a house is not a home // sekai + one-sided sexing
In which Sehun has a) a crush on Yixing and b) a lot of growing up to do.
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: Really vague adult themes but nothing explicit, lapslock, very lazy editing.
Pairing: Sekai, one-sided Sexing, side Xiuhan/Xingdae. Sehun-centric.
Length: ~7400.
summer.
sehun meets yixing in the late sticky summer of his first week at university; sehun flushed pink with sweet apple cider as yixing languidly rolls cigarettes between pale fingertips. he can’t help but stare transfixed at the intricate tattoo that disappears up yixing’s rolled-up sleeve, but carefully averts his gaze when luhan, the bright-eyed boy who’d invited him along for a drink, catches him looking.
luhan has known yixing much longer than anyone else in their little group. luhan is the reason sehun is friends with the others, like minseok, who nurses doubles of scotch with one hand while the other rests on luhan’s knee. sehun is the baby of the group, although he adamantly denies it, and the others take care of him despite his protestations. luhan is the one who intervenes when sehun is accosted by a group of overenthusiastic seniors who are keen to exploit sehun’s confusion and naivety in his first week, and takes him to the university bar, secreted under one of the tallest trees on campus.
it’s in the hidden courtyard in the back where he first meets yixing and minseok.
“yixing, loverboy, meet sehun,” luhan says, almost proudly, and sehun waves shyly from behind his hyung. he’s never been good at introductions. luhan isn’t overtly extroverted or loud, but sehun can already tell that he possesses the social graces that seem to come so naturally to most people. sehun can’t really boast the same.
“where did lulu find you?” yixing asks curiously. the question, from anyone else, would seem laced with malice, but yixing seems incapable of sounding malicious as he lazily blows smoke rings. sehun watches the smoke billow from his pursed lips, and notes that yixing always turns away from them when he exhales, and keeps his cigarette low, next to his knee, so that he’s not affecting anyone else. except that he is, because sehun feels his chest tighten a little, and he doesn’t know why.
“outside the student centre,” luhan explains, sinking into minseok’s lap. minseok doesn’t say anything - only shifts, automatically, to accommodate for his boyfriend. “he was being harassed by evil third-years who wanted to coerce him into joining some club or another. i rescued him.”
“how good of you,” yixing observes with a wry smile, and stubs the remains of his cigarette into the ashtray between him and minseok. he looks up at sehun, and the dimple in his right cheek flickers. “i’m yixing. would you like a drink?”
“ah…” sehun ducks his head. “i wouldn’t say no to a drink, i guess.”
luhan raises his hand enthusiastically, almost hitting minseok in the chin. “get a jug of cider please!”
yixing smiles good-naturedly and gets up, patting his back pocket for his wallet. “of course, lu-ge.”
by the time yixing returns with a jug and three glasses, sehun has taken the seat diagonally opposite his. luhan has deigned to let minseok return to his scotch, instead assuming the seat next to yixing’s.
“sehun-ah…you are in first-year?” it’s the first time minseok has spoken, and he looks at sehun kindly. “how are you finding the university?”
“i haven’t really had a chance to see much of it yet,” sehun admits. he’s drinking a little too fast from his glass and he can feel his face getting flushed, but he’d rather be drunk than awkward. “it’s nice though. i’m looking forward to starting my classes.”
“what do you study?” yixing asks, rummaging through a pack of filters.
“classics,” sehun says. he waits for yixing to ask him what he plans to do with that degree after he graduates, but yixing says nothing. “w-w-what about you?” yixing looks like a musician, sehun thinks - his hands look dainty, but strong, with long slim fingers that can roll a perfect cigarette.
“biomedical engineering,” yixing says with a smirk, as if he knows what sehun was just thinking about him.
“ah,” sehun says with a slight frown. “how much have you got left of your degree?”
“just this year.”
“and a few more units,” luhan adds lightly. “you failed those ones, remember?”
sehun feels sorry for yixing for a moment, wondering if yixing wanted that information shared with a stranger - and he is a stranger, after all - but yixing merely nods, lighting his cigarette.
“that’s true, i almost forgot,” he says thoughtfully. “jongdae was really unwell that semester.”
“how is he?” minseok asks. “is he doing okay lately?”
yixing smiles ruefully. “not really. i mean. he’s doing as well as anyone like him can, you know?”
“at least he has you to take care of him,” luhan says, patting yixing on the elbow. “you’re really good at that. how are you holding up, though?”
“oh,” yixing says, wrinkling his nose and turning his head to exhale, again blowing the smoke away from the others. “i’m fine, don’t worry about me.”
sehun looks down at his cider, and rolls the sweating glass between two hands. he doesn’t know the person the others are talking about, and he doesn’t feel comfortable asking.
“if you’re sure,” luhan says, examining his friend narrowly.
“i am,” yixing says with a shrug. “it’s no big deal. i’m not the one who’s ill.”
luhan looks doubtful, but doesn’t insist.
“anyway,” yixing says, turning his attention back to sehun. “we should hang out more when semester starts. minseok giving up caffeine is the worst thing that ever happened to my social life.”
minseok laughs out loud and stands, stretching. “shut up, you pisshead. does anyone else want a drink?”
“i’ll come with you,” yixing says, getting up and again fumbling for his wallet.
“it’s in your back pocket,” sehun says quietly. yixing fixes his gaze on him for a second, before breaking into a gentle smile.
“thanks,” he says. “i forgot.” he pulls out his wallet, and they disappear in the direction of the bar.
“your friends are nice,” sehun says shyly to luhan, and luhan beams.
“yixing is lovely,” luhan agrees, “and minnie is the best. i don’t know what i’d do without them. i’m glad you like them, sehun. i hope we can all be friends.”
sehun looks at luhan’s earnest expression, and finds himself nodding. “of course, hyung.”
/
sehun meets jongin in the middle of a coughing fit, unsmoked cigarette smouldering at his feet.
“smoke much?”
sehun looks up and his throat feels dry. literally dry.
“i’m jongin,” says jongin, bluntly adding, “you should put that out. it’s hot. you might start a grass fire.” he grinds the toe of his sneaker into the cigarette.
“are you a first-year too?” jongin asks.
sehun gapes at the other boy. “can i help you with something?”
jongin sighs. “look. i don’t usually do this…”
“you better not finish with a cheesy pick-up line.”
sehun likes to think he’s recovered, just a bit, but when he looks closely at the other boy, he’s thrown all over again. jongin is all plush lips and fidgeting hands, tense muscles shifting and rolling under his thin tank. every time he smiles, he looks slightly embarrassed, and sehun likes that about him, because it’s a frank display of what sehun himself feels most of the time, even though the only emotions he dares express are disinterest and sullenness.
when he was in primary school, a girl turned away from him and told him she didn’t want to be friends because he looked ‘stuck up’. he felt offended at the time, but now, he can see why she thought that of him. but jongin is nothing like that. he is beautiful and a bit undone, in a way that sehun never allows himself to be. jongin’s clothing hangs easily off his golden skin, and his bleached hair is wispy and unruly around his face. sehun rests his eyes in the deep hollows of jongin’s collarbones, and wonders if jongin thinks he’s stuck up too.
“i was going to say, i don’t usually do this, because i don’t like talking to strangers, but my asshole friend said i was antisocial and spent too much time practicing so he made me come over to talk to you.”
oh. “that’s about as bad as being kissed because of a dare.”
“would you rather i kiss you?” jongin smirks, and sehun is struck by the way his face changes. he finds himself watching for a dimple that never appears. stop it. stop.
it’s hot and sehun is exhausted. jongin studies him carefully for a moment, as if he’s expecting to be told to leave.
sehun says finally, “i bet your asshole friend wouldn’t expect me to say yes to that.”
“hey! don’t say it like that - like i made him up, and that there’s no asshole friend, just me,” jongin splutters, “it wasn’t an excuse, i swear. i’m not some random creeper. look, he’s right over there. taemin.” jongin points at a boy lying on a park bench, phone held above his head, playing games. sehun thinks the asshole friend actually does look like he may as well be jongin, but he doesn’t say anything.
“you don’t believe me, do you?” jongin says hotly.
sehun just shakes his head and smiles at the ground.
he isn’t sure why this stranger has come crashing into his afternoon, all indignant and hotheaded. jongin is equal parts impulsive and shy, and sehun doesn’t really know what to think of him.
sehun drags jongin out for bubble tea a week later when tao tells him he has an addictive personality and a serious tapioca problem, and jongin calls him two days later, telling him that taemin is too busy to see a horror movie with him, and won’t sehun please come and make use of the spare ticket? and after a few weeks, sehun learns that kissing jongin is easier than trying to figure out how to smoke a cigarette. sehun likes that about him. he thinks he could come to like a lot of things about jongin.
/
sehun gets to know minseok and luhan much better over the next few months. luhan, it turns out, is relentless in making and keeping friends, so sehun finds himself becoming the perpetual third wheel. but minseok doesn’t seem to mind that sehun is always around, and sehun finds the older boy to be an excellent listener, and an extraordinarily good-humoured friend. he’s still a little in awe of the fact that they let him hang around, and he’s constantly aware of their difference in age. four years doesn’t seem like that much, but it’s an awfully big gap considering sehun has just graduated from high school, and lives at college. minseok and yixing live in a share house together, and luhan - according to minseok - ‘may as well’ live with them too, but also has an apartment of his own close to the university.
they’re at luhan’s apartment now, sitting cross-legged on the rug. sehun wraps his arms around his knees glumly, quietly stressing over assignments and readings and presentations. luhan hums as he rolls a scuffed soccer ball back and forth, watching the traffic out the window. sehun knows he should probably make conversation, but he also knows that luhan is perfectly comfortable to sit with in silence. he lets himself fret about homework and whether or not to ask jongin to come over tomorrow.
minseok shows up a while later with half a watermelon and no knife, and upends the entire kitchenette in search of one in luhan’s disorganised drawers. sehun watches with a smile as luhan defensively claims that knives are dangerous and therefore must be well hidden from children.
