[fic] hello, goodbye (& the winter in between) [1/2]
title→ hello, goodbye (& the winter in between)
length→ 19,631 words
summary→ (AU) Sehun’s first and only winter with Joonmyun has a lot of firsts, some he wants to remember and some he doesn’t.
notes→
# dedicated to Dee, who was there while I whined and angsted and hated this fic for forever, and now gets to read the final product after four and a half months T~T
# this took forever to write lmao as in I started it the end of last November ahahahaha dies. it refused to come out of my head and then in the end I decided ok whatever comes out is okay with me, I’m only writing it for fun, if wanting to get back at Sehun and Joonmyun for ruining my life with their PDA by ruining theirs in fic form counts as fun?
# it’s a whole lot of angst thanks to the amount of melodrama k-dramas I’ve been watching. Thanks a lot, Nice Guy, I Miss You and School 2013. :(
# bgm while writing: IU - 나만 몰랐던 이야기 (The Story Only I Didn't Know), 벽지무늬 (Wallpaper Design) and 별을 찾는 아이 (Child Searching For A Star), Ailee’s 저녁 하늘 (Evening Sky) and Lee Seunggi’s 되돌리다 (Return). I REALLY recommend listening to the last song while reading because while I did listen to the other four, Return was on repeat the most and I really, really drew a lot of the mood for the fic from it. ♥
# not beta-ed, you’ve been warned! sorry for any mistakes or typos I missed.
WARNINGS: (highlight to read bc spoilers) character death, yeah sorry not sorry it will happen :"(
Sehun doesn’t remember the first time he sees Joonmyun, and probably not many of their later meetings, having passed off Joonmyun as handsome but plain, not striking at all, not a person Sehun would have to remember.
He meets Joonmyun many times without exchanging names. They exchange glances instead at the café near Sehun’s school, waiting at the same bus stop side by side, bumping into each other as they walk past each other. Seoul isn’t that big a city if you don’t want it to be, Sehun thinks as he flips through his textbook. Joonmyun is ordering a drink at the cashier. He ponders the possibility that Joonmyun could have passed him a hundred times, just as nameless-but not as faceless-as now, and he had let it happen.
(They meet many times, silently, softly, letting it pass with no words spoken.)
•
There had been a decisive moment where Sehun had thought he wanted to know Joonmyun better, wondered if he could fit in somewhere in Joonmyun’s life, even though he knew neither his name nor anything about him. It had been crowded on the bus and they had ended up standing pressed against each other, but Joonmyun had been too focused on the script he was reading to feel as embarrassed as Sehun had felt. Sehun was so close he could hear the music bleeding out of Joonmyun’s earbuds, faintly, but clearly enough, mingling with Joonmyun’s murmurs as he read over the lines.
Joonmyun had gotten off after three stops, two before Sehun’s, and it had been strange, so strange, but the emptiness of the space where Joonmyun had been made Sehun feel a tinge of sadness, like a hint of things to come, but he had brushed it off and taken out his cellphone to message his older brother, letting it fade away on its own.
•
Sehun learns Joonmyun’s name when he sees ‘Joonmyun’ scrawled on the takeaway cup of coffee Joonmyun’s holding as they stand, side by side, at the self-service counter. Sehun purposely reaches for the sugar packets at the same time Joonmyun does, but Joonmyun pulls his hand back just shy of them touching, and looks up at Sehun in surprise. They exchange smiles before Joonmyun turns away without taking any sugar, walking away to leave the store.
Sehun twirls the packet of brown sugar in his fingers as he watches Joonmyun leave, then turns back to his coffee, thoughts of the discovery of Joonmyun’s name already overtaken by the assignment Sehun had been working on.
•
The next time Sehun’s at the café, it’s after a long day of school and he’s half-asleep. He dozes off while leaning against the counter as he waits for his drink, the hum of the coffee machines and indistinct chatter acting as a make-shift lullaby.
“Sehun-sshi,” A sweet voice interrupts his dream and he jerks awake, stumbling slightly. He straightens hastily before meeting Joonmyun’s eyes. The shorter man smiles and Sehun has to think for a moment before recalling Joonmyun’s face and name. He barely has time to wonder how Joonmyun knows his name before the man holds out a coffee cup, ‘Sehun’ written messily on the side. “This is for you, isn’t it?”
Sehun stares at the cup before reaching out to take it, the brush of fingers light and barely noticeable as Joonmyun lets go at the same time Sehun grips it tightly. Joonmyun’s fingers are cold. They exchange smiles again, but Sehun is the first to leave this time, the heat of his coffee erasing the subtle hint of Joonmyun’s touch.
•
The next time Sehun sees Joonmyun, it’s a while after their first ‘meeting’. There’s two and a half weeks before school lets out for winter break. Joonmyun smiles when their eyes meet, but before Sehun can decide whether to smile back or not, a tall, handsome boy enters the café behind Joonmyun, shaking snow off his hair as he reaches out to touch Joonmyun’s shoulder.
Sehun watches the pair, raising his mug to his lips to take a sip. He wants to scoff, and it’s a little childish, but he’s envious. He recognizes the boy, who glances at Sehun after Joonmyun smiles and says something, as Kim Jongin, a SM trainee who had been a grade higher than Sehun. There’s people like Jongin, blessed with good looks, talent and friends like Joonmyun the attractive stranger, and then there’s Sehun, who wasn’t good with people and who had been rejected three times at SM before he gave up. He can hear an annoying voice that sounds a lot like Cheongah in his head, telling him he’s being a drama queen, but he pushes away his mug and starts to stuff his things into his backpack anyway.
He can feel both Joonmyun and Jongin’s eyes on him as he leaves, but he’s too irritated by Jongin’s presence to take a proper look at Joonmyun before the door closes behind him, the cheery sound of the jingling bells taunting.
•
The weather starts to become dreary and cold mid-December. Sehun presses his hands to his steaming mug of hot chocolate, wishing the upcoming winter break would come faster. He blows out a gust of air, watching it turn white, before his attention is drawn to the jingling bells of the door. Joonmyun walks in, but this time, there’s no Jongin behind him - Sehun feels an odd sense of disjointed déjà vu, because this has happened in varying ways over the past month. He lowers his eyes to his mug before their regular exchange of glances.
“Jongin didn’t recognize you, and you’re wearing a uniform, so you’re definitely a grade or two younger than him,” Joonmyun’s voice interrupts Sehun’s internal struggle on whether to greet the other or not. Joonmyun is pulling the chair across from Sehun out so he can sit. “But even though you’re pretty tall, you don’t look older than Jongin, so I’m assuming you’re in your final year. That means you’re pretty young, because Jongin only graduated last year.”
“I’m not young, I’m eighteen,” Sehun murmurs under his breath, but immediately regrets he had said anything, because he sounds as silly as he feels. Joonmyun laughs as he adjusts his chair, then places his forearms on the table and leans forward. “Sorry to disappoint you, but eighteen is young. I’ll reconsider when you’ve graduated.”
Joonmyun’s sweet laugh floats off into silence, drowned out by the indistinct voices around them. Sehun swallows when he chances a glance at Joonmyun, who is leaning his chin on his hand and watching Sehun with an amused smile. There’s a short moment where he wants to take what’s in front of him, but boldness has never come to him easily. Cold fingers press against his own, and he stares at Joonmyun’s hand over his own on the mug before he looks up to meet Joonmyun’s eyes.
“I’m Kim Joonmyun. I’m 21 and I’m a drama student,” Joonmyun says gently, almost as if he knows Sehun needs to be coaxed until he’ll open up. “My campus is obviously not around here, but I used to come here with Jongin when I could, so it’s become a habit even though Jongin’s graduated. They know what drinks I like. You’ve only recently discovered the magic that is coffee, because I haven’t seen you around before this winter. I think we’ve seen each other at least a dozen times in the past month, we could have been friends by now if we were a little less shy.”
Sehun can’t help the small chuckle that escapes him. Joonmyun is only telling the truth; Sehun wonders what it would have been like to take back the wasted time and meld together their friendship, their whatever this is, even earlier, but he isn’t sure he’d like it as much as he likes the now. He pushes his mug, now warm but not yet cold, towards Joonmyun. “I’m Oh Sehun. I’m eighteen and I’m in my final year of school. I’m not a very social person, as you might have guessed, so I’m not too good with people.”
Joonmyun laughs, picking up the mug and taking a sip. They don’t say anything of importance for the rest of the conversation, but it’s enough for Sehun.
•
They don’t exchange numbers. Joonmyun shakes his head when Sehun gathers up the courage to ask, but scribbles something on an old receipt that he hands to Sehun instead. He gives firm instructions not to read it until he’s left, so Sehun watches Joonmyun wave goodbye and turns the receipt over as soon as the bells jingle.
That’s how Sehun finds himself at Hangang Yeouido Park the next day, Joonmyun cheerfully chattering away about nothing as they tug on their skates. The ice rink in front of them is swarming with people laughing and falling and having fun that Sehun hadn’t thought possible in December.
Joonmyun takes Sehun’s hand to pull him up, leading him to the entrance of the ice rink. Neither of them are wearing gloves. Sehun unconsciously squeezes Joonmyun’s hand to warm it as they stumble into the rink, before he loosens his grip when he realizes what he’s doing.
“The thing about people when they first meet is that they’re scared of walls that sometimes don’t exist,” Joonmyun says, turning to skate backwards so he could face Sehun. Sehun feels the blood rushing to his cheeks when Joonmyun reaches out with his free hand and takes Sehun’s other hand, a bright smile on his lips despite his red nose and ears. “If you want to hold my hand, I won’t mind at all.”
It’s disconcerting, the amount of affection Sehun’s feeling for a person he doesn’t quite know, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to hold Joonmyun’s hands and rub them to warm them up. A strange feeling bubbles up in Sehun’s stomach when he intertwines his fingers with Joonmyun’s, keeping a careful gaze on the older. Joonmyun’s entire face lights up, and before he can catch himself, Sehun feels himself smile. He keeps his eyes locked with Joonmyun’s as they leisurely skate along.
Sehun’s always kept his walls high and solid, too difficult to break down, but rather than breaking them down, Joonmyun’s climbed over, leaving them exactly as they were, and Sehun can’t find it in him to push Joonmyun back over them.
•
Joonmyun saves Sehun’s number in his phone in place of properly exchanging numbers, then waves goodbye as he dashes off the train to transfer lines. It’d be infuriating if it were anyone else, but Sehun doesn’t feel frustrated at Joonmyun leaving him hanging. The list of firsts only continues to grow with Joonmyun; Sehun’s head and life have been full of school, exams and parents, but being with Joonmyun had softened it all and let him be at ease enough to forget about it all and enjoy himself.
He plays games he’d forgotten he had installed on his phone, curled up under the blankets, until he receives a simple “good night, Sehun-ah” message from an unknown number in the middle of an intense game of Anipang. He imagines Joonmyun lying in his own bed in the darkness and smiles, turning off his phone before closing his eyes, letting sleep claim him easily.
•
It’s dangerous, Cheongah tells him on their Kakaotalk conversation when he’s on his way to meet Joonmyun the next day at Hongdae, you don’t even know who you’re falling in love with, you’re falling in love with who you think he is.
He doesn’t know if it’s really the truth, but Cheongah’s words are frightening. There’s too much he hasn’t learnt about falling in love, too much he doesn’t know about Joonmyun-he types and erases a dozen different replies, unable to decide what he’s feeling. He settles for a short ‘I’ll be careful. I want to try.'
You better be or you’ll regret this, Cheongah replies almost immediately. She doesn’t follow it up with any of her many purchased emoji like she usually does, leaving a taste of apprehension on Sehun’s chapped lips.
