” Seungkwan coos back, “I was just trying to help.”
Hansol rolls his eyes and pops the cap open. As he takes long draws of water, he eyes Seungkwan sharply.
“You want something,” Hansol concludes once his mouth is free again.
Seungkwan just grins. “Everyone wants something, Hansol,” he replies.
Hansol resists the urge to reach out and squish Seungkwan’s cheeks to oblivion. It’s fine; they’ve played this game before. Seungkwan would dance around whatever it is he wants, and Hansol would have to humour him, seeing as he’s not a damn mind-reader.
Maybe someone out there is, but Hansol definitely isn’t. He doesn’t have a power, and he’s not particularly sad about it, either.
Fortunately for the both of them, Hansol has an abundance of patience when it comes to Seungkwan. If someone were to ask him how this came to be, he wouldn’t be sure how to answer. That’s not to say he doesn’t know the answer—he’s just unsure if he’d be able to voice it.
Hansol just lifts his eyebrows, waiting.
Seungkwan sighs with his entire chest, throwing the back of his hand against his forehead. “I have a hankering,” he declares, and of course Seungkwan would be the sort of person to use the word ‘hankering’, “to spend the next few hours in an enclosed room singing my heart out.”
Hansol’s eyebrows fall as if to say ‘why are you like this.’
“Why are you telling me, then? Seokmin’s over there,” Hansol replies, gesturing to the member in question with his water bottle.
Seungkwan rolls his eyes like Hansol’s the one being difficult. This is the best part of dealing with Seungkwan, in Hansol’s opinion, the part where he gets impatient with his own bullshit and cuts to the chase.
“Obviously I’m asking you to come with me,” Seungkwan states.
“Me?” Hansol repeats.
After a full-length practice, being stuck in a room with Seungkwan while he sings would actually be a good thing. The restorative power of his voice would be more than enough to forget about the aches in his muscles.
Here’s the kicker, though: Hansol doesn’t want to be stuck in a room with Seungkwan while he sings, despite the aforementioned benefits. Sure, that’d be nice and all, but he’s not sure if he could really handle the whole with Seungkwan part, let alone the part where Seungkwan bares his soul to anyone willing to listen to his heartfelt singing.
This is where he’s unsure about voicing his thoughts on Seungkwan.
It’s not that he doesn’t know just what it is he thinks about Seungkwan. Far from it, really. But it’s all still so new, so much, so—so everything. Much like Seungkwan himself, if he thinks about it. Saying he’s afraid to address it all is an understatement.
“Am I looking at anyone else right now?” Seungkwan asks. Rolling his eyes, he brushes past Hansol’s shoulder and grabs someone else. Belatedly, Hansol realizes it’s Chan, and their maknae is spluttering protests as Seungkwan pulls him into their little circle.
“Karaoke?” is all Seungkwan asks.
Hansol and Chan exchange looks. Hansol may not be a mind-reader, but he sure as hell wishes he had telepathy right about now.
Come, he begs in his head, don’t leave me alone with him .
Chan looks to Seungkwan, then back at Hansol. He lifts a brow at the latter for a second.
“Sure,” Chan says slowly. Seungkwan lets go of him. “I’ll ask everyone else, too,” he adds before fleeing to Soonyoung.
“You’d think I was asking him to clean the toilet or something,” Seungkwan mutters, mostly to himself. When he turns back to Hansol, he’s beaming. “At least he’s saving me the work of asking everyone else.”
Hansol furrows his brow. If Seungkwan wanted to ask the rest of the members, Hansol’s sure there would have been no issue. It’s a little suspicious, in his opinion—but he thinks he’s gonna ignore that for now. There’s no better trick in the book than the old ignoring game.
When Chan comes back, he’s frowning. “The hyungs are going to dinner later,” he says, “and Seokmin-hyung said he’d be going over choreo with Junhui-hyung and Minghao-hyung.”
