#rix fic

He always hears it when he stays late, in that little room where he goes through the boxes and boxes of old hardcopy files, shoved slapdash in and forgotten about, left to rot. Yoosung organizes and sorts and puts them away in hardier, plastic containers, and then before he knows it he’s staring blankly at manila envelopes, absolutely arrested in place by the beautiful voice floating up through the air vents.

He figures it has to be someone who works down there. Right? And maybe they won’t be happy to see him and he’ll get in trouble, but it’s been a month since he’s started hearing this voice and he thinks he’s going to go crazy if he hears it one more time without seeing who it comes from.

When he exits the elevator he almost expects an alarm to go off, like the moment his foot hits the tile everyone’s going to know an intruder is here. But nothing happens, and Yoosung wanders the quiet halls with his spine straight up, doing his best to pretend like he belongs there. No one he passes even looks twice at him.

Yoosung, though, avidly inspects each face. Which one’s the singer? If they’re anything like their voice then they’ve got to be gorgeous. Maybe a woman with really long hair...or a guy with piercing eyes… Yoosung doesn’t really have a plan for how to identify them, other than that he has a vague idea of where the other side of the vent could lead to and...and he just feels like he’ll know.

Maybe it’s stupid. Actually now that he’s thinking about it it’s definitely stupid, but he can’t seem to convince the rest of him of that. His heart won’t stop pounding with excitement, like it’s saying almost there, almost there, almost there.

Yoosung turns a corner and almost smacks face-first into the double doors. Locked. But there’s a card-reader right next to them and he has a feeling… The door lock clicks open when he swipes Rika’s card. Yes! He nudges one of the doors open and slips inside, letting it close behind him softly. Once again he has to wonder how high up Rika is at this place. She’s never told him, but if this card can unlock any door…

It’s dark in here. The main lights are off, leaving just a couple tiny service ones scattered across the cavernous room. Which means Yoosung can see where he’s walking, but everything is draped in dark shadows and it’s really, really cree—

Water splashes softly.

Yoosung fumbles for a light switch. “H-Hello?”

“Hm? What, someone’s here again today? Don’t you jerks ever go to sleep?!” a voice echoes from the back.

Yoosung starts, not expecting anyone to actually answer let alone like that, but no, this is good! This could be the person! “Jerk?? I stay late sometimes to help out,” Yoosung explains, making himself relax. He’s still looking for the lights but less frantically now, hands running up and down along the walls. “What about you, huh?” Yoosung challenges. “You’re here after hours too. Don’t you sleep?”

“Huh??” A long, long moment of silence. “Mmmm~ Sure, but I think I need less of it than all of you.”

A man’s voice. Yoosung’s heart skips a beat. He hasn’t even seen his face yet, but the more the guy talks the more he’s sure. It has to be him. Yoosung redoubles his efforts to find the light switch. “You shouldn’t let yourself get sleep deprived though! It’s bad for you! I mean, I would know.” He laughs self-consciously.

“Yeah...? Haha, that’s not good. Maybe I should sing you a lullaby.” Yoosung hears another splash. “Ah, no. Nevermind. I probably shouldn’t.”

The chance to hear that singing from up close?! “W-Why not?” Yoosung blurts.

“I try not to when you guys are around. I really wanna get out of here, but not bad enough yet to…”

None of that sentence makes sense to Yoosung. “What are you talking about? What’s so bad about it?” His fingers finally find the plate on the wall. “And if you want to leave what’s stopping y—”

The switch flips and the lights blaze to life.

Yoosung screams.

“What the hell?!” The...the...the...monster that Yoosung’s been talking to this whole time covers where his ears should be. “Ow...You’re gonna hurt my feelings if you do that. I’m more beautiful than scary, right~?”

Yoosung shakes from his new home on the floor, speechless, but the worst thing about it is that the monster is right. Yoosung’s eyes should be lingering on the needle-like teeth, the spindly clawed hands, the blood-bright eyes. Instead they trace the curve of that shimmering white tail and the gossamer fins, the long silky hair sticking against a human-like chest.