•
Sehun finds Joonmyun standing outside the exit of the station, focused on his phone. Sehun reaches into his pocket, fingers around his own phone, Cheongah’s words coming up once again into his thoughts. The crowd moving in and out of the station hide Sehun well enough, giving him occasional glimpses of Joonmyun, who looks up to scan the crowd every few seconds before looking back down at his phone. Joonmyun’s cheeks are flushed red despite the fur-lined hood he keeps tugging closer to his face, and Sehun feels a little guilty that he’s letting the older guy wait, but his feet won’t move and he wants to clear his head from any hesitation.
It starts to rain a few minutes later. Sehun watches from his spot, sheltered from the rain by the exit stairs’ roof, while Joonmyun rushes to the nearby bakery, looking up and down from his phone as he goes. Guilt washes over Sehun once again when he feels his phone buzz - like he expected, it’s Joonmyun’s name displayed on the screen. He can’t see Joonmyun anymore from his spot, so he rejects the call and takes slow but steady steps up the stairs, pulling up his own hood as he makes his way to the same bakery Joonmyun had gone into.
The bakery is swarming with people also seeking shelter from the rain, but Joonmyun is standing right beside the door, not bothering to fight for a place or food. He looks up and doesn’t smile when he sees Sehun, which only makes the twisting of Sehun’s stomach feel even worse. “Joonmyun hyung, I was-”
Joonmyun slides his hand into Sehun’s, pulling the younger over to stand beside him. Their backs are to the rest of the people in the bakery as they stare out into the rain. “I told you if you want to do something, I don’t mind. The same goes for things you don’t want to do. I don’t want to force you into things you don’t want, I know too well how that feels.”
“That’s not it,” Sehun answers as quickly as he can, gripping Joonmyun’s hand to convey his urgency. He wants to tell Joonmyun what he’s feeling, everything in his head, but his communication skills have never been that good. He licks his lips, trying to tie together his thoughts. “I’ve never… I don’t know what to do. It’s… a bit scary.”
“I’ve never done this either, trust me,” Joonmyun says after a moment of silence. He intertwines their fingers this time. “I’m still willing to figure it out together if you want to.”
Sehun wants to-it’s not the only thing he wants to do. Joonmyun’s cold hand in his is new in so many ways, a first that he keeps in the back of his mind. Joonmyun is drawing on the misted window with his index finger, a smile playing on his lips. He’s not waiting for any answer from him, Sehun slowly realizes, and it’s another first. Nobody’s ever trusted him so blindly, asking for only eventual mutual trust in return. Having Joonmyun’s trust means all of Joonmyun is open to him, open to the good and the bad, and Sehun doesn’t know whether he can be trusted with that. His breath catches in his throat when he takes a deep breath of moist air. He’s not ready for this, he thinks when Joonmyun turns to look at him with bright eyes, no barriers or walls to shield him. “Talk to me, Sehun-ah, I want to know what you’re feeling.”
“What if I break your heart?” Sehun asks as he lets go of Joonmyun’s hand to rub his own hands together nervously. He can’t admit it out loud, but he doesn’t want to do that, not to Joonmyun. He’s never broken anyone’s heart-never had anyone’s heart in the first place.
“I wouldn’t like that, but broken hearts don’t kill, they just hurt,” Joonmyun answers, taking Sehun’s hand again and pulling him along to the display of cakes and pastries before Sehun can respond. Joonmyun’s words are sobering in a way that hits Sehun too late; letting Joonmyun past his walls meant Joonmyun could hurt him back, but he doesn’t want a broken heart. He’s probably having his own first love with Joonmyun too late for it to be innocent, but he still wishes it could be. Joonmyun pauses when he notices Sehun’s silence and smiles at him, shaking his hand lightly. “Things are only as complicated as you want them to be, Sehun-ah. How about we have some cake and a warm drink instead?”
If he had been smarter, more aware, Sehun would’ve said no. He would have been happy with Joonmyun’s friendship and nothing more, nothing less. But he’s not, and Joonmyun’s hand is warm for once, comforting, replacing any feelings with the faint warmth of contentment. Sehun likes the way Joonmyun’s hand fits in his own, the sound of his laughter, the honest way he smiled, and maybe Joonmyun was right, things didn’t have to be complicated. Maybe, just maybe, if it were with Joonmyun, he could still have the first love he had always imagined, just more suited to him.
•
Cheongah calls him on the train ride home, mere minutes after Joonmyun has waved goodbye at his own stop. She teases him about his date, and he can’t do anything but laugh a little, but her tone gradually changes to serious when she tells him he really does have to be careful. Sehun thinks of how warm Joonmyun had been, warm smiles and laughs and hands, static silence on the phone as Cheongah waits for his answer. He mumbles weakly in acknowledgement and murmurs a goodbye before he hangs up.
•
Sehun finds himself unexpectedly busy for the next week, only exchanging occasional messages and phone calls with Joonmyun. His mom nags at him about his studies, reminding him of a world beyond Joonmyun and wasted time. He takes out his pile of textbooks, flipping through them mindlessly as he stares out his window at the light drizzle of rain outside. The rain brings back the image of Joonmyun standing at the top of the exit stairs, waiting patiently for someone who had already arrived. He remembers the dark blue of Joonmyun’s coat, the fur hiding half of Joonmyun’s face, and Joonmyun’s eyes as he kept looking up into the crowd.
He’s had enough of messages and phone calls-it’s not the same as Joonmyun in front of him. Tomorrow, 5pm, at the Cheonggye Plaza entrance of Cheonggyecheon, he sends to Joonmyun. It’s not a place Sehun would have thought of-he had asked Jinri and one of her fellow members had suggested it-and the pictures open on his iPad seem too pretty in an unrealistic way, like a scene out of a drama, but Joonmyun agrees to it and Sehun thinks maybe it isn’t too bad after all.
•
Sehun waits fifteen minutes for Joonmyun, passing the time by going back and forth across the Cheonggyecheon Stream’s stepping stones. His nervousness grows with each passing minute, but when he’s on his tenth trip across and he turns to go back around, Joonmyun is standing at the other side, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black coat and the spotlight under him illuminating him in the darkness. It’s a sight that makes Sehun feel like he should be looking in from the outside, like there is a story being played out that he doesn’t know the ending of, with Joonmyun and him as separate heroes.
They stand at opposite sides of the stream for a long moment before Joonmyun starts to make his way across, following two tourists who are jumping from stone to stone. Sehun takes a couple of steps back to let them pass, his eyes on Joonmyun. He quickly follows along Joonmyun when the older continues walking along the pathway, falling into step beside him silently.
“The weather is so cold,” Joonmyun says nonchalantly when they’ve taken ten slow steps forward. Sehun glances at Joonmyun’s hands, still in his pockets, and pulls his sleeves over his own hands. “I didn’t think you’d want to go outside again after our ice rink date the other day.”
“I don’t mind it too much,” Sehun replies, attention drawn by the tourists in front of them taking pictures. He slows a tiny bit and Joonmyun does the same. “We could go somewhere else if it’s cold, I thought it would be a nice-”
“It’s alright, I’ll be okay,” Joonmyun cuts Sehun off. He smiles at Sehun and the discomfort in Sehun’s stomach eases a little. “I really like coming here, it’s soothing. I like places with water in general. I’ve been here before, but it’s the first time I’ve come here with someone else.”
Sehun smiles back. The silence that follows isn’t awkward at all, much to Sehun’s surprise, and they walk together with the sound of the water flow and footsteps washing over them. The sound of Joonmyun’s sniffling joins the background noises after a few minutes; when Sehun glances over and sees Joonmyun tugging on his collar in an attempt to warm his face, he doesn’t hesitate before he pulls his own yellow and black scarf off his neck and steps in front of Joonmyun to stop him.
“Hyung, here,” Sehun says, winding the scarf around Joonmyun’s neck. The older looks like he wants to protest, but Sehun doesn’t let him, adjusting the scarf so it covers the lower half of Joonmyun’s face. He can’t see Joonmyun’s pout, but he can feel it, and he bites his lip to keep from laughing out loud. “You looked cold. I’m okay, my coat is warm.”
Sehun can feel whatever is bothering Joonmyun melt away as they continue walking, talking about everything from Sehun’s studies and university applications to Joonmyun’s classes to the pictures hung up on display on one part of the Cheonggyecheon stream. Joonmyun keeps tugging the scarf down to talk before pulling it back up, something Sehun finds oddly endearing. By the time they reach the first exit out of the stream, Sehun’s hand is stuffed in Joonmyun’s pocket, their fingers intertwined, and it stays like that until Joonmyun playfully shoves it away when they head into the restaurant Sehun’s chosen.
They steal pieces of tofu from each other’s soondubu jjigae, although Sehun has to admit it’s mostly him stealing from Joonmyun, who lets him. Joonmyun pours hot water in Sehun’s bowl of rice and fusses over him, making sure the steam doesn’t burn him, while Sehun pretends to poke his finger into Joonmyun’s own bowl of rice. He laughs when Joonmyun pokes his hand away with the chopsticks, the warm food and happiness filling him up to the brim.
Joonmyun forgets to give back Sehun’s scarf when they part at the end of the night. The temperature has dropped and it’d be nice to have it, Sehun thinks as he sticks his hands into his pockets on the way from the station to his house, but he doesn’t want it back. It looks better on Joonmyun anyway.
•
They meet three times in the last week of December, all at the café near Sehun’s school. Joonmyun returns the scarf the second time, laughing at how well the yellow and black looks with Sehun’s uniform, but doesn’t refuse when Sehun sends him off with the scarf again right before they part for the night.
•
They don’t meet for Christmas. Although Sehun entertains the thought of asking Joonmyun to spend Christmas with him, Joonmyun mentions Christmas dinner with his family and Sehun squashes it. He spends most of the actual day in bed, spamming his friends’ group chat with pointless chatter and links to articles about Jinri. He sends a ‘merry Christmas’ to Joonmyun and receives one in return, although Joonmyun adds a questionable animated emoji after it. It’s not a particularly memorable Christmas, but Sehun will remember it anyway.
•
The news of Sehun’s acceptance to his second choice universities comes in early January in the form of two envelopes left by his mom on his desk. He flips them over and over for five minutes before he opens them, reading through the acceptance letters with an odd sense of satisfaction.
He folds the papers and puts them back into the envelopes neatly. There’s no real reason to celebrate, considering they’re still second choices and he had been rejected by his first choice earlier in the week, but any excuse to call Joonmyun and hear his voice is good enough for Sehun.
The call lasts for hours that Sehun knows his parents will scold him for when they see his phone bill, but flipping through his older brother’s magazines while listening to Joonmyun reading from scripts and occasionally singing, no real conversation happening between them, fills him with a feeling he thinks he’ll remember longer than how reading his acceptance letters had felt.
•
“What’s the future to Oh Sehun?” Joonmyun asks suddenly the next time they meet. They’re at a kalbi restaurant in Myeongdong, sitting across from each other as Sehun grills the meat. He looks up at Joonmyun, who is staring at him with an odd kind of anticipation, and tries to figure out where the question had come from. He moves one piece of meat to the piece of lettuce Joonmyun’s holding in his hand while he thinks.
“I don’t know what the future is. Living well while dealing with whatever happens, I guess?” Sehun answers after eating the meat and lettuce Joonmyun had stuffed in his mouth. He knows Joonmyun is probably expecting a more thought out answer, but Sehun doesn’t have one for him. The furthest he’s thought is what he wants to do after university and four years into the future is likely not what Joonmyun wants to know. “I’m not very good at planning too far ahead. Isn’t it better to take it step by step?”
