Archive of Our Own

The door jingled happily as Yeosang pushed it open, leaving the simmering heat of the late August afternoon behind. His steps carried him over the familiar creaky wooden floorboards of the old store, into the stuffy depths of shelves tightly packed with rows upon rows of books, and, like he always did, he went straight to the science section. He hadn't been to the store in a while; there had to be something new.

Smiling to himself, he noted the books he already owned, smile widening briefly when his fingertips ran over the cover of a children's book titled 'The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont' and he thought of San. Had that idiot been with him, he undoubtedly would've picked up the book and leafed through it as he told him about this Alberto Santos-Dumont and his inventions, but Yeosang was alone, so he kissed the gold ring that laid snug against his left ring finger and moved on.

With delight, he found that a section about less popular topics like insects, fungi and quantum physics had been added, and he thought about his garden and how few butterflies he'd seen in it that summer, played with the decision between four books of wildly different contents that all seemed so terribly interesting, then settled for one called 'Silent Earth' because it was the cheapest of the four. San would've tried to convince him to take the one about the history of mechanical and technological inventions, and he thought that it was good that the man wasn't there with him, because he could never resist him.

Halfway through considering his purchase of a novel about a man forced to survive alone on Mars for over a year, he remembered that he'd come to the store for a reason and reluctantly returned the book to its place on the shelf. Damn that stupid two-book rule he'd cursed himself with. But, he thought two steps later, did a book he didn't buy for himself really count as being affected by the rule?

It didn't, he decided, turning on his heel, and when he eventually laid his free hand on the polished railing of the worn wooden stairs, he carried two books in his other hand. Did he have over fifty unread books at home? Yes. But there was always room for new books, and besides, 'The Martian' would interest San too, so that only counted as half a book for him.

Thus justifying his new acquisitions, he arrived at the top of the second flight, glancing at the second floor bookshelves before he turned to the register and paused. The employee behind it made a gentle attempt at keeping a crow-black cat from eating his piece of plum flan, hand on its little shoulders to keep it down on the counter, his black, tied-up hair shimmering gold in the sunlight like the cat's fur, and his clear-cut features moved in a sort of fluctuation between irritation and suffering.

Yeosang knew the man, of course, what with him being his and San's undertenant, but he was fairly sure that that man – Jung Wooyoung, if he recalled correctly – hadn't been working at the store last time he'd come in. Then again, that had been a few months ago already, and it was kind of nice to see more of him. A satisfied little smile tugged at the corners of his mouth when he realized that the plum flan the man defended so heroically was the one Yeosang had baked.

He stepped to the counter somewhat nervous, free hand playing with the cover of 'The Martian', and a shy smile replaced his former expression when the other looked up from the cat upon his approach. "Hello," he greeted, maybe a little too politely.

Wooyoung returned his shy smile with a surprised, seemingly genuine one. "Oh, hi!" he greeted back, the hand with the piece of flan moving out of the cat's reach without him looking, then he, jokingly, added: "Your cake is in high demand, as you can see. As it should be, by the way, it's delicious. Not too sweet, even with the plums. Those are from the garden, right?"

Yeosang blinked, a little overrun, taking a second to get his thoughts straight. "Yeah, they are." He averted his gaze to the cat (still trying to get the flan), cheeks heating up at the compliment. "And thank you. I'm glad you like it."

"I love it," the man corrected him jovially, taking a bite as if to prove his point, swallowing before he continued. "I'd love to get the recipe from you." His gaze flicked down to the books in the other's hands. "But let me help you with those first."

"Oh, uhm, yeah." Yeosang set both books onto the counter. "And I think there was an e-mail that our order came in today?"

Wooyoung hummed, turning to the small, unbelievably messy desk between counter and wall to lock his piece of flan in a blue plastic lunch box. "Under what name?" he asked, brushing leftover dough crumbs off his fingertips before he turned to the overflowing shelf behind him.

"Kang San, I think." Yeosang watched the man bend pieces of paper with illegible handwriting stuck into or between books, searching for the name, most likely, until he made a quiet sound of success and pulled a thick, spiral-bound textbook whose weight punched a little huff from him from the worryingly full shelf. The other should've known that that thing would be a tome.

Wooyoung briefly regarded the boring cover, checked the back, then turned the thing to him. "This one, yeah?"

"Uhm-" Yeosang squinted to find the names of the authors. "-Yep! That's the one."

The man plucked the inscribed piece of paper from the book and threw it away, then scanned the book and set it down on the counter. It thumped on the wood like it weighed half a ton. "Ah, good choice," he commented as he picked up 'The Martian', "I've read this one. Very good. You into science-fiction?"

"Kinda, yeah. I just read anything that seems interesting." He paused for a moment, considered; should he try to use this as a chance to make a friend? "You? What's your favorite genre?"

Wooyoung hummed, fending off the cat now inspecting the scanner. "Don't really have one either, to be honest, but I've been getting into gothic horror, and I haven't been disappointed so far."

Yeosang made a sort of agreeing sound that he hoped wasn't weird. "Oh, yes, I love gothic horror. Let me know if you need any recommendations." Was he doing this right? God, he hoped so. He smiled as the other affirmed this, then dug through his bag to find his wallet, an embarrassing little giggle fleeing him when the pretty black cat intercepted his attempt at paying and purred into his opening hand. It was the cutest thing ever.

"Darling!" Wooyoung scolded playfully, smiling rather widely, "You've got to let the customers pay!"

The cat made a purred meow and moved closer to Yeosang's caresses, and then Yeosang scratched her cheek, smile widening with the intensity of her leaning into it, using the brief respite it gave his other hand to pay. "Aren't you a little cutie?" he asked the cat in a babying voice, "Aren't you beautiful, you sweet thing?" It meowed quietly and rubbed itself up against his arms, eliciting a beaming smile from him.

Wooyoung tucked the receipt between cover and first page of 'Silent Earth', but he barely noticed. "The prettiest," the man agreed, and when Yeosang looked up from the cat's silken, gold-rimmed black fur, he found him looking at him. Funny that they would look up at the same time.

He smiled, returned his gaze to the pretty little lady relishing in his petting, heart aching as he realized that there was nothing keeping him at the store, and that he would have to continue his errands. "Almost don't want to leave her," he relayed his grievances to the man opposite himself, "But I gotta go grocery shopping, and today's market day, so I have to be a little quick if I want good ingredients."

"Particular occasion?" Wooyoung tried to sound casual, but there was just a bit too much interest in his voice.

Yeosang hummed. "I've been meaning to learn how to cook, but I never got to it until now. My husband always gets home especially late on Thursday, so I thought I'd surprise him." His smile widened as he thought about it; the way San would light up, the way those dimples would dip his cheeks, the way he'd look at him with those sun-amber eyes glowing with adoration, with joy, the way he'd take him by the waist and kiss him sweet like strawberry syrup. "If I don't fuck it up, that is. The tutorials and books don't really help."

Wooyoung watched his fingers comb through the cat's fur. "I could teach you," he offered after a moment of only the cat's purring, a little shy. "I'm kind of a learned cook."

Surprised, the other looked up. "You'd do that?" A learned cook, huh? No wonder the house often smelled so good in the evening. And what better way to learn how to make a decent meal than from an actual cook?

The man shrugged. "Sure."

"Then, yeah, that would be really cool!" How exciting! If he did well, maybe he could cook every evening and they could finally eat properly all the time. Then San wouldn't have to attempt cooking on Tuesday and Saturday anymore either, and he could finally fully realize his little dream of domestic evening sweetness, setting steaming homemade food onto the table, sinking into the seat beside his lover, receiving one of those pretty thank you kisses before he was granted the privilege of watching the love of his life blissfully wolf down what he'd made. It was perfect in his imagination.

"Well-" Wooyoung began as the door to the store jingled, "-I get off work around quarter past six, so I'm free after. When does your husband get home?"

Steps creaked up the stairs. "Eight, maybe eight fifteen," Yeosang replied happily, excited to learn how to cook and excited to get to know the man better. Wouldn't it be so nice to have a friend just downstairs?

"Alright, what d'you say to seven? Should be more than enough time. I'll knock?"

Far too aware of the presence stopping just behind him, Yeosang cheerfully agreed to this, pet the cat one last time and, bidding his goodbyes, took his books. He smiled to himself as he sauntered down the uneven wooden stairs, gazing through the glass wall stretching both floors, glancing at the ceiling far above him and its glittering sunlit crystal chandelier, the cheerful song of Wooyoung's bright voice following him all the way to the jingling door.

Outside in the August heat, he slid his new books into one of his two bike bags, the remnant joy of that conversation lingering, joined by a sort of excitement for the evening. He thought, again, of the way his man would beam at him like the morning sun when he saw the food, of the way his man would pull him close and look at him with those lovely dark honey eyes that smoldered gold with adoration, of the way his man would say 'Thank you, my love,' with that sweet molasses voice, his favorite sound in the world.

He sighed deeply. What wouldn't he give to amble to the market hand in hand with San, lean into him whenever they stood, giggle with him about some stupid joke, have him near him. His chest ached with the longing for him.

Plucking his phone from his pocket, he considered telling San about it, about his little achievement with Wooyoung and his cooking class and that he wanted to crawl under his skin and curl up around the gentle rhythm of his heart, and his own heart perked up when he saw that his lover had texted him.

'I miss you' the message read.

He smiled like he was still a teenager in love. They always had been on the same wavelength, him and his San. 'come home' he texted back, for a moment putting aside his plan of cooking for the wishful imagination of spending the rest of the afternoon dozing in the dappled shade of the old apple tree, him and his husband on the blue checkered blanket, lazy caresses on his just a little too warm skin. He could read aloud to him, quiet among the busy thrum of the overgrown meadow, and San could close his eyes into the dance of blurry patches of sunlight on his handsome face and pout at him when the closed book lowered to the blanket.

But his bubble of summer bliss was popped when San replied 'I wish :(' and 'I don't think I can survive another 6h without you my darling'. He was always sappy like that.

Yeosang read the message again, and then a third time, just because. 'the faster you're done with work, the faster you're home' he told him, and then, because he knew him, 'did you eat yet?'

The reply to this was a picture of San, sitting at a white cafeteria table, a tray with a steaming bowl of soup between the phone and him, sunlight glowing on his golden, summer-tanned skin, freckled neck blurred to infinite softness by the light, white dress shirt with its sleeves rolled up, fabric near translucent, blinding, creasing neatly, the faintest hint of July freckles dotted over his cheeks, his endlessly warm eyes aimed right at him with their heartbreaking tint of sadness, frowning lightly, his slicked back black hair gleaming like sculpted bronze, sharp jaw and high cheekbones and straight nose softened by a pout that tilted the corners of his perfect mouth down. He looked radiant.

Then Yeosang noticed the tall man seated beside his husband, leaning into the picture, his left eye barely visible. 'good.' he replied, missing San's dimples, his smiley liveliness, 'tell yunho I said hi'.

'he says hi back' There was a little pause, then, that, were they together, would've meant a comfortable silence in which they could've adjusted their hands on each other. Now, it merely gave Yeosang time to turn the golden ring on his ring finger with his thumb. 'I still have 37min of lunch break left' San texted eventually, 'I could come and kiss you for a few minutes'.

'No.' Oh how badly Yeosang wanted that. 'You're not driving a 30min drive in 15min Kang San.'

San texted 'hihi', which meant that he was giddy and tucking his hair behind his ear in an exaggerated show of blushing, and when the other sent a question mark in reply, the man elaborated: 'We're married', with a red heart.

Yeosang rolled his eyes, smiling. 'you don't say'. The bubble with its three jumping dots popped up, and he knew what that stupid man would say and hurried to beat him to it. 'still no. that's fucking dangerous'

'but I want youu' his man complained, shortly followed by an image depicting a crudely drawn figure on its knees, one hand clutching its chest, blue pool of tears beneath its tortured grimace of a face, wide open, downturned mouth and tear-swollen eyes and red splotch where its nose would likely be. 'I want you so bad I miss you so much the light of my life is gone without you I cannot go on like this I will wither away and shrivel to a husk of a person incapable of anything but longing for you so hard it takes my breath and tears my heart apart I am nothing without you my darling my love my everything I need you like the tide needs the moon I exist for your nearness and I am dying every second that you are gone'

Yeosang sighed fondly. His dramatic, clingy, romantic San. 'baby' he replied, meaning it as an insult. 'you've been gone for six hours.'

'worst 6h of my life.' the man shot back, then: 'yunho's making fun of me :('

The other was smiling at his phone like a lovesick kid, by then, and he didn't care. 'loser' he texted, and were he with him, he would've looked at him with his eyes all stupidly fond, and his smile would've widened a little as he said that, and Yunho would've sighed exasperatedly and muttered a slur under his breath. His glance darted to the tiny clock in the corner of his screen. Fuck, it was getting later and later. 'I gotta go or all the strawberries will be gone'.

He could hear the overly dramatic sigh his husband heaved before the man sent 'fine' and 'I'm gonna kiss you for so long when I get home'.

A moment later, goodbyes bid and phone back in his pocket, he swung onto his bike and headed for the market. The warm late summer wind feathered through his hair, the lazy bustle of the town rushed past him in half-blurred glances at faces, and he smiled like he was eighteen and newly in love. San did that to him. Eight years later, and he still did that to him.

At the market, he filled his bike bag with the groceries for the week, grocery list in hand, ticking off the items he bought, and when he finally got his hands on a kilogram basket of lush August strawberries, he ate one and thought about San and his pretty lips stained berry-blood red, nineteen years old and kissing him in his mother's garden. He'd tasted like strawberries and sunshine.

Now, Yeosang thought on the way home, San tasted like rich, flowery red wine and languid golden evening sunbeams through open windows, like slow, summer heat-lazy sex and hot coffee on cold, sunlit winter mornings, like the fake strawberry sweetness of a lollipop and the rest of their lives. He thought that he looked forward to finding out what he might taste like in another seven years.

The houses and people and cars flitted past him, thinning out, houses crouching, space between them broadening, trees reaching up alongside roads, and he thought about what San had said, what he'd called him; 'my darling, my love, my everything'. He could've gone on, Yeosang knew, could've listed a thousand ways in which Yeosang was his, and Yeosang would never admit it, but he loved it, loved being San's. He loved it quite a lot.

Which made coming home to an empty house so much worse. The wooden gate creaked as he pushed it open and told himself for the hundredth time that he had to oil the hinges, and his bike whirred by his side as he wheeled it past the front door, down the shadowed, paved path between house and plant-hidden fence, beneath the roof extending from the shed. He kissed his wedding ring before he locked his bike.

Heavy bike bags in both hands, he made it back to the front door, unlocked it, climbed the wooden flight of stairs that creaked under his weight, set one bag down to unlock the door at its top. "Hey, kids!" he called into the rooms beyond, closing the door with his foot and kicking off his shoes before he headed into the kitchen. The only one who replied to him was Smoothie, whose excited meows sounded from San's bedroom.

