Ship/Member: Seungkwan/Soobin TXT
Major Tags: N/A
Additional Tags: NSFW (probably M rated), canon compliant, first time, getting together, references to Soobin's hiatus & (light) mental health stuff in the context of recovery
Permission to remix: Yes

***



“Well, why don’t you both have dinner here, then?” Jeonghan is leaning casually against the cut-through arch between the dining area and kitchen, like standing up fully would lend too much formality to the occasion.

Soobin shoots a look at Seungkwan, who is blinking owlishly at Jeonghan, his hair a perfect post-sleep puffball. He doesn’t look annoyed by the suggestion, but he does look confused, although that too could be the fact that he’s just been woken up by Soobin’s arrival.

“Would that be OK, though?” Soobin prompts, feeling terrible all over again. He’d spent so long planning how he was going to greet Seungkwan, and how he was going to behave like a person who knew who they were, and how he was going to articulate the answers to likely questions like How are you doing? and Are you feeling better?, and instead the door had been opened by Yoon Jeonghan, looking mildly annoyed, and the question Did Seungkwannie invite you and forget to tell me? Soobin closes his eyes briefly: “Is that OK, Seungkwan-hyung, if you’re so tired? I don’t want to stop you resting.”

Seungkwan runs a hand over his face. “I’m a terrible host! Oh my God, look at me.”

“No!’ Soobin protests, urgently. “I shouldn’t have come over without double-checking the time still worked, and it’s not like it’s your fault your flight was delayed.”

Seungkwan gives him a grateful smile, eyes bright, cheeks round. Soobin doesn’t blame him for one second for having arrived back from the airport and just gone to sleep – the man has just finished a ten-date concert run in Japan, he’s got a wider Asia tour starting in weeks and the scant downtime between the two he’ll be promoting a BooSeokSoon comeback. Indeed, he has to be at the practice studio early tomorrow and all this week, which is why this evening was going to be the only time he had free to take Soobin to dinner.

This is the first occasion on which Soobin has left his apartment in three days. And it had loomed so large in his mind he’d never even thought to check-in or remind Seungkwan about it.

“I can just go,” Soobin points out now, and bows. “I’m sorry, I really didn’t think. You’re so busy anyway, it was so kind of you to try and fit me in but I don’t want to…”

“But I’d like to see you!” Seungkwan protests. “Soobin-ah, please. I’ve been looking forward to this! Hyung is so sorry,” Soobin looks at him and for a moment he can see something – urgency, anxiety – in Seungkwan’s gaze. Then subtly, something shifts, the performer coming forward instead and Seungkwan strikes a pose, pouting. “Come on, Soobin-ah,” he complains, “aren’t you going to entertain me like you promised?”

“I found a new singing competition show from England with choirs that I thought he’d like!” Soobin explains very hastily, not breathing between the words, and looks at Jeonghan again, hoping he hasn’t got the wrong idea. Because yes, Soobin is both hypnotised and terrified by the idea of entertaining Seungkwan in, uh, suggestive ways, but the topic has never been broached between them, and how could it be now? A year ago, perhaps, when Soobin felt like himself, or knew what himself felt like, and could be charming and pretty. Not now, confused and spiky as some damp creature fighting out of a chrysalis, wondering which limbs it has.

Jeonghan’s impassive face tilts in the other direction and he gives one, slow, reptilian blink. “I’ll order us all some chicken, since you’re staying,” he says calmly, and propels himself upright. He walks across the room to the dining table, to where there’s a chunky laptop with barcodes and serial numbers stuck all over it. “I should do another hour’s email for the office before logging off. Seungkwan-ah do you two want to be out here, or in your room?”

Soobin’s breath catches in his throat.

Seungkwan stretches, popping his neck, his hands out in little fists. He’s in soft pyjamas with an alternating pattern of stripes and candy-canes, and doesn’t seem to be wearing underwear, something Soobin feels deliriously conscious of.

“We’ll sit out here,” Seungkwan announces, and rubs the corner of his eye. “My room is a suitcase meltdown the likes of which have never before been compassed by human experience.”

“Don’t get cold,” Jeonghan instructs him and then picks the laptop up, wandering over to what Soobin knows from his three previous visits here is his own bedroom. “I’ll time the chicken for about ten.”

Seungkwan plops down on the sofa, and looks up expectantly at Soobin.

Soobin, in the clothes he picked out for the restaurant he’d thought Seungkwan was taking him to, adjusts his trousers and sits. Behind him, he hears Jeonghan’s bedroom door open and close.

