Archive of Our Own

The pull-off towards Felix’s house is unexpectedly familiar to Seungmin. Even before Felix flips his turn signal and takes the sharp right onto the narrow, wooded road, Seungmin starts to recognize it. The street sign that’s always been a little bent, the maple tree whose branches droop low enough that they sometimes graze the roof of the car. A dozen little details that Seungmin never thought he’d remember—it’s been years since he’s been back here, after all.

A few short minutes later, Felix brings his car to a stop in front of a house that is, once again, achingly familiar. The driveway is notably empty—they must be the first ones home—but the carefully-potted planters and the well-tended lawn signify a home that is still very much lived-in, despite Seungmin’s instinct to believe that, in his absence, time would freeze this place into nothing more than a memory.

“Home sweet home,” Felix says. He cuts the engine, then hops out and scoots around to pop the trunk before Seungmin can even unbuckle his seatbelt. 

Grabbing his backpack from the floor at his feet, Seungmin joins him around the back of the car—where Felix, with his oversized duffel bag already loaded onto one shoulder, is pulling Seungmin’s suitcase out of the trunk. “Get that for me, would you?” he asks, nodding at the hatchback, before he starts waddling up the front walkway under the weight of both bags.

Seungmin carefully closes the trunk of Felix’s car, then follows quickly after him. “I can carry my own bag, you know,” he says.

“No sir,” Felix says, his voice only a little strained. “You’re our guest.”

It rained the majority of their hour-long drive back to Felix’s house from campus. The rain itself has stopped now, but the mid-afternoon sky is still gray and leaden with lingering clouds, and moisture clings to everything—the steps leading up to the front door, the tree boughs overhead. Felix seems determined not to set down Seungmin’s suitcase anywhere it might get wet or dirty, so he has to hike his duffel straps higher up on his shoulder and switch hands a few times before he’s finally able to punch the code into the keypad and let them both inside.

While Felix sets their bags down with a dramatic huff, Seungmin gets the light. Felix’s house looks largely the same as he remembers it, though with a few new additions to the framed photo wall: Felix at his high school graduation, his older sister at her wedding. Otherwise, it really does feel like he’s stepped through a wormhole and traveled back in time—he’s sixteen again, bowl cut and braces and all, about to flop down in front of the TV with Felix and binge some terrible anime until they get called for dinner. The living room is dark, but Seungmin is pretty sure they still have that old green sectional he always loved so much.

“Come on,” Felix says. “Dad’s not home yet. We can go up to my room and smoke.”

Seungmin feels his shoulders tense a little—a reflex. He pushes it down. He’s determined to be cool and nonchalant this week, which is why he’s not going to ask what time Felix is expecting him home. “What does your snack situation look like?” he says instead.

Felix’s mouth curls into a grin. “We have everything,” he says. “I told you, Dad shopped for company.”

Seungmin grew up in the next town over. His early childhood was lonely and quiet, his hours filled with his studies and pretty much nothing else. It wasn’t until he started high school that Felix and his family moved here, all the way from Sydney, Australia. Felix was in Seungmin’s year, transferring into his class halfway through the fall term. Seungmin, because it was the practical, hospitable thing to do, offered to share his textbook with him on his first day of class. He wasn’t expecting Felix to be so effusively grateful that he’d insist they be best friends from there on out, proceeding to honor that promise and wedge himself into Seungmin’s life whether he liked it or not.

He liked it. Of course Seungmin liked it. Felix’s sweet disposition and fierce loyalty flooded Seungmin’s life with a warmth he hadn’t known was possible. Instead of studying alone in his room, Seungmin’s free time was transformed. Most afternoons those last few years of high school, he found himself here, at Felix’s house—basking in his light and his friendship and his infectious, sunny smile, playing video games and watching bad TV and running around out back with his cute brown spaniel until all three of them dropped from exhaustion. Seungmin’s parents were fine with it, since they knew he was staying on top of his grades. They were probably relieved that he had finally found a friend. Besides, they knew Seungmin was in good hands—Felix’s dad was always home, keeping an eye on both of them.

The two friends parted ways after graduation, attending different schools in different cities. They managed to stay close regardless, texting often and keeping up with each other on social media, but Seungmin’s parents bought their condo and moved into the city as soon as Seungmin matriculated, so he and Felix have had to spend all their holidays and school breaks apart. This year, though, Seungmin’s parents—both recently retired—are traveling for the entire month of March, and renting out their place in their absence. They offered to put Seungmin up in a hotel for his inconveniently-timed spring break, so he would at least have somewhere off-campus to stay, but when Felix found out, he jumped at the opportunity. “Come stay with me!” he said, literally bouncing up and down in the pixelated foreground of Seungmin’s phone screen with all the exuberance of a rowdy puppy. “Our breaks line up this year! I’ll pick you up from school and everything. Come on, you can’t spend spring break alone in some hotel.” 

Seungmin has too many fond memories of time spent at Felix’s house. It didn’t take much convincing to get him on board.

His arms loaded down with pilfered bags of chips and cans of soda, Seungmin follows Felix up the stairs. He doesn’t see any sign of Berry, so he figures she must be with Felix’s dad. Seungmin remembers he always used to take her everywhere—work, the grocery store, out on early-evening runs. He still has such vivid memories of looking up from his cozy spot on the couch to see him at the front door, unclipping Berry’s leash from around his waist, sweat prickling at his forehead and staining the underarms of his grey athletic tee, chest still heaving as he asked if Seungmin was staying for dinner.

