Archive of Our Own

“Dude,” Felix says, plopping back down on the mattress, “are you the one who keeps pissing all over the toilet seat?” 

Jisung’s heavy-lidded eyes bounce open. He must have been heartbeats away from falling asleep. “Huh?” 

“Do you piss with your eyes closed?” 

Finally blinking his way back into existence, Jisung shrugs with effort, his body too heavy for itself. “Sometimes, yeah. When I don’t want to sit down.” Felix shoves him, and he shoves right back with a grin. “Bro, you know I’m scared of heights.” 

Laughter bubbles out of Felix’s chest like a shaken soda can. “I feel that. Pissing scares me, too.” Jisung squints at him, shifty. “Bro, you know I’m scared of pretty men. What if I catch my own reflection in the bowl?” 

His heart races when Jisung giggles—fully giggles instead of his posh boy laugh that sounds like he summers (as a verb) on Jeju. He shakes his head to clear out the Etch A Sketch of his brain and shuffles forward to start the next episode, trying to keep his attention on the show they'd been watching as he sits back on his mattress and knocks his knee against Jisung’s. They finish their bottles of soju and make it through the previous episode recap, opening credits, and first few scenes without incident, but…

When Felix had asked Jisung to have some drinks and check out the new viral historical drama together, he’d made five crucial oversights: 

1. Jisung is a horny drunk. 

2. Felix is a horny drunk. 

3. Jisung’s alcohol tolerance is so bad that a larger-than-average toddler could match him shot for shot. 

4. Felix has always had a soft spot for needy, pretty boys. 

“Lix-ah…” Jisung mumbles, gaze on Felix’s enormous computer monitor but mind lost somewhere else in the haze. His cheeks, nose, and ears are flushed and shiny—dewy sweat glowing under the shitty yellow dorm lighting, glimmering in the blue light from the screen—but not as glittery as his mouth, sticky with too much soju and not enough water. 

It’s not until his face swivels over that Felix realizes he never responded. 

“Uh…” He blinks, licks his lips—wishes they tasted like Jisung’s unique blend of spit, soju, and water instead of his own. “What?”

“Felix,” Jisung says, loud and firm enough that it solidifies into something tangible, but he drifts off again, distracted by his own drooping eyelids. “I love you so much, dog.” 

5. Felix is grotesquely, irreparably, and unfathomably down-bad in love with Jisung.

“Jisung, I—” Felix starts. Stops. He shouldn’t—he can’t—because it would ruin everything, but his thoughts are loose—loose and scattered like grains of sand, and suddenly he’s sitting at the beach in Australia, dragging his little hands through the sand, scooping it into his palms and watching it trickle through the gaps between his fingers. He’s rubbing his hands together, shivering at the texture of the grains stuck to the sweat and seawater on his skin. 

Then Jisung reaches over and tugs one of Felix’s hands free to lace their fingers together, and Felix is back in the reality where he’s drunk in his dorm with the man who’s made his own home in Felix’s thoughts and dreams. 

A part of him stays on the beach, watching the sand get between his toes, where it’ll rub a blister so painful and swollen that Felix can’t ever walk away from this moment. But the other part of him—the part that’s nestled between his and Jisung’s fingers, grinding the grains deeper and deeper into his skin and sanding them both down smooth so that they fit together like puzzle pieces—is so much louder, so much more.

“I love you too,” he says, voice thick and so deep that it draws a shiver out of Jisung. “I…” He forgets momentarily how to talk, because Jisung’s resulting grin is sloppy, never shy to show how much he loves Felix’s lower registers, and his pink tongue darts out to slip over his bottom lip. There’s a slick, shiny residue left behind, and Felix needs to taste him. 

“Jisung, I’m gonna say something, and it doesn’t have to mean anything.” 

It doesn’t have to, but it will. At least to Felix, who has tucked those grains of sand deep inside his shell and smoothened their sharp edges into beautiful pearls that he’d love to string together and adorn Jisung’s pretty neck. 

“And you can’t—you shouldn’t get freaked out. Like, don’t freak out, okay? You can say ‘no,’ and I won’t be upset or anything, I promise. I just...”

His words are viscous, stumbling into each other and jumbling in the air, tangled and tacky like his fingers rubbing against the neck of the empty honey lemon soju bottle he’s gripping, syrupy residue on the glass. He watches the hwarang's flashy swordsmanship on the screen of his monitor and can’t remember for the life of him who is or who he’s supposed to be fighting. 

“Why won’t you look at me?” Jisung asks, and Felix can hear the smile in his voice. 

He swallows hard but forces himself to look and see the way Jisung's grin is loosely tacked up on one side, boyish and charming. “I told you,” he breathes. “I’m scared of pretty men.” 

“I love you,” Jisung says again, and Felix’s heart slams against his sternum. 

“Wanna kiss?” 

“What?” 

Jisung’s whole face has gone slack. Felix clears his throat and says, “I just really want to make out with you. We should platonically kiss. Nasty style.” 

Here’s the thing: Jisung is ostensibly straight, in that he says that he’s straight and has only ever chickened out of hitting on girls at parties. But here’s another thing: Felix is fairly certain that Jisung is at least bisexual, if his reaction to meeting Lee Minho (a seven-minute rant about how men shouldn’t be allowed to be that pretty) has any merit.

Conclusion: there’s a solid chance that Jisung might say yes, and Felix is nothing if not a go-getter when it comes to his dreams. 

With uncharacteristic coordination, Jisung reaches over to pluck the bottle out of Felix’s hand, setting it on the floor with a little clunk before taking Felix’s other hand, too. He swings his leg over Felix’s, climbing into his lap. 

“That’s such a good idea,” he says, and Felix just breathes, because it’s all he can do when every single muscle in his body has tensed up. “We should kiss about it.” Then he blinks his enormous, round tapioca-pearl eyes directly into Felix’s face. “I’m straight, though. No homo.” 

“No homo,” Felix lies eagerly. 

Jisung throws his head back and laughs, the deep and rich one straight from his belly, but the sudden movement knocks him off balance. He squeezes Felix’s hands tighter to keep himself upright, only to overcorrect and collapse forward with the confidence that Felix will support his weight. Which he does. “No homo,” he laughs into the crook of Felix’s neck before pulling back. They’re so close now that Felix can feel his breath on his skin—can nearly hear the thrumming of his pulse. 

“Wanna suck face, baby?” 

“Hell yeah.” 

If he weren’t perceiving things through the haze of alcohol, Felix would convince himself that he’s hallucinating the way Jisung’s smile softens into something tender, but as it is, he just leans forward to smooch the tip of his sloped nose. Jisung giggles, and Felix’s fibrillating heart latches onto his ribs and shakes, rattling the bars of its cage with a new desperation. 

“You’re so cute. I love you so much,” Jisung whispers, and he leans forward, pressing his lips against Felix’s for the first time. They’re chapped and sticky, plush and hesitant, and absolutely perfect—until they pull away too soon, and Felix blinks his eyes open to see Jisung’s sheepish expression as he swallows. He watches Jisung's heart-shaped Adam’s apple bob in his throat and is struck with the desire to lick it. Would it taste like a heart-shaped candy? 

“Lix-ah,” Jisung says in the same tone he uses when he’s asking to copy Felix’s English homework. “Can I touch your freckles?” 

Felix isn’t sure what kind of face he makes, but it’s clearly not the right one, because Jisung’s eyebrows start to crumple. “Of course, yeah,” he says. “You can touch all you want.” 

He should have known that reassurance would set Jisung at ease, smooth the wrinkles in his forehead; he’s always sought praise, basked in acknowledgement, and glowed with encouragement—it makes sense that this would be the same. 

“You gotta be careful with that,” Jisung says, eyes wide and guileless. “You’re so pretty, I might not be able to stop.” When he releases Felix’s hands to cup his face, Felix tucks his small fingers around Jisung’s tapered waist, digs his fingertips into the soft flesh. “So, so pretty.” 

“You’re so pretty.” 

“Not as pretty as my baby,” Jisung purrs, rubbing their noses together. Felix huffs out a little laugh before Jisung runs his thumbs over Felix’s nose, the apples of his cheeks, the arches of his cheekbones like they’re made of porcelain. His left thumb is soft, but his right thumb is calloused from guitar strings, and it brings Felix back to the sand on the beach for just a heartbeat—sandpaper rubbing away at his last defenses. 