“That’s fine,” Seungkwan chimes. He drapes both arms over Hansol and Chan’s shoulders. “It’ll be a maknae party!”
Chan looks at Hansol like he knows something Hansol doesn’t. Hansol isn’t pleased, not in the slightest, but at least he won’t be stuck alone with Seungkwan, and that’s the important part.
“I’m gonna change,” Seungkwan declares. “Let’s meet at the front in twenty?”
Both Chan and Hansol nod their affirmations, then Seungkwan’s skipping off to his room.
With a groan, Chan shoves at Hansol’s shoulder. “Why are you making me third-wheel you guys?” he whines.
“What?” Hansol asks.
Chan sighs like it’s the end of the world. “You’re hopeless,” is all he says before he trudges off to get changed as well.
Hansol stares at his maknae’s back as it disappears down the hall. It’s whatever, he guesses, since he’ll be able to enjoy Seungkwan’s singing while having Chan there as a buffer between Hansol and his weird feelings for his friend. Win-win, in his opinion.
Hansol doesn’t dress up for the occasion—doesn’t know how—but at least Seungkwan spends only about half a minute staring at his choice of attire, judging in that quiet way of his.
Chan shows up a minute late and whines just a little as Seungkwan slings an arm around his neck to pull him in for a noogie.
It’s stupid and childish and Hansol finds himself grinning.
About half an hour into their session, Seungkwan shoves a microphone into Hansol’s hand, determined to find the perfect song for him to solo.
“I thought the point of this was to sing together,” Hansol protests, sweating only a little. He blames the flashing lights and the lack of space for heating his body up like this. “You know, as a group. Like—a party, like you said.”
“Come on, I’m carrying the both of you right now,” Seungkwan insists, “I need to take a break.”
“Ever so modest,” Chan sighs.
Hansol glances at Chan to give him an apologetic look, but Chan’s just smiling. In fact, their maknae leans on Seungkwan’s shoulder to consult with him regarding Hansol’s solo, the little traitor.
“K. Will’s not too out of his range,” Hansol hears Chan say, and the sweat on the back of his neck increases tenfold.
“I do have a soft spot for K. Will,” Seungkwan replies. Hansol hopes he doesn’t drown in his sweat. But at least then he wouldn’t have to sing for Seungkwan, and then it’d all be over.
The opening notes for You Don’t Know Love start up, chiming in that tinny karaoke way, as Seungkwan looks over at Hansol with a satisfied smile. Hansol tries not to look too visibly nervous as he adjusts the mic in his hands towards his mouth.
Hansol knows the song. Of course he does. He’s heard it on the radio countless times, and he’s heard Seungkwan sing it in the dorm countless times, too. In fact, he’s heard Seungkwan sing it on the radio, and that might just be the worst part.
The first notes out of Hansol’s mouth are shaky. He hasn’t decided if he should take this seriously or not, and singing for real for real in front of Seungkwan is a little nerve-wracking. It’s a bit easier when Seungkwan turns away to look through the song directory again. Hansol begins to sing with a bit more confidence.
When he gets to the chorus, Hansol feels arms around his waist. It messes up his breathing a little bit.
“Chwe Hansol!” Chan cheers in time with the beat, like a little fanchant. He grins when Hansol shoots him a questioning look.
“Chan?” Hansol asks. He’s a little out of breath thanks to the whole singing thing, but Chan seems to eat that right up, batting his eyelashes as he leans closer.
“I never knew you were so good at singing, hyung,” Chan purrs, pressing his cheek to Hansol’s shoulder.
The compliment is so out of place that Hansol can’t think of a reply right away. Thankfully, he still has the rest of the song to get through, so he can deal with it later. What he can’t exactly ignore, however, is the way that the connection seems to breathe new air into his lungs. His fingers tingle as they grip his microphone and his blood seems to run warmer in his veins.
It’s fucking weird is what it is. He puts more effort into singing, hoping to block it all out.
