Chapter Text
Most things end in a full loop. A circle, statistically, logically holding sides so minuscule and equal and perfect it’s visibly a curve. You turn, and you turn, and you turn until you’re back at the beginning.
Yeosang looks down over the edge of the roof, cold wind whipping at his face— delighted to find that the green little patch of foliage obstructing general traffic into the office building was in fact, a circle.
If he could splat —
right there.
In between the tangent of the office building and that godforsaken perfect circle.
Maybe someone would hear him, or another would walk out to discover him, and his blood would stain the pristine cement for months until the water drainage swept him away.
All he had to do was swing forward; shift his center of gravity off the precipice of the building, and victory was his. He almost laughs out loud. Nothing was real. Everything was so fucking funny.
Yeosang’s eyes flutter shut, the distant city noise fading away as he let himself drift away before…
“Wait!”
What the hell.
Reluctantly, he opens his eyes. A man, dressed in a honest to god suit, holding his hands out like Yeosang was a spooked animal. Jesus, if only he had just jumped a second earlier… he wouldn’t have to deal with a corporate slave preventing his death. He feels the overwhelming urge to laugh once again. The irony.
“No,” Yeosang waves him away, “No, thank you. I’m busy. Just go back down the stairs, forget about me, or I will actually fucking kill myself in front of you.”
The man blinks. “Unfortunately for you and I, both situations leave me extremely guilty.” He takes a few steps forward, and Yeosang catches sight of the lighter in his hand.
“Huh. Wow. That’s a damn shame. I don’t care.”
He watched as the man’s eyes flicks between Yeosang, himself, and the distance to the railing. He watches, unease daring to brew in his stomach, as he sees an all too familiar resolve settle into his eyes.
Fuck.
He really wasn’t going to go back down.
Yeosang juts his chin out at him. “ At least let me take a hit before I die, then. You look like you have fancy cigarettes.”
He laughs, short and melodic. “You have taste for someone who doesn’t care.”
Yeosang sighs. He doesn’t have time for this.
“Can I have one or not?”
“Alright, wait a sec. I’m coming.” He climbs up on to the wall, facing Yeosang. Up close, it suddenly strikes Yeosang that the man is stunning. Holding up a cigarette, he smiles. “My name is San.” It is a stupid, perfect smile.
Yeosang shrugs and takes it from him. It’s the fancy kind.
“Yeosang.”
The cigarette sits heavy on his tongue. It feels fancy.
“A sound from a high place…” San looks over at the city lights, and another soft laugh escapes him. “How fitting.” The wind ruffles his hair, the chill dusting his face with red and his eyes glittering with the cityscape. He looks tired as he is handsome, Yeosang realizes. Maybe he already jumped, and this is a post-death hallucination, and a beautiful angel is taking him away.
Cigarette in his mouth, he lights his own before pressing it to the tip of Yeosang’s. This close, Yeosang can feel the warmth emanating off him. San’s eyes bore into his, and Yeosang nearly has the idea to puff smoke right into his face. Stupid, perfect face, derailing his dramatic suicide.
A few seconds pass by, smoke dissipating into the air as the wind keeps blowing mercilessly. He can feel San picking him apart, gaze heavy and discerning, and he looks away. Yeosang hasn’t showered, or brushed, or thought about himself for a while— and he doesn’t usually particularly care — but now he has the urge to at least pat his hair flat. The effect San had on him, despite being a few thousand feet away from his untimely demise, made his stomach turn. What was going on?
“What time is it?”
San folds his sleeve up to check his watch. His really, really nice watch. “10:34.”
“Shit,” Yeosang huffs, “I can only attempt when it’s multiples of five.”
“That’s a damn shame.” San grinned. Maybe Yeosang should kill him instead.
“Feel better?”
“Your cigarette won’t fix me, salary-man.”
Letting out a dramatic sigh, San turns away. “Well, fuck. Yeosang doesn’t like me or the cigarette. Guess I should kill myself too.”
“I guess you should.”
He nods solemnly and shrugs off his coat.
“Glad we both agree,” San holds his hand out. “So, on the count of three? Or should I count down?”
Yeosang looks him up and down before taking his hand. It’s warm, far too warm for the biting chill at the rooftop. “Count down.”
“Got it.” San bounces on the balls of his feet, rolling his shoulders back and letting out a dramatic exhale. “Phew, I’m nervous. Never tried a double suicide before.”
Yeosang shrugs. “Don’t be. Just don’t let go.”
Nodding eagerly, San turns back to face the distance. His hand is smaller than Yeosang's, and he can feel his pulse pounding through the pad of his thumb. Systolic is contraction. Diastolic is relaxation. The heart fills and empties itself with blood. Lub dub, lub dub, lub dub.
“3,”
God, the city was so beautiful.
“2,”
San was so beautiful.
“1.”