Then Jisung frowns, which makes Felix frown. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” 

“I don’t know why I thought they’d feel different,” Jisung says, disappointed—not in Felix, but in himself. “Like, I thought they’d feel like braille or something.” 

Felix laughs—not at Jisung, but at the situation—but also a little at Jisung. “Why don’t we make out and see if they get hard?” 

Then Jisung’s laughing too, and then they’re kissing again, but it’s different than before. Where earlier, their fingers were tentative, Jisung now snakes his hands around to the back of Felix’s neck, threading through his overgrown hair to pull him even closer, to seemingly try and press every part of his body to Felix’s. 

The wetter their mouths get, the less Felix can feel Jisung’s chapped skin, but he can’t find it in himself to miss it when Jisung finally starts swiping his tongue along Felix’s lower lip. He tastes like plum soju and chocolate, and his spit is thick as it coats Felix’s tongue when he licks into him. A deep groan erupts from Felix’s throat as his cock twitches in his pants. This is going to ruin him, but he can’t stop his fingers from slipping underneath Jisung’s soft, well-worn tee, grazing his flank and mapping his goosebumps. 

“Lixie,” he whimpers, gasping into Felix’s mouth, “‘m sensitive.” 

Felix laughs, but it’s muffled onto Jisung’s tongue. “I’m sorry, baby,” he says, voice deeper than he can usually get even when he tries. “Can I—”

“Yes, god, yes—anything, I just need—” Jisung pants, cutting himself off with a strangled groan when Felix digs his blunt fingernails into his back, relishing the growing muscles there. “Please, please.” 

Fuck, he’s so needy, and it’s melting Felix’s brain. He runs his fingertips up and down Jisung’s spine, dull nails scraping over his silky skin, and feels the shiver that courses through him when he kisses Jisung again and laps at his tongue. With a whimper, Jisung starts to grind his cock into Felix’s lap. His soft sweat shorts do nothing to restrain his hardness as it rubs against Felix’s own half-chub, and it doesn’t take much to have Felix fully hard, not when he has everything he’s wanted in his small hands. 

He pulls off Jisung's mouth with a heavy breath, partly because he doesn’t want anything to muffle Jisung’s desperate little noises but partly because he needs more. A thin string of spit connects them, and Jisung’s cute, pink tongue darts out to lick it up. Felix can’t help but kiss him again, sucking at his tongue and grinding their cocks together. Once he’s satisfied, he starts pressing his spit-slick lips into the corner of Jisung’s mouth, then into his plush cheek, then into the hinge of his jaw, pulling his teeth along the skin and drawing out high-pitched noises that are so pathetic that they make him move his hands down to Jisung’s hips and yank him forward to get more pressure on their cocks. 

Jisung had shaved this morning. Felix had watched him carefully drag his fancy razor through even fancier shaving cream, bragging that his splurge had been worth it—that he could almost go two full days between shaves. Felix mourns that now as he laves at his jaw, as if trying to dig out the hairs that are buried there. 

“Dude, your skin is so soft,” he mumbles, instead of something like I’ve always loved you or please stop shaving.  

Jisung laughs; it rumbles deep in his throat, prickling Felix’s lips and tongue—like the fast food sodas that Jisung always whines are “too spicy,” so Felix has to finish them for him while Jisung watches the way Felix’s throat bobs, and Felix convinces himself that he’s imagining it. 

“Thanks,” Jisung says, and his voice cracks. “I grew it myself.” 

Overwhelmed with equal parts adoration and lust, Felix can do nothing else but sink his teeth back into Jisung’s skin, rutting their cocks together until Jisung lets out a helpless sound that baits a growl from Felix’s chest. 

Suddenly, Jisung pulls back, eyes wide and face red—not just from the alcohol. 

“Ah, I…” he says, and Felix has trouble processing his words because of how kiss-swollen his lips look. “We should sleep. Right? We should go to bed?”

Felix wants to say no, we should keep eating each other’s faces and probably cum about it, but this has been a lot for Jisung, who is “straight” and just signed up for a drunken kiss and a light makeout session with his gay roommate (who is secretly in love with him). 

“Yeah, baby,” he says, running his hands down Jisung’s back one more time in case this is the last time Jisung ever lets him touch like this, “let’s go to sleep.” 

Once Jisung climbs out of Felix’s lap, Felix gets up to turn off the drama and collect the empty bottles to toss them in the recycling. As he walks around their dorm, he lets the alcohol content in his blood choke out his boner. Jisung doesn’t leave Felix’s bed. Instead, he wriggles his way into the covers, and when Felix comes back, he just lifts up the sheet and shifts over. It won’t be the first time they’ve shared a bed, and Felix hopes it won’t be the last. They should talk about it—make sure that everything is okay—but the alcohol and the hour overwhelm him, and he finds his own eyelids growing heavier and heavier. 

“I love you, dude,” Jisung says quietly, tucked between the sheets, the wall, and the darkness. “No homo.”

Felix smiles, and his heart pounds beneath his sternum. “I love you, too.” 

They’ll talk about it in the morning. 

They don’t talk about it in the morning. 

Felix isn’t necessarily surprised. When they wake, limbs tangled together with the midday sun wrapping around their skin, Jisung’s whole body stiffens up. When they raid their fridge and devour their emergency kimbap stash, Jisung’s leg bounces so hard that it shakes their shitty little dining table. When Felix tries to test the waters, Jisung does that thing he does where he says so much but never really answers the question. 

“Last night? That actress is, uh, she’s hot, huh? And I think it’s interesting that they’re hybridizing two different mythos, though I’m sure they’re just getting both of them so wrong that it’s almost like neither of the stories are getting told,” he says around the kimbap stuffed in his cheeks, gaze trapped on the ceiling as he thinks about his words. “That’s always my biggest issue with historical fiction, but I guess that’s what makes it historical fiction. So you can’t be too mad about it.” Then he scoops up his trash and says, “Fuck, dude. I need a shower so bad.” 

And that’s the end of it, really. 

He leaves Felix to finish his own kimbap, drink his morning water-and-olive oil hangover cure, and get his morning cigarettes-for-eyes (social media doomscroll) on by himself. Again, Felix isn’t surprised, but he does find himself disappointed and mentally kicks himself for it—they had said “no homo.” 

“Lix-ah,” Jisung calls once he’s back from the shower and in a fresh pair of sweat shorts and an oversized hoodie. “Are we still going to Jackson’s party next week?”

“Why wouldn’t we?” There’s a strange look on Jisung’s face that Felix wants to kiss away. “Do you not want to go?” 

“Uh, it’s not that,” Jisung shuffles where he’s standing by his bed, stepping on his own socked toes like a cat making biscuits. “If I’m being open, honest, and vulnerable, I’m always just lowkey terrified that one day I’ll wake up, and all my friends will have decided that they hate me.”

Felix can’t help but laugh when Jisung pouts at him. It would be impossible to hate him; Jisung is one of the most lovable people in the world. “Jisungie, that kind of thing only happens in movies.” Jisung shakes his head.

“No, it definitely happened to me before. When I was thirteen.” 

Felix blinks as Jisung sinks into his desk chair and takes a sip from the water cup that’s been sitting on his desk for at least 24 hours, wincing at the taste. 

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah, it was pretty bad. That’s why I was homeschooled and took the high school graduate equivalency exam instead of finishing school.” He moves to take another sip of water before apparently thinking better of it and huddles into himself. “So.” 

“Dude, Jisungie, baby,” Felix manages to say as he clamors across their tiny dorm to wedge himself into Jisung’s desk chair with him. He doesn’t even get hard about how much of their skin is pressed together, or how pretty Jisung looks when his big doe eyes fill up with tears. Okay, he gets a little hard about it, but he angles his hips in a way that Jisung can’t feel it. “That’s so fucked up. I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Jisung tries to shrug, but Felix is cocooned around him, so it doesn’t do much. “Who knows? They sucked, but like, they were the friends I had, so…” 

“I promise you,” Felix says, “I’ll never leave you. No matter what.” 