“children?”
“like sehun!”
sehun pouts. “i’m not a child!”
“you are,” minseok says grimly. “you really are. and luhan - don’t pretend you’re hiding anything when you’re really just a slob.”
there’s a sharp rap on the glass door, and minseok gives up on trying to find a knife and goes to open it.
“yixing! you came!”
“i thought you’d be here much earlier,” luhan says, waving him in.
yixing looks flustered and flushed as he sinks to the floor next to sehun.
“hey kiddo,” he says breathlessly, wrapping sehun in a one-armed hug.
“is everything okay? i know you have a hard time remembering when we’ve made plans or what your name is, but you’re usually not this bad,” luhan says.
yixing winces apologetically. “i’m sorry, lu-ge. i was going to leave earlier but then jongdae showed up and he’s been going through a really rough time lately.”
“how is jongdae?” minseok asks. he’s managed to scoop out most of the watermelon with a stainless steel ladle, and he passes the bowl around with a small container of toothpicks.
rubbing his temples, yixing pulls out his little sachet of filters and shakes his head slowly. “not great. but we’re getting through, you know?” he attempts a smile. “it’s been a hard time for him.”
luhan and minseok share a look. sehun knows by now that jongdae is the reason yixing is never around as much as his other two hyungs. according to luhan, they’ve been dating for a year now. yixing spends a lot of time taking care of his boyfriend because jongdae has some kind of unspecified terminal illness.
“it’s good that he has you,” minseok says.
sehun thinks yixing would be good at taking care of people; yixing is gentle and patient, after all. yixing is quiet and intelligent and funny and sweet; all the nice things anyone could expect or want from a partner.
yixing smiles wryly. “i’m going out for a smoke.”
“you just got here!” luhan protests, but doesn’t stop yixing from getting to his feet.
“i’ll be right back,” yixing promises.
sehun doesn’t want to expect anything from yixing though; shouldn’t want to expect anything. somehow, it feels like sehun isn’t entitled to want him.
autumn.
“where are you?”
“what the hell are you talking about?” sehun groans, rolling away from jongin. jongin is always hot to touch, even when sehun has stolen all the blankets in an attempt to get jongin to leave his bed.
jongin sits up and swings his leg over him, straddling his waist. “i mean,” he says quietly, “sometimes, it’s like you’re not here.”
sehun huffs and tries to push him off, with little success. “are you trying to be deep? because you shouldn’t. it doesn’t suit you.”
“i’m serious, sehun.”
sehun looks up at him. jongin’s eyes are dark and unwavering, and sehun feels like he’s being examined from inside out.
“i can’t help it,” sehun says finally, because jongin looks like he’s not going to get off until sehun gives him a satisfactory answer. “whatever it is. i can’t help the way i am.” somehow, though, sehun knows this is different from when luhan pokes at his cheek and tells him his face is as expressive as a brick wall.
“you don’t know what i mean, do you?” jongin says. and then the weight is gone, and jongin is standing, pulling on his shirt.
“jongin, wait-” sitting up, sehun pats the bed - jongin’s side of the bed. “come here.”
jongin’s pulling on his jeans, and he hesitates for a moment, but doesn’t relent. “sometimes it’s like the only time you even notice me is when i’m getting undressed.”
he’s out the door before sehun can think of anything to say.
/
sehun is sitting in minseok’s room, trying to translate a passage of chinese. they’re both waiting for luhan to finish work; minseok is waiting so they can have dinner together, and sehun is waiting so that he can help him with a particularly tricky sentence.
it’s getting dark already - the days are getting shorter, and whenever sehun looks up at the thick layer of clouds in the sky, he feels like he’s struggling to breathe. they’ve been sitting quietly, each wrapped up in their individual tasks, when the door opens and yixing bursts in with a sly grin.
“hello friends,” he says, nodding at sehun as if he’s not surprised to see him in there. “i was thinking that i want to cook a really big fish. lu-ge and i were talking about it. anyone in?”
minseok looks up from his laptop, where he’s been marking papers. “yeah, sure, do you want us to chip in?”
yixing often has ambitious cooking projects; he hates cooking for just himself, so his friends benefit as a result. sehun has reflected numerous times that yixing eats surprisingly well for an underpaid student, but they all split the costs between them.
“that would be nice,” yixing says, “i can go shopping for ingredients and tell you how much it is.”
“sounds good,” minseok says. “not tonight though. i promised lulu we would have a nice dinner, just us.”
sehun can’t help but duck his head. just us. maybe his hyungs are keen to be alone for once; sehun always asks if it’s okay that he hangs out with them so often, but every time they wave it off and tell him he’s always welcome.
“cute,” yixing says, dimple flickering as he smiles. “what about you, sehun, what are you doing tonight?”
sehun blinks slowly up at the older boy. “oh. nothing much. i’ll probably go home after i say bye to luhan-hyung.”
yixing nods. “tiring day?”
“yeah,” sehun says. “i should get an early night.”
“you take care of yourself, okay?” yixing looks at him kindly. “get some rest.”
sehun nods.
“and sehun-ah,” yixing adds, almost awkwardly. “you - you should come eat this big fish with us too! it’ll be really big, i promise.”
and sehun blushes and nods eagerly, unable to speak, because yixing is just so considerate and observant and yixing can always tell - can always tell when sehun is feeling awkward or left out. and does everything he can to make him feel better. sehun never does end up eating yixing’s big fish, and it’s not a metaphor. yixing tries his hardest, but he’s not so good with follow-through. maybe it’s sehun’s fault for not being more assertive. maybe it’s sehun’s fault for expecting things, despite trying his best not to. maybe trying isn’t enough for either of them.
/
sehun is sitting on the library steps with tao when yixing walks past and recognises him.
“sehun-ah!” yixing bounds up the steps two at a time and squats down in front of them. “hello, i don’t think we’ve met.”
tao looks at the older boy curiously. “i’m tao, sehun’s best friend. you must be yixing,” he says.
“that’s right,” yixing says. “does sehunnie talk about me a lot?” he smiles up at sehun, who avoids eye contact and concentrates on getting the last tapioca pearls from his bubble tea.
fortunately, tao isn’t that terrible a friend. “oh, you know, sometimes. in passing.”
“aww,” yixing says. “that’s cute.”
sehun hates being called cute. he’s not cute. gazing heavenward, he prays that his friend doesn’t say anything else embarrassing.
turning to sehun again, yixing reaches out to ruffle his perfectly coiffed hair. “why do you never come visit me?” yixing complains. sehun accidentally swallows a tapioca pearl whole and blinks at him.
“why would i?” he says blankly.
yixing pretends to be offended. “because you love me! you’re always inviting luhan to get bubble tea with you. i’m so wounded. you should get bubble tea with me.”
“i already have bubble tea,” sehun says petulantly. yixing gently hits him on the back of the head as he gets up slowly, rolling his shoulders. he looks sore, sehun thinks - stiff and tired.
“can you do me a favour?” yixing says, as if he’s read sehun’s mind. he needs to stop doing that. “can you give me a massage?”
sehun protests loudly and at length, but lets yixing sit down on the step below his, between his spread knees. he doesn’t quite know what to do, but kneads at the muscles stretched taut across his back. yixing seems satisfied enough, and lets out an appreciative groan as sehun rubs at a particularly tight knot in his shoulders.
tao seems excited to learn that yixing speaks mandarin too, and they converse for the next few minutes in the language that sehun can only half follow. sehun doesn’t mind though - he likes the way chinese spills so easily from yixing’s lips. when he can’t understand what he’s listening to, the words turn to music, and sehun can ignore the meaning for the way it sounds.
yixing asks for sehun to massage his lower back next, and tao suggests that yixing lie down on his stomach so that sehun can access that area more easily.
“you just…like…yeah, like that.” tao positions sehun so that sehun is essentially straddling yixing’s ass.
“your butt is so bony,” yixing says, laughing at their unconventional arrangement.
“shut up,” sehun says. yixing’s butt is plush and nice to sit on, and sehun finds that in this position, he can get to all the muscles in yixing’s lower back.
“this looks so obscene,” tao comments. “it’s cute.”
“shut up,” sehun says again, this time to his friend. tao merely grins at him, and sehun resists the childish urge to stick his tongue out at him.
“don’t stop,” yixing says, from beneath him, and sehun inhales sharply, thinking about all the other contexts in which yixing might be saying that while sehun is straddling him. don’t want too much. you can’t want too much.
later, sehun asks tao what they were talking about.
“you,” tao says. sehun lets himself think about that, and hope.
winter.
“i used to be super in love with him,” luhan tells him one day, over steaming bowls of congee.
sehun looks at minseok, confused. “who?”
“with yixing,” minseok says, and sehun blinks slowly. oh. luhan and yixing. sehun marvels at how easily luhan and minseok talk about it, as if it’s one of those things in the eternal past, never to happen again.
luhan sprinkles a handful of spring onions in sehun’s serving and reminds him to not pick out the ginger. sehun scowls and blows his nose for the umpteenth time that afternoon, feeling all at once red and hot and sore and shivery.
