lay your hands on me

There’s not a lot of things that can destroy a long and stable relationship.

Secrets, however, can.

***

“When were you going to tell me?” Daniel asks as soon as the door is closed behind them, his hands forming into fists and his lips quivering from – nervousness? Anger? Disappointment? “Were you even going to?”

“I wasn’t,” Seongwoo admits.

It makes Daniel’s blood boil. His body feels like it’s on fire, his head is spinning because of thousands of thoughts cluttering in his brain, because of all the curses he wants to aim at Seongwoo for not fucking trusting him with something so important but trusting all the rest of their friends with it.

Somehow, he is feeling so many emotions he can’t exactly pin-point, feeling so many things he didn’t know he was able to.

On one side he feels like shit, mostly because how bad of a boyfriend must he have been for Seongwoo to not even be able to tell him about something as simple as an important job offers? An important offer that would have involved Seongwoo moving across the fucking globe, even.

On the other side, however, he is just so, so fucking angry at Seongwoo.

“Why?” he says, it’s almost a scream really. “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”  

“I – I…” the older boy stutters, eyes pleading for Daniel to understand, to understand why he wasn’t able to talk about this.

The stuttering is enough to make Daniel laugh bitterly, sadly.

After that, everything is a blur.

Daniel starts to yell, scream his lungs out, he starts to list off all the little things about Seongwoo he doesn’t like, for example how he bites his nails when he is nervous or how he leaves his clothes in a corner every time he showers and never picks them up afterwards, how he spends too much time and money on buying useless decorations for Daniel’s apartment or how he is never able to be serious when Daniel is angry or hurt, always trying to make things better with a joke.

Seongwoo doesn’t say much, lets him silently shout out all of his frustrations. He doesn’t notice when tears start to stream down Seongwoo’s cheeks.

“Let’s break up,” he hears himself say.

He feels dead inside, exhausted and frustrated and angry. All he wants to do is have Seongwoo gone and be able to facepalm into his bed, to be able to sulk in peace.

“D-Daniel,” Seongwoo breathes out, trying to reach out to him, eyes red and puffy. They’re pleading for Daniel to stop, for him to listen to Seongwoo and talk this out like proper adults, but Daniel can’t, his pride is too hurt, his heart too tired. “Daniel, please don’t do this.”

“Get out.”

As he watches Seongwoo leave, frame quivering as trembling hands open the front door, Daniel already regrets everything but he doesn’t call the other boy’s name, doesn’t try to fix things.

***

“Daniel, you need to go to class, it’s been a week already,” Jisung groans.

He tries to take away the blanket from Daniel’s hands and shove him off the sofa but Daniel is stronger and all of his attempts fail miserably. Jisung sends him an exasperated glare before he gives up.

“Have you…” Daniel already knows what’s coming. “Have you talked to S–?”

“Don’t mention his name,” he whines, childishly covering his ears with his hands so that he can’t hear Jisung, so that he can’t hear, for the hundredth time, someone saying that name. “I haven’t. I probably won’t either.”

“You do know that you’re probably ruining one of the best relationships you have had over a simple misunderstanding, right?” Jisung replies, his bag slung over his shoulder as he puts on his shoes.

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding,” Daniel clarifies. “He didn’t tell me about it and he wasn’t planning to, either.”

“You would have probably done the same, Daniel,” Jisung points out.

When he hears the door close behind Jisung, he buries his nose into his blanket and, just to prove Jisung wrong, thinks of how, if he would have been in Seongwoo’s shoes, he would have just honestly talked about the matter at hand.

(He ignores the way his stomach tightens uncomfortably when he thinks about having to choose between accepting the opportunity to chase his dreams, but in another country, or rejecting it to keep trying it in Korea, where Seongwoo and his friends are.)

***

Daniel wakes up from his nap at almost 6 p.m. when he hears a knock on his door.

Although he is still half-asleep, he can’t help but be excited – he isn’t sure if excited really is the right word to describe the mix of anxiety, hope and anger that is bubbling inside of him but he can’t find another word to describe how he is feeling. He fixes his hair, running his fingers through it, before opening the door.

“Hey,” the person on the other side greets him with the most awkward smile Daniel has seen in a while.

Daniel’s hands ball up into fists and his eyes narrow at, of all people, Minhyun. The other boy is nervously tapping his feet and fidgeting with his fingers as he waits for any kind of response from Daniel.

“What are you doing here?” is the only thing Daniel can muster.

“Well, Seongwoo…” Daniel flinches at the name. “Sent me over. He wasn’t sure if you wanted to see him or not, so… Anyway, he told me he has most of his stuff over here and he would need some of it, says he doesn’t have any clean clothes anymore and that his notebook is here, too, yeah…”

Daniel nods, opening the door a little further for Minhyun to enter.

“Thanks,” Minhyun mutters, toeing off his shoes. “Can you tell me where his things are?”

He gestures for the older to follow him and leads him to his bedroom. Daniel opens one side of his wardrobe to reveal clothes that are mostly Seongwoo’s.

Minhyun smiles at him nervously before he proceeds to stuff everything into a tiny duffle bag Daniel recognizes as Seongwoo’s gym bag. He watches Minhyun’s every move, his heart hurting a little bit every time a new clothing item is shoved into the bag.

“He… misses you,” Minhyun says when he is finished and is walking in front of Daniel towards the door. “I know that you guys fighting is all my fault and I’m so sorry for that, I shouldn’t have mentioned that job offer, it happened months ago and I thought you knew about it… that Seongwoo had gotten over of his irrational fear of you wanting to leave him if he told and that he had talked to you about it but –“

“Stop speaking,” Daniel interrupts him.

Minhyun does as he is told, his mouth closing immediately, a small frown on his face.