With one big sniff, Jisung huffs. “Thank you.” 

“Wanna skip Jackson’s and just hang out here? We can finish that drama, or Cross some Animals, or I can invite Seungminnie and Hyunjinnie over for a Beyblade tournament.” 

The laugh that bubbles out of Jisung is a bit wobbly, but still light. “Nah, that’s okay. I think getting out and seeing friends will help,” he says. “But thank you.” 

When Felix pulls back to look at Jisung’s face, he sees a softness around his big, wet boba eyes. “Of course, baby.” He plants a kiss on the center of Jisung’s forehead—right on the divet of his scar. “Now, let’s hydrate and do that diff e-q assignment. I think I’ll peel all my skin off if I have to do it by myself.” 

After they finish their differential equations assignment (during which Jisung tells Felix that he’ll "understand when he’s older” no fewer than five times), things go back to normal. 

Well, mostly. 

They walk to class together, they do their mutual classwork together, and they play games together. Jisung even watches Felix play insta-lock Yasuo mid and pretend like he’s streaming (for practice), and he pretends to be Twitch Chat and only gets distracted by Instagram Reels twice. 

For the most part, things are fine. 

But there are some key differences: sometimes, Felix will walk into the dorm, and Jisung will slam his laptop shut or throw his phone on his desk like he’s been jerking off, but he won’t be hard, flushed, or even have to wrench his hand out of his pants; other times, Felix will wake up in the middle of the night to see Jisung scrolling on his phone, which isn’t out of the ordinary on its own, but what is abnormal is that he’s reading instead of watching short-form video content. 

The only conclusion that Felix can come to is that something is bothering him enough for him to research it obsessively, but it’s embarrassing enough that he doesn’t want to talk about it. And as much as Felix wants to pry, he is the one who sprung a makeout session on the guy, so the least he can do is give him the space he’s clearly asking for. 

He acts like everything is fine, because honestly, it really is. Jisung is allowed his secrets (Felix has to keep reminding himself). When Friday rolls around again, they even get dressed for Jackson’s party together (thankfully, because they can’t both show up in oversized jorts and a baggy designer tee again, so Felix makes the last-minute decision to switch to his baggy streetwear-style jeans, and Jisung swaps to his tight-fit long-sleeved shirt that makes his chest and biceps look divine). They break down all the assignments they need to finish this weekend after they recover from the party on their bus ride there. Everything is operating normally. 

Once they get to Jackson’s house, Felix makes it two minutes and one room away from Jisung before he is accosted with the consequences of his own actions. 

“A little birdie told me that you and Jisungie kissed,” Minho purrs at him over the rim of his cup as he joins him at the kitchen counter. “So?”

Felix quirks a brow, and his heartbeat quickens—a prey response. “So what?” He tries to go back to making drinks, but Minho snatches the plastic cups out of his hands and starts doing it himself. “Did Jisung tell you?”

Minho, as he is wont to do, chooses to ignore what Felix says. “So? Are y’all dating? Who started it? When did it happen?”

With a labored sigh, Felix holds up fingers as he answers Minho’s questions. “No, we’re not dating. I started it. It happened last weekend.” He lets the information settle in Minho’s brain before trying his own question again. “Who told you?”

“Hmm,” Minho carefully pours various liquors and mixers into the cups as he decides how he wants to answer. “I think Jisungie must have told Jongho who told Eunkwang-hyung at choir practice. Eunkwang-hyung told Minhyuk-hyung who told me, Hyunjinnie, and Wooyoung at dance practice.” 

“Oh my god. If Eunkwang-hyung knows, Seungmin knows,” Felix says before his belated realization: if Hyunjin knows, their whole friend group knows. “So everyone knows.” 

Shrugging, Minho sticks out his tongue to lap at one of the drinks, scrunching up his nose at it. “Yeah, basically,” he says, adding another splash of mixer.  

“Fuck.” Felix sinks against the counter, ignoring how it digs painfully into his back. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

“Is it really so bad?” When Minho passes a drink over, Felix immediately drains half of it. 

“What, that I drunkenly made out with my best friend who I—uh,” he says, then bites his own tongue and winces visibly at the shock of pain. Fuck, it hurts so much more in real life than it does in the books and fanfics—what the fuck? He soothes it against the back of his teeth. 

Minho’s gaze never falters, pupils dilated; he’s locked in on the hunt. He doesn’t even laugh at Felix causing himself pain. “Your best friend who you…?” 

“It’s nothing.” Felix sighs, chewing on the rim of the cup. “Jisungie’s shy. And straight. And there’s no way he doesn’t find out that everyone else knows like… immediately.” 

After some more finessing with mixers, Minho finishes Jisung’s drink and sets it in front of Felix’s unoccupied hand. “I know how shy and 'straight' Jisungie is,” he says, too gently for how predatory his body language is. “But I also know that he’s the one who talked about it in the first place.” 

“Yeah, but he told Jongho, not you or Chris-hyung or Changbinnie-hyung,” Felix argues, fighting the urge to nibble at his lips when he realizes that he’s about to crack his cup. “That’s weird.” 

Minho takes a breath, holds it, then lets it out through his nose a few seconds later. “Yeah, because if I made out with my gay awakening who I had unrecognized feelings for, I would try to make sure my friend group never found out, too.” Then he blinks a few times. “Damn, none of us can keep a fucking secret, can we?” 

“I need more alcohol,” Felix says in lieu of a real response as he pours half of Jisung’s drink into his own cup. Jisung doesn’t need it anyway, lightweight that he is. “I can’t live like this.” 

“Lixie, look,” Minho puts his cute little hand on Felix’s shoulder. “Jisungie isn’t stupid—”

“He’s actually so smart,” Felix blurts. "He's only an electrical engineering major because it was the closest thing to music production he could actually get a job in while appeasing his parents, and he’s still beating me in all our engineering courses."

“Yes, I know,” Minho says, placating, because of course he already knew all of that. “He is also super fucking oblivious, so you’ll have to spell things out for him.” 

“I—”

“Last week, he told me that he doesn’t know if you’re gay.” 

Felix opens his mouth, then closes it again. In Jisung’s defense, Felix isn’t gay, not that he’s really pressed about labels, but he has only actually ever told one person that he’s specifically gay. It was an American exchange student he met at a church group in Australia. She’d asked Felix if he was “metrosexual,” and Felix had immediately said, “I’m gay, so just call me a slur next time.” 

He hopes she’s doing well. 

Even after moving to Korea, he never got to “come out,” as it were. He was sort of diagnosed LGBTQ+ by peer review and never bothered with the specificities. 

“Minho-hyung—”

“I’m not telling you what to do. I’m just saying that I know Han Jisung, and he’s not going to say anything until it’s killing him to keep it inside. Then he’ll get all distant and snappy and bitey until he explodes with it all, and it’ll be super dramatic. I know the ball should be in his, uh, field? But you’re… still pitching? It’s your possession?” Minho scratches the back of his head, and his ears flush red. “Whatever. You can make your own sports metaphor.” 

As much turmoil as this conversation has churned in Felix’s gut, none of it is new distress, per se. It’s just more of the same old shit, now stirred up and aggravating—like when he was a kid and “dusted” the house for his mom with a dry sheet of notebook paper. 

“Thanks, hyung,” Felix says anyway. “For, uh, letting me know.” 

Minho nods, then finishes his own drink in one gulp. “Now, I’m gonna go get laid. Don’t ask who; I’m running a bet.” And with that, he absconds into the rest of the house, leaving Felix with two half-finished drinks and way too many thoughts. 

He eyes the drinks, then chugs them both.

Throwing two stones at the bush is as good as one bird in the hand—or something like that. 

Felix is way too drunk. Probably. 

His thoughts have unspooled themselves again, lying tangled and sloppy around his brain, and Jisung is drunk, too. He’s entirely red and can barely keep his eyes open. He’s draped his upper half on Minho, and his legs are resting on Felix’s thighs. Felix doesn’t have enough self-control to stop himself from pulling Jisung’s socks back up from where they’re bunched around his ankles. 

“Tickles,” Jisung whines into Minho’s shoulder, so Minho scratches behind his ears with one hand and rubs his back with the other. An insane wave of jealousy crashes over Felix as his fingers remember how they felt rubbing over Jisung’s skin, and his own skin burns like a jellyfish sting. 

