Chapter Text
There was no need for talking in the morning, or throughout the rest of their day, really. Gun-woo thinks he would go a little stir-crazy without it though.
He and his mother had grown accustomed to the tenor of Woo-jin's voice and humming throughout the house, and whenever it was absent, they found themselves checking on him more frequently than they realized.
It was the morning after a match, usually when Woo-jin would be at his most talkative, spouting stats, used techniques, or praise and critiques, but he was abnormally...quiet. Aside from waking Gun-woo up, he hadn't uttered a peep.
It made Gun-woo's stomach turn.
"Are you feeling sick?" Gun-woo asked, panting from their workout. He starred at Woo-jin intently as he assumed a tripod posture to focus on his breathing.
Woo-jin spared a glance before shaking his head stiffly. "I'm fine. Why?"
Gun-woo waited with bated breath for the overly confident phrase he would use to ease their concerns, but it never came. Gun-woo shook his head. "You're quiet today."
Woo-jin laughed breathlessly. "Am I usually loud?" He squinted through his sweat as Gun-woo tripped over his own words.
"N-not loud, but you talk a lot. Not a lot, but...more," he looked away, now focused on the seams of the punching bag. He heard Woo-jin hum dismissively before landing a light smack on his back.
He rolled his shoulders and nodded to the ground. "C'mon. One more set," he dropped to the ground as fast as he dropped the subject. Gun-woo followed.
So-yeon woke up at 10:30. Three whole hours later than she was used to since she began living with the boys.
At first, she thought she was just tired from the match yesterday, but her suspicions were raised when 11 came and went quietly. She had rushed downstairs to make an early lunch for the boys, and by now Woo-jin would be playfully groaning about how hungry he was and trying to steal bites of food.
Today there was nothing of that nature.
Woo-jin had come in with Gun-woo trailing behind him, both tired and sweating. Woo-jin marched over to her happily, placing his hands on either of her shoulders and landing a kiss on her head.
"Good morning!" He chirped, shaking her lightly. "I'll be back; gotta beat him to the bathroom," he whispered.
She shook her head, still baffled that the two of them fought over one bathroom out of three in the house.
Instead of racing up the stairway with Woo-jin, Gun-woo sat at the dining room table. So-yeon jumped when she noticed him.
Gun-woo gave a meek smile. "Sorry," he eased as she waved him off.
So-yeon sat across from her son, leaning in and laying her hands across each other. She pressed her lips together as a distasteful thought settled in her mind. "What's wrong?" She finally asked, knowing what his answer would be.
"Nothing. Why?" Gun-woo frowned. "Do you think he's...off today too?" he asked, matching his mother's posture.
"Who?" she straightened, keeping her voice low. "Woo-jin? You're the one being weird," she smacked his arm. "Don't tell me you two fought."
Gun-woo's frown deepened. "We didn't fight, I just asked if he was okay because he was quieter than usual," he stared down at the table, distantly reliving the interaction.
"And?"
Gun-woo shrugged. He looked up as his mother pressed her lips together and looked over her shoulder at the stove. She was worried again, because of him. His stomach turned again and he intertwined his fingers.
So-yeon tapped her hands against the table. "Are you sure you two didn't fight?" She asked again.
Gun-woo slowly shook his head negative. She sighed, urging him out of his chair. "Find out what happened and make amends," she stood with him, her hands pressing against his back. "You two are good for each other. I understand that you guys have differences, but that doesn't mean you have to fight," she lectured, pausing at the stair to listen for the shower running.
"But, Mom — "
"Just go," So-yeon shooed him up the stairs. She watched, exasperated, as Gun-woo meandered up the stairs, stopping a few times to look back at her.
Gun-woo took in a breath through his nose and held it. He blew it out sharply through his mouth and continued up the stairs and into their shared room. He quietly pulled the door closed behind him, his heart thudding dully in his chest.
Slightly miffed about being called weird, Gun-woo started to gather clothes for his turn in the shower. He picked out an old set of pajama pants and a shirt and sat beside them on the edge of his bed as he bounced his leg. He wasn't sure if he'd become impatient or if Woo-jin had spent an abnormal amount of time in the bathroom, but regardless, he knocked lightly on the bathroom door.