“Living well while dealing with whatever happens,” Joonmyun repeats softly, crossing his arms on the table as he watches Sehun add a few strips of meat to the grill. “That’s a good way to face the future, Sehun-ah. Promise me you’ll follow through with it.”
“Of course I will,” Sehun answers with a laugh, putting down the metal pincer to pick up his chopsticks. He makes a lettuce wrap with meat and a little bit of all the side dishes before leaning over and stuffing it into Joonmyun’s mouth, unnerved by the way Joonmyun is looking at him like they might never see each other again. The future is a scary prospect, and Sehun doesn’t know what he’ll face in it, but the way Joonmyun had stared at him makes him think of the possibility Joonmyun could be in it. “Why are you asking, though? Worried about your own graduation coming up soon?”
Joonmyun avoids answering by chewing as slow as he can, deliberately giving himself time to think. Sehun narrows his eyes, taking a sip of cola as he waits. Joonmyun swallows the last of his mouthful and smiles. “No, not really. I was curious, I want to know a lot about you.”
Sehun blinks a few times, then nods slowly. He picks up a piece of meat and chews on it on its own to give himself something to do while Joonmyun makes another lettuce wrap for himself. He still doesn’t understand a lot about Joonmyun, and Joonmyun’s honesty, almost childish to a point, is a part of what he doesn’t understand, but when Joonmyun raises his eyes and meets Sehun’s, his lips turn up into a smile and Sehun doesn’t really mind. He’ll understand Joonmyun with time, in the near or far future where he’s living well, all with Joonmyun still by his side.
•
Sehun meets up with Jinri at their favorite bubble tea shop in Apgujeong Rodeo to celebrate his acceptance. She’s in the middle of thoughtfully chewing on her tapioca pearls, Sehun laughing at her as she tries to remember the names of the fans who have followed her to the shop and are taking pictures from outside with their cellphones, when the door to the shop opens and Joonmyun enters, a boy who could only be described as beautiful following behind him. Both Sehun and Jinri stand almost immediately; Sehun stares in confusion when there is a flurry of greetings and chairs scraping in the tiny shop. Joonmyun and Jinri hug quickly, while the beautiful boy bows slightly to Jinri, who nods in acknowledgement, and then they all return their attention to Sehun, who is still staring in confusion.
“Jinri, you know hyung?” Sehun asks, looking between the two of them, their faces bright with smiles. The beautiful boy is talking with the ajummas, laughing as he orders for himself and Joonmyun. Jinri nods and pats Joonmyun’s arm. “He used to be a SM trainee too. I never expected the Joonmyun you talked about would be the same as Joonmyun oppa.”
“My dark past is being revealed,” Joonmyun says jokingly, looking over his shoulder at the brown-haired boy he had come in with before looking back at Sehun. “Sorry it never came up, Sehun-ah. I didn’t know you knew Jinri either.”
“Joonmyun-ah, is this Sehun?” The brown-haired boy asks, having joined them after finishing his chat with the ajummas. Joonmyun nods and the boy immediately holds out his hand to Sehun, smiling. “Nice to meet you. I’m Joonmyun’s friend, Lu Han. He’s told me a lot about you.”
“Ah… nice to meet you too,” Sehun replies, taking Lu Han’s hand and shaking it as he bows a little. Lu Han looks younger than him, but he’d addressed Joonmyun informally, which meant he was older than Sehun. “You’re a trainee at SM too?”
“Shhh, I’m not supposed to broadcast it, but yeah, I am,” Lu Han replies with a laugh. The ajumma calls his name from the counter and he turns, taking a step forward to take his and Joonmyun’s drinks. He hands Joonmyun his drink and turns back to Sehun. “I didn’t expect that I would get to meet you like this.”
Joonmyun is watching the exchange with careful eyes, as if he’s evaluating something, and Sehun doesn’t like it. He nods politely to Lu Han, who is sipping his drink with a content smile on his face, before he turns his attention to Joonmyun. “Hyung, how long did you train in SM? The other time you were with Kim Jongin too, he’s a SM trainee too, right?”
“I trained long enough to figure out it wasn’t for me,” Joonmyun says with a sigh before he takes a sip of his bubble tea. Lu Han gives him a disapproving look, but doesn’t say anything. Sehun wonders how true that is-he’s heard Joonmyun sing and there are a lot of idols in the business who are a lot less talented than Joonmyun is, but he’s not one to judge. “Anyway, Lu Han and I will get going. We’ll talk soon, Sehun-ah, and it was great seeing you, Jinri-ah.”
Jinri gives Joonmyun another hug and there are a few awkward seconds of waving and smiles before Joonmyun and Lu Han leave just as suddenly as they had come in. Jinri sits back down, poking at her pearls with her straw. Sehun watches Joonmyun and Lu Han walk past the fans and down the street, out of sight, before he sits back down.
“Oppa trained for a really long time, you know,” Jinri says with a hint of pity in her voice, looking up at the fans and giving them a small smile. They scream and wave, but she turns to look at Sehun. “If you ask any of my fans from before I debuted, they’ll recognize him. He got accepted a year after me and trained until he quit a couple of years ago. Everyone knows he was supposed to be in SHINee, but he got cut at the last moment and I think he never really accepted that. He got tired of waiting for a chance that didn’t seem like it would come. Being kept as a benchwarmer for so long when you’ve put everything else on hold is a lot to handle.”
“I wonder if he’s happier now,” Sehun says it out loud, mostly to himself. He doesn’t know, at least not now. Maybe Joonmyun will tell him someday if he is, but he wants to try and make Joonmyun happy. Jinri shrugs, standing up to throw away their empty cups without giving him an answer. Sehun watches her as she turns to look at her fans, the glass window separating her from them, and realizes she’s probably the wrong person to ask.
•
Their next date happens at Lotte World, even though they’re disappointed to find most of the outer rides closed due to the cold weather. Sehun shares an overly sweet cup of hot chocolate with Joonmyun as they queue up for one of the rides, the noise around them swallowing any attempt at conversation. Sehun wants to ask about Joonmyun’s past in SM and everything else he hasn’t learned about Joonmyun yet, but they talk about which rides they want to try and whether they should get a caricature of themselves instead.
“Do you regret quitting?” Sehun asks, in place of ‘are you happy?’, when they’re standing in front of a large stage where a group is dancing to a k-pop song Sehun thinks might be a Big Bang song. Joonmyun’s eyes betray a bitterness Sehun can understand, but when he turns away to look at Sehun, it’s gone. “No. It wasn’t a rash decision made with anger or frustration, so I have no reason to regret it.”
Sometimes we can regret our decisions, even if we think they’re good ones, Sehun wants to tell Joonmyun, but he doesn’t have a chance to before Joonmyun walks away. He catches up with Joonmyun hurriedly and takes his hand, intertwining their fingers together. Joonmyun squeezes his hand in return and Sehun smiles. The past was something that had happened and he couldn’t change Joonmyun’s decision, but the future was something he could change, so he would try his best to make it a bright one for the both of them.
•
Joonmyun takes Sehun back to his apartment for the first time after a dinner date at Sehun’s favorite American restaurant. Anxiety pounds in Sehun’s ears as he follows Joonmyun into the small apartment; they stand together at the doorway, pushing off their shoes. Joonmyun reaches over to unwrap Sehun’s scarf, fingers brushing against Sehun’s neck, and there’s a moment where he pauses and Sehun can’t breathe, Joonmyun looking up at him so openly robbing him of the ability.
But it’s gone, and Joonmyun tugs the scarf down, pulling Sehun with it, and their lips meet in a gentle kiss. He can feel Joonmyun slide a hand up to the nape of his neck as the kiss deepens, fingertips at the edge of his hair. It’s Sehun’s first kiss and he knows it’s not perfect, Joonmyun is more relaxed than he is, but it’s everything he knows of Joonmyun, somewhere between warm and cold, and it’s what he has always wanted.
They sleep in the same bed that night, Joonmyun curled up against Sehun’s side. There’s nothing sexual about it and Sehun thinks he doesn’t want it to be, not yet, because it isn’t the right time. Joonmyun is so close in the darkness, just as close as Sehun wants him to be, and he falls asleep with Joonmyun’s cold toes between his feet, blanket too small to cover them both.
•
Joonmyun invites Sehun over for a movie night two nights later, an invitation Sehun gladly accepts. Joonmyun prepares the biggest bucket of popcorn Sehun’s ever seen, coupled with orange juice, because soda is unhealthy according to Joonmyun, even though he ignores Sehun’s comment about the amount of butter in the popcorn being unhealthy too.
They bicker about what movies to watch before Sehun presses play on the action movie he wants to see. Joonmyun attacks him with popcorn kernels before giving up and moving as close to the blanket Sehun’s held hostage, tugging on it until Sehun relents and pulls Joonmyun close to him, covering him with the blanket as well.
Joonmyun falls asleep halfway through the movie, curled up with his head on Sehun’s lap. Sehun lowers the volume on the movie and adjusts the blanket so it’s covering Joonmyun before returning his attention to the movie, Joonmyun’s weight against him light and comfortable, an anchor to a sweet reality Sehun had never imagined could be his.
•
Joonmyun is not a storm of color, not a blinding light, nothing like that. He’s anything but powerful and obvious. No, Joonmyun is a quiet sort of drip, Sehun thinks as he runs his fingers through Joonmyun’s hair that night in bed, seeping through the cracks and corners until he’s filled in every little free space and there is no place without Joonmyun. He’d forgotten Joonmyun the first times they met, but Joonmyun had made Sehun forget how life had been without him.
•
The smell of delicious food makes Sehun open his eyes, but he doesn’t fully wake up until Joonmyun plops himself over him, laughing when Sehun lets out a little noise of surprise. “Good morning to you too, hyung.”
“Young people aren’t supposed to sleep so much,” Joonmyun says with a teasing smile. Sehun sticks out his tongue, but retracts it immediately when Joonmyun leans forward and makes as if to bite it, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Sehun reaches his hands up to Joonmyun’s waist to support him, the mere inches between them tempting. Just as he’s about to lean up and kiss Joonmyun, the older boy moves off the bed abruptly. Joonmyun beams innocently, even though his eyes are shining with mirth, and starts walking towards the door. “Go get washed up, your breath stinks. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”
Joonmyun is staring at some pills in his open palm, a glass of water on the table in front of him, when Sehun finishes washing up and comes to the kitchen. He looks up, as if pulled out of a trance, when Sehun sits down in front of him and reaches for his chopsticks. “Hyung, are you sick? You should take care of yourself better since it’s so cold lately.”
“Ah… yeah, I’m a little tired,” Joonmyun replies dazedly. He swallows down the pills with a gulp of water, then reaches for his own chopsticks and smiles. Sehun chews on a mouthful of rice, watching Joonmyun take a sip of soup. It worries him that Joonmyun’s favoring the soup over the untouched bowl of rice, set to the side, but at the same time, he knows Joonmyun’s always been very good at taking care of himself even when Sehun tries to take care of him as well. Joonmyun’s attention is on the TV, showing a news report about a particularly famous actor’s scandal, in the living room behind Sehun, and he points out something in it. Sehun turns to watch as well, the subject of the pills pushed to the back of his mind as Joonmyun starts to talk about the actor in the report.
•
Joonmyun makes Sehun go back home for a couple of days, telling him to be a good son and spend it with his family. Sehun accepts grudgingly, taking along the clothes he had brought along. His mother lectures him about staying at friends’ houses and responsibilities before taking his dirty laundry with a huff, telling him he should at least call if he’s going to stay away so long.