Yeosang feels the breathe knock out of him as San tugs him, tugs him hard, his arms gripping him tight as he careens off the edge of the building.
.
“You never told me why you were going to kill yourself.”
Yeosang closes his eyes, letting his forehead rest against the concrete of the rooftop. His knees stung, palms probably already bleeding from the impact. San had caught him mostly in his arms as he pulled him roughly off the wall and into safety, but god, the fall still hurt.
Motherfucker.
“I don’t know, San.”
Face leaving the concrete, a coat is being hastily wrapped around Yeosang’s shoulders. Angels are not alive, they are cold and not real and do not have warm hands and cute dimples. San’s hands wrap around Yeosang’s own. “Ooh, that’s a lot of blood. Sorry.”
San gently tugs them up, pressing the sleeve of his stupidly expensive white dress shirt against the scrapes of his hands. The blood blooms bright, beautiful red against both their hands. It’s beautiful. The city is beautiful. San is beautiful.
Yeosang is so fucking pissed.
He shoves San away, scrambling to get up. “Yeosang.” San reaches to get a hold of his wrist, and Yeosang twists his arms out of his grip wordlessly. “Yeosang.” He needs to get to the edge of the rooftop. He needed to go.
“I don’t know, San. I don’t know why I want to kill myself. I don’t know anything. Just leave— Fuck, let go of me, just leave me.”
“I can’t.”
San is strong, but Yeosang is just as strong too. The red on his shirt is spreading as Yeosang shoves San away. Gripping at each other weakly, neither not knowing what they were fighting for.
“Please.”
Yeosang is crying. He hasn’t cried in months.
“I can’t.”
Tears join the blood on San’s shirt. San says something about being on the clock, so please stop whacking me, you can have another cigarette, but Yeosang can't hear him. A loud sob escapes him, and he grips San's collar as his knees wobble. San lets himself be dragged back and forth, hands weakly grasping Yeosang’s. Please fight back, please fight, please.
It hurts. Everything hurts, so San, please let him go. The city is beautiful and it hurts.
.
"You ever read Fight Club?"
San flicks the heater vent towards Yeosang, warm air settling into his frozen fingertips with a dull sting. His car is fairly nice, so he keeps his bloody hands folded in his lap.
"Isn't there a movie?"
"Mm, yeah. I like the book better, though. Very… what's the word— " San shrugs as he reaches past Yeosang to buckle his seatbelt, "Inconspicuous? Compared to the movie." His cologne is musky and spicy, and not to Yeosang's liking at all.
"You mean it makes you feel smarter." He still takes a large whiff because in his present circumstance he deserves to indulge in a bit of expensive perfume anyways.
San laughs again, throwing his head back. "Shit, you caught me." His laughter is contagious, and Yeosang scoffs in fake disbelief and turns away before he lets a smile slip. “No, but listen—”
The car in reverse, San puts his hand behind Yeosang’s headrest and twists around to back out of parking. “When we were on the roof together, on the wall. It was windy, and at night, and looking into each other’s eyes, and like, cathartic as hell. It’s how the book starts. Two guys together on top of a building about to die.” There’s a vein decorating his throat, Adam's apple bobbing as he cranes his neck behind him, and Yeosang feels a stir in his chest of something.
“Main character, he’s your average office worker, and he’s tired of everything. Buying minimalist furniture, his boss, the rat-race 9-5 routine...”
He digs around for his phone, fiddling with it before passing it to Yeosang. Oh, his address.
“So he meets the other guy, who’s like, fuckin’ crazy. They start the Fight Club, where all kinds of guys just meet up and beat the shit out of each other because it feels great, and first guy is kind of in love with the second guy. And the first rule of Fight Club is you don’t talk about Fight Club.”
Yeosang passes the phone back to him. What in the hell is he doing right now, he wonders. Letting this beautiful stranger drive him home after ruining his shirt, and now he has his address, and they’re discussing homoerotic literature, and his chances of being murdered are now 50/50.
“Anyways, my point is, next time we try our double suicide thing, lets do it like the Fight Club guys. It would be totally cool.”
“Totally cool.” Yeosang echoes. “What makes their attempt cooler than ours?”
San hums and drums his fingertips on the wheel. “‘Its only after we’ve lost everything that we’re free to do anything.’We had a great start, but I don’t think I’m ready to risk it all for some random guy. You’re alright, but I can’t lose this car yet. Also, they had a gun.”
Resting his forehead on the cool windowpane, Yeosang counts the signs passing them. “Not ready to commit to your gospel yet?”
“I would not say Fight Club is my gospel. It’s the stuff of incels nowadays. No thank you.”
Yeosang huffs softly. “Well, call me when you get rid of all your stuff and you’re as dirt broke as me. I’ll find a nice building ASAP.” San sends him a pleased smile out the corner of his eye, and Yeosang feels the same stir in his chest again.