“so?” sehun sullenly shoves a spoonful of hot congee in his mouth, and spits it out the next second. “fuck fuck fuck fuck!” it’s very hot.
luhan bursts into laughter. “oh my god, my darling sehunnie is grouchy, isn’t he?”
“leave me alone to die,” sehun says emphatically, pushing his bowl away. his head feels like it’s going to melt into a viscous puddle of toxic goop.
“anyway. i’m telling you, because it’s normal to be in love with yixing. everyone’s in love with yixing at some point.”
if sehun had congee in his mouth right now, he’d spit it in luhan’s face. but he doesn’t, so he settles for dropping his head down on minseok’s kitchen table. the tablecloth is old, but the plasticky oranges are still brightly printed in a cheerful pattern. it’s yixing’s kitchen table too, but according to minseok, yixing hasn’t been home much. jongdae has been especially unwell lately.
“i’ve never been in love with yixing,” minseok observes. “but i’m glad you were, luhan.”
sehun’s forehead creases in confusion, and luhan frowns, reaching out to rub the crinkle between his brows.
“don’t do that,” luhan says. “it makes you look like you’re thinking. i get so worried when you think.”
“i don’t get it,” sehun whines. he doesn’t understand where this conversation is going. first it seems like luhan is making fun of his apparently-less-than-subtle crush on yixing, but now they’re talking about something else entirely, and sehun is tired and sick and pouty and feverish. “why are we even talking about this?”
“because it’s okay to feel like this, sehunnie! i know you’re confused.”
“yes. yes i am,” sehun says pointedly. he blows his nose again. “because i’m sick and you won’t stop talking shit.”
“i mean, confused about your feelings for yixing, not about this conversation.” luhan scoops up some congee in sehun’s spoon and blows on it gently, trying to thrust the utensil between sehun’s pouting lips.
“well, that too,” minseok says. “leave him alone, lulu. sehun needs to get some rest before he can talk about his feelings. and maybe a few more birthdays.”
“i have to get him while he’s weak! he’s vulnerable right now. the rest of the time, he won’t even admit he has them.” luhan taps his nose conspiratorially. “it’s all part of my strategy.”
“i do so have feelings,” sehun huffs. “why are you acting like i’m some kind of cardboard cutout?”
“you’re barely that,” luhan says affectionately, forcing another spoonful of congee into sehun’s mouth. “you’re more like a cardboard box. if boxes could look constipated.”
“i thought you were so nice when i first met you,” sehun says. “but it’s clear to me now that you are actually evil incarnate.”
minseok nods in solidarity. “i completely understand what you mean.”
luhan gapes at the both of them. “excuse me! i made you congee! i am feeding you congee! look at me! caring for my poor sickly sehun! my poor baby…so ungrateful…”
pulling a protesting luhan into his lap, minseok peppers kisses onto his forehead, and luhan’s indignant scowl soon turns to giggles. sehun looks down at his bowl of congee and swallows thickly. everyone’s in love with yixing. and yixing loves everyone; yixing smiles at all of his friends in the same way, gentle and loving, and it should be enough. it should be enough. sehun shouldn’t want anything more.
/
jongin is restless in his arms, a fidgeting furnace in sehun’s single bed.
“what do you want to do today?”
“hmm?” sehun rouses from his light sleep, rubbing the bridge of his nose against raised ridges of the older boy's spine. presses warm, wet kisses against taut skin. jongin squirms against him involuntarily.
“we could go out tonight,” jongin continues distractedly as sehun’s hands slide under the thick blankets, down his side. inhales sharply and jerks as sehun jabs him under the ribs. exhales again as sehun slowly glides his hand over jutting hipbones and down the long lean curve of jongin’s thigh. “we could meet up with some other people. we haven’t gone out in a while. it’ll be fun.”
“whatever you want,” sehun murmurs, smiling into jongin’s hair. jongin sighs and rolls over. lets sehun kiss his forehead. lets sehun kiss his way down his chest, pushing aside the blankets.
“i want you,” jongin says quietly.
“someone’s eager.” sehun laughs against jongin’s stomach and sinks lower to bite into his inner thigh. “maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight.” sehun looks up at jongin, lips curved into a smirk.
jongin looks away. his eyelids flutter closed. “whatever you want.”
/
“it feels like it’s never going to end,” sehun whines, huddling closer to luhan, who tucks him into his side. “i’m just going to be cold forever. i may as well become a human chimney like yixing and just smoke to keep warm.”
“don’t you dare be anything like xingxing,” luhan warns sternly. “the only good parts of him are the parts where he’s like a doormat for his friends and buys me lots and lots of alcohol.”
“most people would call that being supportive. and generous. or being an enabler, maybe.” sehun steals luhan’s scarf and earns himself a withering but affectionate glare from the older boy.
“even that has its limits,” minseok sighs. “yixing takes it to extremes. he’s running himself into the ground. it’s not sustainable.” he shakes his head and continues shelling peas.
sehun is surprised that they’re speaking so frankly about their absent friend. it’s nothing they probably haven’t already thought about before. but it’s another thing to hear it spoken aloud, to one another.
“he just really needs to step back and take care of himself once in a while. he’s not doing himself any favours,” minseok continues.
“oh minnie,” luhan says sadly. he looks at sehun. “jongdae has been staying over a lot. they’ve been fighting.”
“jongdae can be such a fucking dick. i know he’s unwell. but that doesn’t give him an excuse to treat people like shit,” minseok says shortly. “he’s always over here or yixing is always travelling all the way over there just to take care of him. i’m just worried.”
sehun still hasn’t met jongdae, so he feels like he isn’t entitled to speak. he has never heard minseok say so much in one go, and prepares himself for more, but minseok has put down his bowl of peas and is already burrowing into luhan’s other side. luhan pets both of them awkwardly, and sehun wishes he knew yixing well enough to feel justified in being as worried as his friends are.
/
when sehun does finally meet jongdae - jongdae, inscrutable, with the haughty bone structure, and the clever glint in his eyes - yixing is sick; subdued. he leans against sehun, arms entwined. jongdae is sitting with friends on the curb, drinking bubble tea from the cafe that sehun and yixing are about to go into. sehun wonders if yixing knew that they would bump into jongdae - if that was the reason he’d suggested they get bubble tea together.
“how are you feeling?” yixing asks, and smiles weakly at jongdae. jongdae looks at him, face blank. sehun thinks that jongdae should really be asking how yixing is feeling instead, since yixing looks like death warmed up.
“fine,” jongdae says curtly, and glances at his friends, then up at sehun. “i don’t think we’ve met. i’m jongdae.”
i know. “i’m sehun,” sehun says awkwardly. “we were just going to get bubble tea.”
jongdae shakes his half-empty cup and says, “the place up there is pretty good. is that where you guys were going?”
“yeah, we thought we’d try it,” yixing says.
they’re silent for a few moments. sehun doesn’t really know what to say to someone who obviously has heard nothing about him, even though he himself knows so much about jongdae.
“well, i’ll see you later?” yixing asks, hesitantly. his voice is quiet and strained; sehun can tell that yixing wants to sit down somewhere and rest.
“maybe,” jongdae says, shrugging noncommittally. he turns back to his friends.
sehun tugs yixing towards the cafe. “come on.”
they walk up the steps in silence.
“he’s not feeling well,” yixing says, as if compelled to apologise. “i wish you could’ve met him another time.”
“it’s fine, hyung,” sehun says. “what flavour do you want?”
yixing brightens. “do you think they have taro?”
“gross, are you turning into luhan-hyung?” sehun wrinkles his nose in an exaggerated expression of disgust, eliciting a laugh from the older boy. “i’m getting chocolate.”
yixing sits down as soon as they reach the cafe, handing sehun a slim leather billfold before resting his head down on his folded arms.
“i’m tired,” he complains. “you go order.”
sehun does, and waits patiently at the other end of the counter for their drinks to be prepared. he looks across the cafe at yixing, and pulls out his phone to send a text to jongin. can i see you tonight? he looks back over at yixing, who’s now looking pensively out the window. his phone vibrates almost immediately. of course. i missed you.
/
taemin is not quite the asshole jongin makes him out to be. when they first meet, taemin is roasting chestnuts and sweet potatoes in the kitchen while asking sehun a dozen questions about himself. jongin is leaning against sehun, hands clasped together in jongin’s lap, and the small kitchen is warm from the heat of the oven.
“thanks for inviting me along,” sehun says, smiling up at taemin.
“i’m just so glad to finally meet you! jongin won’t shut up about you!” taemin pouts.
jongin groans and hides his face in sehun’s scarf. “shut up, lee taemin.”
“jongin is such a loner sometimes. i swear if i hadn’t said hi to him in the practice studio all those years ago, he wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
“you are so embarrassing.”
sehun squeezes jongin’s hand. “it’s cute. this is cute. i didn’t know all these things about you.”
jongin glares back. “how are you the one saying these things to me? you’re the youngest!”
taemin looks at sehun in surprise. “i assumed you were older for some reason.”
“i get that a lot,” sehun says sheepishly.
“you do look very mature,” taemin says, nodding.
sehun shrugs. “so, you’re a dancer too?” jongin has already told him how he knows taemin - but he’d rather be told these things again than have a real conversation.
“yeah,” taemin says excitedly. “that’s how i know jongin - we were both at the same studio when we were kids. he was like this even back then.”
“like what,” jongin suppresses a smile and tries to be exasperated instead. “what am i like?”
“oh, you know,” taemin says airily, “really talented, good-looking, a total idiot…”
taemin is maybe a little bit like the asshole jongin made him out to be, sehun thinks. he waits until taemin is occupied with the oven once again, and turns quickly to press a reassuring kiss to jongin’s forehead.