“We didn’t fight because of you, no need to feel sorry, maybe it was for the best anyway,” Daniel continues, his fingers reaching for the doorknob.

“Daniel – “

“See you around, Minhyun.”

Minhyun leaves the house with his head hanging low and his hand gripping the back tightly.

***

Daniel knows it’s petty and childish but he gets angry at Seongwoo again after that, because why the heck would he send Minhyun? He could have come for his things himself.

He should have come to Daniel’s apartment and tried to make up, tried to explain himself to Daniel before giving up on their relationship, before giving up on Daniel.

***

It takes another week for Daniel to stop lying around in his house and actually go back to his classes. Jisung is overjoyed about Daniel being back, treats him for lunch and, for that day, he even stops mentioning Seongwoo.

Daniel knows he should be happy, should feel liberated and want to enjoy his new life as a single person on the dating market but he can’t.

Every time he sees couples hanging out in front of his faculty, his chest squeezes uncomfortably, every time he sees someone from the theater department, he can’t help but wonder about how Seongwoo is doing, if he is missing Daniel, if he’s healthy, which is absolutely fucked up because in the end it was Daniel who had decided to stop, who had the decided to break off their entire relationship in a fit of anger.

***

During the night, when all the lights are out and Daniel is lying in his bed alone, while listening to the rain tap against his window, he can’t help but admit that he misses Seongwoo and his warmth and his smell and almost everything about the older boy, really.  

But Daniel’s pride doesn’t let him reach out for his phone and call Seongwoo to try and talk this out like he wants to.

***

“Daniel!”

He turns around where he is sitting on a bench in a park near the university only to came face to face with a sweating Jaehwan. The other boy has his bag almost dropping off his shoulders as he hurriedly runs towards him, face red.

“Hey…” he sighs, trying the best to form a polite smile on his face because after all, Jaehwan is still Seongwoo’s best friend and it makes Daniel feel kind of weird.

“Hello to you too, it’s been almost a month since we last saw each other,” Jaehwan responds, looking around nervously, as if trying to look for something. “I would love to meet you under any other circumstances, you know when you and Seongwoo are not fighting, talking about Seongwoo… have you seen him around?”

Daniel frowns and shakes his head, a feeling akin to worry settling uncomfortably in his stomach.

“No, is everything alright?”

The look on Jaehwan’s face is the only answer he needs to know that no, it’s not, but Jaehwan re-assures him, telling him it’s nothing – Daniel doesn’t believe him at all.

While watching Jaehwan wave at him as he runs towards their university campus, all tense and obviously worried, he has the urge to chase after him, take a hold of his wrist and ask what’s going on, if Seongwoo is alright.

(“Please, don’t let it be anything important, please let Seongwoo be okay,” is all he thinks about while listening to his neurology professor talk about nerves and synapses and other things Daniel is not really interested in right now.)

***

From: Kim Jaehwan [02:36 a.m.]

I figured you might have been worried after watching me run around like an idiot, Seongwoo is alright. Don’t worry.

***

Daniel doesn’t see Seongwoo again until almost four weeks after their fight when he sees him on the way to his lecture, Jaehwan walking like a bodyguard beside him, hand on Seongwoo’s shoulders as if he was telling him where to go.

Seongwoo, who used to be like a Duracell battery, able to make everyone laugh and happy in a matter of seconds, looks glum, exhausted.

He has dark circles under his eyes, they almost reach the corner of his lips, his skin is pale, so much paler than it used to be, it’s a weird sickly white color that makes Seongwoo look a zombie, his lips are now a faint pink.

What strikes Daniel the most though is that Seongwoo seems to be only bones now, his cheeks hollow, even his skinny jeans seem to be too big on him.

His heart aches in his chest, the sudden lust to go over, wrap him up in blankets and make sure that he is eating and drinking enough, is almost too big to ignore. But he catches himself and doesn’t walk over.

Instead he just watches Seongwoo until he disappears behind a building with Jaehwan worriedly looking over him.

Daniel feels his chest tighten as he wonders what is happening to Seongwoo.  

***

To: Kim Jaehwan [15:04 p.m.]

What happened to Seongwoo?

***

From: Kim Jaehwan [15:12]

Why don’t you ask him yourself?

***

“I still don’t understand why you broke up with him,” Jisung suddenly blurts out while the both of them are watching some kind of wild life documentary. “You loved each other so much, it’s such a pity, from what I heard from Minhyun –“

“Why are you bringing this up again?” Daniel sighs, turning to meet Jisung’s gaze.

“Because I’m worried,” the other responds honestly, his hand reaching out to take a hold of Daniel’s. “I know no matter how much you try to act like you’re fine, that you’re not. I hear you screaming out his name in the middle of the night, I see the way you glare at couples and theater majors, Jesus, Daniel you even keep setting up the table for three people whenever I am over.”

He can’t argue with that, because it’s true but he – he is so fucking scared.

“I can’t just go over there and be like ‘hey, sorry I broke up with you, do you want to be my boyfriend again?’. This is not some stupid drama or teenage flick, relationships aren’t so easy to heal,” Daniel says, his voice quivering.

“I’m fully aware of that, Daniel,” Jisung sighs. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t make up for both of your faults, doesn’t mean that the both of you can’t work through this.”

“But I haven’t talked to him for a month, I can’t just…” Daniel tries to reason, looking at Jisung with scared eyes.

“To be honest, I’m pretty sure Seongwoo is just waiting for you to come to him,” the older boy reassures him, gently caressing the back of Daniel’s hand with his thumb. “For the past month, he has been sending me texts to make sure you are okay, to see if you have eaten and sometimes, when I forget, he reminds me of your timetables and tells me to force you to study if you don’t want to. He misses you as much as you miss him.”

