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The weather is good and warm in Manila at night, Matthew tells Gunwook, so they should use the pool again.
And that’s true, okay? It’s really nice. Earlier in the day, it was like something out of an anime: the sky vacation-blue and covered in big fluffy white clouds, the sun somehow brighter, the foliage greener. Everything bathed in the sticky kind of heat that you only find near the equator. In Canada, in Korea, not even the summers get this hot.
But Matthew also just really wants to use the hot tub together. It’s not even a sexual thing. That’s its own conversation, put to the side to be talked through later. Lube and condoms in their hotel room that Matthew shamelessly communicated through gestures to a corner store clerk to buy. It’s just a luxury he wants to share with someone he loves. Maybe it’s even a little bit to get Gunwook’s mind off of everything they’ve discussed.
“Come on,” Matthew says, holding Gunwook’s shorts out to him. They’re still damp from earlier—they hadn’t brought real bathing suits, but swim trunks are basically just expensive athletic shorts anyway. The pretty green-blue square of the pool is visible down below, glowing in the night. “It’s like… a bonding ritual.”
“A bonding ritual,” Gunwook says slowly. He looks so pretty like this, barefaced with his glasses on, stretched out black t-shirt and well-worn sweats. Matthew sees it every day, but it’s just as good each new time.
Matthew nods enthusiastically. “We have to feel the jets on our skin together, bro.”
“You just want to see me naked,” Gunwook says coyly. He grabs the shorts and his mouth twitches in this embarrassed way like he regrets it right after he says it. Matthew laughs and stands on his tippy toes to peck him on the mouth.
“That’s a bonus,” he says.
They get changed—Matthew unabashedly in the middle of the room, Gunwook with a polite request for him to avert his eyes—and then kiss more in the elevator, the real kind that breaks into startled giggles when the door dings and another guest joins them briefly. Gunwook’s hand comes down from Matthew’s neck and their fingers tangle together.
It’s impossible to control his smile. Whenever he’s with Gunwook, he’s grinning.
The heat hits them all at once as they step out of the lobby and into the dark. It’s even more beautiful standing here than looking down from above. The slate edge of the pool is black at night, very chic, and other buildings rise up into the night sky around them to create the illusion of privacy. The pool glows brilliantly, reflecting off itself.
“Damn,” Gunwook says, the vowels of his English squished slightly to the right. He spreads his arms and closes his eyes and does a slow spin. Matthew catches a slice of his smile before he drops the bit and jogs over to the side of the pool. “The vibe is perfect.”
Matthew trails after him, laughter light in his mouth. “It’s weird that we were seeing snow last week, right?”
The water must still be okay, because Gunwook doesn’t flinch when he sticks his hand in it. “That’s the modern age for you.”
“Is the water good?”
Gunwook nods, his unstyled hair bouncing. Being here again feels—more secret, more just for them . No photos necessary. Just Gunwook, just Matthew. “Yeah, it’s nice. Not too cold.”
“Throw me your shirt,” Matthew says, tugging his own off over his head. Gunwook lingers on him for a second as if to make sure he’s serious, and then he breaks into a shy smile. Matthew only gets a split second of his bare back before Gunwook is chucking his shirt at Matthew’s head. There’s a huge splash that has Matthew ducking out of the way of the spray and the shirt.
Gunwook comes to the surface and shakes the water out of his eyes, disgruntled like a big wet cat. The shirt lands in Matthew’s lap, covered in tiny wet spots. Little shit. Matthew’s grin threatens to split his face in two.
“How are you so fucking cute?” Matthew says, the last part in English.
It’s really just to say it, to release some of the wound-tight energy he gets when he feels this strongly. Gunwook is so cute it makes Matthew want to pounce on him and shake him around and smush him into a pancake. Like cuteness aggression with baby animals.
Gunwook’s shirt is still warm when Matthew picks it up. Before he folds it, he just—brings it up to his face and smells it, just to get a second of bliss. Gunwook smells like a boy. Musky sweet and the bitter tang of his cologne. Like sweat, but in a way that makes Matthew’s mouth water.
There’s an undignified yelp from the pool. Gunwook does his very best to look scandalized, but his face is pink, lit from underneath with swirling patterns of green light. Somehow that’s cute too. “Why are you smelling it?”