Felix’s room is as Seungmin remembered. Dresser drawers overflowing with clothes, piles of shoes spilling out of the closet. Felix boots up his PS5, then rolls up a towel and shoves it under the crack in the door. “Here,” he says, and jogs over to crack his window. “He says he doesn’t care, but he’ll still comment on the smell. This is my secret trick so he doesn’t have to know.”

They sit by the open window together, chatting while Felix works his way through a fairly large joint. Each time he offers it up, Seungmin politely declines—weed makes him anxious, as he’s told Felix many times before. He doesn’t hold it against him that he always forgets. Felix is the type of person who gets so enthusiastic about the things that make him happy that he just wants to share his happiness with others, and Seungmin could never fault him for that. He’s content to gently remind him every time that no, thank you, he’s okay. It’s nice to just be here with him, feeling the cool, damp, spring air at his back while Felix sucks smoke in through his teeth and blows it out the cracked window in long, leisurely streams.

Afterwards, they cozy up on Felix’s bed and play Mario Kart, fighting over the good controller where the buttons don’t stick. Seungmin feeds Felix chips, laughing at him when he tries to do the same without looking away from the monitor and keeps missing Seungmin’s mouth. They rant about their professors, how unfair it is that they expect seniors to handle such a heavy workload when they all must know how checked out they are. It’s their final term, after all, and with graduation looming just around the corner, even a star student like Seungmin finds it difficult to care about his college classes. 

It’s nice here, though. In the safe haven of Felix’s room, they can just be two carefree, lazy kids again—unburdened by the responsibilities of adulthood, by the vague sense of foreboding that thinking about the future brings. Seungmin can leave all of that at the door.

Afternoon passes into evening. When the gray sky has given way to total darkness, Felix flops backwards against his pillows and closes his eyes, a slow, languorous smile hanging from his lips. “Keep playing,” he mumbles, his hand squeezing Seungmin’s thigh. “Might take a quick nap.”

Seungmin watches him drift off with a soft swell of fondness. Then, when he’s sure Felix is soundly asleep, he gets carefully to his feet. Seungmin turns off the console, neatly stacking the controllers and sweeping the worst of their crumbs into Felix’s trash can. He closes the window, deposits the rolled-up towel in Felix’s hamper. Then, he gently eases the door open and slips out into the hall.

His plan was just to grab a glass of water from the tap in Felix’s bathroom. As soon as Seungmin closes Felix’s door behind him, though, he hears signs of life downstairs. The sound of a sink running, the dull scrape of wood on metal, the sizzle and pop of oil in a pan. As he creeps closer to the source of the sounds, hovering on the topmost landing, he starts to smell it too—aromatics, wafting up in fragrant, comforting clouds. Someone is cooking downstairs.

Seungmin’s legs move of their own accord, guiding him down the stairs, the intertwining aromas of garlic and ginger getting stronger and sharper the closer he gets to the kitchen. When his socked feet reach the bottom step, he hears a series of short, excited barks, and his favorite old spaniel comes bounding out of the kitchen to greet him.

“Hi girl,” Seungmin says, crouching down and scratching the back of Berry’s ears as she turns in giddy circles around his legs, whining happily before flopping onto her back at his feet. Seungmin rubs the downy swell of her tummy, smiling to himself every time she lets out a happy little yip.

A short whistle comes from the kitchen, and Berry scrambles back to her feet and hurries after it. “Where are your manners,” a low, chiding voice says, and Seungmin feels a shiver pass through him, recognizing it instantly after all these years. “We don’t bark at our houseguests.”

Reminding himself of his mantra for this wekeend—cool and nonchalant, cool and nonchalant—Seungmin follows Berry into the kitchen. Standing at the stove, his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and an apron tied around his waist, is Felix’s dad. He has a few pans going on the burners, veggies and beef sauteeing in hot, fragrant oil, but his attention is on Berry, sitting patiently at his feet, now very obediently quiet.

“That’s better,” Chan says. “Good girl.” He looks up, and when his eyes meet Seungmin’s, they’re even more mesmerizing than he remembers. “Seungmin-ah!” he says. “I didn’t realize you two were home already. Really, not a clue.” There’s a playful twinkle in his eye, and a small smile at his lips. “That towel under the door trick is just too effective.”

Seungmin resists the urge to throw Felix under the bus, to insist he wasn’t the one who was smoking. Instead, he folds into a polite bow. “Thank you for having me, Abeo-nim,” Seungmin says. “Felix invited me to stay for the entire week. I hope that’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all,” Chan says. “I’d be offended if you thought of staying anywhere else. And Seungmin, please. How long have you known me? Just Chan is fine.”

While it’s true that Seungmin has known Chan for years, he can’t exactly say that he feels comfortable around him. This is largely due to the fact that Chan is the most attractive man Seungmin has ever laid eyes on. Even in their high school days, his hair was already mostly gray, a devastating complement to his laughter lines and his deep, brown eyes. He worked out more than a dad should have any right to, and the effects of it showed on his body—wide, muscular shoulders, massive thighs, an ass that not even the baggiest, most modest of pants could hide. Felix never knew how many times Seungmin agreed to come over after school, thinking not of hanging out with him, his dear friend, but of just catching a glimpse of his old man. Exchanging a few words with Chan, even in passing, was enough to keep Seungmin’s tank full for days—and they were always such friendly, attentive words, genuine questions about his day whose responses he took in with rapt attention. Chan doesn’t need to know how much Seungmin used to look forward to those brief interactions. He certainly doesn’t need to know the hours Seungmin would spend at night, staring up at his bedroom ceiling with one hand down his pants, thinking about Chan’s low, pleasant, rumbling laugh, his big hands and bigger thighs, the sweat bleeding through his t-shirt.