The monster catches him staring and grins, muscled arms resting on the lip of the tank and tail twisting in a self-satisfied rhythm. Seeing all of those teeth at once should send Yoosung into cardiac arrest, but for some reason it...doesn’t. “Are you real?” Yoosung whispers.

The monster sputters and laughs. “Why are you asking me?!” He pinches his own perfectly pale skin. “Well, looks like I’m real. What about you?”

Yoosung pinches himself in turn. Holy shit. This isn’t a dream.

He braces a hand against the wall and slowly rises from the floor. His feet start shuffling forward like they have a mind of their own. Wow… The closer he gets the bigger the monster looks. The human-ish half seems like a regular size give or take, but the tail is huge, much longer than any legs would be.

“Getting closer already?” The monster says, amused. “I haven’t even done anything. Are you that enchanted by my good looks?”

“Sh-shut up,” Yoosung grumbles weakly, pink-cheeked. “What do you mean, do something?”

“Sing,” the monster answers with a wink. “You could say it’s what I was born to do~”

Even just the mention of it has Yoosung’s heart galloping again. “Yeah. Yeah I heard you.”

“You...you have?!”

“From upstairs. I could just barely hear it, but…”

Yoosung’s finally close enough to touch the glass. It’s cold against his palm. The tail is right in front of his face; he can see each individual scale catch the light. When he cranes his neck up, the monster is looking down at him with a melancholy expression. He wants to ask what’s wrong, but instead he asks, “What’s your name?”

“M-My name??” Now the monster looks baffled. Has no one ever asked before? “Uh…” He scratches at the back of his head. “Hm. I dunno. How about Zen? That’s close enough.”

“Zen,” Yoosung repeats. He finds himself smiling up at wide, red eyes. “I really want to hear you sing again.”

The monster, Zen, stares at him for a long second before burying his face in his arms, tail curling upwards. “You don’t want that. If I knew you could hear me I wouldn’t of done it.”

“Why?” The thought of never having heard that singing suddenly seems like the worst thing in the world. Yoosung cranes up on his tiptoes, like he can close the distance between them that way. “Come on...please…?”

One red eye peeks at him.

Sensing an opening, Yoosung keeps pushing it. “Please? I’ll do anything.”

“Anything…” Zen’s head lifts and he quirks a rueful smile. “Are you sure? What if my song’s the last thing you ever hear, huh?”

A prickle of fear finally finds him, but it does nothing to dislodge the yearning in Yoosung’s heart. “I’d rather hear it forever.”

Zen turns his head and laughs, a little shakily. “That’s not fair. Well. Maybe you won’t be able to make it up here,” he murmurs, only barely audible.

Then he takes a breath. Another. And then…

He sings.

It’s like a fist around his heart. Yoosung staggers, only the glass holding him up. He wants to cry, but he’s so happy. Is he crying? He knows he’s shaking, but power is surging through his every limb. He feels like he can do anything. Anything at all as long as it’s...it’s… Yoosung looks back up, at Zen, at the singer of a song so beautiful it hurts. He needs...he needs him. He needs to get closer. He’ll do anything, he’ll do anything!

Time stretches and skips. He’s clawing at the glass, he’s reaching upwards, he’s running to a control panel and frantically pushing buttons. Something, something, something has to get him up there. Please, please, please, plea—

One last button press and the entire tank hisses, spins, lowers, sinking into the floor. Yoosung watches, panting with happiness, and runs back over the instant it’s done. This time when he reaches up, his hands catch a ledge and he pulls himself up, hooks a knee over, stands on it.

The song stops. Suddenly Yoosung’s unmoored, wavering unbalanced on a ledge too small for him. What’s happening? How did he get here?