“how are you feeling?”
“totally humiliated.” jongin scowls. “you know i’m really cool, right?”
“sure babe.”
“kiss me again.”
and sehun does.
spring.
it takes sehun over a year to realise why he still feels like he doesn’t know yixing at all. yixing is the type to say ‘i’m fine’ even when he’s breaking. sehun can tell, because maybe yixing feels the same way about him. yixing checks in with him constantly, and all sehun will admit to is being tired. too much homework, not enough sleep. never anything more. never i am afraid that none of this is real. i can’t sleep at night because something under my skin burns for me to be more than i think i can actually be. i feel like i will amount to nothing. i can’t connect to anyone. i’m not invested in anything. i don’t care about anything. i can’t care. sometimes i doubt i feel anything at all. i want to wake up. you can’t tell someone you’re fine and expect them to tell you why they’re not.
and sehun knows that neither of them are fine. but it’s okay like this. it’s okay that yixing stumbles into his dorm room at 3am after jongdae has kicked him out of his. it’s okay that yixing sheds clothes like skin cells and tucks himself into sehun’s side like it doesn’t mean anything that they’re barely clothed and shivering together under sehun’s too-small duvet. yixing produces about as much body heat as sehun does, and that’s not enough. sehun almost recalls how warm jongin always is, but brushes the thought aside.
“is jongdae okay?” sehun asks, and bites his tongue in the dark. it seems like the polite thing to ask.
“just ornery,” yixing says quietly. “it’s fine. he’s going through a hard time.”
you say that a lot. “he probably just needs some time by himself,” sehun says diplomatically.
“yeah.” yixing rubs his cold feet against sehun’s calves and earns himself a kick in the shin. “be nice to me!” he wraps his arms around the younger boy and nuzzles him until he stops struggling.
“why are you like this?” sehun complains. why do you only come into my bed when you’ve been ejected from another? why does it feel like my heart is so full when you are holding me, but also so empty, because you would hold anyone like this? why do i want you to want only me? why am i so selfish when you are anything but?
“like what?”
“never mind.”
“no, tell me!”
“shut up, i’m trying to sleep.”
it’s okay that their conversations never get any deeper than this. sehun doesn’t want very much. probably.
/
“why do we never hang out with your friends?”
“hmm?”
they’re smoking a bowl on sehun’s bedroom floor, chins and elbows propped on the windowsill to avoid exhaling into the room.
jongin looks at him. “i mean, i’ve never met any of your friends.”
“oh.” sehun passes him the joint. “i never really thought about it. i mean. do you want to?”
jongin shrugs, flustered. “i guess since we’re like, you know, a big part of each other’s lives, it’d be nice to…”
sehun is silent.
“i mean, don’t worry about it, god, it’s no big deal, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, i don’t want to make things weird-”
“jongin.”
jongin looks away. “is this still fun for you?”
“what do you mean by that?” sehun says sharply.
“what are we even doing?” jongin runs a hand through his hair. “sometimes i feel like you don’t even want to be here. i mean, is this just fun for you? i don’t want to have ‘the talk’ or whatever, but, you know, i need to know what this is. i mean, i hate this, you know? i can tell i’m the one who likes you more than you like me.”
and sehun doesn’t have an answer to that. he doesn’t know either. “i like being around you,” he says finally. “i really like being with you.”
jongin breathes a sigh of relief. “good. i like being with you too. i don’t want to expect too much from you, sehun, but at the very least i need to know how much i’m allowed to expect.”
sehun’s words catch in his throat. jongin’s confession sounds so familiar that it has sehun biting his tongue. “come here,” he murmurs, and pulls jongin towards him. he knows he’s holding on a bit too tightly to be comforting, but he needs to feel jongin pressed against him, needs to know jongin is there, needs to know jongin wants him. jongin feels warm, like smoke. sehun inhales deeply.
“i’m glad you’re in my life, you know,” sehun says quietly, mouth moving in a whisper against jongin’s neck. “i didn’t know you felt that way.” jongin shivers in his arms. “i’m sorry.”
/
yixing is in his bed again. jongdae is ‘going through a rough time’ again. sehun opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling.
sehun thinks that yixing has a little too much kindness to give to everyone, and sehun wants to tell him to back off - to take care of himself for once, rather than everyone else. yixing doesn’t know how to be selfish; doesn’t know how to think of himself first, or put himself first.
yixing considers himself an afterthought. sehun thinks that maybe yixing doesn’t realise how much love he is allowed to want, whereas sehun knows exactly how much love he wants, and whose.
sehun rolls onto his side to face yixing’s back. he always sleeps facing the wall when he’s with jongin, but yixing has a tendency to roll off the bed if there’s no one stopping him from falling. so sehun sleeps on the other side of the bed. jongin’s side.
“i need to get over myself,” sehun says out loud.
yixing doesn’t stir.
/
jongin is all soft angles and bleached hair in a tangle against sehun’s navy cotton pillowcases. sehun is sitting up next to him, leaning against the wall. his small bedroom is illuminated by the city lights through the window by his desk; sehun sleeps in silence and darkness, room like a womb, but jongin likes the window and curtains open, letting in all the street lamps and city ambience.
jongin doesn’t mind sleeping in the dark, “because it’s your room,” he always says.
but sehun sometimes forgets to draw the curtains before bed, and since he’s on the wall side, he doesn’t want to crawl over jongin to close the curtains again after they’re all tucked in and cosy. or so he says.
jongin shifts in his sleep, feeling for sehun next to him, so sehun slides a hand under jongin’s ribbed tank top, scratching gently at his stomach to wake him up.
“jongin-ah.”
jongin blinks sleep out of his eyes as he looks up blearily at sehun. sehun smiles back at him, jongin’s stomach hot against his palm.
“when did you get up?” jongin mumbles. his head falls back on the pillow. “why did you get up?”
“couldn’t sleep.” sehun tugs jongin onto his lap. “you should keep me company.”
“mmm.” jongin buries his face in the blankets pulled around sehun’s body, and wraps long arms around his middle. “okay.”
“jongin-ah.”
“mmm?”
“don’t fall asleep okay?”
“okay.”
“stay here with me.”
“okay.”
/
sehun was never held much as a child, and he feels like he’s spent the rest of his life making up for it. it may be why he’s currently twisted around minseok, gangly limbs akimbo. yixing’s lying with his face in sehun’s stomach, but sehun’s trying not to think about it too much. they’ve been celebrating the lingering afternoons with a three day bender, spent mostly on yixing and minseok’s front lawn. the sunlight stretches golden across the house as luhan emerges from it with another bowl of mystery punch. he holds out a ladle and sehun beckons him forwards. luhan attempts to pour the potent mix into sehun’s mouth, and he bravely swishes it around, only to spit it out a second later.
“that grass there will never grow again,” minseok observes solemnly.
“shut up,” luhan whines, and tastes some of the punch himself. “okay. fine. this is disgusting. but it's very alcoholic.”
“what’s even in it?” yixing peers over at the bowl in vague fascination.
“i put some tapioca pearls in it! for sehunnie! but then they melted a little and now it’s kind of gross.”
“i’m pretty sure it was gross even before that,” sehun says, unwilling to accept that tapioca pearls are at fault. “give me some more?”
they drink the terrible punch. the afternoon is long and drowsy and yixing doesn't say a word in protest when sehun begins to play with his hair. he only hums absentmindedly, and sehun can feel the gentle vibration against him. and sehun thinks that maybe his heart is getting used to the stutter it developed when he first met yixing.
/
jongin looks best in the sun; he glows under the warm light, and sehun is reminded of the first time he ever met the boy. they spent the first days pushing and shoving and bickering like children, and then somehow, gradually, in the late lush heat of fading summer, fell into fumbled touches, tracing mosquito bites and asphalt grazes, sharing sweet-sour kisses between gulps of cheap cider and cask wine.
for someone who’s hot all the time, jongin adapts surprisingly well to summer. mostly, he seems impervious to any shift in temperature, while sehun sweats and shivers all year round. sehun looks at him now, sprawled across damp grass, and feels an odd rush of affection.
“you’re beautiful, you know?”
“what?” jongin blushes. “no.” he looks pleased, though.
sehun rolls onto his back so that he’s lying next to jongin, and flops an arm over his eyes to shield himself from the sun. stretching out his other arm, he finds jongin’s hand, and locks fingers with him.
“do you remember when we first met?”
“why are you being like this?” he asks suspiciously.
“i’m just thinking,” sehun says. “it’s been a long time.”
“not that long,” jongin says. “like. months.”
“it’s a long time for me.”
“are we having the talk again? i thought you didn’t want to have the talk.” jongin sits up, propping himself upright with one hand, the other still holding sehun’s.
“i don’t. i was just making an observation.” he looks up worriedly at jongin, and winces at the sudden sunlight flashing into view. “are you mad?”
“no.” jongin exhales. “it’s just weird when you talk about feelings. or like, have them. i mean, i don’t mind whatever this is, you know. i just like that we can be together like this.”
“i like it too.” sehun rolls over again to press a kiss against jongin’s thigh, right below where his shorts have hitched up his leg. “i like it when we’re together.”
jongin pushes his head away warningly and places his palm against his forehead, as if checking for a temperature. “are you feeling okay?” he asks, in mock concern.
sehun doesn’t answer. he hums happily, and finally jongin laughs at him and settles back down beside him. hands still entwined.
fin.
------------------------------------
a/n: been sitting on this one for a while and i don't know what else to do with it except post it. it was meant to be a sexing fic because there are not enough sexing fics but then it turned into sekai and for that, i am very sorry.