His hands itch with the desire to pull Jisung out of Minho’s arms and into his own lap, so he shoves Jisung’s legs off of him and calls out, “bathroom!” before fleeing, lest he cause a scene. 

Closing the bathroom door in a rush, he stares at himself in the mirror in a poor attempt at a motivational speech. You can be normal, he tells himself, but his reflection is a bit spinny and doesn’t look like he’s paying very good attention. You have to lock in, dude. Calm down. He keeps clenching his hands.

He’s wondering if he should just cut his damn fingers off when someone opens the door behind him. 

“Lix-ah,” Jisung calls in his deep, velvety voice. Felix watches him in the mirror; he’s got one hand over his eyes to preserve Felix’s dignity, like they weren’t grinding on each other less than a week ago. “You okay?” 

Felix tears his eyes away, scrambles to pull his dick out to piss, then realizes that Jisung is just standing in here with him. “Uh, yeah,” he says, trying to palm his soft dick so that Jisung won’t see it if he opens his eyes. This is not the first dick-pression he wants to make. “What are you doing here?” 

“Checkin’ on you,” Jisung says, and it’s only a little slurred, which is impressive for how drunk he seems to be. “You’ve been in here like… a long time.” 

Oh. 

“Shit, my bad. I’m uh, a little,” Felix says, but Jisung is doing that cute thing he does where he tilts his head and then loses his balance a little, and Felix feels his cock hardening in his palm. Fuck. He tries to choke it off at the base, but it’s just adding stimulation, which isn’t really helping at all. “I’m a little dizzy.” 

“Me too, Jisung says, finally fully closing the door behind him so he can slide down it until he’s sitting, still covering his own eyes. “It’s really hard to have my eyes closed, actually.” 

Felix swallows hard. “You can open them. I’m just, uh, I’m pissing is all.” 

Jisung peeks at him through his fingers, then he squeals and turns his whole head away. “Bro! Just sit down!” 

That’s a good idea that Felix hadn’t thought of. Once his pants are down, he drops to the toilet seat so hard that it makes his butt-bones rattle. “Ow.” 

Jisung laughs, all ha-ha-ha like he was born to shake hands with businessmen over briefcases full of cash instead of sit on a bathroom floor with Felix. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Felix says, but it’s probably a lie. “You can open your eyes.” 

When Jisung finally does, he has to blink several times to adjust himself to the lighting in the room. It’s adorable, and it's honestly not helping the pissing process. 

Ah, fuck. This is probably how people condition themselves into a piss kink, isn't it? 

Despite his inebriation, Jisung does seem to have retained some decorum, so he turns to look at the opposite wall while he starts rattling on about the songs he wants to record with Chris and Changbin to give Felix a semblance of privacy in which to piss. 

“And we were thinkin’ that we could get Seungminne and Jeonginnie to do the chorus, and I keep trying to convince Channie-hyung to let me ask you and Minho-hyung to do the bridge, because your voices would complement each other so well, but he’s weird about Minho-hyung right now, so. It’s kind of a moot point.” 

Somewhere in the rambling, Felix does manage to piss, tuck himself back in, flush, and start washing his hands. 

“Also, Hyunjin keeps looking at me weird, which is really pissing me off and like… terrifying to me at the same time,” he goes on. “Like… is he mad at me? Does he hate me? Does he regret being my friend?” He bites his lip and finally turns back to look at Felix through the mirror, eyes wide and pleading. “Has he said anything to you?” 

Felix finishes washing his hands as fast as he can and rushes to Jisung’s side, tucking into the negative space of his body. “No, baby,” Felix coos. “He doesn’t hate you. He hasn’t said anything to me, but I know he doesn’t hate you.”

His thoughts keep slipping away, sea grass caught in the waves of alcohol, but they linger in the current long enough for Felix to think that Hyunjin is probably not sure how to address the fact that he knows—both about Felix’s feelings and the kiss(es). He’s impatient on a good day and impulsive on a bad one; the fact that he’s at all hesitant is reassuring. 

“He used to hate me,” Jisung says, jutting out his lower lip. Felix takes a deep breath so that he doesn't try to kiss it.

“Art History with Professor Choi counts as extenuating circumstances,” he murmurs, rubbing his palm over Jisung’s arm, squeezing his bicep through the thin fabric of his shirt. Hnnng. 

Be normal. 

Jisung harrumphs and mumbles something like, “At least Professor Choi understood that the symbolism of jellyfish floating through the ocean is romantic.” 

“Enough about Hyunjin.” He taps the tip of Jisung’s soft little nose. “Tell me about the song you want to record.” 

Illuminating, Jisung digs his phone out of his pocket. “Oh, dude—dude,” he says, bringing his too-bright screen right up to his face and squinting at it while he tries to input his stupidly-long passcode through the haze of myopia and intoxication. “It’s based on that dating show, Transit Love. Have you seen it?” 

Felix shakes his head and watches Jisung navigate to his internet browser and starts scanning through his 327 open tabs. 

“Fuck, dude. I have to show it to you. It’s insanely good,” he’s saying, but Felix can’t hear him anymore over the roaring in his ears, like he’s tucked his head inside a giant conch shell, because he’s staring at Jisung’s screen and reading article titles like How to Know if you’re Gay and Am I Gay Quiz and When a Kiss Moves from Platonic to Romantic (and other Socially Awkward Questions) and Boys Love Doesn’t Have To Be Homosexual: a Guide to the In-Between Sexualities and What is Douching? An Introduction to Bottoming—

“This is the couple that inspired the song,” Jisung chirps. Felix blinks, and he’s looking at an article about two people he has never seen before. “They make me believe in love.” 

Suddenly, he’s met with Jisung’s expectant expression. 

“Aww, my Jisungie is so cute,” he tries, which seems to be a good enough response, especially when coupled with nuzzling into the crook of Jisung’s neck. He’s so sensitive and ticklish there, and he immediately starts giggling, which is a beautiful sound—until it turns into hiccuping, which means that Jisung is one wrong move away from sobbing until he fully falls asleep on the floor of this fucking bathroom. If he intervenes fast enough, though, Jisung will sober up normally; it's quite a precipitous situation. 

“Why don’t we call it quits and head back to Chris and Binnie-hyung’s, yeah?” He jostles Jisung’s shoulder to make sure he stays awake. “We can crash there, or we can head back to ours once we sober up a bit.” 

Jisung lets out a long hum as he considers it, like “Hmmmmmmm,” and it’s so goddamn precious that Felix has to press a kiss into his temple about it, and Jisung laughs. “Okay, okay. It is getting pretty late." Then he shifts. "Actually, I have to piss now, so I’ll do that while you find Channie-hyung and Changbinnie.” 

Some of the anxiety that has stitched itself into Felix's heart unwinds; if he’s able to come up with a logical plan, Felix can leave him unattended long enough to round up the troops. He ruffles Jisung’s hair then hoists himself back up to his feet before helping Jisung up, too. 

“Don’t fall in,” he says as he leaves the bathroom, hating to close the door on Jisung’s little snorts. Once in the hallway, he stretches himself out and moseys down the hallway, looking for his gaggle of friends as he goes. 

Surprisingly, he finds them right where he left them, which is bizarre and serendipitous in equal measures. Perhaps this is God rewarding him for his patience and strength of will. 

“Hey, gang,” he calls over the music, immediately grabbing their attention. “Jisung and I gotta get out of here.”

Chris nods, slapping his hands on his thighs and getting right to his feet, Changbin hot on his heels. “Alright! We’ll go do our rounds, and then we’ll be on our way!” 

Seungmin jumps up to collect whatever remains of the craft, imported beers he always hides in the fridge, and Minho groans as he gets off the couch, apparently having given up on getting laid. “Where is Jisung? Is he alright?”

“Yeah, he’s just taking a piss,” Felix says, running a hand through his hair. “He’s kind of in a weird headspace, though.”

“Is that because—” Hyunjin starts, but Jeongin slaps his hand over Hyunjin’s face before he can actually get the words out. 