Spending time with his family is nice, especially since Joonmyun had been right and he did miss sharing meals with them while bickering and laughing, but when he settles in to sleep for the night, the sight of a couple of Joonmyun’s old t-shirts that he had worn at Joonmyun’s, folded neatly on his dresser, make him miss Joonmyun even more.
•
Joonmyun’s cold hands under his shirt wake him up from his sleep when he goes over the next night, a shiver running through his body as he pushes them away. He takes Joonmyun’s hand after he sees the older’s face, letting himself be led out of the warmth of the bed, Joonmyun’s soft laughter mingling with the distant sounds of a city waking up, into the cold January morning. Sehun doesn’t know what’s going on until Joonmyun lets go of his hand to push the rusty roof door open, then rushes out to climb the step-ladder and jump to the edge of the roof, sliding around and reaching out to Sehun with his arms and his twinkling eyes.
Sehun registers how cold it is, the jacket he had managed to grab on the way out barely doing anything to shield him from the cold. He climbs up beside the quiet Joonmyun, laughing as he tugs on the fluffy blue dolphin-patterned socks Joonmyun’s wearing, and Joonmyun slaps his hands away and reminds him that they were a pair Sehun had forgotten at his place, and Sehun smiles at this, eyes crinkling into half-moons. There’s a moment of silence before Joonmyun’s smile drops and he presses closer to Sehun, then turns his eyes to the view of Seoul, bathed in the faintest glow. “This is our city, Sehun-ah. It’s not beautiful, but it’s ours.”
Sehun doesn’t understand, only gripping Joonmyun’s hand tighter, then he turns his eyes and tries to see what Joonmyun’s seeing. He doesn’t have to try too long. The faint, almost colorless glow began to gently brighten, the sunlight bleeding into the buildings and giving life to the monochrome cityscape. Even the grey smog coating the city was being swallowed up by the sunshine, dissipating lazily with every passing second. He watched, mesmerized with the view and Joonmyun’s warm body pressed against his side, until the city had been completely colored in, shining brilliantly underneath the daylight, until Joonmyun broke the spell by laughing, a tiny, relieved laugh that made Sehun feel like he had woken up from a dream.
Joonmyun still has his eyes on the city, tracing the edges of the buildings with his index finger. Sehun contemplates whether to ask what was wrong or not, but decides to watch and wait. After a minute, Joonmyun lets out a sigh and drops his hand, turning to look at Sehun. Joonmyun’s eyes were bright, the sunlight having colored them in as well. “We’ll make it ours, Sehun-ah. Right?”
There was no answer Sehun could give, not when Joonmyun was looking at him like that. He doesn’t know, but he wants to give Joonmyun the answer he wants - he doesn’t get the chance to try. He tries in his own head when they’re back in bed and Joonmyun is asleep, warm and safe against his chest, breath ticklish against Sehun’s neck, but there’s no right answer. He can’t give Joonmyun anything more than himself, nor can he promise anything as big as Joonmyun deserves, but he can’t help but wonder if that’s really enough for Joonmyun.
•
Settling into a pattern of seeing Joonmyun almost every day is not particularly exciting or fulfilling, but it’s relaxing and Sehun likes it. Sehun likes going to Joonmyun’s apartment and watching the older boy flick through scripts and textbooks and recite random scenes from plays and movies. Sometimes Joonmyun would leave the door unlocked for him and that meant a night of foreign movies where Joonmyun would watch with such focus that he wouldn’t speak, too caught up in the movies. Sehun is decidedly less interested in the movies, choosing to make use of Joonmyun’s distraction to feed him some of the healthy snacks that Joonmyun has begun collecting in his fridge.
Joonmyun’s mood after watching the movies varies, but most of the time, he’s detached. He smiles and laughs and talks with Sehun like normal, but Sehun can tell his mind is somewhere else entirely, because he picks at whatever dinner Sehun sets on the table, eating only a few bites, and takes longer than usual to fall asleep. Sehun pretends he’s asleep, but he feels Joonmyun shift many times, even getting out of bed to go get a drink of water at times, before he finally falls asleep. Other times, his mood is the complete opposite - his full attention is with Sehun, tugging him close and surprising him with overflowing affection, as if he’s making up for something Sehun doesn’t know of. The last kind of mood is the mood is the one Sehun hates the most: Joonmyun would completely close himself off, skipping dinner and heading immediately to bed. He keeps his back turned to Sehun even when the younger boy joins him in bed and doesn’t let his body relax until sleep claims him, which is when Sehun pulls him back gently, wrapping his arms around Joonmyun protectively before falling asleep himself.
Whatever the mood is, it leaves Sehun feeling conflicted, falling asleep wishing he could read Joonmyun as well as Joonmyun reads him, that he could help Joonmyun the way Joonmyun helps him.
•
Sehun steals the spare key of Joonmyun’s apartment, twirling the key ring around his finger until Joonmyun notices what it is and laughs, but doesn’t take it back. It’s a big step, but Sehun’s been sleeping in Joonmyun’s apartment more than his own house lately, and it’s not as scary as he’d expected it to be.
It’s why he doesn’t think much of picking up some groceries and heading to Joonmyun’s apartment with no prior plans, swinging the plastic bag as he thinks of the meal he’s going to convince Joonmyun to make for him. He’s sliding his feet into the pink slippers Joonmyun jokingly bought for him, opening his mouth to call for Joonmyun, but his voice dies when he notices the empty living room and the tiny connected kitchen, a plastic container filled with kimchi abandoned on the counter, its’ matching lid and a spoon on the floor. A large bowl of rice is soaking in water beside it. The TV is still on, playing a romantic comedy drama, the cheerful music faint on low volume.
Sehun bites the inside of his cheek as he walks into the apartment. Worry is clouding his brain, but he puts away the groceries along with the kimchi and turns off the TV in the quiet apartment, thinking Joonmyun must have gone out suddenly. He’s about to go check the bedroom before calling Joonmyun’s phone when he notices the light on in the bathroom and sighs, wondering how Joonmyun could have forgotten the light on when he always nags at him to conserve electricity.
He doesn’t expect to find Joonmyun passed out, half-slouched against the wall opposite the toilet.
For the next half hour, Sehun works completely on auto-pilot: he carries Joonmyun to the bedroom, changes his clothes to clean, lighter ones and prepares towels and ice water. Once he’s placed the folded towel on Joonmyun’s forehead, he leaves the room and heads out to the kitchen, where he collapses into the closest chair. He’s never had to deal with a sick person before, and Joonmyun being the first only makes it even more difficult. Sehun shakily pulls out his cell phone from his pocket and searches for an easy recipe for juk, the silence of the apartment stifling. He settles on a recipe for jatjuk, mostly because it takes the least time, but because Joonmyun had pretty much made life easier for Sehun even when he was passed out with his fever - the rice was already soaking and a quick inventory check had produced, for some inexplicable reason, a lonely pack of pine nuts besides a half-empty box of cereal in one of Joonmyun’s cupboards. Sehun guesses it’s probably a present from Joonmyun’s mother or brother, so he sends a mental thanks to them, wherever they are, as he begins preparing the juk.
Joonmyun is awake when Sehun goes back to the bedroom, carrying the tray with the jatjuk and a jug of water. He’s sitting up, the damp towel in his hands, as he stares at Sehun. “Sehun-ah… what are you doing here?”
“You cheated, you know, I had come over to make you cook for me,” Sehun says lightly, not liking the heaviness in the air with Joonmyun staring at him so intensely, and places the tray on the bedside table. He sits down on the edge of the bed and smiles. “But since you were passed out and all, I was the one who ended up cooking.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone over, I was…” Joonmyun starts, but he pauses when Sehun ignores him, sliding closer to the bedside table and picking up the spoon on the tray. Joonmyun puts the towel back in the bowl of the mostly melted ice. “Sehun-ah…”
“Shush, hyung. You talk too much considering you’re sick, you should be quiet and let me feed you,” Sehun says, scooping up some juk into the spoon and raising his hand under it as he moves it closer to Joonmyun’s mouth. “Ahh~”
Joonmyun obediently opens his mouth and swallows the spoonful before raising his hand to wrap his fingers around Sehun’s wrist. His fingertips are cold and Sehun wants to rub warmth into them. “Thank you.”
Sehun wants to ask why Joonmyun is looking at him like he’s trying to memorize every little detail, but he can’t. He smiles and pulls his hand away gently to take another spoonful. “For giving you the honor of tasting my wonderful cooking? You should be honored, hyung.”
Joonmyun laughs and leans forward to swallow the second spoonful, smiling back brilliantly at Sehun like everything is right with the world. Sehun gives up the spoon after a weak fight and watches Joonmyun eat the rest on his own, then he pushes the tray away and slides into bed with the older boy. Joonmyun lets out a sigh of relief as he wraps his arms around Sehun’s waist-Sehun can feel Joonmyun shifting closer to him, pressing up against him as if he’s afraid Sehun won’t be there when he wakes up. He rubs circles on Joonmyun’s back, listening to Joonmyun’s breaths get slower and slower until he’s fallen into a deep sleep, and closes his own eyes. He could make sure Joonmyun’s fear didn’t come true this once at least.
•
The next morning, Sehun wakes up earlier than Joonmyun for once. He makes use of the groceries he had brought along last night and is sitting in the middle of the living room, the coffee table pushed to the side, when Joonmyun stumbles into the living room blearily, covering his yawn with his hand as he stares at Sehun. “What are you doing?”
“It’s too cold to have a picnic outside, so we’re just going to have one here,” Sehun explains with a shrug, hoping his explanation sounds logical and not juvenile like it sounds to his own ears. He points at the bathroom. “Go wash up, I don’t want to smell your morning breath.”
Joonmyun laughs as he turns and heads to the bathroom. Sehun shifts the sandwiches closer to Joonmyun’s side and feels the drinks to make sure they’re still cool. Joonmyun comes back in and plops down across from Sehun a few minutes later, looking at Sehun instead of the food, his smile brighter than Sehun has seen in a while. He reaches out to take a sandwich, but Sehun is quicker and grabs Joonmyun’s hand before the older boy can take it. “Wait, hyung. Before you eat, there’s one condition you have to accept.”
“I already told you I can’t go on a road trip to Haeundae,” Joonmyun responds, wriggling his hand a little before Sehun gets a better grip. He resists the urge to pout. “Hyung! No, I want you to come to my graduation ceremony as my guest.”
Joonmyun gapes at Sehun for a moment, mouth open, before he closes it and licks his lips. “Are you sure you want me to come? What about your other friends?”
“You’re not my friend, you know you’re more than that,” Sehun says exasperatedly, letting go of Joonmyun’s hand to cross his arms. He can see the happiness in Joonmyun’s eyes and it makes him happy too. “Besides, all my friends are from school, and they’re graduating too. I don’t want to invite anyone other than you and my family.”
“I’ll come, but only because I’m hungry,” Joonmyun replies, smiling at Sehun before he grabs a sandwich and takes a large bite of it. Sehun adjusts his leg and smiles back, taking a sandwich for himself. Joonmyun takes apart the rest of the sandwiches to make sure he likes all the fillings, then makes Sehun eat half of them while he laughs and tries a little bit of all the different types of milk Sehun had bought. They don’t do anything productive in the rest of the day, instead wasting it by watching travel documentaries and reruns of music shows on TV, Joonmyun continuing to take sips of the milk containers he had liked the most. Sehun thinks of Joonmyun’s question about the future as he curls up on Joonmyun’s lap, half-asleep, and thinks he wouldn’t be too scared of it as long as Joonmyun is in it.
two
length→ 19,631 words
summary→ (AU) Sehun’s first and only winter with Joonmyun has a lot of firsts, some he wants to remember and some he doesn’t.
notes→
# dedicated to Dee, who was there while I whined and angsted and hated this fic for forever, and now gets to read the final product after four and a half months T~T
# this took forever to write lmao as in I started it the end of last November ahahahaha dies. it refused to come out of my head and then in the end I decided ok whatever comes out is okay with me, I’m only writing it for fun, if wanting to get back at Sehun and Joonmyun for ruining my life with their PDA by ruining theirs in fic form counts as fun?
