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It’s Friday night, and there’s a soft, barely audible knock on Wonwoo’s door.
He's been expecting it expects it, so he doesn't startle. It’s so quiet, he’d excuse it for a slight draft rattling the old wood, finding its way through the divots clumsily. There's no wind, though. Hasn’t been any for a while.
He gets up, his jaw tightening as he walks to the door and opens it wordlessly. Wonwoo doesn’t have to wonder who could knock so shyly, and truly, even though he’s ready for it, the omega takes his breath away every time their eyes meet.
Chan. Beautiful, desperate Chan. He shifts in place, gazing up at Wonwoo through his dark lashes, cheeks slightly flushed. Wonwoo has to close his eyes to gather his bearings, feeling the muscles in his arm tense as his grip on the door threatens to splinter the wood.
Being a beta made Wonwoo more analytical than most, having to fall back on the senses he does utilize— hearing and vision mostly— to assess the omegas and alphas that surround him.
Of course, his sense of smell is useless unless it’s not used for smelling Mingyu’s and Seokmin’s newest kitchen experiment. The omegas always had a knack for cooking, but the many spices would sometimes overwhelm their senses, so they would usually fall back on Wonwoo for official assessment.
One second he’d be working at his desk, and the other he’d have two men with medicinal masks bring him a concoction Wonwoo wouldn’t know what to make of.
So, he can’t smell Chan, but he can see him, hear him. When Wonwoo reopens his eyes, he can see the way he squirms under his knowing gaze, can see the way Chan tries to fight the ridiculous impulse to uselessly bare his neck to a beta.
Wonwoo likes it though, how Chan’s body responds to his presence. Sometimes— or at least, in Wonwoo's case— all you need is obsession so strong, it corrupts you to the point of developing phantom alpha behavioral patterns, to leave an impression on an omega. He doubts that it’s instinct that makes Chan squirm now, though.
Beneath the sickly sweet smiles, Chan has always been a little afraid of Wonwoo.
He can hear the way Chan’s breathing stutters, the second he squares his shoulders. Wonwoo feels like he focuses hard enough, he could probably hear the way Chan’s heartbeat speeds up, the steady pump of adrenaline through his veins.
A strangely predatory line of thought, but even though Wonwoo has confessed to being a beta, he never claimed he isn't an animal. He's worse, when it comes to Chan.
“Hi,” Chan says, finally, doe eyes blinking up at Wonwoo, uncharacteristically uncertain. Chan is all bold confidence, sharp lines and sticky smiles. Only when he’s standing in front of the door to Wonwoo’s room like this, do the lines soften. Only then, Chan allows his malleability to show.
Wonwoo doesn’t respond. Is it mean? Maybe. He gives Chan a quick once over, before moving away from the door. He leaves it open, and hopes it’s confirmation enough. He lazily moves towards his bed and sits down, feeling the mattress give under his weight.
“Going out?” Wonwoo asks, feigning obliviousness, like he doesn’t already know, like what they do in his room as Chan waits for Mingyu to get ready hasn’t been happening for far too long.
“Yeah. I’m—” Chan’s tries, but his breath hitches as Wonwoo readjusts himself so his broad back is against the headboard and makes himself comfortable to save themselves some time. Chan gulps, and Wonwoo can almost convince himself that he can smell him. The trepidation, the excitement. Sour strawberry— not ripe yet— crunching between his teeth unpleasantly.
It’s cruel, how much he enjoys having the upper hand. It’s probably because, usually, Wonwoo has anything but. If anything, he’s at Chan’s mercy when the sun is out. Only there to cater to his whims and make a fool out of himself in front of their friends.
Plays along with his teasing, bends even when he’s on the verge of breaking, because he knows that at the end of the day, when the moon is high up in the sky and its glow paints Chan’s features a melancholic white, this is where the truth comes out to light.
Chan’s eyes flicker up from Wonwoo’s lap to his face, his uncertainty palpable. “I’m waiting for Mingyu. He’s taking a really long time.” Wonwoo hums in reply, observing the way the pretty glitter on his eyelids reflects the scarce moonlight.
“Yeah. He always does.”
Chan chuckles, but it’s tight as it exits his throat. Forced, even as he reins it in, in an attempt to make the coil in his chest appear looser than it is. “Yeah. I guess— I guess you’re right.” he says lamely.
