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Changmin huffs as he pulls his trolley bag behind him. He knows he should not have bought those extra bags of nougat but Kyuhyun had been badgering him about it.
Of course, he wasn't gonna tell the man he woke himself up from a very nice dream at an ungodly hour of 7am just so he could go down to some supposedly renowned handmade nougat stall in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Market to get a few bags of nougat; original and coffee-flavoured, no less.
He just wanted to try some. And they didn't sell the nougat individually. So.
He clears customs and gets onto his plane to head back to Seoul in good time. Melbourne was fun but his inbox now numbered over 4,000 emails and while half was probably from his Clash of Clans guild complaining about their fortresses being destroyed by the latest versions of Warlock spells, he knows he would feel better back at his desk, first thing on Monday.
The air-stewardess comes by a moment later, and bends down, head low as though she about to share a secret with him.
"Good evening Mr Shim. My apologies but the flight is overbooked and we have to move some of the passengers."
What? Changmin stares at her, a mental image of his inbox exploding into little pieces flashing in his head.
".. To first class. Would you like to move now or after the flight has reached cruising?"
Changmin brightens, a grin on his face, jumping to his feet.
"Why, thank you. Let's go now."
He squeezes past the family with the crying baby in the row before him; the old man who was picking his nose beside him and wonders if it would be bad form to turn around and stick his tongue out at the rest of cattle class.
---
He settles down in an aisle, and curiously pokes at the seat buttons, almost yelping as the seat elevates into a horizontal position and his feet stick into the air.
He glances around hurriedly and tries to right the seat without anyone having noticed his lack of familiarity with the first class' operations.
Play it cool, Shim.
He can't wait to brag about this coup to Kyuhyun and the boys. 10 hours in First Class, oh yeah.
Now all he was lacking would be.....
"Excuse me, you dropped this." A deep voice sounds from in front of him.
Changmin looks up and is
Greeted by the sight of a very, very delicious man.
Sunglasses on, a smile on his lips, hair swept up and off his face.
Said man takes off his sunglasses and Changmin swears he heard angels sing, or maybe it was his empty stomach growling.
Then he feels something prod against his arm. Right, he had dropped his boarding pass. With the green border demarcating him as "Economy" clearly printed against the white. So much for the pretense.
"Ah, oh thank you. I just uh, got upgraded and uh.." He doesn' want Mr Delicious to think he's a stowaway or something.
Said man chuckles, a sound that makes Changmin want to groan. In pain or desire, he can't decide.
"It's okay, Changmin-sshi. I'm Jung Yunho. Nice to meet you." The man smiles again and turns back.
Changmin isn't sure whether to feel flattered that Sunglasses bothered to read his name. He notices that the top of Yunho's head pokes out slightly from the top of the seat.
Perfect. He's tall like me. Changmin swoons for 5 seconds before mentally kicking himself in the balls and with the imaginary pain that that gives him, settles to appraising the inflight menu choices for the flight.
---
"Fuck!" He blurts out, momentarily forgetting where he is. Then he remembers and hurriedly looks around but no one seems to have noticed. First Class-ers needed to behave with, well, class, Shim, he sternly reminds himself.
"Anything the matter?" smiles Yunho, turning around, popping his headphones off his head. Changmin looks up, eyes wide with surprise. Shit, he overheard me? On the screen in front of him, Ronaldo takes the opportunity of his distracted defender to kick a goal in, causing the virtual crowd at Stamford Bridge to roar with disapproval. 2 goals in 2 seconds. Great.
He can't suppress his eye-rolling as he looks back at Yunho and recalls the man was still waiting for an answer.
"Ah, I mean, not you. I just, I'm playing Winning Eleven and I just gave away a goal. Sorry for disturbing you." He quickly explains, in case Yunho thought he was rolling his eyes at him.
Yunho chuckes, "That's a coincidence. I'm also playing Winning Eleven and I just..wait. Are you.. are you Chelsea?"
"You're Real Madrid?!"
..
"Enemehhhh!" Changmin whispers accusingly.
Yunho winks back, "Game on, Changminnie."
Changmin forgets to flush at the nickname as Ronaldo speeds up on screen.
---
Yunho switches his seats to the empty seat beside Changmin as they start on a Best-Of-3 challenge. Changmin wins 2 with Yunho winning 1. Yunho blames it on the slow response of the controller in his new seat. Changmin blames his on well, one can't win all the time anyway, because where's the fun in that? Yunho stares at him before bursting out in a laugh that he quickly muffles, aware of the drowsing people around. Changmin responds with a mismatched eye-smile of his own behind his hand.