Seconds later, the lanky orange striped tomcat loped into the kitchen, rubbing himself up against Yeosang's leg once before he leapt onto the little platform extending from the windowsill by the counter, neatly wrapping his tail around his paws as he sat and surveyed. He liked doing that, for some reason, watching Yeosang unpack groceries, bake, clean, eat, anything one did in a kitchen.

Star must be out, the man thought, or she would've come to him and demanded pets by now, and if Star was out, then Gecko was too. Those two were always together. He sighed, wishing he could be out with San, maybe taking a walk in the nearby forest, watching the shy life of the frog pond, sauntering along field roads – tree-lined or exposed to the sun – hand in hand, maybe sitting on the terrace of the cafe at the edge of the meadows and drinking fizzling ruby raspberry soda as he gazed out over the long grass and its flowers and pretended not to notice his lover gazing at him.

Instead, he looked past Smoothie and watched the trees of their garden sway softly, saw the small green deformed things between the leaves of the apple tree, just ripening, saw the dark purple plums weighing down the branches of their tree, still so many to be gathered and eaten, and he pitied the tree for all the fruit it had to bear and reminded himself to rope San into picking more plums that weekend, maybe even into the turning them into jam part, though he guessed that his husband would be busy with that new software he'd had to order a tome for.

Maybe he could get Wooyoung to help him, if today went well. That man was a little smaller, much thinner than both of them, could probably climb far higher into the tree and get the plums they'd never gotten themselves, and if he was a learned cook, he would be able to make sure that Yeosang didn't fuck the jam up. He was a little worried about that. Very worried.

But for now, he returned the bike bags to their place, dropped that giant of a book on San's desk, sorted his own new books into the dark wood shelves of the ever-growing library, made a jug of lemonade and poured himself a big glass with ice, adding a metal straw that clinked softly against the glass and conversed with the ice cubes. Smoothie followed him to the balcony, slinking through yesterday's living room mess like an orange shadow, but he settled on the wooden floor of the balcony as Yeosang took off his socks.

Yeosang took a sip of his lemonade, caressed the leaves of the cherry tree as he went down the stairs winding around its trunk, wood heated by the day, ducking under the small branch he'd been meaning to cut off for weeks, and he thought that whoever had planted that cherry tree – or built the stairs around it; he didn't know which came first – had been a fantastic person. Shaded stairs, access to almost all layers of cherries, and though there were none left now, of course, he remembered plucking a few every time he used the stairs.

Clover beneath his bare feet, he looked up at the balcony, shielding his eyes against the sun, and sure enough, his curious son settled between two metal bars of the railing and stared down at him. The man smiled lightly as he crossed the garden. He passed by the slightly raised beds, bent down to check his pumpkins and cucumbers and lettuce and herbs, satisfied that the slugs had not dared crossing the eggshell minefield he'd laid around his crop, noticing that Wooyoung had finally made use of the part of the beds he'd been given.

A crow, two crows, cawed, interrupting the peaceful late August afternoon quiet, and he searched the sky, the trees, the rooftops for their black shapes but couldn't find them. Oh well. He sipped on his lemonade, considered the plum tree, touched one branch and promised it that they would soon take that heavy weight from it, then he dropped himself on the old canopy swing and considered the garden.

Wasn't it funny, he thought rocking back and forth, that this old, rotting, wooden thing, with its creaking metal hinges and clicking metal chains, with its lichen fur and splinter claws, had witnessed so much of San and him? The declaration of their best friend-ship when San had first brought him to his grandparents' house when they were fifteen, said quietly in sweltering late spring warmth, countless summer evenings and nights spent talking, the blossoming, blooming of their love, that first kiss – his first kiss – when they were nineteen and a little tipsy with wine and the stars speckled the sky, San's grief after his grandmother had followed her husband to the afterlife, Yeosang's clumsy attempts at comforting him, everything between them after.

The dying summer must be making him nostalgic, he thought, sipping his lemonade. It would be September in a week, and then October was right around the corner, and before you'd realize, summer would be over and autumn would have already crept into every crack and small hollow of the old house. Maybe it was some lingering softness of his and San's third anniversary two weeks ago, too, maybe it was the tug of his soul trying to climb from his chest and reunite with his lover. Like it wasn't one with San's already.

He sat there, musing, swimming in the golden blood of nostalgia until his lemonade was gone and he'd melted every single ice cube in his mouth and his fingertips were stained maroon with plum juice. He left bloodied fingerprints on the glass when he picked it up, regained his striped little shadow on his barefooted way to the kitchen. The clock politely informed him that it was four o' clock, with the trill of a garden warbler. Four more hours until San was back, three until Wooyoung would knock.

Considering the to do list on the fridge, he crossed out 'pick up the book' and 'groceries', then paused, tapped the pen to his lips, added 'fix the gate', 'cut the cherry branch' and 'kiss Smoothie'. He crouched down, lured the cat closer, gently took his pretty little face and pressed a thick fat kiss to his pretty little head, and then another one and another one. Smoothie purred by the time he stood up and struck out the last item on the list.

He read for the remaining time, lounging on the living room couch, the jug of lemonade slowly emptying, sun-glittering on the couch table, absentmindedly running his hands through Star's beige fur after she came in with her muddied little paws and curled up on his chest. He didn't read either of the books he'd just bought, obviously, but rather a thirty year old, second-hand collection of short stories titled 'You Are Not a Stranger Here', regretting having left the book untouched for so long, like he always did.

On the second page of the last short story, he was forced to halt, placing his book face down on the coffee table, gently rousing Star from her place on his chest, as much as it pained him to do so. Unsuccessful, he wandered through the evening sunlight holding her, two little paws on either side of his neck, pretty little face tucked into the crook of his neck, and Wooyoung cooed at the cat the moment Yeosang opened the door for him.

The man was a whirlwind, blowing into the quiet flat with excited eyes and a beaming smile and lively chatter rivaling that of a forest creek, gaze flicking about the space like it was hungry for something, telling him all about how much he liked the painted flowers ranking up wooden doorframes and the paintings hung on sun-warmed moss green walls and the decorations and the light kitchen and how cozy everything was. 'Cottage-core dream' was the word he used to describe it.

Yeosang had to blink and sort himself and fit himself to the bright, loud muchness that was Wooyoung, thanking him belatedly, only a little hurt when Star demanded to be set down. He would've had to put her down anyway, if he wanted to learn how to cook.

Somewhat shy, he followed the other into the kitchen, amazed that the man seemed like he belonged there already, like the sun-bleached wood of the counter had been caressed by his slender, golden hands for years, like the knives were used to his skilled touch, like his presence was as natural a part of the room as the worn wooden floorboards. He'd never seen a person do that before. It made him want to know more, see what else he could do that he'd never seen before.

"Alright!" Wooyoung declared cheerfully, clapping his hands once. "Let's get started, shall we? I trust you have a recipe?"

Yeosang nodded, disappeared to the library to get grandmother's cookbook. He leafed through it to find the recipe as he returned to the kitchen, wordlessly handed it to the other once he'd found it. Then he stood back and watched, and suddenly he understood Smoothie quite well. Observing was nice. Easy.

Just as easy, it turned out, as talking to Wooyoung. He was a little hesitant at first, very awkward, shier than he'd like to be, but the man talked to him like they'd known each other for years, like this was just a conversation among friends, joked with him and teased him a little and asked questions and told him about himself and it was all really rather nice. There were no awkward silences or pauses, with that dancing sunbeam of a man seamlessly stitching all the ends Yeosang unwillingly cursed the conversation with right into a new thing to say.

It was fascinating to witness, really, and if he hadn't been so busy trying not to fuck up the simplest tasks, he might have paid the sorcery right in front of him more attention than a few passing thoughts and silent prayers of thanks. He really was not made for cooking. Baking, he understood, but cooking? He swore he could hear the millions of pointy comments Wooyoung had to be keeping below his throat.

Despite his... energetic demeanor, the man was patient with him. Patient, and disappointed. Not seriously, Yeosang didn't think, but he got a sigh and a long stare when he asked what must've sounded to Wooyoung like a stupid question but was to him a clarification for an unclear instruction.

Either way, it was fun, and despite his several consecutive crises and his increasingly low tolerance for his own mistakes, the time passed like a blur. It felt like barely ten minutes after they'd started that Wooyoung instructed him how to fry the chicken in the pan and hovered close to him, watching, observing his failings, expectant eyes on him as Yeosang tried everything they'd produced.

To his surprise, it didn't taste all that bad. He didn't delude himself that it was because he was any good at cooking, but it was nice either way. Wooyoung high-fived him when he tried the chicken. The kitchen smelled like it did that summer ten years ago, his first evening at the house, completely unaware that he would call it his home only four years later, and he didn't know what it was, but that whirlwind man laughed a high-pitched, shrieking laughter at a joke he'd made and something stirred in the thick honey air.

The key clicked in the door atop the stairs, and Yeosang forgot about everything but what would follow. "Hello!" San called into the flat, and it sounded so much like 'come here' that Yeosang was sure it was the magnetic force of their hearts pulling them closer to each other, not his barefooted steps on the wooden floor.

His husband caught him by the waist and tugged him to himself and pressed them together and kissed him with the sweet fervor of a longing finally stilled. It was like coming home after a storm. "It smells amazing," San told him quietly, hugging him tightly, molten into him like wax, and Yeosang relaxed infinitely and felt like he was being soaked up by the desert of missing in his lover, felt it the other way around too.

He hummed in agreement, attempting to gently pry his man away from himself when he felt that he'd left Wooyoung alone in a stranger's kitchen for too long, but San only budged when he was informed of the presence of their guest, and he looked like he felt rather cross about it too. Yeosang would kiss him to apologize later, when they were alone, when he could peel the dress shirt off that gorgeous body and lap up the weariness gathering in the dip of his collarbones and between the freckles on one side of his neck, the faint, near invisible spray of them that throned on those broad shoulders and thick arms and muscular chest.

He often thought that he was the only person in the world who knew that Kang San freckled under the glaring summer sun, and he kept that little secret like a treasure, kissed that sunlight amber skin and only confessed to his infatuation with those tiny, hazy stars when they glowed with the light of each other, still naked in the messy sheets, his fingertips wandering over that tender skin, the love of his life looking at him like he'd never seen anything more beautiful, the two of them in that timeless space between moments.

He smiled to himself as he set the table, Wooyoung helping him, San washing his hands, unloading his backpack in his bedroom, greeting the cats before he joined them in the kitchen. Like Yeosang had predicted, his lover lit up like the morning sun when he spotted the food, and those cute dimples dipped his handsome cheeks, and he looked at him with that utterly familiar fondness and laid an arm around his waist and kissed him. It wasn't quite as long as it would've been without the third man present, and it didn't properly express what it would have.

Suddenly, Wooyoung seemed rather eager to leave, turned away from them, tidying up before he tried to slip away from them. But once he'd learned that the man had helped, San insisted that Wooyoung should stay, and no one could contradict him when he didn't want them to. He had a way about him that made people want to please him.

And, Yeosang thought, Wooyoung must've been glad that he stayed half an hour later. Him and San got along phenomenally; so phenomenally, in fact, that he himself fell to the periphery of the conversation, and he didn't mind it one bit. He liked watching them, the way they danced, he liked watching his man ease into Wooyoung's bright muchness the same way he had himself. San's knee bumped his under the table. They pretended that it wasn't on purpose, because it made the knowledge that it had been on purpose a little more smug, a little more secret.

He did not like catching Wooyoung's eyes lingering on San's forearms a little too long, on the exposed sliver of his chest past the few undone shirt buttons, on his face, and his husband must've felt similarly, because when they were done eating, he rested his arm on the backrest of Yeosang's chair, displaying his wedding ring on Yeosang's shoulder, and the way he did it, the way he leaned and looked, was a little pointed.

'Mine,' he said with it, and Yeosang said 'mine' back with his right hand on San's thigh, caressing under the table, once reaching up to touch the man's left hand with his own, twin gleam of their rings in the dying light of the day. Wooyoung watched the whole thing, but didn't seem deterred or disappointed by that little show of possessiveness. He didn't seem to have noticed that he'd been looking.

The evening stretched, they cleared the table, the opened bottle of wine was brought, the sky blackened and freckled with stars, San joked that Wooyoung shouldn't have more than a sip or two so he could still drive home. Wooyoung giggled like fluttering butterflies when he was tipsy. Yeosang got clingy. And San? San sweetened infinitely.

Around midnight, Wooyoung seemed to tire of the lovers and their admittedly much affection for each other, and he left a sort of quiet behind, a sort of emptiness. This emptiness was quickly filled by San grabbing Yeosang's hips and pressing him to himself and kissing him like a man starving, perfect mouth hungry against his, all of him hot and eager and needy, hands wandering hurriedly like he couldn't get enough of him.

Yeosang giggled as he lead his man to the space between kitchen and living room, hand in his, well aware of the way San looked at him like he couldn't wait to eat him, and he only briefly let go of him to climb the steep, almost ladder-like stairs to his bedroom. The latch opened near soundlessly, only the soft thump of its wood against the edge of the floor, his hand sought the switch on one of the beams supporting the roof, a string of dim fairy lights awakening around the space, and then the latch closed and his husband was upon him once more.

"You gotta be up early tomorrow," Yeosang reminded quietly, grinning, cool silken sheets against his hot, bare back, his hands loosely locking behind San's neck as the man crawled over him, and every fiber of him wanted him closer, closer, closer. "This is so irresponsible."

San ran a hand up his flushed torso, made him rise into the touch, and the dim light glowed on him like a halo, made his dark, hungry eyes molten gold, and he looked down at him with endless adoration and animal craving. "I'm not responsible," he replied, just as quietly, fingertips tracing the blooming fresh bruise red marks on the other's neck and collarbones, "I'm mad about you." His hungry mouth caught the giggle on Yeosang's lips before it ever left.

Skin whispering against skin, grasping hands, rustling fabric, quiet voices blending into a murmur of panting and gasping and moaned praises and hitching breaths, two bodies sweat-glistening and shuddering and still trying to get so much closer to each other, silver moonlight molten into the fairy lights gold, messy, open-mouthed half kisses, teeth on his neck, heat in his lower abdomen like a red-glowing metal coil, so much and far too few, him and the love of his life beautifully blissful, delightfully delirious, sunken into each other.

After, he laid on San's shoulder, their legs still entangled, soft late summer night breeze dancing through the open, slanted skylights above the bed, brushing over his raw skin like feathers, and he circled those nearly invisible freckles on that moon-silver skin with his fingertips and listened to his lover's breath. He'd miss those freckles when they faded with winter, only those prominent ones on one side of San's neck remaining, and he'd smile to himself when he spotted the first shimmer of them next summer.