Chan makes an impressive, although futile effort to stretch this moment of forced friendliness and familiarity, confidence only slightly faltering under Wonwoo’s knowing gaze. It’s almost sadistic, how much Wonwoo likes rendering Chan to this— this amalgamation of quivering nerves.
Wonwoo swears he can smell it again, as he watches Chan shift on his feet and look around the room like he doesn’t know the walls better than most. Unripe, sour strawberry, the crunch of it between his teeth now gruesome and loud.
He talks, but his voice is far away, like he’s only speaking to fill the silence. “I think it’s because Seokmin is coming to the club too, so he has to look his best, or something. I don’t—”
“Chan.” It’s stern, when Wonwoo calls out for him, deciding to stop his rambling.
Chan whips his head around to look at Wonwoo, like he didn’t expect him to speak, and asks, a smidge breathless. “Yes?”
“Come here.” It sounds final, because it is.
Wonwoo learned that Chan needs strictness, from time to time. It kept him grounded the first time he came to Wonwoo’s room, tipsy and malleable, blabbering about the connection between scent gland stimulation and making out. The sternness kept him quiet, nestled into his side, as Wonwoo searched up what in the hell he was talking about and found a handful of research that, miraculously, did confirm Chan’s ramblings.
Apparently, kissing makes an omega’s scent more appealing, sweetly desirable to those who can smell it. Wonwoo wouldn’t know if it does anything or not, since he can’t smell Chan nor any other omega or alpha for that matter, but he trusts science.
The research he looked into didn’t mention any of the testing, nor did it include the question of whether a beta could stimulate the same kind of reaction an alpha or even omega could, which did make him skeptical but, well.
Chan insisted on it. Insisted on him. Said it makes sense, that only Wonwoo could do it. Almost teared up at the thought of Wonwoo denying him this. So, for the first time in his life, Wonwoo decided to set aside his belief in science. He’d be a fool not to.
At first, they’d kiss and Chan would leave when he’d become satisfied with his scent. Then, they’d do more, and after a while, Chan would sometimes, miraculously even choose to stay the night. Wonwoo never knew what it depended on, never knew what he did or how he acted to make him wish to forego his partying and stay nestled into Wonwoo's side. The victim of Chan’s whims even within the four walls that make his room.
Chan practically purrs the second the words leave Wonwoo’s mouth, biting his lip and moving towards the bed at an impressive speed. He whines a little, as he settles into Wonwoo’s lap, and immediately wraps his hands around Wonwoo’s neck, like he can’t help it, like that’s where they’ve belonged all this time.
Wonwoo can’t help but smile, as Chan starts whining through a pout. “Hyung. You’re the worst,” Chan starts, shifting in his lap, muttering. “You always make this so difficult. Letting me talk to myself like some crazy person… Don’t you feel bad?”
Wonwoo’s eyebrow shoots up, the self-indulgent trek his hands were making across Chan’s body halted. “For you?”
“Yeah!” Chan exclaims, tipping his chin up, like he can’t believe Wonwoo is even contesting this. “Who else?”
Wonwoo hums, and tips his head back, pensive. “Mingyu, maybe.” he says, more smug than he should be, his sharp eyes locking with Chan’s. “Since I know you’ll ditch him to come back here not even an hour after you two get to the party. If you even leave.”
Chan’s blush is immediate. A sharp smack is delivered across the expanse of Wonwoo’s chest, but the way Chan’s cheeks flush a lovely red distracts him from the pain.
“You— You’re horrible. I would never—” Chan tries, but his efforts are futile. He’s done it before, leaving Mingyu at a club because Wonwoo’s phantom touch still burned his skin, so there’s nothing he could truly say to save himself. “I would— I wouldn’t—!”
Wonwoo’s shows of brazenness, although scarce, are always calculated. He might be an idiot when it comes to Chan, but even he has his victorious moments.
“Yeah, yeah.” Wonwoo isn’t really listening anymore, distracted by how well his hands fit on the slope of Chan’s waist, how the swell of his ass fills out his palms perfectly. “Hyung is the worst. Think you have time to fuck tonight?”
“What? I don’t—!” Chan says incredulously on an almost crazed laugh, squirming on Wonwoo’s lap, before his shoulders slump under Wonwoo’s heady gaze. He slaps a hand over his face, and shakes his head after failing to formulate a response.
“Seriously— Why do you act like that?” he asks, exasperated, voice muffled by his palm. His smile is twitchy under his hand, facial muscles spasming from nerves. “You— I never know what to do! You are so weird!”