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: Really vague adult themes but nothing explicit, lapslock, very lazy editing.
Pairing: Sekai, one-sided Sexing, side Xiuhan/Xingdae. Sehun-centric.
Length: ~7400.
summer.
sehun meets yixing in the late sticky summer of his first week at university; sehun flushed pink with sweet apple cider as yixing languidly rolls cigarettes between pale fingertips. he can’t help but stare transfixed at the intricate tattoo that disappears up yixing’s rolled-up sleeve, but carefully averts his gaze when luhan, the bright-eyed boy who’d invited him along for a drink, catches him looking.
luhan has known yixing much longer than anyone else in their little group. luhan is the reason sehun is friends with the others, like minseok, who nurses doubles of scotch with one hand while the other rests on luhan’s knee. sehun is the baby of the group, although he adamantly denies it, and the others take care of him despite his protestations. luhan is the one who intervenes when sehun is accosted by a group of overenthusiastic seniors who are keen to exploit sehun’s confusion and naivety in his first week, and takes him to the university bar, secreted under one of the tallest trees on campus.
it’s in the hidden courtyard in the back where he first meets yixing and minseok.
“yixing, loverboy, meet sehun,” luhan says, almost proudly, and sehun waves shyly from behind his hyung. he’s never been good at introductions. luhan isn’t overtly extroverted or loud, but sehun can already tell that he possesses the social graces that seem to come so naturally to most people. sehun can’t really boast the same.
“where did lulu find you?” yixing asks curiously. the question, from anyone else, would seem laced with malice, but yixing seems incapable of sounding malicious as he lazily blows smoke rings. sehun watches the smoke billow from his pursed lips, and notes that yixing always turns away from them when he exhales, and keeps his cigarette low, next to his knee, so that he’s not affecting anyone else. except that he is, because sehun feels his chest tighten a little, and he doesn’t know why.
“outside the student centre,” luhan explains, sinking into minseok’s lap. minseok doesn’t say anything - only shifts, automatically, to accommodate for his boyfriend. “he was being harassed by evil third-years who wanted to coerce him into joining some club or another. i rescued him.”
“how good of you,” yixing observes with a wry smile, and stubs the remains of his cigarette into the ashtray between him and minseok. he looks up at sehun, and the dimple in his right cheek flickers. “i’m yixing. would you like a drink?”
“ah…” sehun ducks his head. “i wouldn’t say no to a drink, i guess.”
luhan raises his hand enthusiastically, almost hitting minseok in the chin. “get a jug of cider please!”
yixing smiles good-naturedly and gets up, patting his back pocket for his wallet. “of course, lu-ge.”
by the time yixing returns with a jug and three glasses, sehun has taken the seat diagonally opposite his. luhan has deigned to let minseok return to his scotch, instead assuming the seat next to yixing’s.
“sehun-ah…you are in first-year?” it’s the first time minseok has spoken, and he looks at sehun kindly. “how are you finding the university?”
“i haven’t really had a chance to see much of it yet,” sehun admits. he’s drinking a little too fast from his glass and he can feel his face getting flushed, but he’d rather be drunk than awkward. “it’s nice though. i’m looking forward to starting my classes.”
“what do you study?” yixing asks, rummaging through a pack of filters.
“classics,” sehun says. he waits for yixing to ask him what he plans to do with that degree after he graduates, but yixing says nothing. “w-w-what about you?” yixing looks like a musician, sehun thinks - his hands look dainty, but strong, with long slim fingers that can roll a perfect cigarette.
“biomedical engineering,” yixing says with a smirk, as if he knows what sehun was just thinking about him.
“ah,” sehun says with a slight frown. “how much have you got left of your degree?”
“just this year.”
“and a few more units,” luhan adds lightly. “you failed those ones, remember?”
sehun feels sorry for yixing for a moment, wondering if yixing wanted that information shared with a stranger - and he is a stranger, after all - but yixing merely nods, lighting his cigarette.
“that’s true, i almost forgot,” he says thoughtfully. “jongdae was really unwell that semester.”
“how is he?” minseok asks. “is he doing okay lately?”
yixing smiles ruefully. “not really. i mean. he’s doing as well as anyone like him can, you know?”
“at least he has you to take care of him,” luhan says, patting yixing on the elbow. “you’re really good at that. how are you holding up, though?”
“oh,” yixing says, wrinkling his nose and turning his head to exhale, again blowing the smoke away from the others. “i’m fine, don’t worry about me.”
sehun looks down at his cider, and rolls the sweating glass between two hands. he doesn’t know the person the others are talking about, and he doesn’t feel comfortable asking.
“if you’re sure,” luhan says, examining his friend narrowly.
“i am,” yixing says with a shrug. “it’s no big deal. i’m not the one who’s ill.”
luhan looks doubtful, but doesn’t insist.
“anyway,” yixing says, turning his attention back to sehun. “we should hang out more when semester starts. minseok giving up caffeine is the worst thing that ever happened to my social life.”
minseok laughs out loud and stands, stretching. “shut up, you pisshead. does anyone else want a drink?”
“i’ll come with you,” yixing says, getting up and again fumbling for his wallet.
“it’s in your back pocket,” sehun says quietly. yixing fixes his gaze on him for a second, before breaking into a gentle smile.
“thanks,” he says. “i forgot.” he pulls out his wallet, and they disappear in the direction of the bar.
“your friends are nice,” sehun says shyly to luhan, and luhan beams.
“yixing is lovely,” luhan agrees, “and minnie is the best. i don’t know what i’d do without them. i’m glad you like them, sehun. i hope we can all be friends.”
sehun looks at luhan’s earnest expression, and finds himself nodding. “of course, hyung.”
/
sehun meets jongin in the middle of a coughing fit, unsmoked cigarette smouldering at his feet.
“smoke much?”
sehun looks up and his throat feels dry. literally dry.
“i’m jongin,” says jongin, bluntly adding, “you should put that out. it’s hot. you might start a grass fire.” he grinds the toe of his sneaker into the cigarette.
“are you a first-year too?” jongin asks.
sehun gapes at the other boy. “can i help you with something?”
jongin sighs. “look. i don’t usually do this…”
“you better not finish with a cheesy pick-up line.”
sehun likes to think he’s recovered, just a bit, but when he looks closely at the other boy, he’s thrown all over again. jongin is all plush lips and fidgeting hands, tense muscles shifting and rolling under his thin tank. every time he smiles, he looks slightly embarrassed, and sehun likes that about him, because it’s a frank display of what sehun himself feels most of the time, even though the only emotions he dares express are disinterest and sullenness.
when he was in primary school, a girl turned away from him and told him she didn’t want to be friends because he looked ‘stuck up’. he felt offended at the time, but now, he can see why she thought that of him. but jongin is nothing like that. he is beautiful and a bit undone, in a way that sehun never allows himself to be. jongin’s clothing hangs easily off his golden skin, and his bleached hair is wispy and unruly around his face. sehun rests his eyes in the deep hollows of jongin’s collarbones, and wonders if jongin thinks he’s stuck up too.
“i was going to say, i don’t usually do this, because i don’t like talking to strangers, but my asshole friend said i was antisocial and spent too much time practicing so he made me come over to talk to you.”
oh. “that’s about as bad as being kissed because of a dare.”
“would you rather i kiss you?” jongin smirks, and sehun is struck by the way his face changes. he finds himself watching for a dimple that never appears. stop it. stop.
it’s hot and sehun is exhausted. jongin studies him carefully for a moment, as if he’s expecting to be told to leave.
sehun says finally, “i bet your asshole friend wouldn’t expect me to say yes to that.”
“hey! don’t say it like that - like i made him up, and that there’s no asshole friend, just me,” jongin splutters, “it wasn’t an excuse, i swear. i’m not some random creeper. look, he’s right over there. taemin.” jongin points at a boy lying on a park bench, phone held above his head, playing games. sehun thinks the asshole friend actually does look like he may as well be jongin, but he doesn’t say anything.
“you don’t believe me, do you?” jongin says hotly.
sehun just shakes his head and smiles at the ground.
he isn’t sure why this stranger has come crashing into his afternoon, all indignant and hotheaded. jongin is equal parts impulsive and shy, and sehun doesn’t really know what to think of him.
sehun drags jongin out for bubble tea a week later when tao tells him he has an addictive personality and a serious tapioca problem, and jongin calls him two days later, telling him that taemin is too busy to see a horror movie with him, and won’t sehun please come and make use of the spare ticket? and after a few weeks, sehun learns that kissing jongin is easier than trying to figure out how to smoke a cigarette. sehun likes that about him. he thinks he could come to like a lot of things about jongin.
/
sehun gets to know minseok and luhan much better over the next few months. luhan, it turns out, is relentless in making and keeping friends, so sehun finds himself becoming the perpetual third wheel. but minseok doesn’t seem to mind that sehun is always around, and sehun finds the older boy to be an excellent listener, and an extraordinarily good-humoured friend. he’s still a little in awe of the fact that they let him hang around, and he’s constantly aware of their difference in age. four years doesn’t seem like that much, but it’s an awfully big gap considering sehun has just graduated from high school, and lives at college. minseok and yixing live in a share house together, and luhan - according to minseok - ‘may as well’ live with them too, but also has an apartment of his own close to the university.
they’re at luhan’s apartment now, sitting cross-legged on the rug. sehun wraps his arms around his knees glumly, quietly stressing over assignments and readings and presentations. luhan hums as he rolls a scuffed soccer ball back and forth, watching the traffic out the window. sehun knows he should probably make conversation, but he also knows that luhan is perfectly comfortable to sit with in silence. he lets himself fret about homework and whether or not to ask jongin to come over tomorrow.
minseok shows up a while later with half a watermelon and no knife, and upends the entire kitchenette in search of one in luhan’s disorganised drawers. sehun watches with a smile as luhan defensively claims that knives are dangerous and therefore must be well hidden from children.