“Hey, you weren’t supposed to know how to do that,” The monster says quietly, sadly. He’s pushed himself away from the ledge and treads water in the middle of the tank. “You don’t even work down here. Guess you’re a smart one, huh….haha…”

“Zen…” Yoosung’s voice wobbles. He’s scared.

“Go. Get out of here.”

Yoosung doesn’t want to.

“What are you doing?! Go!”

Zen’s yell is the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen, but still Yoosung’s feet won’t move. “I c-can’t…” Instead Yoosung can feel himself gradually tilting forward. Like the lure never stopped, just faded, just sunk under his skin until it got wound up in all his insides and became a part of him.

A wet hand presses up against his stomach and keeps him upright, claws catching into fabric. Despite himself, Yoosung touches it, touches down the length of that forearm. It’s cold like ice, almost slimy. Yoosung starts shivering and can’t stop. “P-Please…” He doesn’t even know what he’s begging for anymore. He loses his balance, but finds himself sitting on the ledge instead of tipping over it. Another wet hand cards through his hair, petting him.

Yoosung’s eyes are closed now, but he can feel breath against his shoulder. He pictures those big teeth piercing right through an artery.

“You’re a good one,” Zen says, voice tight. “You’re not supposed to be down here, are you? I really don’t want…”

A frigid tongue licks up his neck and Yoosung whines.

“I really don’t want to…”

“Zen,” Yoosung pleads, desperate.

He feels the sting of claws against his stomach, his scalp, and then suddenly he’s falling. He hits the ground outside the tank with a hard slap.

“Go!” The voice edges up into a scream.

Yoosung scrambles back, kicking his feet, and then finally gets the strength to get up and run. He runs, and runs, and runs, out of the room, down the halls, into the elevator. He can’t stop crying. His heart hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

It isn’t until he’s curled up in the passenger seat of his car that he realizes something.

Rika’s keycard.

“O-oh, sorry,” Yoosung stammers reflexively before straightening up, a little annoyed at himself because this is his cousin’s house so why is he apologizing? He can go wherever he wants.

“Didn’t say that was a bad thing.”

And now Yoosung can see the curled suggestion of a smile on the man’s face, although really everything’s a little hard to make out in this dimness, with just the illumination of the moon and the lone streetlight from outside to go by. Even if the whole thing does give Hyun a kind of unearthly glow.

“Okay. Cool.” And then Yoosung has no idea what to do with himself. Well. That’s not true. He knows what he has to do, what he came here for, but he really, really doesn’t want to think about doing it. He shuffles his feet and clears his throat awkwardly. “So, uh...you like sitting around in the dark?”

Hyun huffs out a laugh. “Usually I like the spotlight better, but I guess the moon’s my spotlight tonight, hm?”

“Yeah,” Yoosung agrees a little breathlessly before he realizes what he’s doing and clamps his mouth shut, mortified. This kind of thing is exactly why everyone else joined forces to put him up to this. Yoosung’s feelings are like a neon flashing sign no matter what he does. He just can’t help it. He moves and speaks before he even realizes what he’s doing half the time.

Hyun’s looking at him, clearly curious. He takes another drag of his cigarette and then turns his head again just long enough to exhale it out. Yoosung’s transfixed by the expanse of Hyun’s neck. By just Hyun in general, honestly. The guy who takes exactly one acting class a semester, nothing else, no other classes whatsoever, and then somehow beats out every other student in auditions to get the leading role. Not that that’s surprising. Yoosung took Intro to Acting to fill up his credits last year and sat back in awe as Hyun decimated every exercise every single time with a crazy kind of singular focus.

“So I’m ditching to smoke, but why are you ditching the party?”

Oh no.

“It’s. It’s a dare.” Yoosung admits.

“A dare?! And it involves me? What, do you have to try and pull my pants down or something?” Hyun grins, grinding out his cigarette into his portable ash-tray. “Don’t think I’ll go making it easy for you, dude.”