Woo-jin cleared his throat and sniffed. "Yeah?"
"Um," Gun-woo shifted his weight awkwardly, "are we fighting?" The sound of the water felt louder in the face of Woo-jin's silence.
Woo-jin frowned and shut the water off. "What?" He could have laughed at the sound of his own confusion. He reached for his towel and started drying off, careful of his sensitive area. "We don't fight," he paused to dry his face, "at least, not since I was an idiot."
Gun-woo looked down at his hands. "Are you an idiot right now?"
Woo-jin opened his mouth to speak, but snapped his jaw shut instead. His frown deepened as he looked at himself in the mirror. Was he an idiot right now? He'd convinced himself that he was being safe, that Gun-woo didn't need any distractions at the height of his career, but a part of him knew it was his own selfishness wiring his mouth shut.
"Woo-jin?"
The said man silently groaned to himself and sighed. "Yeah," he huffed. "I think so."
Gun-woo sighed, leaning his forehead against the door and its frame. He wasn't relieved, no, he was definitely still confused, but he hadn't screwed anything up.
After that, it had only taken a day and a half for Woo-jin to get back to normal. Gun-woo knew that when Woo-jin got serious, it showed in his silence. Usually, it only meant he had already gotten himself into trouble and was trying to find a way out of it, but not this time. Whatever had been bothering him, he'd solved on his own and had made his way back to his chatty and playful self.
For Woo-jin though, nothing was the same. He didn't need to do cardio anymore with the way his heart would bang against his ribs as if trying to talk to Gun-woo itself. He just had to hope that the feeling would go away with time, that he was just pent up or confused.
Gun-woo was satisfied that their routine was restored. The only true difference being that Woo-jin had a date.
"She looks nice," So-yeon hummed after pressing Woo-jin for a picture. "Does she have any friends?"
"Mom," Gun-woo hissed.
She ignored him to smile at Woo-jin as he laughed. "I'll ask," he winked, looking down at his phone and trying to keep his smile from stiffening.
Gun-woo watched silently from his bed as Woo-jin got ready for the date. It was weird, not having anything to do while Woo-jin went out. The only thing he could do was worry and hope he had fun, although, he didn't seem as excited as Gun-woo had expected him to be. Woo-jin told him about their plans and apologized for taking the car on such late notice. Gun-woo watched him muse his hair for the hundredth time.
Woo-jin felt a weight on his conscious as Gun-woo watched him with an expression he'd never had to interpret before. He kept talking about whatever his mind could hold onto for longer than a second as he waited for Gun-woo to interrupt him with a question that would reveal what was plaguing him, but it never came. Not even as he drove off into the city as Gun-woo lingered in the doorway.
Woo-jin had been living in his new normal for about a month. He'd tried everything except a lobotomy to make whatever he was feeling tolerable. The dates were fine if he didn't think much about how wrong they felt. That method didn't work for too long though and he'd resorted to his hand. It wasn't tolerable, but he'd been doing so well pretending that it was.
Every ounce of hope for getting back to normal was squashed at one of Gun-woo's weigh-ins.
The opponent was Chaisai Adulyadej. He was a Thai man who was formidable enough with a 13-2-2 record. They'd been building tension between the two mainly on social media due to the location differences, and now it was time for the weigh-in.
Gun-woo went first, allowing Woo-jin to take his jacket with a soft smile in his direction before stepping behind the scale. The physician waved him forward after completing his checks and signaled to indicate that Gun-woo had made weight. "71.5," he called out, resulting in hushed murmurs.
When Gun-woo stepped off of the scale Woo-jin patted him on the back and guided them backstage to prep for the face-off. "Your weight was really good," Woo-jin grinned, handing off a bottle of water.
"I was right in the middle," Gun-woo agreed, relieved to have water grace his tongue for the first time in days.
Woo-jin watched him gulp down the bottle, only slightly concerned. "I told you you didn't need the sauna," he scolded, now holding an uncapped bottle of baby oil. He poured an excessive amount into his hand and slathered it onto Gun-woo's chest. He was ashamed to admit that it was the only reason he had no complaints about weigh-ins now. He moved around Gun-woo, trying to keep his mouth running so his mind wouldn't.