“Why didn’t he try to talk to me then?” he asks. “Why would he send you texts but not try to find out how I am doing? Why do I have to be the one to make the first move?”

“Would you have told him, Daniel? If he would have tried to talk to you, you would not have even answered, making your relationship unrepairable, you know that and Seongwoo knows that, too, he has been waiting for weeks now, don’t you think it’s time to make up?”

***

He stands in front of Seongwoo’s apartment door for at least fifteen minutes until he finally gathers all of his courage and knocks on the door with a trembling hand, a deep sigh escaping his lips while he waits.

“Hey,” he mumbles when it opens to show Seongwoo.

The older boy is in jogging pants and a t-shirt, a t-shirt Daniel definitely recognizes as his own.

Seongwoo seems taken aback to see him, his eyes and mouth both wide open, but he lets him in nonetheless, lets Daniel take off his shoes and enter the living room, lets him stand awkwardly in front of the TV.

“Hey,” Seongwoo whispers back when he, too, is in the room, a few meters away from Daniel.

He still has dark circles under his eyes, he still is too thin in contrast to how he used to be, from up close Daniel notices how taut his skin has become, how Seongwoo’s lips are not even pink anymore, just a weird shade of light beige.

Without thinking, Daniel walks over to him, his hands reaching out to cup Seongwoo’s cheeks and caress them, his heart beating fast in his chest, from both worry and excitement to be this near to Seongwoo again.

“I’m sorry,” Seongwoo mumbles as he looks directly into Daniel’s eyes and leans into the younger’s touch. “I’m so sorry, I know I should have told you about the job offer but I… I couldn’t. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Daniel smiles weakly. “It’s okay.”

“But it’s not,” Seongwoo protests, his own hands coming to fist into the fabric of Daniel’s hoodie. “It’s not at all, I should have told you, we are… were supposed to be a team and I just took this huge decision by myself because I was scared you wouldn’t want the same. You’re the person I trust the most in this whole world, I should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Daniel agrees easily, taking a step closer to Seongwoo. “But I also should not have yelled at you and told you all the things I said, okay? We both made mistakes but we can… make up for it, right? We can work it out together and do better next time, right?”

Seongwoo has tears threatening to spill down his cheeks but he bites his lips and nods.

He, after a moment of hesitation, throws himself into Daniel’s arms, burying his nose deep into the crook of Daniel’s neck. Daniel reciprocates by wrapping his arms tighter around Seongwoo’s waist, breathing the older boy’s scent in and enjoying the way it makes his muscles relax.

“I missed you so, so much,” Seongwoo whimpers into his neck, his breathe tickling Daniel’s skin.

***

At night, when Seongwoo is curled up next to him on the bed, the older boy’s head resting on his chest while Daniel plays with his hair lovingly, watching the steady rise and fall of Seongwoo’s chest, Daniel feels happy, so much happier than he had been the past few weeks.

Seongwoo, who had confessed to not having been eating and sleeping well without Daniel, is relaxed in Daniel’s arms, eyes closed, and finally catching up on all the sleep he had missed.

Seongwoo hates clubs.

The music is too loud, most people are too drunk to even comprehend what is happening and the worst thing is, people keep on hitting on him, even insulting him when he politely declines their offers to buy him a drink, and Daniel.

Seriously, he can accept lowkey creepy dudes and girls trying to talk to him but whenever he notices someone so much as trying to make a move on Daniel, he gets the urge to growl and drape himself all over Daniel – normally, when he hasn’t had a few beers and shots too many, he would suppress the lust to do that, but today, after Jaehwan convinced him to drink a few tequila shots, his normal self-control has been thrown out of an imaginary window.

“Daniel,” he whines, sitting down beside his best friend – boyfriend?

The younger boy only laughs at him, scooting closer and wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“Seongwoo, how much have you had to drink?” Daniel asks as he looks down at Seongwoo with an amused smirk.

“Not a lot,” he replies while wriggling his eyebrows.

Daniel separates himself from Seongwoo to reach out across the table and get hold of a water bottle, which he then opens only to hand it to Seongwoo, who accepts it with the cutest of smiles.

As Seongwoo drinks, gulping the water down like he hasn’t had had anything to drink for the last few years, he spots two, admittedly, beautiful girls glancing at Daniel. They are whispering with each other, once in a while pointing towards their table as they giggle.

Like always, a wave of possessiveness washes over him, making his eyes narrow at them as he watches them with hawk-like eyes.

Daniel snaps him out of his thoughts by asking him how Jaehwan had managed to drag him out of the house even though his thesis was due in less than two days. Seongwoo shrugs, joking about how the thesis is shit anyway, so there is not much he can do now to improve it.

It doesn’t take long for one of the girls, who Seongwoo had noticed before, to approach them.

“Hey,” she greets with an adorable smile.

While Seongwoo scans her up and down, he realizes that she’s absolutely Daniel’s type, which makes something in his stomach tighten uncomfortably. She has a beautiful body, long brown hair and is wearing some black, ripped skinny jeans with an off-shoulder blouse.

Seongwoo can’t help but sulk because why is she this beautiful?

“Hello,” Daniel replies with a breathtaking smile of his own.

As he watches them converse, Seongwoo unconsciously scoots closer to Daniel. His arms are crossed over his chest, foot tapping impatiently on the floor as Daniel and the girl flirt.

“Anyway, I was wondering… since I think you’re really cute and all…” the girl starts but pauses when something on Daniel’s lap catches her attention.

Seongwoo, this time knowingly, had slowly put up one of his legs all over Daniel’s lap.

When he follows the girl’s eyes, he smirks and proceeds to, once again, wrap himself all over Daniel, his face nuzzling into the crook of the younger’s neck and his arms sneaking around Daniel’s waist. While looking at the girl directly into her eyes, he kisses Daniel’s neck filthily, softly sucking and biting on the skin, making sure to leave a clear mark for everyone to know that Daniel is not available.