“children?”
“like sehun!”
sehun pouts. “i’m not a child!”
“you are,” minseok says grimly. “you really are. and luhan - don’t pretend you’re hiding anything when you’re really just a slob.”
there’s a sharp rap on the glass door, and minseok gives up on trying to find a knife and goes to open it.
“yixing! you came!”
“i thought you’d be here much earlier,” luhan says, waving him in.
yixing looks flustered and flushed as he sinks to the floor next to sehun.
“hey kiddo,” he says breathlessly, wrapping sehun in a one-armed hug.
“is everything okay? i know you have a hard time remembering when we’ve made plans or what your name is, but you’re usually not this bad,” luhan says.
yixing winces apologetically. “i’m sorry, lu-ge. i was going to leave earlier but then jongdae showed up and he’s been going through a really rough time lately.”
“how is jongdae?” minseok asks. he’s managed to scoop out most of the watermelon with a stainless steel ladle, and he passes the bowl around with a small container of toothpicks.
rubbing his temples, yixing pulls out his little sachet of filters and shakes his head slowly. “not great. but we’re getting through, you know?” he attempts a smile. “it’s been a hard time for him.”
luhan and minseok share a look. sehun knows by now that jongdae is the reason yixing is never around as much as his other two hyungs. according to luhan, they’ve been dating for a year now. yixing spends a lot of time taking care of his boyfriend because jongdae has some kind of unspecified terminal illness.
“it’s good that he has you,” minseok says.
sehun thinks yixing would be good at taking care of people; yixing is gentle and patient, after all. yixing is quiet and intelligent and funny and sweet; all the nice things anyone could expect or want from a partner.
yixing smiles wryly. “i’m going out for a smoke.”
“you just got here!” luhan protests, but doesn’t stop yixing from getting to his feet.
“i’ll be right back,” yixing promises.
sehun doesn’t want to expect anything from yixing though; shouldn’t want to expect anything. somehow, it feels like sehun isn’t entitled to want him.
autumn.
“where are you?”
“what the hell are you talking about?” sehun groans, rolling away from jongin. jongin is always hot to touch, even when sehun has stolen all the blankets in an attempt to get jongin to leave his bed.
jongin sits up and swings his leg over him, straddling his waist. “i mean,” he says quietly, “sometimes, it’s like you’re not here.”
sehun huffs and tries to push him off, with little success. “are you trying to be deep? because you shouldn’t. it doesn’t suit you.”
“i’m serious, sehun.”
sehun looks up at him. jongin’s eyes are dark and unwavering, and sehun feels like he’s being examined from inside out.
“i can’t help it,” sehun says finally, because jongin looks like he’s not going to get off until sehun gives him a satisfactory answer. “whatever it is. i can’t help the way i am.” somehow, though, sehun knows this is different from when luhan pokes at his cheek and tells him his face is as expressive as a brick wall.
“you don’t know what i mean, do you?” jongin says. and then the weight is gone, and jongin is standing, pulling on his shirt.
“jongin, wait-” sitting up, sehun pats the bed - jongin’s side of the bed. “come here.”
jongin’s pulling on his jeans, and he hesitates for a moment, but doesn’t relent. “sometimes it’s like the only time you even notice me is when i’m getting undressed.”
he’s out the door before sehun can think of anything to say.
/
sehun is sitting in minseok’s room, trying to translate a passage of chinese. they’re both waiting for luhan to finish work; minseok is waiting so they can have dinner together, and sehun is waiting so that he can help him with a particularly tricky sentence.
it’s getting dark already - the days are getting shorter, and whenever sehun looks up at the thick layer of clouds in the sky, he feels like he’s struggling to breathe. they’ve been sitting quietly, each wrapped up in their individual tasks, when the door opens and yixing bursts in with a sly grin.
“hello friends,” he says, nodding at sehun as if he’s not surprised to see him in there. “i was thinking that i want to cook a really big fish. lu-ge and i were talking about it. anyone in?”
minseok looks up from his laptop, where he’s been marking papers. “yeah, sure, do you want us to chip in?”
yixing often has ambitious cooking projects; he hates cooking for just himself, so his friends benefit as a result. sehun has reflected numerous times that yixing eats surprisingly well for an underpaid student, but they all split the costs between them.
“that would be nice,” yixing says, “i can go shopping for ingredients and tell you how much it is.”
“sounds good,” minseok says. “not tonight though. i promised lulu we would have a nice dinner, just us.”
sehun can’t help but duck his head. just us. maybe his hyungs are keen to be alone for once; sehun always asks if it’s okay that he hangs out with them so often, but every time they wave it off and tell him he’s always welcome.
“cute,” yixing says, dimple flickering as he smiles. “what about you, sehun, what are you doing tonight?”
sehun blinks slowly up at the older boy. “oh. nothing much. i’ll probably go home after i say bye to luhan-hyung.”
yixing nods. “tiring day?”
“yeah,” sehun says. “i should get an early night.”
“you take care of yourself, okay?” yixing looks at him kindly. “get some rest.”
sehun nods.
“and sehun-ah,” yixing adds, almost awkwardly. “you - you should come eat this big fish with us too! it’ll be really big, i promise.”
and sehun blushes and nods eagerly, unable to speak, because yixing is just so considerate and observant and yixing can always tell - can always tell when sehun is feeling awkward or left out. and does everything he can to make him feel better. sehun never does end up eating yixing’s big fish, and it’s not a metaphor. yixing tries his hardest, but he’s not so good with follow-through. maybe it’s sehun’s fault for not being more assertive. maybe it’s sehun’s fault for expecting things, despite trying his best not to. maybe trying isn’t enough for either of them.
/
sehun is sitting on the library steps with tao when yixing walks past and recognises him.
“sehun-ah!” yixing bounds up the steps two at a time and squats down in front of them. “hello, i don’t think we’ve met.”
tao looks at the older boy curiously. “i’m tao, sehun’s best friend. you must be yixing,” he says.
“that’s right,” yixing says. “does sehunnie talk about me a lot?” he smiles up at sehun, who avoids eye contact and concentrates on getting the last tapioca pearls from his bubble tea.
fortunately, tao isn’t that terrible a friend. “oh, you know, sometimes. in passing.”
“aww,” yixing says. “that’s cute.”
sehun hates being called cute. he’s not cute. gazing heavenward, he prays that his friend doesn’t say anything else embarrassing.
turning to sehun again, yixing reaches out to ruffle his perfectly coiffed hair. “why do you never come visit me?” yixing complains. sehun accidentally swallows a tapioca pearl whole and blinks at him.
“why would i?” he says blankly.
yixing pretends to be offended. “because you love me! you’re always inviting luhan to get bubble tea with you. i’m so wounded. you should get bubble tea with me.”
“i already have bubble tea,” sehun says petulantly. yixing gently hits him on the back of the head as he gets up slowly, rolling his shoulders. he looks sore, sehun thinks - stiff and tired.
“can you do me a favour?” yixing says, as if he’s read sehun’s mind. he needs to stop doing that. “can you give me a massage?”
sehun protests loudly and at length, but lets yixing sit down on the step below his, between his spread knees. he doesn’t quite know what to do, but kneads at the muscles stretched taut across his back. yixing seems satisfied enough, and lets out an appreciative groan as sehun rubs at a particularly tight knot in his shoulders.
tao seems excited to learn that yixing speaks mandarin too, and they converse for the next few minutes in the language that sehun can only half follow. sehun doesn’t mind though - he likes the way chinese spills so easily from yixing’s lips. when he can’t understand what he’s listening to, the words turn to music, and sehun can ignore the meaning for the way it sounds.
yixing asks for sehun to massage his lower back next, and tao suggests that yixing lie down on his stomach so that sehun can access that area more easily.
“you just…like…yeah, like that.” tao positions sehun so that sehun is essentially straddling yixing’s ass.
“your butt is so bony,” yixing says, laughing at their unconventional arrangement.
“shut up,” sehun says. yixing’s butt is plush and nice to sit on, and sehun finds that in this position, he can get to all the muscles in yixing’s lower back.
“this looks so obscene,” tao comments. “it’s cute.”
“shut up,” sehun says again, this time to his friend. tao merely grins at him, and sehun resists the childish urge to stick his tongue out at him.
“don’t stop,” yixing says, from beneath him, and sehun inhales sharply, thinking about all the other contexts in which yixing might be saying that while sehun is straddling him. don’t want too much. you can’t want too much.
later, sehun asks tao what they were talking about.
“you,” tao says. sehun lets himself think about that, and hope.
winter.
“i used to be super in love with him,” luhan tells him one day, over steaming bowls of congee.
sehun looks at minseok, confused. “who?”
“with yixing,” minseok says, and sehun blinks slowly. oh. luhan and yixing. sehun marvels at how easily luhan and minseok talk about it, as if it’s one of those things in the eternal past, never to happen again.
luhan sprinkles a handful of spring onions in sehun’s serving and reminds him to not pick out the ginger. sehun scowls and blows his nose for the umpteenth time that afternoon, feeling all at once red and hot and sore and shivery.
“so?” sehun sullenly shoves a spoonful of hot congee in his mouth, and spits it out the next second. “fuck fuck fuck fuck!” it’s very hot.
luhan bursts into laughter. “oh my god, my darling sehunnie is grouchy, isn’t he?”
