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When they ask him about his first love, Seungcheol always smiles and says, there’s only space in my heart for Carats.
It’s the answer he favors for the first five years of his career, when their position in the world of K-Pop is a shaky, doubtful thing. When producers still mess up his name ACoups? Ex Coups? Seungmin?
When Seventeen is barely a blip on their radar, and they still have to share cramped rooms backstage at music programs and variety show producers avoid Seungkwan’s eager eyes.
By the time all of that has changed, Seungcheol’s so used to the cliched answer, he forgets he can be honest.
It’s only later, when he and Mingyu get invited to host Exchange 4, a show specifically about love and its messy permutations that Seungcheol actually thinks about it.
When the hosts ask him about his first love, the words rush out, maybe a little more wistful than is safe for TV, “I thought I’d be in love with them forever. They were my escape.”
“Good interview,” Eunhye says approvingly, later, once the cameras are off and the producers are shaking each other's hands, congratulating themselves on an episode well down.
“You’d make a good host one day Seungcheol-sshi.”
She looks at him, smiling from under her eyelashes, “if you ever wanted to.”
Seungcheol offers a polite bow in return.
It’s easy, he thinks, talking about love, when he’s lived with it for so long. When the taste of it is so familiar, it’s like a second skin.
Mingyu’s the one tasked to reign him in, so he doesn’t open his mouth, and accidentally allow the fondness of ten years to tumble out, the love he holds so close to his heart, a glowing living thing in his chest.
“Who’s that?”
Eunhye asks.
Her eyes slide over to Seungcheol’s phone which has lit up with a message from their manager.
Hurriedly, Seungcheol clicks the home button and the screen goes black.
“Cute,” Eunhye says, giggling. “I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
“I don’t,” Seungcheol says.
She gives him an appraising look, her mouth curving like a secret.
“Right. Of course you don’t.”
On the tenth year of Seventeen’s anniversary, when the world tour is done, Seungcheol takes a trip down to Daegu.
The roads are so familiar, and even though the exhaustion of the twenty two hour plane ride eats at him, his hands are steady on the wheel.
He watches the miles tick down; his NAVER maps reading 2 hours, 38 minutes, and then he pulls up into the familiar driveway, the gravel crunching under his tires.
He knocks, his heart in his chest. A paper bag hidden behind his back.
It takes a long time for the door to swing open. Jeonghan must already be asleep.
So Seungcheol waits, pushing his sweaty palms against his jeans.
The light comes on, the familiar pattering of bare feet against the wooden floor and then the door swings open..
He looks exactly the same as when he was seventeen, sleepy eyed and slack jawed. Seungcheol reaches for him and pulls him to his chest. Jeonghan lets out a surprised sound but goes easily. He smells like sleep, and the warmth of home.
“Hi.”
Warm arms wrap around his back.
Seungcheol leans into the touch, closing his eyes and feeling the exhaustion of the tour melt out of him. “Hey.”
Jeonghan pulls back to look at him, cupping Seungcheol’s face in his hands. “I thought you’d stay in Seoul for the night, I wasn’t expecting you so early.”
“I didn’t want to wait,” Seungcheol mumbles, burying his head back into Jeonghan’s shoulder.
He’s been Seventeen’s leader, the oldest for years, and yet being in Jeonghan’s presence makes him feel like a sulky child again, wanting to be praised, wanting to be comforted.
Jeonghan just huffs out an exasperated laugh against his cheek.
“C’mon you sleepy baby. Let’s get inside.”
On the mantle there are crayon drawings, and strewn across the dining table are spreadsheets and timetables for the next year.
Seungcheol runs a hand down the back of Jeonghan’s hair, fingers squeezing lightly around his neck. In another life, he thinks Jeonghan would have been up there with him, shining on stage.
But it’s just as well because he shines so brightly here, as head teacher in their local kindergarten.
Whenever he’s home, Seungcheol picks him up after school; watching the kids cling to his legs, watching the way Jeonghan stoops down, to talk to them; his voice lilting in that soft sweet way he saves for the things he loves.
Jeonghan shoots him a tired smile and Seungcheol is suddenly grateful he isn’t. That his skin isn’t filled artificially tight, that he still has the bump on his nose, the chipped uneven tooth where he’d fallen while they were skateboarding in the park once. That he looks exactly like the boy Seungcheol had fallen in love with all those years ago, his skin carved with all the secrets of years growing up together, making mistakes together, falling in love together.
“Hannie,” Seungcheol murmurs.
“Hm?”
He must see something in Seungcheol’s face, because his eyes darken and he lets Seungcheol push him up against the wall, mouth warm and tasting like home.
They barely make it to the bedroom, Seungcheol’s hands roving greedily beneath Jeonghan’s sweatshirt, seeking out bare skin.
Jeonghan is more measured, unbuttoning Seungcheol’s Balenciaga shirt with practiced ease, setting it carefully aside to be dry cleaned later.
“Hannie,” Seungcheol murmurs, more desperate this time, he pushes him away, eyes roving to take in Jeonghan’s face, his body, his collarbones, all of him.
Jeonghan flushes and the way his hands shake as he pulls Seungcheol’s belt off shows he’s not as unmoved as he pretends to be.