Daniel doesn’t say anything, just relaxes and lets Seongwoo do whatever he pleases.

“Oh, wow,” Seongwoo hears the girl breathe out in disappointed, he smirks against Daniel’s skin. “I’m sorry, I will be going then.”

“Bye!” Daniel chirps, waving with a bright smile on his face. “Don’t you think she was really nice?”

Seongwoo, after having almost fully gone back to his previous position of only sitting next to Daniel, the only new thing was that he still had his leg over Daniel’s lap, glares at him and pouts because of course she was nice. Since when are people who want to get into your pants not nice?  

“Yeah,” he agrees.

Daniel laughs and puts his hand on Seongwoo’s right calf, gently massaging the skin while he looks around the club again, sometimes muttering to Seongwoo about who he thinks is good looking and who is his style, completely ignoring that Seongwoo had just literally given him a hickey although they were “only” friends.

After the third time of “don’t you think he looks hot?” Seongwoo is definitely upset.

He tears his leg away from Daniel’s hand with a huff, turning around so that his back is towards the younger boy.

Jisung and Minhyun, who were on the way to join them, laugh when they notice him sulking.

“Why is Seongwoo pouting again? He was having such a good time just a few minutes ago,” Jisung asks as he sits down in front of them, a couple of colorful drinks in his hands.

He doesn’t reply, neither does Daniel, although Seongwoo is pretty sure the other had just shrugged his shoulders.

“He’s been like this since a cute girl came by to compliment me, maybe he wanted her for himself, she was just being really nice though, so I don’t know,” Daniel says after a beat.

Minhyun, who had sat down next to Seongwoo, looks at him and bursts into laughter. He reaches over to Seongwoo, pulling him into a friendly hug and ruffling his head. Seongwoo lets him, going as far as leaning into the touch for comfort.  

“She was not being nice,” Seongwoo blurts out, still in Minhyun’s embrace. “She was hitting on you.”

“Anyway,” Jisung interrupts before Daniel and he can start to bicker. “Did she also leave that hickey on your neck or…?”

Seongwoo smiles in satisfaction, when even in the darkness of the club, he can see Daniel’s ears turning a nice shade of red while telling Jisung that it was not her who did it but Seongwoo. The eldest of them turns to Seongwoo with a smirk and Seongwoo responds by smiling smugly and wriggling around in Minhyun’s arms.

Daniel turns to him with a weird look in his eyes, Seongwoo can’t quite catch what it is – confusion? Disappointment? Curiosity?

He ignores it and keeps pouting, venting his frustration to an all-knowing Minhyun when Daniel disappears to buy more shots with Jisung.

***

When the night ends, Seongwoo is soberer than he wants to admit, both Jisung and Daniel having prohibited him to drink more than a few beers more. Minhyun has an arm around his shoulders as they walk along an empty street, Daniel playfighting with Jaehwan behind them and Jisung in front of them while guiding them back to Daniel and his apartment.

“Still not made up with lover boy?” Minhyun whispers, lips gracing Seongwoo’s ear, making Seongwoo push his face away playfully.

“Lover boy was too interested in flirting with other people to ‘make up’ with me,” Seongwoo answers.

“I’m sure he was just being polite, probably thought they were friendly people who just wanted to hang out with him for his great personality,” Minhyun cackles.

“Shut up.”

***

“Are you still sulking?”

Seongwoo flinches while looking for water in the fridge, successfully hitting his head while trying to turn around to see who it was that was talking to him.

“I wasn’t sulking in the first place,” he hisses and grabs a water bottle.

Daniel, however, doesn’t seem to believe him if the laugh that comes from him is supposed to be a clue. The younger boy just walks over with his stupidly endearing bunny smile and hugs Seongwoo tightly, pressing the older boy into his chest.

“Stop pouting,” Daniel orders. “I should be the one sulking here.”

“And why is that?” Seongwoo mumbles, his words being muffled by the oversized hoodie Daniel is wearing now.

“You were all over Minhyun today,” Daniel answers.

“I’m sorry but you know Minhyun is only a friend, you were flirting with people left and right and even ignored me giving you a hickey,” Seongwoo protests while easily getting out of Daniel’s hug only to glare at said boy and, unconsciously, pout.

“But aren’t I supposed to be ‘only’ a friend too?” Daniel asks, voice suddenly a tad bit huskier than before.

Seongwoo gapes at Daniel.

What a low blow.

“We both know you aren’t though, so it’s not the same,” Seongwoo finally responds after a few seconds, crossing his arms over his chest. “But I mean, you obviously had a fun time today while checking out other people so…. I guess we’re just friends, too, which is totally fine.”

The statement sounds fake even to his own ears.  

Daniel probably knows it’s not the truth either.

The younger boy tries to look directly at Seongwoo’s eyes but Seongwoo does his best to avoid Daniel’s gaze even if he is literally pressed against said boy’s chest.

“You do know I wouldn’t mind being more than friends,” Daniel says, voice tentative, as if he doesn’t know that Seongwoo feels exactly the same way about him. “I also wouldn’t mind you giving me more hickeys to mark me as yours, you know?”

Seongwoo snorts, a bright smile forming on his lips.

“If you just wanted another hickey, you should have said so,” Seongwoo replies, voice playful.

Daniel doesn’t say anything more, just leans in to kiss Seongwoo senseless, his lips pressing softly against the older boy’s own, his tongue licking across of Seongwoo’s lower lip, cheekily asking for more but Seongwoo smirks into the kiss instead, taking Daniel’s own lower lip between his teeth and biting it softly.