Matthew laughs at him. Drops the shirt at his feet. Breathes deep and exhales. The warm weather drips down his now-bare back, the water so vibrant and inviting it looks straight out of a Ghibli movie. To be here with Gunwook, to hear his flustered voice, to see his cute face turned up to his hyung like a little sunflower—Matthew feels like he’s won the lottery.
“I love you so much,” Matthew says, and he hears the start of a laugh before he leaps and there’s a sharp smack and everything is cold and loud, tumbling. When he surfaces, Gunwook is still laughing, big gummy smile on full display.
“What was that for?” he says.
“I wanna say it all the time,” Matthew confesses. He tries to shake his wet hair out of his face, but it turns out it’s not as easy as Gunwook makes it look. He exhales and pushes it away with his hand. Gunwook’s smile gets bigger the closer he paddles. “Every time I see you.”
Gunwook furrows his eyebrows and puts on a nasally shonen- anime protagonist voice. “Don’t hold back, Matthew-yah.”
Then he gets a mouthful of pool water when Matthew shoves him and he laughs instead of trying to right himself.
“Say it back,” Matthew says.
“I love you, too,” Gunwook coughs, still sputtering laughter. “I’m glad you’re in my life, hyung.”
“Okay, now that’s too much.” Matthew clicks his tongue. “C’mere.”
Gunwook blinks. “How? I can’t touch the bottom.”
“Then come touch the bottom with me,” Matthew says, teasing. “Hey, that sounds like—”
“Shhh,” Gunwook says, already swimming away to the shallow side of the pool. “I can’t hear you all the way over here.”
Matthew follows him, like always. Once Gunwook sets his feet down and the water licks at the bottom of his chin, Matthew latches onto his shoulders and swings himself through the water until he’s clinging to Gunwook’s broad back.
There’s so much of him. Matthew wants to touch every square inch.
“All good?” Matthew asks, lips right next to Gunwook’s ear.
“Everything’s lighter in water,” Gunwook says, a sighing noise as he adjusts Matthew higher on his back.
“Yah,” Matthew laughs against his hair. “What are you trying to say?”
“No, no,” Gunwook whines. His skin is hot under Matthew’s forearms, laced securely around his neck. “You’re already light, hyung. Now I get to hold you without stopping.”
Oh, that makes Matthew’s stomach swoop a little. He tries, “Carry me to the side of the pool.”
And Gunwook starts to move, slow with the weight of the water and Matthew on his back, but it’s immediate, obedient. His muscles flex and soften under Matthew’s torso. Little labored breaths with each step.
“Good boy,” Matthew breathes.
“Hyung,” Gunwook laughs. “I’m just walking.”
“Everything you do is good.”
Gunwook hums, pleased and flustered in equal measure. “Do you wanna go in the hot tub now?”
“Escort me, gentleman,” Matthew says, squeezing his arms nervously around Gunwook’s head. “You could carry me bridal-style.
Gunwook does that immediately, too, wet skin against wet skin until his arms are under Matthew’s knees and armpits. From this angle he looks down at Matthew, a familiar thing—that triangle from the eyes down to his lips and back up. His top lip looks even plumper from below.
Matthew laughs and looks away, uncharacteristically shy.
Even the way Gunwook lets him down from the hold is meticulously gentle. Matthew wriggles out of his arms and hops up onto the ledge of the pool. When he looks back, Gunwook is already looking up at him with this—this look, almost like reverence. His eye level is exactly where Matthew stands, so he has to crane his neck and part his lips in a way that’s making Matthew dizzy looking at it for so long.
“Come on,” Matthew laughs, a bumbling recovery as he turns away and shakes his head. The few wet steps to the hot tub feel a little like running away. “Slow poke.”
“Slow poke,” he hears Gunwook echo cutely as he slips a foot into the water. It’s really hot in a way that will feel good in a moment, but there’s that second of burn. “What does that mean? Slow poke.”
“I’m calling you slow,” Matthew says, loud over the roar of the jets. Both legs go in. He holds back a sound, but can’t resist looking back at Gunwook as he hears him come up out of the water—his torso going tight, abdomen stretching flat as he twists up onto the concrete. Eyebrows furrowed prettily. “But like, in a way where I love you.”
Gunwook smiles shy but big, stepping over to Matthew. “Oh. I like it.”
“The water is really hot,” Matthew warns.