San's caresses wandered from his bare waist up his back, along his spine, came to rest at his shoulder. "Darling?" his man asked, quietly, with that soft voice that was half sleep and half adoration. He continued when the other hummed in reply. "D'you think we're together in every life?"

"'f course," Yeosang replied, and only because his body hummed with the remnants of pleasure and the summer night air made him nostalgic and he laid entirely bare, body and soul and all, beside his husband. "Maybe we met at university in one, 'n y'asked me out while we were walkin' under bloomin' cherry trees 'n it was rainin' 'n ya held the umbrella for me."

San chuckled. "That's specific."

He gave a light shrug. "Maybe in another one we were roommates 'n fell in love 'cause we were both scared of the thunderstorm 'n each other's only safety." A tired little smile. "You don't realize you're bi in that one, but you're always fallin' asleep on my chest."

"Okay, woah, hey," San complained, playfully offended, "I know myself, thank you very much. I'd never be stupid enough not to realize that I'm in love with you."

Yeosang giggled, lazily pushing himself up on his elbow, hand holding his head, fingers tangled in his messy hair. He looked down at him, at his beautiful San, his night-soft eyes and utterly familiar features and moles on his cheeks, and his hand slid to his chest and his fingers traced those collarbones. "Maybe we're singers in one, 'n we're in a band, 'n the band's so famous that we gotta hide it."

His husband's eyes sparkled with joy. "Oh, secret love, how scandalous!" He giggled like a teenager with a crush. "But I'd never be able to pretend I'm not obsessed with ya, my darling." His hand slipped from his shoulder, to his neck, fingertips brushing over what the other could only imagine to be those fresh bruises, and he looked at him, god, he looked at him like there was nothing more beautiful in the world. "You're so pretty." He said 'pretty' like it encompassed every synonym for beautiful there was.

Yeosang's smile widened tiredly, and was this any other time, he would've flushed. Now, he just closed his eyes and relished in those caresses on his neck. "Y'know I'm gonna have t'cover these up tomorrow, right? Don't need him teasin' me about them."

"No." San was very decided about this. "Let him see. Want him to see that you're mine."

"'M pretty sure he knows that." But he wouldn't touch the concealer tomorrow. "Y'were so possessive tonight, baby, he'd have to be a fuckin' idiot not to know."

"Is it so wrong that I want to make it obvious that we belong together?" his lover asked, audibly pouting, "You're perfect like this, so perfect, my beautiful love, is it so wrong that I want everyone to see that you're mine?"

"You have my last name," Yeosang deadpanned, then opened his eyes and lifted his head off his left hand to show it to his lover, golden ring gleaming in the moonlight. "We're literally married."

A slow, lazy smile spread over San's face, pretty dimples dipping his cheeks, and then he took the other's face in his gentle hands and pulled him down to himself and kissed him. It was still as wonderful as it was the first time, seven years ago, still as perfect as it had been every single time since then. He'd never get enough of kissing him.

"Love of my life," San whispered into his readily opening mouth, "Light of my heart."

Yeosang smiled against his lips and kissed him deeper.

☆🍁☆

He woke up alone, which was always unusual. Stirring, nuzzling into the thin blanket, he gave his brain time to start up; he'd dreamed about a thunderstorm and crackling flames and wet hair and thick blankets, and everything had been warm and cozy and light with quiet laughter. Must've been autumn coming closer.

Writhing in the sheets, he had a vague thought about his sleep schedule and San's alarm and his husband leaving for work, and then he scrambled to sit up and check the time: just after seven. Thank god.

He slipped from the bed, glad to find the skylights closed, lightly shook his head at the mess of clothes on the moss-dark carpet, crossed the wooden floor to the tiny walk-in closet on the other end of the room. Inside, the light clicked on, and he plucked underwear, shorts and a big shirt that San had bought on one of their vacations from the crowded space before he retreated.

Dressed, remembering greening land and warm spring rain and glistening streets and a store offering refuge from the sudden downpour, he climbed down the ladder-stairs, hands on the carved leaves railing. The scent of freshly brewed coffee lured him to the kitchen, where he was caught by soft arms that he pretended to struggle against, but, like he always did, he eventually sighed and melted into the embrace and pulled him a little closer.

San kissed his head, told him 'good morning, my love' in that endlessly tender way of his, kissed his mouth, swallowed the second half of Yeosang's reply. They sat at the kitchen table in a comfortable silence, coffee mugs before them, pale morning sunlight flooding the room, turning the steam buttery yellow, undoubtedly warm on San's face as the man closed his eyes into it, sweep of his lashes on his cheeks, corners of his pretty mouth tugged into a light smile, golden, freckled throat bobbing as he drank.

He kissed Yeosang before he left, twice, like always, and then he was out the door and left the house. From one of the kitchen windows, the other watched him get into the car, fix the collar of his white dress shirt in the rearview mirror, watched the car until it disappeared from his view entirely. He sighed. His only assurance was that his man would be home by one, like every Friday, and he wouldn't have to go so horribly long without seeing him.

He fed their kids, did his morning routine, pet Star when she curled up in his lap, ate breakfast, considered the to do list pinned to the fridge. He'd have to vacuum and clean the bathroom today too, but first and foremost, he had to tidy up the living room. So he sighed, searched his headphones, found his cleaning playlist, and got to work.

Wasn't it funny, he thought as he vacuumed the kitchen, that he spent his days doing chores, when he'd hated them so much as a kid? But he liked it now. He liked keeping the house clean, tending to the garden, taking care of their home, taking care of San, and he thought that he'd like cooking too, once he got the hang of it.

In the bathroom, he paused, considered himself in the mirror, and he sighed and lightly shook his head at the bruises blooming over his neck and collarbones. San really hadn't held back, huh? Thank god he'd gotten groceries done yesterday, he could not have gone to the city like this. Wooyoung would see them later, when they harvested the plums and made the jam, and that would be embarrassing enough.

When he was done, he took the garden shears, finally cut that annoying branch off the cherry tree, oiled the gate until it no longer creaked, and, feeling that he'd been productive enough for the time being, he returned to the flat for a much needed play and cuddle session with the cats. Smoothie and Gecko delighted in the toys, but Star just made her bed in his lap and refused to leave, purring.

Additionally, he held a highly interesting conversation with Star as the orange-striped siblings wrestled, her insistent meows over the tinkling of the other cats' little bells, and he ran his hands through her fur and agreed and acted outraged at random points. She seemed to delight in it, anyway.

When the three of them left him, he sighed sadly, tidied away their toys, longingly gazed at the ticking grandfather clock in a corner of the living room. Still far too much time until his husband returned. And what was a man supposed to do, if not read to distract himself from his lover's absence?

Sun-warmed clover and moss under his bare feet, blanket, book and iced lemonade in hand, he crossed the garden, draped the blue checkered blanket onto the sunlit ground, just out of the dappled shade by the apple tree and the firs and high grass lining the garden fence to form a visual cover. The sun was more merciful that day, allowed for an hour or two spent in its rays without being cooked alive; a welcome change.

Finished with his book after a few pages, he looked up, sitting up to drink, and then he saw Wooyoung sat on the terrace, wearing sunglasses, eating from a bowl in his lap. Yeosang hesitated, sipped on his lemonade, considered the previous night – how close were they after that? Close enough to greet, surely, so he lifted his arm and waved.

Instead of waving back, the man stood up and descended from the terrace, sauntering over the green garden floor, and somehow, he managed to look cool even in bright red shorts, a black shirt with a Pingu print (with the 'Noot Noot' of course), his kind of messy black hair freely falling to his shoulders, white socks in gray plastic slippers, a bowl in one hand and the sunglasses on his hooked nose. It was probably the sunglasses and the absence of a smile.

Yeosang tilted his head up as the man approached, squinting against the bright sky, and suddenly he was offering a spot on the blanket to the other and smiling lightly. What the- woah, hey, he hadn't planned to do that! But it was too late already, Wooyoung dropped cross-legged across from him, and before he knew what he was doing, he'd offered the lemonade as well. Okay. Weird.

Wooyoung gladly took the lemonade from him, tasted it, nodded approvingly. "Don't have work today either?" he asked in lieu of greeting, returning to what turned out to be a bowl of muesli. Breakfast? So late? Damn.

"Hm?" Yeosang made what was probably eye contact; it was hard to tell with the sunglasses. "Oh, I don't work." He considered this. "Well, at least not a job." The house was work enough for him.

Surprised, the other stopped chewing. He pushed his sunglasses up, taking his bangs with them, and for some reason, Yeosang noticed only now that his eyes were slightly asymmetrical, only one of them being mono-lidded. "You're a house-husband?" Wooyoung asked behind his hand, mouth still full, apparently genuinely taken aback by this.

The man shrugged. "I guess. Stay at home dad for the cats."

Wooyoung made a regretful expression, sighed, hurried with chewing, swallowed. "You're so lucky, oh my god. I wish." His gaze flicked to the other's neck, jumped along his collarbones, settled on his muesli. "Got lucky last night too, eh?"

Nape heating up with embarrassment, Yeosang brought his hand to his neck, adjusting the collar of his shirt in an obviously unsuccessful attempt to hide the bruises. "Uhm," he said, flush creeping to his cheeks, eyes locked on the lemonade, and then he eloquently glistened over that last comment with a somewhat stammered question, prompting a little smirk from the other. It was horrible.

The rest of the conversation was quite nice, though, and he was surprised at how much he enjoyed talking to the man. He didn't usually like getting to know new people too much. But Wooyoung was funny, bright, easy to be comfortable around, and he seemed to be a pretty cool person, so Yeosang found himself forgetting that they weren't even friends yet.

He learned that Wooyoung had lived in big cities all his life, that he'd spent three years traveling after graduation (in which he'd learned to cook from people all around the world) before he'd moved halfway across the country from his hometown to study law – which had sucked the soul from him – and had endured this for about two years before he'd moved in with his girlfriend at the time and worked in a library, spending most of his free time reading (discovering his love for it, so to say), but then she'd cheated and he'd broken up with her and decided to travel with what money he had. And then he'd ended up here.

In comparison, Yeosang thought, his own story paled. Met the love of his life when he was fifteen, fell in love at eighteen, got a bachelor in mathematics, married San at twenty-three, traveled for a while as well, had lived here ever since. The other listened intently anyway, elbow on his knee, supporting his chin with his hand, looking at him with warm eyes and eager curiosity. He was a good listener, really.

Yeosang thought it was kind of funny that a man who had lived such an adventurous life, who must have thousands of stories to tell, was so interested in his tame, calm life, but he certainly wouldn't complain. Though he was more than happy to let Wooyoung do most of the talking, as he was more a listener than a talker himself, and not only were that man's stories straight from adventure books, but he told them so vividly, so captivatingly that it was impossible to focus on anything but his words.

Thus, he only noticed San's arrival when the man sat down beside him, and he only had enough attention to spare to slip his wedding ring, which he'd been playing with, back onto his ring finger and and lay his hand on his lover's knee in acknowledgment. When, after a while, the conversation shifted away from Wooyoung, Yeosang realized that his husband had already changed out of his work clothes – pity, if you asked him – and instead sported a big maroon t-shirt that deepened the amber of his summer-golden skin.

Additionally, he'd helped himself to one of the heart-shaped ruby lollipops, and when he kissed him, he tasted like candy strawberry. In the kitchen, spaghetti cooking on the stove, Yeosang leaned against the counter and told his man all about the long conversation with Wooyoung after briefly recounting his morning to him, and he listened as San told him about work and drew up a sketch of an idea he'd had, the discussion of which reached deep into their lunch.

In fact, they still talked about it when they started picking plums, by now in the stages of considering what material needed to build the construction they already had and which they had to order, but they set the topic aside for the time being when they realized that they were doing a bad job at including Wooyoung into what they'd invited him to. So they talked to him instead, occasionally interrupted when reaching some of the plums proved difficult, talking through the tree.

And it was kind of strange, really, how well Wooyoung fit into their dynamic. With his bright, bold, brash personality, his jokes, his playful, daring attitude, with his shrieking laughter that came so easily, his teasing, the casualness with which he delivered the most outrageous things; he was like sparks of electricity in the settled clockwork of their relationship. Yeosang thought it exciting.

Back in the kitchen, the space thick with the sweet smell of sugar and fruit, Wooyoung observed Yeosang's attempt at making jam closely, hovering by him as a personification of entertainment, saving him from mistakes several times, and beneath the duet of their voices, the near gigantic pot bubbled happily to itself and the keys of San's laptop clicked every now and then. It felt right, somehow, that Wooyoung, that whirlwind of energy, was in that kitchen with them, floating over the old wooden floorboards in a dance of storytelling.

The apartment dulled with the absence of that big, loud presence that left an emptiness in its wake hours later, and the lovers stayed in the hallway for a moment, leaning into each other, and listened to the creak of Wooyoung's steps down the stairs and into his flat. Their breaths were strangely loud in the quiet of the night.

Yeosang replayed those long and yet far too short hours of Wooyoung's company as he quietly acted out his evening routine beside his husband, thought about how unbelievably well they got along, and he almost regretted not having made efforts to befriend the man sooner. He didn't doubt a second that that lightning of a man would've made the summer an adventure.

San watched him when he'd finished his own routine, leaned against the shelf, arms crossed, silently regarding him with that fond gaze he'd gotten so used to, and yet his face still heated up with embarrassment at being observed so closely. He feared he'd still blush at his husband's adoration when they were old and wrinkly. But was it his fault that the most attractive man in the goddamn world looked at him like that? Anyone would get flustered.

Only the dim glow of the bedside lamp lit up San's bedroom as they undressed, and the house breathed in the night, fabric rustled and shifted over skin, and then there was the soft whisper of skin on skin when San gingerly took him by the waist and slowly ran his hands up his back, pulling him closer, and there was the quiet sounds of soft smiles meeting with tender kisses. Yeosang traced the gentle edge of his lover's shoulder blades, the curve of his spine, the dip of his lower back, his narrow waist, memorized that body beneath his hands, muscular chest lightly pressed to his, like he didn't already know it by heart.

"Baby?" he whispered in the soft comfort of the bed, his man drifting off on top of him, one half of his face snuggled into his chest, his own fingers tiredly playing with the feathery strands of the other's hair. When his husband hummed in reply, he continued: "What d'ya think? 'Bout him?"

San considered this silently for a long time, and Yeosang thought that he'd simply fallen asleep when the man eventually shifted one hand to his chest and rested his chin on it. "He's cool," he concluded, whispering, "I like him. Fits us well, doesn't he?"

Yeosang hummed affirmatively, brushing strands of his lover's hair from his face, caressing his nape, the back of his head.

"But-" San added, a light frown passing over his face, "-I don't like how he looks at you."

"Looks at me?"

"Mhm. Stares too much." He sighed lightly. "'S okay, though. 'N anyway, I read this really interestin' paper today, lemme tell y'about it."