When Daniel’s hands wander down to Seongwoo’s ass, gently squeezing them, Seongwoo takes a step back, putting his hand on Daniel’s chest to stop the younger boy, who whines at the loss of contact.

“Daniel… I don’t want to do this if we’re… not official,” Seongwoo whispers, insecurely glancing at the other boy.

Daniel smiles at him, a soft, whole-hearted smile that makes Seongwoo’s heart race in his chest, hammering against it out of excitement, and a warm tingly feeling spread across Seongwoo’s stomach.

“Well then,” Daniel begins as he takes a step forward to be closer to Seongwoo, his hands reaching out to wrap around Seongwoo’s lower back for then to pull Seongwoo back against his chest. “Ong Seongwoo, let’s be boyfriends, yeah?”

“Wow, you’re so romantic, I can’t believe it,” Seongwoo replies while wiggling his eyebrows. “But yeah, let’s be boyfriends.”

1.

It’s the first day in their new dorm and after having pigged out on all kinds of food to celebrate the occasion, all of the members are in the living room watching a movie.

Normally, not all of them would fit in the room, even less with all of them lying down, but Jisung had convinced them to sleep together since it was their first day in the dorm. That’s why they had dragged some of their mattresses into the living room and created a huge make shift bed.

As Guanlin glances around, two things catch his eyes.

The first thing he notices are actually two people.

Seongwoo and Daniel.

They are the only ones lying on the couch, Daniel’s arm tightly wrapped around Seongwoo’s waist as Seongwoo is sprawled all over Daniel. They are almost chest to chest, Seongwoo’s face hidden in the crook of Daniel’s neck.

Guanlin guesses he must have fallen asleep sometime during the movie.

The both of them look cute, Seongwoo’s face relaxed in his sleep, Daniel happily looking down at him with the softest of smiles.

The other thing that had caught his attention is actually Jihoon.

Said boy is lying right next to Guanlin with his lips in a smile and his eyes sparkling as one of the main characters cracks a joke.

They are lying closer to each other than they usually would.

Guanlin wants to reach out and tug on Jihoon’s arm until the boy understands and rests his head on Guanlin’s chest but just the thought of doing so makes his heart feel like it’s about to explode.

Still, Guanlin scoots even closer to Jihoon, carefully to do so without the other boy noticing.

When he glances at the other boy nervously, his heart beating so fast it might as well fall out of his chest. However, when he looks at Jihoon again, he is relieved to see that he is too focused on the movie to realize what Guanlin is doing.

The younger boy waits a few minutes before he tries to reach out for Jihoon’s shirt. He, painfully slowly, stretches out his hands towards Jihoon.

Every time his hand is only a millimeter nearer to the older boy, his stomach tightens in anxiety and his heartbeat gets faster without a real reason as to why. When his fingertips reach the soft fabric of Jihoon’s shirt, it feels like his skin is burning.

Guanlin backs his hand off immediately, wiggles away from Jihoon in a flash of panic and looks at his hand in surprise, trying to calm himself down.

***

“Guanlin?” Jihoon murmurs some minutes later, his hand caressing Guanlin’s forearm. ”Why are you so far away, suddenly?”

“Uhm, I just… I just felt too hot,” Guanlin replies, lump in his throat.

“Ah, okay,” the older boy nods, removing his hand from Guanlin.

As soon as Jihoon’s gentle fingers are gone from his skin, he wants to tell Jihoon to touch him again. But somehow, he can’t.

***

For the rest of the night, he sneaks some glances at Jihoon, his body itching to get closer and have Jihoon in his arms.

2.

“Jihoon, are you going to sit there all alone sulking for the rest of the day?” Jisung asks with a smirk.

The younger boy just sticks his tongue out and crosses his arms over his chest. Guanlin thinks it’s one of the cutest things he has ever seen as he smiles he moves forward and plops down beside Jihoon.

“Why are you sulking anyway?” Guanlin says.

“Because Jisung and Seongwoo are assholes,” Jihoon replies, making sure to be loud enough for both of the older boys to hear. “They were teasing me the whole time we were in the car because I made a tiny mistake.”

“Aw, how pitiful,” he laughs, his hand reaches out to pat Jihoon’s head but stops midway.

Just like the last time he had tried to touch Jihoon, his heart starts to speed up in his chest, thundering against his rib cage, a lump forming in his throat. His mouth, all of a sudden, feels dry and his skin is on fire.

He is aware that he’s probably blushing, too.

Thankfully Jihoon is too distracted by Jisung wiggling his eyebrows at him and Seongwoo sending hearts their way to notice Guanlin’s hand awkwardly hovering above his head.

Guanlin, for at least five minutes, stares at his hand, trying to find out why the hell he just couldn’t touch Jihoon without feeling like he is going to have a panic attack or without his brain shutting off just at the thought of doing so.

“You’re on my side, right Guanlin?” Jihoon snaps him out of his trance.

He looks at his hand again, then back at Jihoon and nods without thinking about it. Jihoon grins at him with the cutest of grins and taps him on the shoulder before running off to play fight with Seongwoo.

3.

Jihoon is so unbelievably close to Guanlin all he would need to do for Jihoon to be cuddling against his side is to inch just a centimeter closer.

***

They had filmed for their variety show today, luckily Jihoon and him had been paired together so they couldn’t be more than one meter away from each other. Jihoon had played well with him, admiring him for his basketball skills and joking around whenever he got the chance.

It had been a pretty good day, well, until now.

Before they go to sleep, the staff drops a bomb on them.

“You guys thought it was over, right?” the scriptwriter questions, a smirk on her face. “Well, surprise then, we told you in the morning, it’s twenty-four hours.”

“What?” Jisung yells, frown on his face.

“The day is not over yet, you need to sleep in the same bed with your partner,” she laughs when almost all of them groan, complaining about how they are too big for the single beds.