Wonwoo lets a chuckle slip from his mouth, and reaches out to take Chan’s hand off his face. “Last time I checked, you’re the one coming in my room to get fucked.” he says, bringing Chan’s hand closer to his mouth and pressing a kiss at the wrist.
Wonwoo can feel the pulse of his heartbeat beneath his lips, not able to resist the pull of it as he laves his tongue over the protruding tendons. This is where one of Chan’s scent glands is, so Wonwoo makes a show out of it, closing his eyes and imagining his room engulfed by the scent of a field of strawberries that spans as far as eyes can see.
“By a beta, no less.” he finishes with a self satisfied grin, as Chan squirms on his lap, his hand shaking in Wonwoo’s tight hold.
Chan frowns, his eyebrows drawing together, but it’s got no bite to it. If anything, he looks slightly disgruntled. “I don’t care that you’re a beta.” he mutters, silent, an admission he repeats over and over again when they’re alone.
Wonwoo can’t help but smile, scrunching his nose, incredibly fond and undoubtedly, a little bit sad. “Hyung knows, Jungchan.”
“I don’t— I don’t just come here because—” he says, pausing as he searches for the right words. It’s peculiar, how calculating Chan usually is, how much effort he puts into honing his brain to mouth filter, yet how he abandons it all together once he’s alone with Wonwoo.
Wonwoo ruminates on it, as he waits for Chan to get his words out. He’s hasty, his sentences stringed together in a frenzy, like he just wants to speak, like he doesn’t care about the words leaving his mouth as much as the emotion behind it. It’s interesting to see the shift up close. Wonwoo doesn’t know what he does to deserve it.
“— Because it’s safe.” Chan finishes, the words leaving his mouth like an admission. Wonwoo’s hand wraps around the entirety of Chan’s wrist possessively as he hums, eyes transfixed on how his fingers perfectly encircle it, the tips of his index finger and thumb touching obscenely.
He doesn’t like that word. Safe. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“Safe?” Wonwoo parrots bitterly, quiet. Chan’s eyes glimmer in the night of his room, gaze suddenly veiled by an emotion Wonwoo can’t quite grasp. Regret, or surprise, maybe. He brings Chan’s palm to his mouth once more, kissing and suckling on the slightly swollen scent gland, drawing a gasp out of the omega.
He places a kiss over the freshly pink bruise, and mumbles into the marred skin. “What’s safe about this, Jungchan?” He’s curious.
He’s not sure how anything about this is safe, outside of the fact that Wonwoo can’t get Chan pregnant. If he truly thinks the best descriptor for their situation is safe, then they’re on very different wavelengths and someone— more specifically, Wonwoo— is going to get seriously hurt.
“Is it safe how I wait every night for you to turn up,” Wonwoo starts, unable to stop himself from inquiring, his eyes boring into Chan’s, “because I know that during the day you’ll pretend like I don’t confess to you every time my lips touch your skin?”
Chan only watches Wonwoo, his heady gaze following the way he releases his hand only to trail under the fabric of Chan’s loose shirt, shivering once cold fingers touch the skin of his stomach lightly. “I—” he tries, shaking his head, but Wonwoo is quick to cut him off.
“Do you dare call it safe,” he starts again, keeping his voice even, trailing feather light touches along his abdomen, coaxing a gasp out of Chan, “The way I feel when you brush past me in the mornings, the marks I left on you, only hours before, peeking out from the collar of your shirt?”
“Hyung, I—”
“I might not be an alpha, Jungchan,” Wonwoo says, his palm tracing the curve of Chan’s bare waist, “I might not be driven by instinct or biology, but you’re stupid if you think what I feel for you— what I want to do to you— is anything near safe.” He punctuates the end of his sentence by gripping onto Chan’s waist tightly— stern— relishing in the way he twitches in his lap.
Wonwoo can’t help but scrunch his eyes closed, plagued by the ghost of a bond that can’t be formed. Visions of the gland on Chan’s neck punctured by his blunt teeth, gnawing on the flesh until it gives. It’d be a futile effort, of course. All their pseudo mating would bring, is pain to Chan. But he can’t help but daydream about blood in his mouth, the feeling of skin between his teeth.
What Wonwoo feels is worse than instinct, worse than chemistry, a feeling so intense it breaks him down and puts him back together every day he spends without Chan and every night he gets to have his fill of him. It’s love. Useless, pathetic love.