“Can I help you with anything?” Seungmin offers, rather than acknowledging Chan’s response. He always used to offer, when he would stay for dinner—the win-win of feeling like he was earning his keep as a guest and getting to be in the same room as Chan.

Chan looks him over, studying him, that small smile still lingering on his face. “You can set the table, if you’d like,” he says. “And then you can fetch my good for nothing son, if you think he’ll still have an appetite.”

Seungmin gives a silent nod. He can feel Chan’s eyes on him as he methodically pulls plates and bowls out of the cabinet—muscle-memory, still knowing what lives where—and lines up spoons and chopsticks at every place setting. Just the three of them, he knows. Felix’s parents separated when he was eight. He visits his mom sometimes, but there’s bad blood there that Seungmin has never pried for details about. All he knows is that this, Chan’s house, is the one that feels like home.

As Seungmin moves about the table, he braces for a question or two from Chan—how are classes, how are his parents, does he have a post-grad job lined up yet—but nothing comes. What settles around them instead is silence, broken only by the shuffle of Seungmin’s feet, the scrap of Chan’s cooking utensils as he scrapes the contents of his skillets into serving dishes. Seungmin keeps his eyes on the table, on the plates in his hands. And still, without turning around, he can feel that weight and heat of Chan watching him.

Seconds turn into minutes. Seungmin realizes he’s been holding his breath, and he exhales, as quietly as he possibly can. Chan has always been a casual conversation starter. He even knew how to make small talk with an introverted sixteen-year-old. Seungmin almost wonders if he could be remembering wrong, gaps filled in from wishful daydreaming over the years—but no, he’s committed everything about Chan to memory. This silence is notably uncharacteristic of him, and it’s making Seungmin’s heart beat furiously in his chest. He was just a kid, the last time he and Chan saw each other. He didn’t know what tension in the air felt like. He didn’t know what a thick, crushing silence could mean between two people, alone in a room together.

He wonders if Chan still sees him that way. He wonders why Chan is watching him so quietly.

The moment is gone before Seungmin has time to figure out how to prolong it. Chan clears his throat, and Seungmin whirls around, and their eyes meet once more. “Well,” Chan says. “Dinner is served.”

His expression is unreadable. Seungmin scours it for a clue as to what he’s thinking, but he comes up short. “I’ll get Felix,” he says, heart still beating wildly as he turns from Chan and disappears back up the stairs.

Dinner is unnervingly normal by comparison. Now, with Felix in their midst, Chan is as warm and welcoming as he’s always been. He makes easy conversation with the two of them, giving Seungmin just as much kind, personalized attention as he pays Felix, who is yawning into his bowl and pretending no one notices his red-rimmed eyes. It’s Seungmin who insists on making things awkward. He stumbles over his words, is rushed and stilted with his answers whenever Chan asks him a question about his studies. He knows he’s not making eye contact well—he’s probably coming off as quite antisocial, even ungrateful in the face of Chan’s warm and generous hospitality. He can’t help it—he’s still shaken from earlier.

Did Seungmin imagine it? Are his feelings for Chan—which he was so sure would’ve gone away by now, now that he’s fully grown and not a horny, desperate teenager—clouding his perception of reality that much?

Or was that tension between them exactly what he thought it was?

Seungmin goes through the motions of helping to clear the dinner dishes. He and Felix take Berry on her evening walk together. When they get back, they retreat to Felix’s room, only to have Chan knock on the door a few minutes later, holding their spare futon. He got it down from the linen closet for them, as well as clean sheets, pillows, and blankets for Seungmin—way too many for one person to need. “We’ve got it, Dad,” Felix says, rolling his eyes good-naturedly as he takes the handful of bedding from Chan.

“Just trying to make sure our guest is comfortable,” Chan says, and backs out of the room with his hands raised in mock-defensiveness. Seungmin’s heart beats very normally as he helps Felix set up the mattress on the floor, trying not to imagine how Chan would’ve looked bending over to make the bed for him.

They get ready for bed, changing into their pajamas and snapping each other with their shirts like they’re locker room towels, brushing their teeth and washing their faces side by side at Felix’s bathroom sink. In the darkness of Felix’s room, they talk about all the things they haven’t had time to get to yet—the crush Felix has on the obnoxious rapper in his dance class, the fact that Seungmin has already started studying for the law school entrance exam. They fill each other in on everything they’ve missed in their time away from each other, and it’s soothing, comforting, and things start to feel normal again. Eventually, Felix’s quietly rumbled words get further and further between, until he quietly begins to snore. And then Seungmin is left with his thoughts again.

He can’t sleep. He doesn’t know how he’s possibly supposed to. It feels ridiculous to hope, but—it’s out of his hands now. Seungmin’s body has made the decision for him, to zero in on this feeling. There’s a live wire in his veins, untethered electricity crackling through his nervous system with no means of release.