“It’s okay,” Gunwook says, waving a hand. Then he hisses loud like a cat and Matthew laughs, love spilling out of him with the sound. “Fuck, it’s really hot.”
“Yeah,” Matthew agrees, stepping down so he’s up to his waist. “If only I warned you.”
Gunwook wrinkles his nose at him. Matthew reaches out and pinches his stomach, and then slips under the water fully with a laugh so Gunwook can’t get him back. He settles at the opposite side of the pool and gets to watch Gunwook as he slowly eases in. He’s fun to watch. Long and lean and careful, a power he holds in his shoulders but rarely uses all of. Matthew’s just as strong as him, to be clear. Can carry him, too. But there’s something to be said for the fact that a lot of Gunwook’s strength seems to just come from him, not his discipline or how much he works out.
It’s his natural charm, where Matthew’s is his way of speaking. They both have things they craft and things they come with.
“You’re staring,” Gunwook says once his shoulders finally dip beneath the bubbles. He’s pink as a peach and it’s probably from the hot water, but maybe a little bit from Matthew, too.
“You’re pretty,” Matthew says easily. “I get to relax and look at a pretty boy. That’s a good day off.”
Gunwook might get even pinker, but he mostly ignores Matthew in favor of getting comfortable on the other side of the tub. Spreading his legs—not, like, in a lewd way, though everything he does is a little lewd—and sinking down deeper into the water, flexing his arms over his head in a stretch. Matthew watches the bubbling lap at his nipples and feels like he’s been bested at his own game.
Then Gunwook cracks an eye open and smiles at him, and then Matthew feels really crazy. And he can’t help it, okay? He’s always been a nervous laugher, it's a lifelong problem. Gunwook groans low as he settles back into the water and Matthew is a goner.
“Don’t laugh!”
“I’m not,” Matthew says, but then he’s so giggly that he really can’t hold it back and actually snorts. Gunwook turns away to sulk. “Wook-ah!”
“I’m trying to seduce you,” Gunwook whines. He’s so dramatic about it that Matthew knows it's still a bit. It’s sweet, even though the context is silly. He’s always obvious like that, trying to transfer things directly from his heart into Matthew’s.
“It’s working!” Matthew says, voice going high. He yanks it back down again. Why does Korean make him so whiny? “You’re so—it’s working. Well. I like you.”
Gunwook turns around and he’s pink everywhere, cheeks and shoulders. “Hmph.”
He looks very kissable. Matthew crosses the few feet between them, parting the bubbling water with the motion, and reaches up to touch him—they shouldn’t kiss here, but they can touch a little, right?
His fingers dance along the nape of Gunwook’s neck, freshly-cut hairs pricking his fingertips. Gunwook’s tongue is pink, too, between pink lips. Parted and bitten raw. He acts starved—pushing his face into Matthew’s hands, silently begging to be touched.
It feels good to indulge him. The pleasure is fizzy between Matthew’s ears; he tilts Gunwook’s head to the side, the gentlest pressure, and Gunwook moves easily, round eyes sticking to Matthew’s face.
“Matt-hew,” he says, a rumbling purr of the English pronunciation.
“What happened to seducing me,” Matthew says, pressing his palms into Gunwook’s cheeks.
“I’m nervous, now,” Gunwook says. His lips squished into that cute Opanchu -like shape.
It's not just about the bit. It’s—been coming for a while, this conversation. They’re sleeping in the same bed tonight. Gunwook worries, it’s what he does.
“It’s okay to be nervous,” Matthew says. He was nervous his first time too, of course he was. Hanbin’d helped him through it then—he’ll help Gunwook through it now. That’s what good hyungs do.
He was hovering in front of Gunwook, but now he straddles him, a hand flat against the tile on one side of Gunwook’s tapered waist and the other at his shoulder. “I want to kiss you so bad.”
Gunwook makes an embarrassed noise, shifting to get comfortable between Matthew’s thighs. “Hyung,” he says, drawing out the vowel. “You can’t say that when we’re in public.”
Matthew laughs. So fucking cute. “Nobody’s looking at us. Why are you nervous?”
The firm muscle of Gunwook’s shoulders and chest is slick under his hand as he moves down, down, under the water to Gunwook’s abdomen and resting at the hem of his shorts. Gunwook tenses, but he doesn’t try to stop him. He could—he could pick Matthew up and carry him over the concrete and throw him into the deep end, if he wanted—but he never would. His voice is sticky and breathless when he confesses, “I don’t know. Don’t wanna do it wrong.”