When Seungkwan looks up from the song directory, his eyes bug out at the sight of Chan wrapped around Hansol’s waist. His eyes dart from Chan’s folded hands to Hansol’s face, up and down and up and down, before he turns back to the screen with a furrowed brow.
Hansol spares a moment to think about why Seungkwan chose this song for him, aside from the fact that he knows Seungkwan loves this song, before he launches into a soulful “oh whoa-whoa”, distracting himself.
Seungkwan’s back is to them. He sings the chorus as Hansol goes through the adlibs with relative ease. Honestly, Hansol’s just parroting Seungkwan, and that alone fills him with warmth—he can only hope to do his friend justice, to make Seungkwan feel even a fraction of what Hansol feels when he listens to Seungkwan sing.
Chan cheers again when Hansol attempts the high note. He switches to an exaggerated falsetto and Chan laughs, boisterous and way too generous.
When the song finishes, Hansol can feel the heat in his face burn through him slowly, eating away at the layers of his skin and leaving him bare, vulnerable. Seungkwan’s brow is still furrowed as he evaluates Hansol and Chan again.
“Wow,” Chan exclaims, drawing out the syllable, “that was amazing! You’ll sing for me again, hyung, won’t you?”
“Uh,” Hansol replies.
Something bubbles in his lungs and simmers on the surface of his skin. It’s itchy, on the verge of painful—it reminds him of when he hit his growth spurt when he was 14, the way the back of his knees tingled after the sudden change. His point of contact with Chan burns the brightest, but he can’t even begin to imagine why .
Seungkwan’s eyes narrow for a split second, then he’s smirking like the cat who ate the canary. There’s a sharp quality to his smile, though—a knife to Hansol’s throat.
“I didn’t know you two were dating,” Seungkwan comments. He drawls his words like he wants to say something else, something longer, probably something along the lines of I wouldn’t have invited you if I was going to be third-wheeled.
Funny, that. Chan thought he’d be third-wheeling, but now it’s the other way around?
Wait a second—
“We’re not dating!” Hansol shouts. His voice echoes in the small room, amplified by the microphone under his chin, engulfing him in his embarrassment and swallowing him whole. Except, honestly? That would probably be better than facing Chan’s disappointment and Seungkwan’s suspicion.
Why the hell is Chan acting disappointed, anyway?
“I can give you two some alone time, if that’s what you want,” Seungkwan offers, and his eyes are narrowing again, millimetre by tiny millimetre.
That is not what he wants what the fuck that’s the opposite of what he wants —
Hansol surrenders his mic to the nearest stand and scrambles for the song catalogue.
“No!” he exclaims, shuffling through the pages with searing hot desperation. “No, let’s—let’s just do another song!” The book almost tumbles out of his grip as he tries to pin a page down. “How about Twinkle ? There’s three of us, that’ll work, right?”
“TTS?” Seungkwan asks. The absurdity of the suggestion is enough to catch him off guard, at least for now. “I’m not sure I want to hear you crows attempt that one.”
“I think Hansollie-hyung can do it!” Chan objects. He tugs on Hansol’s sleeve. “Your voice is beautiful, you know?”
Hansol’s sweating bullets as he tries not to violently shake Chan off his body. His priorities are knotted up, much like his guts sitting sadly in the middle of his torso, and he can’t decide if he wants to confront Chan for his sudden change of heart or console Seungkwan by choosing the perfect song.
He doesn’t waver for long, not with Seungkwan’s eyes on him like that, dagger points pressing into his skin. As if Hansol could really hold out against Seungkwan.
“No, he’s right, I’m just—” Hansol pauses to laugh nervously. “Just kidding, haha!”
He just ought to stick to rap. The sweat on his neck bears down on him like a guillotine and Seungkwan’s the executioner.
What does that make Chan, then? Innocent bystander, or instigator?
“How about Spring Love ?” Chan suggests. There are stars in his eyes as he looks up at Hansol.