“Well, it was a little more than that. There was a third…They… all needed each other. Just a big mess.” San waves his hand. “Too much work, though, so I’ll settle for you— for now.”
“Yeah, right.” Yeosang smirks, a little twisted a bloom of superiority seeping into his voice. “You won’t ever find someone as crazy as me to save ever again. You might just be stuck with me.”
“That’s not too bad.”
His word drip with self assurance, but Yeosang can feel the fraught between them. A stupid game, to see who would break first. Opening up to each other, how fucking gross.
The regular person wouldn’t have offered to drive him home. They would've sent him right off to the hospital, and they would never cross paths again. That is how it should be, how the rule of the self-motivated selfishness of humanity ticked.
He cannot see San after this.
He shouldn't.
“After our suicide we won’t really die, will we? We’ll be immortalized, in news articles and true crime podcasts.”
It was San’s turn to think. “Being immortal. Is that you want?”
“No.” He traces a circle into the sheen of condensation on the window, humid proof of his breathing, living body. The warmth of his fingertips, the ability to melt shaped into the frozen glass, Yeosang was inclined to admire it— a contrast to them turning blue as blood pooled out of his shattered skull.
“But I can’t do anything to stop it.”
His throat ached; It had been a while since he had spoken this much, and his voice kept cracking from disuse.
“Do you believe that it’s possible?”
“What’s possible?”
The barber shop. The pharmacy. Joe’s Bistro.
“Letting go. Being free. No more catalogue furniture, no more 9-5s, no more following every grueling rule not knowing a single damn thing because you’re 20 and that’s the way to go. Feeling alive again.”
Frustration cracks at his voice, and Yeosang suddenly feels helpless. He’s lost count of the signs. He casts his gaze back to the side of the San’s face, watches his eyebrow furrow as his jaw grinds back and forth. Answer me, answer me, tell me anything just something please.
With a hefty turn, the car grinds to a stop outside Yeosang’s apartment building. There's something ugly in his throat, brewing and threatening to spit out.
“No. I don’t think it’s possible.”
The answer settles low in his chest. An expected cinder block, floating down, and in the dingy street lights, San’s effervescent charm has dulled. You are not my savior angel, but that is okay; I nonetheless want your secondhand gospel and your dimpled smile.
The dashboard blinks at 11:26 pm. They’re both bone tired.
He gripped the steering wheel as his jaw clenched. “Yeosang”
“I know.”
He pushes the car door open, breathing a puff of cold air and watching it mist away. Staring up at his apartment building, Yeosang’s stomach turns at the thought of returning to his room.
San’s gaze burns into the back of his neck, having got out of the car with the quiet grace of someone trying to not set off a ticking bomb. He puffs his cheeks and blows another icy cloud into the air.
“My roommate left and I can’t pay rent."
It’s a soft admission, lost to the cold air, and saying it makes it feel even more real. It sounds even stupider out loud.
“I’m sorry.” Yeosang turns to San after a moment of silence. “I—” His voice cracks. He doesn’t know where to begin. I’m sorry for trying to die in front of you. I’m sorry for taking up an hour of your life. I’m sorry you’re standing here and now you know too much. He scrunches up his eyes, head pounding, hoping San would disappear.
He doesn’t disappear.
Instead, he steps forward, and whispers that he has an extra room in his flat.
.
San’s place is warm. Yeosang doesn’t understand how he ended up here. Maybe he’s a serial killer. Does he want sex?
He shows him him to the aforementioned extra room, and the bathroom, and where the extra towels and blankets are, and shuffles off to the kitchen. Standing in the room, after a haze of blindly following San, Yeosang slowly takes in his surroundings.
He doesn’t know San.
It’s been two hours of knowing this man.
As if on cue, San knocks on the door frame, even though the door is open. Yeosang turns to see him, still in his bloodied dress shirt, holding a mug. “Tea,” He mumbles, before holding it out tentatively. Murmuring his thanks, Yeosang takes it. He doesn’t take a sip.
“I, uh.” San gestures to himself, “I was gonna shower… unless you…?”
Yeosang shakes his head. “You should go ahead.”
He curtly nods in response, face still worried as ever, before starting to walk away.
He doesn’t want sex, Yeosang decides.
“San.” He stops walking.
“Thank you. For this, really, but—” Yeosang shakes his head. “I can take care of myself, I can go back to my place tomorrow. You shouldn’t have to…” Take care of me. Don’t waste your time. Forget.
San leans back on the doorframe, eyes searching his face before he sighs.
“Listen. You need somewhere to stay, I need a roommate, rent’s a bitch for me too. If you…”
He looks away, eyes fixed on a corner of the room. “It works out for both of us.”
He turns those words around in his head for a moment. Clean, professional, transactional. He is quickly learning that San isn’t quite any of those things, but this is for Yeosang to swallow easily in some way.