“Oh, baby.” He can’t smooth away Gunwook’s anxiety with just his hands, but it’s not for lack of trying. Gunwook shivers at the friction. It’s satisfying in a way he doesn’t really have words for—to care for him, to soothe him, to take him apart. Matthew wants him to tremble all over. Wants to click him back into place after. He’s memorized how all of Gunwook’s pieces fit together. He could do it perfectly. “You don’t need to be worried about that.”
Gunwook huffs, all tight with nerves. “I almost broke your rib last time.”
That’s a bit of an exaggeration. They’d both been squeezed into Gunwook’s top bunk, and Gunwook barely fits up there by himself. Everyone jokes about Matthew being small, and he is, for a guy, but 170 cm is still a lot of guy. Anyway, Matthew was struggling to straddle him without being able to see him very well, and accidentally kneed him in the dick. Gunwook nearly tossed Matthew off of the bed in reflex, and then he’d freaked out, a thousand sorries over the bruise the railing punched into Matthew’s side.
Matthew hadn’t been mad or anything—it was all very exciting for him, honestly—but he’d felt bad seeing Gunwook so torn up.
In many ways, they’re similar, but in this one, they’re not. Matthew worries a little, when there’s something to worry about. Gunwook worries a lot. Like, a lot. About things Matthew can’t even fully wrap his head around. But love isn’t always about understanding—sometimes it’s just about being there, and Matthew can be there. Just their bodies pressed together works wonders. There’s a reason why they’re always hugging, stuck like glue.
“That was in the dark,” Matthew says, working his hands up to Gunwook’s biceps and kneading them. “The lights will be on, we’ll have our big fancy hotel bed. This time I won’t almost maim you. Baby. Promise.”
Gunwook exhales through his nose. He’s already loosening up a little. Matthew knows him like the back of his hand. “Where did you learn the word maim?”
“Ricky taught me.”
“I don’t want to do a bad job,” Gunwook blurts, then presses his lips together. “Sorry. I don’t want it to be bad.”
Matthew softens. He moves to hold Gunwook’s hands under the water instead. “It’s you, though. It could never be bad with you. You’re like, the best thing since sliced bread.”
Gunwook’s face does something complicated. Pleased, then frustrated, then upset. Brows creased in bitten-back frustration.
It makes Matthew’s heart hurt when he looks like that. When they first met, it’d seemed scary, but either Gunwook is see-through or Matthew can just read him especially well, because it quickly became clear that he was only ever frustrated with himself. His body, his mind. He locks himself into these little boxes. Refuses to let himself out until he’s cooled off.
But Matthew hates it, he hates it. He can’t just leave him alone like Hao suggests they should. He has to wiggle his way in and pry Gunwook open or nobody will.
Matthew squeezes one of Gunwook’s hands flat between his. Interlocks their fingers. Gunwook’s are bigger, so Matthew’s fingers have to splay more, but they fit neatly together.
“I don’t know,” Gunwook says. “I don’t know.”
“Do you still want to do it?” Matthew says, gentle.
Gunwook looks away.
“Gunwook~” Matthew says, puts a teasing lilt into it to make it feel less like the call-out it is. “Wook-ah. My baby. Tell hyung what you’re thinking.”
“I don’t know,” Gunwook repeats. His lower lip wobbles and his voice is watery like it gets when he’s trying really hard not to cry, and it's awful. If it was anyone else making Gunwook feel like this, Matthew’d tear them a new one. But it gets more complicated when it’s Gunwook making Gunwook feel like this. “This is really stupid.”
“What?” Matthew says, almost laughs because it’s so ridiculous. “No, it’s not. It’s not stupid.”
He doesn’t know how to make it better, but he has to. It’s like—it’s like spotting a kitten on the side of the road in the rain. There’s no universe where you don’t pull over. So he tugs Gunwook into a hug, nestles his face against Gunwook’s neck.
“It’s not stupid,” he repeats against the hot skin there. “This matters. Even if it didn’t, I’d still listen.”
Gunwook’s whole body heaves in a shaky sigh. “I don’t even—I don’t know what the problem is.”
“You said you didn’t want to do a bad job,” Matthew coaxes.
