Binders And Beaches (And Brioche As Well)
Title: Binders And Beaches (And Brioche As Well)
Length: 4,393w
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fluff (initial angst)
Main Pairing: Sehun/Tao
Sup Pairings: Sehun/Jongin, Jongdae/Kris
Warning: TRANSPHOBIA. LOTS OF IT IN THE FIRST HALF. Bullying, deliberate misgendering, emotional manipulation; homophobic slurs, ableist slurs
Summary: Sehun gets a nice boyfriend who buys him sleeveless shirts.
A/N: This fic is now available here in Russian!
Sehun explains the deal to Jongin on their first date.
“Okay,” Jongin nods. No biggie. He grins. “I guess that explains a fair bit.”
Sehun neglects to ask what fair bit it explains. He’s just happy to have found someone who understands.
He loses his virginity later the same week. The sex is good. Previously-straight Jongin seems to know exactly what he is doing.
*
His first clue that something is up happens two weeks into their relationship, when Jongin introduces him to his friends.
“This is my gir- boyfriend, Sehun,” he announces, arm slung comfortably over Sehun’s shoulders. The other boys chorus a friendly “Ayyyyyy” for him, oblivious to the slip, but Sehun spends the evening tugging at the sleeves of his baggy hoodie and fingering the brown stubble on the side of his blond undercut. He swears a couple of them are looking at him strangely.
But Jongin’s fingers are soothing on the small of his back.
*
Jongin kisses him against brick walls and buys him lunch in fancy restaurants, where Sehun wears a borrowed suit yet ties Jongin’s tie because Jongin can’t, and fumbles with his own since everything is backwards. After lunch they return to campus and change into jeans and t-shirts, and Jongin fingers Sehun in university men’s rooms.
*
Sehun is lying on his back and Jongin is lying on his front, his fingers running lines from Sehun’s navel to the point between his clavicles. Jongin’s bed is huge. Sehun sometimes wishes he was as rich as Jongin and, even though he spends most of his nights in Jongin’s bed, he hopes that his roommate Luhan isn’t having sex with anyone in his dorm bed. Or that at least they wash the sheets afterwards.
“I want to introduce you to my parents,” Jongin says.
Sehun’s heart stops.
*
“Jongin, why are we here?” Sehun mutters uncomfortably as Jongin leads him down the aisle of the department store.
“Well dinner with my family is in a couple of days,” Jongin replies easily.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Sehun rolls his eyes.
Jongin looks him dead in the eyes. “And they’re all pretty homophobic.”
Sehun deeply wishes he doesn’t know where this is going. “Oh.”
Jongin pauses at the edge of the lingerie section, inspecting a black ‘Super Lift!’ push-up bra. “What size are you?”
He looks up expectantly and Sehun’s heart sinks down to his toes. He wants to go home. By home he means the dorms. He wants to squash up on one of the tiny beds and watch movies on Luhan’s laptop because Luhan makes him feel relatively manly.
“12B,” he whispers.
*
“So I hear Jongin’s gay now,” Sehun hears a group of second-years gossip as he passes by.
“Really? I thought he was just bearding for some dyke.”
“Nah I’m pretty sure that’s a dude.”
“Ah, who knows? That kid’s always been a bit weird,” a girl says.
“Jongin, too,” her companion adds, grinning at his marvellous joke.
Sehun scampers away from their laughter.
*
“I hear we’re putting Sehun in drag!” Jongin’s elusive flatmate screeches as he slams open the door. Sehun is sitting on the bed with a towel on his head and a dazed look on his face. Jongin has managed to squish him into women’s skinny jeans and a v-neck top.
Jongin nods brightly. “Dinner with my parents! I have a nice girlfriend for tonight. What can you do for me?”
Baekhyun cocks his hip and scoffs. “What can’t I do, Jongin?”
*
“I’ll leave you girls to it,” Jongin smirks as Baekhyun sets Sehun down at the kitchen table with his makeups neatly splayed all over the place. Baekhyun sticks out his tongue. Sehun continues staring straight ahead. (He has never felt so uncomfortable).
Baekhyun takes his chin and tilts his face up, holding up a few tubes of BB cream with his other hand to choose the right colour. Sehun closes his eyes.
“You have such nice skin,” Baekhyun sighs as he rubs the cream into Sehun’s forehead and cheeks. “Make sure you wash this off properly, yeah?”
“Hmm,” Sehun acknowledges, thinking better of nodding. Baekhyun wipes cream off his fingers, dusts powder over Sehun’s face and tells him to open his eyes.
“Are you alright?” Baekhyun asks. Sehun wonders how much Baekhyun suspects Is Up.
“Yeah I’m just,” he swallows, “Nervous about meeting Jongin’s family.”
“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and pecks his nose. He chooses one of the six liquid liners resting on the table and takes the brush, handing the other half to Sehun. “Hold that for me?”
Sehun inspects it with his open eye as Baekhyun works on the other. Waterproof.
*
Jongin offers him a hand up when he’s finished tying the laces of his high-heeled ankle boots. He takes it, wishing that he didn’t like how nice Jongin’s hand felt in his own, and shrugs on his jacket.
“Let’s go?” Jongin invites him cheerily.
“Wait, let me check your hair,” Baekhyun interjects, spinning Sehun around to fix his bangs.
Jongin chuckles. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Baekhyun watches him leave into the corridor and presses a bottle of makeup remover into Sehun’s hand. “This is for you,” he whispers seriously, “In case you don’t come back here tonight.”
“Thank you,” Sehun mumbles after a moment.
*
Jongin’s parents ask the usual questions. Where did you grow up? What are you studying? How are your parents, do you have any siblings, what do you do in your spare time. Sehun is thankful that creative writing was one of his favourite subjects and creates a beautiful flowery Sehun Universe where he topped middle school culinary and his parents didn’t kick him out at sixteen and his professors don’t scrawl ‘irrelevant!’ over every second line of his philosophy essays.
When he picks up his spoon again his hands are shaking so when attention is turned from his cooking skill to Jongin’s sister’s recent heartbreak, he excuses himself quietly and plays with Jongin’s poodle in the next room.