# it’s a whole lot of angst thanks to the amount of melodrama k-dramas I’ve been watching. Thanks a lot, Nice Guy, I Miss You and School 2013. :(
# bgm while writing: IU - 나만 몰랐던 이야기 (The Story Only I Didn't Know), 벽지무늬 (Wallpaper Design) and 별을 찾는 아이 (Child Searching For A Star), Ailee’s 저녁 하늘 (Evening Sky) and Lee Seunggi’s 되돌리다 (Return). I REALLY recommend listening to the last song while reading because while I did listen to the other four, Return was on repeat the most and I really, really drew a lot of the mood for the fic from it. ♥
# not beta-ed, you’ve been warned! sorry for any mistakes or typos I missed.
WARNINGS: (highlight to read bc spoilers) character death, yeah sorry not sorry it will happen :"(
Sehun doesn’t remember the first time he sees Joonmyun, and probably not many of their later meetings, having passed off Joonmyun as handsome but plain, not striking at all, not a person Sehun would have to remember.
He meets Joonmyun many times without exchanging names. They exchange glances instead at the café near Sehun’s school, waiting at the same bus stop side by side, bumping into each other as they walk past each other. Seoul isn’t that big a city if you don’t want it to be, Sehun thinks as he flips through his textbook. Joonmyun is ordering a drink at the cashier. He ponders the possibility that Joonmyun could have passed him a hundred times, just as nameless-but not as faceless-as now, and he had let it happen.
(They meet many times, silently, softly, letting it pass with no words spoken.)
•
There had been a decisive moment where Sehun had thought he wanted to know Joonmyun better, wondered if he could fit in somewhere in Joonmyun’s life, even though he knew neither his name nor anything about him. It had been crowded on the bus and they had ended up standing pressed against each other, but Joonmyun had been too focused on the script he was reading to feel as embarrassed as Sehun had felt. Sehun was so close he could hear the music bleeding out of Joonmyun’s earbuds, faintly, but clearly enough, mingling with Joonmyun’s murmurs as he read over the lines.
Joonmyun had gotten off after three stops, two before Sehun’s, and it had been strange, so strange, but the emptiness of the space where Joonmyun had been made Sehun feel a tinge of sadness, like a hint of things to come, but he had brushed it off and taken out his cellphone to message his older brother, letting it fade away on its own.
•
Sehun learns Joonmyun’s name when he sees ‘Joonmyun’ scrawled on the takeaway cup of coffee Joonmyun’s holding as they stand, side by side, at the self-service counter. Sehun purposely reaches for the sugar packets at the same time Joonmyun does, but Joonmyun pulls his hand back just shy of them touching, and looks up at Sehun in surprise. They exchange smiles before Joonmyun turns away without taking any sugar, walking away to leave the store.
Sehun twirls the packet of brown sugar in his fingers as he watches Joonmyun leave, then turns back to his coffee, thoughts of the discovery of Joonmyun’s name already overtaken by the assignment Sehun had been working on.
•
The next time Sehun’s at the café, it’s after a long day of school and he’s half-asleep. He dozes off while leaning against the counter as he waits for his drink, the hum of the coffee machines and indistinct chatter acting as a make-shift lullaby.
“Sehun-sshi,” A sweet voice interrupts his dream and he jerks awake, stumbling slightly. He straightens hastily before meeting Joonmyun’s eyes. The shorter man smiles and Sehun has to think for a moment before recalling Joonmyun’s face and name. He barely has time to wonder how Joonmyun knows his name before the man holds out a coffee cup, ‘Sehun’ written messily on the side. “This is for you, isn’t it?”
Sehun stares at the cup before reaching out to take it, the brush of fingers light and barely noticeable as Joonmyun lets go at the same time Sehun grips it tightly. Joonmyun’s fingers are cold. They exchange smiles again, but Sehun is the first to leave this time, the heat of his coffee erasing the subtle hint of Joonmyun’s touch.
•
The next time Sehun sees Joonmyun, it’s a while after their first ‘meeting’. There’s two and a half weeks before school lets out for winter break. Joonmyun smiles when their eyes meet, but before Sehun can decide whether to smile back or not, a tall, handsome boy enters the café behind Joonmyun, shaking snow off his hair as he reaches out to touch Joonmyun’s shoulder.
Sehun watches the pair, raising his mug to his lips to take a sip. He wants to scoff, and it’s a little childish, but he’s envious. He recognizes the boy, who glances at Sehun after Joonmyun smiles and says something, as Kim Jongin, a SM trainee who had been a grade higher than Sehun. There’s people like Jongin, blessed with good looks, talent and friends like Joonmyun the attractive stranger, and then there’s Sehun, who wasn’t good with people and who had been rejected three times at SM before he gave up. He can hear an annoying voice that sounds a lot like Cheongah in his head, telling him he’s being a drama queen, but he pushes away his mug and starts to stuff his things into his backpack anyway.
He can feel both Joonmyun and Jongin’s eyes on him as he leaves, but he’s too irritated by Jongin’s presence to take a proper look at Joonmyun before the door closes behind him, the cheery sound of the jingling bells taunting.
•
The weather starts to become dreary and cold mid-December. Sehun presses his hands to his steaming mug of hot chocolate, wishing the upcoming winter break would come faster. He blows out a gust of air, watching it turn white, before his attention is drawn to the jingling bells of the door. Joonmyun walks in, but this time, there’s no Jongin behind him - Sehun feels an odd sense of disjointed déjà vu, because this has happened in varying ways over the past month. He lowers his eyes to his mug before their regular exchange of glances.
“Jongin didn’t recognize you, and you’re wearing a uniform, so you’re definitely a grade or two younger than him,” Joonmyun’s voice interrupts Sehun’s internal struggle on whether to greet the other or not. Joonmyun is pulling the chair across from Sehun out so he can sit. “But even though you’re pretty tall, you don’t look older than Jongin, so I’m assuming you’re in your final year. That means you’re pretty young, because Jongin only graduated last year.”
“I’m not young, I’m eighteen,” Sehun murmurs under his breath, but immediately regrets he had said anything, because he sounds as silly as he feels. Joonmyun laughs as he adjusts his chair, then places his forearms on the table and leans forward. “Sorry to disappoint you, but eighteen is young. I’ll reconsider when you’ve graduated.”
Joonmyun’s sweet laugh floats off into silence, drowned out by the indistinct voices around them. Sehun swallows when he chances a glance at Joonmyun, who is leaning his chin on his hand and watching Sehun with an amused smile. There’s a short moment where he wants to take what’s in front of him, but boldness has never come to him easily. Cold fingers press against his own, and he stares at Joonmyun’s hand over his own on the mug before he looks up to meet Joonmyun’s eyes.
“I’m Kim Joonmyun. I’m 21 and I’m a drama student,” Joonmyun says gently, almost as if he knows Sehun needs to be coaxed until he’ll open up. “My campus is obviously not around here, but I used to come here with Jongin when I could, so it’s become a habit even though Jongin’s graduated. They know what drinks I like. You’ve only recently discovered the magic that is coffee, because I haven’t seen you around before this winter. I think we’ve seen each other at least a dozen times in the past month, we could have been friends by now if we were a little less shy.”
Sehun can’t help the small chuckle that escapes him. Joonmyun is only telling the truth; Sehun wonders what it would have been like to take back the wasted time and meld together their friendship, their whatever this is, even earlier, but he isn’t sure he’d like it as much as he likes the now. He pushes his mug, now warm but not yet cold, towards Joonmyun. “I’m Oh Sehun. I’m eighteen and I’m in my final year of school. I’m not a very social person, as you might have guessed, so I’m not too good with people.”
Joonmyun laughs, picking up the mug and taking a sip. They don’t say anything of importance for the rest of the conversation, but it’s enough for Sehun.
•
They don’t exchange numbers. Joonmyun shakes his head when Sehun gathers up the courage to ask, but scribbles something on an old receipt that he hands to Sehun instead. He gives firm instructions not to read it until he’s left, so Sehun watches Joonmyun wave goodbye and turns the receipt over as soon as the bells jingle.
That’s how Sehun finds himself at Hangang Yeouido Park the next day, Joonmyun cheerfully chattering away about nothing as they tug on their skates. The ice rink in front of them is swarming with people laughing and falling and having fun that Sehun hadn’t thought possible in December.
Joonmyun takes Sehun’s hand to pull him up, leading him to the entrance of the ice rink. Neither of them are wearing gloves. Sehun unconsciously squeezes Joonmyun’s hand to warm it as they stumble into the rink, before he loosens his grip when he realizes what he’s doing.
“The thing about people when they first meet is that they’re scared of walls that sometimes don’t exist,” Joonmyun says, turning to skate backwards so he could face Sehun. Sehun feels the blood rushing to his cheeks when Joonmyun reaches out with his free hand and takes Sehun’s other hand, a bright smile on his lips despite his red nose and ears. “If you want to hold my hand, I won’t mind at all.”
It’s disconcerting, the amount of affection Sehun’s feeling for a person he doesn’t quite know, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to hold Joonmyun’s hands and rub them to warm them up. A strange feeling bubbles up in Sehun’s stomach when he intertwines his fingers with Joonmyun’s, keeping a careful gaze on the older. Joonmyun’s entire face lights up, and before he can catch himself, Sehun feels himself smile. He keeps his eyes locked with Joonmyun’s as they leisurely skate along.
Sehun’s always kept his walls high and solid, too difficult to break down, but rather than breaking them down, Joonmyun’s climbed over, leaving them exactly as they were, and Sehun can’t find it in him to push Joonmyun back over them.
•
Joonmyun saves Sehun’s number in his phone in place of properly exchanging numbers, then waves goodbye as he dashes off the train to transfer lines. It’d be infuriating if it were anyone else, but Sehun doesn’t feel frustrated at Joonmyun leaving him hanging. The list of firsts only continues to grow with Joonmyun; Sehun’s head and life have been full of school, exams and parents, but being with Joonmyun had softened it all and let him be at ease enough to forget about it all and enjoy himself.
He plays games he’d forgotten he had installed on his phone, curled up under the blankets, until he receives a simple “good night, Sehun-ah” message from an unknown number in the middle of an intense game of Anipang. He imagines Joonmyun lying in his own bed in the darkness and smiles, turning off his phone before closing his eyes, letting sleep claim him easily.
•
It’s dangerous, Cheongah tells him on their Kakaotalk conversation when he’s on his way to meet Joonmyun the next day at Hongdae, you don’t even know who you’re falling in love with, you’re falling in love with who you think he is.
He doesn’t know if it’s really the truth, but Cheongah’s words are frightening. There’s too much he hasn’t learnt about falling in love, too much he doesn’t know about Joonmyun-he types and erases a dozen different replies, unable to decide what he’s feeling. He settles for a short ‘I’ll be careful. I want to try.'
You better be or you’ll regret this, Cheongah replies almost immediately. She doesn’t follow it up with any of her many purchased emoji like she usually does, leaving a taste of apprehension on Sehun’s chapped lips.