“What, does that make you Wendy-sunbaenim?” Seungkwan interjects. He eyes the door and panic flares in Hansol’s stomach. “Honestly, I can leave, if that’s what you really want.”
“ No , oh my god—” Please hangs on the tip of Hansol’s tongue as he starts from the back of the song directory. “How about Purple Line ?” Everyone loves TVXQ.
That seems to pacify Seungkwan.
“It has been a while,” Seungkwan says.
“Plus, we can sing it all together,” Hansol points out. He offers Chan a placating smile as well as another microphone.
Chan takes it with some reluctance. His other hand seeks out Hansol’s, and Hansol doesn’t have it in him to reject him.
The opening notes bounce through the small room. Hansol lifts his eyebrows in Seungkwan’s direction to signal that he should take the first verse.
As Seungkwan sings, he deliberately turns his body away from his juniors. Hansol would be hurt by that, but he’s too busy worrying that he’s ruined everything by bringing Chan along and unleashing… this, whatever this is.
However, Seungkwan’s voice seems to snap Chan out of whatever spell had possessed his mind. He looks down at their interlocked fingers for a breath or two before slowly retracting his hand. The severed contact steals warmth from the palm of Hansol’s hand, drawing attention to the clammy quality of his skin. He feels kind of like a lizard, suddenly cold in the heated room, and Chan isn’t really helping, not with the way he’s staring at Hansol so openly.
“Um, hyung?” Chan whispers. “Why were you holding my hand?”
Hansol’s eyebrows fly into his bangs. “I should be asking you that!” he hisses.
Chan’s brow furrows, but the expression doesn’t last long since Hansol nudges him into doing the chorus with him.
Hansol takes the second verse to avoid continuing their strange conversation. It doesn’t do him any good: Chan finds his waist again, cheering Hansol’s name when he finishes his part.
That leaves Chan with the bridge, but he doesn’t take the cue at all. He’s too busy staring at Hansol like he’s the fucking universe. Heat returns to Hansol’s neck, wrapped tight like a noose, and he’s choking despite the way his lungs seem to be working with an invigorated sense of ease.
Panic surges through Hansol as the karaoke machine churns out the shittily-rendered instrumentals. Seungkwan’s facing them both now, eyes moving between their bodies, observing like a hawk. His voice cools the sweat on Hansol’s neck when he decides to take Chan’s part. In fact, he finishes the song by himself, much to Hansol’s relief.
In the meantime, Chan wordlessly, awkwardly extracts himself from Hansol’s side, averting his gaze. At the same time, air leaves Hansol’s chest in one swift motion, leaving him deflated and small and so utterly lost.
When the song comes to a close, Seungkwan grabs the remote and turns the volume down. Although they haven’t picked a new song, the karaoke machine beeps rhythmically to an unseen metronome, emphasizing the quiet with every second that passes.
“What the hell is happening?” Seungkwan asks. His voice cuts through the room like steel.
“I have no fucking clue,” Hansol laments with a shaky voice. He turns to Chan, who’s holding his head between both hands. “Are you okay, dude?”
Chan murmurs something too quiet to be heard. When he looks up, his face is flushed.
“I…” Chan trails off and focuses his gaze onto Hansol. “I think you might have a power, hyung.”
“Me?” Hansol points to his own chest. “You mean—that wasn’t you?”
Chan snorts. “Yeah, right. Don’t give yourself that much credit.”
That’s enough to shock Hansol into a breathless laugh. “Okay, yeah, point taken.”
“Your power is seducing people with your voice?” Seungkwan’s brow furrows. “I guess that might go unnoticed considering you’re an idol, but nothing like this,” he gestures at Chan, “has ever happened before. Not to this extent, at least.”
“Well, we do have staff for a reason,” Hansol points out.
Seungkwan turns to Chan. “Can you describe what was happening just then?”