“I’m not trying to put you on… suicide watch.” The words cut through his thoughts, and Yeosang laughs. Unfortunately, that is exactly what he thought San was trying to do.
“If you say so.”
San purses his lips. “I’m serious. But, I… can’t just leave you.” The words land a little heavier than he thought they would.
It’s quiet, and it’s shaky, and it’s guilty and guilt inducing and it changes his mind about the man wavering in front of him:
Jaw clenching worried tense raw vulnerable fists at his sides and broad shoulders slumped as small as can be, San.
Yeosang brings the tea to his lips. Chamomile. “I don’t think I can either.”
Their eyes meet once again, uncertain yet unyielding.
“Then stay.”
And that he does.
.
The next few weeks are strange.
Yeosang lets himself into San’s life, with no less guilt than the first day they met, but San is ever the same— eager and accommodating and alive. With the sort of tight, wired energy that realistically no overworked office worker should have, he helps Yeosang move all his shit into his flat. They both spend the weekend unpacking boxes and calling landlords and grumbling about the logistics about moving a mattress intact through a doorframe.
On the third night of watching San cook dinner from the corner of his eyes, stupid pink apron tied around that impossible waist, it comes to Yeosang how fast it happened. He traces the bandages wrapped around the palms of his hands absentmindedly, thinking of how San has felt his blood before his hands.
It was evident in the way they still subtly avoided being in the same room, or could rarely hold eye contact, or how one of them is often out of the house. When they are together, it was… awkward, yes— but it didn’t feel wrong.
It was a weird sting, carrying knowledge of someone’s rawest thoughts and the sight of their tired eyes with the haunting glow of the city lights underneath them. Knowing how the other knew how he sounded when he cried, the chilling warmth of his blood. How they still didn’t know each other’s last names.
Yeosang supposes that comes with the escaping near double suicide bonding experience.
However.
He learns that San is delighted by everything, (“A Picture frame with cat ears!?” as they unboxed the nth moving box after a long day of work) is freakishly strong (Yeosang thinks, off kilter and abruptly, that he could live in his inner elbow, where the clean line of his forearm meets his bicep), and only uses strawberry scented objects (Even strawberry toilet bowl freshener.) He likes cats and wants to adopt one soon, and frequents trips to buy sweet things to slide across the table as they both quietly work, and pouts at him until he takes a proper bite.
Yeosang thinks he’s really fucking weird. He is, however, a great cook.
San leaves at 9 and comes back at 5 and leaves at 7 again for the gym and will return at 8:30 to squint over Yeosang’s shoulder at his coursework (“Gross.”) before heading to the kitchen to cook. Yeosang will wake up at 12 to toil away at online courses and stare at job listings and consider showering before San comes home and he will tip toe around the place because it still doesn’t feel like he’s supposed to be here, wondering how long he’ll be caught in San’s orbit.
They’ll both sit at the table and eat and work in silence. Some nights they’ll talk about the mundane and each other and the importance of determining the best Batman movie. Yeosang will find himself smiling at San’s jokes more than once, and San will gaze at him with unabashed joy and grin so hard that you could count his teeth, and they’ll both hold eye contact for a record breaking three seconds till they look down to take a bite of their food.
Warm faced and red blooded, they'll head to bed, bumping elbows in San’s little bathroom. San will flick water at Yeosang’s face in a feeble attempt to ruin his skincare and to entice another smile out of him, and Yeosang will threaten to strangle him with a towel.
(“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Yeosang. Ow! Don’t hit me—”)
Yeosang will lie in bed, thinking of San, and what he thinks about San. He dreams of windy rooftops and pills taken at exactly 6:30 before San heads to the gym and cats crossing the sidewalk and why they still haven’t exchanged numbers and how he doesn’t comment on the lines decorating Yeosang’s arms and unopened boxes and strawberry pastries.
The same cycle, the two of them, planetary solitary yet complimentary bodies, circulating around each other, lopsided and strange. Something was still missing.
.
Some days, Yeosang can’t bring himself out of bed. He’ll let the sun dip last the crux of the sky, let himself lie still as the darkness permeates into his bones.
Most days, the darkness doesn’t last long, because San will knock once before cracking the door open.
“Yeosang?”
Yeosang will grunt in response.
“Bad day?”
“Fuck off.”
“There’s food in the fridge if you want it.”
One night, Yeosang creeps out of bed, stomach growling uncharacteristically loud. It’s 2 am, the microwave indicates, as he cracks the fridge open. There’s a wrapped plastic box of food with a sticky note on top.
[I saw a puppy today that looked like u LOL]
A poorly drawn yet cute doodle of a dog below the neatly written words. There is a sun next to it, shining down brightly.
Yeosang stares at it, before carefully folding it up and tucking it in his pocket.
After an hour of agonizing in bed, he would slip a note of his own under San’s closed door.
[Thank you for dinner]
.