It’s late, but Chan has always kept odd hours. Seungmin wonders if he’s still awake. If they’re the only two awake in the house right now.

As silently as he can, Seungmin sits up. He pulls a hoodie on over his oversized sleep shirt, shoves his feet into Felix’s house slippers, and steals out of the room. His sweatpants are a little big, and the pant legs drag on the floor under the slippers’ heels as he makes his way through the quiet house. Once again, his feet lead him—down the hall and down the stairs, not caring how each step creaks under his weight, how the sound might serve to alert someone to his presence.

The TV is on in the living room. The volume is low—Chan is nothing if not considerate for others—but there’s some show playing, something with timers and judges and plates of delicious looking food. Chan is sitting back on the couch, his knees spread wide, one hand casually resting on his upper thigh, the other tucked comfortable behind his head. A half-empty beer bottle rests on a coaster on the coffee table in front of him. As relaxed as he looks, Seungmin can see that he is still very much awake.

Seungmin doesn’t greet him. He just moves into the room and sits primly down on the couch beside him.

Chan turns only his head, catching Seungmin’s eye and giving him a once-over. He’s quiet for long enough that it’s weird again. Eventually, though, he speaks. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Seungmin shakes his head, and settles back into the cushions. “What are you watching?” he asks.

“The Great British Bake Off,” Chan says. He smiles good-naturedly at Seungmin. “Care to join me?”

Chan has also changed out of the clothes he was wearing at dinner. Seungmin has no right to criticize what a grown man wears to sleep in his own home, but the black tank top and the gray sweatpants are frankly obscene. For a guy in his late forties, maybe early fifties—Seungmin isn’t sure exactly how old he is, he’s never asked Felix—his body is still in crazy shape, and this outfit is not helping. Huge shoulders, sinewy arms. The tank top is tight enough to cling to his abdomen, which might be a little thicker than it was five years ago, but looks no less firm. Even the shape of his thighs is visible through his sweatpants, and it’s making Seungmin’s mouth a little dry.

Seungmin needs to redeem himself from dinner—if he doesn’t want Chan to think of him as an awkward kid, he shouldn’t act like one. He swallows, running his tongue around the inside of his lips to moisten them before speaking. “Who are we rooting for?” he asks, nodding at the TV.

“Oh, everybody,” Chan says. “I’ll point out my favorite, though. Got my fingers crossed she’ll make it into the finals. Of course, I’ve seen this season before.” He shoots Seungmin a look—then, in a devastating turn of events for the speed of Seungmin’s pulse, he winks at him. “I won’t tell you who wins.”

Seungmin lets out a weak laugh. “Rewatching a reality show?” he asks. “Where’s the logic in that?”

Chan shrugs, turning back to face the TV. “I don’t know,” he says. “It’s comforting, knowing how it’ll turn out. Makes every step along the way a little less nerve-wracking.”

Seungmin only nods. He laces his hands together in his lap and sits with Chan, silently watching alongside him. The quiet isn’t as awkward as earlier but… it is palpable. Seungmin can feel it thrumming under his skin. He keeps stealing glances at Chan, then looking away before Chan can catch him staring. Once or twice, out of the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Chan do the same.

They finish the episode—Chan’s contestant stays alive—and Chan leans forward with a soft groan and picks up the remote. Turning it over in his hand, he looks questioningly at Seungmin.

“Keep going,” Seungmin says.

Chan smiles, selecting play on the next episode, then settles back where he was on the couch, tucking one hand behind his head again, the other resting in his lap.

Then, out of nowhere, Chan speaks. “Why are you here, Seungmin?” he asks.

Seungmin’s heart skips a beat. “Felix invited me,” he says, even though he knows that’s not what Chan is asking.

Chan huffs out a soft laugh. “Of course,” he says. “And why aren’t you upstairs with him? Why are you down here at this hour, watching cooking shows with an old man like me?”

“I like hanging out with you,” Seungmin says. “And you’re not old.”

The hand in Chan’s lap twitches. He laughs again, lifting his arm to tuck that hand behind his head as well, and gives his back and shoulders a little stretch. “I’m a little old,” he says. “Far older than you are, anyway.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Seungmin says, a little too defiantly to be polite. Catching himself, he lowers his voice a little, tempering it. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

Chan looks at him for a long moment. Then, he turns back to the TV screen. “When I was your age, I thought I was so grown-up, too,” he says.

“I am,” Seungmin insists. “I’m graduating soon.”

Chan gives a noncommittal hum. “You have any plans yet, post-graduation?”

Seungmin swallows. He could tell Chan about his hopes of getting into law school, but then he’s just revealing that he plans to be a student for even longer. Like he’s admitting he still has so much to learn.

“Ah, no,” Chan says, with a soft smile. “Sorry, I won’t be that parent. You’re here because you’re on holiday.”

Internally, Seungmin lets out a sigh of relief, but it’s tinged with regret—that he didn’t have an impressive response ready for Chan, that Chan was able to see so quickly the anxiety that his question provoked in Seungmin.

Of course he still views him as a kid. Of course he’ll never look at Seungmin the way Seungmin has always looked at him.

Not unless Seungmin does something about it, of course.

Moving as if in a trance, Seungmin sits forward on the couch and grabs Chan’s half-drunk beer bottle. He doesn’t know what his body is going to do until it does it. Locking eyes with Chan, Seungmin puts the bottle to his mouth, his lips closing around the rim as he tips it up and drinks.