Yeosang, smiling softly, closed his eyes, and as his husband quietly told him all about a laser or something that could make humans see a completely new color, pulling context and additional explanations from his vast knowledge, he let the pleasant murmur of that soft, deep voice lull him to sleep. Two of his last conscious thoughts were that he looked forward to getting closer to Wooyoung, and that he loved San more than anything.

☆🍁☆

Saturday, the three of them lounged in the garden, sometimes talking, sometimes not, and when the lovers left for their date in the early evening, all dressed up and eyeing each other like the sight of them in elegant attire was a delicious novelty, they spent the car ride to the opera discussing that day with the man. They agreed that they'd made the perfect choice with picking him as their undertenant, out of the several people that had shown interest.

Over the following weeks, Yeosang found himself looking forward to Wooyoung's cooking class in the evening, found his thoughts drifting to that summer thunderstorm man when they weren't entirely occupied by what he was doing or San, and through long conversations in the bustle of cooking and over dinners that stretched far into the night, it became increasingly obvious that, if this kept up, Wooyoung would become one of their closest friends in no time. And that didn't seem like such a bad future.

Because Wooyoung really did match them so well. His presence fit into their company seamlessly, his bold muchness brought out parts of them they hadn't even known they'd had – made Yeosang playful, almost adventurous, made San more daring, flirtier, a little meaner, somewhat calmer – his core beliefs were similar to theirs, and, behind all his bravado and teasing and superficial judgment, he was a deeply loving man and unafraid to show his affection, which aligned with their at their core gentle hearts.

Wooyoung's company felt good. It felt right. And the only other person who felt right, who felt like they belonged with him, was Kang San.

Additionally, Wooyoung was one of the only few people whose touch Yeosang didn't mind. The first time the man had wrapped his arms around him, he'd tried to fend him off; until he realized that he didn't actually want him gone. He'd glanced at his husband, made eye contact with him as he let their friend rest his chin on his shoulder, slowly, hesitantly returned the hug, and San had nodded at him, smiling, as if to encourage him to go on.

And then the strangest thing had transpired. Wooyoung had, after the usual few seconds of a friendly hug, begun retracting, moving away, and instead of letting it happen, Yeosang had tightened his hold on him, pulled him a little closer, rested his cheek against his head, let the new sensation of that lean, slightly shorter body in his arms, almost pressed against his chest, flood his nerves, had taken a moment to consider his smell (something warm, citrusy, almost floral), and, strangest of all, had relaxed into his arms and the hands shifting on his back and shoulders to be even closer.

Wooyoung had giggled his wine-tipsy butterfly giggle, returned his head to the other's shoulder, had said something teasing, yet somehow fond, had sighed happily, and as he'd melted into the embrace, Yeosang had wondered how it was possible that a man he'd barely just become friends with could warm and soften him like this while he still wasn't quite comfortable with Yunho, his friend of many years, giving him so much as a loose, brief hug. It didn't make any sense, quite frankly.

He'd told San as much when they'd showered that night, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the rush of the water, and his lover had hummed in consideration and given his thoughts on it as he'd washed Yeosang's hair. 'I don't know what it is about him-,' he'd said, gently massaging soap into his hair, '-but I think he makes you comfortable in a way I can't. Well, not really comfortable, but... easy-going. Adventurous, maybe.' He'd chuckled, then, leaned closer to him and kissed his shoulder where it met his neck. 'I'm a little jealous, honestly. Why does he make you so carefree, and I don't?'

If Yeosang knew the answer, he would've told him. But as it was, the question had ruminated in his mind, only faded when he'd lain beside his man and regarded him, peacefully asleep, lower half of his handsome face buried in the soft blue fabric of his large shark plushie, arms tightly wrapped around it, and he'd been overcome by a wave of fondness that had made it impossible to think about anything that wasn't his beautiful husband.

In the end, all that really mattered was that he liked Wooyoung's physical affection – even though it came with the occasional biting – because god, that man was touchy as hell. Clingy too, and Yeosang often thought that it would've been much, much worse if the man didn't somewhat control himself because him and San were married; though this seemed to waver too the more Wooyoung realized that especially San welcomed his affection with open arms – literally.

He really was perfect for them. Only two weeks after that first dinner, it already began to become strange to think that he'd once been merely their subtenant, just someone they knew, when now he was such a prominent part of their days. Evenings without him felt almost strange.

But, with all his warm honey goodness, with all the ways in which he was wonderful, there were still moments in which the little spikes of dislike prodded at Yeosang's heart. When Wooyoung stretched his arms over his head and San's gaze glued to the lines and dips of his pretty midriff, when they sat on the couch and San laid an arm around Wooyoung and the man cuddled into his side, when Wooyoung wore a white sort of tank top with thin straps that exposed his sharp collarbones and wiry arms and deepened the gold of his tanned skin and San stared at him like it was the most revealing piece of clothing he'd ever seen, when San briefly laid a hand on Wooyoung's waist when he passed, when San took Wooyoung's hips and pulled him closer and looked at him with a warmth in his eyes that was half fondness and half something darker, when San called Wooyoung 'sunshine'.

Because that wasn't how San behaved with their good friends. That was how San behaved with someone he was attracted to.

He couldn't blame him, of course. The magnetic force of Wooyoung's lithe golden body, the lingering heat of his casually intimate touches, the tantalizing pull of his damn near exhibitionist tendency to sprawl and arch and display himself, the irresistible nature of his presence and personality and heart, the sheer beauty of the radiance so inherent to him it clung to him like golden dew in a spider's web even when he slept, the sweet velvet lure of his sultry voice and greedy eyes and hungry hands, the temptation that was his soul.

By god, Jung Wooyoung was an attractive man. Yeosang wouldn't pretend that he didn't feel that too.

But that didn't mean that he had to like it.

By mid-September, when the first leaves yellowed and the last hot days of the year had passed and it grew dark sooner and sooner, Wooyoung was as natural a part of their day as dinner and as often the topic of their conversations as their joined interests. Thus, it wasn't his presence that startled Yeosang when he went to the kitchen on a sunlit Sunday morning, and it wasn't the naturalness with which he moved through the room as he made breakfast.

No. That was usual.

What made Yeosang stop in his tracks and briefly stole his breath was the fact that the ridiculously big black shirt hanging off his frame, slipped from one sun-amber shoulder, bore a map of the night sky on its back. This wouldn't have been reason to freeze him if he didn't know with absolute certainty that that shirt was so big on Wooyoung because it wasn't his. It was San's. And this would've been bearable too if the hem of it didn't ghost over the mid of Wooyoung's bare, golden thighs, if it didn't leave those long, athletic legs exposed, if it wasn't the only fucking thing he was wearing.

Yeosang swallowed thickly, heartbeat heavy in his ears, vision narrowed down to the warm morning sunlight glowing on that riveting man, to the legs laid bare for his eyes, muscles shifting under their silken skin, to San's shirt, San's shirt, San's shirt on that perfect lean body, to the strands of black hair curling at that nape, tangling with the inked letters tattooed into it, to the lazily pulled back rest of the hair gathered in a little ponytail, to the hard jawline and high cheekbones and hooked nose and sharp eyes that softened in the shine of the sun, to the smile tautening his pretty lips, dipping his cheeks, to the nimble hands flitting about, to the defined edge of those collarbones and lines and curves of that throat that were so painfully unblemished, to San's shirt on Wooyoung. San's shirt. San's shirt.

He let out a trembling breath. Everything in him screamed, fought to break out of his chest, and he stood and didn't even really notice the ache coursing through his blood because Wooyoung wore San's shirt, only San's shirt, nothing but that shirt that would still smell like San, that shirt that had so often sat on San's torso, Wooyoung in San's shirt, pretty darling Wooyoung in San's shirt, in San's shirt as he moved about the kitchen like he lived there, Jung Wooyoung in San's shirt.

A blinding smile stretched over that summer sun face. "Good morning!" that familiar, bright voice chirped, "Hope you don't mind I took this shirt, I was just- oh, hello."

Yeosang felt the warmth of his waist through the fabric of San's shirt. When had he moved? How had he gotten there? Dark honey eyes looking back at him, auric skin alight with a dreamy haze, San's shirt crinkling where his hands laid on that lithe body, and oh, oh god, a blend of San's soft lavender scent and Wooyoung's orange blossom smell, and that body pressed to his, those arms around him, the tender delight of Wooyoung's neck, soft against his barely brushing lips, and that silken hair tumbling in a wave of feathery gold-gleaming onyx, caressing his forehead, his cheek, his nose, and was that a hair tie between his fingers? Was that the final dip of that spine under his-

"Uhm," an unsure voice piped up right beside his ear, "Yeosang?" Throat briefly dipped under his hovering lips.

He breathed in that intoxicating blend of lavender and orange, mind sinking through thick, sugary syrup. Was that him humming? He wanted to drown in the viscous golden thing already filling up every fiber of him, wanted to nestle into its comfort and stay there, wanted closer, deeper, more.

Hands weakly pushing against him. "Yeosang." Sweet voice, made his name sound so pretty. "Yeosang, what-" Something like a whimper. Cute. "You- I-" Sound like a tongue wetting lips. "I don't know what- he just- please, San, I can't- why-"

"Hm." From across the room? "Wish I could tell you."

The sound of that deep, pleasant voice hardened beyond neutrality snapped Yeosang back to his senses. Barely remembering not to flinch away, he detached himself from Wooyoung, realizing what the fuck he'd just done, heart in his throat, eyes darting to the door, something in his chest clawing at his fleeing, galloping heartbeat. San stood still, arms crossed, jaw working, eyes cold.

Yeosang glanced at Wooyoung, who stood frozen, flushed red to his neck, eyes on the floor, and then he met his husband's gaze. His husband, who was not amused. His husband, whose eyes said 'What the fuck was that?'.

He felt like he would snap at any moment. 'I don't know,' his eyes said back, pleading, 'I don't know.' And he didn't. He really didn't.

San's jaw worked. 'My room. Now.' He didn't move aside as Yeosang tried to slip past him, and he didn't look at him.

Fuck.

That wasn't going to be a pretty conversation.

One that was overdue, one they should've had a while ago, but not a pretty one. What on god's green earth had possessed him to do that? He was married, Jesus Christ. Sure, they were lax with Wooyoung, but not this lax, not whatever-the-fuck-that-was lax, and he knew that San valued loyalty and honesty highly, he knew that San wouldn't just be okay with something like that, fuck, San didn't play about physical closeness, San didn't play about love. And Yeosang, like a stupid fucking idiot, went and did that.

No, this wasn't going to be a pretty conversation.

He worried his nails, leaned against the headboard of San's bed, knees pulled up to his chest in a futile search for comfort, worried his lower lip with his teeth, tried to think up an explanation for his behavior. There was nothing. He didn't know. And in the quiet of the bedroom, distant birdsong beyond the windows, dull sounds in the kitchen, his thoughts had far too much space. It wasn't looking good for him, no matter how he twisted and turned it, and the longer he was left alone, the darker his thoughts grew.

Familiar, sure steps in the apartment, approaching, and it made everything worse until the door opened and San entered, softly closing it behind himself. Immediately, Yeosang relaxed a little, mind clearing, those nasty thoughts disappearing into thin air, giving him a moment to take a deep breath. They could figure this out. They'd gotten through worse things than a strange infatuation together.

Gaze on his fidgeting hands, no longer worrying his lip, he listened to his lover crossing the room, carefully lowering himself on the foot end of the bed, sheets rustling beneath him. A pause, eyes on him, considering him. Then the man sighed lightly. "Yeosang," he began, his voice so gentle despite how upset he had to be, "Can you help me understand what just happened?"

Yeosang pulled his knees closer to his chest, picked at his nails, fought the urge to keep silent, forced himself to put together a sort of reply. "I don't-" His throat failed him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath; it was okay. It was alright. That was San across from him, his San, his kind, loving San. It was alright. "I don't really understand either."

"Tell me what happened." A soft-spoken request.

He braced himself. "He was already in the kitchen when I went there. I just wanted to drink something, but he was making breakfast, and he's wearing your shirt, and when I saw that I just- I don't know. I didn't even realize what I was doing." He barked out a single, nervous laugh. "Feels like I lost my mind. He just- god, he was so fucking pretty in your shirt, just your shirt, and, I don't know, suddenly I was holding him, and the shirt still smelled like you, and- and I wanted to be closer to him, and he- fuck, I don't know, it felt like I was high or something. He was wearing your shirt. I didn't- just your shirt. Nothing else. I don't know."

San considered this, silent, stretching seconds into terrible hours of hammering heartbeat and uncertainty. "Did you kiss him?" he asked eventually, quietly, "His neck?"

"No," the other hurried, looking up to find his lover regarding his own hands, "No, I didn't kiss him or anything, I think I brushed his neck with my lips, but I didn't- he smelled so fucking good, with your shirt, I think I just wanted to- I didn't kiss him."

"Was it just my shirt? Or him?" The man made eye contact, and in the brief second that the other could hold it, he saw the uncertainty, the worry in him.

Yeosang watched his fidgeting hands, thought back to that moment, to that image permanently burned into his mind. "Both," he confessed quietly, chest tight with something heavy. "He was so pretty in your shirt, I couldn't- he looked so good, 'cause it was your shirt, 'cause it was him in your shirt."

His husband didn't speak for a while. There was the confusing mess of Yeosang's heart, all tangled up between them, and there was San considering, thinking, and the air was thick with what had been said and what hadn't been said and it hurt, this silence. He would've rather not said anything at all, but he knew that that would only make everything worse. They needed honesty, especially about this, even if it was hard and unpleasant.

"Do you-" San began, then stopped himself, swallowed. "It upsets me, to see you with him like that. I know I get jealous. And I know I can get- I know I'm too possessive sometimes. But that, the way you were holding him, with your face so close to his neck, that just- that hurt. Sometimes, you look at him so fondly, and you love him, even though we've known him for such a short time, and then I saw that, and I- I'm scared. It scares me. I'm scared that you'll stop loving me like this because of him."

Yeosang's heart cracked. "Oh, San," he said, softly, legs sliding down when his lover looked up at him with eyes already misted with a sheen of building tears. He opened his arms, watched his man, his beautiful man, unfold his legs and crawl to him, pulled him closer the moment he could reach him, took him in his arms, let him settle in his lap before he tightened his hold on him. "It's okay, baby," he whispered, caressing his head, kissed his temple, shaky breath fanning over his throat, "It's okay. I'm here."

San softened into him, into his arms, face buried in the crook of his neck, and he seemed so small, then, just a boy who needed comfort. "And I get it," the man told him, words against skin, "I get it. It's not like I don't love him too. But I need you. You're the love of my life, Yeosang. And I'm scared that I'm not yours, I-" He tightened his hold on him. "I'm fucking terrified that you'll fall out of love with me."

