Sicheng

[ tw // homophobia ]

sicheng’s words don’t surprise him - he knows he’s afraid, know’s he wants the best for xuxi. “don’t be. i do too but- … if it doesn’t go well, it doesn’t matter that much. we’ve only been speaking properly again for a year, and we aren’t even close. not like we used to be. if he doesn’t accept it- us, then i don’t need him in my life. all i need is you.” the bed dips a little as he sits himself beside sicheng. “well, and maybe my mum just a little bit.” a soft laugh falls past his lips.

 [tw: homophobia]

 Sicheng knows that many in his position would find comfort in Xuxi’s words, in their bold certainty, but it isn’t so for him; he knows Xuxi too well, that he’s recklessly stubborn, in a childish way. When he gets his mind set on something, when his heart is in it, he sees it through; there’s no other option. If his father doesn’t react well to this, Xuxi’s going to decide that they were to be estranged, and Sicheng doesn’t know how he feels about being the reason. Couldn’t they just say they were friends? 

 He sighs, looking up into Xuxi’s eyes, his stomach so tight that he thinks it’s possible that it’s petrified to stone. 

 “You...you have to have your family, Xuxi...” he decides, his voice heavy, full of preemptive heartbreak, and a bit of guilt, because he knows he’s not brave enough to return the favour if he was put in the position,“You’ve...you’ve made things better with him and...”

 His voice breaks, as his eyes fill with tears, again, and he swears quietly, wishing that he could will them away. He hates to cry, but Xuxi has an uncanny ability to make him do so; usually with happiness, but today it isn’t happiness. 

 He thinks for a second, taking a deep breath, trying to steady himself, but his lower lip wobbles like a baby’s, and he laughs, a sharp, bitter scoff of a laugh, as he gives up, lifting his hand to his brow as his eyes overflow. 

it’s an easy truth - he’s proud of sicheng for everything he ever does, really. he’d be proud of sicheng for successfully tying his shoelaces, if he’s being honest. but that’s what love does. sicheng is his baby, and he is sicheng’s. 

 Sicheng smiles, pressing a second kiss to Xuxi’s forehead, and sighs, his mind drifting off into some theoretical future akin to the one Xuxi had described, although after a few moments, he has to shake off a strange lump that’s formed in his throat. 

 “You think so?” he asks, his voice solemn, and quiet, not a whisper in volume, but in spirit. 

 It’s something that Sicheng had worried about before; the future. 

 Would they end up together forever? How would that work? Where was Sicheng going? How long would it be?

he watches as sicheng takes in dohyun, his smile never wavering, until he laughs softly. “i stole him!” he jokes for a moment, then leans in to kiss sicheng quickly on the lips. “he’s my mum’s friends son, she needed someone to babysit until tomorrow afternoon, so my mum offered me up. his name’s dohyun, isn’t he precious?”

 Sicheng smiles softly, reaching out a finger towards the little boy to poke him in the cheek again, the giggle it elicits from the baby spurring a laugh of his own; Sicheng had always liked babies, they were just so stupid and sweet and funny, almost painfully joy-inducing. It made him sad sometimes, to think that he was unlikely to ever have any of his own. Even nephews and nieces, as his sister had told him that she didn’t want children at all, and his brother, though likely to have a couple, was going to have to fool some poor woman into mothering them for him first.  

 The baby grabs Sicheng’s finger, then, pulling it closer to his face to examine it, as though he didn’t himself have five of them on either hand. 

 “He’s...so cute...” Sicheng says, almost sadly, as this was not their baby to keep, “Look at his little wrist rolls...” 

he’s doing that rambling thing that he tends to do sometimes but its so rare for him to ever ramble. the teen normally more pulled together. “it’s nice! it’s… different, i don’t know.” he shrugs, looking down at his hands for a moment. “i.. was signed with a friend–and i already knew one of the trainees…” this makes him pause, squinting at his hands. “nakamoto yuta? i knew him from my best friend, he’s… hmm..” he pauses not sure how he still really feels regarding the older.

“but it’s been okay–i’m still getting use to it.”

 Sicheng can’t help but pity Hyunjoon the smallest bit, until it occurs to him that maybe it’s him; perhaps he’s intimidating. He tries his best to loosen up, although he also knows that a forced smile is always an obvious one.  

 He’s just never been good at being friendly. 