There's no change for any further speculation, though, because Jisung emerges from the hallway, a bit stumbly and a bit swollen around the eyes but looking remarkably put-together for how falling-apart he seems to be on the inside—the thread slipping out of his seams. “Where are Chan and Changbin?” 

“Making their rounds,” Felix says before Minho can chastise him for speaking too casually about his elders. “We’ll leave soon.”

“It’s loud,” Jisung whines, so Felix pulls him close and cups his hands over his ears. 

“Better?”

“Mmhmm.” 

Hyunjin tries to say something that’s muffled behind Jeongin’s fingers, but Felix ignores all that in favor of having Jisung’s warm body pressed against his own. The smell of their shared shampoo, even though Felix’s is formulated for bleached hair and Jisung’s only got a perm, is comforting, and the texture of Jisung’s shirt is soft. They may be in another person’s house, but just having Jisung in his arms makes him feel like home, and the time bleeds away until Chris and Changbin return. With their fearless leaders in tow, they start the trek back to their apartment. 

The weather is nice—cool, but not cold, and there’s a delicate breeze that cards through their hair. Felix laces his fingers through Jisung’s to help them both keep their balance. Jisung spends the walk humming to himself, Felix spends it listening, and Hyunjin spends it glaring at the two of them. 

With how quickly Jisung gets drunk, he sobers up nearly just as fast. By the time they’re climbing the stairs of the apartment complex, his off-key humming has morphed into slurred freestyle rapping, and he only stumbles over a single step—not that he stops holding Felix’s hand. Maybe that’s just for Felix’s sake, though, because when he makes a particularly clever jab at Changbin, Felix laughs so hard he almost pitches over the railing. 

“Careful, baby,” Jisung laughs, and Hyunjin huffs. 

If Felix were a little more sober, he’d probably be less surprised when the moment they all get through the door and kick off their shoes, Hyunjin can’t hold it in anymore. 

“So, were you going to tell us about the kiss, or were we supposed to figure it out from fucking Jongho?” 

Jisung jumps, wrenches his hand out of Felix’s, and pulls it close to his heart like it hurts or something. Maybe it does; it hurts Felix, but that’s more of an emotional devastation sort of hurt than anything else. 

“What?” 

“What?” Hyunjin mimics, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. “You know. You and Felix. Kissing?” He rolls his eyes. “Or did you tell Jongho and then forget about it?”

Felix may have sobered up some during the walk, but not nearly as much as Jisung, so he’s still processing Hyunjin’s words when Jisung bristles and says, “Fuck you, dude. You don’t know shit about us.” 

“I know that you kissed my best friend, jackass!” Hyunjin spits, stalking close enough to dig his index finger in between Jisung’s tits. “Do you even realize—”

“Hyunjin!” 

Felix hears his own voice before he realizes that he’s spoken. Hyunjin startles, and his finger falls from Jisung’s chest. 

“You need to calm down. It’s not a big deal,” he says, because he did his time in high school drama classes and knows his way around acting. “Yes, we kissed. No, we’re not dating. It was my idea, and it was platonic and just for fun.” Hyunjin opens his mouth to talk, but Felix holds up his own hand. “We literally said ‘no homo.’” 

Seungmin sputters from the doorway of the kitchen. “You did not say ‘no homo’ out loud and mean it.”

With a weak little cough, Jisung scratches the back of his head. “Well, I mean…”

Hyunjin and Minho shriek in harmony, though one is in anguish and one is in delight. 

“Okay, okay,” Chris says, pushing past Seungmin while holding two cups of water per hand. “Why doesn’t everyone calm down and hydrate? I’m sure Jisung and Felix will be exuberant to elucidate the intricacies of their relationship—”

“Dude, I’m too drunk for words like that,” Jeongin whines, tugging at the roots of his hair. “Do they even teach those in Korean-for-Australians classes?”

Groaning, Felix shoves his hands in his pockets. “Fuck if I know. And there’s nothing else to say. Or… elucidate,” he says, rolling his eyes at Chris, who’s a bit pink around the ears. “We were watching a drama. We had some soju. We kissed. It was fine. That’s all.” 

Jisung turns his beguiling gaze to Felix. “Just fine? It wasn’t even good for you?”

Waggling his eyebrows, Felix smirks. “It was great for me, actually, but—” 

“Oh my God, I didn’t consent to this!” Seungmin wails, and he plucks one of the cups out of Chris’s hand, which makes him scramble to keep a hold on the other ones. “Do not bring your kinks to a public space!” 

Jisung stomps, indignant. “Oh, says the guy who barks on command.” 

“He’s got you there, dude,” Hyunjin says, moving his finger from Jisung to Seungmin before whipping it back to where it started. “No! I will not be distracted! You don’t just kiss your friends! What the fuck!” 

“Maybe you don’t,” Jisung says, sticking out his tongue, “but Felix and I are clearly built different.” 

Finally, Hyunjin straightens back up. “Alright. If it’s so casual and so chill, then why don’t you just kiss again? So we can all see how friendly it is!”

At that, everyone starts speaking at once, choruses of “that sounds hot” and “please just bleach my eyeballs” and “what the fuck is happening” echo around Felix’s skull and back into his brain. There’s too much going on, so all he chooses to focus on is Jisung’s red face, cherry ears, defiant little pout, the plushness of his lips, the softness of his skin—fuck, now he's distracted. 

“Fine!” Jisung shouts, grabbing Felix’s wrist to yank his hand out of his pocket and lace their fingers back together, yanking him out of his own head in the process. He drags Felix close, and he's not going to complain about it. “We’ll kiss, and everything will be just fine!” 

“Uh,” Felix says intelligently. “I said it was great, but… sure.”

Objectively, is this a bad idea? Absolutely. If Felix didn't have such a high level intoxication debuff, he would consider defusing the situation to protect Jisung’s personal sexuality journey and his own heart from further hope that Jisung wants more from Felix than homoerotic exploration. 

Unfortunately, Felix is afflicted with quite a high level intoxication debuff. And, as he may have mentioned before, he is a horny drunk. And though Jisung may be further along in the sobering process, he is also drunk, and he’s still a horny drunk, too. 

Hyunjin’s jaw drops, and he glares at Felix. “Seriously?” 

“I mean,” Felix says, “it's just a kiss.” 

Jisung’s back stiffens; Felix can’t quite figure out why. “Yeah, Hyunjin,” he says, but he’s looking at Felix with something guarded in his eyes—like a wounded animal protecting its broken paw. “A kiss is just a kiss.” 

“Okay, okay,” Chris coughs. He must have set the drinks down; Felix sees him waving his arms somewhere in his peripheral vision, but he can’t look away from Jisung’s face. “Everyone can calm down—” 

“I’m calm,” Jisung says, squeezing Felix’s hand. “If I were any calmer, they’d have to call me Karma.” 

Felix snorts. “You’d look good as Karma. Wanna duo bot together?” 

“I love you, but you know I don’t play.” 

Somewhere behind them, Changbin pipes up. “No! You’re my duo partner! You can’t abandon me!” 

“Fine,” Felix huffs. “Wanna kiss about it instead?” 

Swallowing hard, to the point where his heart-shaped Adam’s apple bounces in his throat, Jisung says, “Sure.”  

“We don’t have to—”

“I know.” Jisung squeezes Felix’s hand again. “No homo, right?”

So, so in love with Jisung, Felix laughs and lies, “No homo.”

And then Jisung sucks in a sharp little breath, closes his eyes, and kisses Felix. 

Felix kisses back, but it’s not the same as their kiss last week. Yes, Jisung’s lips are chapped and sticky with alcohol and sugary mixers, and yes, they’re plush and warm, and yes, they pull away too soon, but Jisung’s face is not a mix of eagerness and apprehension—it’s resignation, anxiety, pain, fear. 

“Are you okay?” Felix whispers, and Jisung nods, jerky and forced and definitely not okay at all. 

“Alright!” This time, it’s Minho who calls out, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. “We all got to see! Now that we’re done being perverts, everyone has to drink a whole cup of water, and we’re going to play 3-6-9 with water instead of soju so that I'm not babysitting all night and can return to my 'getting laid' quest.” 

Jisung lets Felix’s hand go, and he takes two cups of water from Chris, whose face is entirely red, handing one to Felix. 