"I can't swear you're the only one I'll ever love," Yeosang replied, his voice soft and tender with pain for him, and he had to gather all his courage to get this next part past his throat. "No one can. I don't know what the future will bring. But I married you. I promised that I will choose to love you through everything, because I can't imagine a life that doesn't have you in it. I love you, San. And you're right, I do love Wooyoung, but I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with you." A weak smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I don't know where all this with Wooyoung is going, but while you're searching for signs that I might fall in love with him, don't forget to search for the signs of me being in love with you, too. I have infinite love to give, my sun."

San took a deep breath, exhaled slowly until the shake in it disappeared. "Okay," he agreed meekly, moving away, but not from his lap, and when the other cupped his face, he melted into his hands, eyes closed. "You too. Then we can look for signs of our love together, what d'you say?"

Yeosang smiled at him, a warmth that came from the bottom of his soul flooding his body, pooling in his chest, tightening it, threatening to overflow. "It's a date," he replied tenderly, and then he guided his husband's face to his own and kissed him breathless. Mouth on mouth, readily parted, hot pressure of desperation, messy and needy and so thick with love, kissing and kissing and kissing and kissing and wanting more and deeper and forgetting to breathe and teeth catching on lips and teeth bumping together and gasps for air between the wet sounds of their dancing mouths and they kissed and kissed until they beamed so wide it was simply impossible.

Breathless, dazed, they looked at each other, and San, his San, sat in his lap panting, his gorgeous lips swollen and glistening, bright smile that dug dimples into his cheeks and turned his eyes into crescents, that beautiful, beautiful man, his best friend, his lover, his husband, and he fell in love with him for the first time all over. "Found one," he announced, breathless, and his utterly kissed darling giggled and leaned in and kissed him stupid.

They were giggly and touchy when they left the bedroom, hair messed up, lips still humming with those kisses, hands tight together, intertwined fingers, joking and flirting as they made their way to the kitchen bumping into each other. Wooyoung, sat at the kitchen table, snapped his gaze up to them when they entered, his worried frown easing into a smile, body relaxing against the backrest of the chair.

He still wore San's shirt. It still looked perfect on him. Yeosang gave his husband a look that said 'see?', and his man considered their friend for a moment before he returned a look that said 'I get it now.'.

It was a beautiful day. After breakfast, they spent the morning lounging in the living room, pointedly pulling Wooyoung closer whenever the man attempted to distance himself, and so it was to no one's surprise – except Wooyoung's, maybe – that the lovers ended up with their friend between them, the man's legs thrown over a lap, a hand caressing his still bare sweet honey thighs, a hand playing with his hair, a hand on his waist, a hand tapping the knuckles of his hand and drawing patterns on his palm, the three of them deep in a conversation, the lovers' voices soft and sweet with adoration, their friend's voice flushed with flusteredness.

When Yeosang managed to rip his eyes away from either of the unbelievably gorgeous men beside him, he gazed out of the glass balcony door, saw the supple red of the topmost apples of their tree, mentioned this to the others, mentioned how good an apple cake sounded in that moment. A decision was made; they would harvest. Wooyoung tried to slip from them, complained that he needed to get dressed, and the lovers just smiled and led him to San's bedroom.

Wooyoung in San's clothes and Yeosang's hoodie, the lovers agreed silently, was perfection. Everything a little too big on him, especially the hoodie, his shy little smile widening and widening as he buried his face in the fabric of the hoodie and then hugged himself and raved about how comfortable it all was, him in their clothes, in their living room, glowing with joy and sunlight, and he belonged there. He belonged with them, like that.

In the September sun, among yellowing leaves and red-green fruit, they plucked apples and talked and laughed and bickered and teased and flirted, and while it was San's turn to hold the crate so Wooyoung could place the apples picked with the help of a step-ladder in it, Yeosang chose an apple the size of his fist and bit into it. It crunched exactly like it was supposed to, was sweet, yet faintly sour, had that perfect apple texture, and he closed his eyes and let out a little moan at how fucking good it was.

When it was afternoon and not even the step ladder could get them to the highest apples, those that were ruby-red from the unbroken rays of sunlight, Wooyoung happily climbed into the old tree to get those too. Twisting between branches, winding around them, reaching as far as he could, bending branches to himself, dropping perfect apple after perfect apple for them to catch and store, climbing higher and higher until he stood on the last branch that would hold his weight, holding on to a far thinner one for support, reaching and reaching and stretching and continuously assuring them that he was absolutely fine.

Yeosang tilted his head back, and Wooyoung stood in the crown of that tree, lit golden by the sinking sun, alight with it, glowing like he was the sun himself, an auric angel against the pale early autumn sky, the sleeve of Yeosang's hoodie sliding to his elbow as he reached up and stretched and though his target was an apple above him, he looked like he reached for the infinite depths of the sky, haloed by the sun, a triumphant grin stretching over his sun-softened face when he closed his hand around the apple.

God, he was breathtaking.

And it seemed that he didn't intend to ever give that breath back. He was a beam of dancing sunlight in the warmth of the kitchen, happily chatting on and on sat on the counter, eating freshly plucked apples, watching San peel and cut apples that already had cuts or bad parts and couldn't be stored, jumping off the counter and skipping from the room when Yeosang asked him if he had any eggs and butter, as they didn't have enough of either up there.

San sighed dreamily when the man was out of earshot. "He's so cute," he said, voice warm with fondness, "And especially with your hoodie, my love, he looks so comfy, I wanna cuddle with him properly so bad."

Yeosang snorted, agreeing internally. "By all means, go ahead." He made an amused sort of huff. "Who knows? Maybe he likes sleeping in someone's arms and you'll finally have a person to hug while sleeping."

His husband's eyes widened. "You'd be fine with that?"

He hummed affirmatively. "When was the last time you slept cuddling with an actual person, baby? If he likes it, then I don't see why I should stop you." He looked down at his hands, twisted his ring. "And he's cool, so-"

"Y'all talkin' about me?" Wooyoung asked cheerfully, then proudly presented a carton of eggs and butter, accompanied by a flourish. "I've brought the wares. What do you offer in return?"

Yeosang let out an exasperated sigh that he hoped hid the stupid little smile that he just couldn't get off his face. "Hm, gee, I wonder," he replied sarcastically, "Maybe apple cake? That we're making with your... wares?"

The man placed butter and eggs onto the table, striking a thinking pose, caressing his chin as if he had a beard, humming as he exaggerated his expression of consideration. "Nope!" he concluded eventually, beaming, "That won't do. Anything else?"

"A kiss," San replied smugly just as Yeosang opened his mouth, and because Yeosang turned to glare at him, he missed their friend's expression of joy briefly slipping into disbelief before he corrected himself into another thinking pose.

"Where?" he interrogated.

A slow, self-satisfied grin spread over San's face. "Wherever you want," he purred, then turned his smug gaze upon his husband. "He'll do it."

Well. That was a complete switch up to that morning. Yeosang wasn't sure if it was better, though.

Wooyoung hummed, considering, until he lit up and stuck out his hand. "Deal! One for the butter, one for the eggs."

"Twice?" Yeosang frowned. "That's extortion."

The man grinned at him, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes. "Is it?" He opened the egg carton; all twelve still in place, untouched. "I say I'm selling these dirt cheap."

The other struck a thinking pose of his own, humming, considering. "I get all twelve and the 250 grams of butter?"

"Yessirski! I'll even let you pick where you kiss me. There's no better deal than this, I say."

Yeosang sighed deeply, nervosity bubbling in his abdomen. "Fine, whatever, I'll sacrifice myself." He took his friend's hand to shake it and seal the deal, but instead of being given proper time to prepare, he was held tight and pulled against the man, suddenly so close that there was barely a few centimeters between them, and he kind of panicked. Reflexively, he took Wooyoung's face as if he was going to kiss his pretty mouth, and the man's eyes widened in surprise as he guided him closer, and Yeosang remembered to make a detour and kissed the mole beneath the other's left eye, then the spot between his eyebrows, and, embarrassed at himself, let go of the man as suddenly as he'd taken him, grabbing his new possessions on his way back to the bowl.

His lover snickered beside him, and Wooyoung, miraculously, didn't say a single word. Yeosang noted that he could use kisses to shut him up, should he ever want to.

"Hey, Wooyoung?" San asked, almost casually, snapping the man from some sort of trance, "You a cuddly sleeper?"

"Uhm, I, uh," Wooyoung replied, sounding rather flustered, "Yeah, I guess? I, uh, I sleep better when I'm cuddling with someone."

"Perfect!" The other beamed at Yeosang, alight with excitement. "Sleepover?"

"Like- like tonight?"

"Absolutely."

A supposedly reluctant little 'hm'. "Where do I sleep?"

"With us, obviously, that's the point of a sleepover."

"Only if you promise you won't do any nasty shit right next to me."

San smirked. "How 'bout we do nasty shit with you?"

Wooyoung gasped exaggeratedly. "Oh my!" he exclaimed, delighted, wandering around the table, and then he decided that the best place to come to a halt was with his arms wrapped around Yeosang from behind, chin on his shoulder, leaning into him, and Yeosang would never tell anyone, but he agreed with him. "Am I finally being offered a threesome by a hot couple?! I've prayed for this day!"

"How 'bout-" Yeosang chimed in, relishing in the tight hold his friend had around his waist, in his weight behind him, the comfort of his presence, "-no one does nasty shit and we all get a good night's sleep?"

The two assholes booed him. "Boooooring," Wooyoung declared, somehow shifting even closer to him, "Where's the fun in that, sweetheart? Where's your thirst for adventure?! Your spirit?! Your ambition?!"

God, he was so fucking annoying. Yeosang loved it.

All throughout the creation of the dough, the man clung to him, watching over his shoulder, only ceasing his relentless talking when Yeosang brought out the mixer and its old technology roar filled the kitchen, so loud that any conversation was rendered too difficult to be held. When he didn't keep his focus on the dough, he glanced at his husband, checked his reaction to the way their friend tucked the lower half of his face between the crook of the other's neck and his hoodie, the way he snuggled into him, the way his arms wrapped around him, the way his thumbs caressed his sides; San's eyes gleamed with adoration.

He really didn't know what it was, whether that conversation really had helped so much, but when Wooyoung reluctantly let go of him to allow him to walk and instead dropped himself on San's lap, when San laid an arm around him to support him and held his waist and caressed his thigh, when Wooyoung adjusted his shoulder and melted into him, head on his shoulder, when San looked at him with a sweet smile and soft eyes, Yeosang didn't feel that little sting in his heart at all. Quite the opposite, really, his chest tightened and he couldn't get over how fucking cute it was.

So he took a picture. And he didn't know it yet, but it was only the first of countless little moments he would capture like that.

Dough transferred to the baking tray – what was left of it anyway; it tasted too good even raw – he made Wooyoung press the slit apple halves into it with him, and he only accepted his lover's excuse of not having any hands free to help because he thought that those two were lovely together. Immediately after this thought, he once again marveled at how perfectly the man matched them, how perfectly he fit into their life.

Wooyoung gasped when they were almost done, tensed, twisted back to look at San. "Why the fuck are your hands so cold?!" he interrogated, frowning at the handsome man, who just smiled and slowly blinked. His hands, it turned out, had slipped under Wooyoung's hoodie and presumably shirt, resting just above his hips, thumbs likely brushing over the other's skin, caressing.

When San eventually tore his gaze away from the man in his lap, instead meeting his husband's eyes, Yeosang raised an eyebrow at him, smirking lightly. And he had the strangest thought; neither him, nor San, would have any difficulties developing feelings for Jung Wooyoung. Wasn't that weird? To think such a thing? But they adored him, they really did, and though there was nothing romantic about it now, it wouldn't be all that surprising if this changed.

How odd.

He thought about this revelation as he transferred the cake to the oven, as he tidied away everything he'd used, half-listening to the others' bickering, thought about those wonderful seven years he'd already been San's lover, thought about their love, thought that he'd never seen his husband act with anyone like he did with Wooyoung (aside from himself), imagined what he would feel were his man to tell him that he had a romantic interest in their friend, concluded that he wouldn't mind at all. Reality would be different, he knew, but perhaps he should begin to familiarize himself with the concept of Kang San in love with another man.

Sighing, something heavy in his heart, he watched Wooyoung drop his head back on San's shoulder, eyes closing into sunlight, pretty throat exposed, watched San's eyes slink along the hard lines of the man's jaw and nose and throat, watched San's hands beneath Wooyoung's clothes creep over his sides and abdomen and almost up to his chest. Yes, he thought, watching the sweet smile on San's face widen, he should familiarize himself with the concept of his husband falling in love with someone new.

He didn't like this concept. No, he didn't like this concept at all. For so long, it had been the two of them, and he'd grown used to San's utter adoration, so used to his endless love, and his chest caved at the thought of losing even a bit of that, a tiny sliver, and he avoided even thinking that he could lose all of it. He believed that he wouldn't. He believed San when he said he was the love of his life. Hadn't he said it himself? They had endless love to give. Why couldn't it be romantic love, too?

"-ang?" San's voice got through to him, followed by snapping fingers, "Love, hello? Are you there?"

Yeosang shook his head to clear it of those grave thoughts. "Hm?" He found both of those handsome men watching him with questioning expressions, San's hands still under Wooyoung's clothes, Wooyoung's head still laid back on the man's shoulder.

"He's trying to convince me that his confession to you was classy," Wooyoung supplied, one of those not-quite smiles on his sun-golden face. "I don't believe him, obviously."

Creaking hinges, soft summer night breeze, stars glittering in the dark sky, silver moonlight on bare lower thighs and knees and calves and shins, bare feet brushing the grass, hands caressing each other, swing lazily rocking, quiet stretching between two old teenagers, young men, until one of them looked down at their joined hands and quietly laid out the depths of his heart to the other, struggling, sometimes, to keep his voice from failing. The night and the wind whispering in the grass and legs bumping into each other and beaming smiles and clumsy kisses.

Yeosang smiled, overcome with a nostalgic fondness that made him want to melt into San's arms and never leave. "Classy?" he asked, leaning back against the counter, "Baby, you stammered through half the thing."

"Ha!" With a triumphant grin, Wooyoung turned to San. "I knew you're too much of a loser to be classy about anything!"

"You try telling your best friend you're in love with them," the man defended himself, "That stuff's terrifying!"

A shadow passed over Wooyoung's face, but it was gone so quickly that Yeosang thought that he must've imagined it. Instead, the man now smirked at San, lifting one lazy hand to pat the other's cheek. "Didn't say it's bad that you're a loser," he stated cheerfully, "I'd say it's part of your charm." He turned his head back to Yeosang. "Right?"

The man hummed affirmatively, and then the conversation got away from him again. He didn't mind. He liked listening to those two, especially when Wooyoung told one of his riveting stories, and he sat on the wooden kitchen floor and pet Star and Gecko and half-lost himself in his thoughts as he listened to the others' conversation, occasionally looking up at them, searching San's eyes. His husband never met his gaze.