When he was finished, he held a hand out to take the water bottle. Gun-woo handed it off to him, their fingers touching more gingerly than Woo-jin could ever recall. To add to his surprise, there was actually water left in the bottle, and the combination of these facts caused him to drop it.
The two of them jumped back, the water splashing out of the bottle simultaneously. Woo-jin cursed, swooping down to pick it up as if it could do any more damage. "Here."
He glanced up to take the towel and paused. A glimmer of light just next to the towel caught his eye and he looked over. It was just water, innocently trying to cling to Gun-woo's waistline, abdomen, and chest.
Maybe Woo-jin had gotten into the sauna too. There was no other possible reason for his mouth to be so dry otherwise, right? His hand weakly grasped the towel, looking back to the wet floor and forcing himself to swallow spit that he didn't have.
Gun-woo shifted as he waited for Woo-jin to finish with the towel. He was ready to go home and eat with everyone. He just hoped the face-off would be uneventful.
Woo-jin followed behind Gun-woo back to the stage, still feeling dehydrated. Cameras flashed as both opponents came from behind the curtain at the same time. Each of their teams stood behind them, looking menacing and protective as the mediator guided the men for photos.
When the two of them stood with their foreheads pressing together, Woo-jin felt his eye twitch involuntarily. Gun-woo dropped his fists, ready to capture the last of the pictures. Chaisai had other ideas as he unfurled his fists and grabbed the sides of Gun-woo's face to plant a dramatic kiss on his forehead.
Woo-jin bolted between them, using his forearm to bar Chaisai from maintaining any sort of closeness. As he stood there the muscles in his opposite arm twitched with restraint. Gun-woo grabbed it, mumbling something into his ear to get him to ease up, but he couldn't bring himself to move. His jaw was clenched and his chest was tight, his his body doing whatever it could to keep his anger in check.
Later in the dressing rooms, Woo-jin had gotten an earful from management about interrupting the shoot with unnecessary aggression and all he could do was bow and clench his fists as Gun-woo apologised in his stead. Luckily, Professional Boxing wasn't big on relational rumors, so ultimately Gun-woo would be fine, but the tabloids would certainly milk his knee-jerk reaction for all that it was worth.
"What was that?" Gun-woo asked, shutting the door behind his PR manager. He turned to look at Woo-jin, who was sitting quietly beside the unused vanity.
Woo-jin sighed, and dropped his head. He mulled over the idea of just coming out with it. To just tell Gun-woo that he'd been setting his own tripwire since their non-fight, and as much as he wanted to say anything knowing that the silence was killing Gun-woo, his teeth stayed glued together.
"Woo-jin," Gun-woo urged, crossing the room to squat beside the end of the couch Woo-jin sat on.
They locked eyes and Woo-jin closed his as a consequence. He could only imagine himself slamming his lips to Gun-woo's. It was the only explanation there had ever been. He shook his head, sighing again as tears threatened the back of his eyes. "It's nothing," he said weakly.
Gun-woo's hand twitched. "Did I do something wrong?" He asked, not knowing what else he could. He knew it had to be stemming from that weird day of silence, and that only made it all the more frustrating.
Woo-jin laughed weakly. "No. Never," he brought his hand up to press at his eyelids. "I'm just being an idiot, like always," he blinked his eyes open, narrowly avoiding Gun-woo's gaze.
Gun-woo shook his head slowly. "I just think you don't want to tell me something," he observed. "We're marines. Whatever you tell me, I can handle it," he reassured, shaking Woo-jin's leg as encouragement.
"After the fight," Woo-jin said, "when you win, I'll tell you," he conceded.
Gun-woo considered it. The match was in two days and he did have the capacity for that amount of patience, but what difference would 48 hours make for Woo-jin? They still lived together and they shared a bedroom. "Why?"
Woo-jin's mind went blank at the question. He didn't have one glaring reason in particular — he was stalling — but in the end it would make no difference. Still, he managed to come up with: "Because your match is in two days. You don't need any distractions, especially from me."
Gun-woo's nose twitched. The answer seemed genuine enough, so he didn't dispute it. "After the match," he agreed.