•
Sehun finds Joonmyun standing outside the exit of the station, focused on his phone. Sehun reaches into his pocket, fingers around his own phone, Cheongah’s words coming up once again into his thoughts. The crowd moving in and out of the station hide Sehun well enough, giving him occasional glimpses of Joonmyun, who looks up to scan the crowd every few seconds before looking back down at his phone. Joonmyun’s cheeks are flushed red despite the fur-lined hood he keeps tugging closer to his face, and Sehun feels a little guilty that he’s letting the older guy wait, but his feet won’t move and he wants to clear his head from any hesitation.
It starts to rain a few minutes later. Sehun watches from his spot, sheltered from the rain by the exit stairs’ roof, while Joonmyun rushes to the nearby bakery, looking up and down from his phone as he goes. Guilt washes over Sehun once again when he feels his phone buzz - like he expected, it’s Joonmyun’s name displayed on the screen. He can’t see Joonmyun anymore from his spot, so he rejects the call and takes slow but steady steps up the stairs, pulling up his own hood as he makes his way to the same bakery Joonmyun had gone into.
The bakery is swarming with people also seeking shelter from the rain, but Joonmyun is standing right beside the door, not bothering to fight for a place or food. He looks up and doesn’t smile when he sees Sehun, which only makes the twisting of Sehun’s stomach feel even worse. “Joonmyun hyung, I was-”
Joonmyun slides his hand into Sehun’s, pulling the younger over to stand beside him. Their backs are to the rest of the people in the bakery as they stare out into the rain. “I told you if you want to do something, I don’t mind. The same goes for things you don’t want to do. I don’t want to force you into things you don’t want, I know too well how that feels.”
“That’s not it,” Sehun answers as quickly as he can, gripping Joonmyun’s hand to convey his urgency. He wants to tell Joonmyun what he’s feeling, everything in his head, but his communication skills have never been that good. He licks his lips, trying to tie together his thoughts. “I’ve never… I don’t know what to do. It’s… a bit scary.”
“I’ve never done this either, trust me,” Joonmyun says after a moment of silence. He intertwines their fingers this time. “I’m still willing to figure it out together if you want to.”
Sehun wants to-it’s not the only thing he wants to do. Joonmyun’s cold hand in his is new in so many ways, a first that he keeps in the back of his mind. Joonmyun is drawing on the misted window with his index finger, a smile playing on his lips. He’s not waiting for any answer from him, Sehun slowly realizes, and it’s another first. Nobody’s ever trusted him so blindly, asking for only eventual mutual trust in return. Having Joonmyun’s trust means all of Joonmyun is open to him, open to the good and the bad, and Sehun doesn’t know whether he can be trusted with that. His breath catches in his throat when he takes a deep breath of moist air. He’s not ready for this, he thinks when Joonmyun turns to look at him with bright eyes, no barriers or walls to shield him. “Talk to me, Sehun-ah, I want to know what you’re feeling.”
“What if I break your heart?” Sehun asks as he lets go of Joonmyun’s hand to rub his own hands together nervously. He can’t admit it out loud, but he doesn’t want to do that, not to Joonmyun. He’s never broken anyone’s heart-never had anyone’s heart in the first place.
“I wouldn’t like that, but broken hearts don’t kill, they just hurt,” Joonmyun answers, taking Sehun’s hand again and pulling him along to the display of cakes and pastries before Sehun can respond. Joonmyun’s words are sobering in a way that hits Sehun too late; letting Joonmyun past his walls meant Joonmyun could hurt him back, but he doesn’t want a broken heart. He’s probably having his own first love with Joonmyun too late for it to be innocent, but he still wishes it could be. Joonmyun pauses when he notices Sehun’s silence and smiles at him, shaking his hand lightly. “Things are only as complicated as you want them to be, Sehun-ah. How about we have some cake and a warm drink instead?”
If he had been smarter, more aware, Sehun would’ve said no. He would have been happy with Joonmyun’s friendship and nothing more, nothing less. But he’s not, and Joonmyun’s hand is warm for once, comforting, replacing any feelings with the faint warmth of contentment. Sehun likes the way Joonmyun’s hand fits in his own, the sound of his laughter, the honest way he smiled, and maybe Joonmyun was right, things didn’t have to be complicated. Maybe, just maybe, if it were with Joonmyun, he could still have the first love he had always imagined, just more suited to him.
•
Cheongah calls him on the train ride home, mere minutes after Joonmyun has waved goodbye at his own stop. She teases him about his date, and he can’t do anything but laugh a little, but her tone gradually changes to serious when she tells him he really does have to be careful. Sehun thinks of how warm Joonmyun had been, warm smiles and laughs and hands, static silence on the phone as Cheongah waits for his answer. He mumbles weakly in acknowledgement and murmurs a goodbye before he hangs up.
•
Sehun finds himself unexpectedly busy for the next week, only exchanging occasional messages and phone calls with Joonmyun. His mom nags at him about his studies, reminding him of a world beyond Joonmyun and wasted time. He takes out his pile of textbooks, flipping through them mindlessly as he stares out his window at the light drizzle of rain outside. The rain brings back the image of Joonmyun standing at the top of the exit stairs, waiting patiently for someone who had already arrived. He remembers the dark blue of Joonmyun’s coat, the fur hiding half of Joonmyun’s face, and Joonmyun’s eyes as he kept looking up into the crowd.
He’s had enough of messages and phone calls-it’s not the same as Joonmyun in front of him. Tomorrow, 5pm, at the Cheonggye Plaza entrance of Cheonggyecheon, he sends to Joonmyun. It’s not a place Sehun would have thought of-he had asked Jinri and one of her fellow members had suggested it-and the pictures open on his iPad seem too pretty in an unrealistic way, like a scene out of a drama, but Joonmyun agrees to it and Sehun thinks maybe it isn’t too bad after all.
•
Sehun waits fifteen minutes for Joonmyun, passing the time by going back and forth across the Cheonggyecheon Stream’s stepping stones. His nervousness grows with each passing minute, but when he’s on his tenth trip across and he turns to go back around, Joonmyun is standing at the other side, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black coat and the spotlight under him illuminating him in the darkness. It’s a sight that makes Sehun feel like he should be looking in from the outside, like there is a story being played out that he doesn’t know the ending of, with Joonmyun and him as separate heroes.
They stand at opposite sides of the stream for a long moment before Joonmyun starts to make his way across, following two tourists who are jumping from stone to stone. Sehun takes a couple of steps back to let them pass, his eyes on Joonmyun. He quickly follows along Joonmyun when the older continues walking along the pathway, falling into step beside him silently.
“The weather is so cold,” Joonmyun says nonchalantly when they’ve taken ten slow steps forward. Sehun glances at Joonmyun’s hands, still in his pockets, and pulls his sleeves over his own hands. “I didn’t think you’d want to go outside again after our ice rink date the other day.”
“I don’t mind it too much,” Sehun replies, attention drawn by the tourists in front of them taking pictures. He slows a tiny bit and Joonmyun does the same. “We could go somewhere else if it’s cold, I thought it would be a nice-”
“It’s alright, I’ll be okay,” Joonmyun cuts Sehun off. He smiles at Sehun and the discomfort in Sehun’s stomach eases a little. “I really like coming here, it’s soothing. I like places with water in general. I’ve been here before, but it’s the first time I’ve come here with someone else.”
Sehun smiles back. The silence that follows isn’t awkward at all, much to Sehun’s surprise, and they walk together with the sound of the water flow and footsteps washing over them. The sound of Joonmyun’s sniffling joins the background noises after a few minutes; when Sehun glances over and sees Joonmyun tugging on his collar in an attempt to warm his face, he doesn’t hesitate before he pulls his own yellow and black scarf off his neck and steps in front of Joonmyun to stop him.
“Hyung, here,” Sehun says, winding the scarf around Joonmyun’s neck. The older looks like he wants to protest, but Sehun doesn’t let him, adjusting the scarf so it covers the lower half of Joonmyun’s face. He can’t see Joonmyun’s pout, but he can feel it, and he bites his lip to keep from laughing out loud. “You looked cold. I’m okay, my coat is warm.”
Sehun can feel whatever is bothering Joonmyun melt away as they continue walking, talking about everything from Sehun’s studies and university applications to Joonmyun’s classes to the pictures hung up on display on one part of the Cheonggyecheon stream. Joonmyun keeps tugging the scarf down to talk before pulling it back up, something Sehun finds oddly endearing. By the time they reach the first exit out of the stream, Sehun’s hand is stuffed in Joonmyun’s pocket, their fingers intertwined, and it stays like that until Joonmyun playfully shoves it away when they head into the restaurant Sehun’s chosen.
They steal pieces of tofu from each other’s soondubu jjigae, although Sehun has to admit it’s mostly him stealing from Joonmyun, who lets him. Joonmyun pours hot water in Sehun’s bowl of rice and fusses over him, making sure the steam doesn’t burn him, while Sehun pretends to poke his finger into Joonmyun’s own bowl of rice. He laughs when Joonmyun pokes his hand away with the chopsticks, the warm food and happiness filling him up to the brim.
Joonmyun forgets to give back Sehun’s scarf when they part at the end of the night. The temperature has dropped and it’d be nice to have it, Sehun thinks as he sticks his hands into his pockets on the way from the station to his house, but he doesn’t want it back. It looks better on Joonmyun anyway.
•
They meet three times in the last week of December, all at the café near Sehun’s school. Joonmyun returns the scarf the second time, laughing at how well the yellow and black looks with Sehun’s uniform, but doesn’t refuse when Sehun sends him off with the scarf again right before they part for the night.
•
They don’t meet for Christmas. Although Sehun entertains the thought of asking Joonmyun to spend Christmas with him, Joonmyun mentions Christmas dinner with his family and Sehun squashes it. He spends most of the actual day in bed, spamming his friends’ group chat with pointless chatter and links to articles about Jinri. He sends a ‘merry Christmas’ to Joonmyun and receives one in return, although Joonmyun adds a questionable animated emoji after it. It’s not a particularly memorable Christmas, but Sehun will remember it anyway.
•
The news of Sehun’s acceptance to his second choice universities comes in early January in the form of two envelopes left by his mom on his desk. He flips them over and over for five minutes before he opens them, reading through the acceptance letters with an odd sense of satisfaction.
He folds the papers and puts them back into the envelopes neatly. There’s no real reason to celebrate, considering they’re still second choices and he had been rejected by his first choice earlier in the week, but any excuse to call Joonmyun and hear his voice is good enough for Sehun.
The call lasts for hours that Sehun knows his parents will scold him for when they see his phone bill, but flipping through his older brother’s magazines while listening to Joonmyun reading from scripts and occasionally singing, no real conversation happening between them, fills him with a feeling he thinks he’ll remember longer than how reading his acceptance letters had felt.
•
“What’s the future to Oh Sehun?” Joonmyun asks suddenly the next time they meet. They’re at a kalbi restaurant in Myeongdong, sitting across from each other as Sehun grills the meat. He looks up at Joonmyun, who is staring at him with an odd kind of anticipation, and tries to figure out where the question had come from. He moves one piece of meat to the piece of lettuce Joonmyun’s holding in his hand while he thinks.
“I don’t know what the future is. Living well while dealing with whatever happens, I guess?” Sehun answers after eating the meat and lettuce Joonmyun had stuffed in his mouth. He knows Joonmyun is probably expecting a more thought out answer, but Sehun doesn’t have one for him. The furthest he’s thought is what he wants to do after university and four years into the future is likely not what Joonmyun wants to know. “I’m not very good at planning too far ahead. Isn’t it better to take it step by step?”