Then the timer rang and the cake was done and its sweet scent wafted through the deep golden sunlight flooding the kitchen, and it sat on the stove, cooling down, as San and Wooyoung unfolded from each other, Wooyoung stretching and yawning. Wooden cupboard doors opened and closed, ceramic dishes and metal cutlery tinkled and clinked, then the whir of the mixer drowned those sounds as Yeosang made whipped cream.

He knew the approaching presence to be San's even before hands crept beneath his clothes – still warm from Wooyoung's body – and a soft mouth found his nape, his neck. His lover kissed the dip where his jaw met his ear, hands roaming lazily, freely dipping past waistbands, brushing the faint trail of curling black hair beneath his navel, those utterly familiar hands on his skin, memorizing like they had countless times before. He sighed, turned to look at his man, and his eyes fluttered close when San used the opportunity to kiss him, lips lingering longer than usual, sweeter.

It was one of those 'I missed you' kisses, one of those 'stay with me a little longer' kisses, and Yeosang melted into those arms half around him, into those caressing hands, into that tender mouth, into that presence that was like the warm evening sunlight. For a moment, he forgot all the world, so perfectly fit into his San, and he thought 'He loves me' and their lips lost each other just to find each other again, this time shaped by lazy golden smiles 'He completely and utterly loves me'. His eyes gleamed with joy, with adoration when they parted – still close enough that they almost felt each other's breath – and looked at each other.

The wooden thump of a closing cupboard reminded him that he had something to do, ripped him from his mindless admiration, and he smiled to himself as he brought his attention back to the counter and the almost whipped cream in front of him. The golden band snug against his left ring finger gleamed at him, and he tried to suppress his widening smile, chest tightening with joy, and he thought about that August day three years ago and his sunlit darling and the breathless smiles with which they'd kissed each other that first time.

He missed San's warmth when the man left him to allow him to move easily, smile never leaving him as he spooned the whipped cream into a small glass bowl, as he freed the apple cake from its metal prison and slid it onto an old, green glass dish, and then he remembered how his lover had melted in delight last fall and found the cinnamon to take to the table. Set whipped cream down, then the cake, stood the cinnamon in front of San's plate.

The man looked up at him at that, aglow with the early evening sunlight, rich molasses hue of the light and tender smile softening the hard edges of his face infinitely, dark eyes glowing amber with the sun and his fondness, and he was a blurry summer polaroid of a lover, a mellow ray of sunlight breathed into the shape of a person, the sun's daydream of infinity, content caught in pooling honey light on tan skin. "Found one," San told him, his quiet voice softened by adoration, gentle hand finding his.

It took Yeosang an embarrassing few seconds to understand this, but when he did, he averted his gaze and tucked a strand of his hair behind his ear, shy smile slowly widening. He sat down without ever letting go of his husband's hand, and he almost didn't see Wooyoung's curious gaze jumping between them. Didn't elaborate either way, and if San's soft silence was any indication, the man didn't plan on doing it either.

The conversation between the three of them returned over warm slices of fresh apple cake sprinkled with cinnamon or topped with whipped cream and steaming hot chocolate and sun-warmed wood, and the warmth of the early autumn late sunlight curled through everything like a haze of comfort, and it settled into the tender hum of home that still clung to them when they laid and sat on the couch, Yeosang's fingers absentmindedly playing with his lover's hair, the man on his chest, their legs over Wooyoung's lap, and he read 'The Martian' to them, and it still clung to them when the night had long crept over the house, and it wouldn't leave them for a long, long time.

Around eleven, when Wooyoung briefly disappeared downstairs to act out his evening routine, the lovers stood side by side in the bathroom, quiet voices filling the space between them. San made sure that Yeosang really didn't mind him cuddling with their friend for the whole night, and Yeosang paused the current step in his skincare routine and teased him about being clingy, asked whether he was capable of going more than five minutes without physical affection, and his lover stuck his tongue out at him just as Wooyoung's creaking steps approached the bathroom.

It was cute, really, how the man lit up when he saw Yeosang's room. How he marveled at the bed beneath the two slanted skylights and the fairy lights and the many pillows and the plants dotted about the space and the whimsical decoration and the round orange slice carpet, how eagerly he followed the other to his closet, how gingerly he took the shirt from him.

They had few to no reservations about changing in front of each other, the three of them, happily chatting away as the peeled themselves out of their clothes, and then Wooyoung glanced at him just as he discarded his shirt. It must've been the first time he'd seen him shirtless, because his eyes widened slightly and darted about his torso before he undoubtedly spotted the pale red twin scars beneath his chest and sent him a questioning glance.

"The woke mob forced me to cut off my tits," Yeosang answered, adding a touch of disdain to his voice, "Now my husband's are bigger than mine, can you believe that? These damn queers."

"But they're still comfortable as hell," San supplied cheerfully, if a little tiredly, "Ten out of ten experience, highly recommend." As if to demonstrate his point, he went ahead and reached around his lover to grab his chest and squeeze, and unfortunately, Yeosang didn't flinch away fast enough.

"I will kill you," he hissed at him, bringing himself to a safe distance, protectively laying his own hands to his chest, arms crossed. He turned to Wooyoung for pity. "See what I have to deal with? Getting groped in my own home!"

But their friend just shrugged and held up his hands as if to say 'not my problem'. "You knew what you were getting yourself into when you married him." He slipped out of his – San's – pants, rest of his clothes long discarded, and for a few wonderful moments, his lithe golden body laid almost bare, glowing dark honey, muscles shifting beneath smooth skin, moles dotted about his abdomen and chest and thighs like splinters of meteorite encased in amber, fluid lines of his body in a tantalizing dance of stretching and tautening, and then Yeosang's shirt hung on his shoulders and concealed half of him.

Yeosang tore his gaze from the breathtaking sight of Wooyoung in his shirt to check for his husband's reaction, and what he found was like a mirror of his own reaction from that morning. The parted mouth, the syrupy dark eyes, the complete lack of awareness for anything beside that pretty man, and San already moved to get closer to Wooyoung when the man skipped to Yeosang and leaned onto his shoulder, talking about something neither of the lovers paid attention to.

Because their eyes met, and San's said 'Oh my god.' and Yeosang's said 'Exactly.' and San's said 'I understand now, my god, I understand' and Yeosang's said 'What'd I tell you?'.

Yeosang was the first to crawl into bed, in his pajama shirt and pants, settling on one side, stealing all the blanket for himself as San disappeared down the ladder-stairs to bring the bigger blanket from his room. He beckoned Wooyoung to the bed, cuddling into the blanket, pulling it up to his ears, relishing in its swallowing comfort, and his friend hesitated but followed his demand, almost reluctantly laying down in the middle.

Hands folded over his abdomen like he was a corpse in a coffin, he dropped his head to face the other. He looked extra pretty with his long black hair messily splayed about the pillow beneath his head, so few distance between them, all the sharp details of him stark and yet blurred by the dim light and the content of tired nights. "Isn't San gonna be in the middle?" he asked quietly, and the other thought that San's name was lovely spilt from those lips like that, like honeyed milk.

Eyes fluttering close already, Yeosang shook his head and accompanied this with hummed negation. "Can't have someone huggin' me while I'm sleepin'," he elaborated, equally quietly, curling his hands further into the blanket beneath his chin, "But he's a cuddly sleeper. 'N he won't wanna fall asleep with his back t'me."

Wooyoung's eyes widened. "You mean-"

"Mhm. Loser's been excited all day."

His friend's whole body turned to him, hands tucked to his chest, legs bent, shoulder slumped. "'N you're just fine with that? Him 'n me-" He wet his lips, gaze darting away, back to him. "-Cuddlin' with each other? The whole night, possibly?"

Yeosang's eyes opened, blinked slowly, and a tired sort of giggle slipped from his mouth. "'M hopin' it'll be the whole night. 'S poor shark needs a rest."

"Wow," the other commented drily, slow smile spreading over his face, "I'm a replacement for the shark plushie? Can't belie-"

A large blanket landed over him, swallowing the rest of his sentence, and then a third weight joined theirs on the mattress and San slid under the thick duvet. He paused just before he settled right behind Wooyoung, asked whether he could cuddle with him, and when given shy permission, he lit up like a little sun and snuggled close to the man. Judging by the movements of the blanket, he must've tangled their legs, laid an arm around his waist, his other arm bedding Wooyoung's head.

Lower half of his face almost buried in the man's nape and hair, San closed his eyes. "Y'smell good," he told him quietly, voice thick with that sweet infatuation that had befallen Yeosang in the morning too.

Yeosang watched, smiling lightly, considering himself and what kind of emotion that scene of his husband so intimate with someone else elicited in him. He couldn't find jealousy or dislike, not really, just the somewhat heavy knowledge of change and the much softer adoration of the love of his life and his friend so comfortable with each other. It almost made him wish he was a cuddly sleeper too.

They whispered to each other for a while, the three of them, cuddled and huddled up in the warm safety of the bed, and when they did eventually wish each other good nights, it was with the content of the day lingering in them. It took Yeosang some time to get used to Wooyoung's presence beside him, took him longer to fall asleep than usually, but when he did, it was with the thought that Wooyoung fit them perfectly.

He awoke to the soft patter of rain. Gentle drums on the glass, tapping the red-tiled roof, coziness woven into the arrhythmic symphony of rain and steady breaths and his own near-silent heartbeat and barely audible bird calls, and he cuddled deeper into his thick blanket and nuzzled into the pillow, content to his very bones. Was there anything better than rainy mornings in the comfort of the bed?

For an unknowable while, he dozed in this state of floaty snugness, burying himself in the duvet and the pillow, curled up; until fabric rustled and a sleepy sigh entirely unlike anything he was used to reminded him of the pretty man between himself and his husband. He was struck, then, by a sudden curiosity about the outcome of the night, that picture of his lover and their friend cuddled up beside him dancing through his mind, and his eyes fluttered open.

About half an arm length from him, Wooyoung's black hair spilled over the light blue floral pattern of the pillow and a sliver of San's golden skin, head apparently on the man's shoulder, his own shoulder slouched and keeping the duvet by his ear, and when Yeosang pushed himself up on his elbows, he saw San on his back, Wooyoung cuddled up to his side. He could only assume how they were tangled with each other under the blanket, where their limbs laid over each other and where they touched and how they fit into each other.

He smiled softly, regarding his husband like he had so often already, the noble edges of his jaw and cheekbones and nose and the royal sharpness of his eyes and the illustrious moles on his cheeks and the one beneath the inner arch of his brow, the faint uptilt of the corners of his pretty mouth. He'd really grown into his features. No longer a lanky teenager whose head looked a little too big on him, but a gorgeous man with a body like a god.

A light chuckle made it past his throat. San had worked so hard on his body, as had he himself, but as grown as he looked, he was still that kid at heart. Yeosang hoped that spark would stay with him forever.

Wooyoung made a sort of quiet, tired huff, stealing his eyes, and he marveled once more at the calm peace that befell the usually so lively man in his sleep. He'd seen it a few times before, when the other had fallen asleep while they watched a movie, or during a late-night conversation on the couch, or in the afternoon sunlight out in the garden, but it never ceased to amaze him how a person who was always so full of energy and bright light could be so quiet. Handsome, hard face entirely relaxed, only his steady breath making any sounds at all, almost entirely motionless.

Sighing lightly, he averted his gaze to the nightstand and its alarm clock. Quarter to seven. The others' alarm would ring in about fifteen minutes; he could make coffee, bring it to the bed, watch them light up. Yes, that sounded nice.

He took care to be quiet as he slipped from the bed, its warmth clinging to him as he made his barefooted way down the ladder-stairs, keeping the latch open. Yawning, he crept into the kitchen, a handsome little sir loping beside him, leaping onto his platform when Yeosang had opened the window it was attached to and let the scent of the rain, its endless patter onto the yellowing world, a cool breeze and the trill of bird song into the room.

Thoughts stretched and writhed in his waking mind as he made espresso, quiet sounds of it joining the rainy morning orchestra, and he fed the cats as his mind arrived at the question of his emotions regarding that scene in the bed, his lover so close to their friend. He hadn't felt any dislike or jealousy; if anything, he'd liked it. Wasn't that strange?

But then his mind provided him with that memory of San smiling at him just before they'd eaten the cake, alight in the warm golden sunshine, and he happily sauntered down the summer seaside boulevard of memories with the love of his life. Heated up milk on the stove when the moka pot hissed steam, yawned as his little handheld device whisked soft white foam onto the surface of the milk, sighed lightly as he prepared the coffee; black and with ice for Wooyoung, little milk for himself, far more milk than espresso for San.

He even sprinkled some brown sugar onto the foam bulging over the rim of the tall glass his lover's light mocha – lightening into white towards the top – coffee resided in, set the mug and the two glasses on a saucer each, added one of the chocolate biscuits he'd made a few days ago and a tea spoon to each, arranged all three on a small tray. Feeling rather proud of himself for his creations, he admired his work, then carefully carried the tray to the ladder-stairs leading into his room.

As soon as he could, he stood the tray onto the floor of his room, and he smiled to himself when quiet giggles drifted from the bed, joined by equally quiet voices, too low for him to understand their words. They paused when the two men noticed him, replaced by curious silence, and he climbed into the room and picked up the tray.

"Good morning," he greeted them, briefly discarded the tray on the nightstand to open one of the slanted skylights, amplifying the rain, the rush of a car driving past the house, the breeze dancing from the leaves and curling into the warm room, bringing the feathery cool of an early autumn morning. The two greeted him back with voices still somewhat roughed up from sleep, colored gold by joy, and when Yeosang joined them on the bed and draped his blanket over his legs, he found them aglow with content.

San especially. Comfortable peace lit him up so thoroughly that even his skin seemed to shimmer gold with it, and Yeosang knew then that this wouldn't be the only time Wooyoung shared a bed with them by far. He'd never seen that kind of content on San before, and he didn't know whether he disliked that their friend could conjure it up or whether he disliked that their friend hadn't done it sooner.

Well, he could investigate that later. For now, he brought out the tray, presented it to those lovely men with a flourish, and they lit up like twin suns and cautiously scrambled to sit up, Wooyoung's legs crossed, San's bent to one side, his hand supporting him just behind the hip not in immediate vicinity of his own, shoulder touching Wooyoung's, knees bumping into his as he adjusted his position. God, they looked so comfortable with each other, Yeosang almost felt alone across from them.

They ran a hand through their messy hair at the same time, without seeming to notice this, and as he gingerly set down the tray on the bed, careful not to spill anything, he wished himself at his husband's side. But that could wait a little longer. For now, he watched them admire their drinks, almost awed, and he couldn't help smiling at it, at the joy of bringing them happiness.

San picked up one of the tall glasses, considered the soft gradient with giddy satisfaction before he took a sip and let out something between a sigh and a moan at the taste. "Oh my god," he commented, eyes blissfully closed, licking foam from his upper lip, "This is perfect, my love."