The third weekend, they find themselves on the couch. San is a self proclaimed romantic comedy cinephile, while Yeosang doesn’t take much care to watch movies. He agrees to watch whatever San puts on.
It’s sickly sweet, and he finds himself enjoying it. San is a chatty movie watcher, and Yeosang hums and answers in agreement when appropriate, and they both laugh at the same times. The color grading is warm and it’s all smiles and saccharine, until it gets to the sad part.
“I don’t think he meant it, but wow, he’s an idiot.” He huffs aloud, turning to San indignantly “Can you believe it—?”
He drifts off at the sight of tears rolling down Sans face, fist closed in front of his pout. San catches him staring in shock, and he inhaled sharply before quickly wiping his face. “I know!” His voice is endearingly squeaky, watery with frustrated tears, as he flings his hands at the TV screen. “Dumbass. Can’t even— talk about his feelings to her!”
“Yeah.” Yeosang can’t stop the smile creeping onto his face as he studies Sans distraught brow, still twisted up with tears and pouty as ever. “Hey, you’ve watched this movie before, haven't you?”
Another distraught hiccup. “Well, yes but,” He sniffs, “It doesn’t mean watching again is any less awful.”
He softly chuckles at how distressed he looks, and San pouts even more. “Are you— Are you laughing at me? I'm crying my heart out in front of you.”
“No, no, not at all, keep crying.” Yeosang pats his arm, teasing smile stuck on his face, and suddenly San is descending on him while armed with a pillow.
He halfheartedly wrestles with him, shoving the pillow away with a laugh. San is muttering cmereyoulittleshit and Yeosang can't stop laughing. It's electric and sugary and he doesn't know why he lets San push him onto his back but he does he does he does with his whole heart.
And if Yeosang said when he let San cage him in there, giggles dying in his throat, vision focusing on his face again, that he regretted it at all— he would be a liar. It’s a sight, the weirdest sight, tear tracks staining his face and the harsh blue light of the TV lighting up his beautiful, beautiful face. His eyebrows are still furrowed and his lips are pressed tight and his eyes are wide and blown out and suddenly the itchy leather of the couch upon the back of his neck is a warning sign to get up, get the fuck up. Sharing the same breath between them, the slightest twitch of his eyelashes and he looks, no, studies Yeosang’s face with a ferocity that could only come from the heart.
San is serious about many things, and it comes to Yeosang in this little pocket of time that perhaps he, himself, too is one of those things.
“San.”
“Yeosang.” San blinks once, twice, and something flicks back on in his eyes . He presses his index finger firmly into his nose. “This isn’t over. Mark my words.”
The half minute where Yeosang thought about the strangeness of permanence in someone else’s life and Choi San and the leather couch is over.
“Oh, I’m so scared. You’re gonna smother me to death.” He cracks another smile. “Finally, the sweet relief of death—”
San tuts and sits up, “Not funny!” The little line of worry is back in the middle of his forehead.
“Sorry.”
A beat of silence.
“I really can't make any killing myself jokes—?”
“No!”
He lets out another syrupy laugh, sitting upright until they’re pulled out of orbit once again.
.
It’s that night that Yeosang decides that he considers San something between a friend and an angel.
.
It’s raining as Yeosang walks home from the job interview.
It was alright, he reasons to himself. The owner had seemed nice, a bunny hybrid named Seonghwa, leaning in for a hug as he walked in and offering him a free coffee. Yeosang didn’t miss the look of pity in his eyes when he stammered over every other word.
He wishes his tongue wasn’t so clumsy, that he was as articulate as San was when he practiced meeting room pitches at him.
San.
Even when his life has undeniably changed for the better, there’s a bitter feeling every time he inhales. The sort of apprehension that something would turn out terrible, hitting the back of his throat like bile. He mindlessly kicks at the puddles, shattering the mirage of himself reflected at him as he thinks about dinner.
San would be cooking dinner by now.
San, San, San.
The interview was for the cafe San frequented, the very one he bought and force fed Yeosang pastries from.
It was a pressing matter; the way that San pushed himself to the forefront of his mind too often. A cellophane membrane seeping into him and pulling him close, fluttering yet certain in its persistence. San who leveled him with the pressing yet softest gaze as he watched Yeosang eat. San who smelled like nice cologne and owned five perfect powdered iron shirts. San who never let his breath tick off a second too late.
San, who wrapped the scarf around Yeosang’s neck, fussing about the rain and the cold and ensuring he stepped out the door with his right foot for good luck on the interview. The scarf was his, of course.
A constant. Unable to be factored out.
Yeosang couldn’t bring himself to feel anything— remotely, surely, disdainful toward him. A flesh and blood dedication to everything honest and normal and simply good. It’s a truth, a confession that he folds up and tucks away as he buries his nose into the scarf, breathing in the scent of San. Shitty cologne, really.