“So what do you think of her?” he hears Jongin ask several minutes later and the gathering fall silent.
“Well, let me put it this way,” Jongin’s uncle says, “She looks like she’s gonna leave you for another girl.”
*
“You know,” Jongin says as they’re driving away from his parents’ house, “My uncle said a funny thing while you were in the bathroom tonight.”
“I heard what he said,” Sehun murmurs.
Jongin laughs. “He tries to put me off you by saying you look gay. Funny, huh?”
Sehun stares blandly out the windscreen. “Not really.”
*
“Whoa!” Luhan does a double take as Sehun stumbles in. Luhan is Sehun’s only friend from before university. He glares warily and locks the door. “Whoa. Why are you…?”
Sehun shuts him up with a single look and tears off his shirt, struggling helplessly with the bra for a solid 40 seconds before Luhan carefully comes up alongside him and helps him undo the clasp. He yanks off his jeans and he doesn’t care that the zipper breaks or the seams rip a little in the violent way he kicks them across the room because he hates them and he’s never going to wear them again ever and he sits down on his bed in nothing but the stupid fucking panties that Jongin bought him and cries like he hasn’t cried since high school.
(Luhan leaves at 1:30am and returns at ten to two with a six pack. Sehun ends up having four by himself as they watch Crazy Stupid Love and refuses to take off his binder even as he crashes at 4:00 and a worried, tipsy Luhan decides to leave it on him as he tucks him into bed)
*
Sehun expects Jongin to call in the morning.
“Hyung, have you seen my phone?”
“No,” Luhan replies convincingly.
*
“I want to break up,” Sehun deadpans, staring at Jongin’s shoulder.
Jongin’s mouth falls open. “What? Why?” he gasps in utter shock, and any residual doubts Sehun may have had melt away. He looks up and meets Jongin’s eyes.
“It’s just not working for me,” he shrugs and walks away, feeling lighter with every step that brings him further from Jongin.
*
Sehun stays single for seven months.
He directs his dysphoria away from his philosophy essays, steers clear of Jongin and his friends, cuts down on smoking, makes friends with Luhan’s friends and thrives.
Tao asks him out just after he’s finished his final exams for the semester, three days before the official end of the exam period and ten minutes before they enter the bar that Luhan has chosen as the location of their Finals Survival celebration. He addresses the question to Sehun’s shoes and his face burns while he waits for Sehun’s response and Yixing’s grin is huge as he yells out that “We’ll wait for you guys inside!”
“I mean,” Tao stammered when the last of them had disappeared into the bar, “I’ve liked you for a while and you seem like a really cool guy and I don’t have much money but… like… if you wanted maybe we could go get coffee sometime…”
Sehun smiles and Tao looks so hopeful he wants to pat his face. “That sounds nice.”
*
Tao’s shyness seems to appear and disappear at roughly 0.5 seconds’ notice, and Sehun finds himself totally okay with that. One second he’ll be staring awkwardly at his coffee and then the next he’ll be suddenly reminded of something that happened to him since their last meeting, or in his past, and his face lights up as he explains the story to Sehun in as much detail as he has the Korean vocabulary for.
They have small student-budget dates in campus cafés or dodgy noodle bars and Tao always shyly asks permission before reaching out to take Sehun’s hand.
Sehun reckons he’s in love with Tao.
*
One day at 7am in the middle of the summer holidays Jongdae decides he wants to go to Busan, so he hauls everyone out of bed and packs them into Chanyeol’s people mover for a day trip. Tao wakes up in Sehun’s arms with his face squashed into Sehun’s chest at ten, sitting bolt upright in the backseat and yelling something in Mandarin that Luhan and Yixing laugh at. It’s one of those asshole-y post-prank laughs and Sehun suddenly realizes that he’s never been part of something like this before - a group of people who genuinely love each other and can tease without someone getting hurt and who can just drive to the other side of the country at a moment’s notice because time spent together is time spent together, after all. He pulls Tao back down and nuzzles his hair.
Everyone in the car is awake now and Jongdae leans between the front two seats to turn on the radio. “This is going to be the best trip ever!” he yells.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” Minseok asks and Kris’ glower deepens.
“Who knows? What is sleep anyway? What is unconsciousness?” Jongdae leans over the back of the middle row seat and widens his eyes. “What, even, is ‘last night’?”
“He got high and started reading his old first-year philosophy textbooks,” Kris deadpans, then glances over at Jongdae who is bouncing slightly. “I hate you.”
Jongdae kisses him loudly. “Love you too!”
Kris pushes him away with a hand larger than Jongdae’s face. “That’s not what I said.”
*
The beach is packed.
“Hyung, what are we supposed to swim in?” Tao asks, falling out of the van, holding gently onto Sehun’s wrist. Jongdae gives him an intensely disturbing grin and Chanyeol has the grace to look abashed on his behalf.
“We brought your swimmers,” he confesses.
Luhan lets out a horrendous cackle. “How did you even find Sehun’s?” he asks, and Sehun slaps his forehead.
“I’m not that messy!” he whines, and Luhan snorts.
Jongdae coughs. “In any case it’s not an issue, you may all thank me now.” He smiles serenely and clambers gracelessly onto Kris’ back.
No gratitude is forthcoming, but it’s okay because they later force Chanyeol to pay for dinner while Jongdae smiles a lot and steals Kris’ ddeokbokki.
*
The midsummer sun sets at around 9pm. The eight of them drive away from the commercial beach, then hike along the coast until they find a quiet patch of sand on a lesser-known cove, hefting woven blankets from the van. Sehun, Luhan, Kris and Jongdae pass around a pack of cigarettes, and the other four choose to abstain. The coast is windy, and Luhan hogs the single lighter for three minutes - Kris complains loudly until he spends close to five minutes unable to keep the tiny flame alive, and Jongdae ends up doing it for him. Tao curls into Sehun’s side and wraps the blanket tighter around them both.