Wooyoung, having tried his own, agreed wordlessly, content sound from his closed mouth. "D'you do this often?" he added, eyes locked on his glass, taking another sip, licking his pretty lips after. Had he always had a mole on his lower lip?

"At least three times a week," San answered, not without pride, setting his glass down to scoop a spoon of milk foam and brown sugar off the top and let it vanish in his mouth.

Now Wooyoung did look at him. "Marry me too." There was nothing joking about him. "I'll get you books at the employee discount."

Just as Yeosang opened his mouth to reply, San beat him to it. "Nope, sorry," he announced cheerfully, "He's mine." The way he looked at him then was past smitten, past infatuation, so ripe with love it reached his heart with golden fingers and wrapped around him with a warm embrace. "That's why I'm the richest man in the world."

Yeosang averted his gaze to the mug in his hands, the swirl of mocha among the white foam, and he couldn't entirely blame his coffee for the heat in his face. "Found one," he muttered, light with his sheepishly widening smile and that damn flusteredness that wouldn't leave him. His husband beamed at him.

Swallowing down the biggest part of his stupid shyness, he turned to Wooyoung. "About that employee discount," he began, shifting his mug to one hand to pick up his biscuit, and their conversation tangled with the steady rain and the rich scent of the coffee and the wet world, and he fell in love with San and thought that it wouldn't be long until Wooyoung could be called their best friend. What a wonderful development.

☆🍁☆

Throughout the shortening, cooling September days, the old house slowly lost its division into two separate flats. Mornings in the sunlit upstairs kitchen, evenings in the more spacious downstairs kitchen, filled with the rich smell of cooking food, leaving the slept in mess of Wooyoung's bed behind to eat breakfast at the upstairs table, creeping into either of the lovers' beds after spending hours talking over glittering glasses of wine on the couch and arm chairs around the downstairs fireplace, weekend afternoons in the sun on the terrace, watching the rain from the couch of the upstairs living room.

They weren't together all the time, obviously. The majority of the nights, the lovers hugged Wooyoung good night and listened for the creak of his steps as the man disappeared downstairs, and they didn't always spend their mornings together, and some very rare days, they didn't see their friend at all. They missed him on those.

And they talked about him. Oh, they talked about him. On their walks along the field roads and through the forest, on their dates, over the phone, when they laid melted into each other in the hot water of the bathtub, on the drives to and from the gym, in those timeless moments between ecstatic pleasure and soft sleep, over homemade dinner and sometimes even morning coffee. They weren't always pleasant conversations.

Because they weren't perfect people, and they got jealous and hurt and insecure, but they knew how to talk about it, and between countless 'found one'-s, sweet dates, fervent sex and hours spent working on their little projects together, they calmed the unpredictable bruising waves of emotions that attached to Jung Wooyoung and settled into a slightly renewed relationship with each other that included their mutual adoration for that summer thunderstorm of a man.

So it wasn't a surprise when Yeosang woke up one early October Thursday morning and couldn't find San upstairs. He'd gone to bed far too late the previous night and hadn't wanted to disturb his husband, hence hadn't joined him in his room but gone to bed in his own room, only slept a few hours. Dressed, cats fed, he now slunk down the creaking stairs and slipped through the door to the downstairs kitchen – they'd long stopped locking what had once been the doors to the separate apartments.

And it wasn't a surprise either when Yeosang found his lover in Wooyoung's bed, cuddling with their best friend, Wooyoung's face buried in San's chest. A soft smile spread over his face, followed by a fond sigh as he crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. He'd come to love seeing them so tangled up in each other, messy from a night spent in each other's arms, unknowable arrangement of limbs beneath the blanket; they always glowed with it, golden content sticking to them like glittering honey even when they'd long left the bed.

He took a picture. Slipped his phone into his pocket and left after one final, long look, giggled at his curious son when he found that Smoothie had followed him downstairs, made coffee under the watchful gaze of the tomcat. His best friends joined him in the kitchen as he sprinkled the finishing touch of brown sugar onto his lover's coffee, and he was rewarded with a deep kiss that tasted like morning mouth and a pretty man sinking against him and burying his face in the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath as he held him tight.

That morning, for the first time, Wooyoung barely spoke. He was quiet, unusually so, both with his voice and with his face, sipping his iced coffee as he watched the wind brush through the yellowed row of maple trees, sighing as he watched the slow churn of the numb gray sky, mouth relaxed into a thin line as he traced the wooden lines of the kitchen table with his fingertips. It was altogether odd.

When Yeosang locked eyes with his husband for some sort of explanation, the man gave him the sort of look that said 'let him be' and 'I'll tell you later'. So he waited. Waited and worried, because he had never seen the man so dim, and because when San gently pulled the man into his side, arm around him, and kissed his head, caressing his shoulder, holding him in that way he only did when he wanted to comfort, he knew that something had happened.

His lover was reluctant to leave their friend after breakfast, hesitated, only followed Yeosang upstairs when Wooyoung gave him a light, reassuring smile and a look that made no sense to Yeosang but seemed to please San. The lovers kept their usual quiet as they stood in the upstairs bathroom, acting out their morning routines in comfortable silence; at least until Yeosang pushed up his sleeves and San finished shaving.

The man paused, watching the other open the tube of t-gel, then sighed lightly. "I don't really know what happened either," he told him, quietly, "He was crying when I got to his bedroom. Wouldn't tell me why. But whatever it was, it must've hurt like shit."

Yeosang considered this, attending to his upper arms with the gel. His chest caved at the thought of Wooyoung crying, at the thought of him in pain, and he wished he could've been there to comfort him, even though he knew that he wouldn't have been any good at it. It was good San had found the man. San was exceptional at comforting. "D'you think we should find out what it was?" he asked, equally quiet, "As a preventive measure?"

His husband ran his hand through his hair, thinking. "No," he concluded eventually, "He'll tell us when he's ready to. I don't think asking would make it any better."

Well, that made sense. He'd just bake those chocolate cookies the man had loved so much for him, make hot chocolate, cuddle with him. He could do at least that.

"Oh, and..." San began, hesitated, played with his fingers. "I didn't mean to, but I called him 'baby'. Last night."

Yeosang paused, hand on the door of the mirror cabinet. He imagined it, imagined his lover calling their best friend these kinds of nicknames, and he found that he thought it kind of cute. "That's fine. You can call him romantic terms of endearment, if you like. I don't mind."

Surprise washed over the man's face. "Oh." A slowly widening smile. "Okay. I... didn't expect that."

The other snorted, discarding the tube in the mirror cabinet. "You've been calling him 'sunshine' for weeks, love. I've had enough time to get used to it."

San chuckled. "That's true." He reached out, took Yeosang's hand in his. "You can call him that kind of nicknames too, if you want."

Yeosang smiled at him. "Okay." And then he pulled him closer and kissed him sweet.

He missed San the moment he lost sight of the car. That was the problem about loving someone so deeply, wasn't it? Their absence felt too big. Almost wrong.

But he sighed and went about his day. Searched his slowly but steadily filling recipe book for the ingredients needed for the cookies, checked the fridges in both kitchens to see what few they still had, stored his wallet and key in the big breast pocket on the front of his bark brown corduroy overalls, took his bike bags, swung onto his bike and headed into the cool morning. Thursday meant market day meant grocery shopping day.

He'd made a habit of stopping by the bookstore after he was done, but who was to say whether that was because he liked browsing the full shelves or because he wanted to spend a few minutes with Wooyoung? That day, however, the only one behind the register was the pretty black cat he'd learned was called Darling, and, as he ghosted through the upstairs aisles and picked up books and glanced out the large window stretching both floors, he fruitlessly waited for his friend to appear.

When in stead the elderly owner – Elizabeth, if he recalled correctly – took the place behind the counter, petting the cat, he gave up and held the book he'd picked tighter, creeping up to the counter, greeting as he slid the book onto the wood. "Is Wooyoung not in today?" he asked after a minute or two of friendly conversation with the woman.

"No, he's not." She smiled at him. "You are rather close with him, aren't you? You and your husband both."

A silly blush crept from his nape to his cheeks. He didn't think he'd ever told her that he was married to a man. "Yes, you could say that," he replied sheepishly, twisting his golden ring. "He's talked about us, then?"

"Oh yes, all the time. He's been happier these past weeks, too."

His smile widened shyly, and his heart did a little thing, and he already knew that he would be telling San about this the moment he left the store.

"He doesn't have many friends here," the woman continued, with the sort of care that she might have for a grandson. "Be good to him. He needs it."

Yeosang still thought about this when he stood in the upstairs kitchen and mixed the cookie dough. He'd thought that Wooyoung would have many friends, with his bright, open personality and quite frankly incredible ability to make anyone comfortable around him, and he'd seen him call and text people, seen him head off to meet friends; but it seemed that those were the friends he still had from before moving in with them.

He wondered, then, if Wooyoung had been lonely those months they hadn't been friends yet. Undoubtedly, the man was a social person, who had often mentioned how much he loved spending time with other people, and Yeosang couldn't imagine that he'd been able to meet up with his old friends nearly as often and much as he spent time with the lovers. His heart ached for him. Why hadn't they thought to befriend him sooner?

His thoughts kept revolving around this, curling back to that man and his lovely soul, and when he'd filled the cookies into a bowl, he made the silent promise that he would take care of him. With this resolve, he crept downstairs, bowl in hand, quietly searching the familiar rooms for a sign of his best friend, almost convinced that Wooyoung wasn't home; then he peeked through the open bedroom door.

Wooyoung laid curled up in his bed, almost entirely hidden by the blanket, an open book held beside the pillow, almost imperceptible rise and fall of the blanket heap indicating his steady breaths, and there was a dull sort of air to the room, one that wasn't quite the stuffiness of an unaired space and wasn't quite the simple silence of it all. No, there was something heavier to it.

He hesitated at the door, considered whether he should really enter, whether it wasn't better to give the man all the solitude he wanted, but then he thought of what Elizabeth had told him and entered. Wooyoung could always send him away.

"Hey," he greeted softly, pausing beside the bed, waiting for his friend to look at him before he hesitantly sat down at the edge of the bed. He offered the bowl. "I made cookies."

Wooyoung's gaze flicked to the bowl, no trace of a smile on his face, and his eyes closed briefly before he made eye contact. "Thank you-" he said, quietly, "-But I don't have an appetite right now." Then he went back to his book.

Oh. That actually kind of hurt. But he wouldn't let that deter him. "Can I get your something to drink?" he tried, gingerly setting the bowl of cookies onto the nightstand, and even though the man didn't look at him when he replied, he counted this as a positive result. He could've just said no, too.

When he returned with a tall glass of water, Wooyoung sighed and laid his book down to sit up. He wore one of his shirts, Yeosang noted, which he hadn't been doing that morning, but he still didn't smile when he was given the glass of water. This was only strange because Wooyoung was by far the most smiley person he knew, and he always accompanied a thank you with a little smile, no matter the circumstances.

He waited at his bedside, took the empty glass from him, hesitated as the man already shifted back down and into his blanket. "I'll probably go on a walk in like two hours," he told him, "D'you wanna come? I could show you the frog pond."

Wooyoung considered briefly. "I don't know," he concluded, "Ask me again when you're leaving."

Yeosang lingered briefly after agreeing, but since his friend kept all his attention on his book, he sighed and left. Couldn't quite get all that out of his mind as he did the chores of the day, sawed the wooden parts needed for his and San's current project in the shed, sat on the living room couch and ordered the white fabric and rope and small, ball bearing mounted rope pulleys, texted his husband when he'd gotten confirmation for his orders and thus would soon have all the parts needed to build the screen for their home cinema.

It was just before three by the time he checked the many pockets of his overalls for his phone and keys and headed downstairs. In the hallway mirror, he looked at himself, considered the combination of moss green pullover and barely visible fuzz over his upper lip and overalls and boots and somewhat fluffy hair, and he thought that he kind of looked like a little boy and smiled at it, satisfied. It gave him an unexpected, small kick of euphoria.

Wooyoung sat at the kitchen table, eating a pear, when Yeosang opened the door. "You comin'?" he asked, refraining from stepping into the room, and his heart lit up when a light smile tugged at the corners of his friend's mouth.

The man looked him up and down. "Cute," he commented, smile widening when the other struck a girly pose that included (but was not limited to) a bent leg, a frozen wink and a peace sign with one hand. It was like the sunlight flooding the world on a gray day. "You know what, why not?" he then added, drawing a beaming smile on Yeosang's face, "Let me just get dressed."

Yeosang waited in the hallway, thoughts already dancing around the walk ahead of him, chest tight with joy, and then he had a stupid little fantasy that prompted him to text his husband and ask whether he was alright with him holding hands with Wooyoung. 'Sure' the man replied, 'As long as I get to do it too, I don't mind'. Yeosang told him yes, of course he could, and had another silly little fantasy about walking along the field roads as the three of them, Wooyoung between him and San, holding hands with them. He would've twirled his hair if it was still as long as it was when he was a kid.

Then Wooyoung joined him in the hallway, began telling him about the book he'd read as he put on his already muddy sneakers, interrupted by biting into a pear he produced from the pocket of his black hoodie. Upon being asked whether the pear was one from the tree in the garden, he hummed affirmatively and happily told him all about how good it was. Yeosang felt an increasingly profound adoration for the man that only deepened the more Wooyoung slipped back into his old self.

By the time they left the streets behind and passed the edge of the forest – merely a few minutes after they'd left the house – Wooyoung chattered on like he always did, illustrating his words with his hands, and whenever he could, Yeosang watched him with the sort of fond smile that had, for so long, only ever been directed at his husband. He could've listened to that man for days and not gotten bored.

He talked too, for a while, told him what he'd done that day, teased him for talking about him and San 'all the time', as Elizabeth had put it, told a story or two from the few months him and San had traveled after their wedding. This prompted Wooyoung to tell a travel story of his own, and he told a series of them that only ended – if briefly – when they arrived at the frog pond.

Quietly, they stood at the wooden railing surrounding the pond, watching the newts and tiny fish flitting about the water, gray sky mirrored by the calm surface of the water, only broken by aquatic plants that reached just above the surface, pondside overgrown with reeds and water lily and herbs and grasses and low bushes, shadowed by the reaching branches of bruising trees, and the wind whispered in the leaves and high grass and small animals rustled the fallen leaves and the occasional call of a bird joined the rare croak of a toad.

"I could watch this for hours," he whispered, never averting his gaze from the water, leaned onto the rotting railing, eliciting an agreeing hum from the man beside him. Their elbows almost touched, so close to each other, and the desire to rest his head on his friend's shoulder overcame him so convincingly that he, after brief hesitation, shifted closer to him and followed his heart's wish. In reply, it jumped in his chest, strangely heavy in a pleasant sort of way.

Tentatively, Wooyoung leaned his head against his. "Are you guys like this with all of your friends?" he whispered, though he sounded unsure.