“No, I, um. They...they dared me to kiss you…”

“Wha--?” Hyun’s mouth hangs open for a second, eyebrows scrunched incredulously. “This is that kind of party?”

“What do you mean that kind of party?”

Hyun flounders for a second. “You know...don’t people do that kinda stuff in high school? Spin the bottle, dare people to kiss other people?”

“I don’t know.” Yoosung shrugs, sheepish. “I never went to parties in high school. I-Is it?”

“Don’t know, never went to high school.” Hyun scratches at his head, looks off to the side. “I’ve just seen it in movies and stuff.”

Another silence falls, even more awkward and excruciating than the last. Yoosung wants to leave. This is a horrible idea. It’s always been a horrible idea, but he could have at least taken this horrible idea to the grave with him and made peace with the fact that his friends, particularly Saeyoung, will give him shit for this and his fruitless crush forever.

“How would you prove it?”

“Huh?”

“If you kissed me.” Hyun pauses and then laughs into his hand. “Actually, nevermind. It’d probably be written all over your face, huh.”

Yoosung sputters and then scowls. “How would you know?!”

“Gonna prove me wrong?”

Yoosung’s heart jumps to his throat, scowl sliding off his face. “Wait, what?” That almost sounds like… “You’re going to let me…?”

“Gross. Don’t sound sound so happy about it, dude. It’s not like it would be a real one.” Hyun shrugs with a casualness that doesn’t ring quite true. “We’re doing it for an audience right? Just like on stage.”

We’re. He said we’re. Yoosung feels a little dizzy as he nods. “Right. Yeah.” Except it isn’t like that at all. This isn’t like those paired up partner exercises in acting where you have to do outlandish things in front of the class to let go of your embarrassment. Hyun and Yoosung are the only ones there. No one else is actually watching, just a few of Yoosung’s friends waiting somewhere else to hear the results. There’s no one at all telling Hyun to go along with it. Why is Hyun going along with it again?

“You’re going to have to come over here. Or do you want a script where I sweep you off your feet?” Hyun leans back, grinning, with his elbows resting on the window frame behind him. “Too bad, because I’m still not gonna make it easy for you. It’s your dare.”

Yoosung manages to close the distance, palms tingling with nerves. He almost feels like Hyun’s just trying to play some big prank on him, like he’s going to pull back and yell ‘psyche!’ just as Yoosung’s leaning in or something, but when Yoosung gets close enough, takes that last step into Hyun’s space, he can see Hyun’s lazy grin quiver, can see something small in the slant of his shoulders that betrays Hyun’s show of easy confidence.

Yoosung licks his lips. How do you even start kissing someone? Just go for it? He grabs onto Hyun’s arms before he can start overthinking it and cranes up on tip-toe—god, Hyun is tall, Yoosung feels like such a midget—and then...and then they’re kissing.

He means to keep it short, his friends hadn’t said anything about how long the kiss should be after all, but he gets distracted by the newness of the feeling, of the surprising softness of Hyun’s lips. Chaptick? Or are they just naturally perfect like the rest of him?

Hyun’s arms tense up under his hands and Yoosung’s sure in that instant that Hyun will do the pulling away for him, but...he doesn’t. Instead one of his hands goes to grasp lightly at Yoosung’s hip and then his head tilts and oh, now this is a kiss, Hyun’s mouth moving warmly with his, and how is Yoosung supposed to handle Hyun reciprocating like this? Yoosung can feel his own thudding heartbeat everywhere, against his ribcage, the tips of his fingers, his ears.

Yoosung’s hands loosen and slide over to Hyun’s chest, unconsciously craning up even higher, even closer, thoughts of pulling away banished entirely. Their lips cling and then part and then cling again, and then suddenly—

“Shit.” Hyun gasps, panting, eyes wide and a little scared.

Yoosung’s hands twist up in Hyun’s shirt, the rest of him barely daring to move. He feels like they’re wobbling on a tightrope hundreds of feet in the air, just holding their breath and waiting to see which way they’ll fall.