In the midst of the smoky silence Luhan starts singing, and Yixing joins him. Jongdae clears his throat before adding his own voice, three-part harmony ringing over the crashing waves. Sehun begins to doze off on Tao’s head, his boyfriend’s thumb running over his knuckles. He’s always loved it when Luhan sings, and the sound of the three of them expressing themselves through song makes him swell with a heartbreaking cheesiness that he was robbed of in high school. It’s beautiful - until Kris tries to interject with a rap break and the song breaks down into Yixing’s giggles and Luhan’s raucous laughter and Jongdae’s hyung no, just no. Tao chuckles and Sehun can feel the vibrations in his ribcage.
They share their first kiss there, on the beach, when Tao looks up at him. Tao’s lips are sweet and warm and gentle, his cheek is soft beneath Sehun’s fingertips, the kiss is soft and closed-mouthed and innocent. Tao smiles when they separate. Sehun is very, very much in love with him.
*
“Let’s not drive back tonight,” Chanyeol says at nine past ten.
“We can sleep in the car,” Minseok agrees, yawning. “I don’t trust Chanyeol to drive right now. Look at him. He’ll forget to stay awake and kill us all.”
“I don’t trust anyone else to touch my van,” Chanyeol adds.
“Great,” Jongdae says, and goes to fetch the beer.
*
They drive back to Seoul the next morning in a mess of sand and salt and a summer night’s sweat.
“I love you, Sehun,” Tao mumbles sleepily when he wakes up, and promptly dozes off again.
I love you too, Sehun thinks as he kisses Tao’s knuckles.
*
Sehun and Tao are studying together. Which means that Sehun is studying and Tao is catching up on sleep, because he spent last night’s study time watching dramas and online shopping and had to use his sleep time to complain about how screwed he was for his assignment. Sehun cards the fingers of his left hand through Tao’s hair and turns the pages of his class notes with his right. He’s bored. He shouldn’t have to study anything the first week back. His fingers grip onto Tao’s scalp and he shakes his head gently to wake him.
“Tao. Tao. Wake up. Tao.”
“What?” Tao whines, looking up.
Sehun allows himself a moment to appreciate how ridiculously attractive Tao’s eyes are. “I’m not feeling this studying thing. Let’s go get cake.”
“Cake?” Tao sits up suddenly, eyes lighting up hopefully. Sehun ruffles his hair and he swats the younger boy’s hand off his head. “Okay! Cake! Let’s go! I feel like brioche.”
Sehun packs up his textbooks and notebooks into his bag - Tao’s were never unpacked - and stands up, feeling Tao rise beside him.
“Cake, cake!” he whispers happily, starting to leave and stopping when Tao doesn’t follow. “What?”
Tao looks around to check that their section of the library is empty. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, hands in his pockets, fully prepared for both stepping up if the answer is yes, and backing down if the answer is no.
Sehun takes half a second to double check the area for stray students. “Yeah, of course,” he replies, and suddenly his face is in Tao’s hands, and he never feels as safe and secure and loved as when he can feel Tao’s body heat. He breathes in the scent of Tao’s skin and realizes once again that he is so utterly, completely, pathetically in love.
*
Sehun lets Tao push him gently onto his bed and press him into the pillows, kissing him breathless.
“Tao,” he whispers between kisses, hands resting on Tao’s waist, pinkies brushing his hips. “Tao.”
“Yes?”
Sehun peers into his boyfriend’s face. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Tao whispers back seriously, swiftly unbuttoning Sehun’s shirt and pushing his t-shirt up to his collarbones.
Sehun’s heart is in his mouth. No. Nope. Nope nope nope. This is too much exposure for him. This is the first time that Tao has ever seen so much of his skin. But the tone with which Tao pronounces his next words have him stunned into stillness.
“Oh, that’s what the stiff thing is,” he says, with the air of someone whose burning curiosity has finally been sated. “I’ve heard of these. How do you call it in Korean?”
Sehun swallows but it doesn't do much for clearing his throat. “Binder,” he squeaks.
Tao repeats the word once and leans down to kiss him, smiling obliviously. Sehun’s heart is still pounding, but he feels more hopeful and confused than terrified now.
“Can I take it off?” Tao whispers.
Yes, Sehun thinks. Yes you can. Please take it off. You can take anything off. You can take everything off. You can do whatever you want with me. I love you. But then he remembers that he’s wearing his expensive binder and laughs hollowly thinking about the two million hooks and clasps. “You can try…”
Their kisses are more heated than they’ve ever been. Tao’s fingers trail over his skin in the wake of his whispers, “Is this okay? Is this okay?”
Sehun whispers back ‘yes’es and keens highly when Tao touches him next. Tao laughs at him; Sehun has never been laughed at with such a lack of judgment. He mumbles at Tao to shut up and pulls him down into a kiss, rolling up against the length of his body.
The sex is messy, sticky, awkward, interjected with giggles and cramps and calls for exhausted time-outs. Sweet kisses, wet kisses, light touches, clumsy bumps, soft moans and loud moans. Sehun has never been so happy in his life.
But Tao’s casual failure to mention anything about him niggles at the back of his mind.
“I’m a boy,” he mumbles once their heartbeats have gone back to normal.
Tao frowns at him in surprise. “What else would you be?”
Sehun hides beneath his chin and decides to wake up early to buy French pastries for breakfast.
*
“Are those the same jeans you wore yesterday?”
“Yes?” Sehun looks up from tying his shoes.
Tao purses his lips. “That you wore the day before that?”
“…yes?”
“That are, in fact, the same pair of jeans that you wore the day before that, and actually since Sunday, when you wore that disgusting pair of sweatpants?”
“Come on, they don’t even smell!”
Tao groans. “At least put on your other sneakers.”
“I don’t have another pair of sneakers.”
Tao looks simultaneously ready to explode and cry. “Sehun, we’re going shopping.”
*
“Hold this. And this. And… this, and this. No not that, the colour doesn’t look good on you. Let’s go look at shirts. Oh my god. Tanks. Sehun you need tanks.”
Sehun narrows his eyes over the pile of jeans and shorts Tao has loaded up on him. “Do you have a thing for arms, or.”