 “I see...” he says, still kind of fascinated by how serviceable Hyunjoon’s Mandarin was, even though he knew the reason for it, “Well...you’ve got me now. Although...I don’t really need another excuse to avoid using Korean...” 

 He offers an awkward chuckle, but then his eyebrows perk up at the mention of Yuta’s name, a genuine laugh escaping his lips when it seems that the kid beside him isn’t quite sold on the man. 

The repeated word coming with it’s own crack, Yuta trying to mimic how Sicheng had said it. Laughter immediately bubbling up, louder than it should have been and one of his feet stamping on the floor with childish delight at his actions. 

“Does your voice crack like that when you think of me, in private?” Yuta asks in a lower voice, teasing his fellow trainee.

 Sicheng takes satisfaction in Yuta’s pained response, as put on as it seems, wishing he’d slugged him with just a little more gusto, even though he knows be afraid to genuinely hurt someone, even the boy who made it his duty to pester him. There’s somewhere deep inside Sicheng, tucked behind some dishes in a cupboard somewhere in the depths of his mind, perhaps, where he’s managed to set aside just the tiniest bit of fondness for Yuta. 

 “Yeah, I’m mean.” he declares with a soft smile, almost as though him and Yuta were doing some personal growth exercise and he was saying it to convince himself. 

 He nods, though, in agreement with Yuta’s next claim, “Well yeah...there’d be nothing left if you took ‘freak’ out of the equation, hyung, so of course...” he says with a nonchalant shrug, pretending to check out his cuticles in a show of disinterest. 

his minds dances hurriedly away from dramas and kiss scenes when he feels sicheng’s arms encircle his waist, and he instinctively shifts closer to press their chests together. the kiss makes him smile - this is a proper kiss, not one of those silly drama ones, this one has good, firm contact, a slight lingering, that hints at a deeper hunger. the little nip, however, though not unusual for them, takes him by surprise, and he emits a soft sound, but relaxes almost instantly, as he decides he liked it. 

he’s trying to shake his head to indicate sicheng doesn’t have to apologise (again, he liked it - sicheng knows he likes biting), but then quickly starts laughing, thinking about trying to act all serious and glare-y at sicheng like the stoic male leads in many dramas. “more like cry and hang onto your ankle.” it’s true though, many a time has he felt the strong desire to cling to sicheng and wail and cry and not let him leave because he knows how much he’ll miss him - he never does though, because he can’t be selfish like that with sicheng. 

 Sicheng could almost fall asleep, their shared bodyheat immediately cozy, and he even lets his eyes flutter shut for a moment, listening to the sound of Xuxi’s voice, soft and low, as he considered letting himself drift off.

 He lets a giggle slide from his lips, the mental image of Xuxi clinging to his leg as he tried to leave so vivid in his mind because it seemed like such a real possibility; Xuxi was so sweet, and needy, and Sicheng felt a distinctly painful pang of guilt every time he had to leave him, as though he were a puppy in a kennel. 

 It’s moments like those that made Sicheng wish he had more time; a day or two that he could devote to canoodling his boyfriend.

 Sicheng smiles, and opens his eyes to take Xuxi in for a second. 

as anxieties creep into his heart and tighten their chains around it, he manages to keep a smile on his face as to not worry the older. “could you tell me more? don’t spare the details,” he asks as innocuously as he can. “i’m just curious, and stuff,” a small laugh leaves his lips.

 Sicheng’s instinct is to reach a hand up to mess the back of Renjun’s hair, and although he knows the younger male may not respond kindly to it, he decides to follow his gut; Renjun is simply too cute, he can’t help but patronise him. 

 “Spare no details, huh?” Sicheng says, always kind of reluctant to break down his schedules, simply because he found it boring to talk about what was his everyday life, “I mean...I wake up early...and spend all day at TRC dodging Yuta’s advances...so I feel like I should.” 

 He offers Renjun a shy laugh. 

 “It’s...it’s not easy,” he says, with honesty, “But I think it’s easier for the people who want it really bad.” 

 He doesn’t want to discourage Renjun, because he thinks he has a sense for why the boy is so curious, and knows that some of his fellow trainees seem to naturally flourish at TRC in a way that he has had to adjust to doing; it was a sort of pressure that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, but one he’d felt free from since coming to Korea, before he was signed. He had yet to figure out how much he appreciated being back beneath it. 