“leave me alone to die,” sehun says emphatically, pushing his bowl away. his head feels like it’s going to melt into a viscous puddle of toxic goop.
“anyway. i’m telling you, because it’s normal to be in love with yixing. everyone’s in love with yixing at some point.”
if sehun had congee in his mouth right now, he’d spit it in luhan’s face. but he doesn’t, so he settles for dropping his head down on minseok’s kitchen table. the tablecloth is old, but the plasticky oranges are still brightly printed in a cheerful pattern. it’s yixing’s kitchen table too, but according to minseok, yixing hasn’t been home much. jongdae has been especially unwell lately.
“i’ve never been in love with yixing,” minseok observes. “but i’m glad you were, luhan.”
sehun’s forehead creases in confusion, and luhan frowns, reaching out to rub the crinkle between his brows.
“don’t do that,” luhan says. “it makes you look like you’re thinking. i get so worried when you think.”
“i don’t get it,” sehun whines. he doesn’t understand where this conversation is going. first it seems like luhan is making fun of his apparently-less-than-subtle crush on yixing, but now they’re talking about something else entirely, and sehun is tired and sick and pouty and feverish. “why are we even talking about this?”
“because it’s okay to feel like this, sehunnie! i know you’re confused.”
“yes. yes i am,” sehun says pointedly. he blows his nose again. “because i’m sick and you won’t stop talking shit.”
“i mean, confused about your feelings for yixing, not about this conversation.” luhan scoops up some congee in sehun’s spoon and blows on it gently, trying to thrust the utensil between sehun’s pouting lips.
“well, that too,” minseok says. “leave him alone, lulu. sehun needs to get some rest before he can talk about his feelings. and maybe a few more birthdays.”
“i have to get him while he’s weak! he’s vulnerable right now. the rest of the time, he won’t even admit he has them.” luhan taps his nose conspiratorially. “it’s all part of my strategy.”
“i do so have feelings,” sehun huffs. “why are you acting like i’m some kind of cardboard cutout?”
“you’re barely that,” luhan says affectionately, forcing another spoonful of congee into sehun’s mouth. “you’re more like a cardboard box. if boxes could look constipated.”
“i thought you were so nice when i first met you,” sehun says. “but it’s clear to me now that you are actually evil incarnate.”
minseok nods in solidarity. “i completely understand what you mean.”
luhan gapes at the both of them. “excuse me! i made you congee! i am feeding you congee! look at me! caring for my poor sickly sehun! my poor baby…so ungrateful…”
pulling a protesting luhan into his lap, minseok peppers kisses onto his forehead, and luhan’s indignant scowl soon turns to giggles. sehun looks down at his bowl of congee and swallows thickly. everyone’s in love with yixing. and yixing loves everyone; yixing smiles at all of his friends in the same way, gentle and loving, and it should be enough. it should be enough. sehun shouldn’t want anything more.
/
jongin is restless in his arms, a fidgeting furnace in sehun’s single bed.
“what do you want to do today?”
“hmm?” sehun rouses from his light sleep, rubbing the bridge of his nose against raised ridges of the older boy's spine. presses warm, wet kisses against taut skin. jongin squirms against him involuntarily.
“we could go out tonight,” jongin continues distractedly as sehun’s hands slide under the thick blankets, down his side. inhales sharply and jerks as sehun jabs him under the ribs. exhales again as sehun slowly glides his hand over jutting hipbones and down the long lean curve of jongin’s thigh. “we could meet up with some other people. we haven’t gone out in a while. it’ll be fun.”
“whatever you want,” sehun murmurs, smiling into jongin’s hair. jongin sighs and rolls over. lets sehun kiss his forehead. lets sehun kiss his way down his chest, pushing aside the blankets.
“i want you,” jongin says quietly.
“someone’s eager.” sehun laughs against jongin’s stomach and sinks lower to bite into his inner thigh. “maybe we shouldn’t go out tonight.” sehun looks up at jongin, lips curved into a smirk.
jongin looks away. his eyelids flutter closed. “whatever you want.”
/
“it feels like it’s never going to end,” sehun whines, huddling closer to luhan, who tucks him into his side. “i’m just going to be cold forever. i may as well become a human chimney like yixing and just smoke to keep warm.”
“don’t you dare be anything like xingxing,” luhan warns sternly. “the only good parts of him are the parts where he’s like a doormat for his friends and buys me lots and lots of alcohol.”
“most people would call that being supportive. and generous. or being an enabler, maybe.” sehun steals luhan’s scarf and earns himself a withering but affectionate glare from the older boy.
“even that has its limits,” minseok sighs. “yixing takes it to extremes. he’s running himself into the ground. it’s not sustainable.” he shakes his head and continues shelling peas.
sehun is surprised that they’re speaking so frankly about their absent friend. it’s nothing they probably haven’t already thought about before. but it’s another thing to hear it spoken aloud, to one another.
“he just really needs to step back and take care of himself once in a while. he’s not doing himself any favours,” minseok continues.
“oh minnie,” luhan says sadly. he looks at sehun. “jongdae has been staying over a lot. they’ve been fighting.”
“jongdae can be such a fucking dick. i know he’s unwell. but that doesn’t give him an excuse to treat people like shit,” minseok says shortly. “he’s always over here or yixing is always travelling all the way over there just to take care of him. i’m just worried.”
sehun still hasn’t met jongdae, so he feels like he isn’t entitled to speak. he has never heard minseok say so much in one go, and prepares himself for more, but minseok has put down his bowl of peas and is already burrowing into luhan’s other side. luhan pets both of them awkwardly, and sehun wishes he knew yixing well enough to feel justified in being as worried as his friends are.
/
when sehun does finally meet jongdae - jongdae, inscrutable, with the haughty bone structure, and the clever glint in his eyes - yixing is sick; subdued. he leans against sehun, arms entwined. jongdae is sitting with friends on the curb, drinking bubble tea from the cafe that sehun and yixing are about to go into. sehun wonders if yixing knew that they would bump into jongdae - if that was the reason he’d suggested they get bubble tea together.
“how are you feeling?” yixing asks, and smiles weakly at jongdae. jongdae looks at him, face blank. sehun thinks that jongdae should really be asking how yixing is feeling instead, since yixing looks like death warmed up.
“fine,” jongdae says curtly, and glances at his friends, then up at sehun. “i don’t think we’ve met. i’m jongdae.”
i know. “i’m sehun,” sehun says awkwardly. “we were just going to get bubble tea.”
jongdae shakes his half-empty cup and says, “the place up there is pretty good. is that where you guys were going?”
“yeah, we thought we’d try it,” yixing says.
they’re silent for a few moments. sehun doesn’t really know what to say to someone who obviously has heard nothing about him, even though he himself knows so much about jongdae.
“well, i’ll see you later?” yixing asks, hesitantly. his voice is quiet and strained; sehun can tell that yixing wants to sit down somewhere and rest.
“maybe,” jongdae says, shrugging noncommittally. he turns back to his friends.
sehun tugs yixing towards the cafe. “come on.”
they walk up the steps in silence.
“he’s not feeling well,” yixing says, as if compelled to apologise. “i wish you could’ve met him another time.”
“it’s fine, hyung,” sehun says. “what flavour do you want?”
yixing brightens. “do you think they have taro?”
“gross, are you turning into luhan-hyung?” sehun wrinkles his nose in an exaggerated expression of disgust, eliciting a laugh from the older boy. “i’m getting chocolate.”
yixing sits down as soon as they reach the cafe, handing sehun a slim leather billfold before resting his head down on his folded arms.
“i’m tired,” he complains. “you go order.”
sehun does, and waits patiently at the other end of the counter for their drinks to be prepared. he looks across the cafe at yixing, and pulls out his phone to send a text to jongin. can i see you tonight? he looks back over at yixing, who’s now looking pensively out the window. his phone vibrates almost immediately. of course. i missed you.
/
taemin is not quite the asshole jongin makes him out to be. when they first meet, taemin is roasting chestnuts and sweet potatoes in the kitchen while asking sehun a dozen questions about himself. jongin is leaning against sehun, hands clasped together in jongin’s lap, and the small kitchen is warm from the heat of the oven.
“thanks for inviting me along,” sehun says, smiling up at taemin.
“i’m just so glad to finally meet you! jongin won’t shut up about you!” taemin pouts.
jongin groans and hides his face in sehun’s scarf. “shut up, lee taemin.”
“jongin is such a loner sometimes. i swear if i hadn’t said hi to him in the practice studio all those years ago, he wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
“you are so embarrassing.”
sehun squeezes jongin’s hand. “it’s cute. this is cute. i didn’t know all these things about you.”
jongin glares back. “how are you the one saying these things to me? you’re the youngest!”
taemin looks at sehun in surprise. “i assumed you were older for some reason.”
“i get that a lot,” sehun says sheepishly.
“you do look very mature,” taemin says, nodding.
sehun shrugs. “so, you’re a dancer too?” jongin has already told him how he knows taemin - but he’d rather be told these things again than have a real conversation.
“yeah,” taemin says excitedly. “that’s how i know jongin - we were both at the same studio when we were kids. he was like this even back then.”
“like what,” jongin suppresses a smile and tries to be exasperated instead. “what am i like?”
“oh, you know,” taemin says airily, “really talented, good-looking, a total idiot…”
taemin is maybe a little bit like the asshole jongin made him out to be, sehun thinks. he waits until taemin is occupied with the oven once again, and turns quickly to press a reassuring kiss to jongin’s forehead.
“how are you feeling?”