The beer is lukewarm by now, bitter and a little sour against the back of his tongue. Chan watches him, his gaze tracking down to the bob of Seungmin’s throat as he swallows, then back up to meet his eyes. He’s not smiling anymore. He’s just watching, unblinking, with a focus that makes Seungmin’s heart thud in his chest.

After the last drop of beer trickles down his throat, Seungmin sets the empty bottle back down on the table. He dabs at his mouth with the back of his hand, hoping it’s not obvious how much his fingers are shaking. 

After what feels like forever, Chan speaks. “Why’d you do that,” he says.

“I’m not a kid anymore,” Seungmin says again.

“I know,” Chan says, gently. “I believe you.”

He hasn’t moved. His elbows are still folded behind his head, and he’s watching Seungmin with dark, serious eyes, but he doesn’t say anything else, and he certainly doesn’t do anything else. Seungmin feels his lungs constrict in his chest—the bitter, humiliating sting of rejection. He sent Chan a pretty clear signal. You drink someone’s drink without asking when you’re hitting on them. Chan must know what he’s trying to do, which means—of course it means—that he’s not interested.

Humiliated, frustrated beyond belief, Seungmin feels the threat of tears stinging his eyes. He pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. “Don’t you like me?” he asks, trying to keep his lower lip from quivering.

Chan’s expression softens instantly. “Seungmin-ah,” he says. “Of course I like you. That’s not—of course I like you.”

Great, now he’s pitying him. A traitorous tear slips down Seungmin’s cheek, beading at his jawline before falling into his lap. “But you don’t want me,” he says, miserably.

Chan drops his arms, sitting up and moving closer to Seungmin on the couch. His hands hover out in front of him, like he isn’t sure what to do with them. “Please don’t cry,” he says. “Seungmin-ah, you’re—you’re not thinking clearly. Maybe it’s time you get back to bed.”

Seungmin gives a vigorous shake of his head, pressing the heel of his hand against his eye as another few tears spill free. Chan said he believes him, but he clearly doesn’t. Infantilizing him, telling him he isn’t thinking clearly, that he needs to go sleep off his tantrum like some kindergartener who missed their naptime. Seungmin has had three boyfriends in the past four years. He’s had sex—certainly more sex than Felix, who claims he’s saving himself for the love of his life. Maybe not as much as Chan, with the wealth of experience his years have probably given him, but enough. He ought to be a viable candidate.

“Seungmin,” Chan says, his voice infuriatingly kind. “Please don’t take this to heart. Any man would be lucky to have you. You know that. You’re…”

Seungmin stills. Slowly, he drops the hand from his face. “I’m what?” he says.

Chan is quiet for another long, nerve-wracking moment. Then, he swallows deeply. “You’re beautiful,” he says.

“You don’t have to say that,” Seungmin says, with a pathetic little sniff.

“It’s true,” Chan says. “I was… I was shocked when you stepped into my kitchen today, Seungmin-ah. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Seungmin did grow a few centimeters, his first year at college. He might even be taller than Chan now. “Really?” he asks, hesitantly.

“Really,” Chan says. “You’ve grown up well. You’re…” He lets out a laugh, and Seungmin swears he almost sounds nervous. “You’re quite a stunning young man,” he says.

Seungmin feels warmth start to creep into his cheeks. Chan has never said anything like that to him before. That’s not something you say to someone you’re not at least a little bit attracted to.

“Really?” Seungmin echoes. This time, it might just be to hear Chan say it again.

Chan does him one better—he reaches over, giving Seungmin’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “Really,” he says. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.”

Seungmin looks down at the hand on his shoulder. He looks back up at Chan. He looks… paler than he did a minute ago. Like he’s nervous now, too. Like his mind is also running a million thoughts a minute, just like Seungmin’s is, imagining the potential ways this night might end.

If he really thinks Seungmin is stunning… maybe Seungmin didn’t imagine the tension earlier. Maybe Chan really is thinking about it. Trying to be responsible, sure. Not wanting to be the creepy dad, hitting on his kid’s friends when they come over and stay the night.

Seungmin’s heart is pounding wildly, the frantic tempo of adrenaline in his veins, as he lifts Chan’s hand off his shoulder. Chan moves to retract it, but Seungmin doesn’t let him. Instead, he moves it down to his waist, covering it with his own to flatten it down around the curve of his hip.

Maybe he just needs a little push.

“Seungmin-ah,” Chan breathes.

Seungmin is tactical in everything he does. He’s aware of the effect his waist has on people. His boyfriends of the past have always been obsessed with it. Not an hour ago, as they changed for bed, Felix asked him why his waist was so tiny, if not to be held by other men. Seungmin feels the way Chan’s long, knobby fingers involuntarily clench around it, into the soft, slim give of his abdomen.

“Seungmin-ah,” Chan says again. His voice is soft, not scolding, but his meaning is clear: don’t do this.

Seungmin waits. Chan doesn’t move his hand.

“I’m an adult,” Seungmin says. Fueled by pride and passion, some fire inside him of unknown origin, he leans in close. Chan flinches backwards a hair, but he doesn’t stop him when Seungmin brings his mouth to his ear.

“Let me prove it to you,” Seungmin says.