“So, tell me about this choir show,” Seungkwan says, voice soft. He brings his knees up under him, bending his legs so his impressive thigh muscles bulge in the trousers, and Soobin reaches for a blanket from the arm of the sofa nearest him, offering it over.

“You’re so sweet,” Seungkwan tells him, and Soobin feels the words like the kick of heavily mentholated cough syrup running down inside his chest, a jolt of sensation and colour. What is he doing? What on Earth is he doing? He’s a mess right now, he has no business being here feeling joy about his exhausted hyung dropping the act and smiling at him.

Soobin’s lived in dorms for all his adulthood. It’s not bad, five members is manageable, he likes them well enough. But when he visits Seungkwan and Jeonghan’s place, he feels like he’s getting a glimpse of something, like the little scenes you sometimes see in lit tower block windows from the evening Metro, before the blinds come down. Domesticity. And Jeonghan and Seungkwan aren’t even dating, this still isn’t it, the world he can only half-imagine.

Truly, he can’t imagine it. How it would feel, to share an existence with one, specific, chosen person. To be with someone in the way where they would become your family; that close, that deeply rooted.

“Here, let me show you the intro,” Soobin says, getting out his phone, opening his browser. He reaches across the sofa, making sure Seungkwan can see the screen despite the near-sightedness he really should wear glasses for, but won’t. He watches Seungkwan, watching the clip, and can’t help looking at his lips, which are just a little dry right now, but still plump and red. If Soobin lived here, if they were like that, he would get up and wander to the bedroom, pick up a lip balm, bring it back, do you want anything else while I’m up, darling?

“Shift over here,” Seungkwan instructs, “then we can share the blanket too.”

Soobin shifts. They sit side by side, thigh to thigh, and Seungkwan rearranges the blanket over both their knees. Quite genuinely, it would be a bit easier if Soobin threw his arm around Seungkwan’s shoulders. Or if Seungkwan did it to him, but oh – oh, no, Soobin mustn’t start thinking about that. His skin can almost ache with the not-touched feeling, when he’s near Seungkwan, sensitive with consciousness.

“You’re good at doing what you’re told,” Seungkwan observes, and then clears his throat. Soobin stares at the floor. He’s blushing. He hopes Seungkwan doesn’t look up yet.

He shows Seungkwan some choice clips of the show. They hold the phone between them, fingers brushing. At some point Soobin realises that they could probably screencast to the television, but he doesn’t say anything. Perhaps it’s broken. Perhaps Jeonghan doesn’t like other people using the apartment’s Wi-Fi.

Jeonghan was going to do an hour’s work in his room. Will he come out soon? Soobin half hopes so, because that would interrupt this tension, and yet also half-prays some non-serious but time-consuming crisis will keep Jeonghan tethered late, and Soobin and Seungkwan undisturbed here, alone.

“Oh, I really liked that one,” Seungkwan comments, “are there any more like that, more acapella?”

“Um,” Soobin tries to cast his mind back, and puts some prompts in the search bar. His history flashes up on screen for some reason – surely it doesn’t usually? – and it’s nothing he should feel ashamed of, but he didn’t want to talk about that stuff. The hiatus stuff, the digestive issues his therapist says will improve only when he’s less stressed. The stuff in his head. He feels a trickle of sweat run down his back. Seungkwan will probably make a joke, now.

“When I had my wellbeing break,” Seungkwan says softly, after a moment, “everyone kept asking me how I was, and that was often the worst I felt in a day. I didn’t invite you over here to make you feel worse.”

“But you invited me to cheer me up?” Soobin guesses. It’s a nasty, heavy feeling, like eating too much undercooked pancake too fast.

“I invited you because I missed you, Soobin-ah, and one of my most dependable characteristics is a complete absence of self-denial,” Seungkwan gives a little huffed laugh. “But obviously I don’t object if you feeling good is a side-effect.” Seungkwan licks his lips. He’s still shiny and puffy from sleep, but he pushes his hair back from his forehead in an attempt to settle it. He shrugs a little, offering up his open palms like he’s apologising: “I like being with you a lot.”

Soobin turns that over. Tries to breathe. Is this his cue to do something? Should he? Must he? He had always thought Seungkwan would, when it came to it, but perhaps that right now was Seungkwan trying to… but perhaps it wasn’t? What Seungkwan said wasn’t a crazy thing to say to a friend, even a friend you’ve only met in private at your house four times.