***

Guanlin knows for a fact Jihoon is not sleeping, not when his breathing is not stable yet and he tosses and turns beside him. He wants to stop the other, put a hand on his waist, tug him closer and feel Jihoon’s breathe tickle his neck.

He turns over to face Jihoon.

His eyes follow the slope of Jihoon’s nose, he looks at the other boy’s slightly parted lips and the way his chest rises and falls.

“You can’t feel asleep either, huh?” Guanlin murmurs, eyes fixed on Jihoon.

The older boy opens his eyes and smiles, moving around so that he now, too, is facing Guanlin. If the lights were on, Jihoon would have probably been able to see how Guanlin’s cheek slowly turn into a shade of red.

“Nope,” Jihoon laughs. “But I’m glad you can’t either.”

They stay silent after that, just looking and smiling at each other as if they weren’t wasting their precious sleeping time.

Jihoon moves a little bit closer to Guanlin then, saying something about how he is almost about to fall out of the bed and suddenly Guanlin feels like he can’t breathe because Jihoon’s arms and legs are carefully pressed against his, Jihoon’s mouth only a few inches away.

Guanlin feels the urge to close the gap between the two of them once again but his brain is failing him.  Thoughts like “Jihoon is so near, fuck” and “What should I do?” begin to pile up in his head and Guanlin can’t stop them, can’t control them like he wants to.

He just wants Jihoon to be closer, he can’t really comprehend why his body is making such a big deal out of it, why his heart goes insane just at the thought, why his hands stop moving and start to tremble from nervousness as soon as he tries to touch Jihoon, why a lump forms in his throat and his mouth feels dry when he thinks of asking Jihoon to come closer to him instead.

The next time he looks at Jihoon, the other boy is sleeping soundly, breathing evenly on Guanlin’s nose.  

+1.

Guanlin is so stressed and just, plainly said, frustrated with himself, for not even being able to be one meter away from Jihoon without his heart feeling like it will explode in a million of pieces, that on his free night off he doesn’t go to sleep.

Instead he steals the tablet from in between a sleeping Jaehwan’s hands, sits down on the couch in the living room and googles “how to stop being too shy to touch my friend? Boyfriend?”.

He clicks link after link, reading through all the tips – he even writes them down in a little notebook his mother had gifted him at least three years ago.

Guanlin is so focused on filtering out the good advices from the bad ones that he doesn’t even notice Jihoon and Daniel, who had both just gotten back from an individual schedule, sitting down beside him.

“What are you doing?” Daniel inquires while peeking at the tablet.

Guanlin is so startled he almost throws the electronic device across the room. Thank God though, he doesn’t, instead he hugs it tightly into his chest and mutters a “nothing” underneath his breathe before standing up and closing the incognito tab he had open.

“Where you looking up girl group performances?” Jihoon wiggles his eyebrows.

The younger boy just frowns at him and shakes his head. He puts the tablet down on the armrest of the couch and sits back down, this time though, he sits only next to Jihoon.

Daniel, thankfully, breaks the silence by telling Guanlin every single detail of how the shooting for “Let’s Eat Dinner” went, he tells him about how they had to stop the shooting because of the rain and how a lot of fans ended up crowding them, Kang Hodong even complimenting them for their huge popularity.  

Guanlin knows he should be paying attention, or at least listening to the older boy, but all he can do is steal glances at Jihoon and wonder how to initiate some body contact, how to bring himself to reach out and take a hold of Jihoon’s hand.

He scoots closer to Jihoon, nodding his head and looking at Daniel for a second.

Now that the side of his legs are pressed against Jihoon’s, his heart is doing that weird thing, where it begins to hammer in his chest, again. It feels like it’s taking part in a race to find out how fast it can be before Guanlin has a heart attack.

Nonetheless he keeps this legs were they are, adverting his gaze from his legs and looking up at Daniel, who is wildly gesturing around and teasing Jihoon about how he had been able to eat first.

He rises his hand from where it’s resting on his lap and slowly moves it so that it’s nearer to Jihoon’s own.

When he is about to finally hold onto the other’s hand, he feels that same strange sensation in his stomach – Guanlin knows people would describe them as butterflies from excitement or something like that but for him, they feel weird, make him feel anxious and afraid, make him question all that he’s doing.

Guanlin sighs.

He retracts his hand again, puts it back on his lap and fidgets nervously with his fingers.

Suddenly though, Jihoon’s hand is on his.

It’s warm and soft and all that Guanlin had imagined it would be. He looks up at Jihoon, gaping and completely ignoring the way Daniel stops and looks at their hands with a knowing grin for a moment before he continues talking.

Jihoon only winks at him and then goes back to listening to Daniel.

Although the older boy is not looking at him, he interlocks their fingers together and strokes the back of Guanlin’s hand with his thumb in relaxing, circular motions.

Guanlin’s heart still feels like it’s running a marathon, the butterflies in his stomach are still there too, but somehow, they feel nicer, make him feel giddy instead of angsty.

The feeling Guanlin has now is one he wants to capture in a bottle and let free when he is feeling down.

He looks at their intertwined hands, a blush on his face, and smiles.

***

“Daniel…” Seongwoo whines, still half-asleep, and rubs his eyes with one hand. “Come to bed, you have an early schedule tomorrow.”

Guanlin, Jihoon and Daniel all simultaneously turn around and look at Seongwoo, all of them startled by the sudden appearance of the older boy.

Of course, Daniel is the first to snap out of it, standing up while laughing and making baby noises.

“Aw, look how cute you are when you are worried about me and half-asleep,” he says when he brings Seongwoo closer for a hug and kisses the other boy’s temple lovingly.