Even with every quiet “Thank you, San,” he murmured, Yeosang feels the cloud of doubtful insincerity hanging over him. That his motions of gratitude were just… not enough.
It’s with that train of thought that Yeosang took the time to shower, really shower, comb through his hair carefully, use his nicest lotion. Not look depressed. The way he shyly asked to borrow San’s nicer clothes for the interview, and ended up basking in his attention as San fretted over him for half an hour making sure a hair was not out of place.
(“Introduce yourself with a smile. Confident but not full of yourself.” A squeeze to his shoulders, “And keep your head up. You’ll have the straightest spine they’ve ever seen.”
When Yeosang looks in the mirror before heading out, he finds himself taken aback by how alive he looks.
San tended to have that effect on him.)
He keeps his heart inside the brown paper bag of pastries, slightly wet from the rain but safely shielded in his arms. Yeosang remembers which ones San liked. Just like how San seemed to remember to keep a cup of tea in the kitchen just for him before he left for work.
San clung to him.
So when he comes across a small, ragged clump of meowing fur, he doesn’t know what else to expect.
Old Yeosang would’ve kept walking. A Yeosang without sticky sweet membranes of another man wrapped around him, one that knew he was too sick to take care of someone else.
However, he can’t say that he is shocked at all when the little thing was gathered up in his arms, wrapping the scarf around it gently. The soft drizzle refused to let up, leaving it shaking in his arms.
Yeosang is drenched, soaking wet; He can barely offer any dry warmth to the cat.
“I’m sorry, kitty. We’ll be home soon.”
Home. San loves cats. He was bringing a cat home.
It meowed again indignantly as Yeosang nearly tripped over himself, reverberating through it’s frail body, so much so that every tendon and bone seemed to tremble in Yeosang’s arms. The noise twisted through his heart with a shocking urgency. He bends down to whisper softly, soothing the bundle of fur with care. It’s what San would do. It’s what he knew he would do.
It’s true, he thinks, it’s true that San has wrapped himself around his heart, now a fraction bigger and warmer. Sticky and sweet, making him pick up stray cats in the rain.
Definitely not the Old Yeosang.
.
Yeosang clicks the door behind him quietly, but San hears him anyway.
“Yeosang!” San appears in the corridor, wearing that same worried expression he’s come to associate with their time in the same room.
“San.”
“Yeosang, I’ve called you like, five times— Where the hell have you been? Oh, what, you’re soaking wet—” San immediately rushes towards him, wiping his face with his sleeves and tugging him forward to the living room.
“San—”
He pushes Yeosang down onto the couch, pulling at the collar of his wet jacket. “Seriously, next time, you need to like, fuckin call me back. God, did a damn hurricane catch you?”
Pushing his wet bangs out of his face with messy haste, San barely lets him respond back. “I’m going to start getting gray hairs. At my small age. Do you even know how worried I was—?”
“San.”
San snaps his hands away from Yeosang. “Sorry. I’m sorry, I was just—”
Yeosang shakes his head. “No, it’s fine, just…”
He slowly unravels the bundled scarf. An unimpressed meow rings out in the room.
“Oh.” San gasps, “Oh.”
San drops to his knees, hands already reaching out to the shivering little cat. “Oh, baby, Yeosang— what—?”
He carefully, skillfully gathers the black cat in his arms, cooing all the while. “Oh my god. Aren’t you so pretty? Oh, you’re shaking.” The cat responds with another meow.
San’s voice has upped an octave, a softness with every breath. Yeosang watched him cradle the cat with a warmth that seemed to pulse through him like it was natural. His eyebrows were gently pinched together, face still flush with worry and hair ruffled clearly after an hour of running his hands through it. And his eyes looked at the sweet little cat like it held the world. Yeosang wanted to take a picture, tuck it away in his newfound knowledge of domesticity and sharing the same breath as San, to remember how he looked when he loved.
It’s like he was the sun itself.
“Yeosang, could you get some towels?”
Snapping out of his reverie, he nods, quickly getting up before he did something stupid. Like tucking San’s floppy bangs behind his ear, so he could get a better look at the cat. Or something.
He comes back with towels to find San meowing at the cat. Shaking his head with a laugh, he tucks the towel around the cat while it was still in San’s arms.
“It’s enrichment. I’m making sure it's alert.” San informs him, “Isn’t that right, baby? Meow!”
The cat, indeed, does meow back.
Yeosang isn’t sure what to make of the searing warmth streaking down his throat, shivering down his back, every time San says baby. That was an issue for later.
He takes another towel and starts patting it properly dry. Then San begins wrapping it carefully around the cat instead. San coos at that, a cat burrito.
“He doesn’t have a collar by the way.”
“He?”
“Yup. We should probably take him to the vet tomorrow, have his scanned for a microchip or something. He doesn’t seem hurt…” He runs his knuckle softly across the cats forehead, chewing his lip as he thinks. “Where did you come from, kitty?”