Yoosung could let go right now. He could let go and leave the room and be content with the fact that he’d both carried out his dare and kissed his crush, carry that good feeling in his heart instead of waiting like this for Hyun to panic or freak out or push him away, but...

“Hyun…”

Yoosung sees Hyun swallow, sees his eyes drop to Yoosung’s lips.

But he doesn’t want to.

Hyun draws the slightest bit closer again as if compelled, his heartbeat loud against Yoosung’s palm, and Yoosung ignites. He surges forward and kisses Hyun again, a caged whine in the back of his throat. The force of it bumps Hyun back into the windowsill behind him, but Hyun doesn’t even seem to notice, wrapping both his arms around Yoosung’s waist just as quickly as Yoosung wraps his around Hyun’s shoulders.

The only sounds are from the smacking of their lips together as the kiss gets deeper until Hyun gently pulls back again, breathing hard. “God, Yoosung.”

“You know my name.” Yoosung says, still half in a kiss-induced haze. He hadn’t been sure Hyun had even recognized him from that one class, let alone remembered that much about him.

“Yeah?” Hyun blinks, then grins again. “You know...you always kind of caught my eye.”

Yoosung’s mouth falls open. “R-Really? Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I thought a couple times before that you’d be my type if you were a girl, but...” Hyun strokes his thumb over the jut of Yoosung’s hip. “I guess you’re my type no matter what, huh.”

Yoosung swallows down a strangled-sounding noise, whole face red. He kissed Hyun. He’s Hyun’s type. Suddenly the reality of the situation is dawning on him. Wow, wow, wow, wow. He takes a couple calming breaths to keep himself from tearing up. He needs to change the subject or he’s going to think too much again.

A different subject...his eyes land back on Hyun’s lips again and his eyebrows scrunch together. “So am I…” Yoosung begins tentatively, “do I kiss okay?”

“Of course.” Hyun winks. “You took my breath away.”

“Oh,” Yoosung says with profound relief, cheeks burning,  “good. I’ve never really done that before so…”

“Wait, do you mean…? That was your first kiss?” Hyun says, shocked. “Seriously?!” But once the surprise passes his eyes glint teasingly. “Hmm...how old are you again?”

Yoosung punches him.

“Ow, ow!” Hyun laughs, “Hey, don’t you know it’s a crime to mess with perfection?”

Yoosung punches him again, whining. “Don’t make fun of meeee.”

Hyun muffles his second burst of laughter into Yoosung’s neck but his shoulders still shake with it. After a moment he settles down and presses his lips to the skin right under them, a bloom of pleasant warmth. “Well, if you gave me the gift of your first kiss...maybe I can give you your second one.” His lips move to Yoosung’s jaw. “And your third.” Then over Yoosung’s cheek. “And your fourth.”

“Only if you promise to go to dinner with me,” Yoosung breathes, forgetting his embarrassment and pulling Hyun right where he wants him.

It’s smack dab dead in the middle of the night and while his past self might have been up raging on LOLOL at an hour like this his current self has actually been asleep for ages now, dreaming about eating a picnic under the warm sun that he put together perfectly this time, finally, after maybe two or three unlucky real-life attempts. Maybe if he just lays like this and doesn’t move he’ll reach that happy place again where all the romantic stuff he plans turns out just like he planned it.

Instead his pillow fidgets again.

Yoosung groans and turns into Zen’s chest like he can pin the man still with his face alone, but Yoosung can still feel the occasional, poorly-concealed twitch against his cheek. A minute or two passes that way and then Zen’s shifting like he’s going to leave the bed, and, uh no, that’s unacceptable. Yoosung tries to grab onto Zen’s shirt and scrabbles at bare skin instead before remembering that, oh yeah, Zen sleeps shirtless because of course he does.

Yoosung blindly latches onto Zen’s wrist and whines, “Zennnnnn, what are you doinggggggg.”