Guanlin feels kind of jealous while watching both of the older boys disappear into their room. He wants to be like that too, wants skinship to come as easily to him as it comes to them, wishes he could hug Jihoon just like that as well.

“Let’s go to sleep, too,” Jihoon says, snapping Guanlin out from his thoughts.

He nods, smiling when he notices Jihoon hadn’t let go from his hand, and walks over to their door. When they open it, they realize none of their members are sleeping – Woojin playing games with one of their other tablets, Minhyun typing speedily on his phone and Jaehwan listening to music in his bed.

None of them notice them though, too concentrated on what they are doing.

Jihoon leads them to Guanlin’s bed, lying down unceremoniously and tugging on Guanlin’s hand until the younger boy is also lying in the bed. He gets the blanket from the bottom of the furniture and drapes it all over the both of them.

“It’s warm,” Guanlin mutters. “Just like your hand.”

“Is that a good thing?” Jihoon asks with a grin.

“Yes,” he answers, nodding and squeezing the other’s hand. “I have been wondering for a while how it would feel like to hold hands with you.”

As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he wants to slam his head into the nearest wall because shit, this is the most embarrassing moment in his life.

Jihoon, though, doesn’t laugh at him, nor does he tease him.

“I know,” the older boy acknowledges.

Guanlin doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he doesn’t. He, however, does try to stop his face from getting even redder than it already.

“If you were wondering, I was curious, too,” Jihoon says a few minutes later.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” the older sighs and turns to face Guanlin. “I was wondering how cuddling would feel like with you, too. Do you remember the first night at the dorm? All I could think about was how it would be like to snuggle with you.”

“Me too!” Guanlin exclaims excitedly, unconsciously scooting closer to Jihoon. “I tried to… but I would always get so nervous whenever I was close to touching you.”

“Well,” Guanlin follows the way Jihoon’s tongue moves to swipe over the other’s lip. “Can we cuddle now then? I mean, if we both want to know what it feels like… we should try it out, right?”

“Y-Yeah,” he nods.

Jihoon smiles.

He happily takes a hold of Guanlin’s arm and stretches it out, then he lets his head rest on it. Guanlin reciprocates the older boy’s touch by slinging an arm around Jihoon’s waist and pulling him closer. Jihoon giggles into the skin of Guanlin’s neck, his breath tickling it and making a shiver run down Guanlin’s spine.

***

“We should…” Jihoon sleepily grins at him from where he is still probed on Guanlin’s arm the next day. “Cuddle more often. It makes me sleep so much better.”

Guanlin laughs, his hand coming up to pat Jihoon’s head lovingly, when it stops midway and his heart starts thundering in his chest, Jihoon is there to take a hold of it and put it on his head himself. Guanlin snorts but still proceeds to caress Jihoon’s hair softly, smiling at the way Jihoon’s eyes close in contentment.

“Let’s do this every day now,” Guanlin suggests, scooting closer to Jihoon and, after hesitating for a second, placing a kiss on Jihoon’s forehead.

“Okay,” Jihoon agrees.

Seongwoo, like always, is the last one to come out of the car.

He can see Guanlin in front of him, the younger boy’s face in a serious frown as he looks ahead and notices the mass of fans waiting for them, screaming their names and waving frantically.

“Are you sure we can go through that?” he hears his managers ask each other at the same time.

“It’s not like we have any other choice,” a third one replies with a sigh.

Without another word, the boys line up, eyes fixed on the member before them. Jisung moves to go behind Seongwoo, but he stops the older boy with his hand, holding his wrist.

“You should stay at the front,” Seongwoo says. “I’ll make sure all of us make it into the building safely.”

Jisung bites his lip in worry but doesn’t protest.

Seongwoo sees him move to the middle of the line, standing next to Daehwi and Sungwoon, and yelling for Daniel to be careful at the front.

A manager comes up next to Seongwoo and wraps his arm around his back to protect him.

Seongwoo doesn’t even have a second to brace himself before they are already walking into the mass of fans.

As soon as they enter it, he feels people touching him, tugging at his shirt and yelling right into his ear. He doesn’t pay them any attention, instead he walks faster, even helps Jinyoung regain his balance when he almost falls down thanks to a fan jumping right in front of him.

Suddenly, however, there’s a hand on his bicep, pulling at it so strongly it makes him lose his footing. His manager tries to stay still and help him stand up, but there are too many hands, too many people shoving their way to come closer to Seongwoo, to try and touch him before he can get away.

“Please let him have some space!” he hears some frantic fans yell from afar.

Seongwoo doesn’t know what to do.

All he wants to do is to not be there, not be stuck in a crowd of people trying to rip his shirt off or wanting to take a picture of him, but he can’t stand up to try and flee from the crowd. He is helplessly frozen on the spot, mass of people looking at him from above as he shrinks in on himself.

His heart is running a mile per minute, hammering against his rib cage, he feels as if someone was choking him. He frantically tries to catch his breath but his head is spinning, his thoughts cluttering and he feels faint, weak.

Seongwoo puts his hands on his ears, trying to block out all of the screams, trying to grasp the last remains of his sanity but it doesn’t work.

He wants to leave, leave, leave and get out of there as fast as he can.

The dizziness from the lack of oxygen slowly starts to kick in, the fans around him become blurry figures as they touch and tug and kick him.

Seongwoo closes his eyes tightly, once again trying to ignore the shouts of his fans, trying to ignore how they repeat his name over and over again. Even though his head is too full with his own thoughts, with his own panic, he can still hear them and it’s driving him insane.

***

“Jinyoung, where is Seongwoo?” Jisung asks, the panic evident in his voice.

Daniel turns his head around and looks out of the building, his manager at the edge trying to make his way to the middle of the whole ordeal, he hears him yelling “let him have some space, please!” and something in Daniel breaks.