“Maybe. Irrelevant.” Tao digs up tank tops in four different colours. “Okay let’s go.”
“Wait, don’t I have to try them on?” Sehun asks in confusion as he trails after Tao to the counter.
“Too much to buy, not enough time,” Tao responds in a clipped voice. “You can try them on later.”
“I though you didn’t have much money, though. It seems like a waste. Or was that just a ploy to get me to buy you cake?”
Tao sends him a look and hands his card to the cashier. “Credit, please. With PIN.”
“Hey, can I see that?” Sehun asks when they leave the store. Tao hands him his wallet and Sehun takes the opportunity to dump half of the bags on Tao in exchange. He takes out the three cards in there - one is Tao’s debit card, that he’s seen before. The other two are both from different banks.
“This isn’t your name,” Sehun frowns at the signature strip. “Isn’t this Kris-hyung’s signature?”
“Of course it is?” Tao laughs. “Why would anyone else’s be on Kris-ge’s card?”
Sehun raises an eyebrow. “And this one…” he can’t make out the scrawled sign so he flips it over to the front side. “Kim Joonmyun. Who’s Kim Joonmyun?”
“A rich hyung,” Tao says simply. “Oh, this place has nice shoes. Come on.”
*
Sehun dumps the bags on his bed and stares at them like they are responsible for the world’s evils.
“Where am I even gonna put all this?”
Tao stares at him intensely. “Sehun, you always find a place for clothes.”
“Usually the floor,” Luhan offers.
Sehun picks up a pair of briefs - clean, but Luhan doesn’t need to know that - and flings them at Luhan’s face.
“No one asked you.”
Luhan shrieks.
*
Sehun and Tao’s three-month anniversary is celebrated by not doing homework, and eating Thai take-out on Tao’s couch. Afterwards they turn up the music and attempt to make pat bing soo for dessert, but give up when Tao starts dancing around the kitchen and knocks all of the half-shaved ice onto the floor. Sehun uses logic to deduce that it would be easier to mop it up later than get the broom soggy, so they leave the mess on the tiles and duck, giggling, out of the door.
Tao oh-so-casually informs Sehun that there’s no security surveillance in the elevator, smiling innocently, and Sehun knows that that particular innocent smile means the exact opposite. The doors are already opening before he reluctantly pulls away from Tao’s lips - but he keeps his arm wrapped around his shoulders, because he can, and because he wants to.
Autumn has well and truly set in and the sun has set but they buy ice cream and wander down to the river in t-shirts and jeans and Tao talks about how long it’s been since he had legitimate Chinese hot pot and Sehun knows that’s code for homesickness, so he starts talking about his older brother. Tao looks at him quietly and holds his hand and walks slowly, kicking his steps out one at a time.
“Anyway, I haven’t seen him in a while,” Sehun finishes, smiling over. “I don’t really know how he’d react if I called him hyung, so I keep avoiding making the first move.”
Tao lays a hand on his shoulder. “Korean is stupid.”
Sehun laughs at that and shoves him off. “At least it’s easier than Mandarin!”
“It is not!” Tao whines.
“It is so. You have words that sound the same and mean completely different things. Like mā and mă. Mother and horse. How does that work?”
Tao lets out an offended huff. “What is it with non-Chinese people and the “mā mă” thing? Like of all the examples you could use it’s always that one. Foreigners have an obsession with calling their mothers horses, I swear to god. It’s not even important - if you’re learning Mandarin, when are you ever gonna address your mother in it?”
“I don’t know! I can’t say any other Chinese words!” Sehun rebuts, ruffling Tao’s hair.
“Don't mess my hair!”
Sehun grins. “You’re so cute when you’re excited,” he jiggles Tao’s chin. “Green boy.”
“I am not green!” Tao wails. Sehun tries to pick him up - Tao flips him over his shoulder and dumps him on the grass, jumping down to sit on his chest. “You are so mean.”
“You love me, though, right?”
Tao huffs. “Maybe I do, asshole.”
Sehun tries to lean up, but Tao is holding his shoulders down. “Kiss me?” he asks instead.
“No.”
“Please?”
Tao groans. “You suck,” he complains as he ducks down to comply.
*
The next summer, Sehun has been on T for four months and Kris’ mouth falls open when he comes out in one of the tank tops that Tao picked out for him.
“That’s not even fair!” he howls, leaning over Jongdae to squish Sehun’s biceps. “What are you even on that makes them grow like that?”
“What are you talking about?” Sehun asks innocently, taking his seat beside Tao. “Do you even lift?”
“Challenge him to an arm wrestle,” Luhan stage whispers while Tao cackles loudly.
“And since when did Sehun get hot?” Jongdae whines and pouts at Tao. “I’m jealous.”
“Hey!” Kris yells indignantly.
Jongdae pats his hand. “It’s okay, baby, I have total confidence in your ability to beat Sehun… at… something.”
“That does it,” Kris growls, slamming his elbow down in the middle of the table.
“Oh, you wanna go?”
“Bring it on!”
Everyone is laughing, Minseok slapping the table, Chanyeol’s thick giggle booming over their heads. He reaches over and grabs Sehun and Kris’ clasped hands, holding them centred. “Ready? And… go!”
The game is over in fourteen seconds. Jongdae kisses Kris’ bruised knuckles through his giggles and Sehun stands up, raising his arms over his head.
“WHO THE MAN?” he yells triumphantly. Tao pulls him back down.
“Manliest man, our Sehun!” Yixing laughs.
“To be honest, I think Kris is just weak…” Minseok interjects, but Jongdae shushes him.
Their food arrives, and everyone is distracted from Sehun’s guns and Kris’ lack thereof in favour of getting first pick of the dumplings.
“Youngest first!” Sehun yells, leaning across the table.
“Eldest first!” Minseok howls, elbowing him out of the way.
“Don’t fall in the soup!” Luhan roars, pulling the dish safely to his chest.
Sehun, having settled for the second-largest baozi, grins over at Tao, stuffing his face with shengcai bao.
He has never in his life felt so settled.