Zen chuckles in a way that makes affection bloom through his chest, a hand petting through Yoosung’s hair. “Just going for a run, darling, you can go back to sleep.” Yoosung feels the warmth of Zen’s lips against his forehead, almost distracting enough for Yoosung to nod and go along with it.

But. Wait.

“A run?” Yoosung lifts his head, blinking groggily at the dark shape of Zen half-up out of the bed, “Now?” He squints at the clock on the nightstand, which reads an alarming 3:47 in the morning. He frowns and tugs fruitlessly on Zen’s wrist. He wants to say something like if I can’t game in the middle of the night, then you can’t run either, but he can’t get the words organized quite right. “Noooo.”

“No?”

Yoosung can just hear the amusement in Zen’s voice. Yoosung pouts. “Sleep. Sleep time.”

“Mm, I don’t think I get can get to sleep tonight.” Zen says, sounding regretful, turning his hand over in Yoosung’s grip to stroke at Yoosung’s arm with his thumb.

Twitching. Wants to run. Can’t sleep. Yoosung’s fuzzy brain finally connects the dots. Zen’s nervous. The performance tomorrow? No, there was something else. Something...something...Yoosung bolts up, suddenly Extremely Awake. Zen’s brother. Zen’s older brother is coming to see the performance tomorrow. The first time Zen will have seen him in almost a decade. Yoosung hadn’t wanted to leave Zen to worry and worry about it alone and Zen hadn’t wanted to let go of Yoosung period, so Yoosung had just stayed the night.

“Woah!” Zen laughs, “That doesn’t look like going back to sleep. Were you shocked awake by my beauty~?”

Yoosung rolls his eyes at him but smiles, finally letting go of Zen’s wrist so he can lean over and slump into Zen’s side. “You should cuddle with me some more so I get sleepy again,” he cajoles, soaking up the heat Zen radiates like a furnace. Zen freely wraps an arm around him, snuggling into his hair, but Yoosung doesn’t miss the tension tightening up those muscles.

“Haha, maybe when I get back.” Now Zen’s leg is beginning to bounce.

Yoosung bites his lip, thinking, and then twists a little so he can get his arms up around Zen’s shoulders. “You know you’ll be great,” he says softly.

The breath wooshes out of Zen in a gusting sigh, and he squeezes Yoosung close. “But I want to be perfect,” he murmurs back, voice muffled by Yoosung’s hair. “I want to show him the path I took was worth it.”

Yoosung bites his lip harder, trying to swallow down the white-hot pinpoint of rage that suddenly burns to life somewhere in his throat. “You don’t need...you don’t need to prove that it was worth it. You’ve already proven it.” Zen’s silent for a long moment and Yoosung threads his fingers through Zen’s unbound hair, lightly combing through it, a soft, soothing rhythm.

“I don’t think my parents are ever going to speak to me again,” Zen confesses, so quietly it’s nearly inaudible, like he’s afraid saying it out loud will make it true. “They’re pretending I don’t exist. I thought maybe, if I did well enough…haha, pretty stupid right?”

“No! It’s not.” Yoosung insists, clinging. “It’s not.” When he swallows again he feels the thickness of frustrated tears in his throat. He doesn’t know what to say. There’s nothing he can do to make Zen’s family be the kind of family he deserves. Yoosung is no stranger to feeling powerless but at least, at the very least, he wants the power to wipe the miserable insecurity from Zen’s heart right now. “It’s not.”

When Zen feels less like a tightly coiled wire against him Yoosung tips himself backwards, pulling Zen fully back into the bed with him. Zen pushes himself up a little with his hands framed on either side of Yoosung’s head and smiles ruefully down at him, his hair curtaining to one side. “You’re really not gonna let me go on a run, huh.”

“Nope,” Yoosung says cheerfully, “you’re banned.”

“Whaaat?” Zen yelps, “Banned?! Why am I banned?!”

“You already ran twice today. You’re banned from running now.”