Strawberries, everywhere. He can practically taste them on his tongue now as he lets his thoughts run rampant, juices spilling over, red droplets like watered down watercolor running down his jaw. A sticky mess on his skin, sweet, sweet, sweet. Toothachingly so.
He’s getting lost in the phantom taste, the phantom scent, his head swirling from something that’s not even there. He’s shamelessly asked people to describe Chan’s scent before, but it never came close to what Wonwoo knew it to be in his head. Strawberry parfait, strawberry cake, everything sweet and good in the world, it was all synonymous to Chan.
“It’s safe because it’s you.”
He unscrews his eyes, his attention on Chan again, as if it’s never left him. All he can think about when he looks at Chan is how he is everything good, and everything cruel. The curl of his lips, the flush on his cheeks, so pleasant on the eyes yet so harmful for his weary heart. Always so close, not even a hair’s breadth away, yet so far all the same.
He smiles fondly, as if he sees through Wonwoo, peeling back skin and flesh and even bone, until he sees his very essence, holding his beating heart in one palm.
He places one steady hand on Wonwoo’s cheek, and brushes his thumb along his cheekbone, the curve of his lips soft. Wonwoo can feel his eye twitch from the restraint he’s exhibiting, not moving a muscle even though every cell in his body is screaming at him to break free from this spell and take Chan in every way he knows how to.
However, he knows it’s tender Chan wants now, so tender is what he will get.
It’s silent as Chan trails his fingers soothingly across Wonwoo’s face, successfully steadying his breathing. He brushes over Wonwoo’s brow first, taking off his glasses carefully and setting them down on the small bedside table. He hums, satisfied, as he turns back to Wonwoo, obviously pleased that he can continue his trek along his face without any obstructions.
He leans in to place a quick peck on Wonwoo’s nose next, a little shy, before growing more confident as he goes on to kiss his forehead next, and then his cheek, until his entire face was being marked with kisses. It’s doing wonders to Wonwoo’s nerves, being doted on like this.
It’s obviously Chan’s intention to calm him down. Maybe he smells it too, Wonwoo’s phantom scent spiking, slightly too bitter cinnamon or foul anise fusing into something stressful, urgent in its nature. They can’t scent each other, but this feels good. Chan’s touch is like a balm on Wonwoo’s soul, certain in its movement and gentle in its nature.
“It’s safe,” he starts again, voice tender in a way that has Wonwoo’s throat tightening, “Because it’s your lips, your body,” he says, pausing before he adds— “Your heart. Everything else doesn’t matter to me, so don’t put words in my mouth.”
Wonwoo tries to keep his tone even as he replies, feeling strangely vulnerable. “But, it’s— I’m nothing, Chan. I’m just—”
“Hyung.” Chan cuts him off, tone sharp. “I said everything else doesn’t matter. You could be nothing, anything, everything. I don’t give a fuck what you are.” Wonwoo can’t help but whine, high in his throat, more affected by his words than he should be.
Chan scoops Wonwoo’s face in his hands one more time, like he’s trying to lighten up the situation. “It’s you, Wonwoo. Can’t you see?” his eyes search for something in Wonwoo’s. “You’re what I want. Are you really this stupid?”
Wonwoo’s face is smushed between Chan’s palms at this point, so he slurs his words a little. “I’m a beta.”
Chan deadpans. “I don’t care.”
“I can’t get you pregnant. Or knot you.”
“You can try.” Chan snipes back, like it’s obvious, retracting his hands from Wonwoo’s face. “Take my shirt off.”
Wonwoo’s lips are still pursed from lingering dissatisfaction, but he can’t deny that he feels better. So, he obliges and takes Chan’s shirt off, setting it down neatly beside them, careful not to crumple the fabric, since Chan is still probably planning on going out. He doesn’t notice the fond smile on Chan’s face, the stifled chuckle caused by his ridiculous bout of concentration.
Once he deems the shirt safe, he looks back at Chan, who feigns composure successfully, distracting Wonwoo from inquiring by taking his hand and placing it near his throat. The look he shoots his way is reprimanding already, like he knows what Wonwoo is thinking about, the pulsing gland on his neck, the scent he’s sure is there but he can’t smell.
“Come on,” Chan urges, baring his neck even further. “Check what you do to me.” Wonwoo closes his eyes with a sigh, more affected by the order than he should be, and tries to steady himself.
