Archive of Our Own

Changmin steps out of the taxi and pauses for a moment on the pavement. He tosses back his hair and flicks at his scarf, then takes a firm grip on his suitcase and struts down the street. He hopes he looks sexy and confident. He hopes the cameraman tracking his every move has got his best side. He needs to look sure of himself without appearing arrogant. He needs to look like a winner.

The cameraman follows him for another few yards and then gives the thumbs up. “That’s great! Now get yourself inside. There’s a camera in the apartment for reaction shots when you meet your fellow contestants.”

“Thank you.” Changmin is glad the camera is turned off now, because he’s certain his smile is nervous rather than polite. He can’t show nervousness. Anxiety over whether or not he’ll be able to finish a design challenge in time for the runway show, yes; concern over the fate of other contestants who are having a meltdown, also permissible; but showing actual nervousness? No. Winners have nerves of steel and balls of iron, or maybe it’s the other way around.

Whatever, Changmin is not here to flap and flutter and bitch his way through the next ten weeks like the majority of contestants on Stitched Up. He’s here to win, and woe betide anyone who stands in his way. The prize money, the magazine spread, the endorsements, the new car—they’re all his for the taking.

But first he has to meet the other contestants.

Changmin has seen every episode of Stitched Up, watched every season of Project Runway, has even suffered through the really shit British version with Kelly Osbourne. He’s also made careful study of other, non-fashion reality TV shows, and reached the conclusion that, in order to succeed, he needs to:

(a) Look poised at all times, but not too poised, otherwise the viewers won’t feel a connection with him. Therefore, when he wears a suit, he’ll make sure his hair is a little windswept, or he’ll neglect to shave, or he’ll leave off his tie and unfasten the top few buttons on his shirt. The viewers will think he’s elegant but approachable;

(b) Only bitch about fellow contestants when they’ve bitched about him first;

(c) Appear helpful and friendly without actually being helpful or friendly, because the helpful and friendly contestants are always taken advantage of and then hurled aside and trampled upon;

(d) Have a catchphrase.

The latter point is the one that’s given him sleepless nights ever since he learned he’d been selected for the show eight weeks ago. Catchphrases need to sound natural. Changmin doesn’t think he sounds natural even when he places his morning coffee order, and he’s been doing that at the same outlet for sixteen months. Nevertheless, he’d finally picked a catchphrase and rehearsed it over and over, and now perhaps it sounds a little bit unforced.

“Ugly,” he mutters as he pushes into the revolving door of the trendy apartment block where he’ll be living for the next few months. “Ugly, ugly, ugly.”

To be fair, there is a really nasty flower arrangement on the concierge’s desk, and the walls are painted a hideous matt green colour, so Changmin feels justified in breaking out his catchphrase again: “Ugly, ugly, ugly!”

This time he feels almost confident. Even though there’s no camera here, he keeps his head high and his expression gracious as the concierge hands him a swipe card and a key and points towards the lifts. The female contestants are living on the fifth floor; the boys’ apartment is on the sixth floor.

The lift takes forever to make its way upwards. Changmin’s cheeks hurt from polite-smiling for so long. He lets his mouth relax into its usual serious line and studies his reflection in the brushed steel doors. He looks miserable, pale and tense. Almost three months of being forced into close proximity with five other men is not his idea of a fun time. He’d thought he’d left those days behind him when he’d graduated, but here he is, about to put himself through it all over again.

“Think of the best outcome,” he tells his reflection. “They might all be eliminated by week five.” This cheers him slightly, and he moves on to imagine himself at Paris Fashion Week surrounded by models and actresses and singers all dressed in his fabulous, elegant designs and clamouring to be put on the super-exclusive VIP waiting list for his autumn/winter collection.

It’s his favourite daydream, and Changmin likes to embellish it a little more on each occasion. He’s not one for fussy detailing and over-accessorising in his designs, so his imagination is the only place where he gives himself free rein to indulge his whimsies. Just as Kylie is introducing herself and gushing that she’s been a fan ever since he won Stitched Up, the lift comes to a juddering halt and reality intrudes.

The doors slide open. Changmin takes a deep breath. He hopes he’s not the first person to arrive. He doesn’t want to be the last, either. Second or third would do.

A short, solid guy with a buzz-cut looms out of the dimly-lit reception area. He looks like he drives trucks for a living. Changmin straightens up to his full height and steps out of the lift, offering a small smile for the sake of the lurking camera.

“I’m Kangin,” the buzz-cut says in a loud, hearty voice, holding out his hand. “I’m straight.”

“O-kay.” Changmin touches his fingertips to Kangin’s sweaty paw and resists the urge to wipe his hand on his jacket. “Shim Changmin. Pleased to meet you.”

Kangin’s fake smile isn’t fooling anyone. “So! Changmin! Are you straight, too?”

“Er.” Changmin moves to one side, swinging his suitcase around as a barrier. “The apartment is...?”

“This way.” Kangin indicates an open door. “I’m only asking because the producers have allocated two guys to a room, and though I don’t mind sharing a room with another guy—I’ve just come out of the army, I shared a room with fifteen other guys so I really don’t have a problem with it—I’d rather not share my room with someone who’s not straight. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night worrying about my ass, if you know what I mean.”

Changmin blinks. Wonders if this Neanderthal is for real. “Has anyone else arrived?”

Kangin nods. “Yeah. Some bloke from Gwangju. I think he’s gay. He’s your roommate, so let me know if you want to swap and share with me instead.”

“Very well.” Turning away, Changmin silently mouths Oh my God, then realises that the camera is pointed right at him. He brushes past the cameraman and wheels his suitcase into the apartment. It smells of air freshener, but beneath it Changmin can detect the odour of desperation. He hurries along the hallway, past the shared bathroom, and stops outside the bedroom at the very end. On the door there’s a small whiteboard with a black pen attached for messages. Changmin frowns at it. His roommate has written:

Flowers and hearts have been drawn around their names, as if they’re kindergarten BFFs or something. Changmin thinks he should be relieved by the childlike quality of the drawing, which is surely representative of Yunho’s design style, which means he’ll be eliminated in the first week, but Changmin can’t get past the fact that his name is on the bottom. This Yunho person is obviously trying to gain the psychological advantage.

Changmin wipes off their names with his fingers and writes:

Much better.

Pleased with this small victory, Changmin opens the door without knocking—it is his room, after all—and strides in as if he owns it. Which he does, sort of, for the next three months.

There’s a guy sitting on the floor between the two beds. Changmin skips his gaze over his roommate because he’s still annoyed about the whiteboard thing, and looks around the room instead.

It’s small, with barely space between the beds. A chest of drawers is crammed between the door and the foot of the bed closest to the wall. Changmin realises that the bed underneath the window is longer. There’s a built-in wardrobe and a tiny desk and a wooden stool on a lambskin rug. Apart from the beds, every available surface is cluttered with crap—clothes, shoes, an iPod, a couple of new paperback novels, toiletries, and bags of sugary pineapple lumps. The latter is a particular worry. Changmin imagines sticky fingers rootling through his immaculate tailored suits, and shudders.

“Hi!” his roommate chirps. “I’m Yunho! You must be Changmin!”

The southern accent is just about noticeable. Changmin wonders if a comedy dialect will win more audience approval than a catchphrase.

Yunho unfolds himself from the floor. He’s almost as tall as Changmin, but broader in the shoulder. He’s wearing two t-shirts, charcoal grey over yellow with the hem left hanging and the sleeves folded back for effect, and Changmin itches with the urge to tuck him in and straighten him out. Yunho’s hair is dark and soft, styled forward at the front and ruffly everywhere else. His lower lip is full and pouty and his jaw line is almost delicate, which is so at odds with the sheer masculinity of the rest of him that Changmin finds himself staring a moment too long.

Yunho’s blinding smile curls up a little at the edges. He tilts his head. “Um, hi? Changmin?”

“Yes. Hello. Sorry. I was just...” Changmin swallows. He hadn’t expected his roommate to be so tall. So smiley. So insanely hot.

“I know what you mean. It’s a bit crazy, isn’t it?” Yunho smiles again and bounces on his feet. “I’m really excited about this, are you? Where are you from? Do you have your own clothing line? Are you a model? ‘Cos you look like one, you’re so tall and you have those legs and those cheekbones and— Did you meet Kangin? He’s straight, apparently. I told him I was gay.”

“And are you? Gay, I mean.” Changmin has no idea why he’s asking.

Yunho laughs. “Why, Changminnie, are you interested?” and he winks.

What an arrogant twat. Changmin sniffs and lifts his suitcase onto the bed by the window. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

A small silence descends. It sounds wrong after the last few minutes of Yunho’s frenetic chatter, but Changmin refuses to feel bad about that.

“Sorry.” Yunho looks dismayed. “I was joking. Just trying to break the ice.”

“Don’t bother. We’re here as competitors.”

“That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Yunho takes a step towards him, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry I offended you, Changmin. I can get over-enthusiastic sometimes.”

At least he can admit his faults. Changmin nods. “I think we should keep things respectful. We’re colleagues as well as competitors. We need to work together.” He clicks open the locks on his suitcase and then pauses. Looks up innocently. “You didn’t want this bed, did you?”

“Oh, no.” Still smiling, Yunho sits on the shorter bed shoved into the corner of the room. “I was waiting until you arrived to see which one you preferred.”

“Thanks. That’s really kind of you.” Changmin keeps the note of triumph from his voice. He gets the bigger bed and thus gains the psychological advantage. Plus he’s by the window, so he gets the inspiring cityscape view and he gets the light for when he needs to sketch. Yunho must be stupid to have given all that up. Or maybe he’s genuinely kind and thoughtful.

Surely not. No one is that nice.

Changmin takes off his redingote and scarf and hangs them in the wardrobe. He loosens his tie just a fraction, then returns to his suitcase, careful not to step on the jumble of clothes on the floor. Flicking his hair forward to veil his expression, Changmin watches his new roommate.

Yunho has picked up some of the stuff littering the room and is making his space look homely. There’s the world’s smallest nightstand between their beds, and Yunho piles his books and iPod and three different bottles of cologne onto his side of the table. Then he coos at something on the floor, picks it up and cuddles it, and Changmin wrinkles his nose at the sight of the soft toy held in Yunho’s arms.

Possibly it was once a deer. It’s hard to tell, the toy is so old and raggedy. It has one eye and a button where its nose used to be, plus it seems to have been eviscerated at one point and sewn back up with huge, awful stitches. Changmin hopes Yunho sewed that last week, because then he’s definitely going to be eliminated very soon.

Yunho pets the plushie and leans across the bed to settle it beside his pillow. Changmin is about to remark on the soft toy when he’s distracted by the delicious sight of Yunho’s thighs in those tight, tight jeans.

Changmin drops the carefully rolled selection of ties he was holding and imagines how Yunho would look minus those jeans. He imagines running his hands over naked flesh and feeling the muscled strength beneath his palms, his lips, and he imagines rubbing himself against those thighs, and then—

He realises he’s dropped his ties and bends to retrieve them. He does it too fast and the blood rushes to his face and he feels hot and flustered. Taking a deep breath, Changmin reminds himself he’s here to win, not to ogle strange men. With this in mind, when he straightens up, Changmin resumes his study of what Yunho is wearing rather than what the clothing conceals. His gaze skitters over the disappointingly tiny ass and instead he looks at the design on the pocket. Yunho is wearing Evisu jeans. No, he’s wearing knock-off Evisu jeans. Changmin can’t believe his eyes. “Are those...”

Yunho straightens and beams over his shoulder. “I made them myself.”

“They have an Evisu logo,” Changmin points out.

Yunho slaps a hand over the back pocket and goes slightly pink. “Uh, I forgot to, er, to... um.”

Changmin sighs. Wonderful. His roommate is an incoherent idiot. He reminds himself that this is a good thing. Yunho will soon be eliminated from the competition.

“That’s a lovely suit,” Yunho says after an awkward silence.

“It is, isn’t it.” Changmin swishes a little, then stands up straight to display the suit to best effect. “Gieves & Hawkes.”

“Oh.”

The tone in which it’s said suggests that Yunho has no idea what Gieves & Hawkes is. Changmin turns to him in polite disbelief. “Savile Row.”

Yunho smiles. He looks bewildered.

“The bespoke London tailors?” Changmin says, his voice getting louder. “Arguably the most famous gentleman’s outfitters in the world? Over two hundred years of tailoring?”

“I see,” Yunho says, still looking baffled. “Are all your suits from Savile Row?”

“No. Some are from Jermyn Street.” Changmin shoots him a glance, holds up a severely elegant three-piece. “And this is Armani.”

“Wow. You’re expensive.”

“Elegant,” Changmin corrects. “I like to look elegant and poised and sophisticated and in control.”

“Like a winner,” Yunho suggests, smile back up to full wattage.

“Yes.” That’s exactly the image Changmin wants to project. “Like a winner.”

Yunho’s laughter fills the room. “So what do I look like?”

A bit of rough that could make me dirty if I allowed it. “Uh,” Changmin says, sweeping Yunho with his gaze, “I think you look very...” Common. Cheap. Sexy. “Urban. Yes, you’re very street.” He hates himself for saying that. What kind of high-end designer appends the word ‘street’ to clothing? Ugh, wash his mouth out with soap.

But Yunho brightens, almost glowing at this appellation. “Thank you! I love urban clothing. It’s so comfortable and practical.”

Neither word seems to apply to Yunho himself. Changmin tries not to smirk. He hopes that every other contestant is as useless as his roommate.

From the hallway comes the shrilling sound of the telephone. For the first time, Changmin is aware of the chatter of voices outside and realises the other three contestants must have arrived. The voices get louder, and then there’s a knock on the door and Kangin peers in. “Guys, we have to head out now for our first challenge.”

“Great!” Yunho bounds across the floor. “I’m so excited.”

“Me, too,” Kangin says. “My roommate is even gayer than you. He likes pink. I hope he’s eliminated so I don’t have to share with him for long.”

“Pink is a nice colour,” Yunho says.

“It’s nice on girls.” Kangin frowns as if he’s thinking. “Mind you, my roommate kind of looks like a girl. Oh, ew, did that sound gay? Because I’m straight.”

Yunho skips out of the room. “Introduce me to your roomie.”

Changmin watches him leave and scowls. The sophisticate and the cheap trashy urban boy. This is going to be a disaster.

*

They gather in a car park at the back of a supermarket megastore. A cold wind blows, bringing with it the whiff of wet cardboard and rotting food. The contestants cluster together, ringed by the camera crew, and wait for their glamorous host Jaejoong and his acerbic fashionista sidekick, Zhou Mi.

Changmin glances at his competitors. He hasn’t had much chance to speak to everyone yet beyond a few basic introductions. Kangin’s roommate is Sungmin, who is indeed pretty and has a fascination for pink; then there’s Spoon, a large, slow-moving man in an anorak and cords, and a fey little Estonian who mumbles things no one can understand and is wearing an ill-fitting suit with unpolished shoes. Milhye is an angular beauty dressed in simple, classic pieces. She looks immaculate, and Changmin thinks she’s like the female version of him but twenty years older. Beside her is Seongyoon, who wears a batik smock and is barefoot. Kyunghee, her eyes red-rimmed, is showing them both a sheaf of photographs of her children. Myunghyun, looking bored, takes a surreptitious swig from a hip flask. The youngest contestant, Jiheun, is picking at her black nail polish and scowling.

And then there’s Sabine. The spoilt only child of a French-Algerian mother and Korean father, Changmin thought he’d seen the last of her three years ago. Sabine gives him a cool little wave, silver bracelets jangling, and he forces a smile, glad that he doesn’t have to talk to her just yet.

A smattering of applause breaks out as Jaejoong and Zhou Mi finally appear. They stand on a dais and smile down at the contestants. Changmin thinks how much smaller Jaejoong looks in real life. The repulsive beige jumpsuit he’s wearing doesn’t help, either, but Changmin supposes no one will care. Jaejoong is a seriously hot commodity right now.

Following a massive scandal a few years ago, Jaejoong had turned his career around. He’d been in a relationship with Fabio Benedetti, a sleazy Milanese millionaire who headed up a famous Italian clothing brand and was the managing director of a successful Formula One team. Jaejoong and Fabio had adopted a baby together, but then Fabio had ditched them both and gone off with a Brazilian underwear model. Turning disaster into triumph, Jaejoong reinvented himself as a doting single father and won major endorsements from manufacturers of prams, baby food, and nappies. Now the baby was a toddler, and not a particularly attractive one at that, Jaejoong had handed the kid over to a nanny and returned to work as the host of Stitched Up, the most-watched reality TV show on Korean television.

“Designers!” Jaejoong trills. “Welcome to season five of Stitched Up!”

The contestants show muted enthusiasm, except for Yunho, who jumps up and down and shouts “Yeah!”

Zhou Mi looks pained.

“As you know,” Jaejoong continues, “in fashion, as in life, one day you’re relaxing on a beach in the south of France and the next day you’re bundled on board an Air Korea flight in cattle class with a screaming baby on your lap. This week’s challenge is a test of your ingenuity as well as your eye for design. On the other side of the car park is a dumpster full of rubbish. It’s all been steam-cleaned so it’s perfectly safe to handle. You have two days to create a look out of rubbish that best represents your design aesthetic. On the count of three, you may begin. One, two—”

By the time Jaejoong counts three, Yunho is sprinting across the car park. Kangin is in hot pursuit, no doubt not wanting to call his army training into question. Jiheun laughs and runs after them, but the rest of the women seem less keen and talk amongst themselves as to how clean the rubbish really is.

Yunho reaches the dumpster and vaults inside. Changmin watches him vanish into the pile of crap and hopes to God that he picked the right dumpster, otherwise he is not sharing a room with this lunatic. A moment later, Yunho surfaces with his hands full of tinfoil and shredded paper and plastic cartons, and he shouts, “Spoon, shall I save something for you?”

Spoon is puffing and wheezing his way across the car park. He leans against a bollard to take a rest and calls out whenever Yunho holds up something he wants. Once Spoon is satisfied, Yunho helps Jiheun into the dumpster and they root through the rubbish together, tossing stuff out as if they’re kids playing on a bouncy castle.

Idiot, Changmin thinks as he searches through the crap that Yunho has hurled onto the ground. He helps himself to a clutch of torn bin bags and some black plastic ready meal trays. Sungmin shoves past him and collects up all the bright pink fabric softener containers plus some newspapers. The rest of the women, obviously satisfied that the rubbish doesn’t stink, are getting into the swing of it now, picking through the trash and giggling at how ridiculous it is. Only Sabine is holding back, occasionally snatching up the odd item and then discarding it with a look of disgust.

Yunho clambers out of the dumpster with two bin bags. He dumps one on the ground and carries the other over to Spoon, who’s effusive in his thanks. Changmin is busy sorting through bottle tops when he hears the rustle of a bin bag and glances through his fringe to see Sabine taking a couple of lengths of flexible piping from Yunho’s stash. She doesn’t see him looking, and she hurries away immediately afterwards to pick up a third piece of pipe that Jiheun flings from the dumpster.

Changmin doesn’t know whether he should say something or keep quiet. When Yunho comes back to collect his rubbish, he doesn’t appear to notice that anything’s missing. Indeed, he even opens his bin bag and offers to swap some of his trash for some of Myunghyun’s items.

Because of this apparent lack of attention, Changmin decides not to mention it. But still, it makes him feel like he’s party to a crime.

*

The designers carry their haul of rubbish to the workroom. It’s a light, airy space with long, wide benches. Adjacent is a smaller room with sewing machines, and they’ve each been allocated a machine and a chair, both labelled with their names. The benches in the main workroom are free for anyone to choose, and Changmin spreads out his collection of trash on a table halfway back.

Jiheun and the Estonian guy pick the tables furthest away, while Sabine takes the bench directly in front of the door. Kangin claims the table closest to the accessories wall, and then stares at the shoes and bags and jewellery as if he has no idea what they’re for.

Yunho selects a bench and sets a bag of pineapple lumps on it. “Everyone please help yourselves!” he says, gesturing to the sweets, and then he rolls out a large, wide mat on the floor as if he’s planning on going camping and sits on it cross-legged. Seongyoon looks approving and tells everyone that tables are bad for cutting out and they should all follow Yunho’s example by working on the floor.

Zhou Mi drifts in, welcomes everyone, and reminds them of the general rules of the show. He announces that they have until ten o’clock tonight to work on their designs and promises to come back a little later to see how they’re getting on.

Changmin studies the rubbish in front of him and starts sketching. His aesthetic is clean, simple, and elegant. He’s sure he can achieve this look even with steam-cleaned garbage. He visualises Anna Wintour rhapsodising over his finished garment and leans a little closer to his sketchpad, lines flying across the page.

He’s just finished, pleased with the look he’s developed, when Sabine sidles over. Changmin closes his sketchpad and stands up, forcing his mouth into a smile of greeting.

She has to tip back her head to look at him. “Changmin, darling!”

“Hello, Sabine.” They exchange air kisses. She’s still wearing Poison, that heavy, cloying fragrance that’s never suited her and yet seems all too appropriate. He moves away before any of the perfume rubs off on his jacket.

“Darling, how fabulous. Look at you.” Her laughter is crystalline as she eyes him up and down. “It must be three years! How time flies. What have you been doing?”

“I’ve—” Changmin starts, but she talks over him, playing to their captive audience.

“Changmin and I interned together at Chanel. Paris in summertime, what could be more perfect! Back then he was just the cute little student photocopying the daily itineraries and I... Well, Mama made sure that Karl gave me a proper job—”

“Fetching the coffee,” Changmin says, smiling sweetly. “And running out for the lunch orders. You excelled at that.”

Sabine gives him a stabbing look but giggles for the benefit of everyone else. “Darling, I can’t get over how edible you look now. And to think you were such a geeky little thing not so long ago. And your hair. There’s so much of it. But that was always a problem before, wasn’t it? Not on your head, though, darling.” She trills with laughter again, her gaze sly and measuring. “I must tell Mama that you’re my competition. What a riot, she’ll be so amused!”

Changmin’s rictus softens slightly. “My regards to your beautiful mother when you speak to her.”

“Mama always thought you were such a doll.” Sabine addresses the room at large again. “Mama is Isabelle de la Tour.”

Everyone looks impressed, except for Yunho, who says, “Who?”

“Isabelle de la Tour!” Kangin says, his expression awestruck. He clasps his hands together and looks heavenwards. “The famous French supermodel! Sixty-three covers of Vogue! Consistently in the top ten of FHM’s Sexiest Women Alive! I had a poster of her taped to my bunk when I was in the army. She helped me through the lonely nights.”

Sungmin shudders. “Too much information.”

“So,” Milhye says, “your mother is Isabelle de la Tour.”

“I prefer to use my father’s surname,” Sabine says airily. “I don’t like trading on Mama’s reputation.”

Yunho looks genuinely confused. “But you just did.”

Sabine gives him a dirty look. “No, I...”

“You did,” Yunho says. “You were showing off. That’s just silly.”

Changmin bites the inside of his cheek to stop from laughing, but it won’t be suppressed. Sabine’s expression is priceless, and he hopes this makes the final edit of the show because he wants a screenshot of this moment so he can hang it over his fireplace. His giggles force their way upwards and emerge as a snort. He ducks his head, covers his mouth with his hand and bites his thumb hard.

Jiheun is less restrained. She laughs out loud and then pretends it wasn’t her.

“Let’s just get on with our work,” Kyunghee suggests.

“Yes,” Sabine agrees, still shooting daggers at Yunho, “let’s create our garments. They’ll speak for us, and then we’ll see if a sense of style bred in the bone and coupled with experience at one of the world’s top fashion houses can outshine an outfit made by someone who studied at... Where did you study, Designer Jung?”

Yunho smiles, utterly unconcerned. “I didn’t.”

Milhye raises her eyebrows. “You’re self-taught?”

“I guess you could call it that.” Yunho starts gluing shredded paper and strips of tinfoil onto a construction of bent coat hangers. “I’m a market trader. Me and my mate run a stall in Gwangju, and one time Donghae got this gear that had fallen off the back of a lorry and we had to get shot of it really fast, so we priced it nice and cheap and it sold out, and people came back wanting more, so I thought I could probably run up something that looked similar, so I took the pieces I’d kept for myself and I unpicked them and copied them and...”

“This will be edited out, right?” Changmin says loudly, looking at the cameras.

Yunho glances up, an expression of dawning horror on his face. “Shit.”

Kangin shakes his head. “Illegal copying of branded items is a widespread problem. If only you’d been in the army, like me, you wouldn’t have felt the need to break the law.”

“I did my military service ages ago,” Yunho says.

“Obviously your CO was too lenient with you.”

Yunho looks at Kangin, absolutely straight-faced. “As long as I sucked his dick a few times, he let me do whatever I wanted.”

Changmin sniggers.

“There are no gay men in the army!” Kangin blusters, apparently oblivious to the muffled laughter all around him. “The army turns out manly men! Manly men like me! I’m straight! And I can sew a straight seam, too, because the army is progressive and sewing is a manly activity!”

“If you say so, girlfriend,” Spoon drawls, and everyone cracks up.

For the next few hours, Changmin focuses on shaping his garment to the form. He flattens the plastic ready meal trays, cuts out ovals, and stitches them together to create a fish-scale bodice. He finds the work absorbing, and glances up only occasionally to see what everyone else is doing.

Yunho has moved off the floor and is fastening a cape made of the shredded paper and tinfoil around his form. In between alterations, he dips his fingers into the bag of pineapple lumps. He doesn’t suck on the sweets like a normal person; instead he crunches them. Changmin frowns in disapproval.

The workroom door swings open and Zhou Mi sweeps in. “Good afternoon, designers. How are you getting along?”

No one’s about to admit that they’re not doing brilliantly. Sabine’s eager expression dulls when Zhou Mi and the cameraman meander past her to talk to the Estonian guy. As he goes past Yunho’s table, Zhou Mi helps himself to some of the pineapple lumps.

Changmin tries not to listen in on the critiques as Zhou Mi goes around dispensing his wisdom. He’s not concerned with anyone else’s looks. His outfit is the only thing that matters, and although he’s happy with it, he still feels a flutter of anxiety as Zhou Mi heads his way.

“Designer Shim.” Zhou Mi waves his hands in the air. “May I say, your personal style is impeccable. Gieves & Hawkes, surely? And your cufflinks—just divine.”

“Asprey’s,” Changmin says casually, all oh, this old thing.

“British fashion is so on trend. Richard Nicoll, Hussein Chalayan, Sarah Burton—I can see them reflected in this piece. It’s delicious, really.” Zhou Mi stands back and studies Changmin’s garment. “Oh, it’s fabulous. So sophisticated even though it’s made out of rubbish. Just a suggestion: the skirt. Make it asymmetrical.”

Changmin nods and smiles politely. “Thank you.”

“Just a suggestion! Take it or leave it!” Zhou Mi utters his famous catchphrase and wanders off to the next contestant.

Aware that the camera is still on him, Changmin surveys the skirt on his outfit, tilts a hand as if imagining a fresh line, and says, “Asymmetrical? I think not. Ugly, ugly, ugly.”

* * *

Changmin is awake all night because of a draught from the window. When he finally falls asleep, he dreams of needles stabbing through cloth, which gives him a brief, satisfying rush, only for the pleasure to fade when he looks back and sees that the thread is unravelling faster than he can sew.

He wakes exhausted and gritty-eyed to find Yunho dressed in very brief underwear performing some kind of weird yoga moves on the floor.

It looks borderline pornographic. Changmin can’t tear his gaze away. His morning erection gives an enthusiastic leap, and he gluts himself on the sight of all that sexy, muscled flesh on display just for him. Yunho might not be cut like a male model but he has fantastically defined biceps and triceps and his chest is sort of deep and pillowy, and he has nice abs and a flat stomach and he’s all lean and lithe, and he has those thighs, oh those thighs, and—

“Morning!” Yunho looks at him upside down and beams. “You made a noise, so I knew you were awake. Hope I didn’t disturb you.”

“Not at all,” Changmin lies, because Yunho is so disturbing it’s not even funny.

Yunho flows out of a painful-looking pose and straightens up, smiling down at Changmin. “Did you sleep well?”

“No,” Changmin says before he can think better of it. “There’s a draught.”

“Oh dear.” Yunho looks sad on Changmin’s behalf.

Changmin wonders if Yunho knew about the draught all along and had manipulated him into taking the bigger bed. Bastard! Changmin hates him. Every mostly naked, insanely sexy inch of him. Including all those inches stuffed into his underwear. Not that Changmin is looking at Yunho’s crotch or wondering what that monster would look like fully erect or anything, because that would be pathetic.

Sitting up, Changmin pulls his dressing gown towards him. He unravels himself from the duvet and gets into his robe, shielding his hard-on the whole time, then struts out to the bathroom with his head held high.

The bathroom is occupied. Changmin loiters in the hallway until Sungmin emerges in a cloud of strawberry-scented steam, and then he performs his morning ablutions and successfully manages not to think of Yunho and his distracting barely-there underwear for at least forty seconds.

Shaved, styled, wearing a royal blue suit with an orange satin shirt and a dark blue tie and a discreet amount of the indiscreet L’Égoïste, Changmin strolls into the kitchen to find Yunho holding court with the rest of the male contestants. He’s in the middle of a story, his eyes shining and his hair all sticking up, and he’s spilled ketchup down his t-shirt and he’s slopped coffee onto the counter.

“And then the cop said, ‘I’ll see you boys next Tuesday’,” Yunho says, his voice trembling with repressed humour, “and we were all ‘Yes, officer, of course, sir’, and off he went, and then me and Donghae were pissing ourselves because the market is once a month on Wednesdays.”

Everyone roars with laughter. Feeling left out, Changmin laughs, too.

Yunho turns to him and beams. “Oh, Changminnie, there’s fresh coffee in the jug if you want it.”

“It’s really good,” Spoon says, holding up a mug and taking an appreciative sip. “Yunho brought this fantastic Guatemalan slow roast to share with us.”

“Did that fall off the back of a lorry in Gwangju, too?”

Silence. Everyone looks embarrassed.

Yunho’s smile fades. “Don’t feel obliged to drink it.”

“I won’t.” Changmin takes down a glass. “I prefer water, anyway.”

Conversation is awkward after that. Kangin and Spoon talk about the army. The Estonian guy stares out of the window. Sungmin announces that he’s going to head off to the workroom. Yunho says he’ll go with him, and then Spoon says he’ll come, too, and Kangin agrees, and the Estonian guy follows them, and Changmin is left alone with his breakfast.

He makes sure everyone has left the apartment before he helps himself to a cup of Yunho’s Guatemalan slow roast coffee. It’s exquisite.

*

Yunho finishes his outfit forty-three minutes before the models are due to arrive for the final dressing. He fluffs at his hair and dances around the form, admiring the garment from all sides, then starts singing to it, “Gonna dress you up in my love! All over your body!”

Milhye laughs. Yunho bounces over to her and sings the lines again—obviously the only part of the song he can remember—and she lets him spin her around and they dance across the floor, part waltz, part samba, until Milhye can barely stand up from laughing. At that point, Yunho dips her back into an exaggerated pose, and then they unbalance and fall down and roll about, giggling hysterically.

Changmin gets a tight, angry feeling in his chest. He turns away, mutters, “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” under his breath at a belt of black bottle tops he’s just finished making, and yanks it off the form even though there’s nothing wrong with it. He looks up to find Jiheun munching on some pineapple lumps and watching him. “What?” he snaps.

She stares at him. “Nothing.”

Zhou Mi wafts in with the models, and everyone flies into a state of chaos as they choose accessories and direct the hairdressers and makeup artists and finally dress the girls in their looks ready for the catwalk.

The designers sit on one side of the runway. Jaejoong sashays out from behind the illuminated screen with the show’s name printed on it. He’s wearing tartan. Changmin can’t decide if this is an improvement on yesterday’s beige jumpsuit. He’s so busy wondering if tartan is a good look on anyone who isn’t Scottish or a Harakuja Lolita that he almost misses the introductions to the other judges. Not that it matters, because Changmin has watched Stitched Up so many times he could recite Jaejoong’s spiel word for word.

The first judge is Cho Kyuhyun. Jaejoong introduces him as a ‘top Korean designer’, which in Changmin’s opinion is a grossly inaccurate description. Kyuhyun inherited a fashion house that churns out t-shirts printed with misspelled English words, which nevertheless sell in the hundreds of thousands for exorbitant prices. The ability to choose words out of a dictionary and then spell them phonetically has nothing to do with real, actual high-end design work, but Changmin grits his teeth and smiles when Kyuhyun greets the contestants.

Next is Madame Oh, the fashion director for ClothesLine magazine. She’s dressed head to toe in Vivienne Westwood and is overloaded with jewellery. The fruity scent of Oscar de la Renta curdles across the runway. Madame Oh has orange streaks in her hair and, according to gossip sites, is unable to smile due to an infection after she tried one of those DIY Botox treatments.

The guest judge is the head of the municipal waste disposal services, here to give his expert opinion on the use of the recycled materials, but no one cares about him.

“Ready?” Jaejoong chirps. “Let’s start the show!”

Changmin is sitting on the back row. He can see how nervous Yunho is as music pounds out and the models start emerging. Everyone’s nervous, of course, but Yunho is really obvious about it, squirming in his seat and grabbing at Milhye and Spoon as their models strut down the runway. He makes excited noises and applauds everyone’s outfits, even the really shit ones. He must be stupid to show that much emotion for the camera.

By contrast, Changmin keeps calm, controlling the panic swirling inside him. He focuses on the garments as they come down the catwalk, pretending that he’s a judge and looking at each piece with a critical eye.

He has to admit, Yunho’s outfit is inspired. The model struts down the runway, slinging off her rustling shredded paper cape to reveal a short, tight dress made of woven strips of plastic trays—black across the bust and for the skirt, transparent over the shoulders and around the midriff—and embellished with tinfoil. It’s very Baroque, very Dolce & Gabbana, and despite himself, Changmin is impressed.

When his own model strides along the catwalk, Changmin sighs in satisfaction. The strapless black bodice gleams under the lights, the fish-scale effect emphasising the movement of the body, and the crumpled bin bag skirt is the perfect length. If he tilts his head and squints a bit, the whole ensemble looks a little like wet-look leather, which is distinctly on-trend.

Then comes the boring part where the judges tally up their scores and confer and where the contestants wait to hear their fate. The filming of this takes up the better part of an hour, and the atmosphere backstage becomes fraught. No one wants to be the first to go home. Yunho passes around a bag of pineapple lumps. Changmin takes one, then catches himself crunching the sweet and remembers to suck on it instead.

Finally the designers are called back to the runway. The taste of the pineapple lump lingering on his tongue, Changmin breathes deeply and rehearses what he’ll say to the judges when they ask about his aesthetic. He almost misses his name when Jaejoong calls it out, and he hurries to step forward to join Yunho, Milhye, Kangin, Myunghyun, and Kyunghee.

He’s in the top three. Or the bottom three. Oh God. He starts to sweat, barely able to concentrate as Kangin describes his design aesthetic as ‘military, with a twist’. Then Jaejoong is inviting him to describe his look to the judges, and Changmin babbles on about elegant symmetry and timeless sophistication. The judges nod as if what he’s saying makes perfect sense, and Changmin knows he can do this. He’s a designer.

After another brief conference, Jaejoong delivers the verdict. Milhye wins the challenge, with Yunho and Changmin making up the top three. Kangin and Myunghyun just scrape through, but it’s Kyunghee who’s going home. She seems relieved and kisses Jaejoong back when he brushes her cheek and says ‘Auf wiedersehen’ in a bad German accent.

* * *

The weeks pass in a frenzy of activity. Jaejoong bids ‘Sayonara’ to Myunghyun, ‘Adios’ to Kangin, who was revealed to have been planted by the Ministry of Defence in an attempt to promote a softer, gentler side of the Army, and ‘Yeia sou’ to Seongyoon. Sabine wins week two. Changmin wins week three. Yunho wins week four.

The contestants settle into a routine. As their numbers shrink, the men and women start breakfasting in each other’s apartments and hanging out together on their days off.

Changmin gets to enjoy a moment of almost universal acclamation when Milhye comes in one day wearing a Chanel scarf.

“Is that a 2009 print?” Changmin asks. His question coincides with a lull in the general conversation, so not only is his voice incredibly loud, it also sounds accusatory as well as interrogative.

Milhye looks startled. “Yes.”

“It’s just...” Changmin puts down the tea towel—he’s trying to use psychology to trick the others into washing up by doing the dishes when they don’t actually need to be done, in the hope that when they do need to be done, the other guys will step up without him having to remind them—and hurries around the kitchen counter.

“2009 is so three years ago,” Sabine says with a sniff. “Mama sent me the very latest Chanel scarf. There’s a waiting list and it’s not even been released to valued customers yet, but Karl loves Mama, she’s his Muse, and...”

“No one cares,” Yunho tells her, budging up on the sofa so Milhye can sit next to him and Spoon. He smiles at Changmin. “What were you saying?”

“Oh.” Changmin blushes and waves his hands awkwardly. “It’s nothing. Just... when I interned at Chanel—”

“When we interned,” Sabine says, her voice loud.

“Anyway,” Changmin continues, “I got talking to the designer of this scarf and you see here...” he reaches across, glances at Milhye for permission, then fans out the ends of the silk to show the print, “the horses prancing? I thought they looked rather flat, so I said, why don’t you put a bit of shadow underneath the hooves, just to emphasise the movement, and the designer let me draw the shadow, and, well... That’s my contribution to that scarf.”

Sabine snorts. “The cheapest scarf in the whole autumn collection.”

Milhye peers at the horses. “I’m trying to imagine them without the shadow, and you’re right, it would have looked lifeless. I wouldn’t have bought the scarf if the horses looked flat.”

Changmin dips his head, feeling shy and pleased as everyone except Sabine oohs and ahhs over the scarf.

“That’s so awesome!” Yunho enthuses, leaning all over Milhye to study the print. “Changminnie, you’re so clever! Please let me learn from you!”

“It’s just a bit of shadow.” Changmin sits down on the arm of the sofa then stands up again, flustered. He doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. “I’ll, er, I’ll...”

“Finish the dishes that didn’t need doing?” Sungmin suggests with a smirk.

“Me and Jiheun can do that,” Yunho says, jumping up. “You sit here.”

Changmin finds himself seated next to Milhye, who asks him about his internship at Chanel. Sabine tries to gatecrash the conversation, but Milhye is unfailingly polite and keeps the attention firmly on Changmin, and Sabine soon gets bored. Jiheun, Yunho, the Estonian guy and Spoon congregate in the kitchen area and wash and dry and stack the dishes, chatting and laughing the whole time.

Although he’s interested in what Milhye is saying, Changmin’s attention keeps wandering. He doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until Milhye waves a hand in front of his face, and then he’s embarrassed and hunches his shoulders and says, “I’m sorry, I’m... tired. Yes. Because there’s a draught from the bedroom window and it keeps me awake.”

Milhye gives him a knowing smile. “Of course,” she says, then slides her glance sideways to look at Yunho. “Fresh air can do that.”

Changmin pretends he has no idea what she means and steers their conversation around to a discussion of Stella McCartney.

Almost everyone loves Yunho. He’s genuinely nice and he goes out of his way to help the other contestants when they have a problem. He meanders around the workroom waving a bag of pineapple lumps and offering honest criticism in a voice that’s clearly made for shouting things like Awright darlin’ git yerself some nice togs orl arf price t’day or however Gwangju market traders communicate.

Other than the accent, which isn’t all that noticeable now Changmin comes to think about it, Yunho has this laugh. At first it’s really irritating, mainly because when Changmin hears Yunho laughing, his mouth twitches into an answering smile. High-end fashion designers simply do not go around smiling like idiots for no good reason—look at Jeremy Scott—so he tries to ignore the joyous noise. In order to prepare himself mentally, Changmin starts listening out for Yunho’s laughter at all times, and somewhere along the way he finds himself kind of... addicted to the sound.

The other contestants adore him, although no one ever accepts his help for hand-sewing because he can barely stitch a straight line. Despite this shortcoming, Jiheun and Milhye have a crush on him, as does Spoon. Fluffy pink outfits aside, Sungmin turns out to be a fairly hardcore martial artist, and he and Yunho stage impromptu fights on the sofa, at the kitchen table, in the hallway, and once, to Changmin’s embarrassment, on the pavement outside the apartment block when they all went out to buy groceries.

The Estonian guy, who doesn’t talk to anyone else mainly because no one can understand him, quite happily talks to Yunho for hours at a time.

“You speak Estonian?” Changmin asks, impressed.

“No.” Yunho beams. “But it kind of sounds a bit like the Gwangju dialect so I think I know what he’s saying.”

Sabine doesn’t love Yunho. She’s not forgiven him for saying that she was a silly show-off. She smiles and accepts his help in the workroom, but every word she says to him is acid coated in sugar, and Changmin knows she’s just biding her time.

Changmin thinks he likes Yunho. Sort of. It’s hard to dislike someone who’s so relentlessly upbeat and enthusiastic about even the crappiest design challenge, but it’s also hard for Changmin to believe that anyone can be so happy and excitable all the time. He keeps hoping that one day he’ll find Yunho crying into his plushie or beating up a pillow or something, anything, to prove that he’s just a little bit human.

The mess Yunho leaves behind doesn’t count, because Spoon, Sungmin, and the Estonian guy are just as untidy. Changmin gets sick of clearing away after them and starts pinning up notices reminding them to take out the rubbish, wipe down the counter, and to always store foodstuffs in the appropriate places. He draws up a rota for doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom and sticks it on the front of the fridge so everyone can see it. Next day he finds it crumpled up in the bin.

Undeterred, Changmin smoothes it out, makes several copies, and sticks them on every door in the apartment. He follows this up with a long monologue on the importance of hygiene in the home, standing in front of the TV while the others are trying to watch a football match.

“Bitchy boy, please shut up and get out of the way,” Spoon says, leaning to one side in an attempt to see past Changmin.

“No.” Changmin makes himself as wide as possible, planting his feet further apart and stretching out his arms like an incredibly stubborn and misguided goalkeeper. “You will listen to me, and you will follow the rota.”

The Estonian guy says something that sounds rude.

“There’s no need to be like that,” Changmin huffs. “This place isn’t fit for human habitation. It’s not even fit for animal habitation. The bathroom is simply squalid. No one clears their hair out of the plughole in the shower. It’s disgusting. Whoever used the shower last this morning let it overflow because there was so much build-up of hair and soap and—and...”

“Probably wasn’t soap,” Sungmin says, and he and Spoon laugh.

“Oh my God.” Changmin’s skin crawls as he realises that amongst that repulsive, soggy clump of hair all matted together with soap scum, there was probably a good amount of jizz, too. He wants to cry. He wants to put his hands in disinfectant for a week. “You’re all pigs. You’re depraved and filthy and—”

“Girlfriend, we just missed a goal because of your lecture,” Spoon says with a sigh. “Will you at least move so we can see the replay?”

“Promise that you’ll do the dishes.”

Yunho gets up from the sofa and comes towards him, smiling.

Changmin grounds himself. “Promise me that you’ll at least look at the rota.”

“We promise,” Yunho says, and tackles him.

Changmin squirms. “Get off. Don’t do that. You’re undermining my authority.”

“No, I’m not.” Yunho grabs him around the waist and hoists Changmin up as if he weighs almost nothing at all. He folds Changmin over his shoulder and carries him out of the room. Their exit is accompanied by catcalls and laughter.

Shrilling in mingled terror and excitement, Changmin claws at Yunho’s t-shirt. “Put me down. Put me down, you stupid bastard.” He doesn’t dare kick in case Yunho drops him. Each step jolts through him, and his position is making him breathless. All Changmin can do is bunch his hands and thump ineffectually at Yunho’s back.

“Put me down right now,” Changmin shouts. “The blood’s rushing to my head. It’s giving me a migraine. I can’t breathe. Jung Yunho! Put me down, I’m going to faint!”

“No, you’re not.” Yunho opens the door to their bedroom, carries him inside and gently unrolls Changmin onto the bed by the window.

Changmin flops onto the duvet, lust beating a wanton tattoo inside him. He curls up to hide his hard-on and hopes to God that Yunho didn’t notice. “Fuck off, you—you Gwangju skank.”

Yunho smiles at him, not at all bothered by the lame insult. “Don’t be so grumpy, Changminnie. We’ll follow the rota,” he says, and leaves the room.

Struggling up into a sitting position, conscious of the ache of desire and the proud thrust of his entirely inappropriate erection, Changmin yells after him, “Not grumpy! I’m not—”

The door shuts at the far end of the hall, muting the sound of the television. Changmin moans and lies back, rolling onto his side. Closing his eyes, he summons a fantasy of what he’d wanted—Yunho throwing him across the bed and then climbing on top, holding him down and fucking into him, fast and strong and demanding.

A helpless groan tumbles from his lips. Changmin unbuttons his trousers, shoves a hand inside his underwear, and jerks off. His climax is swift and unsatisfactory, like every other orgasm he’s given himself in the last four weeks and six days.

Racked with humiliation and desire, his pride dented and confusion reigning supreme, Changmin cleans himself up and fastens his clothes back into place. He stays in the bedroom for a while longer, then shuffles down the hall and stands outside the kitchen/living room. The football is still on. He opens the door a little, trying to rouse his confidence so he can go in there as if nothing untoward just happened.

“Wonder if Changmin’s still sulking,” he overhears Spoon say, and Changmin freezes, hand on the doorknob.

“Don’t be mean,” Yunho says, his tone mild.

Sungmin laughs. “Bro, you might think he’s hot, but he is so uptight.”

“Yeah,” Spoon adds, giggling, “just think, darlin’—if you ever got your dick inside him it’d turn into a diamond.”

The Estonian guy laughs.

Changmin is horrified, but also weirdly pleased that Yunho thinks he’s hot.

“Aw no, stop it.” Now Yunho sounds embarrassed and sort of... protective. “He’s really nice. You just don’t know him.”

“He’s a nag,” Spoon says. “And when he’s not going on about cleaning shit up, he’s being pretentious and wafting around all condescending and muttering his stupid catchphrase as if that’s going to win him any votes.”

“Don’t,” Yunho says again, and this time he sounds annoyed. “Changmin is a sweet guy, okay? He’s just shy and uncertain, and that can look like arrogance at times. Give him a break, yeah? He’s had a rough time of it.”

Silence, then the Estonian guy says something indistinct; a question, obviously, because Yunho replies, “Actually, his father is a real tool.”

Changmin backs away, his heart pounding. He’s sure they’ll be able to hear it, thudding against his ribs so hard it hurts. On tiptoe, he creeps back to his room and presses the door closed, then lies down on his bed again and stares at the wall until Sungmin comes knocking a couple of hours later and tells him that dinner’s ready.

He follows Sungmin into the kitchen. The dishes have been done, the surfaces have been wiped down, and the food is served at the table for once. It smells good, chilli and garlic scenting the air, and Changmin sits between the Estonian guy and Yunho, who smiles at him and says, “Changminnie, did you take a nap?”

“Yeah.” Changmin drops his gaze. “Thanks for washing up, guys.”

“Sungmin cleaned the bathroom, too,” Yunho says. “And we tidied everything away after we’d washed up. We’ll keep the place shipshape from now on.”

“Thank you.” He shouldn’t feel so overwhelmed just because these idiots have finally done the tasks that should have been done days ago, but all the same, emotion squeezes at Changmin and he darts a glance up at Yunho. “You must think I’m fussy.”

Yunho just gazes at him, a half smile curving his mouth. “No, Changminnie. I think you’re particular.”

Changmin doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

*

That night, after Yunho has finished reading a chapter of his book and turned out the bedside light, Changmin asks into the dark, “How did you know about my father?”

Yunho is quiet for a long time. “You talk in your sleep.”

Oh fuck, no. Changmin cringes. Embarrassment floods through him, hot and burning. “I... talk?”

“Sometimes you won’t shut up.” The duvet shirrs as Yunho turns onto his side. When he next speaks there’s a jocular note to his voice, as if he’s trying to make light of the subject. “You move around a lot, too. At first I thought it was because of the draught, but I guess you’re just a restless sleeper. In fact, you punched me the other night.”

Changmin is aghast. He never knew he was capable of somnolent violence. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise.”

“Well, no, you were asleep.” Now Yunho sounds awkward. “I woke up because you were making these noises, and—and I thought you were having a bad dream, so I came over because I wanted to help, but, uh, but... um, you weren’t having a bad dream and you punched me instead.”

“What night was this?” Changmin has the awful suspicion that he knows.

“Thursday.”

Changmin wants to die of shame. He’d woken up on Friday morning with his shorts damp and clinging and semen still slimy against his belly. The idea that Yunho had not just overheard him having a wet dream but had touched him, even innocently, makes Changmin want to crawl away and hibernate for the next ten years.

Trying to keep his voice level, he says, “So I talk about my father and I punch you. What else do I say when I’m asleep?”

Yunho is silent for much longer this time. “You say a lot,” he says, very softly.

“Such as?” Changmin grits his teeth, not wanting to hear the answer but desperate for it all the same. His stupid dreaming mind, babbling crap in the middle of the night, how dare it! Oh shit, what if he’d said something really embarrassing, like Yunho, Yunho, split me on your massive cock and make me ride you until I scream. God, he’ll never sleep again.

He waits in an agony of anticipation, but the silence gets longer and longer.

“Yunho?” Changmin says in a whisper. “Yunho!”

A tiny snuffling sound answers him. Yunho is asleep.

* * *

Week five is a black or white monochrome challenge. Changmin goes all Ferretti and Marchesa with a long, floaty lace-strip skirt and a boxy, military-style jacket. Yunho’s outfit resembles a smashed pavlova on the form, yet miraculously when the model puts it on, the dress takes on a life of its own and looks stylish.

Sungmin really struggles, miserable without the opportunity to work with pink. To cheer him up, Yunho collects together all the pink accessories and piles them onto Sungmin’s workbench. This leads to Sungmin overcompensating at the final hour and loading his model with every single item. Everyone winces when the poor girl comes down the runway, her beautifully-made slip dress and feathered wrap hidden beneath swathes of pink scarves, beads, bangles, and earrings hooked randomly into the fabric.

Jaejoong and Madame Oh look stunned, but Kyuhyun points and laughs. “As Designer Shim would say, that’s ugly, ugly, ugly.”

Changmin feels bad for Sungmin, but he’s also pleased that his catchphrase has caught on amongst the judges, even if it’s only Kyuhyun that said it.

Much to her joy, Jiheun wins with a beaded black cocktail dress. The Estonian guy is sent home with a brisk “allahaısmarladık” from Jaejoong.

* * *

For week six, the brief is to design an outfit suitable for a woman to wear in the countryside. It seems a remarkably vague task, but Zhou Mi refuses to be any more specific as to what, exactly, is meant by ‘the countryside’.

“Designers,” he says, one hand on the door of the workroom, “try to think outside the box. Just a suggestion, take it or leave it.”

At the fabric store, Spoon heads for the waterproof material. Yunho goes straight for the loudest, brightest colours in the shop, never mind that they’re all in nylon. Sungmin scoops up armfuls of pink and sighs happily. Jiheun compares faux leather with zebra print. Milhye ponders an elegant palette of stone, beige and camel. Sabine chooses linen.

Changmin buys yards of tweed and a box of polished leather buttons. While he was doing his degree at St Martin’s, one of his friends had invited him up to Scotland for a spot of grouse-shooting. They’d stayed at an ancient hunting lodge with stuffed animal heads on the walls and casement windows that hadn’t closed properly since the eighteenth century. He didn’t know how to fire a gun and the spaniels put muddy paws all over his satin Paul Smith trousers, so instead of shooting grouse he went for long walks. He thinks of that weekend now as he conjures up a sexy, Regency-esque three-piece riding outfit, severely tailored for practicality yet also ultra-feminine, with pin-tucks and darts emphasising the bust and waist and hips.

Spoon seems to be constructing a tent. Sungmin is making something pink. Jiheun is creating some sort of Goth ensemble. Milhye is frowning at her sketches. Sabine is draping linen over her form and pinning it into place. Yunho is on his mat surrounded by colourful squares of fabric, carefully cutting out shapes and tacking them together.

“Countryside equals summertime equals Summer of Love,” he explains when Changmin goes over to help himself to a pineapple lump. Yunho’s sketch shows a flirty take on a simple 1960s dress; the fine work will not be in the dress itself but the fabric, a riotous explosion of colour like a Pucci print gone mad. It’ll take him all day to cut out and assemble the pieces. “Ooh, I got Biba fever,” he sings.

Everyone laughs except Sabine. Her mouth is full of pins.

*

The workroom is quiet, everyone busy with their garments. Changmin glances up from shaping the riding jacket and looks over at Yunho, who’s just finished pinning and tacking all of the coloured pieces together to make his Mary Quant-type frock. It really shouldn’t work, but the dress looks absolutely stunning, and Changmin is sure that Yunho will win this week’s runway show.

Milhye emerges from the sewing room with a kick-pleated skirt over her arm and a soft, draped blouse over her shoulder. She pauses by Yunho’s form and admires his dress, pointing out her favourite colour combinations. Their conversation moves on, and he ruffles a finger through the pleats on her skirt and offers an opinion on the shape of the blouse.

Jiheun picks up the lace and velvet for her Goth dress and heads for the sewing room. Sabine is just leaving the room, and they almost collide. “Watch it, kid,” Sabine snarls. Jiheun sticks out her tongue and flounces past. A few moments later, Yunho carefully takes his dress from the form and carries it into the sewing room. Changmin listens to their chatter above the whirr of the machines, but is soon absorbed in his own task.

He’s almost finished with the back of the jacket when a shriek erupts from the sewing room. A second later, the fire alarm starts shrilling, and then Jiheun screams again and Yunho shouts, and smoke belches out of the little room.

Milhye cries aloud in panic. Changmin, Spoon, and Sungmin all run towards the sewing room while Sabine yells at everyone to get the hell out. There’s a sharp cracking noise, and then a small but violent explosion.

“Yunho! Jiheun!” Changmin peers through the stinking black cloud of smoke and sees them staring in horror at Yunho’s sewing machine. It’s on fire. So is his dress, and the nylon is melting and sticking to everything, and the fumes are disgusting, thick and chemical and noxious and dangerous.

“Yunho!” Keeping a wary distance from the fire, Changmin ducks beneath the oily roll of smoke. He rips off his suit jacket and drops it over the sewing machine in an attempt to smother the flames. Probably not the best plan ever but it’s all he’s got right now. He reaches out to where Yunho and Jiheun are squashed against the back wall, both of them coughing at the fumes. “Come on. Hurry.”

“Jiheun, go,” Yunho urges, pushing her towards Changmin. She’s crying as she stumbles forwards, and Changmin sweeps her into his arms and leads her past the blaze and the melting dress. Sungmin and Spoon wait for them to get out before they charge in with fire blankets and fire extinguishers. Changmin hears Yunho wail, “My dress, my dress,” and then there’s a whoosh as one of the extinguishers is discharged and an exhalation of choking dry foam rolls out of the sewing room.

Changmin hurries Jiheun to the workroom doors and hands her into Milhye’s comforting embrace. “I called Zhou Mi,” she says. “What happened?”

“Yunho’s sewing machine blew up.” Jiheun’s face is streaked with tears and her voice quavers. “We were talking and then his thread tangled and the motor kept jamming, and so I went over to help him and he said we should turn off the power, so I moved to one side so he could duck under the table, and then—and then it just exploded.” She looks up, her wide, shocked gaze suddenly focusing. “If we’d stayed where we were, if he hadn’t said to turn off the power, we could’ve been hurt. We could’ve been seriously injured. Oh shit. Oh my God.”

“It’s okay,” Changmin says, rubbing her arms as she starts shivering. “Jiheun, you’re okay, Yunho’s okay.”

Jiheun stifles a sob. “Oh God, your suit. It’s ruined.”

Changmin goes still as he realises he’s just sacrificed the jacket of his Armani suit. To hell with that. As long as Yunho and Jiheun are safe, that’s the only thing that matters.

All agog at the drama, Zhou Mi arrives and takes charge, playing to the camera and showing a little too much interest in the firemen who turn up five minutes later.

A medic gives Jiheun and Yunho a check-up, and once the fire crew have declared the place safe and they’re allowed to go back to the workroom, Zhou Mi takes Yunho to one side and asks if he has any fabric left.

“Only scraps.” Yunho looks close to tears. Changmin remembers a few weeks ago that he’d wanted to see Yunho cry, but now he’s on the verge of it, Changmin doesn’t want it to happen. It’s making his own eyes mist over, and he hates feeling like that.

Zhou Mi flaps his hands, his expression taut with helpless sympathy. “Designer Jung, you must find some way to use those scraps and make an outfit, you simply must. This is not a suggestion you may take or leave—if you don’t show an outfit on the runway, you’ll be disqualified.”

“I understand.” Yunho pins on a brave smile until Zhou Mi has left the workroom, and then his shoulders slump and he looks tiny and defeated. He gathers together the pieces of cloth left from his cutting-out and sinks down onto his mat, staring in utter despair at the pathetic collection of miniscule scraps.

No one says anything. No one moves.

Then Sungmin sorts through his own scraps of pink chiffon and takes them over to Yunho’s mat. Milhye, Spoon, and Jiheun scramble through the stuff on their workbenches and offer as much as they can afford to give away. Sabine turns up the volume on her iPod and pretends she hasn’t seen what the others are doing.

Changmin goes over to the mat and looks down. Yunho has perked up a little, determination sparking in his movements as he sorts through the oddments of fabric and starts sketching anew. Even with everyone else’s off-cuts, there’s scarcely enough cloth for Yunho to make a bikini. It’s so monstrously unfair that Changmin marches back to his workstation. Stripping off the riding jacket, he unbuttons the waistcoat, yanks it free of the form, then strides back to Yunho and holds it out.

“You’ll have to unpick it,” he says, as if it’s not obvious.

Yunho stares up at him in astonishment. “Changminnie, you can’t give me this. It’s a finished piece.”

“Take it.” Changmin waves it under Yunho’s nose, and then when he still doesn’t accept it, Changmin grabs a pair of scissors and snips at one seam. “There. It’s ruined. I don’t want it. You can have it.”

“Changmin. I don’t know what to say. You...” Yunho’s expression goes all soft and his eyes get suspiciously watery.

“Just take it, you stupid git.” Changmin throws the waistcoat at him.

Yunho catches it, hugs it to his chest. “Thank you.”

*

Yunho’s model looks horrified when she turns up to the final fitting to find not a gorgeous dress of many colours but a pair of tweed hotpants with pink chiffon panels on the sides and a bandeau made of a poorly hand-stitched patchwork of random fabrics, including the canvas scraps donated by Spoon. She’s even more horrified when Yunho tells her about the exploding sewing machine, and she insists on giving him a big hug.

“You shouldn’t be hugging me,” he says. “You should hug everyone else. Thanks to their generosity, you’re not going to be walking down the runway naked.” His smile looks wobbly, but he’s pale with relief. “Thank you, guys. Thank you so much.”

Milhye sniffles. “I just wish I’d had more fabric for you.”

“It’s okay.” Deciding to take his own advice, Yunho goes around the workroom hugging everyone.

Changmin takes an involuntary step back when Yunho comes towards him. Maybe they can do something manly and safe like shake hands or nod stiffly to one another instead. Yunho’s smile brightens as he moves closer, and then he kisses Changmin on the cheek. His lips are soft and his breath smells of pineapple lumps. “Thank you, Changminnie.”

“Shut up.” Changmin squirms where he stands. He ruined a perfectly good three-piece riding outfit for a kiss on the cheek. The awful thing is he’d do it again. Now he wishes he’d gone for the hug after all.

The usual chaos ensues as they hurry their models through hair and makeup and dressing, and then they all take their places for the runway show. Over the last few weeks, Changmin has looked forward to seeing his designs on the catwalk, but today he’s anxious. His attention keeps slipping from the runway to Yunho, who’s curled up on his chair nibbling on his thumbnail, shoulders set and his body language defensive. He knows his outfit is awful. What makes it worse is that Sabine’s look is the first down the runway. It’s immaculate and beautiful, and the judges all smile and make little ticking motions on their score cards.

During the question and answer session, the judges rip into Changmin’s riding outfit. “The line is all wrong,” Madame Oh says, gesturing with a bejewelled hand. “The jacket is not flattering and it sits at a strange place on the skirt. Don’t you agree, Kyuhyun?”

Kyuhyun nods. “It looks ugly, ugly, ugly.”

Changmin wishes he’d never come up with that stupid catchphrase.

“The problem as I see it,” Madame Oh continues, “is that there needs to be a waistcoat beneath the jacket. One would never expect such an unassuming garment to have such structural importance, but there it is. Without the waistcoat, this look is simply—”

“Ugly,” Kyuhyun says again, smiling and nodding.

“Excuse me.” Yunho steps forward. “I just want to say that Changmin did make a waistcoat. Ask anyone here and they’ll tell you. Play back the footage of us in the workroom and you’ll see. He finished the entire look and it was fantastic and amazing, and then he very kindly gave the waistcoat to me after my sewing machine blew up and my dress melted. I had almost no fabric left and everyone was so generous, giving me what they could spare from their own outfits, but Changmin actually sacrificed an item from his finished look so my model wouldn’t be naked.”

The judges stare at him. Jaejoong blinks and turns to Changmin. “Is this true?”

Changmin nods. “Yes.”

“Why does no one see fit to inform me about these things?” Jaejoong complains, flicking at his bleached blond hair. He glances at the other judges, who shrug, and then he faces the runway and heaves a sigh. “Whatever. We can only judge what’s in front of us and we don’t care about the backroom angst. The rules are the rules, no exceptions.”

He goes on to declare Sabine the winner. She struts from the runway with a smile of triumph.

“Yunho, Changmin.” Jaejoong looks stern, a difficult expression to maintain whilst wearing lime green flares and an orange and pink batwing jumper. “You have the two lowest scores. One of you will be safe; the other will be going home.”

Yunho scoots closer to Changmin and holds his hand. Presumably it’s meant to be a gesture of solidarity, but all Changmin can focus on is the warm brush of Yunho’s calloused fingers.

“Yunho,” Jaejoong says, “your look is really crappy and it’s obvious that you can’t sew anything by hand. Your model looked like a skanky ho instead of a lady. We appreciate that you were almost blown up and set on fire, but these are the kind of setbacks all designers must face at one time or another.”

He turns. “Changmin. Usually your outfits are superbly tailored, but we were all deeply disappointed with this one. Everyone knows that neo-Regency clothing of this type should include a waistcoat. Never mind that you did actually make a waistcoat—you then chose to donate it to Yunho, who made those ugly shorts out of it. We applaud such selfless behaviour, but think carefully about these decisions in the future. You could have won this challenge. Instead you’re in the bottom two.”

Yunho squeezes Changmin’s hand.

“Changmin.” There’s a dramatic pause. Jaejoong’s eyes gleam. “You’re in.”

Yunho’s grip tightens fractionally around Changmin’s hand, then he lets go.

“That means,” Jaejoong continues, sashaying over to the runway, “Yunho, you’re out.” He stretches up as Yunho leans down for the air kisses. “Hyvästi.”

* * *

The apartment is empty without Yunho. Dirty dishes teeter in the sink and the kitchen counter overflows with takeaway containers, and that’s after just one day. Jiheun and Milhye come over to mope and bitch about Sabine.

“I keep thinking about it,” Jiheun says, twisting her fingers around and around. She rests her head against the sofa, looking much younger than her nineteen years. “Sabine was on her own in the sewing room for at least ten minutes after Milhye left and before I went in. She had plenty of time to do something to Yunho’s sewing machine. I think she did it on purpose. I think she sabotaged him.”

Silence creeps around the room.

“That’s a serious accusation to make,” Sungmin says, softly, carefully.

Jiheun’s face crumples. “She did it. I know she did. It could’ve been really awful, but instead she gets rewarded and Yunho gets sent home!”

Everyone looks awkward as Jiheun starts sobbing. Milhye hugs her and Spoon pats her arm sympathetically.

Changmin gets to his feet. “Excuse me,” he mutters, and goes downstairs before he can regret his decision. Steeling himself, he bangs on the door of the girls’ apartment.

Sabine answers it, her gaze cool. “Had enough of the Yunho fan club mewling and whining over his unfair dismissal?”

“Shut up.” Changmin’s temper spikes and he pushes inside, closing the door behind him. He puts his back to it and stares down at her. “Tell me you had nothing to do with Yunho’s sewing machine blowing up.”

She looks at him without flinching and folds her arms. She stays silent.

“Oh my God.” He reads the truth in the defiant tilt of her head. “Shit. Sabine, what were you thinking? Yunho and Jiheun could have been seriously injured!”

“I’m not saying anything.” Her face is blank, but her eyes glitter like chips of obsidian. “You can’t prove a damn thing.”

“I don’t need to.” Changmin gives a harsh laugh. “Zhou Mi took the sewing machine away. They’ll run tests on it and if you did something, they’ll find out. You were the only one in the sewing room right before it happened—the footage will show that beyond all doubt. You won’t get away with this, don’t think you can!”

Sabine snaps. “Oh, come on, Changmin, don’t be so naive! You know what it’s like out there—you know we have to be ruthless if we want to win! You and me are the only real contenders in this show. The rest are fillers. Milhye’s too old, Jiheun’s a kid, Spoon is fat and Sungmin is obsessed with pink!”

“Then if I’m your only competition, why did you want to get rid of Yunho?”

“Because he was good!” Sabine shouts, venom in her tone and hatred flashing through her expression. “Because he had ideas, and because he had ideas, the other losers got ideas, too, and losers should know their place and they should stay there! He was a threat, can’t you see that? A fucking market trader from Gwangju! My God, just imagine if he won, he’d spend the hundred thousand dollars on cheap denim and nylon and make more of those shitty Evisu knock-offs! If you or I won, we’d do something with the money, we’d develop our brand and we’d—”

Changmin takes a step back, shaking his head. “No. No, Sabine. You listen to me. Pack your bags and get ready to leave. You have ten minutes to do that, and then you’re going to call Zhou Mi and admit what you’ve done and you’re going to ask to be disqualified. Otherwise, I’m doing it for you.”

Sabine stares. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh,” Changmin says, cold and fierce, “I’m serious.”

There’s a long moment of vicious silence, and then Sabine pulls her gaze away. She laughs, loud and mocking. “You’re in love with him.”

Changmin frowns. “What?”

“You’re in love with a common little market trader. God, you’re pathetic.” She whirls away from him, her mouth stretched into a sneer of disgust. Outside her bedroom door, she turns and shoots him a look barbed with hatred.

“All right. I’ll come clean and tell Zhou Mi. But first I’ll tell you something, Shim Changmin—even if you win this crappy contest, I’ll use all my influence and I’ll make sure every door in the fashion world is closed to you. No matter what you do or where you go, even if you change your name, no one will work with you, no one will even look at your designs—Mama and I will make sure of it.”

*

That evening, Zhou Mi calls an emergency meeting in the boys’ apartment. He looks harried and less refined than usual. “Designers,” he says, hands fluttering, “something untoward has occurred. Sabine called me earlier today and admitted that she sabotaged Yunho’s sewing machine.”

Jiheun gasps and looks at Changmin, mouths Thank you at him. Changmin shuffles his feet and stares at Zhou Mi’s hideous grey polka dot suit.

“She said she only intended for it to ruin the outfit he was making for this week’s challenge,” Zhou Mi continues, “and she apologises for the distress the fire and explosion caused to the other contestants. As a result of her confession, we had no choice but to disqualify her from Stitched Up.”

The cameraman swings around to get everyone’s reactions.

Spoon raises his hand. “Does that mean Yunho will be coming back?”

The camera circles around in time to catch Zhou Mi’s troubled frown. “I’m not sure. We haven’t been able to get hold of him, and with the schedule... Well, we simply can’t afford to fall behind... It may have to be a double elimination week.”

“But that’s not fair!” Jiheun roars, launching herself from the sofa to stand in the middle of the room, her hands bunched into fists. “He worked really hard and he could’ve died because of that bitch and now she’s admitted it and he’s still being punished! This show sucks! It’s total shit!”

“Language,” Zhou Mi says, looking bemused. “Just a suggestion, but—”

“Screw your suggestions!” Jiheun shouts, and stamps out of the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

“That went well.” Milhye gets up with a sigh. “I’d better go after her.”

The meeting breaks up in confusion, with Zhou Mi apparently the most confused of all. “I’ll let you know the producer’s decision just as soon as I hear something,” he calls as everyone heads out of the room muttering and grumbling.

Changmin can’t stand it. He marches down the corridor and comes to a halt outside his bedroom door. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to wipe Yunho’s name off the whiteboard, and he’s not about to do it now, either. Chest tight with a flurry of nonsensical emotion, he goes inside and gets changed into his pyjamas, flinging his clothes onto the floor and making the deliberate decision to just leave them there. Fuck it all, he’ll have an early night and maybe he’ll feel better in the morning.

He gets into bed and turns out the light.

He’s been there less than five minutes when the draught tickles at his neck.

Sodding window. Sodding draught. Changmin wrenches himself up from his bed and crawls into Yunho’s bed against the wall. Even though the cleaners stripped the linen and changed the sheets, Changmin still fancies he can smell Yunho’s scent imprinted in the pillows, sunshine and spice and sweetness.

If he was more of a sappy, emotional kind of guy, Changmin might cry now. But he doesn’t, because he’s determined and driven and he’s a winner, and now he has the whole room to himself and he doesn’t have to sleep in a draught anymore.

* * *

Changmin spends Sunday morning curled up snug in Yunho’s bed. At around eleven o’clock, Sungmin knocks on the door and asks if he wants to go out for brunch with the rest of them. Changmin turns down the invitation; he doesn’t want to hear another rehash of the events of this week. He’s sick and tired of this contest, and even though Sabine’s elimination has left him in a strong position, he wonders if it’s worth it.

He naps for a little while. The apartment telephone rings, but he can’t be bothered to go into the hall and pick it up, and neither can he be bothered to get out of bed and listen to the voicemail message after. He turns and faces the wall and dozes again, waking a little later when he hears the door to his room click open.

“Changminnie?”

Changmin rolls over so fast he almost falls off the bed. He tries to sit up at the same time, tangling himself in the duvet. “Yunho? Yunho!”

“Hi.” Yunho stands in the doorway clutching his suitcase and smiling. “Zhou Mi asked me to come back. He said Sabine sabotaged my sewing machine. I called about an hour ago but no one picked up, so...”

“Yunho!” Changmin really has to stop saying his name like that, all excited and... excited. He doesn’t want Yunho to get the wrong idea. Changmin thinks of something witty and sophisticated to say, then opens his mouth and says, “Yunho!” again.

“Yes, it’s me.” Yunho kicks his case to one side and comes over to pull Changmin up. Probably he means to give him a hug, since Yunho is so fond of hugging people, but as soon as Changmin is on his feet, it’s like they both realise how narrow the space is between the beds, and they’re sort of pressed together, and from there it’s easy, so very easy, for Changmin to lean against Yunho and sort of... kiss him.

“Oh, Changminnie,” Yunho says, breath hot and sweet, and he slides one hand into Changmin’s hair and the other goes around his neck and they’re kissing again.

There’s nothing hesitant about it this time. It’s full-on, all tongues and the clash of teeth, saliva wet across lips and chin. Yunho’s fingers tighten in his hair and Changmin makes a guttural sound right into Yunho’s mouth. He puts both arms up Yunho’s back and grabs onto his shoulders, shoves against him in urgent demand.

They devour one another, their kisses getting hotter, wilder, less controlled. Changmin is floored by how much he wants Yunho. It’s embarrassing, really; embarrassing and obvious. He supposes it’s been obvious from day one. It just took him a while to realise it.

Yunho slides his hands down to cup Changmin’s ass, pulling him in close. They’re both hard, and Changmin moans into Yunho’s mouth, moans and rubs his erection against the stiff, proud thrust of Yunho’s cock.

“Oh, you’re sexy, you’re beautiful, you’re glorious,” Yunho tells him, hot and hungry, and Changmin wonders why the hell they waited so long to do this.

“You’re trashy, you’re cheap, you’re dirty,” Changmin says in return, then realises those don’t sound like compliments.

Yunho doesn’t seem to mind. He chuckles, bites Changmin’s earlobe. “Posh boy wants his Gwangju skank, huh?”

“Don’t talk. Just don’t talk,” Changmin begs, quivering with lust.

“Give my mouth something to do, then,” Yunho murmurs, kissing all over Changmin’s face.

“Oh God. Oh God.” Changmin grabs at him, pulls him down onto the bed. They tangle together, bump and grind and kiss some more, breaths getting faster, skin hot and slick to the touch. Yunho rocks his hips and Changmin arches up to meet him, mewling in frustration. He’s waited weeks for this and now they’ve got too many layers on. Stupid clothes, they’re completely unnecessary.

“Oh baby, yeah,” Yunho breathes, licking Changmin’s neck and creeping a hand up beneath his pyjama top.

“Get yourself naked right now,” Changmin snaps.

“Ooh, posh boy likes giving orders.” Yunho rises up onto his knees and crosses his arms at the waist, taking hold of the hem of his t-shirt. He’s smiling, eyes bright with playful desire and his face flushed with excitement, and then they both freeze as the apartment door bangs open and Sungmin and Spoon arrive back home.

In a heartbeat, Yunho pulls away from Changmin. He hurls the duvet over him and retreats, making rapid adjustments to his clothes and smoothing down his hair. When he’s safely on the other side of the tiny room, Yunho throws him an apologetic look. “Can we continue this later?”

Changmin wants to punch the wall, but instead he manages to smile. “Sure.”

Sungmin and Spoon have obviously listened to the voice message on the machine, because suddenly there’s a whoop and footsteps come charging down the hall, and then Spoon hammers on the door. “Yunho! Yunho!”

Yunho takes a steadying breath and flings open the door. “Spoon! Sungmin! I’m back!”

“Darlin’ boy!” Spoon barrels into the room and envelops Yunho in a huge hug. Sungmin joins in, chattering excitedly, then says he’s going to tell the girls.

Feeling oddly adrift and cut off from the sudden carnival atmosphere, Changmin folds the duvet over his lap and sits up, watching as Spoon and Yunho jump up and down. A few minutes later, Jiheun and Milhye run in with Sungmin, and they’re all squealing. Everyone bounces around and hugs, and the noise just gets louder and louder.

“Get out!” Changmin shouts, his nerves shot to hell.

They all stop and stare at him.

Shit. He sounds like a grumpy asshole. “I’m glad Yunho’s back, but maybe if we take the celebrations into the living room?”

“Okay, girlfriend,” Spoon says, giving him a hard, suspicious look. “I guess you’re right. There’s not much space in here. Also, no booze! C’mon, let’s open that bottle of vodka the Estonian guy left and have a party!”

“I’ll be right there,” Yunho calls after them as they all run along the hall. “Just let me unpack.”

Another whoop, and then comes the sound of the living room door slamming.

In the sudden hush, Yunho smiles at Changmin.

“I really am glad you’re back,” Changmin says.

Yunho touches his fingertips to his mouth and gives him a wicked look. “I know.”

Oh God, he can’t deal with this. Changmin gets up and grabs for his dressing gown. He puts it on, ready to sidle past and make a break for the living room, but then he pauses, waits awhile.

Yunho unfastens his suitcase. Out of it he pulls an overstuffed six-foot long snake made of bright green felt with googly eyes and a lolling red tongue. He holds it near the top of its neck and darts it towards Changmin, making a silly hissing sound.

Changmin backs away and wonders why the fuck he was just kissing this weirdo.

Yunho beams, kneeling on Changmin’s bed to arrange the snake along the sill close to the window. “It’s a draught excluder,” he says. “I brought it from home so you’d be able to sleep better.”

Oh.

Changmin thinks he’s in love.

* * *

Week seven is the team challenge. Each pair has three days to make an outfit for one another. Everyone is excited about the task, except for Changmin, who waits for Zhou Mi to assign them their pairs with mingled anticipation and dread.

“Designers,” Zhou Mi drawls as he enters the workroom, “come to me and learn your fate.” He shakes a velvet bag as he goes over to Milhye. “Ladies first. Take a name and find out who you’ll be working with.”

Milhye draws Spoon, which causes laughter and no small amount of consternation at the mismatch of their aesthetics. Jiheun rootles around in the bag for a long time, then pulls out Sungmin’s name. She looks a little disappointed, but Sungmin is excited, bobbing up and down on his toes and exclaiming that Jiheun’s youthfulness is the perfect foil for pink.

“Which means,” Zhou Mi trills, tipping the last two names onto the workbench, “Yunho and Changmin get to be a pair!”

Everyone applauds. Yunho’s smile could power half of downtown Seoul. He turns to Changmin, his face full of joy. Changmin blushes and tips his head forward to hide behind his fringe, unsure whether his expression is registering foolish gooey delight or scowling annoyance.

He’s been awkward around Yunho ever since That Kiss. Perhaps more correctly it was A Series of Kisses, but either way, it’s become an Issue, and one that Changmin doesn’t know how to resolve without looking like a complete twat.

Last night, everyone had got pissed on Estonian vodka and some weird fizzy guava drink Yunho had brought off the back of a lorry. Changmin had gone to bed just before midnight, his nerves jangled, lust restless and wanting inside him. And yet ten minutes later when Yunho announced very loudly in the hallway that he was really, really tired and he was going to bed now, Changmin scrunched beneath the duvet and pretended to be asleep.

“Changminnie,” Yunho had whispered, leaning over him. “Baby?”

Changmin had bitten down on his little finger to keep silent. He’d forced himself not to move even when Yunho kissed the top of his head, which was the only part of him not swathed in duvet.

If only Sabine hadn’t made that comment about him being in love with Yunho. If only she’d said You fancy the pants off him or You want to suck his dick or even You want to ride him up and down until you pass out with ecstasy. Those comments would have been absolutely fine. He could’ve acknowledged them as true and then brushed them to one side, but this ‘in love’ thing is more problematic. It’s okay to be in lust with someone, but it’s something else to actually have feelings for them. Tender, mushy, idiotic feelings, at that.

He remembers his father’s favourite saying: You won’t succeed in life if you allow your feelings to get in the way of your goal. He’d defied his father to go into fashion design, arguing that fashion had nothing to do with whimsy and emotion and everything to do with cold, hard logic. Spotting trends wasn’t about creativity; it was about studying every trend that had gone before it and evaluating the chances of a revival. It wasn’t about unleashing something new and fun in the hope that people would buy it; it was about forcing your decision upon the market.

At the time, Changmin had managed to convince himself that what he’d said was true. But now he’s not so sure. Now that conviction is crumbling, and he thinks it’s all Yunho’s fault.

Maybe.

Either way, he doesn’t want to be paired with Yunho for this challenge. He doesn’t want to have to take his inside leg measurement and design garments to cover that gorgeous body when all he wants to do is rip Yunho’s clothes off and—and—

“Changminnie.” Yunho waves a hand in front of his face and smiles, bright and enthusiastic. “You looked like you were miles away just then. Come on, we’ve got half an hour for measuring and sketching.”

“Right.” Changmin hates the fact that he’s blushing again. He grabs his pencil and starts drawing.

After fifteen minutes, Yunho picks himself up from his mat and comes over to study the sketch. He’s silent for a long time, and Changmin’s stomach knots itself into hard, tight shapes of anxiety. It’s kind of pathetic that he’s more worried about getting Yunho’s approval for this look than he is about winning the task.

Straight-faced and wide-eyed, Yunho gazes at Changmin and taps the sketch. “D’you think maybe you could give me a bustle or something so it looks like I got some boom in the back?”

Changmin smiles, tries to suppress a sputter of laughter. “That’s false advertising, Designer Jung.”

“No, it’s just like a push-up bra. But in reverse, and for my ass. Oh, that sounds weird. Forget it.”

“I’m making you a tailcoat. The movement will emphasise your legs and take attention away from your lack of ass. I’ll just be looking at your thighs and your shoulders. I mean,” Changmin corrects himself, flustered, “the judges will just be looking. I mean, no. They’ll be looking at the tailcoat, that’s what I meant.”

Yunho laughs. “I knew what you meant.”

Better to quit while he’s ahead. Changmin coughs and says, “So what are you making for me?”

Yunho shows him the deranged stick drawing that depicts a smiling Changmin with mop hair and a bunch of lines that could represent anything from shorts and a t-shirt to the chemical equation for turning lead into gold.

“For the trousers, I was thinking—you know those bandage dresses?”

“Azzedine Alaïa?” Changmin says.

“Whatever, but I want to make you a pair of trousers out of strips of satin that climb your endless long legs, around and around. And some sort of draped vest top maybe in silver, something shimmery, and it should dip quite low and be unstructured, because your chest—uh, your chest is...”

Yunho tails off, lifting his head to stare first at Changmin’s chest and then at his mouth and finally into his eyes. They freeze, both of them gazing at each other, and Changmin feels hot and cold and squirmy and tense.

The workroom door opens and Zhou Mi comes back in. “Designers,” he drawls, “it’s time to go shopping.”

* * *

The second day of the challenge sees everyone hard at work. Yunho sits on his mat, happily cutting out strips of black satin and chewing on pineapple lumps. He’s already draped the soft, glimmering silver cloth of the vest-top on the form. Changmin tries to picture himself wearing something so blatantly attention-grabbing and sexy. To his surprise, he finds he can imagine it quite easily. Even more surprising, he’s looking forwards to wearing the satin bandage trousers.

Regardless of that, Changmin wants to win this task. He wants to dress Yunho to perfection, turn the trashy street boy into something classy and fierce. This isn’t just an outfit. This is a work of art, and Changmin is prepared to sew until his fingers bleed to get it just right.

Zhou Mi swans in after lunch to offer his usual unwanted advice. “Just a suggestion,” he says to Sungmin, “but is hot pink really Jiheun’s colour? I think it makes her look washed out. But it’s just a suggestion, take it or leave it.”

Making his way over to Yunho, he eyes the drape top, nods a lot, and then praises the trousers, which are taking shape on the mat. Zhou Mi flicks glances at Changmin the whole time. “I can see you were very inspired,” he says to Yunho, taking a handful of pineapple lumps. “I’m loving it. But you have so much to do on the jacket!”

“I’ll work extra-hard to get it finished in time,” Yunho says, his expression buoyant. “Changmin is going to look incredible when he walks down the runway. More incredible than he usually does. Super-incredible.”

Zhou Mi raises his eyebrows but says nothing. He doesn’t even make one of his suggestions for Yunho to take or leave. Instead he sways over to Changmin’s workstation. Standing back from the form, he sweeps his gaze over the satin-faced tailcoat and the double-breasted waistcoat, then casts a glance at the black velvet and leather on the bench. “Designer Shim, this is looking a-ma-zing. Clearly you two are a match made in heaven.”

“Or hell,” Changmin says, then wishes he could take it back. He flicks his hair out of his eyes. “Yunho can be opinionated.”

“But you’re strong-willed. You don’t have to listen to him.” Zhou Mi puts a hand up to his face as if he’s about to cough, but he’s trying to hide a smile.

“He should listen to me.” Changmin pats the form’s solid, dependable ass. “He wanted me to put a bustle here.”

“Oh dear me, no.” Zhou Mi gives up on trying to conceal his amusement and waves his hand instead. “Don’t compromise your design aesthetic just because you’re—” He stops.

Changmin looks at him. “Just because I’m what?”

“Nothing.” Zhou Mi gives him a bright, glittering smile then fixes his gaze on Spoon and sails off. “Designer Spoon! How are you getting along?”

A frown creasing his brow, Changmin stares after him, but then he forgets about it and returns to his tailoring.

The day wears on. Yunho is very obliging about leaving his own work and standing for fittings, and he has absolutely no compunction about stripping down to his underwear so Changmin can dress him. Changmin tries to make him get changed with full regard for propriety, but Yunho just smiles and takes his clothes off.

Changmin is glad he’s kneeling on the floor because otherwise his erection would be really fucking obvious.

“Why won’t you go behind the screens?” he begs when Yunho does his casual striptease for the third time.

“Because standing around in my underwear in front of everyone else and the cameraman is the only way I won’t spring a boner for you,” Yunho says, low-voiced but still smiling. “Although if you keep on looking up at me like that, I might not be able to help myself.”

“Looking at you like what?”

“With those big wide eyes and your hair all tousled and with your lips soft and pouty and—ohhhh fuck.” Yunho blushes and drops into a crouch, exclaiming in an overly loud voice, “Oh, Changminnie, you dropped your pins!”

Changmin blinks, says, “Oh?” and then his gaze gets stuck on the massive bulge filling out the front of Yunho’s underwear, and he says “Oh!” and spills his pins for real.

*

They have until midnight tonight and then six hours the following day to finish their outfits. At just before eleven o’clock, Jiheun yawns hugely and steps away from the leather and pink tulle creation she’s designed for Sungmin. “Guys, I’m beat,” she says, stretching her arms above her head until her shoulders crack. “I’m calling it a night.”

“Me, too,” Sungmin says. “If my muse is going home, I may as well follow her example.”

Milhye glances up. “Wait for me, I’ll come with you. I’m pretty much done with my look. I’ll finalise everything tomorrow.”

“Oh, then I may as well go with you guys,” Spoon adds, unlooping the tape measure from around his neck and setting down his scissors. “As Sungmin said, why work when the muse has gone home?”

The cameraman looks relieved and glances towards Yunho and Changmin. “Since it’s just you two left, I think I’ll head off. The big drama is going to come from Milhye and Spoon, not from you guys.”

“You’re so right,” Yunho agrees. “Changmin and I are boring with our boring menswear in mostly boring black fabrics. You should have an early night.”

“Thanks,” the cameraman says. “See you all tomorrow at eight.”

“Later, darlings!” Spoon carols as he leads the way to the doors.

Yunho crouches down on his mat, his jacket for Changmin draped over a stool. He doesn’t look up from turning the cuffs of his jacket, but he waves goodnight with a handful of pins. “Bye, everyone! See you later!”

Changmin peers around his form. “You don’t think we should go with them?” he asks as the workroom doors close and they’re left alone in the warm, echoing space.

Now Yunho glances up, peering at the clock at the far end of the room. “We have sixty-seven minutes left.”

“I’m kind of ahead of myself.” Changmin strokes the tailcoat, wanting Yunho to admire it. “I can finish tomorrow if you want to leave, too.”

“I’m good.” Yunho pauses, looks at him. “Do you want to leave?”

“I... No.” Stepping away from the form, Changmin goes over to the mat. He leans against the workbench and watches Yunho sew. His stitches have become much neater, though they’re still quite ragged. Fortunately they’re just tacking stitches. “I’ll wait for you.”

Yunho smiles. “Everyone else’s muses went home. Mine stayed.”

Changmin makes a soft, awkward sound, a sort of self-deprecating laugh-snort. He’s ridiculously flattered to be referred to as Yunho’s muse, even though he knows Yunho was only picking up on what Sungmin had said.

“Changminnie.” Yunho sits back on his heels and holds up the jacket. “Would you try this on for me, please?”

“Sure.”

“Actually,” Yunho makes puppy-dog eyes at him, “would you mind trying on the whole look? I’m sure I got the hems right on the trousers and I’m thrilled with the vest, but the jacket... I need to turn the cuffs properly, and there’s just something... If you’d wear it all for me?”

“No problem.” Changmin scoops up the clothes and carries them behind one of the screens to change. He’s glad that he gets to try on the complete look without the staring eye of the camera ready to capture his reaction. All afternoon he’s been casting covetous glances towards Yunho’s form as the garments took shape, and now he gets to wear them, and it’s just him and Yunho, muse and designer.

He takes off his charcoal grey pinstripe from Jermyn Street with more haste than is strictly necessary. Expensive London tailoring shouldn’t be treated so lightly, but Changmin is eager to slip into the clothes Yunho made for him. The trousers first, the wrapped satin clinging tight to every line and curve. For all that it seems shrink-wrapped to his legs, there’s actually a decent amount of give to the fabric and the trousers are more comfortable than he’d expected. Changmin runs his hands up his thighs and over his ass, wishing he had a mirror. He hopes he looks as good as he feels.

Now for the vest, a sexy drape of silver that moves with him, by turns revealing and concealing his chest. It dips low beneath his arms and is technically not really a garment at all, just a swathe of fabric with a few stitches to hold it up over his shoulders and at the sides, but the jacket will be covering most of it.

Changmin slides into the jacket with care, conscious of the tacking stitches. He shrugs into the shoulders and tugs down the back so it sits nicely. The jacket flares very slightly over his hips. On the form it looked a bit too feminine, but now he’s wearing it, Changmin realises that the cut will make his legs look even longer.

He pauses behind the screen, breathing in the smooth, cool scent of the fabric. The workroom lights hum. He can hear Yunho moving about, the clatter of scissors and rattle of boxed pins. Excitement unfolds inside him, buoyed by the knowledge that they’re alone and that anything could happen, anything at all.

Changmin steps out onto the workroom floor. He strikes a pose as Yunho looks up, and then when Yunho’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open, Changmin gives it some attitude and struts.

“Oh yeah. Look at you. Posh boy is so hardcore.” Yunho grins and claps his hands. “But those sleeves. I didn’t want to turn too much, but...”

Changmin glances at the cuffs, which are stripes of the same silver fabric as his vest. He can understand Yunho’s hesitation. The cloth is silk charmeuse, which gives the visual effect of molten metal but is an absolute bitch to sew.

“I’m going to pin it.” Yunho clears his mat and beckons Changmin over. “Would you mind lying down for a moment?”

“Surely you should pin it while I’m standing up,” Changmin says.

Yunho rolls his eyes. “When have I pinned anything standing up?”

Plenty of times, but Changmin isn’t going to argue. Yunho was incredibly helpful to him earlier today; now he gets to be helpful in return, and if Yunho needs him to lie on the mat, that’s what he’ll do.

“Okay. Here we go.” Changmin is careful as he lowers himself to the ground and unrolls himself across the mat, very aware of how tight his trousers are and how he doesn’t want to transfer any dust from the floor onto the satin. He wriggles a bit, a blush warming his face as Yunho crawls over him.

“Thank you,” Yunho says softly. “Put your arms out a little? That’s it.”

Changmin stays as still as possible, letting Yunho move his arms as necessary so he can pin the cuffs. The sleeves of the jacket are tailored to a tight fit, and Changmin feels the bite of tension in the cloth as Yunho sticks the pins through the charmeuse.

“Be careful,” Changmin says, lifting his head to look down at his left sleeve. For some reason, Yunho has slid the pins through the fabric and into the mat. “If you’re too rough with it, the fabric will be ruined.”

“That’s right.” Yunho puts a hand on Changmin’s chest and pushes him back down. “So you’d better not move while I work.”

“Yes. Okay.” Taking a calming breath, Changmin rests his head on the mat and stares at the ceiling. Lying here with Yunho moving over and around him is starting to have a predictable effect. Changmin stirs, fidgety and embarrassed. The tight satin bandage trousers get a little tighter, and he tilts his hips and squirms to help ease it.

“Almost done.” Yunho brushes against Changmin, runs a hand all the way up the outside of his leg, and Changmin begins to wonder if perhaps he’s been manipulated into this situation.

“Yunho,” he says. “Yunho, are you trying to seduce me?”

“By pinning you to my work mat?” Yunho leans over him, eyes gleaming. “That would be a yes.”

“Oh.” Heartbeat stuttering, then racing, Changmin licks his lips, his body tensing with delicious, quivering anticipation.

Yunho slinks over him. “Oh? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

Changmin resists the urge to arch up as Yunho undulates over him, almost touching but not quite. Arousal scrawls and rolls inside him. Yunho is poised above him, heat and desire radiating between them, but his weight remains tantalisingly out of reach. Not that Changmin can grab him and pull him down, either, because if he moves his hands, the charmeuse will be ruined.

Oh God. Changmin wonders if he’s about to sacrifice his tailoring principles for the chance to feel Yunho on top of him again.

“I,” he says, mind going blank as Yunho almost-nuzzles all the way up his throat, breath warm and ticklish, “I’m sorry I called you a skank.”

Yunho chuckles. “I don’t mind. I liked the way you said it. I liked it so much, in fact, that I’m going to reclaim the word on behalf of skanks everywhere, not just skanks from Gwangju.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Changmin’s eyes drift shut and he tilts back his head, offering his mouth. He can almost taste Yunho, they’re so close.

Yunho purrs. “What do you want?”

“Kiss me.” The demand comes out on a gasp.

Yunho leans closer and kisses him. Slow. Gentle. Changmin moans. There’s not enough pressure, not enough heat. It’s frustrating, maddening. He levers himself up in pursuit of a harder embrace, trying to keep his hands and wrists flat on the mat, but Yunho lifts away, smiling.

Changmin glares at him. “Again. Kiss me again.”

Another kiss, light and teasing, and then Yunho licks at Changmin’s lips, coaxes him to open his mouth. Changmin shudders back onto the mat, lying flat again. Crawling over him, Yunho sits astride his chest, kneels in the space between Changmin’s pinned, outspread arms. “Oh baby,” Yunho murmurs, both hands cradling Changmin’s head, the kiss catching fire now, becoming deep and wet and messy.

Yunho tastes of pineapple. Changmin never thought he’d find the flavour of pineapple erotic, but now he can’t get enough of it. He chases the taste, thrusts his tongue into Yunho’s mouth, urgent and hot. Yunho makes a muffled groan and shifts back and forth, cock growing hard. Changmin nips at Yunho’s lower lip, his own arousal thickening further against the tight, satin bandage trousers.

“What do you want?” Yunho asks again, and his voice has gone slow and dark.

The words roll through Changmin, lighting him up. “I—I want...” He stops, breathing hard, at the gentle pressure of Yunho’s hand on his chest. The silver charmeuse slips cool and delicate as butterfly wings over his skin.

“Changminnie,” Yunho murmurs, his face against Changmin’s neck, hot little moans tumbling from him as he slides his palm down. The fabric is soft, so soft, and it whispers, raising goosebumps, waking nerve endings Changmin didn’t know he had.

“Oh,” Changmin breathes, “oh Yunho.”

Yunho traces over one of Changmin’s nipples. The touch is gentle through the shiny, shimmery charmeuse, a teasing caress, and then Yunho rubs the pad of his thumb over that stiff little peak and pinches it. Tugs it.

It’s electrifying. A choked noise jolts from Changmin’s throat and he jerks up, but not too hastily because of the pinned cuffs. He shivers through his mouth, a desperate, wanting sound.

“You like that, huh? Does it feel good, Changminnie?” Yunho’s voice has gone sandpaper-rough, and Changmin wishes he hadn’t thought of that, because now he’s imagining the texture of sandpaper against his skin while Yunho keeps on rubbing the silky-soft charmeuse over him, and the contrast between imagination and reality is breaking his mind.

He knows Yunho asked him a couple of questions and hopes they were rhetorical. He doesn’t think he can answer. Not in words, anyway. His hips lift, his cock aching and heavy. Yunho makes a hungry sound and squirms backwards, wriggles his ass down against Changmin’s dick.

“Yun,” Changmin says, grinding up hard. “Yunho. Yunho.”

Yunho settles his weight more comfortably over Changmin’s hips. He turns the sides of the jacket back, then pushes up the silvery vest, baring Changmin’s chest.

The charmeuse pools around the base of Changmin’s throat like liquid, and he gasps, turning his head. His hair falls into his eyes. Heat stokes inside him, glimmers across his skin as Yunho toys with him, delivering sharp, mean tugs on his nipples. Changmin punctuates each one with a moan, getting louder and louder.

Then Yunho bends his head and licks between his thumb and forefinger, licks the tip of Changmin’s nipple, then bites.

Changmin makes a garbled noise and writhes. Sensation arcs, slams through his body and pulses hot and needy in his cock, his balls, all the way back to his hole. He clenches down tight on the feeling and jabs up with his hips, seeking relief.

“What do you want?”

He hates Yunho for asking that question over and over. Surely it’s obvious what he wants. He wants to be free of this weird pin bondage. He wants Yunho to fuck him. No, he wants—he wants—

“Suck me,” Changmin blurts. “Suck my cock. I want to come in your mouth.”

“Oh baby,” Yunho breathes. “You know I can smell you, yeah? I’m going to see if you taste as good as you smell.”

Changmin can smell himself, too. Not just the clean scent of sweat through the citrus notes of his cologne, but the smell of arousal, thick and musky. He flattens his hands against the mat and takes deep breaths, trying to calm himself as Yunho crawls backwards and comes to rest over his thighs. Unfastening the satin bandage trousers, Yunho pulls them down along with Changmin’s underwear to just above his knees, and now he’s doubly trapped, no, triply trapped, with the pins in his cuffs and his trousers tangled tight and Yunho sitting on top of him looking down, gaze brilliant with lust.

“God, Changminnie, you’re so big, you’re so gorgeous,” Yunho sighs as he gets his hands on Changmin’s dick at last, and Changmin thinks yes, yes he loves Yunho for that, because flippancy is all he’s got right now.

Yunho bends down again, drops a kiss to Changmin’s tense belly then snuffles a line of sloppy little kisses from his navel down into his pubic hair, strokes his tongue into the fluff of Changmin’s treasure trail, making greedy noises of praise the whole time.

Changmin tilts his hips and words jerk out of his mouth, hot and lewd: “Lick me. Get your mouth on me and choke on it. I want to fuck your face.”

“Oh yeah, oh yeah,” Yunho says, one hand curling around Changmin’s cock and giving it a stroke. Just once, all the way up, and Changmin groans and bucks against him. Yunho feathers his thumb across the underside then slides it through the gathering pre-come, making the head all slick.

“Do it now,” Changmin snaps, thrusting up towards Yunho’s face. “Oh God, just suck me.”

Yunho looks up, eyes wide and innocent. He licks his lips.

“Please,” Changmin shouts, then grits his teeth and closes his eyes. He can’t look, he just can’t—he’ll go off if he watches Yunho take his cock between those sweet lips. Fuck, just the thought of it is driving him crazy. He goes rigid, waiting, hanging, his breathing ragged and desperate.

Yunho’s mouth is like silk, going down. Hot, wet silk, smothering and tight and so fucking good. Changmin gasps, shuddering at the pressure wrapped around him, and then he pumps up. Pleasure jolts through him, and he’s overtaken by a lazy, slow glide of sensation even as his hips work, mind fracturing as he tries frantically to stuff more of his dick into Yunho’s mouth.

Yunho slides off him all the way then plunges back down, takes just the head of Changmin’s cock, tongue working and lashing over that tiny slippery slit. He’s groaning, too, the noise rolling through Changmin and making him harder, making his balls draw up heavy and tight.

“Give it to me, oh fuck, take me,” Changmin snarls, begs. He wants to shove his hands into Yunho’s hair, wants to force his head down so he takes more and more, but those damn pins through the cuffs prevent him. Frustration spirals, snaps, and Changmin slams his palms against the mat. “Fuck. Fuck. Do it faster. Suck me.”

Yunho eats at him, sloppy and greedy, saliva and pre-come drooling, and then he uses his hands, fondles Changmin’s balls with one hand and rubs at his stiff, aching length with the other, working Changmin all the way up. His tongue flicks, curls, and then he swallows Changmin right down, jaw relaxing, throat working.

Changmin thrashes on the mat, helpless. “Ohhh Yunho, I’m gonna— You’re making me—”

Come.

It slams through him, orgasm dancing up his spine and shattering him. Changmin lifts his head for the end, watches as Yunho coaxes out the last few spurts, and lust punches him right in the gut when Yunho pulls off him a little and paints his lips with the final dribbles of seed.

“Oh, you’re so dirty,” Changmin gasps, and Yunho puts his hand to his mouth, licks his lips, sucks on his fingers. “Filthy, trashy, oh God,” Changmin says, voice sliding higher and breaking into staccato beats, “come on me. Fuck yes, come all over me.”

Yunho’s gaze is hot and bright as he kneels up, unzips his jeans, and takes out his dick. Changmin stares. God, yes. He’s huge, thick and solid and oh, the curve on it, the heft of it. Changmin wants it gagging him, forcing into him, but he’d asked for a show and a show he’s going to get. He can’t look away, gaze fixed on Yunho’s swollen cock, the head glossy with a mess of pre-come.

“Yeah,” Changmin urges, resisting the craving to give that glorious length a good lick, “work yourself. Rub it. Come on me.”

“Posh boy.” Yunho fists his cock, jerks it slow, his head tipping back a little. Changmin stares at Yunho’s throat as he pants for breath, as he swallows, and feels a new tension sing through his body.

“Changmin.” Yunho lets his head drop forward, holding Changmin’s gaze, his look intense and hungry. “Changminnie, oh God, yeah.”

He’s shuddering now, hand working hard and brutal, pre-come spilling down his shaft and making everything slippery and slick and ohhh the noises, the shuffling wet noises and Yunho’s sharp, hectic breaths, the blurring of his hand as he tugs and jerks and drags himself on towards climax.

Pinned beneath him, Changmin squirms, skin sensitised, waiting for the hot spatter of semen. His hands curl, scrabbling at the mat. The charmeuse bunched at his throat seems to press down, making him breathless.

Yunho sways forward, braces himself on one hand. Changmin moans, heady on their combined scent, cologne and sweat and sex. He arches his back, shoulders pressing hard into the mat, and mewls at the heat of Yunho’s cock. Yunho’s knuckles brush against Changmin’s belly as he works and works, his eyes wide now and his mouth open, gaze fixed to Changmin’s face. Changmin writhes against the pin restraints, almost beyond caring what his movements will do to the delicate fabric.

“Oh,” Yunho gasps out, “oh yeah, I’m coming. Changminnie, you’re so fucking hot, oh God, you’re hot, gonna come all over you.”

Changmin makes gasping sounds of encouragement, sinking into the sensation of hot wet spunk spurting across his bare skin as Yunho lets go. It spills everywhere, Yunho’s dick jerking against him again and again. Unable to bear it a second longer, Changmin rips free of the pins, rocking up to curl his arms around Yunho. He rolls back down, pressing them together as Yunho shudders through the aftershocks, and the pleasure of witnessing Yunho’s orgasm is almost as intense as experiencing his own.

*

A little while later, they realise what a mess they’ve made. The charmeuse at the cuffs has holes in it, and there’s some interesting stains on the vest and over part of the jacket. Changmin thinks he should be appalled, but he’s not. It’s hard to be appalled when Yunho is wearing the biggest, sweetest smile and not very much else as he attempts to clean them and his outfit at the same time.

* * *

Changmin floats happily through the mad scramble of the last few hours on the final day of the challenge. He makes a few adjustments to the tailcoat then spends the rest of his time on Yunho’s trousers, black stretch velvet on the inside and smooth, pliant black leather on the outside. For the first time in his life, Changmin’s mouth waters when he dresses his client. The trousers are utterly sinful, hugging Yunho’s thighs and doing frankly magnificent things to his crotch. Not that it needs it any more showcasing, but after last night, Changmin has a vested interest.

“They even give you an ass,” he says, sliding a finger up the stitching on one panel. “Kind of a trompe l’oeil because of the sheen and cut of the leather.”

“Whatever you say.” Yunho smiles down at him. “I like the fit. I like everything. No, I love it. You’ve made me look gorgeous.”

Changmin ducks his head and mumbles, “Not bad for a Gwangju skank.” He glances around the room, making sure everyone else is still busy working and that the camera is pointed elsewhere before he runs his hands up Yunho’s velvet-clad inner thighs to press his palm possessively over Yunho’s cock.

“Oh baby,” Yunho murmurs, hips canting forward.

Changmin smiles and fondles that gorgeous heavy dick, rubs until it thickens and strains at the stitching, and then he pulls away. “Control yourself,” he says, “or I’ll stick you with a pin.”

Yunho’s expression blazes with lust, but then he laughs. “You’re going to pay for that. Just you wait.”

A delicious shiver cuts down Changmin’s spine. He doesn’t think he can wait, that’s the problem. It’s as if the events of last night have flipped a switch inside him, and now he wants Yunho all the time.

Doesn’t help that the outfit Changmin created for him makes him look hotter than hell. It’s all severe lines, but Yunho is curvy and strong and his body does things to the tailoring that makes a great outfit look incredible, and when he gets dressed for the final time and puts on a pair of boots and silly, sexy fingerless leather half-gloves, Changmin knows he’s onto a winner. His sigh of appreciation is echoed by everyone in the room.

“Oh my,” Milhye says, fanning her face. “I could eat you with a spoon.”

“Darlin’, I wouldn’t mind,” Spoon says, and everyone laughs.

Yunho marches Changmin off to the salon and gets the stylist to tease his hair into layers of feathery spikes, sweeping them over to one side of his face. “Height! Volume!” Yunho exclaims, and Changmin feels twelve feet tall by the time he comes out, silver powder shimmering over his eyelids to match the mercury-drip effect of his vest and the cuffs on the jacket.

“Holy shit,” Jiheun says when Yunho ushers Changmin back into the workroom.

Spoon looks stunned. “Girlfriend, is that really you?”

Changmin laughs.

Zhou Mi comes to collect them, and they all hustle backstage ready for the runway show. Spoon is wearing a lounge suit that makes him look like soft furnishings. Milhye is dressed in a floor-length gown that makes her look shapeless. Jiheun is wearing a kaftan that retains a stripe of shocking pink but the rest is constructed of jersey, and Sungmin sports a flamboyant confection of pink tulle and chiffon over leather trousers.

For once, Changmin doesn’t actually care who wins the challenge. It’s between him and Yunho, that much is clear from the hot mess everyone else has made of their designs, but honestly, he doesn’t care who wins this time.

Turns out that he wins it, scoring three points more than Yunho.

“This is really very sexy,” Jaejoong says, waving a hand over the outfit Yunho is wearing. “It puts everything on show and then slaps you down for even daring to look, so it’s modest as well as filthy hot.”

“Totally not ugly, not ugly, not ugly,” Kyuhyun agrees.

“You boys have an excellent eye for dressing one another,” Madame Oh opines, a gleam in her eyes as she says it.

Changmin wonders if he has a sign over his head saying GOT IT LAST NIGHT. He looks up, but there’s nothing there. Must be Yunho who’s obvious rather than him.

Milhye and Spoon are in the bottom two. After some deliberation, Spoon is sent home, with Jaejoong wishing him a hearty ‘E haere ra’.

* * *

The week eight challenge is to dress a celebrity.

“It was supposed to be some pop starlet from some mediocre girl group,” Zhou Mi says with a look of vague disgust, “but fortunately—unfortunately—she sprained her ankle. Instead I’m delighted to say that one of Korea’s top male models has agreed to join us today. Please welcome Choi Siwon!”

Jiheun and Milhye squeal into their hands and wriggle on their seats. Sungmin sighs and almost slides off his chair.

Yunho looks blank. Changmin elbows him in the ribs. “You know, the guy who advertises that skin cream?”

Yunho’s expression gets even blanker. “Um, no?” He follows the direction of Changmin’s gaze as Siwon swaggers through the open doors into the workroom, and recognition lights his face. “Oh, him. He modelled for that expensive underwear brand that was a total sell-out at the market. Er, underwear similar to the brand he modelled for, I mean. We sold a lot of that.”

Changmin tries not to snort. “Don’t tell me, they fell off the back of a lorry?”

“No,” Yunho says, straight-faced, “Donghae found a pile behind a skip.” He pauses, looks guilty. “Anyway! I know who this guy is now. I remember those ads.”

Everyone remembers those ads, the billboard campaign that featured Siwon clad only in an incredibly short towel worn incredibly low on his hips, his soulful gaze fixed on the designer underwear lying on his rumpled bed. The ads had shocked conservative members of the populace and caused numerous traffic collisions as over-excited housewives gawped at Siwon’s superbly curved ass.

Changmin may have got off with the help of the magazine version of that billboard. Just once or twice. When he’d been drinking and didn’t have any porn immediately to hand, as it were. Not that he’s ever going to admit it, certainly not when everyone else, including Zhou Mi, are all fluttering and practically drooling as Siwon strides manfully towards them.

“Hey, designers.” Siwon’s voice is low and rich, and he flashes a huge cheesy smile around the room. Almost everyone giggles, except Yunho, who straightens out of his slouch and smiles back, and Changmin, who decides that Siwon isn’t actually as good-looking as all that.

“Well now,” Zhou Mi twitters, “this week’s challenge is to design a look for Siwon to wear to the premiere of Waterworld 2. And I believe you actually have a role in this film, Siwon! How exciting! Can you tell us about it?”

Siwon smiles again. It seems to be the only thing he can do well, in Changmin’s opinion, because when he talks about his part in the movie it seems that his role requires nothing more strenuous than taking off his shirt a few times and running through the waves in slow motion.

Jiheun seems to be hyperventilating at the thought. Zhou Mi looks so pink Sungmin could use him as an accessory. Yunho appears genuinely interested in the banalities Siwon is uttering, and Changmin scowls at the floor.

“Menswear again,” he grumbles beneath his breath. “I hate menswear.”

Yunho shoots him a surprised look. “But you won last week.”

“I was dressing you, not him.” Changmin tosses his head, blowing the hair from his eyes. “I had more to work with.”

“But,” Yunho says, “he’s a top male model and I’m...”

“Shut up.” Changmin tries to focus on Siwon, who’s attempting to describe his sense of style and the look he hopes to achieve on the red carpet.

“Usually I just let other people dress me,” Siwon says, still smiling. “So you guys can just go wild. I’ll wear anything as long as it doesn’t make me look fat. I wore this swing-coat once with mirrored panels, and because I work out and I’m really buff, the coat made me look like a pup tent. So maybe you guys could do something to show off my great body, but not too much skin because I’m actually quite shy—”

Milhye and Jiheun sigh and moan. Sungmin appears to have lost consciousness.

Siwon smiles even more. “Yeah guys, I’m just a regular boy next door, only taller. And hotter. And with better abs.”

“Thank you, Siwon!” Zhou Mi is standing a little too close and appears to be only just reining in the urge to lick the guest judge. He pulls himself together and faces the contestants. “Designers, half an hour to sketch and then we’re going shopping. I’ll be along to collect you shortly.”

Siwon continues smiling. “Good luck, guys!”

Changmin takes out his sketchbook and draws a cartoon Siwon dressed in a sack. The girls are wandering around in circles, clutching each other and babbling nonsense. Sungmin is facedown at his workstation. Yunho sits on his mat and stares into space, looking borderline thoughtful.

“What are you going to make?” Changmin asks as he comes over for a pineapple lump.

“I was thinking of what Siwon said about the pup tent coat.” Yunho smiles up at him. “And then I thought about what you said, and I realised that I only came close to winning the challenge last week because I was dressing you. I doubt I could make something like that in a day and a half for someone who wasn’t you, and because you have such a strong design aesthetic and Siwon has, uh, Siwon is...”

“He has no style at all except what’s forced upon him?” Changmin suggests, unashamed of his bitchy tone.

Yunho drops his gaze and traces a circle on the mat with his toes. “I think he has a style. It’s just a bit confused. So I’m going to go back to what I’m comfortable with and work from there.”

Changmin frowns. “You’re going to dress him like...”

“A Gwangju skank. Yep.” Yunho bounces up. “Thanks, Changminnie. You’ve been super-helpful.”

“I have?” Changmin has no idea what just happened, but Yunho is scribbling away in his sketchbook and when Zhou Mi arrives, he’s the first out of the door on his way to the fabric store.

In the shop, Sungmin has a crisis of confidence. “Is pink really Siwon’s colour?” he asks everyone. “I must use pink. If I don’t, my world will come to a crashing halt.”

“How about this salmon sort of pink?” Yunho suggests, heaving a bale of cloth down from the shelves. “It’s quite subtle. If you teamed it with neutral shades it could look quite classy.”

“Subtle,” Sungmin repeats, pondering. “Classy.”

Jiheun is buying yards of sheer black chiffon. Milhye is stroking a succession of tactile fabrics and sighing as she tries to choose between rubber and latex. Changmin decides he doesn’t want to know and goes off to find something safe and boring.

Back in the workroom, Changmin gets busy cutting out a jacket and trousers. For interest he’s mixing three different fabrics, pleather, denim and silk. He could tailor this kind of look in his sleep, and so he keeps one eye on what his fellow contestants are doing.

Jiheun’s outfit is definitely one to watch, but for the wrong reasons. Milhye seems to be revealing herself as a secret fetishist, though she’s teaming the latex with a sensible, sober knit. Sungmin is still murmuring, “Subtle. Classy. Neutral,” as he constructs a rather fetching jumpsuit tied at the waist with a bit of braided pink rope.

Yunho has run up a pair of jeans that look remarkably like Evisu jeans, and now he’s daubing bleach over them and attacking them with a razor. On the form he’s got some jacquard, some shaggy golden fur, and some black quilted fabric. Before Changmin can question him on this apparently random selection, the door opens and Zhou Mi comes in, accompanied by Siwon.

Breathless chaos breaks out. Zhou Mi finds it more useful to speak to the designers without Siwon there as a distraction, so Siwon goes around at his own pace, smiling and offering commentary even more useless than Zhou Mi’s take-it-or-leave-it suggestions.

After reducing Jiheun to a quivering heap by touching her shoulder, Siwon wanders over to Yunho’s mat and leans casually against the workbench. “Hi,” he says, all deep and sexy, and he smiles.

Yunho smiles back. “Hi.”

Changmin glowers at this completely crap excuse for flirting. He decides he’ll make the sleeves on his jacket narrower, and if he tailors more cloth at the waist, he might even be able to make Siwon look fat. Pleased with this thought, he reaches across the table for a bottle of mineral water and knocks over his button box. It topples onto the floor with a crash and the buttons spill everywhere.

To Changmin’s delight, Yunho abandons his stupid exchange of silent smiling and immediately comes over to help.

“Let me give you a hand,” Siwon says, and he crouches down beside Yunho and they pick up the buttons together.

Changmin clamps his mouth into a straight line and lets them get on with it. He stabs pins through the pleather, aware of the two of them whispering and Yunho giggling beneath the workbench. Someone bumps their head—Changmin hopes it’s Siwon and hopes it gives him concussion—but of course it turns out to be Yunho. Siwon chuckles and makes cute soothing noises, no doubt rubbing Yunho’s head and probably copping a feel of the rest of him, too.

Changmin wants to retch, it’s all so nauseating and unfair, and then Yunho crawls out from beneath the table. He’s holding the button box and smiling. “Here you are, Changminnie! We found them all for you.”

We. We. Disgusting. Changmin sneers at the suit on the form in front of him. “Ugly, ugly, ugly,” he chants under his breath, then spares a brief glance at Yunho, says shortly, “Thanks.”

But Yunho doesn’t get the message, because he stands up and beckons Siwon closer. “Changmin is a real stylist. He trained at St Martin’s in London and he worked at Chanel.” He sounds proud, as if Changmin is his boyfriend rather than a rival contestant. “He always produces such clean, elegant lines. I’m trying to learn from his example. He has the best taste of all of us, I think.”

“Yeah, it’s nice.” Siwon barely looks at Changmin’s jacket. He’s too busy staring down the front of Yunho’s scoop-necked t-shirt. “But I prefer your stuff.”

Yunho blinks. “I’ve hardly done anything yet.”

Siwon grins. “Minimalism. I like that.”

Changmin despairs.

*

As Changmin predicted, Jiheun’s look causes a stir when it goes down the runway.

“I like the shirt,” Siwon says, smiling. “The sheer fabric is nice. It’d show off my chest and abs but it wouldn’t look tacky.”

“Yes,” Jaejoong drawls, “but I think perhaps the trousers should have been made of a different fabric. That looks like an X-rated playsuit.”

Siwon continues smiling. “I could wear that.”

“Not on the red carpet, dear.” Madame Oh pats his thigh.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kyuhyun says, looking animated for once.

Milhye’s latex and knit look again wins Siwon’s approval. Madame Oh is also impressed, but no one else agrees.

Sungmin’s outfit is the surprise of the evening, mainly because the pink has been toned down, but it’s also a really nice jumpsuit that Siwon says he’d wear whilst travelling.

Jaejoong tells Changmin that his look is safe but boring, which is pretty much exactly what he’d intended, and his scores put him through to next week.

Yunho wins with his knock-off Evisu jeans looped through with silver key-chains and strips of satin ribbon teamed with a quilted bomber jacket with fur over the shoulders and jacquard panels at front and back.

“It’s so cool,” Siwon says, nodding and smiling.

“But is it really red carpet?” Jaejoong asks.

“Who cares? I’m going to wear it and everyone will take photos and then it’ll be red carpet,” Siwon says. “Thank you, Yunho! I love this look. It’s... it’s very...”

“Street,” Changmin supplies. “It’s urban.”

Yunho is delighted with his victory, but his happiness is dented when Jiheun is sent home, with Jaejoong wishing her ‘zàijiàn’.

* * *

Changmin knows he’s holding back. It’s strange, because he wants to hurl himself into this new and exciting thing he’s experiencing with Yunho, but still—he holds back, withholds, even, and he thinks he’s probably trying to protect himself. He’s still trying to process the idea that he might be in love with Yunho, because he’s not sure how that’s going to work out. The Gwangju market trader and the heir apparent to a third-generation business empire. Even though he’d walked away from the future his father had planned for him, it seems like a mismatch.

But until it all goes to hell, Changmin can enjoy this. He can enjoy it and hope neither of them gets hurt too badly when it ends.

* * *

Out of respect for Sungmin’s delicate sensibilities, they refrain from fooling around in the apartment. At least that’s what Changmin tells himself, and so when they’re eating breakfast or just hanging out, they deliberately choose seats away from each other and make innocuous conversation, and no one, Changmin thinks, is any the wiser.

In the workroom, it’s a different matter. As soon as everyone starts packing up for the night, Changmin offers to clean and tidy the workbenches, and Yunho says he’ll help. Originally it was Yunho’s idea to offer to clean up, but Changmin pointed out that this was so out of character that no one would believe it and their cover would be blown immediately.

The minute the doors close, they’re all over each other. Yunho’s enthusiasm occasionally leads to embarrassment, such as the time Milhye forgot something and came back to retrieve it and walked into the workroom to find Changmin sprawled across one of the benches and Yunho on the floor licking his way up Changmin’s bare leg.

“I forgot my bag!” Milhye said, her smile bright and fixed.

“Okay!” Yunho replied, while Changmin died a thousand deaths. “We’re... changing the light bulb!”

Milhye almost lost it at that. She grabbed her bag and fled for the door, and Changmin could hear her laughter echoing all down the corridor.

“Changing the light bulb?” Changmin repeated, aghast.

“It was the first thing that came into my head,” Yunho said.

“Your head is stupid.”

“Aww,” Yunho cooed. “Did Gwangju skank embarrass his posh boy?”

“Christ, stop that. Don’t talk like that.” Changmin pushed at him, and Yunho sank back down onto his knees and resumed his long, leisurely lick up the inside of Changmin’s thigh. “Ohhh. Don’t stop. Just. Like. That.”

Another time, Changmin made Yunho wear the fingerless leather gloves from his week seven outfit and made him talk dirty in his dialect, begged him to be rough and to touch him all over. Changmin got so turned on and came so hard he couldn’t move for a good twenty minutes afterwards, and then he could only crawl-slide across the floor and kept giggling like he was high.

He was still out of it when Zhou Mi wandered into the workroom, and Yunho had to do some fast talking to convince Zhou Mi that Changmin was, in fact, drunk.

“Let me get this straight,” Zhou Mi said, eyebrows raised, “you’ve been sneaking vodka into the workroom disguised as mineral water?”

“Everyone does it in Gwangju,” Yunho said.

Zhou Mi looked alarmed and never mentioned it again.

Changmin is sure no one’s noticed what’s going on between him and Yunho. Except Milhye, who’s very discreet, and her silence is a kind of tacit approval. Changmin thinks he’s discreet, too. Conscious of the lurking camera throughout the day, he only talks about fashion and the look he’s creating, and occasionally offers commentary on what the others are doing.

It’s the kind of staid, sensible conversation he’s made since the first day of the show, but it’s not what he really wants to talk about. He wants to tell everyone about the way Yunho laid him over bales of fabric last night and rimmed him into ecstatic oblivion. The fact that Yunho had made him lie over a piece of PVC made it even filthier, especially when he’d absolutely coated himself in come and then slid around in it until Yunho had turned him over and licked him clean.

He wants to share this little gem of information along with a heartfelt confession of how he just loves going down on Yunho and sucking on his gorgeous huge dick. He wants to tell everyone about those sexy noises Yunho makes when Changmin takes him all the way. He thinks it’d be kind of hot if the cameraman filmed them one time, because Changmin’s favourite bit is when Yunho pulls his hair and arches into his mouth and goes at him really hard.

It’s difficult for him to keep all this to himself. It’s even more difficult for him not to smile all the time. He’d come into this contest serious and determined, wearing his expensive suits and with his eye on the prize. Now he’s mixed some of his clothes with Yunho’s, wearing those dodgy Evisu jeans with his Armani waistcoat over a Calvin Klein t-shirt, and now he catches himself laughing along with Yunho.

Even his design aesthetic has loosened up. This week’s task—to create a gown for a masquerade ball—is one that he’d usually play safe, but not this time. He’d unlocked his imagination and set it free, ignored the constraints he usually placed upon fabric, and instead of a severe, elegant gown, he’s making a whimsical, multi-layered cloud of tulle and chiffon spangled with rhinestones, with a boned bodice that wraps around and comes to an exaggerated point at the back.

“That’s beautiful,” Yunho says. “Changminnie, I’ve never seen anything like that before. It’s amazing.”

Changmin accepts the compliment. No matter how much he’s changed over the past few months, one thing remains the same. He still has his eye on the prize. He still intends to win.

But his determination has a price, and the closer they get to the end of the penultimate challenge, the more Changmin starts questioning the wisdom of what he’s doing with Yunho.

Two nights before the runway show, they’re spooned together on Yunho’s mat, pillowed on dark green felt and covered with indigo organza. Changmin is trying to catch his breath, body still humming with pleasure, and he snuggles back against Yunho, enjoying the slide of damp skin.

“Changminnie,” Yunho murmurs, kissing his shoulder, and from the tone of his voice, Changmin knows what’s coming next. “Please, baby. Let me make love to you. I want to be inside you so bad.”

“No.” Awkwardness tangles through Changmin’s reply. He hates denying Yunho, especially when it’s something he wants himself, but putting limits on how they fuck seemed to be the best way to control the direction of their relationship. “Don’t. We can do everything else, but not that.”

Yunho keeps on kissing him. “I’ll be gentle.”

“It’s not...” Changmin squirms away. “It’s not like I haven’t done it before. I’m not a virgin. It’s just...”

Pushing back the organza, Yunho drapes himself over Changmin and looks at him. “If you don’t like bottoming, just say so. I don’t care if I pitch or catch as long as I’m doing it with you.”

“No!” Changmin jolts Yunho off him and sits up, the moment ruined. “It’s not— I want to, okay? But not now. Not while we’re competitors.”

There’s a long, wondering silence. “Is that all it is?” Yunho asks, gaze wide and soft. “Changminnie, I would throw this contest for you. I’d walk away right now if you asked me to.”

“I’m not going to ask you do to something that stupid.” Movements jerky as emotion grows and swells and presses against his ribcage, Changmin drags his clothes towards him but doesn’t get dressed. “This competition is important.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.” Yunho throws off the rest of the organza and kneels up. “This was just a joke. I wasn’t supposed to get this far. Donghae entered me for a laugh. Neither of us thought I’d actually get onto the show for real! The prize money, the car, all that crap—I’m not going to deny they’d be nice, but that wasn’t why I tried so hard to stay in the competition.”