Chan chews on the inside of his cheek before speaking: “It’s, uh—I don’t really know how to put it, I guess… Like, I just—I felt like I needed to be near him. Like, in my stomach—” He puts both hands on his stomach. “As if he… Like, imagine I was really craving to eat this one thing—”
“Barbecue?” Hansol supplies.
Chan nods vigorously. “Yeah. Except I guess it was just to be near you? And to hear your voice,” Chan continues. “Yeah, your voice. It really resonated with me, like I was hypnotized. I just…”
As he trails off, Chan begins to blush. He buries his face in his hands.
“I’m so sorry I acted like that, hyung,” Chan mumbles behind his fingers.
“I-It’s okay…” Hansol has no idea what to say to that. In all of his eighteen years, he has never inspired this in another person, not by himself. With Seventeen, his popularity is the product of years of work, but this? This is random and completely unintentional.
Seungkwan seems to be taking a clinical approach to this. Detective Seungkwan to the rescue, or whatever.
“And what about you, Hansol?” he asks.
There’d been so many thoughts racing through Hansol’s head in the past, like, twenty minutes; it’s hard to pin them all down.
“If I had to pick out something weird ,” besides Chan’s behaviour the entire time, “I guess I’d have to say that I felt warm? Whenever Chan touched me, I felt warm. But I thought that was just because, you know, he was being all weird…”
Chan gurgles his embarrassment. Neither Seungkwan or Hansol make a move to console him, still too wary of the new development.
“How warm?” Seungkwan probes.
Hansol shrugs. “Really warm. And it kinda felt like my skin was bubbling.” He wiggles his fingers above the opposite forearm. “But it didn’t hurt.”
“Hypnotizing, seductive voice, being warm…” Seungkwan rubs his chin like he’s really thinking hard about it.
Lowering his hands to speak, Chan says, “Um, it all kind of reminds me of sirens.”
“Sirens?” Hansol’s nose wrinkles. “Like the mermaids that eat sailors?”
Seungkwan’s eyes light up. “Oh my god, that’s perfect, Channie!” Grinning, he reaches out to ruffle Chan’s hair.
“Now that I think about it, I’m actually really tired,” Chan complains. “Which is the opposite of what’s supposed to happen when you go to karaoke with Seungkwan-hyung.”
It all clicks into place. The three of them exchange glances immediately. Both Chan and Seungkwan break into laughter; Hansol, on the other hand, can barely catch his breath. Relief cages his lungs for a brief moment as his earlier panic lumps together and dissolves like acid down his throat.
“So my power cancels yours out,” Seungkwan says to Hansol.
“Yeah, guess so,” Hansol replies around a crooked smile.
Chan’s eyes curve as he grins. “A match made in heaven.”
Scoffing, Seungkwan goes for Chan’s hair again. “Enough of your smart talk today, kiddo.” Still, he’s smiling as he looks back up at Hansol. “But I guess he’s right. What would you do without me?”
Hansol wouldn’t be able to think of an answer to that question even if it wasn’t rhetorical. What would Hansol be without Seungkwan? Well, straight, for one thing. Probably. He wouldn’t be worried about his insides trying to escape his body through his mouth every time Seungkwan so much as looked at him. He wouldn’t crave Seungkwan’s company 24/7. He’d probably be able to breathe better, free of the flowers woven between his ribs, the blossoms that bloom with every note out of Seungkwan’s throat.
He can only hope they’re as beautiful as Seungkwan himself.
“God only knows,” Hansol replies, at a loss.
“I’m gonna take a nap,” Chan declares once they return to the dorm.
Although they’d only been out for about an hour, the three of them had decided to cut the party short, for Chan’s sake. Hansol appreciated it; he could really use the time to figure out just what the hell he’s gonna do with the knowledge of his new power.
Seungkwan bids his farewell by fussing with Chan’s hair until the maknae gets fed up and repels his hands away.
“I’ll get you yet, Lee Chan!” Seungkwan calls after him. He makes no move to chase after Chan, and Hansol just rolls his eyes.