Another meow. Yeosang laughs in disbelief. “I didn’t know cats could be so talkative.”
“He's very smart.” San tilts his head back against the couch. “Hey, if he ends up having no microchip or owner… Can I keep him?”
Yeosang shrugs, “It’s your place, San.”
San’s eyes flicker with something unreadable before he looks away. “I guess.”
Something tells him Yeosang’s response wasn’t what San hoped to hear. He opens his mouth to say…. something, but San gets to it first.
“I now have two roommates. You planning on bringing any more friends?” That self assured grin is back on his face, and Yeosang’s shoulders melted.
“You know what? Let me call up Yunho. I’m sure you’ll get along great.”
San’s eyes suddenly narrow, “Oh? Who’s that?”
He shrugs, “A friend."
Yeosang’s voice nearly catches on the word. A friend, absolutely. It has just been… a while since he stopped answering his texts.
“Well, I’m gonna run out of room at this rate. I was all alone just a month ago, and now there’s gonna be four of us in a two bedroom flat.”
“Oh no, how awful.” Yeosang rolls his eyes.
“Oh no indeed. I mean, I guess we’ll have no choice to share the same bed.”
Yeosang snaps his eyes up to Sans in a stunned beat of silence, only to find his face crinkled with that teasing dimpled smile.
“I bet you snore.”
“Come find out.”
“And I bet you hog all the sheets in your sleep, you big lug.”
“And I bet you’re going to catch a cold if you keep sitting there in your wet ass clothes.”
Oh.
San tugs him up, “You should shower. I’ll watch the cat, maybe call the vet. You hungry? We can order something today.”
Yeosang lets San pull him closer, both of their hands fumbling at the slipper zipper of the coat and attempting to peel the wet fabric off.
He hums in response. “Yeah, okay.” He’s not sure what question he’s answering, letting San press his warm palms to the side of his neck to warm him up. Yeosang hadn’t even noticed that he was cold and trembling.
“‘M sorry.” Yeosang mumbles belatedly. The coat comes off completely, water splattering onto the floor. He shivers as the wet shirt clinging to his skin is exposed to the air.
San frowns. “For what?”
“Made you worry.” His eyes flutter shut, shivers wreaking through him. San palms at his neck, the sides of his arms. Yeosang dizzily wishes he would just hug him already.
“Don’t apologize, Yeosang. I should’ve…. I know you can take care of yourself.” His fingers pat against Yeosang’s cheek, “You’re going to prove me very wrong if you don’t hurry and take a warm shower though.”
"Mmm.” A beat of silence. “ Don’t worry about me anymore, San.” He opens his eyes again to look at him.
San returns the stare, and Yeosang dimly remembers the night on the couch. Too much happens on that couch.
“Let’s make a deal.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll let you worry about me too.”
That makes the corner of Yeosang’s mouth twitch. I already think about you all the time, too much, who made you so sweet?
“I guess… I could get around that.”
Another slow sweet smile spreads across San’s face, another god forsaken dimple making itself known.
Yeosang suddenly regrets making a deal with this guy, like, ever. That was how he ended up with a heart that was an centimeter bigger and a laugh that couldn’t stop itself from erupting nowadays and a tummy full of home cooked dinners.
“I feel like that was a mistake.”
“Eh. Maybe.” San’s smile turns downright devious. “You know, I told you to go shower tens minutes ago. You need help taking that shirt off or can you handle it?”
Yeosang shields himself from San’s grabby hands and skips to the bathroom, leaving that devil’s saccharine laugh to ring out once again.
It’s apparent San is inseparable from the cat. He comes back to find them still curled up on the couch together, San feeding it little pieces of meat.
Yeosang silently prays that the cat has no owner; San is going to be heartbroken if he has to give him up. Yeosang is going to be heartbroken if he never hears San say baby in a sweet breathless tone ever again.
The cat catches sight of Yeosang, and meows demandingly.
“Alright, I’m coming.” He mutters in response, sitting on the other side of the cat as San giggles in delight.
“I’m teaching him well. He's going to be the most spoiled cat on the block.”
Yeosang shakes his head in disbelief, a smile creeping back on his face, “You’re ridiculous.”
“You like it.” San shoots back.
Yeah, probably.
“I like your food.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rings. “I’ll get it.” Yeosang stands up, ears burning as he takes the package of food from the delivery man.
You like it.
“San, they only gave us one pair of chopsticks…”
He looks up from hand feeding the cat, and it strikes Yeosang how catlike he was. “Really? It’s fine. I’ll just feed you.”
Halfway through eating and keeping mouthfuls of food away from greedy cats, San speaks up again.
“So.” He chews around a mouthful of food before continuing. “I like, read online. About rescuing cats. They say the cat should be in a warm, consistent environment.”