Chan’s hand clenches, his fingers digging into Seungmin’s side. Maybe nothing more than a reflex, but it’s enough to reassure Seungmin, and it spurs him on. He doesn’t know where he got such confidence—he’s never felt it around Chan before. But confidence is what he feels, now, as he moves his free hand to the low collar of Chan’s tank top, as he slowly starts to trail it down his chest until he reaches his stomach.

Chan grabs Seungmin’s wrist with his right hand, stopping it from going any lower. His left stays on Seungmin’s waist. “Seungmin,” he warns, holding his wrist tight between the circle of his fingers.

Nothing is stopping Seungmin now, though. He sways forward, so close to Chan’s face now that if he turned his head, their noses would bump. “Please,” he says, in a voice that is not his own. “I want you to touch me.”

Chan inhales sharply, relaxing his grip on Seungmin’s wrist for just long enough for Seungmin to pull his hand free. “You’re…” Chan says. This time, when he meets Seungmin’s eyes, his gaze is dark and heady. Seungmin watches as his tongue peeks out between his lips, wetting them briefly before darting back inside. When he speaks again, his voice is hoarse. “You’re Felix’s best friend,” he says.

Seungmin leans in close to Chan’s ear again, lips brushing the soft ridge of his tragus. “I’m not Felix,” he says. Slowly, he places his hand back on Chan’s abdomen, just over the waistband of his sweatpants.

Chan jerks a little, his abs tensing and twitching beneath his shirt, but he doesn’t stop him this time. He just watches Seungmin, that deep, swirling darkness in his eyes.

Seungmin slides the heel of his hand lower, lower, his eyes locked on Chan’s all the while. It doesn’t look like Chan is breathing. Seungmin certainly isn’t. When his fingers reach his groin, Chan’s eyes flutter closed, and he lets out a soft sigh. “Seungmin-ah,” he says. “Stop.”

“Why?” Seungmin says. He can feel the shape of Chan through his sweats. “I’ve done this before.” Fuck. Chan is hard, and—fuck. Chan is big. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Seung—” Chan’s voice cracks a little around his name. Seungmin curls his fingers around the outline of his cock, and Chan bites back a groan. “Seungmin,” he says again.

It’s instinct that makes Seungmin lean into Chan’s ear a third time, instinct that tells him to take the shot he wants to take. He presses his mouth flush with the entrance to his ear canal, so his lips and tongue tickle it when he speaks.

“Please?” he whispers. “Please, Daddy?”

Seungmin feels strong, calloused hands on his body before he understands what’s happening, before he registers himself being tugged, heaved, maneuvered into Chan’s lap. His knees split over Chan’s thighs, splaying out wide as he falls forward against Chan’s chest. Then Chan’s hand is cupping his jaw, holding him steady, and then—

Chan’s lips. Chan’s tongue. The hot, sour aftertaste of beer on his breath. Seungmin’s eyes fall closed as he rushed to kiss Chan back, to accept the gift Chan is finally relenting to give him. His hands are everywhere at once—scrabbling at Chan’s collar, groping his bare shoulders, threading through the roots of his thick, graying hair.

“Fuck,” Chan says, between rough, messy kisses. “Fuck, this is such a bad idea.”

Seungmin gives a whine of agreement, twisting his fingers tightly in Chan’s hair and tonguing into his mouth.

“You want me to touch you?” Chan asks, breathlessly. He squeezes Seungmin’s ass, two-handed, kneading it like he’s afraid it might disappear. “You need me that bad, baby?”

Seungmin moans into Chan’s mouth, clinging to him tighter. Yes, he needs him that bad. Yes, he might spontaneously combust if he doesn’t get Chan’s hands under his clothes in the next thirty seconds. He rocks his hips down against the bulge in Chan’s sweats, mouthing wetly at Chan’s full upper lip and praying he gets the message.

Chan hisses, digging his fingers into Seungmin’s ass hard enough to bruise. “Come here,” he says, releasing his grip on Seungmin, then frantically tapping his hip. “Turn around.”

Seungmin complies, letting Chan maneuver him around so that he’s facing forward in his lap now, his back flush with Chan’s chest. Felix’s slippers fall from his dangling feet, landing somewhere on the floor. Seungmin looks down at his legs on top of Chan’s—even in his baggy sweatpants, his thighs seem so small by comparison.

Chan’s big hands come around to Seungmin’s front, sliding up and under his hoodie and t-shirt, pushing them both up to bare his stomach. One of them anchors itself at Seungmin’s waist. The other creeps upward, zoning in on Seungmin’s right nipple.

Seungmin’s hips twitch forward, and he lets out an involuntary little moan. “Ah,” he gasps, when Chan drags his index finger in a slow, teasing circle around the stiff bud. “Please—”

“Please what?” Chan says, his breath hot against the nape of Seungmin;s neck. He leans down to mouth at his ear, tugging the sensitive lobe between his teeth while Seungmin gasps and whines and feels sparks shoot off down the entire length of his spine. Chan releases his ear, dropping kisses down the side of his neck. “Please what,” he murmurs, against the soft, vulnerable skin of Seungmin’s throat, and gives Seungmin’s nipple a firm pinch. “Please what, baby.”

“Ah—” Seungmin jerks in his lap, his back arching up before Chan tugs him firmly back into place. Seungmin fumbles for the hand at his waist, peeling Chan’s fingers off him one by one until he has it free, until he can drag it to his lap and place it palm-down over his own hard-on. “Please, sir,” he says.