Just before Chan disappears down the hall, he spares a moment to give Hansol a wink. He turns before he can see Hansol wrinkle his nose in response.
Now that it’s just the two of them, Seungkwan finds it appropriate to step into Hansol’s personal space, peering up at him with bright and curious eyes. Hansol grumbles and pushes Seungkwan’s face away.
When Seungkwan laughs in response, Hansol has to fight back a blush. The chime of Seungkwan’s laughter plays along Hansol’s spine, and at this point, Seungkwan might as well add Hansol to the list of instruments he can play.
What would Hansol do without Seungkwan?
“So, you’re a modern siren dressed in an idol’s clothing, huh?” Seungkwan starts, so conversational.
“Now’s not the time to comment on my clothes.”
Seungkwan rolls his eyes.
“This sucks,” Hansol groans. He scuffs a shoe against the floor, frowning.
Having a ‘bad’ power isn’t too uncommon, and it’s never anything world-breaking. This just means Hansol can’t sing a ballad to an audience, and it’s not as if he’d been planning to in the first place. It still sucks to have the opportunity taken from him.
He bites back a sigh. It’s not like him to mope, especially not at such an early stage. Still. Still . He would’ve been just fine without this, thanks.
“Sucks,” he mumbles again, kicking at the ground a little harder.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Seungkwan coos. He reaches out to pinch Hansol’s cheek, and Hansol doesn’t have the energy to bat him away like usual.
“Come on.” Seungkwan slots his arms around Hansol’s waist. It’s a perfect fit, and Hansol wants to scream because of just how fucking perfect it is. “Cheer up. It’s not gonna hurt anyone so long as I’m with you.”
Seungkwan begins to sing Twice’s Cheer Up under his breath, lifting one of his hands to wave it in the air in a half-assed version of their point dance. And though it pains Hansol to admit it, it does cheer him up, even just a little.
“I don’t want to be dependent on you just to avoid scamming people’s energy from them,” Hansol grumbles.
“What, are you gonna be serenading people on the street to steal their energy?” Seungkwan huffs. “Now you’re being the drama queen. I worked hard for that title, you know.”
Although Hansol frowns, he has to admit that Seungkwan has a point. “Fine,” he sighs.
“There.” Seungkwan pinches Hansol’s cheek again, just because he can. “Think of it this way: we’re complements! It’s kinda sweet, don’t you think?”
You’re sweet , Hansol thinks to himself bitterly, so sweet I could fucking barf.
“Like something out of a fairy-tale,” Hansol deadpans.
Seungkwan sighs. “You’re being such a baby, Hansollie.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Hansol retorts.
Seungkwan rubs his chin like he’s thinking real hard about it. When a sly look passes his features, it’s too late for Hansol to escape: Seungkwan begins his assault on Hansol’s sides, tickling him mercilessly.
They end up on the floor before Hansol calls uncle. He’s too out of breath to even think of retaliating, and the thought of touching Seungkwan so intimately leaves his body completely devoid of air.
It’s not too bad, he supposes. He tingles all over, so utterly warm, filled from head to toe with flower petals that bloomed under Seungkwan’s touch. There could be worse things.
“You know,” Seungkwan begins, his head propped up on one of his hands only a few inches away from Hansol’s face, “I don’t mind being your complement.”
“Yeah?” Hansol asks. He’s hyperaware of the minute space between them, and it’s taking everything in him to control his expression.
Seungkwan nods. “I know you don’t like to sing in front of people, but even if it’s just for fun, I can’t imagine not being able to sing. And if staying by your side means you get to sing, then I’m all for it.”
Hansol doesn’t understand how Seungkwan can say all that with a straight face. Seungkwan’s earnest expression pokes holes into Hansol’s head, letting his thoughts spill out of his skull in a mess of affection.
“You’re a sap,” is all Hansol can say. So what if he’s a little choked up about it?