“Thank you, baby,” Felix says, and Jisung clenches his jaw. 

“Yeah.” 

Once everyone finishes their water (Changbin and Seungmin compete to see who can chug it faster, and Seungmin must cheat somehow because he wins by three full seconds), they sit on the floor and play 3-6-9 until Jeongin complains about the volume of Changbin’s clapping, so they switch to nunchi until Jeongin complains about the volume of Changbin’s shouting, so they switch to APT until Jisung starts yawning. 

“C’mon, Lixie,” Jisung mumbles, “we should go home.” 

Chris offers to let them stay five separate times, but Jisung turns them all down. Chris doesn't let it go until Minho steps in, though. Chris is clearly worried about Jisung, who's been quiet since the kiss—not even getting upset when Hyunjin miscounted two rounds in a row—and clearly somewhere deep in his own mind. 

As they step out into the chill of the nighttime wind, Felix shivers. He hopes that it’s warmer wherever Jisung is, and he pulls up the bus schedule. 

It’s not uncommon for Jisung to withdraw, especially after prolonged social interaction, so Felix doesn’t think too much about it while they walk to the bus station in silence. It doesn’t bother him that they don’t talk on the bus ride back to campus, and it doesn’t register when Jisung unlocks their door without bitching about the door handle. 

They should actually talk about it. 

But then Jisung starts washing up by himself without a single complaint, and Felix’s gut starts to squirm. 

And Jisung scoops up his headphones despite how tired he seems to be, and Felix’s heart starts to palpitate. 

Then, Jisung crawls into his own bed and doesn’t even offer for Felix to join him, and that’s when he’s certain that things are definitely off. 

“Hey,” he calls out a few minutes later. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” But it’s tense, and it’s strained, and it sounds like Jisung said it through gritted teeth. And Felix thinks about it, about how Jisung is struggling through the realization that he’s into guys, and he wonders if it would be harder or easier for him if he likes Felix on top of everything. It’s one thing to have a gay awakening, but it’s another thing entirely to develop feelings. 

What if this whole thing is stressing Jisung out because he thinks (correctly) that Felix has feelings for him, and he doesn’t return them? 

“No homo,” Felix tries, but Jisung doesn’t say anything. His breathing is steady from his bed, headphones clutched in his hand. He must have already fallen asleep. 

Felix turns over and pulls the sheet up to his chin. He hears rustling from Jisung's bed as he drifts off, but his body has already given out on him. 

They’ll have to talk about it in the morning. 

They don’t talk about it in the morning. 

Felix isn’t surprised by that, but he is surprised by the fact that Jisung has already woken up and absconded from the dorm. He eats a prepackaged breakfast, drinks his water-and-olive oil hangover cure, and doomscrolls until the grime on his face is too physically uncomfortable to stand. He showers, dresses, and pulls out the differential equations assignment they had planned to do today, and Jisung is still nowhere to be found. 

Me

Hey

Jisung

Are we still gonna do that

Diff eq 

Problem set?

Jisungieeee

… is typing

The ellipses appear, then disappear, then appear and disappear. Eventually, they go away for over a minute, and Felix sets his phone on his desk face-down so that he stops wistfully watching the screen do nothing. 

“He’s not going to say anything until it’s killing him to keep it inside. Then, he’ll get all distant and snappy and bitey until he explodes with it all, and it’ll be super dramatic,” Minho had said last night. This must be the distant phase of everything; he hopes that Jisung stays distant for the snappy and bitey phases, because as understanding as Felix has tried to be about the whole thing, his heart is still so, so soft for Jisung, like a de-shelled mollusc, too fragile for gnashing teeth and more suited for gently-flowing waves. 

He picks up his phone again. 

Me

Hey 

Hyungie

How long do we think

Jisung might

Avoid me?

Cat Hyung

Well…

He asked to go running with me today.

But things will go back to normal, I promise. 

Usually, Felix would trust Minho’s words like gospel, but things do not go back to normal. Not that day, not the next day, nor the day after that. 

They don’t walk to class together (and Jisung doesn’t even make it to their shared physics lecture), they don’t do their coursework together (and Felix barely passes the differential equations problem set), and they certainly don’t play video games together (Jisung is in the dorm so infrequently that Felix gets used to “streaming” to an empty room and realizes that streaming might not actually be for him). It’s devastating to realize how intertwined Jisung is in his life and how much better he makes every single day. It’s terrible to be certain that his feelings go beyond a “crush,” though the pressing weight in his chest makes “crush” feel like an adequate term. 

Hyunjinnie

Felix, I'm sorry. About the party

I was drunk, and I was an asshole

Can you tell Jisung to text me back? I want to apologize to him, too.

Me

It's fine

I know you had good

Intentions

I'll let him know

The days pass in a strange haze, and he marks the time by how often his jaw clenches whenever something reminds him of Jisung. The most recent example was during his statics lecture fourteen minutes ago, because he thought about Pokemon Dedenne, because it looks like Jisung. 

“Lix-ah!” 

Chris and Changbin corner Felix as he makes his way back to his dorm, clearly disappointed when they don’t see Jisung glued to Felix’s hip the way he usually is. The way he should be. 

“Oh, hey,” Felix says, taking an earphone out of his ear—a playlist of Mitski and Laufey, because who else would understand him? “What’s up?”

Chris wrings his hands together, like a raccoon washing its food before it eats (which Jisung taught him, and now his heart pangs hollowly all over again, resetting the timer). “Have you seen Jisung?” 

“No,” Felix says, and Chris’s face crumples. “I know he’s been coming back to the dorm, because his food is disappearing from the fridge, but he hasn’t stuck around long enough for me to talk to him.”

Changbin claps a hand on Chris’s shoulder. “I’m sure he’s fine, dude.” 

“He’s been running with Minho-hyung,” Felix offers, but his voice must sound as mopey and jealous and petty as he feels, because both of his hyungs wince at him. 

“You know it’s not like that between them,” Changbin tries, but Felix waves him off. 

“I’m fine.” 

They all look at each other, and Felix watches Chris make the active decision not to call him out on the lie. “Jisung’s missed two studio dates.” He frowns. “That’s not like him.” 

“He’s… going through something, I think,” Felix says. “If I see him, I’ll tell him to talk to y’all.” 

“That’s good, thank you,” Changbin says, smoothing his hand down Chris’s arm. “Hang in there, alright?” 

“Yeah. I’m all good,” he says in English, because it’s easier for him to lie to Chris that way. “See you guys around, yeah?”

“Yeah.”  

The next few days pass similarly. 

Felix starts taking more naps, because it makes the time pass faster. It also makes the time pass weirder; it keeps him feeling dazed and disoriented, waking up after sunset and having to pull the sheets over his face to keep the sun out when he goes to bed. 

It’s during one of these naps that he finally sees Jisung again. 

He’s not sure if he’s about to fall asleep, dreaming, or just waking up when he hears the tell-tale sound of Jisung inputting his door code. He’s got no idea what time it is; the sun was out when he curled up, but he closed all the blinds and turned off all the lights. Jisung flicks them on when he enters, startled at the sight of Felix bundled up in his bed. 

“Lixie… Felix,” he says, chewing his bottom lip already. “Are… are you sick?”

“No,” Felix says, shifting around so that he can see Jisung better. He looks… rough, to say the least. The bags under his eyes are bigger than Jeongin’s shopping bags after a trip to the mall, and there’s a fine tremor coursing through his hands as they rest on the lightswitch. 

“Oh,” Jisung says, and the door shuts behind him. “You just. You aren’t normally a nap guy.” 

Felix swallows, but his mouth is so dry. “Yeah. It’s just been weird lately, I guess.”

Jisung grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, rushes over to Felix’s bed, and presents it like it’s a prized gift. Felix takes it from him, and their fingers brush together. 

“I’m sorry,” Jisung says as Felix twists open the cap. “I know I fucked up.” 

The water might be the most delicious thing Felix has ever had in his entire life. He feels like a plant resurrecting, like the water is restoring the turgor of his skin, the moisture in his mucous membranes. The water replenishes him—baptismal, in a way. 

“It’s…” Felix wants to say, it’s okay, but he’s so fucking tired of lying. “It hurt, you know?” 