Chan sucks in a sharp breath, hissing through his teeth. He curls his fingers just so, cupping Seungmin through his pants. Seungmin feels his cock twitch in his underwear, and Chan is holding him, which means Chan felt it too. “That wasn’t what I…” Chan says, trailing off. He gives Seungmin the barest squeeze, not enough pressure to provide relief—a teasing touch, like he’s testing his own capabilities. “But you like that, don’t you?” he asks. With his other hand, he pinches Seungmin’s nipple and twists.

Seungmin chokes back another moan, letting his head fall back against Chan’s shoulder, baring more of his neck for Chan’s greedy, wandering mouth. His underwear is starting to feel warm and tight, and more than a little damp.

“Use your words,” Chan says, and drops another kiss to the side of Seungmin’s throat. “You had so much to say earlier.”

“Touch me,” Seungmin manages. His cock twitches again at the prospect, but Chan doesn’t give him any more pressure.

“Nicely,” Chan says, chidingly. “You’re a big boy, you can ask nicely.” He flicks Seungmin’s tender nipple with his thumbnail, then squeezes it between his thumb and forefinger once more.

“Please, Daddy,” Seungmin gasps. “Please touch me. Please, sir—please.”

He hears something almost like a growl escape Chan’s throat, and then Chan’s hands are on the waistband of his sweats, pulling, tugging his pants and underwear down together until they bunch up midway down his thighs. Seungmin squeezes his eyes shut tight—he can’t look at himself like this. He knows how humiliating he must look, his little cock hard and dripping already, his narrow thighs quivering like soft pudding, trembling with need. He fears it’ll only turn him on more.

Behind him, he hears Chan let out another low, hungry noise—but seconds crawl by, and Chan doesn’t touch him. He kisses Seungmin’s neck again, working one particular spot with his lips and tongue over and over until it’s raw and hot to the touch. He plays with his nipples some more, torturing the other side this time. He grinds his hips upward in a slow, sinuous roll, pushing the imprint of his hard cock against Seungmin’s now bare ass. But he doesn’t touch him.

“Please,” Seungmin says, starting to feel desperate now. He cracks open half-lidded eyes, turning his head so his lips can reach Chan’s jaw. He presses kiss after kiss to the scratchy, stubbly skin, mouthing hotly over his jaw and his neck and the side of his cheek. “Please, Daddy. I’ve been so good.”

“Have you been good?” Chan asks. He rocks his hips upward again, his cock slotting perfectly between Seungmin’s cheeks. “I don’t know about that, Seungmin-ah. I think you’ve been very, very bad.” He guides Seungmin to turn his head just a little more, slotting their mouths together again. “You knew what you wanted when you snuck down here tonight,” Chan says, against Seungmin’s lips. “You’ve been planning this, all this time.”

“Ah,” Seungmin moans. “No, I’m good, I—I just want you to feel good.” He presses his tongue into Chan’s mouth, an offering of his submission, and Chan sucks on it until Seungmin is shaking and whimpering. He isn’t going to touch himself, he resolves, stubbornly. He’s going to wait for Chan to do it. Precome beads at the tip of his cock, dripping from his slit in needy, pathetic droplets.

“Fuck,” Chan groans. He presses his hips up into Seungmin’s ass again, grinding into him hard enough that he makes Seungmin gasp. “And that means you’ve earned it?” he says, cupping Seungmin’s chin, his thumb prodding clumsily at the corner of his mouth. “That means you get to be touched?”

Seungmin’s neck is starting to ache, but it’s a good ache, deep in his marrow, his victory prize from all his years of yearning, all his time spent growing into someone Chan could finally want back. “Fuck me,” he says, in a rush. “Please fuck me, please, Daddy, ah—Daddy, please please please fuck me.”

“Shhh,” Chan says, and forces his thumb between Seungmin’s lips. Seungmin wraps them around it immediately, suckling desperately at Chan’s thumb—like it’s his cock, like if he does it well enough, Chan will put his cock inside him faster. “Next time, baby,” Chan says, his own voice rough and breathless. “You’re close for me, aren’t you?”

Seungmin nods. His cock drips another telltale pulse of precome between his thighs. Please touch me, he thinks. He’s said it so many times that it’s started to lose its meaning. Maybe if he just thinks it to Chan hard enough.

“Can you come just like this? Can you come without me touching you?”

Seungmin lets out a loud, pitiful whine, and Chan laughs, low and teasing and cruel, he’s so cruel to make Seungmin wait this long, after Seungmin already waited for him for years. Of course he can come like this. The mounting pressure inside him is making all his organs and blood vessels and all the matter under his skin feel too big for his body. Seungmin lets his head fall back onto Chan’s shoulder, his mouth going slack around Chan’s thumb as he lets him pull it out, a string of saliva trailing from his lips.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Chan says. “I won’t make you do that.”

Seungmin whimpers—relieved, exhausted, grateful—and lets Chan help him out of his lap and ease him down onto the couch. He lies flat on his back, looking up at him, while Chan tugs Seungmin’s bottoms down and off his shaky legs, while he rucks his hoodie back up past his nipples so most of his torso is exposed again. Then, Chan lies down on top of him, settling between the cradle of Seungmin’s hips.

“Ask me one more time, baby,” Chan says. He drops a chaste kiss onto Seungmin’s mouth, and pulls back with a smile. “You sound so pretty when you beg.”