“hm… my grandparents have a tea shop in hong kong… but before that they traveled and lived all over china and hong kong… i use to visit a lot… growing up.” he starts his explanation, his gaze dropping to the floor as he blushes a little under the attention of the older trainee. the first time he’s showing any shyness with a trc trainee–but also the first time he has approached on on his own. and sicheng is very good looking, his gay little heart is fluttering so widely in his chest. “my grandpa… use to say…..if i wanted to stop being confused i had to learn… so i studied mandarin and cantonese really hard…” 

 Sicheng hums, nodding as he pulls the seat next to him away from the table, nodding towards it so the younger boy might sit. He feels as though he can recognise a bit of the shyness he initially felt upon his signing to TRC in him, and wants to make sure that he offers him as warm a welcome as the other TRC trainees had offered himself. 

 Part of him is reminded a bit of Mark, someone young and sweet and passionate, and the big brotherly (from another motherly) instinct sets in.

 “You must have studied hard,” he says, with another smile, more relaxed this time, “It sounds really natural?” 

 He reaches up to pat Hyunjoon on his shoulder, giving it a bit of a grip and a shake.

This time when he leans in to Sicheng, he chooses to whisper in the younger males ear, grinning to himself as he does. “But I’m glad to know you just imagined it. That’s step one in getting you to admit that you’re madly in love with me, my soulmate,” he teases, gently tapping the corner of his phone to Sicheng’s arm, again and again. Yuta peeking at Sicheng’s expression, before he blows into his ear, childishly knowing it would irritate. This was much more fun than waiting around and being ‘professional’. “My lovely soulmate.”

 “...want...?” Sicheng says the word as though it’s sticky and grotesque, something he’s about to spit into the bin, repeating what Yuta’s said with apparent disdain, “An expression of love and want...”

 He tries to contain the laugh that bubbles up from within his chest, and almost fails, it manifesting more as a scoff, albeit a certainly amused one. 

 And then Yuta pounces on him once again, and he groans, pressing himself into his seat as if he might phase through it and escape the other man, a mangled whine mingling with a chuckle to slip from his throat like the laughter of a hyena. 

 Yuta likes to push buttons, and it pains Sicheng to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’s good at it, but upon feeling a gust of hot breath on his temple, and straight into his ear, he shudders, his balled fist swinging upwards to slug the other boy in the bicep as if by its own accord; not all that hard, of course, because Sicheng is a gentle person to his very core, and he can’t imagine hitting anyone in a way that wasn’t distinctly brotherly. 

“And private?” He echos, eyes lighting up as he looks back at Sicheng, the person – not the picture. He doubted Sicheng meant what Yuta’s mind immediately jumped to. “So I have your permission and encouragement to use your pictures, in private? When I do private things, privately?” Yuta over-enunciates every repeat of the word, each one enthusing him more. Laughter shuddering in his chest as he leans in closer to whisper to Sicheng. “In private.”

 Sicheng meets Yuta’s eye, the glint in them nothing if not insufferable, and he rolls his own upon seeing his face on Yuta’s homescreen, a quiet laugh escaping his lips, much to his chagrin. 

 He then sighs as Yuta sets in on Sicheng’s comment about privacy, pouncing on it like a hungry animal, a look of both amusement and disappointment gracing Sicheng’s features as he realises just how hard he walked into that one, having set it up nicely for Yuta to extrapolate into something embarrassing. 

 He tries not to react but can’t help but to groan in disgust when Yuta leans in to hammer home what the implications he’s insisting upon are, the groan morphing its way into a strange whinny of a whine as a shudder works it’s way up his body on account of the sudden proximity. 

“i’m korean but… chinese is more comfortable to speak some days…i got excited hearing you use mandarin.” 

  “Heo Hyunjoon...” 

 He says it as if he’s measuring the vowels of the name, hoping to commit it to memory in doing so, and he finds himself smiling softly, the younger boy clearly uncertain, shy perhaps; he relates to it, he thinks, knowing all too well the sting of humiliation that came with putting yourself out there. 

 “You’re alright,” he says, trying to push through his own timidness so he could be genuinely friendly, mustering a wider smile before his eyelashes flutter in surprise, “Really?” 

 He’s suddenly curious upon hearing Hyunjoon say that he’s at times more comfortable speaking Chinese than he is speaking Korean, wondering if he perhaps lived in China at one point.