“Living well while dealing with whatever happens,” Joonmyun repeats softly, crossing his arms on the table as he watches Sehun add a few strips of meat to the grill. “That’s a good way to face the future, Sehun-ah. Promise me you’ll follow through with it.”
“Of course I will,” Sehun answers with a laugh, putting down the metal pincer to pick up his chopsticks. He makes a lettuce wrap with meat and a little bit of all the side dishes before leaning over and stuffing it into Joonmyun’s mouth, unnerved by the way Joonmyun is looking at him like they might never see each other again. The future is a scary prospect, and Sehun doesn’t know what he’ll face in it, but the way Joonmyun had stared at him makes him think of the possibility Joonmyun could be in it. “Why are you asking, though? Worried about your own graduation coming up soon?”
Joonmyun avoids answering by chewing as slow as he can, deliberately giving himself time to think. Sehun narrows his eyes, taking a sip of cola as he waits. Joonmyun swallows the last of his mouthful and smiles. “No, not really. I was curious, I want to know a lot about you.”
Sehun blinks a few times, then nods slowly. He picks up a piece of meat and chews on it on its own to give himself something to do while Joonmyun makes another lettuce wrap for himself. He still doesn’t understand a lot about Joonmyun, and Joonmyun’s honesty, almost childish to a point, is a part of what he doesn’t understand, but when Joonmyun raises his eyes and meets Sehun’s, his lips turn up into a smile and Sehun doesn’t really mind. He’ll understand Joonmyun with time, in the near or far future where he’s living well, all with Joonmyun still by his side.
•
Sehun meets up with Jinri at their favorite bubble tea shop in Apgujeong Rodeo to celebrate his acceptance. She’s in the middle of thoughtfully chewing on her tapioca pearls, Sehun laughing at her as she tries to remember the names of the fans who have followed her to the shop and are taking pictures from outside with their cellphones, when the door to the shop opens and Joonmyun enters, a boy who could only be described as beautiful following behind him. Both Sehun and Jinri stand almost immediately; Sehun stares in confusion when there is a flurry of greetings and chairs scraping in the tiny shop. Joonmyun and Jinri hug quickly, while the beautiful boy bows slightly to Jinri, who nods in acknowledgement, and then they all return their attention to Sehun, who is still staring in confusion.
“Jinri, you know hyung?” Sehun asks, looking between the two of them, their faces bright with smiles. The beautiful boy is talking with the ajummas, laughing as he orders for himself and Joonmyun. Jinri nods and pats Joonmyun’s arm. “He used to be a SM trainee too. I never expected the Joonmyun you talked about would be the same as Joonmyun oppa.”
“My dark past is being revealed,” Joonmyun says jokingly, looking over his shoulder at the brown-haired boy he had come in with before looking back at Sehun. “Sorry it never came up, Sehun-ah. I didn’t know you knew Jinri either.”
“Joonmyun-ah, is this Sehun?” The brown-haired boy asks, having joined them after finishing his chat with the ajummas. Joonmyun nods and the boy immediately holds out his hand to Sehun, smiling. “Nice to meet you. I’m Joonmyun’s friend, Lu Han. He’s told me a lot about you.”
“Ah… nice to meet you too,” Sehun replies, taking Lu Han’s hand and shaking it as he bows a little. Lu Han looks younger than him, but he’d addressed Joonmyun informally, which meant he was older than Sehun. “You’re a trainee at SM too?”
“Shhh, I’m not supposed to broadcast it, but yeah, I am,” Lu Han replies with a laugh. The ajumma calls his name from the counter and he turns, taking a step forward to take his and Joonmyun’s drinks. He hands Joonmyun his drink and turns back to Sehun. “I didn’t expect that I would get to meet you like this.”
Joonmyun is watching the exchange with careful eyes, as if he’s evaluating something, and Sehun doesn’t like it. He nods politely to Lu Han, who is sipping his drink with a content smile on his face, before he turns his attention to Joonmyun. “Hyung, how long did you train in SM? The other time you were with Kim Jongin too, he’s a SM trainee too, right?”
“I trained long enough to figure out it wasn’t for me,” Joonmyun says with a sigh before he takes a sip of his bubble tea. Lu Han gives him a disapproving look, but doesn’t say anything. Sehun wonders how true that is-he’s heard Joonmyun sing and there are a lot of idols in the business who are a lot less talented than Joonmyun is, but he’s not one to judge. “Anyway, Lu Han and I will get going. We’ll talk soon, Sehun-ah, and it was great seeing you, Jinri-ah.”
Jinri gives Joonmyun another hug and there are a few awkward seconds of waving and smiles before Joonmyun and Lu Han leave just as suddenly as they had come in. Jinri sits back down, poking at her pearls with her straw. Sehun watches Joonmyun and Lu Han walk past the fans and down the street, out of sight, before he sits back down.
“Oppa trained for a really long time, you know,” Jinri says with a hint of pity in her voice, looking up at the fans and giving them a small smile. They scream and wave, but she turns to look at Sehun. “If you ask any of my fans from before I debuted, they’ll recognize him. He got accepted a year after me and trained until he quit a couple of years ago. Everyone knows he was supposed to be in SHINee, but he got cut at the last moment and I think he never really accepted that. He got tired of waiting for a chance that didn’t seem like it would come. Being kept as a benchwarmer for so long when you’ve put everything else on hold is a lot to handle.”
“I wonder if he’s happier now,” Sehun says it out loud, mostly to himself. He doesn’t know, at least not now. Maybe Joonmyun will tell him someday if he is, but he wants to try and make Joonmyun happy. Jinri shrugs, standing up to throw away their empty cups without giving him an answer. Sehun watches her as she turns to look at her fans, the glass window separating her from them, and realizes she’s probably the wrong person to ask.
•
Their next date happens at Lotte World, even though they’re disappointed to find most of the outer rides closed due to the cold weather. Sehun shares an overly sweet cup of hot chocolate with Joonmyun as they queue up for one of the rides, the noise around them swallowing any attempt at conversation. Sehun wants to ask about Joonmyun’s past in SM and everything else he hasn’t learned about Joonmyun yet, but they talk about which rides they want to try and whether they should get a caricature of themselves instead.
“Do you regret quitting?” Sehun asks, in place of ‘are you happy?’, when they’re standing in front of a large stage where a group is dancing to a k-pop song Sehun thinks might be a Big Bang song. Joonmyun’s eyes betray a bitterness Sehun can understand, but when he turns away to look at Sehun, it’s gone. “No. It wasn’t a rash decision made with anger or frustration, so I have no reason to regret it.”
Sometimes we can regret our decisions, even if we think they’re good ones, Sehun wants to tell Joonmyun, but he doesn’t have a chance to before Joonmyun walks away. He catches up with Joonmyun hurriedly and takes his hand, intertwining their fingers together. Joonmyun squeezes his hand in return and Sehun smiles. The past was something that had happened and he couldn’t change Joonmyun’s decision, but the future was something he could change, so he would try his best to make it a bright one for the both of them.
•
Joonmyun takes Sehun back to his apartment for the first time after a dinner date at Sehun’s favorite American restaurant. Anxiety pounds in Sehun’s ears as he follows Joonmyun into the small apartment; they stand together at the doorway, pushing off their shoes. Joonmyun reaches over to unwrap Sehun’s scarf, fingers brushing against Sehun’s neck, and there’s a moment where he pauses and Sehun can’t breathe, Joonmyun looking up at him so openly robbing him of the ability.
But it’s gone, and Joonmyun tugs the scarf down, pulling Sehun with it, and their lips meet in a gentle kiss. He can feel Joonmyun slide a hand up to the nape of his neck as the kiss deepens, fingertips at the edge of his hair. It’s Sehun’s first kiss and he knows it’s not perfect, Joonmyun is more relaxed than he is, but it’s everything he knows of Joonmyun, somewhere between warm and cold, and it’s what he has always wanted.
They sleep in the same bed that night, Joonmyun curled up against Sehun’s side. There’s nothing sexual about it and Sehun thinks he doesn’t want it to be, not yet, because it isn’t the right time. Joonmyun is so close in the darkness, just as close as Sehun wants him to be, and he falls asleep with Joonmyun’s cold toes between his feet, blanket too small to cover them both.
•
Joonmyun invites Sehun over for a movie night two nights later, an invitation Sehun gladly accepts. Joonmyun prepares the biggest bucket of popcorn Sehun’s ever seen, coupled with orange juice, because soda is unhealthy according to Joonmyun, even though he ignores Sehun’s comment about the amount of butter in the popcorn being unhealthy too.
They bicker about what movies to watch before Sehun presses play on the action movie he wants to see. Joonmyun attacks him with popcorn kernels before giving up and moving as close to the blanket Sehun’s held hostage, tugging on it until Sehun relents and pulls Joonmyun close to him, covering him with the blanket as well.
Joonmyun falls asleep halfway through the movie, curled up with his head on Sehun’s lap. Sehun lowers the volume on the movie and adjusts the blanket so it’s covering Joonmyun before returning his attention to the movie, Joonmyun’s weight against him light and comfortable, an anchor to a sweet reality Sehun had never imagined could be his.
•
Joonmyun is not a storm of color, not a blinding light, nothing like that. He’s anything but powerful and obvious. No, Joonmyun is a quiet sort of drip, Sehun thinks as he runs his fingers through Joonmyun’s hair that night in bed, seeping through the cracks and corners until he’s filled in every little free space and there is no place without Joonmyun. He’d forgotten Joonmyun the first times they met, but Joonmyun had made Sehun forget how life had been without him.
•
The smell of delicious food makes Sehun open his eyes, but he doesn’t fully wake up until Joonmyun plops himself over him, laughing when Sehun lets out a little noise of surprise. “Good morning to you too, hyung.”
“Young people aren’t supposed to sleep so much,” Joonmyun says with a teasing smile. Sehun sticks out his tongue, but retracts it immediately when Joonmyun leans forward and makes as if to bite it, a mischievous glint in his eyes. Sehun reaches his hands up to Joonmyun’s waist to support him, the mere inches between them tempting. Just as he’s about to lean up and kiss Joonmyun, the older boy moves off the bed abruptly. Joonmyun beams innocently, even though his eyes are shining with mirth, and starts walking towards the door. “Go get washed up, your breath stinks. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.”
Joonmyun is staring at some pills in his open palm, a glass of water on the table in front of him, when Sehun finishes washing up and comes to the kitchen. He looks up, as if pulled out of a trance, when Sehun sits down in front of him and reaches for his chopsticks. “Hyung, are you sick? You should take care of yourself better since it’s so cold lately.”
“Ah… yeah, I’m a little tired,” Joonmyun replies dazedly. He swallows down the pills with a gulp of water, then reaches for his own chopsticks and smiles. Sehun chews on a mouthful of rice, watching Joonmyun take a sip of soup. It worries him that Joonmyun’s favoring the soup over the untouched bowl of rice, set to the side, but at the same time, he knows Joonmyun’s always been very good at taking care of himself even when Sehun tries to take care of him as well. Joonmyun’s attention is on the TV, showing a news report about a particularly famous actor’s scandal, in the living room behind Sehun, and he points out something in it. Sehun turns to watch as well, the subject of the pills pushed to the back of his mind as Joonmyun starts to talk about the actor in the report.
•
Joonmyun makes Sehun go back home for a couple of days, telling him to be a good son and spend it with his family. Sehun accepts grudgingly, taking along the clothes he had brought along. His mother lectures him about staying at friends’ houses and responsibilities before taking his dirty laundry with a huff, telling him he should at least call if he’s going to stay away so long.