Zen pretends to be upset for all of two seconds before he smirks and cranes his face down to Yoosung’s, close enough to exchange breath. “Oh? Are you planning to work out my energy some other way?”

Yoosung ignores the tingling that sends through him and shoves his face away with a laugh. “Down, Mr. Wolf, down.”

Zen howls playfully into Yoosung’s hand and lets Yoosung roll them over until he’s lying on his back with Yoosung straddling his hips. He trails a finger down Yoosung’s side and watches the resulting shiver with satisfaction. “Are you sure?” Zen teases, “We could do it this way too.”

Yoosung sucks in a breath, the image vivid in his mind before he lets it go, shaking his head with a blush. Yoosung might be the one person alive who can get turned on as fast as Zen can, but he refuses to give in to that today. He flicks Zen’s nose in revenge. “You’re going to go to sleep.”

“I can’t believe you’re the one telling me to go to sleep,” Zen bemoans. “Oh how the times have changed.”

“It’s about time I had my payback.” Yoosung puts his hands on Zen’s chest and then starts in on what is probably a decent massage. He’s pretty sure he’s doing it right, anyway, just by the way Zen starts relaxing under him. It’s a little awkward to do this on the front instead of the back, but he perseveres, not wanting to give up the sight of Zen’s face smoothing out into a blissful smile.

“Mmm...this is payback? I should let you have your way with me more often.”

Yoosung feels his face flame again but manages to keep his hands steady. “Yeah, you should.”

Eventually he reduces Zen to a happy and half-asleep puddle. Mission accomplished. He slides off Zen to the side and snuggles up to him, pulling the covers back up and tucking his head under Zen’s chin.

“You should sing me a lullaby.” Zen hums drowsily.

“A lullaby?” Singing to a singer is probably one of the most embarrassing things Yoosung has ever done, and a part of him wonders if that’s why Zen likes it so much, because it makes Yoosung squirm. But Zen can’t even really look at him in this position and Yoosung thinks his eyes are probably still closed anyway. So. Yoosung takes a calming breath or two and tries not to be too self-conscious as he picks a song off the top of his head and starts singing in a still sleep-rough voice.

“I stood upon the hill, stared up at the blue sky~” Yoosung takes a stray lock of Zen’s hair and curls it around his finger as he sings. “And drew a lovely person in my heart~” As he keeps singing he feels the rise and fall of Zen’s chest slow, feels Zen relax even further until he slips off into slumber. “I want to fly up to the end of the heavens, hug the breeze in the air~”

Yoosung doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow. He doesn’t know much about Zen’s brother yet, just that Zen’s feelings towards him have always been...complicated. But no matter what happens Yoosung will be there. And no matter what happens, no matter who does or doesn’t appreciate it, Zen will work hard and Zen will be always, always be amazing.

After they get dressed they go out to do some grocery shopping, just a quick stop at the local market to get some essentials like eggs and a couple of vegetables for dinner that night. Vanderwood feels incredibly out of place doing something so...horribly domestic. They don’t cook for other people. But Zen had arranged his schedule to make the beginning of the week open for the move which meant this part of the week he was booked full, and they knew if they didn’t cook something decent that moron would just scrape the grossest take-out down his gullet and go straight to sleep.

“Um, sir?” The cashier finishes bagging their purchases and then awkwardly gestures at Vanderwood’s torso. “You have a little...on your jacket…”

Vanderwood looks down. White hairs. Long white hairs. One hanging on to the bottom hem, another off their sleeve, another stubbornly fixed to their collar. It stands out hideously against the black. How the hell did that get there? And fuck, had they really been that out of it not to notice? They pinch each strand and pull them off one at a time, letting them fall to the floor with a flat look. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” The lady hands the bags over with a smile. “Have a nice day!”