Seungkwan’s answering chuckle is on the breathy side. It tickles Hansol’s ear and the surrounding hair.
Humming, Seungkwan begins to draw patterns on Hansol’s sternum. Hansol watches the movement of Seungkwan’s finger as it dances over his shirt.
“You know, maybe the reason you hadn’t discovered your power until now is because you rap rather than sing,” Seungkwan says. It’s not an illogical theory.
“Have you ever heard of a rapping siren?”
Seungkwan grins. “You’re definitely a character.”
Hansol lifts a brow. “And what does that make you?”
“The protagonist, without a doubt.” The grin on Seungkwan’s face grows. “You can be the anti-villain granted redemption thanks to my healing powers.”
“Ah, you’re really too much, you know that?” Hansol lets his head fall back against the floor as Seungkwan laughs. The sound vibrates over Hansol’s skin and penetrates down to his bones; he’ll be feeling that for the next three hours or so for sure. And Hansol can’t even be annoyed that Seungkwan never seems to leave him alone.
“Girls love anti-villains,” Seungkwan continues, his voice lower now, “you know—bad boys. So even if I’m the protagonist, you won’t get thrown under the bus or anything.”
“Thanks. That’s just what I wanted to hear.”
“I’m just trying to help!”
Hansol looks up at Seungkwan. Seungkwan stares back. Something hot like candle wax drips down Hansol’s throat and builds up in his stomach, layer upon layer, timed with their intermingling breaths.
“I mean it when I say I don’t mind being your other half,” Seungkwan murmurs.
Hansol’s nose wrinkles, and he has half the mind to wonder if it’s a defense mechanism against the blush flooding his cheeks. “That’s probably something you’d say to your future partner, or whatever,” he mumbles in reply.
Seungkwan raises his eyebrows. “You know, you’re not wrong.”
“But you’re saying it to me —oh.”
Oh.
“‘Oh’ is right, Hansol-ah,” Seungkwan laughs, just on the border of husky.
It still has yet to really register in Hansol’s head. Before silence can settle between them, Hansol tilts his head in Seungkwan’s direction.
“So does that make you the girl that’s into bad boys?” Hansol asks.
Seungkwan hits him across the chest. “There are so many things wrong with that sentence, I don’t even know where to start.”
Grinning, Hansol hits Seungkwan back. “You’re right; you’re definitely not a girl.”
“And you’re hardly a ‘bad boy’, unless you mean you’re a boy with a terrible taste in fashion.”
Hansol rolls his eyes so hard he’s afraid they’ll fall out. Groaning, he lunges for Seungkwan’s waist, ready for round two of their tickle fight.
Hansol and Seungkwan, complements, like the sun and the moon, or night and day. Of the two of them, Seungkwan is definitely the sun, always shining so brightly no matter what. Hansol doesn’t mind being the moon in that case. Besides, it’s Seungkwan who makes him light up, so as far as metaphors go, it’s not that far off.
Seungkwan kicks at Hansol blindly, laughing his pleas for mercy. Hansol laughs back as he relents.
Curling on his side, Seungkwan pulls up close to Hansol, close enough to brush hair out of Hansol’s face. Breath catches in Hansol’s throat as he stares openly at his complement. He makes no effort to hide the wonder in his face, eyes wide as he traces Seungkwan’s features with his gaze.
“So—future partner? Or,” Seungkwan pauses for dramatic effect, and damn Hansol, it works: he holds his breath, waiting for the rest of Seungkwan’s thoughts to tumble out of his mouth. “Current partner?”
Hansol laughs. His affection surges through his chest and spreads his lips in a wide, wide smile.
“How about ‘boyfriend’?” Hansol offers. He has no idea how he managed to say it without stuttering.
Seungkwan hums and haws and Hansol doesn’t hesitate to hit him. Laughing, Seungkwan nods again and again, his response on a shaky exhale.
“‘Boyfriend’ suits me just fine."