Once he reopens them after a brief silence that Chan patiently waits out, Wonwoo tries to feel what it is he knows best. His hand on Chan’s throat is more than instinct, more than biology, more than the secondary gender chemistry they lack. It’s a show of trust, and Wonwoo was never one to betray it, especially not when it’s Chan’s.
So, he forgets about the scent and taste of strawberries, ripe and unripe, and focuses on Chan. Unrestrained and unburdened by the phantoms of an unobtainable secondary gender, he presses a finger to the pulsepoint on Chan’s neck, feels it quicken beneath the touch. His eyes flicker down and observe the blood rushing under the skin of his chest, slowly but surely flushing back to a deep scarlet.
Chan readjusts himself in his lap, a steady weight Wonwoo relishes. He can feel his own heartbeat steady as he traces his hands along Chan’s ribs, counting each bone as he goes, before brushing a teasing finger against his nipple, cracking a small smile when Chan gasps at the sensation.
“Mean.” Chan whines out, but his eyes tell a different story.
“Mm.” Wonwoo hums out, unconvinced. “Want me to stop?” He knows the answer, but he asks anyway.
“I’ll tear your throat out if you do.”
Wonwoo can’t help but chuckle, as he uses his other hand to pinch Chan’s side in faux reprimand. “Cute.”
Chan ow’s and grumbles, but says nothing else, so Wonwoo takes this opportunity to continue his trek. The desire and frustration that threatened to burn him alive now simmers steadily in his gut, allowing him to truly appreciate Chan’s body the way he wants to. Mapping out the divots, the freckles that dot his skin, giddy as he coaxes goosebumps to appear on his flesh with every light touch.
It’s intoxicating, and soon enough, he uses his body weight to flip them over lightly, Chan’s back hitting the cool, linen sheets covering Wonwoo’s bed. He doesn’t startle, like he expected it, but still gasps once Wonwoo’s lips are on his own.
Despite the passion thrumming through his veins, almost momentarily blinding him, Wonwoo kisses Chan slowly. With intention, like he has something to prove to him, like there’s something he can only convey with the gentle press of his lips.
Chan melts into it, raking his hands up Wonwoo’s sides until they reach his hair, fingers threading between the strands and scratching his scalp. They kiss like that until Wonwoo determines he’s conveyed enough, slowly amping up the intensity and pressing down some of his weight onto Chan, coaxing a moan to slip from his lips.
Chan always liked how broad Wonwoo was, how the weight of him felt whenever he was on top, laughing breathlessly whenever Wonwoo used it to his advantage. It’s addicting, how warm and supple Chan’s skin is, how he can feel the heat of it even through the fabric of his shirt.
He bends down and peppers kisses across his neck, sucking wet hickeys into the milky skin, mapping out the collar of his shirt in his head so he knows where to place the marks so the freshly painted blooms of red and pink show even when he puts it back on. Chan twitches beneath him, moaning as goosebumps mar his skin, always most sensitive around his neck and chest area.
Wonwoo doesn’t spend much time there, only enough to make sure that the marks stay, lowering his body so that he can pay attention to his chest, pressing fevered kisses into the skin like he can't get enough of the taste.
“My Jungchan,” he sighs reverently, into the skin, drunk on their proximity. “So cute and sweet. Want to have you like this forever.” Chan gasps when Wonwoo’s kisses trail even lower, the sensation of sharp canines grazing his tummy forcing his back to arch further into the hands gripping his waist.
“You’d let me, right?” he asks sweetly, tone smooth like honey, albeit corrupted by the possessive note it carries. “Let hyung do whatever he wants? Let me pick you apart and put you back together?” he continues, pressing chaste, distracting kisses into his skin between every question.
“Y— Yeah. Whatever hyung wants.” Chan chokes on a gasp, as Wonwoo starts taking off his pants, only to leave his panties on.
“Only me?” Wonwoo asks, lowering his head until his breath hits the damp panties. Chan doesn’t answer, twitching from anticipation beneath Wonwoo’s sturdy palms keeping him in place.
“Only— Ow—!” Chan tries to answer in the same manner, but Wonwoo couldn’t help but bite at the pudge of his inner thigh, entranced by the look of it, distracting the omega from replying. He’s obviously frustrated, bordering on petulant, as he kicks his feet with as much force as he can muster with Wonwoo’s weight on top of him.