Spending time with his family is nice, especially since Joonmyun had been right and he did miss sharing meals with them while bickering and laughing, but when he settles in to sleep for the night, the sight of a couple of Joonmyun’s old t-shirts that he had worn at Joonmyun’s, folded neatly on his dresser, make him miss Joonmyun even more.
•
Joonmyun’s cold hands under his shirt wake him up from his sleep when he goes over the next night, a shiver running through his body as he pushes them away. He takes Joonmyun’s hand after he sees the older’s face, letting himself be led out of the warmth of the bed, Joonmyun’s soft laughter mingling with the distant sounds of a city waking up, into the cold January morning. Sehun doesn’t know what’s going on until Joonmyun lets go of his hand to push the rusty roof door open, then rushes out to climb the step-ladder and jump to the edge of the roof, sliding around and reaching out to Sehun with his arms and his twinkling eyes.
Sehun registers how cold it is, the jacket he had managed to grab on the way out barely doing anything to shield him from the cold. He climbs up beside the quiet Joonmyun, laughing as he tugs on the fluffy blue dolphin-patterned socks Joonmyun’s wearing, and Joonmyun slaps his hands away and reminds him that they were a pair Sehun had forgotten at his place, and Sehun smiles at this, eyes crinkling into half-moons. There’s a moment of silence before Joonmyun’s smile drops and he presses closer to Sehun, then turns his eyes to the view of Seoul, bathed in the faintest glow. “This is our city, Sehun-ah. It’s not beautiful, but it’s ours.”
Sehun doesn’t understand, only gripping Joonmyun’s hand tighter, then he turns his eyes and tries to see what Joonmyun’s seeing. He doesn’t have to try too long. The faint, almost colorless glow began to gently brighten, the sunlight bleeding into the buildings and giving life to the monochrome cityscape. Even the grey smog coating the city was being swallowed up by the sunshine, dissipating lazily with every passing second. He watched, mesmerized with the view and Joonmyun’s warm body pressed against his side, until the city had been completely colored in, shining brilliantly underneath the daylight, until Joonmyun broke the spell by laughing, a tiny, relieved laugh that made Sehun feel like he had woken up from a dream.
Joonmyun still has his eyes on the city, tracing the edges of the buildings with his index finger. Sehun contemplates whether to ask what was wrong or not, but decides to watch and wait. After a minute, Joonmyun lets out a sigh and drops his hand, turning to look at Sehun. Joonmyun’s eyes were bright, the sunlight having colored them in as well. “We’ll make it ours, Sehun-ah. Right?”
There was no answer Sehun could give, not when Joonmyun was looking at him like that. He doesn’t know, but he wants to give Joonmyun the answer he wants - he doesn’t get the chance to try. He tries in his own head when they’re back in bed and Joonmyun is asleep, warm and safe against his chest, breath ticklish against Sehun’s neck, but there’s no right answer. He can’t give Joonmyun anything more than himself, nor can he promise anything as big as Joonmyun deserves, but he can’t help but wonder if that’s really enough for Joonmyun.
•
Settling into a pattern of seeing Joonmyun almost every day is not particularly exciting or fulfilling, but it’s relaxing and Sehun likes it. Sehun likes going to Joonmyun’s apartment and watching the older boy flick through scripts and textbooks and recite random scenes from plays and movies. Sometimes Joonmyun would leave the door unlocked for him and that meant a night of foreign movies where Joonmyun would watch with such focus that he wouldn’t speak, too caught up in the movies. Sehun is decidedly less interested in the movies, choosing to make use of Joonmyun’s distraction to feed him some of the healthy snacks that Joonmyun has begun collecting in his fridge.
Joonmyun’s mood after watching the movies varies, but most of the time, he’s detached. He smiles and laughs and talks with Sehun like normal, but Sehun can tell his mind is somewhere else entirely, because he picks at whatever dinner Sehun sets on the table, eating only a few bites, and takes longer than usual to fall asleep. Sehun pretends he’s asleep, but he feels Joonmyun shift many times, even getting out of bed to go get a drink of water at times, before he finally falls asleep. Other times, his mood is the complete opposite - his full attention is with Sehun, tugging him close and surprising him with overflowing affection, as if he’s making up for something Sehun doesn’t know of. The last kind of mood is the mood is the one Sehun hates the most: Joonmyun would completely close himself off, skipping dinner and heading immediately to bed. He keeps his back turned to Sehun even when the younger boy joins him in bed and doesn’t let his body relax until sleep claims him, which is when Sehun pulls him back gently, wrapping his arms around Joonmyun protectively before falling asleep himself.
Whatever the mood is, it leaves Sehun feeling conflicted, falling asleep wishing he could read Joonmyun as well as Joonmyun reads him, that he could help Joonmyun the way Joonmyun helps him.
•
Sehun steals the spare key of Joonmyun’s apartment, twirling the key ring around his finger until Joonmyun notices what it is and laughs, but doesn’t take it back. It’s a big step, but Sehun’s been sleeping in Joonmyun’s apartment more than his own house lately, and it’s not as scary as he’d expected it to be.
It’s why he doesn’t think much of picking up some groceries and heading to Joonmyun’s apartment with no prior plans, swinging the plastic bag as he thinks of the meal he’s going to convince Joonmyun to make for him. He’s sliding his feet into the pink slippers Joonmyun jokingly bought for him, opening his mouth to call for Joonmyun, but his voice dies when he notices the empty living room and the tiny connected kitchen, a plastic container filled with kimchi abandoned on the counter, its’ matching lid and a spoon on the floor. A large bowl of rice is soaking in water beside it. The TV is still on, playing a romantic comedy drama, the cheerful music faint on low volume.
Sehun bites the inside of his cheek as he walks into the apartment. Worry is clouding his brain, but he puts away the groceries along with the kimchi and turns off the TV in the quiet apartment, thinking Joonmyun must have gone out suddenly. He’s about to go check the bedroom before calling Joonmyun’s phone when he notices the light on in the bathroom and sighs, wondering how Joonmyun could have forgotten the light on when he always nags at him to conserve electricity.
He doesn’t expect to find Joonmyun passed out, half-slouched against the wall opposite the toilet.
For the next half hour, Sehun works completely on auto-pilot: he carries Joonmyun to the bedroom, changes his clothes to clean, lighter ones and prepares towels and ice water. Once he’s placed the folded towel on Joonmyun’s forehead, he leaves the room and heads out to the kitchen, where he collapses into the closest chair. He’s never had to deal with a sick person before, and Joonmyun being the first only makes it even more difficult. Sehun shakily pulls out his cell phone from his pocket and searches for an easy recipe for juk, the silence of the apartment stifling. He settles on a recipe for jatjuk, mostly because it takes the least time, but because Joonmyun had pretty much made life easier for Sehun even when he was passed out with his fever - the rice was already soaking and a quick inventory check had produced, for some inexplicable reason, a lonely pack of pine nuts besides a half-empty box of cereal in one of Joonmyun’s cupboards. Sehun guesses it’s probably a present from Joonmyun’s mother or brother, so he sends a mental thanks to them, wherever they are, as he begins preparing the juk.
Joonmyun is awake when Sehun goes back to the bedroom, carrying the tray with the jatjuk and a jug of water. He’s sitting up, the damp towel in his hands, as he stares at Sehun. “Sehun-ah… what are you doing here?”
“You cheated, you know, I had come over to make you cook for me,” Sehun says lightly, not liking the heaviness in the air with Joonmyun staring at him so intensely, and places the tray on the bedside table. He sits down on the edge of the bed and smiles. “But since you were passed out and all, I was the one who ended up cooking.”
“I wasn’t expecting anyone over, I was…” Joonmyun starts, but he pauses when Sehun ignores him, sliding closer to the bedside table and picking up the spoon on the tray. Joonmyun puts the towel back in the bowl of the mostly melted ice. “Sehun-ah…”
“Shush, hyung. You talk too much considering you’re sick, you should be quiet and let me feed you,” Sehun says, scooping up some juk into the spoon and raising his hand under it as he moves it closer to Joonmyun’s mouth. “Ahh~”
Joonmyun obediently opens his mouth and swallows the spoonful before raising his hand to wrap his fingers around Sehun’s wrist. His fingertips are cold and Sehun wants to rub warmth into them. “Thank you.”
Sehun wants to ask why Joonmyun is looking at him like he’s trying to memorize every little detail, but he can’t. He smiles and pulls his hand away gently to take another spoonful. “For giving you the honor of tasting my wonderful cooking? You should be honored, hyung.”
Joonmyun laughs and leans forward to swallow the second spoonful, smiling back brilliantly at Sehun like everything is right with the world. Sehun gives up the spoon after a weak fight and watches Joonmyun eat the rest on his own, then he pushes the tray away and slides into bed with the older boy. Joonmyun lets out a sigh of relief as he wraps his arms around Sehun’s waist-Sehun can feel Joonmyun shifting closer to him, pressing up against him as if he’s afraid Sehun won’t be there when he wakes up. He rubs circles on Joonmyun’s back, listening to Joonmyun’s breaths get slower and slower until he’s fallen into a deep sleep, and closes his own eyes. He could make sure Joonmyun’s fear didn’t come true this once at least.
•
The next morning, Sehun wakes up earlier than Joonmyun for once. He makes use of the groceries he had brought along last night and is sitting in the middle of the living room, the coffee table pushed to the side, when Joonmyun stumbles into the living room blearily, covering his yawn with his hand as he stares at Sehun. “What are you doing?”
“It’s too cold to have a picnic outside, so we’re just going to have one here,” Sehun explains with a shrug, hoping his explanation sounds logical and not juvenile like it sounds to his own ears. He points at the bathroom. “Go wash up, I don’t want to smell your morning breath.”
Joonmyun laughs as he turns and heads to the bathroom. Sehun shifts the sandwiches closer to Joonmyun’s side and feels the drinks to make sure they’re still cool. Joonmyun comes back in and plops down across from Sehun a few minutes later, looking at Sehun instead of the food, his smile brighter than Sehun has seen in a while. He reaches out to take a sandwich, but Sehun is quicker and grabs Joonmyun’s hand before the older boy can take it. “Wait, hyung. Before you eat, there’s one condition you have to accept.”
“I already told you I can’t go on a road trip to Haeundae,” Joonmyun responds, wriggling his hand a little before Sehun gets a better grip. He resists the urge to pout. “Hyung! No, I want you to come to my graduation ceremony as my guest.”
Joonmyun gapes at Sehun for a moment, mouth open, before he closes it and licks his lips. “Are you sure you want me to come? What about your other friends?”
“You’re not my friend, you know you’re more than that,” Sehun says exasperatedly, letting go of Joonmyun’s hand to cross his arms. He can see the happiness in Joonmyun’s eyes and it makes him happy too. “Besides, all my friends are from school, and they’re graduating too. I don’t want to invite anyone other than you and my family.”
“I’ll come, but only because I’m hungry,” Joonmyun replies, smiling at Sehun before he grabs a sandwich and takes a large bite of it. Sehun adjusts his leg and smiles back, taking a sandwich for himself. Joonmyun takes apart the rest of the sandwiches to make sure he likes all the fillings, then makes Sehun eat half of them while he laughs and tries a little bit of all the different types of milk Sehun had bought. They don’t do anything productive in the rest of the day, instead wasting it by watching travel documentaries and reruns of music shows on TV, Joonmyun continuing to take sips of the milk containers he had liked the most. Sehun thinks of Joonmyun’s question about the future as he curls up on Joonmyun’s lap, half-asleep, and thinks he wouldn’t be too scared of it as long as Joonmyun is in it.
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