Chapter Text
Jongho turned away from his notes to check his computer screen, hoping the new notification in his email was a response from his professor about Jongho’s request for an extension on his upcoming paper. Instead, he found a new message from a familiar address waiting for him.
Sat, May 11, 5:55 p.m.
Can you go get me some water?
Jongo sighed, turning around in his desk chair to glare at the boy sitting on his bed. Yeosang looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes, slowly lowering his phone to his chest.
“Is there any reason your legs suddenly don’t work?” Jongho asked, raising an eyebrow.
Yeosang shrugged. “I’m still feeling a little sore from last night,” Yeosang said, his mouth stretching into a smirk. “You know, when you –”
“Okay, okay, stop now please,” Jongho said, standing up from his chair as he shook his head. He tried to ignore the warm blush creeping across his cheeks. “You’re starting to sound more and more like Wooyoung.”
Yeosang rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but you love me anyway.”
“Jury’s still out on that one,” Jongho said as he walked towards the door.
“No need to deny anything, dear, I have twelve emails to prove it,” Yeosang said.
Jongho sighed, ignoring Yeosang’s quiet laughter as he left to get the older boy something to drink. When he came back, Yeosang had turned over to lay on his stomach, his phone propped up on the pillow as he scrolled through his messages.
Jongho sat the water down on the side table. “What are you looking at?”
“Seonghwa sent me some pictures of the new kitten he and Hongjoong are thinking about adopting. Apparently, Star needs a friend. Want to see?” He asked, turning his head to look at Jongho.
Jongho nodded, and Yeosang scooched over on the bed to let the younger boy lay down beside him. He turned his screen so Jongho could see the photos of the tiny calico sitting in Hongjoong’s lap.
“It’s cute,” Jongho said, relaxing his shoulders as Yeosang leaned his head against him.
Yeosang hummed in agreement, scrolling to the next picture and saying, “We should get a cat. Or even a dog. I’ve always wanted a puppy.”
Jongho laughed. “Yeah, but how would we even do that? Share custody and just keep supplies at both of our apartments?”
Yeosang shrugged, clicking away from the pictures to reply to Seonghwa’s messages. “Or we could just find a place together.”
Jongho felt his heart clench inside his chest. “Like, living together? You want to live with me?”
Yeosang put his phone down, pulling away to look at Jongho. His expression was blank, but Jongho had learned by now that Yeosang’s impassive face was the one he used when he wasn’t sure about the situation and didn’t want to give his feelings away.
“Do you want to?”
Jongho nodded, a small smile spreading across his lips. “Yeah. I want that.”
Yeosang’s face relaxed with relief, his eyes crinkling as he grinned. “Yeah?”
Jongho snorted. “No, I’m lying. Of course, you dummy.”
Yeosang rolled his eyes. “It takes one to know one.”
“Ooh, real original. Did you come up with that one yourself?”
“No, actually – I got it from your mom.”
Jongho gaped at Yeosang for a moment. Then he quickly clambered onto his back before the older boy could react, his hands expertly finding all of Yeosang’s most ticklish spots that had Yeosang writhing and screeching with laughter below him.
“Take it back, my mother is a wonderful woman who doesn’t deserve your slander,” Jongho said, grinning as a pinched Yeosang’s sensitive skin.
“Fine, fine, yes!” Yeosang gasped between bursts of laughter, trying to wiggle out from beneath Jongho’s body. Jongho pressed his knees in tighter on either side of Yeosang’s hips, his fingers squeezing at the older boy’s sides. “Your mother is amazing, I love her, I take it back!”
Jongho let go of Yeosang’s waist, relaxing his hold and raising up on his knees just enough to let the other boy roll onto his back beneath him. Yeosang’s face was flushed as he tried to catch his breath, his dark hair fanning out across the pillow. Jongho wondered if he’d ever get used to seeing someone so beautiful every day. The idea that he could wake up next to Yeosang each morning and come home to him every afternoon made his heart sing inside his chest. He leaned down until they were chest to chest, his legs still straddling Yeosang’s hips, and rested with his elbows on either side of Yeosang’s head, caging him in. Yeosang stared at him with crinkled eyes, snaking one arm up between them to cup Jongho’s cheek and stroke his thumb across the younger boy’s skin, an intimate gesture Jongho had grown so familiar with but never grew tired of.
“You really want to live with me?” Yeosang asked, his eyes staring into Jongho’s like he could see whole universes in the younger boy’s gaze.
Jongho smiled. “I really, really want to live with you.”
“Then you should kiss me,” Yeosang said, smiling soft forevers as he waited for Jongho to close the distance between them.
And as Jongho pressed their lips together softly, drinking in each sigh that slipped from Yeosang’s tongue, he knew he could be happy living in this moment forever.
This moment when the world was quiet, and his heart was warm, and Yeosang was truly, completely, and sincerely his.