“What is wrong with you?” Chan tries to sound annoyed, but the wet patch on his panties doesn’t lie. He slurs his words when he speaks next, the words sticky and honeyed as they leave his mouth, obviously affected. “Are you a puppy, hyung? Why do you always bite me so much?”
Wonwoo blinks. “Woof?”
“Tell me the truth!” Chan smacks his head lightly, but looks like he’s genuinely curious, so Wonwoo relents.
“I like,” Wonwoo starts with a smile too sweet, his eyes glazing over. “The way your skin feels between my teeth. Sometimes I—” he tries, choking on the words that attempt to leave his mouth, the intensity of the desire that veils them suffocating.
“Sometimes I want to draw blood,” he says, making eye contact as he presses a gentle kiss to the slowly forming bite mark, “Feel it gush down my throat. Force my body to respond to the blood of an omega—” he shakes his head once the words leave his mouth, like he wants to retract his statement, nuzzling into Chan’s thigh before rephrasing, “No. Not any omega— You."
Chan’s answering moan is high, his gaze faraway like he’s imagining Wonwoo with his blood in his mouth, his hips twitching under Wonwoo’s hold. He’s not scared, which isn’t a surprise. It takes a lot to overwhelm Chan, and it’s usually more what Wonwoo does than what he says that takes him there.
Wonwoo has found that the crazier sentences his brain strings together, the deeper Chan falls.
He can’t help but chuckle at his own particularly deranged train of thought. “Think you could drive hyung crazy enough to make him an alpha, Channie?” he asks, deceptively sweet and smiling all the while, with his head leaning on Chan’s pelvis, “I think you could do it. Should we try?”
Chan is about to respond, looking confident, before a knock on the door interrupts them, what sounds like a frazzled Mingyu on the other side. “Chan! Oh, come the fuck on—” he says, before another round of knocks is heard, “It’s time to go!”
“He’s busy.” Wonwoo yells out, his smile dropping instantly at the intrusion, his eyes fixed on Chan’s like he’s ascertaining whether he’ll dare to get up and leave.
“What?” Mingyu asks, confused. “Seungcheol is literally here to pick us up, we have to go!”
Wonwoo can see the gears in Chan’s head turning as he tries to come up with a response, and decides to be of no help as he kisses along the seam of his panties softly, mouthing at the soiled fabric.
“Just— ah— Go, hyung!” he yells out, frantically grabbing onto Wonwoo’s head as his tongue dips into his core through the soft cotton, “I’ll come— I’ll come later!”
Wonwoo hums, tightening his hold on Chan’s hips petulantly, pressing another kiss on his mound, “No you won’t.”
Chan groans, forcing Wonwoo’s face back from his panties by pulling his hair. Wonwoo groans, and can tell he paints quite the picture like this, as Chan’s eyes twinkle at the sight of him in pain.
He refocuses with a small shake of his head, as he whispers, letting up his hold, “Can you just shut up? I’m trying to get him to leave.”
“God, I really don’t want to know what you two are doing in there,” Mingyu starts, more to himself than to them, before Wonwoo can answer that no, he can’t shut up because he’s trying to fuck and his pesky roommate won’t let him, “But, Chan, if it’s um— Important, you, uh, don’t have to come.”
Important? Wonwoo’s eyes snap to Chan, inquisitive, suddenly polite and lacking all the petulance he exhibited just seconds before. Chan squints his eyes at the polite shift, before realizing Wonwoo is waiting for his response.
He flushes a deep scarlet red as he tries to answer. “It’s—” he starts quietly, pursing his lips before realizing he has to speak louder for Mingyu to hear him and closing his eyes. “Yeah, hyung. It’s important.”
It’s clumsy delivery at best, but Wonwoo can’t help but beam at him, perfectly happy to be called important instead of safe. Safe leaves a bitter taste in his throat still, but the giddiness he feels in his chest overwriters it. This is possibly the first instance of Chan admitting to what they have in front of somebody, as far as Wonwoo knows.
He’s happy. Sue him.
“Okay, Channie. Be safe and wear prote— Oh—! Um.” Mingyu responds, voice still muffled by the wood, obviously frazzled as he realizes his mistake. A dejected sounding thump on the door signifies what Wonwoo guesses is Mingyu knocking his head against it in self-admonition.
“I guess you don’t have to. Because Wonwoo isn’t— He’s a b— Yeah. Nevermind.”