Anger flares up in him, crawling inside of his body and spreading out like wildfire.

He doesn’t hesitate even for a second before he is running out and jumping into the crowd.

***

Daniel, after endlessly screaming for the fans to make way for him, finally, finally, finally finds Seongwoo in the midst of the crowd, he feels bile rise in his throat, he feels how his nails dig into his own skin out of anger.

The older boy is kneeling on the floor, hands trying to block out the noise around him, eyes closed tightly as he trembles in fear. He has small bruises all over his arms, his shirt is ripped in three to four places, Daniel can even see blood dripping from his forehead, a fan probably having scratched him accidentally.

***

Seongwoo is chanting “calm down” over and over again in his head when he feels someone’s hands going under his armpits and swooping him off of the floor, helping him to regain his balance and stay upright until his knees don’t feel as weak anymore.

He flinches in shock, his eyes snapping open to look at the person behind him.

Daniel looks down at him with, what Seongwoo guesses should be, an encouraging smile the moment their eyes connect with each other. The younger’s hands wrap around Seongwoo’s chest, making him fall back into Daniel’s own with Seongwoo’s back pressed against it, but he doesn’t protest.

Seongwoo lets himself bask in the warmth of Daniel’s body, tries to take advantage of the way Daniel is shielding him from the fans as they waddle their way to the building to calm himself down, to make his heart stop beating three times faster than it should be.

“Let us go through please,” Daniel grits through his teeth.

He knows Daniel can probably feel the way he is still trembling in fear, the way he flinches as soon as a fan comes too close to his comfort.

Seongwoo reasons that that’s why Daniel makes him turn around so that they are chest to chest and presses him tighter into his chest, why Daniel’s hands come up to caress his hair softly and why Daniel whispers sweet nothings into his ears until they are entering the building, even if hundreds of fans are there to see their public display of affection.

“You’re save now, Seongwoo, we’re inside,” Daniel says, his body noticeably more relaxed, but the other boy still doesn’t let go.

Jisung and one of their managers come up to them immediately after they come through the door, asking if the both of them are alright, if they are hurt anywhere and if they need to go to the emergency room.

Daniel replies for them both, saying that they only have a few scratches here and there but that it’s nothing too serious, nothing that a basic first aid kit can’t deal with.

“Okay, since it’s nothing bad, do you think we can go into the recording right away?” the manager asks.

Seongwoo tenses at that because he doesn’t feel ready, fuck, he is still trembling in fear, his head is still spinning and his heart is still thundering against his chest.

“No,” Daniel answers. “The rest of the members should go ahead. We still need a moment.”

Soon after that, Seongwoo hears Jisung and their manager’s steps echoing through the hallways.

None of them say anything, Seongwoo wouldn’t be able to even if he wanted to, his mouth is too dry and he doesn’t feel like any noise would come out of it.

Daniel doesn’t seem to mind though, he just lets Seongwoo cling to him all he wants, his fingers drawing circular motions into Seongwoo’s back. He also kisses Seongwoo’s temple once in a while, the sensation of Daniel’s lips on his skin makes him go lax in the other’s arms, makes it so much easier to push away all the frantic thoughts in his mind.

“Thank you,” Seongwoo breathes out when he feels like he is ready, when he feels like he is not going to pass out from anxiety at any given moment.

He distances himself from Daniel, looking up at him with a small, forced smile, his hand, however, is still holding tightly onto the bottom of Daniel’s shirt.

“No problem,” Daniel smiles, this time it’s more genuine, more like Daniel’s usual smiles. “Let’s go?”

***

All throughout of the filming for “Immortal Songs” he tries to be bright, react to all of the MCs jokes and even crack some of his own.

Even when they are on stage, and he recognizes some of the fans, who were grabbing at him outside, he smiles and waves at them all, sings his parts as brightly and as well as he can, not showing any signs of weakness.

The other boys send him encouraging smiles and then, when the recording is over, compliment him on how strong and brave he is.

***

Seongwoo, no matter how much he tells himself he is fine during the show and after, still freezes when he sees another crowd waiting for them when their managers prepare them to go out and into their van again.

He, thank God, doesn’t get enough time for his body to go into complete panic mode – he can already feel his heart starting to beat faster – before Daniel is behind him, his hand on Seongwoo’s shoulder, grounding Seongwoo in only a way Daniel is able to.

When one of their managers tells them to go out and opens the door for them, he is actually ready to go out and brave the mass of fans alone, only with the help of Daniel’s hand on him, Daniel, however, doesn’t let him.

Instead he back-hugs him, his hands taking a hold of Seongwoo’s and their fingers intertwining themselves with each other.

Seongwoo feels himself relax, the tension, that had built up in his body without him knowing, disappearing thanks to the warmth of Daniel’s body.

The fans are much calmer this time, they don’t grab at his arm or try to touch him too much, but whenever he feels a phone being shoved in his face he still flinches. Daniel just gently strokes his thumb over Seongwoo’s skin whenever it happens, calming him down.

The younger boy makes sure they enter the van first and he guides them to very back, sitting down on the side of the window and making Seongwoo plop down next to him.

They put on their seatbelts without another word and then, when the rest of the members are in the car and all are sat in their seats, Seongwoo starts to cling onto Daniel again. He hides his face in the crook of Daniel’s neck, giving the soft skin there a kiss.

Daniel laughs, silently enjoying the over the top skinship, knowing that it doesn’t only comfort Seongwoo but also him.

“I love you,” Daniel tells Seongwoo, mouth ghosting over the older boy’s ear.

“I love you, too,” Seongwoo breathes out against Daniel’s neck, tickling the skin. “Thank you so much for today.”

He can feel Daniel hum a “no problem” into his hair before he kisses the top of it, hands tightening around Seongwoo’s waist and pulling him even closer.