Length: 4,393w
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Fluff (initial angst)
Main Pairing: Sehun/Tao
Sup Pairings: Sehun/Jongin, Jongdae/Kris
Warning: TRANSPHOBIA. LOTS OF IT IN THE FIRST HALF. Bullying, deliberate misgendering, emotional manipulation; homophobic slurs, ableist slurs
Summary: Sehun gets a nice boyfriend who buys him sleeveless shirts.
A/N: This fic is now available here in Russian!
Sehun explains the deal to Jongin on their first date.
“Okay,” Jongin nods. No biggie. He grins. “I guess that explains a fair bit.”
Sehun neglects to ask what fair bit it explains. He’s just happy to have found someone who understands.
He loses his virginity later the same week. The sex is good. Previously-straight Jongin seems to know exactly what he is doing.
*
His first clue that something is up happens two weeks into their relationship, when Jongin introduces him to his friends.
“This is my gir- boyfriend, Sehun,” he announces, arm slung comfortably over Sehun’s shoulders. The other boys chorus a friendly “Ayyyyyy” for him, oblivious to the slip, but Sehun spends the evening tugging at the sleeves of his baggy hoodie and fingering the brown stubble on the side of his blond undercut. He swears a couple of them are looking at him strangely.
But Jongin’s fingers are soothing on the small of his back.
*
Jongin kisses him against brick walls and buys him lunch in fancy restaurants, where Sehun wears a borrowed suit yet ties Jongin’s tie because Jongin can’t, and fumbles with his own since everything is backwards. After lunch they return to campus and change into jeans and t-shirts, and Jongin fingers Sehun in university men’s rooms.
*
Sehun is lying on his back and Jongin is lying on his front, his fingers running lines from Sehun’s navel to the point between his clavicles. Jongin’s bed is huge. Sehun sometimes wishes he was as rich as Jongin and, even though he spends most of his nights in Jongin’s bed, he hopes that his roommate Luhan isn’t having sex with anyone in his dorm bed. Or that at least they wash the sheets afterwards.
“I want to introduce you to my parents,” Jongin says.
Sehun’s heart stops.
*
“Jongin, why are we here?” Sehun mutters uncomfortably as Jongin leads him down the aisle of the department store.
“Well dinner with my family is in a couple of days,” Jongin replies easily.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Sehun rolls his eyes.
Jongin looks him dead in the eyes. “And they’re all pretty homophobic.”
Sehun deeply wishes he doesn’t know where this is going. “Oh.”
Jongin pauses at the edge of the lingerie section, inspecting a black ‘Super Lift!’ push-up bra. “What size are you?”
He looks up expectantly and Sehun’s heart sinks down to his toes. He wants to go home. By home he means the dorms. He wants to squash up on one of the tiny beds and watch movies on Luhan’s laptop because Luhan makes him feel relatively manly.
“12B,” he whispers.
*
“So I hear Jongin’s gay now,” Sehun hears a group of second-years gossip as he passes by.
“Really? I thought he was just bearding for some dyke.”
“Nah I’m pretty sure that’s a dude.”
“Ah, who knows? That kid’s always been a bit weird,” a girl says.
“Jongin, too,” her companion adds, grinning at his marvellous joke.
Sehun scampers away from their laughter.
*
“I hear we’re putting Sehun in drag!” Jongin’s elusive flatmate screeches as he slams open the door. Sehun is sitting on the bed with a towel on his head and a dazed look on his face. Jongin has managed to squish him into women’s skinny jeans and a v-neck top.
Jongin nods brightly. “Dinner with my parents! I have a nice girlfriend for tonight. What can you do for me?”
Baekhyun cocks his hip and scoffs. “What can’t I do, Jongin?”
*
“I’ll leave you girls to it,” Jongin smirks as Baekhyun sets Sehun down at the kitchen table with his makeups neatly splayed all over the place. Baekhyun sticks out his tongue. Sehun continues staring straight ahead. (He has never felt so uncomfortable).
Baekhyun takes his chin and tilts his face up, holding up a few tubes of BB cream with his other hand to choose the right colour. Sehun closes his eyes.
“You have such nice skin,” Baekhyun sighs as he rubs the cream into Sehun’s forehead and cheeks. “Make sure you wash this off properly, yeah?”
“Hmm,” Sehun acknowledges, thinking better of nodding. Baekhyun wipes cream off his fingers, dusts powder over Sehun’s face and tells him to open his eyes.
“Are you alright?” Baekhyun asks. Sehun wonders how much Baekhyun suspects Is Up.
“Yeah I’m just,” he swallows, “Nervous about meeting Jongin’s family.”
“Okay,” Baekhyun says, and pecks his nose. He chooses one of the six liquid liners resting on the table and takes the brush, handing the other half to Sehun. “Hold that for me?”
Sehun inspects it with his open eye as Baekhyun works on the other. Waterproof.
*
Jongin offers him a hand up when he’s finished tying the laces of his high-heeled ankle boots. He takes it, wishing that he didn’t like how nice Jongin’s hand felt in his own, and shrugs on his jacket.
“Let’s go?” Jongin invites him cheerily.
“Wait, let me check your hair,” Baekhyun interjects, spinning Sehun around to fix his bangs.
Jongin chuckles. “I’ll wait in the car.”
Baekhyun watches him leave into the corridor and presses a bottle of makeup remover into Sehun’s hand. “This is for you,” he whispers seriously, “In case you don’t come back here tonight.”
“Thank you,” Sehun mumbles after a moment.
*
Jongin’s parents ask the usual questions. Where did you grow up? What are you studying? How are your parents, do you have any siblings, what do you do in your spare time. Sehun is thankful that creative writing was one of his favourite subjects and creates a beautiful flowery Sehun Universe where he topped middle school culinary and his parents didn’t kick him out at sixteen and his professors don’t scrawl ‘irrelevant!’ over every second line of his philosophy essays.
When he picks up his spoon again his hands are shaking so when attention is turned from his cooking skill to Jongin’s sister’s recent heartbreak, he excuses himself quietly and plays with Jongin’s poodle in the next room.