"Hm?" Yeosang asked, just as he realized what the man meant. He supposed that him and San really were more affectionate with him than anyone would expect from a married couple, and he'd himself often wondered why exactly that was. He'd never gotten further than 'he just makes it so easy to love him'. "Nah," he whispered back before the man could clarify, "Just our best friend."

Wooyoung thought about this. "Which is?"

"You."

This successfully stunned him, and that was a rarity. Yeosang enjoyed the following silence with some self-satisfaction, some embarrassment at having admitted that, some joy about the comfort of his head on that shoulder, and when they continued their way up the large hill beyond the frog pond, he held up his hand in demand, gaze on the slightly muddy ground, curling his fingers in a demanding motion when nothing happened.

And then Wooyoung's hesitant hand hovered over his, not quite daring to go all the way, and he sighed in playful annoyance and took his hand himself. Heart dancing in his tight chest, slipping his fingers between the other's, taking a moment to feel the pressure of those fingers against his, the heel of a hand touched to his, the prominent knuckles under his fingertips, the warm hand so snug against his. It was a little bigger than San's, more slender, softer, but it fit just as perfectly.

His smile widened lightly when Wooyoung drew in a deep, surprised breath, keeping his gaze ahead, pretending to admire the yellowing coat of the forest when all that was in his mind was the hand in his and the closeness of the man it belonged to. He would absolutely tell San all about this tonight, or, if they had a sleepover again – which was likely for a Thursday – tomorrow. His lover would smile at him all fondly and pretend to be disappointed that he hadn't been there to see it and kiss him like he did when he didn't know how else to deal with his adoration.

"Uhm," Wooyoung began beside him, his voice flushed by flusteredness, "You, uh, you're my best friends too." A glance at him revealed his face to be flushed too, though his long, sloping bangs hid some of it. "Isn't that weird?"

"Hm?" The blush on those cheeks could've been from the cool air too, though. Either way, it was perfect on that golden skin, complimenting the shy little smile tugging at those pretty lips that looked so terribly lonely, creeping down to that pretty throat that was so unblemished, the Adam's apple bobbing when the man swallowed, and god, that hooked nose, those sharp features, how could anyone be so unbelievably pretty? It almost hurt him physically.

Wooyoung wet his lonely lips. "Well, I- I mean we've only been friends for like five weeks, maybe six, so isn't it, uhm, isn't it weird that we're so close already? That we're best friends?"

"Hm." He'd thought this himself often enough. "True, I guess. It's probably 'cause you match us so well."

"I do?" Surprised, the man looked up, turned to him, immediately averted his gaze when he realized that he was watched. "We did click immediately, didn't we?"

"Mhm, exactly." Yeosang tore his gaze away from that infuriatingly pretty man, noticing an urge that sat high in his chest, in his mouth, that he didn't know what to do with, much less how to identify. "You should be honored that I let you touch me so much," he added, briefly tightening his hold on the other's hand, "I'm not the biggest fan of physical affection usually." At this admission that felt altogether too personal, he looked down at his muddied boots, then ahead at the curving trail.

Wooyoung giggled, but stopped himself when he realized that Yeosang was serious. "You? Not the biggest fan of physical affection?" He sounded surprised, disbelieving. "You love that shit. You're touchy as hell with San, and with me too, kind of. I don't know how you are with other people, but you pretending to hate it isn't fooling anyone."

Embarrassed, the other lowered his head. "Well, I mean, yeah, I'm married to him, but there's only a few people I'm actually comfortable with touching me for longer than a second. There's Jongho, aside from you two, and San's parents, and that's it."

"Well in that case-" Wooyoung bumped into him. "-I am honored. Can't believe I'm part of the select few, after such a short time." He had that tone that was half joking and half genuinely happy, and when he talked on, he did it with a jovial lightness to his voice that made even his insane stories sound like normal little anecdotes.

On top of the hill (small mountain, really), past the edge of the forest, laid a horse pasture currently occupied by a brown horse, a white horse, and one with granite gray fur speckled like old stones, and the two men stood at the fence and watched them graze as they talked – or, well, Wooyoung told a story from that time he partook in a two week long trail ride in Kyrgyzstan. The things that man got up to.

Misfortune struck when they turned from the hilltop – the sun view – and began their way back. The churning mass of clouds took on a worrying shade of slate gray, the wind picked up, snarling in the shuddering, dying leaves, bringing with it the charge of a brewing storm and the earthy smell of rain, and the subtle shiver of the foreboding grumble of the weather crept beneath their suddenly too thin clothes.

They hurried, down the sloping hill, through gusts of dancing leaves and cold, sizzling wind, but they hadn't even made it halfway to the frog pond when the sky opened its gates. Rain flooded the forest, bickering in the leaves, bypassing the meager borders of their clothes within minutes, hazy shower of thick drops deepening the colors of the gleaming world and yet fogging the air, wet skin, wet hair, wet clothes, wet soil quickly soaking up the water and returning to mud, their hurried steps splashing up water in rapidly growing puddles, startling and speeding up when lightning arced across the cloud-heavy sky.

If it were for Yeosang, they would've ran all the way home, but Wooyoung was no runner, and so they were forced to slow to a quick walk before they ever reached the robber's pit marking the middle of the way home. The man panted beside him, completely out of breath, their hands tightly clasped between them, his heart galloping with exertion and the ancient fear of the thunderstorm bearing down on them, howling through the creaking trees, thunder of the rain and the raging wind tangling with the thunder of the sky in a wrathful embrace.

Roaring thunder tore the world apart, cracked through the forest, electrified their muscles in a heavy flinch, and Yeosang briefly considered picking his friend up and carrying him home, but then Wooyoung took a deep breath and picked up an anxious jog, hurrying past the robber's pit, stumbling with the momentum of the downhill path, the two of them squinting into the rain and wind and trying not to think about the very real possibility of a lightning striking any of the trees along the path.

No, better not think about that. They stumbled and skidded down the steep, muddy slope of the hill, racing across what somewhat flat parts they had, hearts spiking into their throats with every thunder, every too loud crack of wood, chasing each other along the miry path, panting, hands tightly locked, only goal in mind to get the fuck out of the forest, briefly slowing to a walk on the dangerously slippery half wood half soil steps leading to the gravel road through the bear leek valley, carefully hurrying across the wooden planks bridge over the now muddily gushing creek, dashing down the gravel road as quickly as Wooyoung's muscles would allow.

They reached the paved streets just as a particularly violent thunder rolled over the frothing sky, exposed to the full fury of the rain now that the weak shield of the trees was gone, sprinting the few meters to the roofed bus station. Dropped onto the metal seats, they caught their breaths, anything but the drum of the rain onto the roof entirely inaudible, without any hope that their heartbeats would slow until they reached the safety of the house.

There was no chance of reaching home even remotely dry, so they didn't have to hurry from then on, but the storm only worsened, and neither of them had any desire to be outside in it any longer than absolutely necessary. When Wooyoung felt ready to brave the weather one last time, the two stood up, squeezed each other's hands for courage, then bolted into the rain, fleeing the wrath of the sky, exhaustion gradually slowing them until they broke into a final sprint that only ended at the entrance door of the house.

Yeosang wrestled with the keys, one-handed and stiff from the cold, slipping past the heavy wooden door the moment it opened wide enough to let them through. The thunderstorm dulled with the closing door, and they leaned against the wood, relief washing over them with the successful escape, coming in waves of breathless laughter that swept into the small entrance hall and drew wide smiles onto their faces.

They laughed the remnant fear from their shivering bodies, laughed at the foolishness of their situation, at the sparks of adrenaline remaining, at the relief of home, and they only calmed with their steadying breaths, laughter dissolving into giggles and giggles into grins that made way for smiles, and Yeosang looked at Wooyoung and that gorgeous face was alight with a smile so wide it took his breath and desire crawled into his chest and clawed at his ribcage and he felt a sudden but definite need to kiss that beautiful man breathless.

Oh.

That wasn't very platonic of him.

He averted his gaze to his mud-soaked boots and overalls, a shy, hesitant smile replacing his wide one. "That was close," he stated, and he didn't really know what it referred to.

"Close?" Wooyoung pointedly looked down at his completely soaked self. "Dude, we're fucking drenched, and I'm freezing, and I'm pretty sure we almost fucking died in that goddamn forest, what the fuck do you mean?"

Yeosang shrugged. "Could've been worse." He let go of his friend's hand, missing it immediately, stretching his stiff fingers. "A tree could've fallen on the path or on top of us."

The man stared at him in horror, watching him take off his boots, unmoving. "That was a genuine possibility?!" Slowly, he slipped out of his now ruined sneakers, horrified gaze never leaving him.

"Yep!" He grimaced as he took off his wet socks. Ew. "Happened to San and me once, now that was terrifying." Socks between two fingers, he headed for the stairs. "I'll be back in two seconds, just gotta put on dry clothes, meet you by the fireplace." And with that, he disappeared into the upstairs rooms.

He questioned himself as he shed himself of all his clothes in the bathroom; was this a physical thing? This want, this need pulling at his torso, curled in his chest, this desire to kiss him, was it mere physical attraction? He thought back to that moment in the hallway just now, to that ravishing smile and that pretty man, and then he thought no. No, it was far deeper than physical attraction.

He suspended this line of thought for now, not confident that he was ready to make sense of what it would bring, instead relieved to find his phone still working perfectly. Texted his worried husband that him and Wooyoung had made it back safely as he went to the man's bedroom, naked except for the golden ring on his left hand, recorded a voice message giving a brief recount on the events and assurance that they were fine as he opened the closet and dressed himself with San's clothes.

A minute or two later, he'd gotten the fire in the downstairs fireplace started, crouched in front of it, warming his hands on the growing flames licking along the logs, the living room filled with the distant roar of the storm and crackling, stretching, writhing fire. Creaking steps joined that cozy symphony, and when he looked up, he spotted Wooyoung approaching with two mugs and a teapot of unknown contents, which he set down on the couch table before he left once more.

When he returned, his arms bore the thick duvet resident to his bed, and Yeosang's smile widened slowly as he stood up, quiet excitement spreading from his joy-tight chest and creeping into the outermost corners of him at the prospect of getting to cuddle up to Wooyoung. The man was right, he supposed, he did love that shit. As long as it was with San, him, or, in rare cases, Jongho. The reason for this eluded him entirely, but then again, sometimes things just were the way they were for no discernible reason.

Expectantly sat on the couch, he watched his best friend, watched him make sense of the blanket and drop beside him and drape it over them, watched the flickering orange light of the flames combat the dull, storm-dark gray of the day on that golden skin, the wet, onyx-gleaming hair haphazardly brushed behind piercing-adorned ears, the soft glow flickering along the edges of his sharp profile, his hooked nose, the smile dipping his cheeks, smile lines, tugging at the corners of his mouth, his lips, those pretty lips, somewhat cracked, would still be so soft, so sweet, so-

He averted his gaze. It wouldn't do him any good to keep looking, keep watching that handsome man and his mouth that was so lonely, so terribly lonely and that seemed so gentle, like it would be nothing but adoration, like it would fit so perfectly against- fuck. Could this get any worse?

"What's that?" he asked to distract himself when his friend had finalized the position of the blanket, pointedly regarding the teapot, and then, as a preventive measure, he leaned into him and shifted his legs over his, snuggling into the blanket, cuddling up to him, erasing the possibility of ever accidentally looking at him again.

"Hm?" Wooyoung laid a hand on his thigh, turned his head to see what this was about. "Oh, I made hot chocolate. Want some?"

Yeosang lit up. He hummed affirmatively, not trusting himself not to say anything stupid if he opened his mouth, and he didn't even mind all that much when the man leaned forward and out of his reach because it gave him a perfect view of him pouring steaming hot chocolate into two mugs and an even more perfect view of the bright smile that decorated that pretty face when his friend gave him one of the mugs. And he never quite could stop himself from smiling right back at that lovely, lovely smile.

Sunken into Wooyoung, settling against him and into the warmth of the blanket and the warmth of San's clothes and the warmth of the fire and the warmth of the man beside him and the warmth of his fond heart, he gently blew on the surface of the drink, tentatively lifted the rim of the mug to his lips, attempted to determine whether it was too hot to drink and came to no conclusion. A little too hot, he found out a slurped sip later, but with that round, piquant note that he still couldn't quite figure out, even though he'd often drunken Wooyoung's hot chocolate.

So he asked about it. And, like it was bound to, this question seamlessly flowed into conversation, and before he knew it, he'd melted into his friend and taken the last sip of the last mug of hot chocolate and closed his eyes, listening to the crackling fire, the raging storm, the cascading tangle of their quiet voices, their quiet laughter, the wind whispering in the old stone and wood walls of the house. Wooyoung had an arm around him and caressed his thigh and once even dared to kiss his head and he was so cozy and comfortable and safe and oh it was wonderful.

He forgot time entirely, so wrapped up in the weather and his best friend and the warm blanket, and as their conversation dipped into that quiet of serious conversation, he listened and talked – though not much – and greedily lapped up all the drops and bits and pieces of him. Wooyoung was such an interesting man, with so many interesting things to say, and with that utterly captivating way of storytelling and the genuineness so inherent to him, Yeosang found himself wanting to know every last thing that man had to say.

Later, he would realize how worrying this was, but right then, he just softened into him and listened.

Eventually, far too soon, his ringing phone ripped him from this bliss. Spitefully, it announced that it was already half past six, and he briefly reconsidered his decision of cooking every evening or midday. But, with a heavy sigh, he forced himself from the mellow perfection of that place on the couch, slipping from the blanket, regretfully explaining the situation to his confused friend, shuddering in the freezing cold of the living room (the thermometer set this freezing cold at twenty-one degrees).

Wooyoung followed him to the kitchen, supervised his amateurish cooking from the counter, legs lazily dangling, hands on the edge, leaned onto his arms, creating the terrible temptation of standing between his legs and running hands along those thighs and hips and waist and side, slipping beneath his clothes if they dared, looking up at him and trying to ignore the weight of those forearms on one's shoulders, the terrible temptation of leaning closer and tilting one's head up until he leaned down to seal one's awe-parted mouth with his own.

It was a dangerous path of thoughts, that.

This, of course, did not stop Yeosang's mind from sauntering down that very path. The things it found along the way could've won prizes at movie festivals.

But because that was a kitchen and not a movie festival and they were his vivid thoughts and not filmed scenes, all they won was the red-hot tint of embarrassment on his face. Wooyoung's highly concerning, jovially told recount of a disastrous bus ride in flood-like rain somewhere in India did something to distract him, but not enough that his hands didn't ache to touch him and that his body didn't crave to be closer to him and that his mind didn't supply plenty gorgeous images of that goddamn man and himself.

His husband saved him, in the end. Just past eight, the door from kitchen to hallway opened to reveal San, dampened by rain and slumped by exhaustion, and Yeosang hadn't even gotten an entire greeting out when the man wrapped his arms around him, buried his face in the crook of his neck and slackened. "Bad day?" