Archive of Our Own

Every kid loves dinosaurs. 

Yeonjun wasn’t an exception there – dinosaurs were awesome, just as awesome as space ships and swords, the deep sea and those rocks that split to reveal gemstones inside. He could spend hours looking through books on all of those topics, watching documentaries with his dad or talking about everything he learned while helping his mom make dinner. There was always so much to learn, and dinosaurs were one of his favorite things to learn about.

So of course he’d been waiting impatiently for his tenth birthday and the promised trip to see the predatory dinosaur special exhibition at the Seoul Natural History Museum. The little pamphlet he’d picked up during a class trip just before summer holiday was all wrinkled by now with how many times he’d read through it: “two spectacular predatory dinosaur skulls, which are exhibited in the original. Surrounded by pointed teeth, visitors can take a close look at the imposing skulls of T-Rex and Allosaurus.”

In one of the documentaries he’d watched with his dad, it said that most bones displayed in museums actually weren’t real. So the prospect of two skulls shown in the original, millions and millions of years old – he couldn’t wait to see them with his own eyes. Despite the thick stack of pancakes with ice cream and his favorite sprinkles, the small pile of gifts waiting for him on his birthday table and the fact that the museum didn’t open any earlier than ten, Yeonjun had been ready and waiting by 8:30 anyway – there was no deterring him.

An excruciating one and a half hours later, he was rushing through the entrance, bouncing on the balls of his feet as his mom paid, as his dad handed him one of those audio tour guides with the cool headphones, as one of the guards told him not to run or touch any of the exhibits and then finally, he was let loose on the exhibition.

The first skull was displayed grandly, in a glass case at least three times yeonjun’s height (maybe four – he was pretty short for his age, but his mom always said he’d hit a growth spurt later on) and with a gleaming spotlight on it. Clearly, it was calling for him to start there…

…but the audio guide was droning on about the Mesozoic era and how vastly different flora and fauna had been during the different periods that made up the era. He was guided to the right, away from the skull and instead to a bunch of models displaying the layers of the earth. What followed was a long-winded explanation of how the different layers came to be, and in which ones dinosaur fossils could be found.

Mind bogglingly basic stuff, if you’d watched as many documentaries as Yeonjun had. It didn’t seem to bother the other museum visitors, though. They all stood patiently and stared at the colored plastic models that were supposed to show the sedimentary rock of the different strata (but were disappointingly simplified into bright colors that didn’t tell you anything about what the layers would actually look like. or that they weren’t of an even thickness across the globe, or why–)

An annoyed huff beside him pulled Yeonjun from his thoughts. Next to him, a tall boy with a round face and the most adorable dimples was staring down the very same plastic model with maybe more discontent than even Yeonjun had.

“I thought this was a special exhibition,” the boy muttered, “why are they even explaining that.”

“Oh my god, right?!” Yeonjun blurted, startling the boy. “And the model isn’t even accurate, so the whole explanation is–“

“Pointless. And factually wrong, actually, since they’re talking about sedimentary rock as the origin of dinosaur fossils, but completely omit the fact that only about 28% of fossil-bearing rock contains dinosaur fossils.” The boy huffed again, turned to Yeonjun and held out his hand to shake: “I’m Soobin.”

Yeonjun stared back at the boy. Not only was he cute – really cute, with the deep-set dimples in his chubby cheeks – but he’d also just pulled a very accurate seeming number out of thin air, just like this. Not even Yeonjun had known that, and he loved dinosaurs. This Soobin was amazing!

“I’m Yeonjun,” he replied and pulled off his headphones entirely, much more eager to find out more from Soobin than the boring narrator voice, “how did you know that?”

As it turned out, Soobin was an even bigger fan of dinosaurs than Yeonjun. Where Yeonjun also wanted to know about galaxies and cool rocks, Soobin single-mindedly focused on every little bit of information he could find about dinosaurs. He was a walking, talking lexicon and before long, their audio guides were forgotten entirely as Soobin dragged them from showcase to showcase, talking excitedly throughout it all.

It was more fun than Yeonjun had ever had at a museum. With Soobin holding his hand and telling him all about his favorite dinosaur facts, the exhibition hardly mattered anymore. Exploring it together was nice, but Yeonjun could have been walking through the park as well without getting bored (although the huge Allosaurus and T-Rex skulls were definitely a huge plus). He already knew a bunch of the things Soobin told him about, but there were even more facts that surprised him.

“Research suggests that duck-billed dinosaurs were really good parents.”

“Stegosaurus brains were the size of a walnut! They’d weigh only about 75 grams, isn’t that insane? Still not the dumbest dinosaurs though, if we’re going by body to brain ratio – then it would be sauropodomorphs like the Plateosaurus.”

(That fact had kind of upset Yeonjun, because Stegosaurus was his second favorite dinosaur. Knowing it was pretty dumb…well.)

“The position of their claws is wrong here,” Soobin had said while pointing at a drawing of a Velociraptor, “it doesn’t work with their bone structure, they’d actually have to keep them facing each other not hanging down like it’s shown in all the movies.”

“I know that one!” Yeonjun had exclaimed excitedly, “They’re clappers not slappers.”

“Oh, that’s a good way to memorize it.”

And finally, going back to the stupid plastic model of the earth, Soobin pointed out: “Dinosaurs were around for longer than they’ve been extinct, right? Which means that even while some Dinosaurs were alive, other species were extinct and fossilized already.”

“That’s so cool!!”

“I know, right? That’s what I like about them so much, there’s way more we don’t know yet than what we do know. So I’m gonna find out more once I’m older.”

“Really?” Yeonjun asked, eyes wide as he followed Soobin on another loop through the exhibition hall. His hand was starting to get sweaty, but he didn’t want to let go of the others.

He squeezed it tighter instead.

“Yeah, I’m going to be a paleontologist when I grow up,” Soobin announced proudly. He said the word fluently, as if it came to him as easy as breathing – all words about dinosaurs did. Yeonjun would stumble over the names of the less popular ones, since he didn’t use them often (or at all), but it seemed that no matter how long the latin name was or how convoluted its pronunciation, Soobin could say it perfectly.

Unlike very normal words such as Macaroni, which became macarena when he tried telling Yeonjun about his favorite foods. He blushed and stuttered a lot more, too, when he spoke about himself. Yeonjun thought it was adorable.

Soobin had blushed a deep pink color when he’d found out Yeonjun was over a year older than him. “Hyung, why didn’t you say?” he’d mumbled and Yeonjun had squished his cheeks in response.

“It doesn’t matter, right? I still think Soobinnie is the coolest.”

He did truly think that – how an eight year-old (“almost nine!”) managed to know so much was incredible to Yeonjun. He hadn’t noticed that Soobin was a bit of a baby still when they were talking, but now that he knew he could kind of tell – if only because the other was so cute.

So cute, even, that when the time came for Yeonjun to pick out his extra birthday gift in the museum gift shop, he took a long time hemming and hawing in front of the table with the plushies, before picking a velociraptor instead of his own favorite stegosaurus. He asked the cashier for a piece of paper and a pen and carefully scrawled a message on it before shoving it into the ribbon around the plushies neck.

For the coolest Soobinsaurus

– Yeonjun

He barely had time to find Soobin and thrust the plushie at him before his parents were dragging him out of the museum. They had a dinner reservation and his mom had patiently explained to him that they couldn’t just take Soobin with them – even if they included his mom. Their reservation was only for three, after all, and they didn’t know them anyway.

So a rushed goodbye was all Yeonjun got before his exquisite birthday dinner with steak and green onion kimchi (and a serving of midnight ramen later at home, since it was a special day). The day was blurry already when Yeonjun tried to remember it while he was drifting to sleep, most of the dinosaur facts Soobin had told him he couldn’t quite get together anymore. 

Only the image of a stunned, blushing Soobin holding the velociraptor in his hands as he watched Yeonjun leave remained clear in his mind.

…

Fifteen years later

there was a new researcher starting today, a paleontologist straight out of university. He was still writing his PhD thesis and would be completing part of his research at their museum. Yeonjun was excited to meet him – his own first visit to the museum had been because of the dinosaur exhibition and he still thought back to it fondly. And the paleontology team could desperately need a new member, especially one under 50 who wasn’t looking forward to becoming a fossil himself all too soon. While Yeonjun respected their Director greatly, there was something to be said for new perspectives and an openness to technologies – even for the study of creatures that had died out millions of years ago.

He’d looked over the new recruit’s CV several times and it boasted an incredible amount of achievements considering he was only 23. What stood out much more to him, though, was the passion the new researcher’s cover letter had shown for the subject – this Choi Soobin wasn’t just interested in dinosaurs, he was obsessed with them. Not necessarily unusual in the field – nobody went into paleontology thinking they’d get rich or famous, so the driving force would generally be at least a certain amount of interest – but that didn’t mean that everybody showed the same motivation for their job, especially when it came to museum matters. And if there was one thing Yeonjun hated, it was researchers looking down their noses at him while he was trying to pull enough information out of them as needed to promote their own damn research.

Science Communication, he thought once again as he stood in the museum’s grand entrance hall and took in all the changes it had undergone since he’d first visited, was truly the dark horse within the science community. Undervalued and understaffed, it meant that many scientific fields lacked a platform – and without a platform and the resulting public (and sometimes even academic) interest, they increasingly lacked funding too. There was every reason for researchers to jump at the chance to work with him, but a large majority of the older, more traditional researchers still tried every possible way around it outside of outright refusing.

So Yeonjun was putting a lot of hope in the new recruit of the paleontology department. A closer link to their research, for one, since Dr. Bang was very passionate about the topic but not at all forthcoming when Yeonjun tried to get insights beyond his published articles, and maybe even a face to occasionally appear on their socials. Depending, of course, on how attractive this Choi Soobin was – his application had come without a picture, something that usually wouldn’t have gone over well but was outweighed by his sheer competence and the personal interview conducted by Dr. Bang himself.

The face that came through the opulent entryway five minutes later assured him that Choi Soobin would most definitely be well-suited to be shown to the public – it would, in fact, be an incredible asset to his work, if Yeonjun played his cards right.

As he greeted the other and introduced himself, he couldn’t help but stare at the nervous flush on his cheeks, the deep dimples and the way Soobin kept ducking his head, unable to look at Yeonjun directly. It sent a frisson of warmth through his gut, and he felt almost nostalgic, although for what he didn’t quite know. It didn’t matter – what mattered was that Soobin was there, excitedly babbling about his research once the initial small talk was out of the way and very much open to talking to Yeonjun about it whenever he needed anything.

Perfect. Another research field conquered – maybe at some point in the near future, Yeonjun would be able to focus on doing his actual job (making sure their communications were in line with their research and appealing to the masses) rather than what he was spending roughly half his time on right now (courting eccentric researchers in an attempt to find out what he could use for content in the first place). 

When Yeonjun had started in his position just over a year ago, he’d been forced to start from scratch – the museum hadn’t had proper science communication before, any and all communication had either been prepared by the general staff or outsourced to agencies who usually focused on PR and marketing rather than conveying scientific information in an accessible way outside of the museum itself. 

And even within the museum itself, there was a lot to do. Yeonjun clearly remembered his visit on his tenth birthday and how annoyed he’d been with the audio guide. He’d ended up being guided through the exhibition by this boy he’d met by chance, who’d been a year younger but insanely knowledgeable about dinosaurs. After that day, Yeonjun had come back to the museum regularly to see if he’d run into the other again, but it had never happened. By now, he’d long forgotten the boy’s name and could only vaguely recall his looks. What had stayed with him, though, was the boy’s sheer enthusiasm and joy and just how much it had influenced Yeonjun’s experience back then as well.

It had stood out to him during his many visits to the museum, and maybe even played a role when deciding on his master. Because communication mattered when it came to science – he’d never have remembered that raptors’ claws were shown all wrong if he’d read it in a boring textbook. People wanted to be entertained, excited, sucked into a topic – and that Yeonjun could do.

He’d started with their tech department, figuring that maybe they’d be more open to talking to him than the researchers were. After an astounding success with Kang Taehyun and Huening Kai from their Micro-CT and bioacoustics laboratories, he’d struck gold when Choi Beomgyu started just half a year later and opened the door to the geology department for him. It had gotten a little easier to get input even from the other departments, but Choi Soobin promised even easier access. 

One day, Yeonjun vowed, he’d get them all to see just how important a good communication structure was not only for the museum, but for everyone’s research as well.

But he’d start with bi-weekly lunches to catch up with Choi Soobin’s research.

…

Within the span of one month, their bi-weekly lunches had changed from once every two weeks to two times a week. Within another month, the bi-weekly had flown out of the window entirely and Yeonjun was now used to heading down to the paleontology lab to pick Soobin up whenever they both could take their break at the same time. Which was pretty much every day, save for a few exceptions.

Occasionally, there would be others joining them – Beomgyu, Taehyun and Kai were a regular sight by now, and for the first time since he started working there, Yeonjun felt like he was at home at the museum. But most days, it was Soobin and Yeonjun on their own, chatting about whatever they were working on respectively and more and more about stuff outside of work, too.

It definitely took some time for Soobin to warm up to him, which wasn’t that surprising to be honest. Yeonjun had been told plenty of times that he came off as intimidating, sometimes even mean, and Soobin was definitely a shy person outside of his professional domain. 

There were still moments when Soobin looked at him oddly, head cocked to the side as he seemed to take Yeonjun in, patiently waiting for…something. What, Yeonjun never found out. Whenever he tried to ask (and how exactly were you supposed to ask what the other was thinking when the only thing you had to go in was ‘you sometimes stare at me very intensely and i don’t know why’), Soobin would shake his head and give him his kindest smile. The one he used when Kai had dropped his favorite ‘You Are Dinomite’ mug, or when Yeonjun had to skip their lunch for another meeting. A smile like he wanted to reassure Yeonjun of something…

Almost equally as hard was to figure out who Soobin reminded him of. Yeonjun had tried endlessly, even begun looking up various top-100 best looking male celebrities lists online, then proceeding to female celebrities because maybe the resemblance he was detecting wasn’t obvious. 

At one point, he’d even brought it up to Beomgyu when they’d gone for after work drinks.

“He looks kinda like Nam Joohyuk, don’t you think?” the younger had suggested lazily, and ordered another round of beer.

Yeonjun didn’t see it, though. Or maybe he did, but that wasn’t what he personally felt reminded of.

As the months passed and they grew closer, Yeonjun eventually forgot to question it. Soobin was no longer reminiscent of something, he was just…Soobin. And that made other concerns much more urgent.

Like the fact that Yeonjun had developed a small crush on the other.

Or the fact that, seven months into Soobin joining the museum, he had gone from a small crush to completely head over heels for the man. And for Yeonjun, head over heels meant making a complete idiot of himself (more than he usually did, anyway).

At lunch one day, he’d pouted dramatically and told the other in his most whiny voice: “Pwease Soobinnie, pwease give Yeonjunnie another bite. Yeonjunnie wants dino-more!” 

On another occasion he’d called him a dino-whore, which was warranted because Soobin had almost pissed himself from excitement at the news of the first complete T-Rex skeleton being found (and in a fight with a triceratops, no less!), but still embarrassing.

And then there were all the occasions where he’d asked Soobin out…only to be misunderstood as a professional or at best friendly inquiry. 

Tickets to see the new Jurassic World and make fun of the bad science? Suddenly they had a plus three in the form of Beomgyu, Taehyun and Kai.

Inviting Soobin for dinner only to be hit with “it’s okay if you can’t make lunch today, hyung, we can just go tomorrow!”

Or last night, when Yeonjun had nervously asked him to go to their staff summer party together as they were closing up together and Soobin had asked how their public transport lines overlapped (they didn’t).

No matter what Yeonjun did, it seemed to end with him as an idiot and Soobin oblivious (thankfully also to the idiot part, at least). So after seven months of falling for the guy, and maybe three of actively trying to ask him out, Yeonjun was ready to give up.

Unless, of course, a miracle happened to strike them, like the meteor struck the dinosaurs. (Which was strictly a metaphor, not the scientific explanation of what happened, okay? No need to lecture Yeonjun on it!)

…

The meteor came, as was so often the case, in the form of Kai and Beomgyu left unattended for approximately four minutes at their annual summer party. Taehyun had gone to talk to Dr. Bang briefly, which gave the other two enough time to strike.

And strike they did – the punch bowl. With enough force (read: alcohol) to ignite a fire.

Less than two hours into the party, Yeonjun was flushed and giddy. He loved this job, this museum and the people in it so much that he kept telling everybody how much they meant to him. He’d spent a solid ten minutes telling Dr. Bang how much he’d grown since Yeonjun first started working at the museum and how happy he felt whenever Dr. Bang actually thought to send him Input – even if it was just a forwarded email.

Just as he was about to tell the director (again) how proud Yeonjun felt of such personal growth, Soobin interrupted them: “Dr. Bang, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to borrow Yeonjun for a moment?” and dragged Yeonjun out of the staff area.

Away from the crowd and the noise, the giddiness ebbed away, morphing almost into dizziness instead.

“You okay, hyung?” Soobin murmured softly. 

His hand felt steady in Yeonjun’s as he lead him up the stairs and into the museum, warm without being sweaty despite the summer heat. In the back of his head, he thought that he probably wouldn’t mind it, even if it was a little sweaty.

“I think I’m a little drunk,” he finally concluded as they reached the dinosaur hall. There usually was only one T-Rex on display, but he kept seeing a second one whenever he moved his head too fast.

“You and everyone else who even dared try the punch. Beomgyu and Kai really meant well.”

Slowly, Yeonjun nodded: “Pretty sure they were saying something about 60 percent alcohol. Didn’t even say which alcohol, just the percentage.”

“And yet you still chose to drink it,” Soobin commented drily.

“Well, I’m no scientist, Soobinnie. As you must be well aware, I’m the dummy of this place, so let me have my bad choices.”

“Hyung…” Soobin looked stricken, eyes boring into Yeonjun’s as he helped him slowly sit down on the bench in front of their T-Rex. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

Yeonjun shrugged: “Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. It depends on the day if I believe it, but plenty of the others do, so…it’s true enough in a way.”

“It’s bullshit!” Soobin spat, eyes fierce in a way Yeonjun hadn’t seen before. “If anybody truly thinks that, they’re the dummies. What use does their research ultimately have if only the academic elite know about it? And how long will they be able to even do research without interest and funding? This place needs you, Yeonjun. Trust me, I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, and I can tell how much you’ve improved it already. So don’t ever think about yourself like that, okay?”

He couldn’t do much more than nod weakly. This – someone noticing what he did, and why it was important – was all he’d wanted since starting. Working at the Seoul Natural History Museum had been a nostalgic dream from his middle school years that he spent there on his search for dinosaur boy. He hasn’t found him, but he’d found a deep love for the place itself and what it stood for instead. Those were the roots of his career, and coming back had always been in the back of his head.

When it happened, though, it was disappointing. Because nobody really wanted the work he was so keen on doing. They wanted the results, sure, but when it came to doing their part he was nothing but a nuisance holding them back from the actual research. From the meaningful tasks.

So for Soobin to stand over him and stare him down, eyes blazing, as he lectured him on how meaningful his job was? That meant the world.

(And if the lack of honorifics sent his head spinning, that was neither here nor there.)

“Soobinnie,” he finally whispered and pulled him down on the bench beside him. Their hands were still connected. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for, hyung,” Soobin hummed, “it’s just stupid to think your job is less important just because you’re not dating a bunch of rocks or bones or whatever. If anything, I should be thanking you.”

“Hm? What for?”

Shyness overtaking him once more, Soobin looked away. If not for the hand squeezing his own tightly, Yeonjun would have thought it to be avoidance, but he’d also come to learn that Soobin rarely truly avoided things.

“For listening to me ramble. You always listen, even when I’ve told you the same thing before or it’s something super lame or technical. I know…” he looked over nervously, biting his lip before he continued: “I know part of that is your job. You have to listen to me to know what to communicate. But even beyond that, you listen really well. I don’t think anyone else has…ever.”

Ever? 

Surely his parents would have– or a friend..?

“I listen because it’s interesting. Because I really like it when you talk about stuff you’re passionate about. Or…anything else, really. Even the laundry you forgot and left to rot in your laundry machine for a week.” 

Beside him, Soobin snorted. Yeonjun could have left it at that, the mood was sufficiently lifted. They could move on to lighter topics, topics that didn’t make his heart race.

But Soobin had given him an opening, and he wasn’t going to let it pass without trying. One last time, he’d tried to make himself clear:

“It’s not my job, Soobin.” 

He looked straight at him, surprised to see traces of tipsiness on his face too. He’d assumed Soobin was entirely sober, but maybe not. Maybe the uncharacteristic openness had taken  some liquid courage after all.

“Hm?”

“It’s not my job. That’s not why I go to lunch with you all the time, or listen to you. I could write you an email or set up a monthly meeting like I do with most of the others.” He cleared his throat, taking every bit of courage he had to say: “I do those things for you. Because I like…”

…spending time with you.

…talking to you.

…watching your face light up when you talk.

A million things to say, some more ambiguous than others. He liked many things about Soobin. Liked doing things with him. But when it came down to it…

“…you. Because I like you.”

“Hyung–“

“I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable,” he continued before Soobin had time to react, “we can forget about this, if you want. Leave it to be drunken rambling–“

“No,” Soobin interrupted with another squeeze of his hand, “no hyung, I don’t think I want to forget.”

And with that he leaned in to kiss Yeonjun. Right underneath the giant replica skull of the T-Rex skeleton.

While their talk had sobered Yeonjun up significantly, the kiss pulled him back under. The world around them faded away, leaving only Soobin’s warmth and the contrast of the cold stone bench underneath them. Warm hand in his, just the slightest hint of sweat after holding on for so long. Warm breath shared between them. Warm, plush lips pressing gently, like a question. As timid yet oddly certain as Soobin himself.

Yeonjun sighed into the kiss, let himself lean closer. He wanted to be one with this warmth, wanted to sink into it and hold onto Soobin forever.

The younger seemed to agree. When Yeonjun had dazedly attempted to climb into his lap, Soobin had held him back by his hip and whispered: “Want to come back to my place instead?”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what you call a dino-score.

“Fuck yeah,” he whispered back.

…

The ride to Soobin’s apartment was both awkward and not. Awkward, because they really should be kissing, not awkward because it never was with Soobin.

Yeonjun felt…at peace. As if they were really going home, not home to Soobin’s. Not to hook up and then be left to figure out what that meant.

Was this a one night stand, he wondered briefly. He’d said that he liked Soobin, but the other hadn’t responded. He might not feel the same way..

But it wasn’t like Soobin to play with people’s feelings. He took things seriously. 

He cared. Yeonjun trusted that fact.

And they seemed to be on the same page when it came to their need for closeness. For the entire ride, Soobin didn’t let go of Yeonjun’s hand. He kept a tight hold on it on their way up, made sure to carefully switch hands as he unlocked the door and pulled him through it with his left instead.

Once the door closed behind them, everything else fell away. Yeonjun’s world was reduced to sensation, to the same warmth from earlier, only more intense. Finally, Soobin had let go of his hand, only to pull him in by his hips and kiss him breathless. 

He distantly thought that this moment would stay with him. That one day, this would be a core memory, and this man before him someone he’d always recognize. Warm and slightly chapped lips, tasting of remnants of punch – that was Soobin. And Yeonjun couldn’t wait to find out what else.

They stumbled through the apartment, hands restlessly moving and tugging on each other, the air between them filled with quiet laughter whenever they bumped into something.

“Sorry, almost there,” Soobin mumbled.

“I don’t care, Soobin, just get me to your bed,” he mumbled back, before pulling the taller down into another kiss.

He shouldn’t have provoked him, maybe, because the next thing he knew was his world tilting on its axis, falling away from Soobin’s warmth and onto cool, soft sheets. he gasped belatedly as he felt something fuzzy against his cheek. instinctively, he reached for it and looked.

“Oh hyung, don’t–“ Soobin said weakly, but even if he’s finished the sentence, Yeonjun wouldn’t have heard him.

He was holding a velociraptor plushie. Well-loved and worn, its pretty green-blue faded into a brownish shade but clearly a velociraptor.

A velociraptor he’d purchased some fifteen years ago, if he wasn’t completely insane.

“I know you,” he whispered, completely aghast.

Soobin blinked at him, unsure: “Uhm, I’d hope so by now?”

“No, I mean I know you. Soobin, you– you’re the dinosaur boy. We met as kids in the paleontology exhibit and you told me everything. I thought you were the coolest person ever so I ended up getting you–“

“– a Velociraptor plushie. Yeah hyung…I remember. I uh, I always have.”

Soobin had known?

“From the beginning?!” he gasped.

Soobin nodded, suddenly pale under Yeonjun’s shell-shocked look: “I uh…I got really excited but clearly you didn’t remember and it’s been so long and we only met once as kids. I didn’t want to make it weird. I don’t want to make it weird now, the plushie is just sentimental to me but I swear I’m not like obsessed with you.”

Without even blinking, Yeonjun shot back: “I went to the natural history museum 58 times that year.”

“Huh?” Soobin blinked down at him owlishly.

“I went every weekend, sometimes on both days even, because I was hoping to see you again,” he confessed. It was embarrassing, sure, but the lumpy dinosaur plushie in his hands told him that he needed to say it.

“Huh?!” Soobin made again, even more taken aback.

“If anyone was obsessed, Soobinnie, it was me. I had the biggest fucking crush on this cute dinosaur boy but he never came back to the museum. So I started looking at all the exhibitions to pass the time while looking for you and that’s…how I fell for Science Communication.”

“Hyung–” Soobin’s mouth was gaping unattractively (or as unattractive as he could be to Yeonjun, which wasn’t really unattractive at all).

“So yeah,” he coughed, embarrassed to continue, “I forgot your name and I didn’t recognize your face as an adult, but Soobin– don’t ever think you weren’t important to me to. you’re the reason i’m getting a fucking PhD in Science Communication, okay? And the reason I’m working at the natural history museum in Seoul–“

“You’re the reason I came to work there too!” Soobin blurted out. “Not that I actually hoped to find you there, but that day I was so happy. None of my friends wanted to listen to me talk about dinosaurs, everybody was sick of me being a know it all, but you listened to it all and even asked questions and got me Junniesaurus–“

“You named it–“ Yeonjun interrupted, hands clenching into the softness of the plushie.

Soobin nodded, looking at it fondly.

“– after you, yeah. Maybe I was a little bit obsessed with you too.”

“Why didn’t you ever come back then?”

“I lived in Ansan, hyung, and my parents usually worked on the weekends. That day was a special treat because my mom had time off, but they didn’t usually have that time to take me, back then.”

“Oh…that…yeah, that makes sense.” His mom had told him it might be something like that a million times, but Yeonjun had stubbornly insisted on going. Because maybe on the next weekend, he’d finally see him again.

“I came back later, though.” Soobin smiled, clearly a bit emotional, “In middle school, I'd take the train to Seoul when school let us out early to go to the museum. But I never saw you again and I thought you’d probably forgotten me anyway.”

“I never forgot. Just kind of…gave up on seeing you again,” he admitted. 

It sounded cold to his own ears now, just forgetting about Soobin like that, but the younger shook his head.

“I’m sorry, hyung,” he mumbled.

“What are you sorry for? Don’t be stupid, Soobin, we were kids! You couldn’t have gone there on your own.”

“But you came so many times…”

“And look where it got me! En route to an underpaid professorship in an up and coming field of study–“

Soobin snorted.

“– and into bed with you.“

He pulled on Soobin’s hand until the other settled on the bed next to him. Even has he moved, Soobin didn’t look away from Yeonjun once, eyes back to their burning intensity from earlier that night.

“So I did find you there after all. It took a solid 17 years, but look at us. we’re here, together.” He picked up the plushie and turned it in his hands. “And you kept this. I can’t believe you did, and that you came back too. Soobin, I–“

A pair of plush lips stopped him from ending that sentence. They were more forceful though, this time. As though admitting the time that had passed between them has increased the urgency, had translated into every push and nip of Soobin’s lips.

When he pulled back, he confessed in a hushed voice: “Hyung. Even when I thought you didn’t remember me at all, I liked you so much.”

The admission made Yeonjun’s heart race. Soobin liked him. He liked him back!!

Still, there was one thing he had to make clear: “I do remember you though.”

“I know. And that– god, it shouldn’t matter but it feels like it does. To me it really, really does,” Soobin admitted quietly.

“To me as well. Soobin…a part of me has been waiting for you all this time.”

“So after tonight…” the younger asked, carefully neutral though his expression betrayed his hope.

“Let me take you on a date,” Yeonjun rushed to answer, “Tomorrow morning. The second we wake up I'm dragging you out with me. We’re gonna do this right, Choi Soobin. I’m not letting you slip away again.”

Soobin giggled: “We work at the same place, hyung. I can hardly slip away–“

“As a colleague maybe. But not as my boyfriend.”

Soobin gasped, eyes going wide, blush high on his cheeks.

“I– I mean if that’s what you want too.” Yeonjun was fairly certain he did, but maybe… “I don’t want to presume– I just thought we’d go on a date and then–“

“I'll be your boyfriend. Date or not, I’m not slipping away, hyung. I’ve wanted to ask you out since I first realized who you were. I knew I was being stupid and sentimental and you could be an entirely different person now, but after that first lunch together I was sure. You could have asked me then and I would have agreed.”

He felt breathless at these news. Soobin has been wanting to ask him out? All this time?!

“So you’ll be my…my boyfriend?”

“Yes, Junnie-hyung.”

Fuck. This was too good to be true. Yeonjun felt himself tear up, vision going blurry just as Soobin’s face dropped.

“Oh. Oh, hyung. Did I say something wrong?”

He shook his head and tried for a wobbly smile: “No you just– you called me Junnie. Like your junniesaurus and I– oh god I can't believe I'm crying right now.”

“Oh you– these are happy tears?” Soobin questioned and carefully wiped some from his face.

“Way too happy. I found you. Soobin, I found you.”

“You have,” Soobin nodded. He leaned in again for a kiss, then swung a leg across Yeonjun’s lap and let himself sink fully onto it. “And you remember me.”

“I do.”

“We’re dating.” He punctuated that fact with another kiss.

“Hell yeah we are,” Yeonjun nodded, searching for Soobin’s lips as soon as they left his.

It was quiet for a moment, save for the sound of the drawn out kisses they exchanged. Then–

“…and you’re still kinda hard.”

As if it were an enirely new discovery, Yeonjun looked down at his lap: “Uh…yeah.”

“That’s impressive.” Lifting his eyes back up to Yeonjun’s, Soobin smirked: “Are we doing that still, then?”

Were they still–

“If you still want to?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Cute. So fucking cute, the same enthusiasm as when he was talking about his research. The thought almost made him giggle.

“Be my guest then. Aince you’re the expert at digging up boners–“

“Absolutely not, you are not doing this,” Soobin groaned. “All those dino-puns were enough, please don’t–“

“But baby, I'm pretty sure there’s a rare type of schlongosaurus buried in my pants.”

“I can't believe i agreed to be your boyfriend. Can I–“

“No take-backsies!” Yeonjun hissed playfully, “You’re stuck with me for at least the next megaannum.“

“So you’re not just planning our wedding or joint funeral, you’re looking all the way towards fossilization with me?” Soobin chuckled, nudging his nose against Yeonjun’s cheek gently.

He nodded, glad Soobin wouldn’t be able to see just how silly his smile was in this moment: “The most romantic conjoined fossil ever, Soobinnie. Pompeii couples will have nothing on us.”

“Yeah? I kind of like that. Can’t believe I do, but I guess I'll fossilize with you," Soobin murmured before leaning down again to place a soft kiss on the older’s lips. “My Junnie.”

Fighting the blush from hearing the nickname again, Yeonjun harrumphed: “Before fossilizing, could we get to fucking though?”

“I don't know, is that schlongosaurus in your pants still up for it?”

“Alive and roaring to go.”

“Actually, the research is pretty firm on the theory that dinosaurs didn’t roar at all, you know. It was probably more of a coo, like bigger birds–“

“Soobin. Baby. I love your dino-nerd talk, but I would love it even more if you touched my dick while you told me all about the way ostriches boom and how dinosaurs probably sounded similar to them.”

“You know that?!” Soobin gasped, eyes going all sparkly.

“Of course I do,” he snorted, “I may not be neck deep in research like you are, but I keep up to date with the more popular theories.”

“You– why–? That doesn’t even have anything to do with the museum.”

Yeonjun shrugged, easily admitting: “cause you love it. I've always enjoyed dinosaur stuff and even more since that day, so it became a habit. And since we have lunch together, I try to make sure I can follow along with your tangents without having to interrupt you for basic questions, so–“

“Give me that schlongosaurus,” Soobin blurted and scrambled for the button on Yeonjun’s pants.

“Wha– what the–?” he huffed, startled by the rapid change of pace. 

It didn’t deter Soobin in the slightest, nimble fingers working as he shook his head, dimples popping from the determined frown on his face.

“Fuck hyung, you just– you’re so perfect. so hot and such a fucking nerd too, even for my interests. I’m so into you, you have no idea,'' Soobin babbled as he pulled Yeonjun’s pants and briefs down just enough for his half hard dick to pop out. It was filling out rapidly at the praise Soobin was heaping on him, though.

He whimpered in anticipation as Soobin reached out to finally touch it, but the younger suddenly stopped, just millimeters away from the hot skin, and asked with big, innocent eyes: “It won’t attack me, will it hyung?”

“Huh?”

“Is the schlongosaurus a carnivore?”

“you– what the– just touch it soobin, please!”

Soobin grinned darkly, enjoying paying back the teasing: “I gotta be diligent as a researcher here. I’ve never handled a schlongosaurus that is alive and roaring to go so–“

“You said they don’t roar–“

“Dinosaurs don’t, but who am I to know what your schlongosaurus–“

“Oh god, please stop calling it that and just touch me, Soobin!”

“Oh? No dinosaur puns anymore?”

“Noooo.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes, yes, I promise okay, no more stupid– ahh…”

And there, finally, was the touch he’d craved. Even better, from the boy he’d been searching for more than half his life. 

Yeonjun couldn’t believe his luck. He was going to spend the night with the hottest dinosaur nerd in all of Korea.

And after tonight? There would be so much dino-more to explore together. 

Yeah, he really couldn’t wait for the next megaannum with Soobin.