The air stewardess brings around their meals. Yunho gets Changmin's share of strawberries and chocolate pudding after he complains about the small portions. Changmin gets Yunho's chicken and they toast over their new friendship with red wine. Yunho learns that Changmin is a magazine executive with an annoying best friend called Kyuhyun who dog-sits sometimes in exchange for food. Changmin discovers that Yunho is a lawyer for a non-governmental organisation that works with the United Nations and some other big international organisations, who can't really cook but has a dog as well. They both love playin Winning Eleven although they root for different teams but Yunho concedes that Chelsea has some pretty good tactics, if only they would stop just throwing their money around. Changmin narrows his eyes at that because what good is money for if not to buy good things and that includes star players and fine, Real Madrid is pretty awesome except the La Liga style is too fanciful for his liking. When Changmin falls asleep while watching a movie, Yunho quietly pulls up the blanket around his neck and tucks away the memory of seeing the younger man sniff a few times because it was kinda cute. When Yunho's tea grows cold as he types away on his email, Changmin orders a fresh cup when he calls the stewardess for a bottle of water and he gets a bowl of nuts as well and pushes it to the lawyer's side. Yunho's surprised smile in thanks is thanks enough, Changmin reckons. He smiles to himself as Yunho pouts subconsciously at something his laptop is refusing to do for him.
---
When they land, Yunho pulls on his blazer and hangs around the seat, not walking off. Changmin gets his bags of nougat from the overheard compartment and they kinda stand and stare at each other in a slightly awkward silence.
"Well, I guess this is goodbye. It was really nice meeting you.." starts Changmin.
"Yes, it was nice meeting you too. I really had fun." continues Yunho.
"But hey, Chelsea has this match on Saturday.." Yunho frowns and pulls out his phone, "If I remember correctly.."
"Chelsea? Yeah, they're playing.." replies Changmin
"Wanna watch it together?"
"You want to watch a Chelsea match?" Changmin grins, "Are you secretly admitting that you're a Blues fan?"
"NO! I mean, whatever. I'm giving you a chance to convince me."
"Convince you?" laughs Changmin. "Fine. Give me your number."
---
They meet on Saturday at a nice London-style pub in Sinsa-dong, Seoul for the start of the Barclays Premier League, to watch Chelsea play their first match.
They sit close, laugh and exchange taunts and teases over football and football players.
This continues for the rest of the BPL season; and even after Chelsea crashes out in the semis; they meet too often with a lot of teasing over Chelsea's failure and Real Madrid's greatness and why soondae is better fried not in soup -- that turn into too many tense moments of staring awkwardly at each other's eyes and lips and... end in kisses and tongues meeting and groping and tight jeans and heavy breathing and oh, so much want.
By the start of the new La Liga season, they now watch football in Yunho's apartment. La Liga matches are usually at ungodly hours like at 3.30am. Yunho's apartment overlooks the Han River and the curtains that Changmin ordered hang neatly against the ceiling-to-floor windows, because it was too bare for his liking and Yunho did not want Changmin to find any reason not to move in together with him. Not that he wouldn't have anyway, but Yunho didn't have to know that. Changmin marks an extra notch on his scoreboard of Changmin: 218 to Yunho's 206.
Tonight they are watching Real Madrid. Except Changmin's head is in Yunho's lap and his right hand is draped lazily across his chest, fingers interlinked with Yunho's left hand which is on his shoulder.
He kisses the back of Yunho's hand as he feels the pull of sleep. Yunho recognises it as Changmin's way of saying goodnight and leans down to press a kiss on his forehead. Changmin turns inwards, back to the TV and closes his eyes as he settles in. Yunho reaches for the remote control and lowers the volume, slouching down further to give Changmin more room. Despite the king-sized bed in the bedroom, Changmin never wanted to sleep there alone and would just fall asleep during the early-morning matches on Yunho's lap. When he awoke for work, he would be in bed, Yunho having carried him in after.
He leans over the sleeping form next to him, Yunho always took a half day on a match-day, and drops a kiss on the other's cheek. He had read the sports headlines while having his breakfast, first making a face at the news and then smiling because it meant Yunho would be in a good mood.
"Congrats on winning La Liga, baby."
-continues to Beerpisode-
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x-posted on AO3