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let me see you. he says it over and over and over again as if there were no other phrases in the inventory of words in his mind categorized under 'loving things to say to your boyfriend'. and don’t get it twisted, it was very loving, very sweet, and every time bobby let the simple phrase slip from his mouth, the warmth that spread from the middle of junhoe’s chest to the tips of his fingers and toes, and up towards the apples of his cheeks that never failed to dust in pink, was indescribable.
he'd say it about 8 times a day and, yes, junhoe had once counted because the amount of times the phrase reached his ears left him dumbfounded one day, and he decided to nail a number to the crime. though, admittedly, it was particularly hard to keep a straight face and focus on the warmth spreading throughout, when he'd gotten to the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th 'let me see you's.
junhoe heard the phrase more times than he heard bobby say 'i love you' and where he was once hurt by the fact, he now knows that the quiet but certain demand of the soft-spoken latter held more feeling than the words i love you could ever convey.
"let me see you," he'd say, and junhoe's defiance, his wit, his everything-that-would-otherwise-oppose melt away in the same beat that junhoe's heart skips. he'd give in to whatever bobby would ask for, whether it's to see his injured hand, or to have him turn the camera away from whatever junhoe was showing, and to his face, without a word of opposition.
he didn't know when or how he'd become so weak to the four simple words that started from nothing, but he did, and he knew it, and bobby knew it, and he knew that bobby knew it. sometimes he'd get angry, accuse bobby of saying it whenever he wanted junhoe to do something for him, or when he wanted a fight to end instead of talking things out. sometimes junhoe wouldn't give in for the sake of looking stronger than he was. but eventually, it'd always come down to the same thing: his face encased in bobby's gentle hold, and his attitude never letting him look anywhere but at a wall while bobby covered his cheeks, forehead and the corners of his eyes with kisses which were the only things more frequent than his let me see you's.
and for bobby, he'd readily admit that saying the phrase always gave him an upper hand; an advantage for the mere fact that junhoe didn't talk back as much. he learned to say it when he started getting tired of the playful bickering when he wanted to hold his hand and not have to go through teasing for such an easy action. but it wasn't as if he'd force junhoe to do anything. the accusation was absurd even from the first second it had come to his attention. what would bobby force him to do, anyway? take out the garbage?
'hey, let me see you...can you take the garbage out for me?'
it was childish of junhoe to think of him in such a way, but bobby didn't expect anyone to think rationally when they were angry, and especially not junhoe.
truthfully, he said it so often because he liked seeing junhoe's reaction to it. he wouldn't say it as often as he did if he wasn't in love with the crooked, goofy smile that splayed over junhoe's face from the first syllable of the phrase. he always leaned into bobby when giving in to what he would ask for; an intimacy he hadn't known he could grow so attached to. he liked seeing the blush in junhoe's cheeks and liked hearing the lightness in the boy's voice. it was a side junhoe never showed him easily, and he'd fallen in love with it just as easily as he did every other face junhoe wore.
even bobby himself didn't know why junhoe loved hearing it so much, but his own addiction in the phrase wasn't in the words itself, instead in what followed suit of it. even when junhoe thought he was resisting the words, he couldn't stop his cheeks from blushing or his words to stammer, he couldn't stop the adoration in bobby's eyes when he found his failed attempts of defiance so endearing.
"let me see you," junhoe said one day, catching bobby off guard as he'd never heard the phrase said in another voice. though he obeyed, a scoffed laugh accompanying the action as he did as he was asked, and turned his head from the television and towards junhoe.
he'd already been laying his head on junhoe's lap as they watched a show they'd both grown so attached to that it was beyond explanation (which is why junhoe took action during a commercial break), so the demand had become that much sillier due to the fact that junhoe already had a perfect view of bobby's face.
but there wasn't a trace of a joke on junhoe's expression when he took bobby's face in between his hands, so bobby refrained from saying anything. it was a good decision amongst a load of terrible ones that bobby made, because now it was his turn, his turn to see the blush in bobby's face from being looked at so intently, his turn to admire the toothy smile and the lighthearted voice that resulted from the phrase. junhoe's eyes scanned over every feature, every detail, every change in bobby, and as if nothing had effected him as much as it did, his hands moved back to where they were prior; one on bobby's chest, the other in his hair, and didn't say a word of explanation.
"what?" bobby asked, laughing so hard that he'd managed to get a smile out of junhoe. "what was that?"
"i just wanted to see," junhoe explained, looking at bobby again only to further admire the curves of his face and the smile that refused to get left behind. "i just wanted to see why you said it so often. i have my answer."