Bewildered, Changmin stares at him. “Then why did you?”

Yunho’s expression turns tender. “Oh, Changmin. You really don’t know?”

“No,” Changmin says, although he thinks he knows the answer and it’s terrifying, no, it’s wonderful, no, it’s confusing.

“I did it for you,” Yunho says. “I honestly thought I’d be kicked out in the first week, but then I saw how determined you were, how much you wanted this, and your designs are so beautiful, and you have such passion and drive... I wanted to impress you. So I tried really hard, too, and it was fun, and I learned so much from you and from the others, but...” He lifts his hands and smiles, shy and endearing. “I’m not here for the contest, Changmin. I’m here for you.”

Frustration bundles through Changmin. “But you’re good!” he snaps. “You’re genuinely good at design. You have an eye for it. Unconventional sometimes, yes, but that’s good, too. You can’t throw away this opportunity. You might win.”

Shaking his head, Yunho says, “I don’t want to win. You should win. You deserve to win.”

“No. No, it doesn’t work like that.” Angry now, Changmin gets up and pulls on his clothes. “Promise me, Yun—promise me that you’ll keep doing your best. Don’t do anything stupid just because of me.”

Yunho looks at him. “I love you.”

“No.” Crap, oh crap, he’s not ready for this, he doesn’t know what to do. Changmin hides his face behind his hands, claws his fringe forwards. “Oh God, no, don’t tell me that. Oh, that’s so unfair.”

“It’s the truth, and I don’t care who knows,” Yunho says. “I’ll tell everyone.”

“You do that and they’ll disqualify you. And maybe me, too. They’ll think—they’ll think...” Changmin can’t finish his sentence, distracted by Yunho’s nakedness. “For God’s sake, put some clothes on!”

Yunho collects up his scattered clothing and gets dressed slowly. “This doesn’t need to be a problem.”

“But it is, can’t you see?” Flustered and feeling overly defensive, Changmin hears his voice getting louder. “I need to win this. I need to prove to my father, publically and irrevocably, that I made the right decision when I chose fashion over the family business.”

“And you need to win a reality TV show to do that?”

“You don’t understand!” Changmin spins, walks across the workroom and drags in a shaking breath. This has got away from him big time. It’s not what he wanted, but it’s what he expected, and he hates that he’s still so predictable. He set himself up to fail in order to win the bigger prize, and now he has to see it through, he can’t bear it.

“Okay,” Yunho says after a moment. He finishes getting dressed, then gives Changmin a tentative little smile. “It’s okay. I’ll keep quiet and I’ll stay in the competition for as long as the judges keep me in.”

Changmin folds his arms. “Thank you.” He studies the floor, tension creeping across his shoulders, his jaw clenched around the next words he utters: “Maybe we should cool things between us until the show ends.”

A long, long silence. Yunho exhales. Scrubs a hand through his hair. “Okay,” he says again. “Sure. If that’s what you want.”

Changmin cringes inside. It’s not, it’s not, don’t listen to me, fight for me the way I can’t fight for you, oh Yunho, please don’t believe me. But he doesn’t say any of that, because he needs to be strong about this. He needs to act like a winner. “Please say you understand.”

“You just said I didn’t, and to be honest, I don’t.” Yunho looks at him, wounded but still determined. “But I can see it’s important to you, so I’ll try to understand. And I’ll be patient, because you’re worth it, and because I’m not about to give up on the one thing that actually means something to me—and that’s you, Changmin, not this fucking competition.”

He shoves the organza into a corner and kicks the bale of felt out of his way, then strides over to the door of the workroom and holds it open. “C’mon. No point in staying here. Let’s get some sleep.”

Changmin bows his head and shuffles towards the door. He feels like shit.

* * *

At the close of the penultimate show, Changmin wins the challenge and Milhye is eliminated with a flouncy ‘Saħħa’ from Jaejoong. She comes backstage and hugs Yunho, then Sungmin, and finally Changmin. She wipes the tears from her eyes and smiles at them all. “Good luck, guys.”

Zhou Mi sails in, long fingers steepled. “Our three finalists! Congratulations, designers. You now have twelve weeks in which to create a collection of twelve pieces. Your budget is three million won, and you may outsource, but the majority of work must be done by yourselves and you must keep detailed receipts. I’ll be visiting each of you at your studios in due course, so—just a suggestion—don’t go too far, okay?”

He sweeps back out, the cameraman trailing after him.

“Oh.” Yunho sinks onto the couch, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Oh crap. I made the final.”

Sungmin gives him a puzzled look. “But that’s a good thing.”

“Yes,” Changmin echoes. “It’s a good thing.”

“If you say so.” Yunho smiles weakly, but doesn’t look convinced.

* * *

Changmin returns home and spends a couple of days going through his post and his email. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering; the contest has essentially begun afresh, but now he’s on his own, and he really shouldn’t be wasting precious time dealing with mundane realities when he should keep himself in the mindset of a winner.

He wanders around his apartment, staring at the minimalist decor and elegant furnishings, the light and space and the subtle scent of orchids, and he misses the cramped floor, the smell of pineapple lumps, and the draughty window of his Stitched Up bedroom.

The ban on outside contact has been lifted, and he scrolls through his phone looking at the numbers, wondering who to call. He should go out, go drinking with his friends. He spends a long time looking at Yunho’s number, then calls a bunch of people and arranges to meet up for dinner.

Except he feels out of sorts amongst his friends, and even though he says he can’t talk about the show, they still ask him. He wants to tell them about Yunho, but he can’t, because there’s nothing to tell. Or rather, there’s too much to tell and he’d look stupid, because he was the one who called a halt to it and now he’s starting to think it was the worst decision he’s ever made.

After a few days of doing nothing, Changmin packs his bags again and moves into his studio. It’s the size of the entire Stitched Up apartment and has two rooms filled with fabrics. There’s a pull-out sofa-bed in the main workroom and he spends most of his time sprawled upon it, cushions scattered everywhere and his hand down the front of his jeans as he spins fantasies around Yunho.

Yunho’s thighs. Yunho’s hands on him. Yunho in the week seven outfit with those gloves. Yunho’s mouth on him. Yunho’s fingers working inside him. Yunho’s cock, huge and hard and oh, the taste of him, hot and musky on Changmin’s tongue...

Changmin wants. He wants so bad, and it’s destroying his focus, it’s killed his concentration, and he is totally and utterly without inspiration.

Five weeks in, he’s ready to climb the walls. He’s started his collection three times and he hates everything he’s designed. He spends his mornings drinking too much coffee and playing Aqua’s ‘Barbie Girl’ on repeat just because Yunho once said it was his favourite song. The day comes when Changmin knows he has to do something about his obsession, because this morning he tried to sharpen his mechanical pencil.

He does what he should have done weeks ago. He sends Yunho a text, brief and polite: How are you? How’s your collection going?

Yunho texts back: Gwangju skank missed his posh boy ♥

Changmin smiles. Posh boy missed you, too, he wants to say, but instead he contents himself with the reply: Idiot. Now tell me how your collection is going.

I love it when ur demanding, Yunho writes. Clothes OK & u?

Inspiration just struck, Changmin replies, and he closes his phone, jumps off the sofa-bed and hurries over to his workbench, fingers itching with the need to sketch.

* * *

One week after that, Changmin is much happier with his designs and he’s made excellent progress on his collection. He has seven pieces finished and another two are taking shape, thanks mainly to the fact that he hasn’t really slept in days. He and Yunho have texted back and forth for the past week, and all his pent-up lust has finally rerouted itself and poured into his work.

All the same, on Monday he takes the train to Gwangju. He knows this is potentially stupid, but he has to see Yunho. Not that Yunho knows he’s coming. Changmin wants to surprise him. It’s a spontaneous and romantic thing to do, and although Changmin considers himself neither of those things, he’s making the effort.

Yunho better appreciate it.

It’s raining when Changmin arrives. Not polite drizzling rain, either, but great sheets of water pouring out of the sky, and Changmin’s blurry first impression of the city is of a place covered in cloud and smelling of damp earth. It’s also humid, and by the time he’s found a taxi, he’s slick with sweat as well as drenched with rain. He oozes into the car and gives the driver Yunho’s address, and then he spends ten minutes outside Yunho’s apartment block pressing every buzzer in the desperate hope that someone will let him in.

He’s soaked to the skin, his replacement Armani suit black with running water rather than its usual soft dove grey. His hair is plastered to his skull. He must look like a drowned rat. Fuck romantic spontaneity, he is never doing something like this ever again.

Fishing out his phone, he dials Yunho’s number. “Where are you?” he roars when Yunho picks up. “I thought it was supposed to be hot in the south but it’s raining and I’m soaking wet and I’m standing on your doorstep and I need to see you right now and where are you?”

“In my studio,” Yunho says. “You’re here? In Gwangju?”

“Standing in the fucking rain!” Changmin shouts.

“Five minutes,” Yunho promises. “Five minutes and I’ll be there.” He hangs up before Changmin can yell at him some more.

Three and a half minutes later, a car pulls up. Yunho spills out of it and races towards him through the puddles. “Changminnie, what happened? Why are you—”

Changmin grabs hold and kisses him.

“Okay,” Yunho says when they break free, “okay, I can get behind that reason.”

“I’ll give you another reason,” Changmin snarls, rain spiking his eyelashes and trickling down his face, “I want you to fuck me.”

“Oh yeah.” Yunho kisses him again, mouth hot and greedy. He takes the keys from his jeans pocket and unlocks the door, dragging Changmin inside. They snatch at each other’s clothes, garments heavy and unwieldy with water, and stumble from one side of the hallway to the next.

“Ground floor apartment,” Yunho says between kisses as they fall through another door.

“Love them.” Changmin tears at Yunho’s white shirt, which has turned almost completely transparent in the rain. It’s almost a shame to take it off, but Changmin wants Yunho naked. He yanks at the front of the shirt and half the buttons fly off. Either he’s channelling someone much stronger than himself or Yunho’s shirt was really crap quality. Changmin doesn’t think he cares. He gets the rest of the shirt off and scores his nails all the way down Yunho’s chest.

“Oh, posh boy is on heat,” Yunho gasps, hauling Changmin’s jacket off and flinging it to the floor.

“Yes. Yes, I am,” Changmin growls and puts his mouth over the scratches, licks them one by one. Yunho tastes of rain and need, and Changmin gets rougher and rougher.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Yunho claws his hands into Changmin’s shoulders and shudders against him, grinds his stiff cock nice and hard against Changmin’s thighs. “Oh, baby. I love it when you’re wild. C’mon, this way.”

“No. Carry me.” Changmin can’t believe he’s being so demanding. “Carry me like you did before and throw me on the bed and take me.”

“You really like the caveman approach, huh.” There’s a gleam in Yunho’s eyes, and then he tackles Changmin, swings him up over his shoulder and carries him into the bedroom. Changmin cuts loose with all the things he wasn’t able to say last time, shouts filthy dirty things about how much he wants Yunho’s cock and how hard and how fast, and then Yunho drops him onto the mattress and pounces on him.

“Naked!” Changmin snaps. “Too many clothes!”

“I agree.” Yunho strips them both out of what’s left of their wet garments then climbs on top of him, heat against chilled, rain-dampened skin.

“Oh yes, oh yes, that’s good,” Changmin moans, squirming.

“I missed you, too, baby.” Yunho pins him to the bed, hands circling Changmin’s wrists in a tight grip. Changmin bucks up, struggles a little just for the thrill of it, because this time he’s not restrained by silk charmeuse and pins, it’s just Yunho’s strength keeping him there, and fuck, it’s turning him on.

“Take me,” Changmin babbles, wrenching one hand free. He spreads his legs and curls his knees up, frantically trying to direct Yunho into position. “Let me feel you inside me. Here, right here, hurry.”

Yunho looks tense and feral, but he holds back enough to grab at the nightstand, hauling out a drawer almost all the way and rooting through it until he comes up with a bottle of lube.

“I’d take you without that,” Changmin says, but it’s still a relief when Yunho slicks up his heavy, thick length and then works slippery fingers into Changmin’s hole, opening him, readying him. Yunho holds steady, and Changmin rubs against him, moaning at the feel of the swollen head of Yunho’s cock sliding along his ass-crack.

“Fuck me,” Changmin begs, orders, undulating against Yunho again and watching him go taut and shuddery. “I want it. Give it to me. Hard. Fast. Come on.”

“I want to make this last,” Yunho gasps. “Slow down. Oh, here. Get on me.”

Changmin yelps as Yunho rolls them over, sliding an arm around his waist and lifting him up on top. Changmin laughs, jubilant. “I’m going to fuck you. I’m going to ride you.”

Yunho groans and grabs at Changmin’s wrists. “Yeah, sit on me. Like that. Oh God, Changminnie, just like that.”

It’s easy after that, so easy to slide on down, inch by inch, all of it slick and wet and hard, all of it just for him. Changmin shivers, mouth opening on a sigh of pleasure to finally have Yunho seated inside him, thick and huge and demanding. He rocks his hips, taking Yunho deeper, then hisses at the stretch of it, at the faint burn of pain and effort. Changmin shimmies, moves back and forth in tiny, spiralling circles, taking a little more each time.

“That’s—that’s... Don’t stop, don’t ever stop,” Yunho begs, breathless.

Changmin is glad that he’s on top controlling this, because if he was underneath he’s pretty sure he’d be folded in two by now and Yunho would be ramming that massive thing into him until he was half dead with ecstasy. Just the thought of it is making pleasure swell inside him, and Changmin moans, long and loud, and grinds down.

Yunho grabs at him, both hands curving over Changmin’s ass, pulling him further onto his dick. Changmin chokes out a cry and lifts up, slams down, and then Yunho is right with him, thrusting up hard. Changmin squirms, impaled, and he claws at Yunho’s chest, scratches fresh marks across the ones he’d scored earlier.

“Yes, baby, yes,” Yunho snarls, and he fucks into Changmin fast and wild.

Orgasm coils, tight, tense. Pleasure surges, thick and hot, and Changmin works his cock, pre-come sliding down over his fist as he tugs and tugs. Yunho holds onto Changmin’s hips, onto his ass, and pounds into him, and Changmin squeezes, clenches around him so tight that Yunho gasps and moans at the same time and then blurts out, “Changminnie, oh, I’m—”

“Me too,” Changmin gasps, and they go over within seconds of one another, orgasm hard and unstoppable, breaking through them to leave Changmin a shuddering, helpless mess as Yunho thrusts and thrusts and empties hot and sweet inside him.

“I’m only here for the sex,” Changmin says when he can catch his breath. “That’s all. I just want your body.”

“I have no problem with that at all.” Yunho flicks his tongue over Changmin’s nape, laps up the glistening of sweat. “How long are you staying?”

“Twenty-four hours,” Changmin decides. “That should do it. We should be able to fuck each other out of our systems by then, shouldn’t we?”

* * *

Changmin is still in Gwangju come Wednesday. He doesn’t ask to see any of Yunho’s designs or finished pieces, and Yunho doesn’t offer to show them to him. They spend all their time in bed or hanging out with Yunho’s friends. Donghae tries to sell Changmin a dishwasher, a flat-screen television, several pairs of Evisu jeans with a limited edition Kyuhyun t-shirt thrown in, and a Tag Heuer watch.

For the first time in forever, Changmin feels free, far removed from the worries of the contest and what winning would mean. It’s like a holiday, and he revels in it, takes everything Yunho is offering and rolls around with it in glorious abandon.

“Tell me what went on with your father,” Yunho says on Wednesday evening. They’re sitting on the couch, beer and pizza on the coffee table, and they’ve found season two of Stitched Up on TV.

Changmin looks at him. “Am I still talking in my sleep?”

“Not so much. I think you’re too tired for nocturnal chats these days.” Yunho smiles and runs a hand along Changmin’s thigh, then his humour fades. “Seriously. Those first few weeks, you mentioned him almost every night. You looked so unhappy and you kept saying things like ‘no, I won’t, I don’t want to, I’ll show you’. You were...” He pauses, considering, then says, “You were so angry back then.”

“Angry?” The idea is startling, but when Changmin thinks about it, he realises it’s true. He was angry, and he’d turned it into the cold determination necessary to get him through the contest. Relaxing back against the couch, he takes a sip of beer. “I was angry because I didn’t want to go on Stitched Up. I was... manipulated into it.”

“By your father?” Yunho picks up his drink and takes a swig.

“Kind of.” Changmin stares at the TV. He remembers this episode. It’s the one where the designers have to create a look out of sweets. Contestant Heechul had eaten all the sweets then presented himself on the runway with chocolate smeared around his mouth and wrappers stuck to his body with gum. He declared himself to be installation art and was eliminated.

An ad break comes on. Changmin agitates his beer and exhales. “You know East Coast/West Coast hotels? It’s my grandfather’s company.” He pauses, not sure what to say after that.

Yunho blinks. “Really? Wow. I knew you were expensive.”

“Elegant,” Changmin says, managing to dredge up a laugh. “Sophisticated. Poised. In control.”

“Posh boy,” Yunho says softly. “Like a gentleman.”

“Don’t.” The television burbles in the background. Changmin picks at the label on the beer bottle. “My father wanted me to follow him into the business. I refused. I have two sisters who are more than capable and more than keen to take on the hotel industry, but I’m the only son and...”

“Yeah. I know.” Yunho gives him a sympathetic look. “Sometimes it sucks to come from money.”

Changmin laughs again, waves a hand around the apartment. Though it’s messy and cluttered, it’s easily the size of his place in Seoul. “You don’t seem to do too badly for a market trader.”

Yunho raises his eyebrows. “I have quite a lot of stalls. I just choose to work on one of the clothing stalls because it’s fun and that way, I get to know the needs of my client base.”

“How many stalls?”

“I employ about sixty people.” A small smile curves Yunho’s mouth. “And that doesn’t include the online side of the business.”

Changmin stares, beer halfway to his lips. “Wait. Let me get my head around that. I thought...”

“I know what you thought.” Yunho looks gently amused. “But we were talking about you.”

“Yes.” Remembering his beer, Changmin takes a pull. “I’ve wanted to be a fashion designer since I was ten years old. I won contests, awards. As I got older, my mother’s friends paid me to design daywear and evening gowns for them. My father could see I was good at it, but still he wanted me to put it aside and go to business school. We had a fight. Huge and terrible, the kind of fight that’s hard to forgive or forget, and I swore that if he didn’t let me go to St Martin’s, I’d never come home again.”

He glances at Yunho, a little embarrassed at the recollection of his teenage posturing. “It was fabulously dramatic and over the top. My sisters were crying, my mother was crying, and I was ready to walk out there and then when he backed down. He said I could go to London. He told me I could do my degree, but when I came back we’d have a serious talk about the future.”

Yunho picks up a slice of pizza and nibbles at one end. “So you went to England, you did your internship at Chanel...”

“I got a First. Nothing else would have done.” Changmin leans over and steals some of the topping from Yunho’s pizza. “I came back home and he said now that I’d got the rebellious phase over and done with, perhaps I was ready to do what was expected of me. Now it was time for business school. I said no. Again. My sisters were doing business studies. They had the aptitude and interest, not me. But he wouldn’t listen, and we kept fighting, and...”

“Sounds like a stalemate,” Yunho says around a mouthful of food.

“That’s exactly what it was.” Changmin helps himself to more pizza. “It was one of my mother’s friends who broke it. She’d seen the call for contestants for this season of Stitched Up and she said I should try it. I’d never wanted to do reality television, it’s common and embarrassing and... Anyway, my father agreed. He said this would be the way to settle things once and for all.

“We made a bet. If I made it into the final three, he’d admit defeat and allow me to pursue a career as a fashion designer. If I didn’t make the cut, I’d put my dreams aside and go into the family business with my sisters.” Changmin hugs his beer and stares at the TV again as, on screen, Jaejoong, Kyuhyun, and Madame Oh get ready to judge the sweet challenge. “I told him I’d show him. I told him I’d win.”

“Huh. Let me get this straight.” Yunho tilts his head, gaze quizzical. “Your father only wanted you to make the final three?”

“Yes.” Changmin drains his beer and sets the bottle on the table with a thud. “I was the one who said I’d win.”

They’re silent for a while, and then Yunho moves. “It seems to me,” he says, uncurling and stretching his legs out in front of him, “that your father accepted your decision even before you made the bet. It’s just you who hasn’t realised it yet.”

Changmin turns to stare at him. “What?”

Yunho smiles. “Think about it. As far as saving face goes, I have to hand it to your father. It’s a stroke of genius.” He collects up the empty bottles and heads for the kitchen. “Want another?”