“I like being with hyung, too,” Soobin hears himself say. His mouth is dry. “I would… like to do it more. I think…” he runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth, feels the shapes of them. His perfect, straight, flawless teeth. He’s always been so perfect, all his life, fitting bits of himself to configurations he isn’t naturally. “I think you make me happier than most things.”

The words out of his brain sound awful - crazy, bizarre, something to pull away from.

There’s a soft pressure against his knee. Seungkwan’s hand, resting gently, warm through the blanket. If anything, he’s drawn closer. Soobin’s heart is thudding in his chest. A desert plant might feel like this when there’s a rumble in a cloud above, a darkening, burgeoning sky.

He looks up at Seungkwan’s face, at Seungkwan’s lips. Seungkwan is staring back at him, his gaze darting over Soobin’s features too.

“You deserve more time than I ever seem to have,” Seungkwan says softly. And he runs his hand gently over Soobin’s hair. Soobin can’t help but lean into it. His whole body is aching now. “Especially this evening.”

Soobin closes his eyes. He might make a little noise. The aching is transformed, like standing under a warm shower, cascades of sensation over his skin as Seungkwan touches him, still just a gentle hand to his hair, to the side of his face. Under Seungkwan’s fingers, Soobin feels the right shape completely.

“Hyung…” he murmurs, breathless.

“I ought to be a better person,” Seungkwan says, almost to himself. “But that’s something I’ve never, ever managed to be and I mean, holy shit, look at you.”

Soobin draws back a little, gazing at him, feeling the air move in and out of his mouth. “What?”

Seungkwan makes a noise himself, and rises, and Soobin finds himself half on his back on the sofa, Seungkwan over him. From one or other of their movements a side table falls over with a loud crash, but Soobin barely notices.

“I want you to,” Soobin tells Seungkwan, urgent, forgetting to second guess himself: “I want it, I want you to do that to me, don’t worry.”

Simultaneously, Seungkwan growls, and at the same time the familiar strains of what Soobin suddenly realises is ‘Super Tuna’, start blasting from the direction of Jeonghan’s bedroom. Seungkwan looks up, narrows his eyes in annoyance and then laughs resignedly. “He thinks he’s so funny,” Seungkwan mutters.

Then he looks down at Soobin again. Soobin, who has ricocheted from aroused to startled to afraid to dismayed and back again in what feels like ten seconds, looks up. He’s been taught a thousand things about how to look alluring, he’s had lip fillers and tooth veneers and cartilage shaves and laser hair removal and in this moment he can’t think of the art of any of it. Jeonghan and Seungkwan’s fancy designer cushions are digging into his back, he has Seungkwan’s knee solid and unbelievable between his legs and Seungkwan’s mouth hovering over his. And in the background, BTS Jin voicing a tuna who sings hyung, hyung, please take me.

“My room is a suitcase meltdown,” Seungkwan says seriously.

“I don’t f-fucking care,” Soobin tells him, very nearly getting the words out without a stutter, and that earns him another smile, and finally, finally, Seungkwan’s lips against his own, and they almost don’t manage to move.

-

“How many times can he stand to loop that song?” Soobin wonders aloud, speaking the words at the top of his head because it was that or oh wow your dick is so big.

Above him, over him on the mattress that they have mostly cleared of clothing, Seungkwan chuckles. “Hyung is impervious like a cockroach,” he explains. “Do you mind?”

“No!’ Soobin reassures him, and moves to push down the waistband of his own underwear.

“Have you done this before?”

“Done what?”

Seungkwan kisses him again. “We don’t have to do anything in particular. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want.”

“I want this so much,” Soobin puts his hand on Seungkwan’s waist, daring. He moves it round, feeling the bone of Seungkwan’s pelvis, and Seungkwan gasps, and Soobin is on fire with life, immersed in a kind of ease, of instinct, he’d forgotten he could feel. “I’m trying to figure out what I want, I’ve been trying, and I don’t know half of it yet, I don’t know… I was fifteen, and then ten years passed and I don’t know… I don’t know what it is I want, or the company wants, the band wants, my family wants… Except this. I want this. Me. I want you.”

“Jesus,” Seungkwan swears. He drops for a moment, pressing his lips to Soobin’s neck. “I’m not impervious,” he murmurs, “heaven help me.”

“You’d be my first, though, if that’s what you mean,” Soobin confesses, and the triumph of the way it makes Seungkwan buck against him, shuddering with need.