Seungcheol circles his arms around Jeonghan’s waist marveling at their size difference. He can fit Jeonghan entirely in one arm.
“You’re losing weight again.”
“You haven’t been around to feed me,” Jeonghan says lightly.
Seungcheol loves him. He slides his hands into Jeonghan’s hair, fingers gripping tight as he pulls him into a messy kiss.
Their mouths move gracelessly against each other. Jeonghan’s hands come to rest on Seungcheol’s chest to steady himself.
It’s amazing that he can feel the same way, this dizzy, this breathless as if it was the first time; his handa shaking as he lay Jeonghan down on his bed, when the call from Pledis had finally come, confirming their debut date.
“I don’t know how,” he’d begun. And even then he’d wanted Jeonghan so much, in every possible way.
“It’s ok,” Jeonghan had said even though he must have been terrified too. “I want it to be you. I want everything to be with you.”
Those words, the way Jeonghan had looked up at him, trusting. “We’ll figure it out together.”
And they had, fumbling and messy and Seungcheol still remembers the feeling the way the breath had punched right out of his chest when he’d pushed into Jeonghan for the first time, the unbearable heat of him. The way Jeonghan’s thighs shook under his palms, the sharp inhale of his breath.
Seungcheol hides his face in Jeonghan’s neck, gasping in breaths so he doesn’t come.
“Hannie,” he’d murmured, feverish and desperate, “fuck. I love you.”
Jeonghan’s hands had tightened in his hair then, pulling him close again so they could kiss.
He still feels it now, stupid and drunk with it, watching himself pushing into Jeonghan, his hole pink and puffy as it swallows him all up.
“Stop looking, you psycho.”
Jeonghan chides breathlessly. His cheeks are flushed pink, Seungcheol loves him so much he can’t breathe sometimes.
He remembered then, inching inside of him. Breathtakingly slow until Jeonghan’s eyelashes fluttered shut, his head falling back against the pillows.
God, nothing he’d watched could ever compare to the real thing. Jeonghan warm beneath him, his fingers gripping bruises into Seungcheol’s arms. The smell of him, so sweet and heady and familiar.
He does it again and again, until Jeonghan’s breath hitches, his fingernails digging welts into Seungcheol’s biceps.
“Cheollie,” his breath is a whisper. “Cheol.”
That’s all he says, like can’t find the words for what he’s asking for, mind addled and desperate for him.
Seungcheol drops down onto his elbows, bringing their faces closer, Jeonghan makes a hurt noise, throwing his arms around Seungcheol’s neck to pull him close, their mouths moving messily against each other.
Seungcheol can’t do anything but breathe against him, too distracted by the tight heat of him, the way Jeonghan’s entire body wraps around him, holding him everywhere.
He wants to be close, so close he can't tell where Jeonghan ends and he begins. Wants to climb inside him, burrow deep, feel the beating of Jeonghan’s heart pressed to his skin and make a home here.
Eventually it gets too much, the hurt, punched out sounds Jeonghan makes every time Seungcheol pushes in, his thighs clamping around Seungcheol’s hips like a vice drawing him deeper each time.
He’s beautiful always but especially like this falling apart under Seungcheol’s hands, his stomach flexing as Seungcheol drives into him. His eyes are closed and Seungcheol traces his cheek cupping his jaw until Jeonghan blinks, heavy lidded and dazed as he looks back at him, drunk on Seungcheol’s cock.
Seungcheol comes, shaking, his fingers curled posessively around Jeonghan’s neck like it’s the only thing weighing him down.
When he comes back to himself Jeonghan is humming, hands stroking slowly down Seungcheol’s back, thighs tucked against him.
“Hi,” he rasps.
“Hi,” Jeonghan says softly, “welcome home.”
Once upon a time, Seungcheol had asked him.
They were lying underneath a makeshift blanket at the beach. The stars dazzled above them, Seungcheol turned onto his side, propping his cheek on his hand so he could look at Jeonghan.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Jeonghan had asked.
His face was tipped to the sky, the sounds of Daegu’s nightscape swirling around them.
Seungcheol had so many things on his mind, I want to be an idol, I want to rap on stage, I want my songs to go down in history, I want the world to know my name.
Jeonghan had cracked an eye open and turned to him with so much certainty, it made Seungcheol want to believe too.
“You will.”
The words turned Seungcheol’s stomach inside out.
“What do you want to be?”
Jeonghan reached his hands up to the midnight velvet of the neverending sky.
The ocean roared beside them.
“I want to be an island,” he’d said.
“An island?”
Jeonghan smiles.
“I want to be a place for people to come when they’re struggling and I'll accept them.”
Seungcheol traces the line of his jaw, fingertips brushing his cheek.
“And when they’re healed, they can leave. And when they need me again, I’ll be there waiting.”
“I won’t leave,” Seungcheol whispers.
“You can,” Jeonghan says softly, “I wouldn’t mind.”
He says it like he’d already known, the way their paths would diverge, take Seungcheol down a road Jeonghan couldn’t follow.
“I won’t."
“I would wait for you,” Jeonghan says and even though they’re eighteen with no idea what the future has in store, Seungcheol believes him.
“I would never make you wait long.”
He rolls over onto his stomach, looking down at Jeonghan who is looking up at him, the starlight dazzling his eyes.
It turns out, they both keep their promise.