“Sure,” Changmin says, his mind whirling, his perceptions shifting on their axis to present him with another version of the truth, one he was too damn stubborn to contemplate before. “Bring two. No, three. I think I’ll need them.”

* * *

On Thursday night they go out for dinner, tease one another into a frenzy, and barely make it home before they’re clawing at each other’s clothes. Garments get scattered along the hallway and around the living room. “Why are you wearing so many layers?” Yunho complains, desperately trying to unfasten Changmin’s waistcoat.

“To frustrate you,” Changmin says, giggling. “Do all the buttons confuse my Gwangju skank?”

“Yes.” Yunho whines and scrabbles at Changmin’s chest like an overexcited puppy. “I’m going to rip them off. I promise I’ll sew them back on tomorrow, but I have to have you naked right now—”

“Let me, let me.” Changmin tears at his waistcoat with even less patience than Yunho demonstrated, but at least if he rips the buttons off he can do a better job of fixing them in the morning.

They stagger into the bedroom and fall across the bed. “Changminnie, oh baby, how I want you,” Yunho says, pulling him down.

They kiss, and Changmin can’t get enough. He’s helpless in the face of his need, Yunho’s taste and scent driving everything else right out of his head. He climbs on top, slicking himself up, and sinks onto Yunho’s cock, quivering with tension. “Yun,” he gasps, joy coiled tight and explosive inside him, “oh fuck, I love you.”

Yunho goes wide-eyed and holds still beneath him. “Tell me again when you don’t have my dick inside you.”

Changmin does so when they’re bathed in sweat, the bed sheets scrumpled on the floor and the lazy whirl of the fan cooling their bodies. He’s blushing this time, and he’s glad of the darkness as he shoves his face half into a pillow and mumbles, “I love you.”

He can hear Yunho smile. “Tell me again when you’re not coming down from a post-orgasmic high.”

Changmin wakes him up and tells him again first thing on Friday morning.

“I love you too,” Yunho says, and they cuddle together all blissful and happy.

The doorbell rings.

Yunho groans and gets up. He’s wearing Changmin’s tie and nothing else. Pulling on a clean pair of boxer-briefs, he runs a hand through his hair and goes to answer the door. “Probably just Donghae. Won’t be a minute.”

Changmin smiles and stretches out in bed with a sigh. He can’t remember the last time he felt so utterly content. His body aches with satisfaction, and then he thinks maybe he’s not that satisfied because he could absolutely go for a repeat of last night just as soon as Yunho gets rid of the unwanted caller.

With this in mind, Changmin rolls out of bed. He picks up his dress shirt and puts it on, then goes to take a piss. He glances at the bathroom mirror and smiles at himself, all bright-eyed and glowing. “Shim Changmin,” he says to his reflection, “you’re a winner.”

He’s cleaning his teeth when he hears Yunho, loud and panicked, saying, “I’m so sorry, I’d completely forgotten it was today! Please give me a moment to get dressed. I won’t be long. No, really—two minutes. One minute if you wait outside. No, don’t—don’t come in, don’t—”

Puzzled, Changmin opens the bathroom door and goes out into the hallway.

The toothbrush falls from his mouth and bounces off his foot. Now he’s glad he’s wearing the shirt. It’s just about long enough to protect his modesty as the Stitched Up cameraman focuses on him, saying, “Isn’t that...?”

Yunho looks appalled. “No! It isn’t! It’s not Changmin, it’s... an optical illusion! An astral projection! Changmin is in Seoul. He’s not here. Why would he be here?”

And then Zhou Mi steps over the threshold. He studies Yunho’s lack of attire, smiles a little, then looks past him and stares at Changmin. There’s a pause, hideous and humiliating, and Zhou Mi’s eyebrows climb skywards.

“Well now,” he drawls. “Designer Shim. What an unexpected pleasure.”

* * *

On a scale of one to ten of embarrassing incidents, this probably ranks as a seventeen. Or maybe an eighteen. Changmin can’t decide if it’s worse that he was caught on film with toothpaste around his mouth or that he was caught on film wearing only a dress shirt and nothing else. On the plus side, at least he’s demonstrating to viewers that he has good oral hygiene as well as spectacularly long legs. On the minus side...

“Designer Jung, Designer Shim.” Zhou Mi looks between them as they sit, fully dressed, on the couch. “This is a very serious situation. I can’t recall anything like this ever happening on Stitched Up before.”

Changmin elbows Yunho. “I can’t believe you forgot that today was the day Zhou Mi came to visit you.”

Yunho looks woebegone. “I’m so sorry, Changminnie. I marked it on the calendar in my studio but since you’ve been here, I haven’t thought of anything else but you.”

Despite his trepidation, Changmin melts a little at this. “That’s really sweet, but now we’re in trouble and—and this is a disaster.”

“Hello,” Zhou Mi says, waving his hands. “Designers, could I have your attention just for five minutes, please? Thank you. Now, as I was saying...”

Yunho bolts up from the couch. “Eliminate me. Throw me out of the contest. It’s all my fault.”

Zhou Mi stares. “As I was saying: I’ve spoken with the producer and I actually made the suggestion already that one of you be eliminated, but it was just a suggestion and he could take it or leave it, and he quite rightly pointed out that we need three finalists. He also said it’s almost the end of week seven, which means it’s far too late now to contact Milhye. We have a strict schedule, and it’s not like she could just throw together a collection at the last minute. Therefore...”

“Keep me in the competition,” Yunho interrupts, “but arrange it with the judges so I come third, and therefore the only real contest is between Changmin and Sungmin.”

“The problem I’m facing,” Zhou Mi says, looking irritated, “is that you could both be accused of collaboration, which is strictly against the Stitched Up rules, apart from within the parameters of a team challenge. Which this clearly isn’t.”

“There’s been no collaboration,” Changmin says.

“Really.” Zhou Mi gives him a pointed look.

Yunho sits back down on the sofa. “I admit we’ve been fucking like bunnies since Monday afternoon, but I swear on everything holy that we have not collaborated in any other way, and certainly not in a fashion design way. We haven’t, we simply haven’t.”

Zhou Mi seems affected by Yunho’s passionate, earnest tone. He sniffs and dabs at his eyes. “I see. But do you have any proof of non-collaboration?”

Changmin looks up. “All of my work is in Seoul.”

“And all of my work is...” Yunho stops, his eyes going wide and excitement lighting his features. He bounces on the couch. “All of my work is in my studio! All of it, including sketches and swatches and my notes and receipts—it’s all in my studio!”

“That’s right,” Changmin says. “You haven’t let me see your studio. I don’t even know where it is.”

Zhou Mi frowns. “So?”

“So!” Yunho leaps up, then knots his hands together and rocks on his feet. “My studio is in the roof of the warehouse where the goods for the market are stored, and because the stock has a value of hundreds of millions of won, we installed CCTV all through the warehouse. We keep the tapes for three months before they’re wiped, so I can prove indisputably that Changmin hasn’t been anywhere near my studio or my designs, and he hasn’t influenced my collection in any way!”

“Smart,” Changmin says, impressed.

Yunho sighs. “The insurance company insisted.”

Zhou Mi nods as he considers this new information. “Let me see the CCTV footage, and the producer and I will discuss the matter further.”

Yunho calls Donghae and asks him to let Zhou Mi see the tapes from the warehouse, and then he and Changmin spend the rest of the day in the apartment under virtual house arrest, awaiting the decision.

“Even if they do kick us out,” Yunho tells Changmin, “you still made it into the final three, so you still won the bet with your father. Just remember that.”

“Yeah,” Changmin says, but it seems like a hollow victory.

It’s mid-afternoon when Zhou Mi comes back, his face wreathed in smiles and a new Tag Heuer watch strapped around his wrist. When he opens his notebook, a couple of scraps of paper fall out. One has Donghae’s phone number on it and the other is a receipt for a dishwasher and a flat-screen television.

“Designers!” he chirps, shoving the pieces of paper into his pocket, “I bring fabulous news! After exhaustive discussion, the producer has decided to allow you both to remain in the contest. Let me repeat that—you will both be going forward to the final runway show with Sungmin.”

Changmin clutches the back of the sofa, weak with relief. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“You really bought one of those dishwashers?” Yunho asks, wrinkling his nose.

Zhou Mi ignores him. “And because you are both still in the contest, I must emphasise that you are, in fact, competitors. Therefore, from today you may not see one another, speak to one another, or contact one another by any means until the day of the final runway show. No telephoning, texting, video conferencing, emailing, letter-writing, no nothing, understood?”

Yunho moves closer to Changmin and takes his hand. “I understand.”

“Me, too,” Changmin says, giving Yunho’s hand a squeeze.

“Good.” Zhou Mi sighs, looking much happier. “Now that’s sorted, Designer Jung, I need you to do your piece to camera and talk me through some of your finished garments. Designer Shim, we’re returning to Seoul within the hour and there’s room in the van, so, just a suggestion, we could give you a lift back. Just a suggestion—”

“I’ll take it,” Changmin says, smiling. “Thank you.”

An hour and a half later, Zhou Mi and the Stitched Up crew are waiting in the van, all of them studiously gazing at something on the other side of the road as Yunho and Changmin say their goodbyes.

“I love you, I love you,” Yunho says, covering Changmin’s face with kisses.

“You’re such an idiot,” Changmin tells him, then kisses his mouth and holds on for a long, long time. When they part, Changmin says, “I’ll see you on the runway.”

“Yes, you will.” Yunho beams and waves as Changmin hurries across the pavement and clambers into the van.

The Stitched Up driver starts the engine.

“Go, Changminnie fighting!” Yunho shouts, jumping up and down as the van pulls away.

Changmin cringes and laughs at the same time. He can do this. He can make it work. All of it.

* * *

They obey Zhou Mi’s instructions and have no contact for the next few weeks. Changmin is so busy finishing his collection he tells himself he doesn’t have time to miss Yunho, but still he finds the odd few minutes to flick through the photos on his phone, and when he gets himself off, he has a nice selection of dirty pictures to help him along. Now he wishes he’d let Yunho keep some dirty photos of him, too, rather than prissily demanding that they all be deleted.

The last few days before the runway show are a mad rush of booking the models, arranging hair and makeup, and doing final alterations. Zhou Mi pops by to let him know that Sungmin and Yunho are in town and are engaged in the selfsame activities.

“It’s going to be such an interesting runway,” Zhou Mi says, his expression giving away nothing.

“Sungmin’s collection is pink?” Changmin guesses.

Zhou Mi’s lips twitch and he almost smiles. “Now that would be telling. You’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

The night before the runway show, Changmin can’t sleep. He clutches his phone and stares at Yunho’s number, but he doesn’t break the rules, doesn’t call him. Tomorrow will be soon enough. Tomorrow he’ll know.

The morning wakes a chaos of nervous butterflies inside him. Changmin dresses in his Gieves & Hawkes suit teamed with a pale blue silk shirt. He doesn’t bother with a tie. He shaves and tries to do something with his hair, but in the end he can’t decide what he’s trying to say with his appearance and so he just runs his wet hands through his hair and lets it fall where it will.

When he arrives backstage, his nerves are strung so tight he can barely nod to the staff and camera crew. He greets his models and tries to think of something motivational to say to them, but the words dry up and stick in his throat. One of the models takes pity on him and cries, “Changmin to win! Let’s work it, girls!”

The cheers of his models still ringing in his ears, Changmin stumbles into the green room. Sungmin jumps up from the leather couch and comes over to give him a hug. “Changmin, hi! How are you, are you happy with your collection? I think you’ll be surprised by the way I’ve developed my aesthetic. I’ve really listened to what the judges said, and to what you guys said, and I’ve taken it all on board and...”

Changmin tunes him out, panic whining around his head. He’s still standing up, and Sungmin has sat down again as he continues talking. Changmin thinks maybe he should sit down, too, and perhaps he should pay attention to what Sungmin is saying, if only to be polite.

He sits down. Stands up again. Paces around.

Sungmin gives him a sympathetic look. “I’m nervous, too.”

“It’s not that,” Changmin says. “I mean, it is. But it isn’t.”

“Oh?” Sungmin’s expression wrinkles into confusion, and then he says, “Ah,” in a tone of comprehension just as the door opens and Yunho strides in, all bright and cheerful and wearing clothes that probably fell off the back of a lorry.

“Yunho!” Changmin bolts across the room and flings himself into Yunho’s arms. Okay, maybe he didn’t actually fling himself, because that would be overly dramatic, but his enthusiasm is noted nonetheless, and Yunho grabs hold of him and exclaims “Changminnie!” at the same time, and then they’re kissing, hot and hungry and desperate.

“Hi Yunho,” Sungmin says.

Changmin breaks the kiss and lifts his head. “Oh yeah, Sungmin is here.”

“Hi Sungmin.” Yunho slides out of the embrace and bounces over to give Sungmin a hug. “How much pink did you use in your collection?”

“I was just telling Changmin, I—” Sungmin comes to a halt as the door opens again and Zhou Mi meanders in with the cameraman.

“Designers,” Zhou Mi says, “it’s time for your final runway show. Are you excited? I know I am, even though I look incredibly bored. And as a special treat, we’ve gathered together all of the other designers from this season, with the exception of Sabine, of course. Let’s not keep them waiting, shall we?”

They go out and take their seats beside the runway. Yunho sits in the middle and holds hands with both Changmin and Sungmin. The former contestants are a little way off, waving and calling out their support. The judges are ready, pens poised and expectation on their faces.

“I’m going to be sick,” Sungmin whimpers.

“No, you’re not,” Yunho tells him. “You’re going to be awesome.”

Changmin leans closer. “I kind of feel sick, too.”

Yunho smiles at him. “And you, Shim Changmin, are going to be fabulous.”

“And what are you going to be?” Changmin asks. Usually by this point in the show, Yunho is a nervous wreck and/or a ball of hyperactive energy. Today he’s cool and calm and collected, and Changmin wonders why.

“I am going to be me,” Yunho says.

Changmin has little time to ponder this cryptic remark. The house lights go down, the spotlights shine along the runway, music blasts out, and the first model emerges and begins to walk.

Everything passes in a blur. Three models have walked before Changmin realises his collection is showing first. He relaxes his death grip on Yunho’s hand and eases some of the tension from his shoulders, then pays attention to the steady march of his looks along the runway.

The outfits he designed in the early part of the twelve-week period are clearly not as good as the ones he made later. His distraction and lack of attention seem to glare at him from the hems and detailing of the gowns, and he wonders why the hell he’d chosen that awful floral print for those shorts, and why the fuck did he think it was a good idea to team it with that weird jumper with the banana on the front.

Then Sungmin’s models emerge, and Changmin straightens up. These outfits are good. No, they’re amazing. Competitive pride rears its head and Changmin studies each look as it passes him, scrutinising the stitching and choice of fabrics and the overall feel of the piece.

In all honesty, Sungmin’s collection is better than his, not least because Sungmin has indeed listened to everyone’s advice and toned down the pink. It’s still there—baby pink, hot pink, salmon pink, powder pink—but it’s been integrated into the colour schemes or used as accents to make an outfit really pop, and the use of pink provides a cohesive thread tying together Sungmin’s collection as a whole.

“That’s incredible,” he tells Sungmin, leaning across Yunho. “Genuinely, your collection is superb. You should win.”

Sungmin blushes. “Thank you, that’s—” He stops, gaze fixed to the runway as the first of Yunho’s models steps out. Sungmin gasps. “Oh my God.”

Changmin turns his head and stares.

The model isn’t a woman. It’s a man. In a suit. A seriously sexy suit that manages to mix elegance with street style, but nevertheless, it’s a man in a suit, and Changmin starts to flail.

“Yunho,” he whispers. “Yunho, what—”

“Watch,” Yunho says. He still looks calm and composed, even though his next model, and the next, and the one after that, all of his models, in fact, they’re all men and they’re all wearing menswear.

“Yunho!” Changmin can’t believe what he’s seeing. “You threw the contest! Deliberately on purpose, you threw it away!”

“Changminnie.” Yunho smiles at him. “I told you weeks ago, the competition didn’t matter. It wasn’t the prize I wanted.”

Changmin thinks he might melt into goo and become a puddle on the floor. “But,” he protests, “but...”

Yunho squeezes his hand. “Hush. Here’s the bit where we have to talk bollocks and impress the judges.”

Changmin’s legs are wobbly as he slides out of his chair and steps up onto the runway alongside his first model. Jaejoong starts the discussion by noting that a few of the garments hadn’t been finished particularly well.

“We found that disappointing,” he says, frowning and flicking at his hair. “Throughout the many long, endless weeks of the show, you’ve been the one designer who always finishes magnificently—”

“Oh, he does, he does,” Yunho murmurs.

Changmin blushes and tries to stifle his laughter.

Jaejoong glares at them both then turns to the other judges. “Kyu, what do you think of Changmin’s collection?”

“I really liked the banana jumper,” Kyuhyun says. “That was the stand-out piece for me. And those floral shorts, I would totally wear them. Hey Changmin, call me later, I think we can do business.”

“Great!” Changmin polite-smiles and hopes he looks enthusiastic. A contact is a contact, even if it’s Cho Kyuhyun.

Madame Oh agrees with Jaejoong. “A little more attention was needed just on those few pieces,” she says, “but your skill and talent is plain for anyone to see. You are an extremely gifted designer. You’ll go far, Shim Changmin. You’ll be a star.”

Jaejoong taps his foot. “Now let’s move on to Sungmin.”

Everyone is vocal in their praise of Sungmin’s collection.

“It’s exquisite,” Madame Oh says, waving her hands. “Divine.”

Jaejoong nods. “I would wear every single item in this collection.”

“Pink is the new black,” Kyuhyun says. “That’s what I really appreciate about Sungmin’s work. Pink is so fashion-forward. You can wear it with anything and always look stylish.”

“Wonderful.” Jaejoong smiles at the camera. “What did we think of Yunho’s collection? Personally I found it rather weird. It was just menswear. Nice menswear, some might even say amazing menswear, and some of it looked on-trend, too, but still—it’s menswear. Not a single cocktail dress or evening gown. Not even a kaftan, and every collection should include a kaftan. Or a jumpsuit, I like those, too.”

“I agree with what Jaejoong said,” Kyuhyun says. “Also, I liked the shoes. I guess you didn’t make those, though. That’s a shame.”

Madame Oh perches forward on her seat. “Designer Jung, would you like to tell us what led to your decision to show only menswear?”

Yunho beams. “It’s quite simple. Over the course of the show, I came to realise that I really, really like designing menswear. And also I came to realise that I really, really like designing for Changmin. All of the looks you saw today were created for him, although I couldn’t find twelve models with the exact same proportions as Changminnie so I had to do quite a lot of alterations. And I know he won’t wear half of them because they’re not his style, but I made them for him anyway because he’s my perfect fit.”

“Oh, that’s so cheesy. I cannot believe you just said that.” Changmin hides his face in his hands, mortified and ecstatic at the same time. “You stupid romantic idiot, that’s all on camera.”

“Hello, ratings,” Madame Oh says with a big grin.

“You two are together?” Spoon yells. “Girlfriend, I want all the nasty details!”

“Wait!” Jaejoong snaps, trying to restore some semblance of authority to the proceedings. “Judges, are we decided on the winner?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kyuhyun says. “Sungmin, you’re the winner of season five of Stitched Up, yada yada, where’s the champagne?”

The cameraman does a close-up of Sungmin smiling and looking delighted, then it swivels to get a shot of Changmin wrapped in Yunho’s arms while the former contestants pile onto the runway squealing and clapping and randomly hugging one another.

“Sungmin won! Sungmin won!” Changmin shouts, and everyone cheers.

“But why are you so happy?” Jaejoong asks, frowning. “You lost.”

Changmin grins and looks at Yunho, who gazes back at him with adoration and joy. “Oh,” Changmin says, “I don’t know about that. I rather think I won after all.”

* * * * * *

Four of the pieces from Changmin’s final collection were picked up and adapted by Versace. He spent two years designing for the Italian house before being poached by Chanel on the advice of the supermodel Isabelle de la Tour, who described Changmin as a stylist ‘par excellence et sans pareil’.

Yunho spent one year working for Evisu before launching his own range of urban clothing, Gwangju Skank. Following its success, he designed an affordable menswear collection, Posh Boy, for a well-known high street store before collaborating with Spoon on a range of practical yet fashionable waterproof festival wear. The collection sold out across Western Europe and luminaries such as Kate Moss, Jessie J and Nicole Scherzinger were all papped wearing the outfits at Glastonbury and T in the Park.

Together, Yunho and Changmin masterminded a menswear line called HoMin pour Homme. Changmin complained about the placement of their names until Yunho pointed out that MinHo pour Homme didn’t sound quite as catchy. Their first fragrance, [b.u.t], will be launched this autumn.

They live in Seoul with their dogs Lagerfeld and Pucci.