“I know,” Jisung says, and he stretches out his hands. They hesitate, hovering in the air until Felix laces their fingers together. He tugs Jisung towards him, encourages him to sit on the bed with him. He needs them to share space again; needs it like it’s oxygen. 

Finally, with Jisung in his orbit, he can breathe. “Why?”

“A lot of things,” he says, running his other hand through his hair; up close, Felix can see that it’s greasy at the roots, dry at the tips. He must be using Minho’s eight-in-one degreaser-dish-and-body soap. “I… realized that I’m definitely not straight, and then I realized that I lied to you.”

Felix is fairly certain that his heart stops. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I lied to you about being straight, but that wasn’t really a lie because I didn’t realize that I wasn’t straight when I said that I was,” Jisung starts, and Felix squeezes his fingers tighter to stop them from trembling. “But I definitely lied to you the night of the party, when...” He swallows. “When I said that it was just a kiss. And that it was ‘no homo.’” 

It’s at this point that Felix’s heart chuffs back into rhythm, because he realizes that he must be dreaming. It’s embarrassing, but he’s had this dream before. 

“It’s so fucking homo for me, dude,” Jisung says, screwing his eyes shut. “I’m such a fucking asshole. You were just trying to have a good time, and I used you, and—”

“Baby,” Felix says, wriggling his way up to a sitting position so that he can press his body flush with Jisung’s, sandpapered smooth to match perfectly. His body is cool from the outdoors, refreshing on Felix’s nap-overheated skin. “It’s okay. You didn’t use me, or whatever crazy thing you’re thinking.” 

His eyes shoot open, glassy and doe-like with tears filling his waterline. “We said it didn’t have to mean anything, though. You said it didn’t mean anything, dude. And I agreed.” 

Usually, dream-Jisung says things like “you’re the sun to my moon,” like he’s fallen straight out of a drama into the real world, but this is probably more in character—simultaneously tearful and casual. The image of Jisung with tears in his eyes always drives him a little wild; is this how desperate he's gotten?

“And—I realize now that my friends—my friends from Malaysia in eighth grade—they definitely iced me out because I won a game of gay chicken on account of actually being a little gay, and they were, like, super homophobic,” Jisung says, sniffling as the tears start to slip out and run down his cheeks. “And I think I repressed all of those emotions until now because they were so intertwined with personal trauma? And—and I used you to work through all that.” 

Okay, this is a bit more detail than his subconscious usually provides, but his nap dreams do tend to have a bit of a lucid quality to them. 

“Well, that’s what Minho-hyung and Seungmin think.” 

He could definitely do without Seungmin and Minho featuring in his dreams where Jisung confesses to him, but some sacrifices have to be made for realism. 

“About the trauma. Not about the… the using you, part. They said you weren’t upset about that.” 

At least his friends remain allies to the cause in his own mind, he supposes. 

“Lix-ah?”

Oh. 

Felix isn’t used to responding; the dreams typically end at this point, leaving a residue of a confession on his tongue. Now that he finally has the chance, though, he’s suddenly at a loss for words. 

“I’m not mad at you,” he says, finally. “I was hurt because I missed you. Because you’re my favorite part of every day, and because I feel like I’m missing a part of me when you’re not by my side.” 

Jisung’s hand clenches, squeezing Felix’s fingers between his own. 

“Felix,” he says, voice tremulous and frail, “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.”

“No. I love you,” he repeats, firmer now, like a newborn fawn that’s finding its footing. “I’m in love with you in a super homosexual way. And all the kissing… they weren’t just kisses to me. They weren’t just anything, they’re all I can think about in between wanting to kiss you again and again.” 

“Then kiss me again and again,” Felix can’t help but laugh as Jisung stares at him, gobsmacked. “I’m in love with you,” he says, bringing their foreheads together. “I lied, too. It didn’t have to mean anything to you, but it was everything to me.” Jisung gasps, and Felix feels the shift of air on his cheeks. “So it’s okay, see? We both lied.” 

They’re too close for either of them to see the other’s expression. It’s safer like this, even though Felix can taste Jisung’s breath on his own lips as he says, “I don’t want to lie to you ever again. I want this with you. I want to hold your hand and be boyfriends and—”

“Me too,” Felix says, and he reaches his other hand around to hold both of Jisung’s and pull him close, pressing their chests together. “If we’re being honest, I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming right now, though.” Jisung stills, and Felix plows onward. “I’m scared that I’ll say something stupid and wake up.” 

Abruptly, Jisung shifts and bites down into Felix’s shoulder, exposed where his sleep-shirt has shifted, sending hot sparks of pain down his back. He yelps, and Jisung swings his leg over, settles into Felix’s lap like he did weeks ago, slots right into place—like he’s supposed to be there. He lets go, and the rush of blood flow sharpens the pain. Felix hisses, turns to look down at his shoulder, but Jisung uses his nose to tilt Felix’s chin back up, directs his gaze right into Jisung’s. 

“Awake now?” he asks, and Felix’s eyes flutter as he nods. The only other time he’s seen Jisung look so confident is at karaoke—right before he forgets all the lyrics. He doesn’t forget this, though, and Felix won't either: “I’m in love with you, Lee Felix Yongbok. Be my boyfriend.” 

Felix’s jaw drops. “I…” He swallows. “You mean it? Like, you want to be official and make cringey Instagram posts about each other and do couple cosplays?” Once the dam is broken, Felix can’t get the deluge of words to stop. “I need you to be serious about this. I’m going to scream about how much I love you from the rooftops. I’m gonna make you my lock screen. I don’t do casual—”

“Fuck casual,” Jisung snaps, holding tightly onto Felix’s hands. “I want you to die in my arms—when we’re old fucks shouting at kids to quiet down and get off our property.” The noise Felix makes is more of scream than a laugh, but it probably falls under the umbrella of “giggle,” and it makes Jisung laugh too before he kisses the tip of Felix’s nose, then each cheekbone with a tender reverence. “So? What do you say?”

“I say 'yes,' I’ll be your boyfriend,” Felix says, and he kisses Jisung on his dry, worry-chewed lips. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he says in between kisses, which turn into a mess of lips and teeth with how widely they’re both smiling. “My beautiful boyfriend.” 

“My beautiful boyfriend,” Jisung argues, and Felix uses the opportunity to taste Jisung’s mouth again. Overwhelmingly, it tastes like unsweetened coffee, and he can just picture Jisung sucking down an iced Americano for the caffeine boost to hype him up enough to face his fears. He probably stood outside their dorm, jumping in place and whispering to himself that he could do it, like he does before tests he’s particularly anxious about. Now that Jisung has moved his hands up to grip Felix’s arms, he can feel the roughness of his fingertips, the scraggled hangnails that Jisung must have picked himself. 

He whimpers when Felix bites his jaw, laves over his jawline, and shivers when he feels the stubble growing there, so masculine and raw and evidence that Jisung’s love for him is real and nearly ate him up from the inside. And maybe Felix is a terrible person, but he feels invincible—how incredible it is that Jisung loves him so much that it nearly destroyed him, tore his body up until he released it, letting it wrap its warmth around the two of them. 

“I love you,” Felix says again, hands finding purchase on Jisung’s thighs and dragging him in, like if they can get just one centimeter closer, they might fuse into one. “I need you.”

Jisung’s hips ruck forward, and he squeaks. When Felix suckles on his ear, he feels Jisung’s dick harden, and blood rushes to his own cock so fast that it makes him dizzy—that, or the pathetic little gasps that Jisung keeps letting out whenever Felix’s teeth graze him. He ruts forward as Felix’s canines dig in, cries out when he sucks bruises into his neck so deep that he can almost taste the blood, metallic like the bronze of Jisung’s skin. 

He’s never gotten this hard this fast before in his life. He feels insane; he feels the closest thing to high since he moved from Australia, but this is so much better than any drug he's ever had. Jisung humps into him, and Felix shifts his hips so that they’re rutting their cocks together, and he moans into the mangled tatters of Jisung’s throat. 

“Lixie,” Jisung keens, “Lixie, please.” 

“Please what?” Felix growls, inching his hands up Jisung’s thighs until they creep towards his waistband. “You have to tell me, baby.”