Yeosang looks around. “I mean. I guess your place isn’t that bad.” San swats at his knee and Yeosang dodges with a giggle.
“Listen! Okay, so, he’s used to both of us, right? It would be weird if one of us was away all of a sudden.” San looks up from his food to catch his eye, and Yeosang nods intently.
It’s so sudden, so quick, that Yeosang barely registers it before San asks—
“So, I think we should all sleep in the same bed.”
— the softest flush spreading across his high cheekbones.
It takes Yeosang another second to register his words.
“The same bed?”
San nods again, face still fixed on his own food, the blush never leaving his face.
Yeosang probably matched his flush, the familiar burning sensation in his cheeks as he thinks about them. Them. One bed.
It would be fine.
“Yeah, Yeah, of course. It’s for the cat.”
“For the cat.”
.
The cat in question lay in the middle of the bed. It was clear now that he reigned terror over the entire flat. Not Yeosang’s problem.
San held him closer to his chest, while Yeosang kept a little distance between himself and the other two.
His heart was pounding. Somehow, deep in his mind, he knew it would turn out this way. They were familiar with each other in a viscous way that would inevitably result in the tightness deep in Yeosang’s chest.
Of course. This was always how it would go.
He reasonably couldn’t sleep; Not with how his entire brain refused to shut off.
Yeosang lets his stare trail down San’s features, the eyelashes brushing his cheeks, the ridge of his nose, the soft curve of his cupids bow— living, breathing angel with an earnest pulse just an arm length away. Just as beautiful as the first time they met. Just as real as his blood touched his hands.
“Thank you for everything, San.”
It’s the softest admission, whispered to the cold air, disappearing like mist.
.
Yeosang wakes up to something undeniably draped across his back. Someone. His brain wakes up minutes after he does, slowly realizing the radiating warmth of a firm arm draped across his waist, solid flesh against his shoulder blades, the softest breath whispered against the nape of his neck.
San.
His brain panics.
He twitches instinctively, a feeble attempt at trying to get away. It doesn’t work. Yeosang knew San was strong. But even in his sleep?
“San.” Yeosang mumbles meekly. No response. “San, get up.”
He weakly pats his hand, trying to rouse him from his sleep.
“San, you’re gonna be late to work…”
That seems to work— a soft groan, unmistakably San.
“Idontwannagoooo.”
Weirdly enough, Yeosang’s sleep brain barely registers how far away San’s voice sounds, as if he isn’t practically on top of him.
“You have to. The cat, San, remember?” Yeosang attempts to turn around once again in his grip, trying to wriggle out gently. He’s still half asleep, unaware of the pull of the sheets from the other side of the bed.
He feels the weight shift, tilting him enough to fully wake him up. Yeosang blearily opens his eyes, too scared to look at the sight of sleep-kissed San early in the morning.
Out of the corner of his eye, San slowly sits up, yawning and rubbing at his face. His hair sticks up everywhere. Cute.
Wait.
What?
If San was sitting up…?
Who the fuck is hugging me???
Yeosang nearly breaks his neck trying to turn around, finally, finally, getting the arm wrapped tightly around him off—
A man. An entire man, curled up in San’s blankets.
What the fuck.
“San,” Yeosang chokes out.
“I’m up.” One of San’s arms still half lay across around the stranger’s waist, the other hand blearily rubbing at his face.
The stranger’s very naked waist.
“San, do…do not freak out, but I need you to open your eyes.”
His vision finally focuses, taking in the sight in their bed. Golden, tattooed skin, silky black hair spilling across the pillow, plush lips half open with drool, and—
A set of black cat ears, perched upon his head.
What the fuck.
Yeosang turns to San in unbridled shock, only to find a similar expression mirrored back at him.
“Yeosang, is that—?”
He only shakes his head in response, dragging his gaze back to the man, no, their cat, in front of them.
As if he could feel the stares on him, he slowly, lazily stretches awake. Lean muscle and blank ink, limbs raised above his head as he yawns, eyes slowly fluttering open.
Yeosang blinks once, twice in disbelief. Nope. The cat ears were not a hallucination— flicking in contentment as the man slowly sits up, regaining his bearings, eyes still half closed.
He lifts a clawed hand, scratching behind his ear, before realizing that he just scratched his cat ear with his human hand. San and Yeosang watched as his eyes focus in a split second, flying open with surprise as he stares at his hand.
His gaze lands on them, and his jaw drops open.
“Oh.”
A grimace spreads across his face, lowering his hand as he looks between them nervously.
“Guess I should cancel that vet appointment, huh?” San jokes, voice still slightly shocked.
He finally sits up, and extends a hand to both of them. Yeosang feels his stomach flip as he realizes how pretty he was.
“Preferably.”
Yeosang shakes his head. “Who are you?”
“Let’s restart.” A feline smile, canines glinting in the morning light.
“My name is Wooyoung.”