“Please, sir,” Seungmin says, grinding upwards to rub his cock against the front of Chan’s gray sweatpants, leaving streaks of moisture in his wake. “Please touch me.”

Chan props himself up on one elbow, using his other hand to shove his own waistband down, to finally pull his cock out of the confines of his pants. “Like this?” Chan asks, shifting his hips forward, sliding his cock against Seungmin’s.

Seungmin lets out a pitiful moan. The rough drag is electric against his sensitive skin, but what he really craves at this point is pressure.

“Please,” Seungmin gasps. “Ah—please, sir, more, I need—”

Chan holds his cupped palm under Seungmin’s chin, and Seungmin lifts his head, craning his neck to dribble a little saliva into it. Then, finally, Chan wraps his hand around the both of them.

Seungmin lets out a sigh of relief, which quickly turns into a high, mewling sound as Chan starts jerking them together, skin slipping against skin in the euphoric slide of spit and sweat and precome.

“Wanna see you come, Seungmin-ah,” Chan says, kissing him again. His breathing has gone ragged, every breath a harsh, heavenly sound. “Wanna see you come all over your pretty little stomach. Wanna see you make a mess of yourself.”

“Oh God,” Seungmin says. He’s going to. Chan has barely touched him and he’s going to, he’s so fucking close already.

“Can you do that for me, baby?” Chan asks. “Can you come for Daddy?” He strips their cocks quickly and mercilessly. It’s wet and hot and messy and Seungmin is trembling and trembling, his thighs and his mouth and his heart in his chest.

“Gonna come,” he says, panting, feeling dizzy and weak all of a sudden. “Gonna come, fuck, fuck—”

“Oh Jesus,” Chan breathes, and as he pumps his hand even faster, he squeezes.

Mouth opening around a wordless, broken cry, Seungmin comes, convulsing in Chan’s grip, his legs kicking out uncontrollably as he spills all over Chan’s tight fist. Chan isn’t far behind—Seungmin’s abs are still clenching with the aftershocks as Chan finishes with a low, guttural moan, adding to the mess now pooling in Seungmin’s navel.

“Fuck,” Chan says. He collapses on top of him, heavy and sweaty and smelling of salt and musk and heaven. He buries his face in Seungmin’s neck. “Oh my God,” he says, his chest heaving. Then, muffled against the hollow of Seungmin’s throat, he starts laughing.

Sweat cooling on his brow, Seungmin feels a smile break out across his face.

“That did not just happen,” Chan says. His shoulders are shaking with laughter now.

Seungmin’s entire body feels numb and floaty. No, it didn’t. It couldn’t have. It feels like a dream. “Felix is gonna know,” he says.

Chan shushes him, tapping weakly on Seungmin’s shoulder. “Can you not bring up my son right now,” he says. “Please. I’m begging.”

Seungmin shrugs. “He’ll be able to smell it on me. I’m just warning you to be ready for that conversation.”

Chan burrows deeper into hiding, wrapping his arms tightly around Seungmin’s waist like some sort of koala. “Shhh,” he says. “I can’t talk about it now.”

Seungmin looks at the damp, gray hairs curling at the back of Chan’s neck. His gaze travels over his broad shoulders, his well-muscled back. This isn’t some boy Seungmin successfully seduced, some peer who yawns next to him in class or chats him up at a house party. This is a man.

His college admission, his academic achievements—no. This is Seungmin’s proudest achievement.

“Yes, sir,” he says, grinning to himself. “Whatever you say, Daddy.”

* * * * *

The next day, Seungmin and Felix stumble sleepily down to the kitchen to dig up some breakfast. They can’t be bothered to cook, so they eat cereal side by side at the kitchen table, taking turns petting Berry. She’s not asking for anything, so she’s presumably been fed and walked, but Chan’s bedroom door was closed when they passed it on the way downstairs, like he got up early to take care of the dog and then went back to bed.

As they eat, Felix keeps looking at Seungmin suspiciously.

“What?” Seungmin says.

“Did you shower last night?” Felix asks.

“Oh, yeah,” Seungmin says, shoveling a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. It was quick and quiet, just a perfunctory wash to get rid of the evidence, but his hair must have dried crazy in the night. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Felix narrows his eyes at him. “Okay.”

“What?” Seungmin says, defensively.

“Nothing,” Felix says. He studies Seungmin for another long moment, then checks his phone. “Hey, so my friend from school lives pretty near here, too, and he was asking if I wanted to hang out today. Do you want to come along?”

Seungmin hums.

“I told him all about you,” Felix says. “Jeonginnie is super friendly, I promise. We’ll probably just get food and do some shopping.”

“I can just hang out here,” Seungmin says. “I have some studying I have to do this week anyway.”

“You sure?” Felix says. “My dad’s gonna be home all day. I mean, he’ll leave you alone, but just so you’re aware.”

Seungmin thinks about Chan, maybe asleep in his bed right now, maybe lying awake, waiting for the coast to be clear to emerge and go about his day. He pictures the hard lines of his body, the softness of his mouth. He wonders how he’ll react, seeing Felix’s car pull out of the drive and expecting the two of them to be gone for the day, only to find Seungmin, waiting for him on the couch.

He taps the cold, metal edge of his spoon carefully against his mouth, hoping it might distract from the smile slowly tugging at his lips.

“Cool."