“So what do you think of her?” he hears Jongin ask several minutes later and the gathering fall silent.
“Well, let me put it this way,” Jongin’s uncle says, “She looks like she’s gonna leave you for another girl.”
*
“You know,” Jongin says as they’re driving away from his parents’ house, “My uncle said a funny thing while you were in the bathroom tonight.”
“I heard what he said,” Sehun murmurs.
Jongin laughs. “He tries to put me off you by saying you look gay. Funny, huh?”
Sehun stares blandly out the windscreen. “Not really.”
*
“Whoa!” Luhan does a double take as Sehun stumbles in. Luhan is Sehun’s only friend from before university. He glares warily and locks the door. “Whoa. Why are you…?”
Sehun shuts him up with a single look and tears off his shirt, struggling helplessly with the bra for a solid 40 seconds before Luhan carefully comes up alongside him and helps him undo the clasp. He yanks off his jeans and he doesn’t care that the zipper breaks or the seams rip a little in the violent way he kicks them across the room because he hates them and he’s never going to wear them again ever and he sits down on his bed in nothing but the stupid fucking panties that Jongin bought him and cries like he hasn’t cried since high school.
(Luhan leaves at 1:30am and returns at ten to two with a six pack. Sehun ends up having four by himself as they watch Crazy Stupid Love and refuses to take off his binder even as he crashes at 4:00 and a worried, tipsy Luhan decides to leave it on him as he tucks him into bed)
*
Sehun expects Jongin to call in the morning.
“Hyung, have you seen my phone?”
“No,” Luhan replies convincingly.
*
“I want to break up,” Sehun deadpans, staring at Jongin’s shoulder.
Jongin’s mouth falls open. “What? Why?” he gasps in utter shock, and any residual doubts Sehun may have had melt away. He looks up and meets Jongin’s eyes.
“It’s just not working for me,” he shrugs and walks away, feeling lighter with every step that brings him further from Jongin.
*
Sehun stays single for seven months.
He directs his dysphoria away from his philosophy essays, steers clear of Jongin and his friends, cuts down on smoking, makes friends with Luhan’s friends and thrives.
Tao asks him out just after he’s finished his final exams for the semester, three days before the official end of the exam period and ten minutes before they enter the bar that Luhan has chosen as the location of their Finals Survival celebration. He addresses the question to Sehun’s shoes and his face burns while he waits for Sehun’s response and Yixing’s grin is huge as he yells out that “We’ll wait for you guys inside!”
“I mean,” Tao stammered when the last of them had disappeared into the bar, “I’ve liked you for a while and you seem like a really cool guy and I don’t have much money but… like… if you wanted maybe we could go get coffee sometime…”
Sehun smiles and Tao looks so hopeful he wants to pat his face. “That sounds nice.”
*
Tao’s shyness seems to appear and disappear at roughly 0.5 seconds’ notice, and Sehun finds himself totally okay with that. One second he’ll be staring awkwardly at his coffee and then the next he’ll be suddenly reminded of something that happened to him since their last meeting, or in his past, and his face lights up as he explains the story to Sehun in as much detail as he has the Korean vocabulary for.
They have small student-budget dates in campus cafés or dodgy noodle bars and Tao always shyly asks permission before reaching out to take Sehun’s hand.
Sehun reckons he’s in love with Tao.
*
One day at 7am in the middle of the summer holidays Jongdae decides he wants to go to Busan, so he hauls everyone out of bed and packs them into Chanyeol’s people mover for a day trip. Tao wakes up in Sehun’s arms with his face squashed into Sehun’s chest at ten, sitting bolt upright in the backseat and yelling something in Mandarin that Luhan and Yixing laugh at. It’s one of those asshole-y post-prank laughs and Sehun suddenly realizes that he’s never been part of something like this before - a group of people who genuinely love each other and can tease without someone getting hurt and who can just drive to the other side of the country at a moment’s notice because time spent together is time spent together, after all. He pulls Tao back down and nuzzles his hair.
Everyone in the car is awake now and Jongdae leans between the front two seats to turn on the radio. “This is going to be the best trip ever!” he yells.
“How much sleep did you get last night?” Minseok asks and Kris’ glower deepens.
“Who knows? What is sleep anyway? What is unconsciousness?” Jongdae leans over the back of the middle row seat and widens his eyes. “What, even, is ‘last night’?”
“He got high and started reading his old first-year philosophy textbooks,” Kris deadpans, then glances over at Jongdae who is bouncing slightly. “I hate you.”
Jongdae kisses him loudly. “Love you too!”
Kris pushes him away with a hand larger than Jongdae’s face. “That’s not what I said.”
*
The beach is packed.
“Hyung, what are we supposed to swim in?” Tao asks, falling out of the van, holding gently onto Sehun’s wrist. Jongdae gives him an intensely disturbing grin and Chanyeol has the grace to look abashed on his behalf.
“We brought your swimmers,” he confesses.
Luhan lets out a horrendous cackle. “How did you even find Sehun’s?” he asks, and Sehun slaps his forehead.
“I’m not that messy!” he whines, and Luhan snorts.
Jongdae coughs. “In any case it’s not an issue, you may all thank me now.” He smiles serenely and clambers gracelessly onto Kris’ back.
No gratitude is forthcoming, but it’s okay because they later force Chanyeol to pay for dinner while Jongdae smiles a lot and steals Kris’ ddeokbokki.
*
The midsummer sun sets at around 9pm. The eight of them drive away from the commercial beach, then hike along the coast until they find a quiet patch of sand on a lesser-known cove, hefting woven blankets from the van. Sehun, Luhan, Kris and Jongdae pass around a pack of cigarettes, and the other four choose to abstain. The coast is windy, and Luhan hogs the single lighter for three minutes - Kris complains loudly until he spends close to five minutes unable to keep the tiny flame alive, and Jongdae ends up doing it for him. Tao curls into Sehun’s side and wraps the blanket tighter around them both.