An hour after that finds Vanderwood relaxing on the couch with a novel Jumin recommended to them, wanting to unwind a little and enjoy their day off. They set it down for just a moment to take a sip of wine and stretch, but when they pick it right back up something clings to their finger. They take a breath. Then another. Then they raise their hand up to their face.

...of course.

They get up from the couch and scrutinize it. Now that they’re looking they see Zen’s hair everywhere. How did this happen in the stretch of only three days? Was this just from Zen falling asleep there on accident last night?

They sigh. Then they get the the vacuum.

While Vanderwood’s at it they scrub the kitchen counters down, run laundry, and vacuum the floors too. Honestly, they were halfway through before they even realized they were going this far. Old habits die hard, they guess. Spend however many years cleaning after a slobby hacker and this is what Vanderwood gets. Cleaning on autopilot.

They’re trying to wet a washcloth in the bathroom sink when the sink starts filling up. But the stopper isn’t down...Resigned and with a sense of impending doom, Vanderwood pulls the stopper out completely and reaches in to extract a second soggy clump of hair.

“Why.” Vanderwood stares at it with their mouth pressed flat like they can will it out of existence. “Why the hell is he not bald by now.”

They toss it in the trash next to the first clump and stomp out of the bathroom. They have a sudden and intense craving to smoke.

Vanderwood’s focused on chopping vegetables when Zen comes home but still identifies his footsteps before the key even scrapes against the lock, so the arms that come around them from behind aren’t even remotely a surprise. They keep chopping with a ferocious precision.

“That’s a little scary, babe.” Zen chuckles drowsily, nosing behind Vanderwood’s ear. “It’s okay, you know, I think they’re dead already.”

Vanderwood snorts, a corner of their mouth turning up against their will.

“I can finish that up if you want.” Zen offers.

“You’re too tired. You’ll chop your fingers off.”

Vanderwood’s done quickly with that anyway, shuffling over with Zen still attached to their back to add it to the sizzling pan on the stove. They’ve long given up on shaking him off when he gets clingy like this, no matter how impractical it can get.

“Smells good.” Zen hums. He presses a kiss into their hair. “Now why were you putting the carrots through cruel and unusual punishment, hm? And why’s it smell like disinfectant? Didn’t we just scrub this place down when we moved in?”

Vanderwood can just feel the teasing smile in Zen’s voice without needing to see it. “If you call me a maid again I’ll gut you.”

“You’re right, I don’t think maids can match up to your standard of cleanliness.”

“I refuse to live in a mess if I have any control over it.” Vanderwood stirs the meat and veggies in the pan, making sure they sear nicely.

Zen blinks. “I didn’t see much of a mess when I left.”

“You shed.” Vanderwood says, aggrieved. They stir in the sauce with far more fervor than they should.

“Huh?”

“Your hair gets everywhere.”

“I—”

“Everywhere,” Vanderwood repeats.

“Then that just means you have a reminder of me everywhere you go, right~?”

Vanderwood rolls their eyes and turns in Zen’s arms just enough to grab the back of his neck and kiss him deeply for a long, lingering moment. “I don’t need any reminders to remember you.”

Vanderwood turns back around to the stove, smirking quietly to themself in satisfaction as Zen struggles to recover. Dinner’s pretty much done, so they turn the burner off and give it one last stir.

“Not fair, babe.” Zen whines.

“What’s not fair is you clogging every drain in the apartment. Am I going to have to brush you every morning?”

“Mm, I wouldn’t complain...”

Vanderwood reaches back and shoves Zen off of them. “Go set the table, pretty boy.”

Zen chuckles, catching Vanderwood’s hand and laying a kiss on the back of it before doing as instructed. It’s still feels alien to cook for someone else, to hear the clack of plates and silverware and Zen’s jaunty hum, but...it’s nice. Surprisingly easy to fall into. Even with—Vanderwood plucks a silvery hair from their shoulder with a grimace—things like this.

Vanderwood rolls the strand between their fingers. A reminder, huh.

“Ready, babe.” Zen calls.