“Please,” he whines again, and Felix can’t help but bite down again once his fingers finally touch the tender skin of Jisung’s waist, which doesn’t help Jisung with getting his words out. Tears bead at his waterline, threatening to spill over. “Lixie… I can’t…”

He’s being so mean, he knows, but based on how hard Jisung is grinding into him, he likes that. “Yes, you can,” he teases, pitching his voice down in the way that always makes Jisung shiver just to feel the goosebumps form under his fingertips. Finally, a tear slips onto Jisung's cheek, and Felix laps it up. “You’re so good, baby. So pretty when you cry. Just tell me what you want, and I'll give it to you.” 

“I want you to touch me,” Jisung blurts, nails scraping into Felix’s arms as he ruts down harder. “I want to nut with you so fucking bad.” 

With a low, rumbling chuckle, Felix’s hands sneak beneath Jisung’s waistband, tracing along his hips until his fingers settle in the groove below his hipbones. “You want me to touch you here?” 

“Anything. Anywhere.” Jisung throws his head back, and Felix gnaws on his collarbone. “Do whatever you want to me.”

Well, there are certainly not enough hours in the day to get through everything that Felix wants to do, but there’s something specifically he wants to do right now. He drags his hand lower, into the thatch of pubic hair that makes his mouth water. “Fuck,” he hisses out, finally releasing Jisung’s skin from his mouth. “I’m sorry if it’s not enough; my hand’s kinda small—”

“Your hands drive me crazy,” Jisung says, letting go of Felix’s arms to shove his shorts down just enough that he can grab Felix’s wrist and guide him to his freed cock. “Fuck—fuck, baby. I look so fucking big in your little hands,” he hisses before fucks his hard, wet cock into Felix’s palm, and he’s right; despite being smaller-than-average, Felix’s stubby fingers can barely close around the ruddy shaft, making a tight ring for Jisung to fuck into. They really are perfect for each other—small cocks for small hands and tight holes. 

“You were made for me, I think,” Felix says, awed, and Jisung groans when he starts jerking him off in time with his desperate thrusts, mouths meeting for desperate, sloppy kisses in between. 

As much as Felix wants to pump his own cock, his other hand has a mind of its own and slides out of Jisung’s pants, right up to his bicep, clenching down into the bulk of his muscle. “Ah,” he grunts, and his cock twitches against his shorts. “Your arms—so fucking sexy.” 

“I—ah—made them for you,” Jisung pants into his mouth. “Saw the way you looked at guys with muscles and started going to the gym with the hyungs.” Felix gasps, eyes fluttering as a rush of endorphins floods through him at the display of devotion. Jisung was molding his body just for Felix before he even knew it was romantic; a pure tribute. “Every time I wanted to stop, I thought about your cute little fingers and sharp little teeth digging into them—”

“You are made for me,” Felix says, delirious and unhinged. “You made yourself so perfect for me.”

“Just for you.” 

Suddenly, Jisung reaches into Felix’s pants with clumsy hands and pulls Felix’s cock out, throbbing and drooling precum, twitching as the cool air of the room shocks the wet tip. Jisung angles his hips, directs his thrusts into Felix’s crotch so that he’s rutting into Felix’s cock, fucking them together like he knew that Felix needed to see their cocks pressed together. 

“Made for me,” Felix says again. “Perfect for me.” 

"For you."

It’s rough and messy, but it all feels so fucking good that Felix is salivating into Jisung’s mouth, who’s so lost in his daze of lust that it drools down his chin, and Felix laps it back up to start the whole process all over again. 

“Lixie,” Jisung whimpers, “I’m gonna—you’re gonna make me—”

“Cum,” Felix commands, “I want it. Cum for me, baby.” 

Groaning, Jisung releases ropes of hot, thick cum into Felix’s hand, and it spills out all over their laps, slicking the glide of Felix’s cock in Jisung’s hand so much that he can’t help it and follows Jisung right over the edge, thrusting and grinding until he’s sure that their cum is so mixed together that no one could think to separate them—blended into one single unit. It trickles down Jisung's hand, drips along his wrist like a pearl bracelet adorning sun-loved skin—the product of all the love Felix has been sheltering deep in his shell displayed proudly on Jisung's body. 

Once he comes down from his orgasm, Felix’s body grows lax, and he falls back onto the bed like a marionette with his strings cut. His body is boneless—a jellyfish riding the waves, romantic and blissful. 

Surprisingly, Jisung is quite functional after his orgasm, which Felix cannot relate to at all. He kisses the tip of Felix’s nose, then gets up and digs out some wipes. He meticulously cleans them both off, gets them new boxers and shirts to change into, and eventually scoops up Felix’s rubbery body to deposit it onto Jisung’s bed, because Felix’s is a mess of nap-musk, sex-sweat, and cum. 

He tucks Felix in on one side before collecting a fresh bottle of water and turning off the lights, stumbling over the shit they’ve left on the floor before finally slipping into bed next to him. He shuffles close to making sure that Felix is snuggled into him. 

“I love you,” he says, “my beautiful boyfriend.”

“Dude, I love you so fucking much,” Felix mumbles, and Jisung laughs, bouncing Felix’s head as he lays on his chest. He starts to hum softly—a song that Felix has never heard before—and Felix lets the waves of sleep take him into the current as he drifts off with his cheek smushed between Jisung’s soft, pillowy tits. 

He wakes to muffled voices at his front door and a shiver down his spine. 

He blinks the sleep out of his eyes and lifts his head up from the down-feather pillow that definitely wasn’t beneath his head when he fell asleep. He pushes himself up and squints at the image of Jisung taking a bag of something from whoever was at the door. When Jisung turns back around, his eyes widen and his jaw drops at the sight of Felix awake, and he nearly busts his ass in his rush to get back to the bed. 

“Shit, bro, I’m sorry,” he says, “I wanted to be next to you when you woke up, but Minho-hyung was dropping off his celebratory kimbap. He said to compliment you on your handiwork.” He gestures to his throat, where it looks like he was mauled by a small predator.

Felix grins, all petulance and pettiness gone at the prospect of Minho’s homemade food and the acknowledgement of his marked territory. “Fuck yeah, dude. Minho-hyung’s kimbap.” His mouth has already started to water. “This is the best boyfriend perk of all time.”

“Aw, man,” Jisung whines as he slips back into bed, curling back around Felix. “I thought it was going to be built-in TFT duos.” 

“Jisung, I love you, but if I stop duoing with Chris, I think he’ll actually cry about it, and he’s such an ugly crier.” Which is honestly rich for Felix to say, as the ugliest crier of them all, but that's an aside note. He grabs a foil-wrapped roll of kimbap from the bag and peels it open, stuffing a delicious, perfect piece into his mouth. He can’t help but moan about it a little bit, and Jisung holds him tighter. “Oh, but real talk. Do you wanna cosplay Sett to my Aphelios at the T1 game next month? We can be super homoerotic in public.” 

Jisung hums, as if he’s contemplating it, but then blows a raspberry into Felix’s cheek with a laugh. “Of course I will, baby. If we don’t do the Heartsteel skinline, we should have someone else come and be Alune.”

“Oh, we really should.” 

“Who do you want to do it?” 

Felix shrugs, feeding Jisung a piece of kimbap. “I dunno. It would be kind of funny if Changbinnie-hyung did it, but I don’t think he would. Speaking of, you need to text Chris and him back.” 

“I already did. They said 'congratulations' and to take my time relishing the honeymoon period." Felix laughs, nuzzles into Jisung. "Hyunjin would be Alune in a heartbeat if you wanted him to,” Jisung says, shifty—well, as shifty as he can be with his cheeks stuffed with kimbap. “Especially if I act like I don’t want him to.” 

“Han Jisung,” Felix chastises with a boop to his nose, “are you trying to trap our good mutual friend into a situation where he’s third wheeling in public because of his behavior at the party?” 

Six rapid blinks (mirrored from Minho, Felix suspects). “One-hundred percent. He apologized, but I’m still miffed at him.”

Felix’s heart has never been fuller. “I love you so much, dude.” 

“Dude. I love you so much,” Jisung says, and then he kisses him. “That’s why I’m telling you not to go to the bathroom yet. I’m pretty sure I forgot to clean the toilet seat off.”