In the midst of the smoky silence Luhan starts singing, and Yixing joins him. Jongdae clears his throat before adding his own voice, three-part harmony ringing over the crashing waves. Sehun begins to doze off on Tao’s head, his boyfriend’s thumb running over his knuckles. He’s always loved it when Luhan sings, and the sound of the three of them expressing themselves through song makes him swell with a heartbreaking cheesiness that he was robbed of in high school. It’s beautiful - until Kris tries to interject with a rap break and the song breaks down into Yixing’s giggles and Luhan’s raucous laughter and Jongdae’s hyung no, just no. Tao chuckles and Sehun can feel the vibrations in his ribcage.
They share their first kiss there, on the beach, when Tao looks up at him. Tao’s lips are sweet and warm and gentle, his cheek is soft beneath Sehun’s fingertips, the kiss is soft and closed-mouthed and innocent. Tao smiles when they separate. Sehun is very, very much in love with him.
*
“Let’s not drive back tonight,” Chanyeol says at nine past ten.
“We can sleep in the car,” Minseok agrees, yawning. “I don’t trust Chanyeol to drive right now. Look at him. He’ll forget to stay awake and kill us all.”
“I don’t trust anyone else to touch my van,” Chanyeol adds.
“Great,” Jongdae says, and goes to fetch the beer.
*
They drive back to Seoul the next morning in a mess of sand and salt and a summer night’s sweat.
“I love you, Sehun,” Tao mumbles sleepily when he wakes up, and promptly dozes off again.
I love you too, Sehun thinks as he kisses Tao’s knuckles.
*
Sehun and Tao are studying together. Which means that Sehun is studying and Tao is catching up on sleep, because he spent last night’s study time watching dramas and online shopping and had to use his sleep time to complain about how screwed he was for his assignment. Sehun cards the fingers of his left hand through Tao’s hair and turns the pages of his class notes with his right. He’s bored. He shouldn’t have to study anything the first week back. His fingers grip onto Tao’s scalp and he shakes his head gently to wake him.
“Tao. Tao. Wake up. Tao.”
“What?” Tao whines, looking up.
Sehun allows himself a moment to appreciate how ridiculously attractive Tao’s eyes are. “I’m not feeling this studying thing. Let’s go get cake.”
“Cake?” Tao sits up suddenly, eyes lighting up hopefully. Sehun ruffles his hair and he swats the younger boy’s hand off his head. “Okay! Cake! Let’s go! I feel like brioche.”
Sehun packs up his textbooks and notebooks into his bag - Tao’s were never unpacked - and stands up, feeling Tao rise beside him.
“Cake, cake!” he whispers happily, starting to leave and stopping when Tao doesn’t follow. “What?”
Tao looks around to check that their section of the library is empty. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, hands in his pockets, fully prepared for both stepping up if the answer is yes, and backing down if the answer is no.
Sehun takes half a second to double check the area for stray students. “Yeah, of course,” he replies, and suddenly his face is in Tao’s hands, and he never feels as safe and secure and loved as when he can feel Tao’s body heat. He breathes in the scent of Tao’s skin and realizes once again that he is so utterly, completely, pathetically in love.
*
Sehun lets Tao push him gently onto his bed and press him into the pillows, kissing him breathless.
“Tao,” he whispers between kisses, hands resting on Tao’s waist, pinkies brushing his hips. “Tao.”
“Yes?”
Sehun peers into his boyfriend’s face. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Tao whispers back seriously, swiftly unbuttoning Sehun’s shirt and pushing his t-shirt up to his collarbones.
Sehun’s heart is in his mouth. No. Nope. Nope nope nope. This is too much exposure for him. This is the first time that Tao has ever seen so much of his skin. But the tone with which Tao pronounces his next words have him stunned into stillness.
“Oh, that’s what the stiff thing is,” he says, with the air of someone whose burning curiosity has finally been sated. “I’ve heard of these. How do you call it in Korean?”
Sehun swallows but it doesn't do much for clearing his throat. “Binder,” he squeaks.
Tao repeats the word once and leans down to kiss him, smiling obliviously. Sehun’s heart is still pounding, but he feels more hopeful and confused than terrified now.
“Can I take it off?” Tao whispers.
Yes, Sehun thinks. Yes you can. Please take it off. You can take anything off. You can take everything off. You can do whatever you want with me. I love you. But then he remembers that he’s wearing his expensive binder and laughs hollowly thinking about the two million hooks and clasps. “You can try…”
Their kisses are more heated than they’ve ever been. Tao’s fingers trail over his skin in the wake of his whispers, “Is this okay? Is this okay?”
Sehun whispers back ‘yes’es and keens highly when Tao touches him next. Tao laughs at him; Sehun has never been laughed at with such a lack of judgment. He mumbles at Tao to shut up and pulls him down into a kiss, rolling up against the length of his body.
The sex is messy, sticky, awkward, interjected with giggles and cramps and calls for exhausted time-outs. Sweet kisses, wet kisses, light touches, clumsy bumps, soft moans and loud moans. Sehun has never been so happy in his life.
But Tao’s casual failure to mention anything about him niggles at the back of his mind.
“I’m a boy,” he mumbles once their heartbeats have gone back to normal.
Tao frowns at him in surprise. “What else would you be?”
Sehun hides beneath his chin and decides to wake up early to buy French pastries for breakfast.
*
“Are those the same jeans you wore yesterday?”
“Yes?” Sehun looks up from tying his shoes.
Tao purses his lips. “That you wore the day before that?”
“…yes?”
“That are, in fact, the same pair of jeans that you wore the day before that, and actually since Sunday, when you wore that disgusting pair of sweatpants?”
“Come on, they don’t even smell!”
Tao groans. “At least put on your other sneakers.”
“I don’t have another pair of sneakers.”
Tao looks simultaneously ready to explode and cry. “Sehun, we’re going shopping.”
*
“Hold this. And this. And… this, and this. No not that, the colour doesn’t look good on you. Let’s go look at shirts. Oh my god. Tanks. Sehun you need tanks.”
Sehun narrows his eyes over the pile of jeans and shorts Tao has loaded up on him. “Do you have a thing for arms, or.”