“totally humiliated.” jongin scowls. “you know i’m really cool, right?”
“sure babe.”
“kiss me again.”
and sehun does.
spring.
it takes sehun over a year to realise why he still feels like he doesn’t know yixing at all. yixing is the type to say ‘i’m fine’ even when he’s breaking. sehun can tell, because maybe yixing feels the same way about him. yixing checks in with him constantly, and all sehun will admit to is being tired. too much homework, not enough sleep. never anything more. never i am afraid that none of this is real. i can’t sleep at night because something under my skin burns for me to be more than i think i can actually be. i feel like i will amount to nothing. i can’t connect to anyone. i’m not invested in anything. i don’t care about anything. i can’t care. sometimes i doubt i feel anything at all. i want to wake up. you can’t tell someone you’re fine and expect them to tell you why they’re not.
and sehun knows that neither of them are fine. but it’s okay like this. it’s okay that yixing stumbles into his dorm room at 3am after jongdae has kicked him out of his. it’s okay that yixing sheds clothes like skin cells and tucks himself into sehun’s side like it doesn’t mean anything that they’re barely clothed and shivering together under sehun’s too-small duvet. yixing produces about as much body heat as sehun does, and that’s not enough. sehun almost recalls how warm jongin always is, but brushes the thought aside.
“is jongdae okay?” sehun asks, and bites his tongue in the dark. it seems like the polite thing to ask.
“just ornery,” yixing says quietly. “it’s fine. he’s going through a hard time.”
you say that a lot. “he probably just needs some time by himself,” sehun says diplomatically.
“yeah.” yixing rubs his cold feet against sehun’s calves and earns himself a kick in the shin. “be nice to me!” he wraps his arms around the younger boy and nuzzles him until he stops struggling.
“why are you like this?” sehun complains. why do you only come into my bed when you’ve been ejected from another? why does it feel like my heart is so full when you are holding me, but also so empty, because you would hold anyone like this? why do i want you to want only me? why am i so selfish when you are anything but?
“like what?”
“never mind.”
“no, tell me!”
“shut up, i’m trying to sleep.”
it’s okay that their conversations never get any deeper than this. sehun doesn’t want very much. probably.
/
“why do we never hang out with your friends?”
“hmm?”
they’re smoking a bowl on sehun’s bedroom floor, chins and elbows propped on the windowsill to avoid exhaling into the room.
jongin looks at him. “i mean, i’ve never met any of your friends.”
“oh.” sehun passes him the joint. “i never really thought about it. i mean. do you want to?”
jongin shrugs, flustered. “i guess since we’re like, you know, a big part of each other’s lives, it’d be nice to…”
sehun is silent.
“i mean, don’t worry about it, god, it’s no big deal, we don’t have to if you don’t want to, i don’t want to make things weird-”
“jongin.”
jongin looks away. “is this still fun for you?”
“what do you mean by that?” sehun says sharply.
“what are we even doing?” jongin runs a hand through his hair. “sometimes i feel like you don’t even want to be here. i mean, is this just fun for you? i don’t want to have ‘the talk’ or whatever, but, you know, i need to know what this is. i mean, i hate this, you know? i can tell i’m the one who likes you more than you like me.”
and sehun doesn’t have an answer to that. he doesn’t know either. “i like being around you,” he says finally. “i really like being with you.”
jongin breathes a sigh of relief. “good. i like being with you too. i don’t want to expect too much from you, sehun, but at the very least i need to know how much i’m allowed to expect.”
sehun’s words catch in his throat. jongin’s confession sounds so familiar that it has sehun biting his tongue. “come here,” he murmurs, and pulls jongin towards him. he knows he’s holding on a bit too tightly to be comforting, but he needs to feel jongin pressed against him, needs to know jongin is there, needs to know jongin wants him. jongin feels warm, like smoke. sehun inhales deeply.
“i’m glad you’re in my life, you know,” sehun says quietly, mouth moving in a whisper against jongin’s neck. “i didn’t know you felt that way.” jongin shivers in his arms. “i’m sorry.”
/
yixing is in his bed again. jongdae is ‘going through a rough time’ again. sehun opens his eyes and stares up at the ceiling.
sehun thinks that yixing has a little too much kindness to give to everyone, and sehun wants to tell him to back off - to take care of himself for once, rather than everyone else. yixing doesn’t know how to be selfish; doesn’t know how to think of himself first, or put himself first.
yixing considers himself an afterthought. sehun thinks that maybe yixing doesn’t realise how much love he is allowed to want, whereas sehun knows exactly how much love he wants, and whose.
sehun rolls onto his side to face yixing’s back. he always sleeps facing the wall when he’s with jongin, but yixing has a tendency to roll off the bed if there’s no one stopping him from falling. so sehun sleeps on the other side of the bed. jongin’s side.
“i need to get over myself,” sehun says out loud.
yixing doesn’t stir.
/
jongin is all soft angles and bleached hair in a tangle against sehun’s navy cotton pillowcases. sehun is sitting up next to him, leaning against the wall. his small bedroom is illuminated by the city lights through the window by his desk; sehun sleeps in silence and darkness, room like a womb, but jongin likes the window and curtains open, letting in all the street lamps and city ambience.
jongin doesn’t mind sleeping in the dark, “because it’s your room,” he always says.
but sehun sometimes forgets to draw the curtains before bed, and since he’s on the wall side, he doesn’t want to crawl over jongin to close the curtains again after they’re all tucked in and cosy. or so he says.
jongin shifts in his sleep, feeling for sehun next to him, so sehun slides a hand under jongin’s ribbed tank top, scratching gently at his stomach to wake him up.
“jongin-ah.”
jongin blinks sleep out of his eyes as he looks up blearily at sehun. sehun smiles back at him, jongin’s stomach hot against his palm.
“when did you get up?” jongin mumbles. his head falls back on the pillow. “why did you get up?”
“couldn’t sleep.” sehun tugs jongin onto his lap. “you should keep me company.”
“mmm.” jongin buries his face in the blankets pulled around sehun’s body, and wraps long arms around his middle. “okay.”
“jongin-ah.”
“mmm?”
“don’t fall asleep okay?”
“okay.”
“stay here with me.”
“okay.”
/
sehun was never held much as a child, and he feels like he’s spent the rest of his life making up for it. it may be why he’s currently twisted around minseok, gangly limbs akimbo. yixing’s lying with his face in sehun’s stomach, but sehun’s trying not to think about it too much. they’ve been celebrating the lingering afternoons with a three day bender, spent mostly on yixing and minseok’s front lawn. the sunlight stretches golden across the house as luhan emerges from it with another bowl of mystery punch. he holds out a ladle and sehun beckons him forwards. luhan attempts to pour the potent mix into sehun’s mouth, and he bravely swishes it around, only to spit it out a second later.
“that grass there will never grow again,” minseok observes solemnly.
“shut up,” luhan whines, and tastes some of the punch himself. “okay. fine. this is disgusting. but it's very alcoholic.”
“what’s even in it?” yixing peers over at the bowl in vague fascination.
“i put some tapioca pearls in it! for sehunnie! but then they melted a little and now it’s kind of gross.”
“i’m pretty sure it was gross even before that,” sehun says, unwilling to accept that tapioca pearls are at fault. “give me some more?”
they drink the terrible punch. the afternoon is long and drowsy and yixing doesn't say a word in protest when sehun begins to play with his hair. he only hums absentmindedly, and sehun can feel the gentle vibration against him. and sehun thinks that maybe his heart is getting used to the stutter it developed when he first met yixing.
/
jongin looks best in the sun; he glows under the warm light, and sehun is reminded of the first time he ever met the boy. they spent the first days pushing and shoving and bickering like children, and then somehow, gradually, in the late lush heat of fading summer, fell into fumbled touches, tracing mosquito bites and asphalt grazes, sharing sweet-sour kisses between gulps of cheap cider and cask wine.
for someone who’s hot all the time, jongin adapts surprisingly well to summer. mostly, he seems impervious to any shift in temperature, while sehun sweats and shivers all year round. sehun looks at him now, sprawled across damp grass, and feels an odd rush of affection.
“you’re beautiful, you know?”
“what?” jongin blushes. “no.” he looks pleased, though.
sehun rolls onto his back so that he’s lying next to jongin, and flops an arm over his eyes to shield himself from the sun. stretching out his other arm, he finds jongin’s hand, and locks fingers with him.
“do you remember when we first met?”
“why are you being like this?” he asks suspiciously.
“i’m just thinking,” sehun says. “it’s been a long time.”
“not that long,” jongin says. “like. months.”
“it’s a long time for me.”
“are we having the talk again? i thought you didn’t want to have the talk.” jongin sits up, propping himself upright with one hand, the other still holding sehun’s.
“i don’t. i was just making an observation.” he looks up worriedly at jongin, and winces at the sudden sunlight flashing into view. “are you mad?”
“no.” jongin exhales. “it’s just weird when you talk about feelings. or like, have them. i mean, i don’t mind whatever this is, you know. i just like that we can be together like this.”
“i like it too.” sehun rolls over again to press a kiss against jongin’s thigh, right below where his shorts have hitched up his leg. “i like it when we’re together.”
jongin pushes his head away warningly and places his palm against his forehead, as if checking for a temperature. “are you feeling okay?” he asks, in mock concern.
sehun doesn’t answer. he hums happily, and finally jongin laughs at him and settles back down beside him. hands still entwined.
fin.
------------------------------------
a/n: been sitting on this one for a while and i don't know what else to do with it except post it. it was meant to be a sexing fic because there are not enough sexing fics but then it turned into sekai and for that, i am very sorry.