Wonwoo, who was intently listening in on Mingyu’s rambling, rattled by Chan’s abdominal muscles tensing as he tries to stifle his laughter, finally speaks. “Leave, Mingyu.”
“Yeah. Yeah I’m leaving.”
Wonwoo sighs as he hears Mingyu’s footsteps fading away, lowering his head onto Chan’s hip and groaning. “He’s the worst.”
Chan chuckles, loud and unabashed this time, and threads his fingers through Wonwoo’s hair once more, this time gently tracing circles on his scalp. “He tries his best, though.”
“Mm.” Wonwoo answers, his eyes falling shut. A few seconds of silence pass as Wonwoo relishes the sweet touch, the soothing gesture Chan has bestowed upon him. Lets the tenderness become cloying, like honey stuck at the back of his throat, until he decides to speak again.
“Don’t make me fall asleep.” he mumbles, words a quiet murmur. “Hyung wants to fuck you.”
Chan hums in response, his caresses gentle. “You can fuck me tomorrow morning.”
Something in Wonwoo’s chest bursts at that. Months of playing pretend whenever the sun is out unfold in front of his eyes like a book. “Like, during the day?” he asks, ineloquently, raising his head to watch Chan. He looks like a starved man’s vision of beauty like this, spread out across Wonwoo’s sheets, lazy and sated.
His skin is so warm under Wonwoo’s weight, like he just woke up from a long slumber, tucked beneath a myriad of blankets. Smooth, soft skin, covered in Wonwoo’s marks, in Wonwoo’s touch. He’s surreal, with his eyes glimmering even now that the moonlight disappeared beyond his windowsill.
Chan chuckles again, somehow sounding sleepier, but his smile looks well rested. “Last time I checked, the sun shines in the mornings, so yes.”
“Weird.” Wonwoo exclaims, quieter than he was before, mesmerized by the view of Chan’s grin. “It’s night, but I’ve somehow found myself looking straight at the sun.”
Somehow, the curl of Chan’s lips grows even wider, a slightly visible stutter in his chest catching Wonwoo’s eye. He raises his hands to his face, a futile effort to hide his embarrassment, giggling into his palms. Sunshine spilling onto Wonwoo's sheets. He expects something snippy, something equally cute and bitter, so intrinsically Chan, but what what Wonwoo actually gets in return is—
“Ah, Wonwoo. I think I really might fall in love with you.” Chan says, his giggles reducing into nothing, his hands still covering his face shyly. It’s so earnest, so true when he says it, that Wonwoo can’t help but climb up his body clumsily and remove Chan’s palms off his face gently.
He’s smiling beneath it still, ears a lovely red, eyes glassy. “That was so stupid, hyung.” he’s breathless as he speaks, locking eyes with a speechless Wonwoo.
“Do you— Do you mean it?” is all he can ask, as he searches Chan’s eyes for anything that might signify deceit, but ends up with nothing but affection. Chan’s lips twitch the way they do when he’s feeling mischievous. He gives Wonwoo a once over, and nods.
“Yes. It really was stupid.”
“That’s—”
“I do.” he responds, answering Wonwoo’s question seriously, smoothing out his rumpled hair affectionately, and touching the tip of his nose lightly, teasing. “I might be halfway there as we speak.”
Wonwoo can only stare at him dumbly. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.”
Chan pulls the forgotten comforter over them after wriggling out of a stupefied Wonwoo’s hold, before settling into his side cosily. He lays his head on Wonwoo’s chest and sighs, content. It takes Wonwoo a bit to get his wits together, but ultimately he wraps his arms around Chan and relishes the warmth of his skin once more.
“Let’s sleep, hyung,” he says, through a murmur. “The sun needs its rest too, yeah?” Chan teases, before placing a kiss right above the collar of Wonwoo’s shirt, where he’s most sensitive. Wonwoo fights off a shudder and nods, before realizing he has to speak.
“Y— Yeah. Good night.”
Wonwoo rests with his thoughts as the room falls into a pleasant silence, before he decides to speak again, his words a quiet, frail whisper. “I think I passed the halfway mark a long time ago, Jungchan.” he says, brave only when the lights are out and the only one who can hear his heart’s song is himself.
Wonwoo doesn’t notice the smile pressed into the fabric of his shirt, nor the fact that Chan’s breathing hasn’t slowed yet, as he falls into a comfortable slumber, his heart lighter than it was before the confession.
“Silly.” Chan mumbles, before drifting off too.