“Yeah,” Gunwook says. He pulls his voice back to a careful neutral, though it's still a little uneven. “I don’t know what real sex is supposed to be like. Like, outside of…”
“Handjobs are real sex,” Matthew says. His sister has thoroughly prepared him for this talk. The bullet points are burned into his brain—your first time doing anything should be with someone you trust, you can say no at any point, don’t listen if someone says it’s not that big of a deal because if you feel like it is, then it is. And handjobs count as sex. That part was important.
Gunwook pats Matthew’s back before he can pull away from the hug to give his presentation. Damn. Read instantly. “I know, I know. It’s just… this…”
“Penetrative sex?” Matthew tries in English. He doesn’t know the Korean word, either.
“Penetrative sex,” Gunwook echoes carefully. His English always hits Matthew somewhere raw, but the word sex in his mother tongue is—he’s trying to be responsible right now, damn it. “It’s different.”
“It is.” There’s a pause. Gunwook doesn’t fill it, his back still tense under Matthew’s fingers, jaw set against the side of his head. “It’s okay to want to wait.”
“Maybe,” Gunwook says.
“Gunwook,” Matthew says softly.
“Just give me a second to think.”
Matthew hums and keeps holding him. It’s funny, Gunwook’s arms are always over his shoulders, but Matthew finds he’s usually the one doing the holding. Anyway, if Gunwook can’t parse what’s happening in his head, Matthew certainly can’t. He sees how jumbled it gets, though. Contradicting thoughts weaving themselves into knots.
“I don’t want to be in charge,” he admits finally, soft and a little ashamed.
They’re getting somewhere. Matthew noses against Gunwook’s neck to get him to keep going.
“I wish I could just—make you feel good. Without having to worry, because I have no idea what I’m doing, you know? Like, I need to—I need to learn to get good at something, but I don’t know how to learn? I have to learn how to learn this.”
A lightbulb flicks on in Matthew’s brain.
“Have you,” he starts. Gunwook shifts beneath his biceps, cut quiet easily. “Have you ever thought about you bottoming?”
Matthew hadn’t, somehow. Just sort of assumed that Gunwook would want to jump him as people always seemed to want with him, but he should have thought about it, because doesn’t that sound like exactly the kind of subversion that they have everywhere else? Tiny hyung, giant baby.
“Oh,” Gunwook says, a breathy sound, maybe a little too close to a moan. It’s easy to imagine that in a different context, now. Oh, God. Matthew feels Gunwook’s pulse pick up under his cheek, a loud thump, thump, thump at the base of Gunwook’s throat, and he’s sure his own is doing something similar. “I’m… I have thought about it.”
“Good thoughts?”
“Yeah.” It shudders out of him, a sigh. Matthew thinks of—flushed shoulders and long, smooth thighs and dark hair against pillowcases. “I think about it a lot. I… didn’t know if you’d want that.”
“Of course I do,” Matthew says. He pulls back to look Gunwook in the eyes. He’s so pretty it makes Matthew’s heart clench. A droplet of water traces down his forehead and through the fine hairs between his eyebrows. “Gunwook-ah, have you seen yourself? I’m kind of hard right now.”
“Hyung,” Gunwook says, a mix of scandalized and flattered. He takes a deep breath and pats his face as if it’ll make his blush disappear. “For real?”
“For real,” Matthew confirms.
Gunwook makes a funny shape with his mouth to stop from smiling as he thinks about it. “This feels too easy.”
“Everything is easy with you.”
“Can we do it now?” Gunwook asks, barely restrained excitement like a dog waiting for a treat.
“Is this all you needed?” Matthew laughs. He rests his head against Gunwook’s shoulder, relieved. “I mean, yeah. I wasn’t lying about being turned on.”
Gunwook giggles, actually giggles. Sort of nervous and breathy, but that was a giggle.
“Oh my God,” Matthew says in awe.
“What?” Gunwook draws out, wiggling under him. He’s so pink he looks like he’s made of candy, like Matthew could sink his teeth into him with no resistance.
“You want me bad.”
“Have you seen yourself?” Gunwook echoes from earlier. He puts on this sultry little grin and Matthew seriously wonders how he never thought of this before, because now it’s pounding on the inside of his ears, a constant pulse. Gunwook’s broad back under his hand, the rhythmic gasping as Matthew—“Come on, let’s go do something about it.”
And well, Matthew can’t argue with that.