“Maybe. Irrelevant.” Tao digs up tank tops in four different colours. “Okay let’s go.”
“Wait, don’t I have to try them on?” Sehun asks in confusion as he trails after Tao to the counter.
“Too much to buy, not enough time,” Tao responds in a clipped voice. “You can try them on later.”
“I though you didn’t have much money, though. It seems like a waste. Or was that just a ploy to get me to buy you cake?”
Tao sends him a look and hands his card to the cashier. “Credit, please. With PIN.”
“Hey, can I see that?” Sehun asks when they leave the store. Tao hands him his wallet and Sehun takes the opportunity to dump half of the bags on Tao in exchange. He takes out the three cards in there - one is Tao’s debit card, that he’s seen before. The other two are both from different banks.
“This isn’t your name,” Sehun frowns at the signature strip. “Isn’t this Kris-hyung’s signature?”
“Of course it is?” Tao laughs. “Why would anyone else’s be on Kris-ge’s card?”
Sehun raises an eyebrow. “And this one…” he can’t make out the scrawled sign so he flips it over to the front side. “Kim Joonmyun. Who’s Kim Joonmyun?”
“A rich hyung,” Tao says simply. “Oh, this place has nice shoes. Come on.”
*
Sehun dumps the bags on his bed and stares at them like they are responsible for the world’s evils.
“Where am I even gonna put all this?”
Tao stares at him intensely. “Sehun, you always find a place for clothes.”
“Usually the floor,” Luhan offers.
Sehun picks up a pair of briefs - clean, but Luhan doesn’t need to know that - and flings them at Luhan’s face.
“No one asked you.”
Luhan shrieks.
*
Sehun and Tao’s three-month anniversary is celebrated by not doing homework, and eating Thai take-out on Tao’s couch. Afterwards they turn up the music and attempt to make pat bing soo for dessert, but give up when Tao starts dancing around the kitchen and knocks all of the half-shaved ice onto the floor. Sehun uses logic to deduce that it would be easier to mop it up later than get the broom soggy, so they leave the mess on the tiles and duck, giggling, out of the door.
Tao oh-so-casually informs Sehun that there’s no security surveillance in the elevator, smiling innocently, and Sehun knows that that particular innocent smile means the exact opposite. The doors are already opening before he reluctantly pulls away from Tao’s lips - but he keeps his arm wrapped around his shoulders, because he can, and because he wants to.
Autumn has well and truly set in and the sun has set but they buy ice cream and wander down to the river in t-shirts and jeans and Tao talks about how long it’s been since he had legitimate Chinese hot pot and Sehun knows that’s code for homesickness, so he starts talking about his older brother. Tao looks at him quietly and holds his hand and walks slowly, kicking his steps out one at a time.
“Anyway, I haven’t seen him in a while,” Sehun finishes, smiling over. “I don’t really know how he’d react if I called him hyung, so I keep avoiding making the first move.”
Tao lays a hand on his shoulder. “Korean is stupid.”
Sehun laughs at that and shoves him off. “At least it’s easier than Mandarin!”
“It is not!” Tao whines.
“It is so. You have words that sound the same and mean completely different things. Like mā and mă. Mother and horse. How does that work?”
Tao lets out an offended huff. “What is it with non-Chinese people and the “mā mă” thing? Like of all the examples you could use it’s always that one. Foreigners have an obsession with calling their mothers horses, I swear to god. It’s not even important - if you’re learning Mandarin, when are you ever gonna address your mother in it?”
“I don’t know! I can’t say any other Chinese words!” Sehun rebuts, ruffling Tao’s hair.
“Don't mess my hair!”
Sehun grins. “You’re so cute when you’re excited,” he jiggles Tao’s chin. “Green boy.”
“I am not green!” Tao wails. Sehun tries to pick him up - Tao flips him over his shoulder and dumps him on the grass, jumping down to sit on his chest. “You are so mean.”
“You love me, though, right?”
Tao huffs. “Maybe I do, asshole.”
Sehun tries to lean up, but Tao is holding his shoulders down. “Kiss me?” he asks instead.
“No.”
“Please?”
Tao groans. “You suck,” he complains as he ducks down to comply.
*
The next summer, Sehun has been on T for four months and Kris’ mouth falls open when he comes out in one of the tank tops that Tao picked out for him.
“That’s not even fair!” he howls, leaning over Jongdae to squish Sehun’s biceps. “What are you even on that makes them grow like that?”
“What are you talking about?” Sehun asks innocently, taking his seat beside Tao. “Do you even lift?”
“Challenge him to an arm wrestle,” Luhan stage whispers while Tao cackles loudly.
“And since when did Sehun get hot?” Jongdae whines and pouts at Tao. “I’m jealous.”
“Hey!” Kris yells indignantly.
Jongdae pats his hand. “It’s okay, baby, I have total confidence in your ability to beat Sehun… at… something.”
“That does it,” Kris growls, slamming his elbow down in the middle of the table.
“Oh, you wanna go?”
“Bring it on!”
Everyone is laughing, Minseok slapping the table, Chanyeol’s thick giggle booming over their heads. He reaches over and grabs Sehun and Kris’ clasped hands, holding them centred. “Ready? And… go!”
The game is over in fourteen seconds. Jongdae kisses Kris’ bruised knuckles through his giggles and Sehun stands up, raising his arms over his head.
“WHO THE MAN?” he yells triumphantly. Tao pulls him back down.
“Manliest man, our Sehun!” Yixing laughs.
“To be honest, I think Kris is just weak…” Minseok interjects, but Jongdae shushes him.
Their food arrives, and everyone is distracted from Sehun’s guns and Kris’ lack thereof in favour of getting first pick of the dumplings.
“Youngest first!” Sehun yells, leaning across the table.
“Eldest first!” Minseok howls, elbowing him out of the way.
“Don’t fall in the soup!” Luhan roars, pulling the dish safely to his chest.
Sehun, having settled for the second-largest baozi, grins over at Tao, stuffing his face with shengcai bao.
He has never in his life felt so settled.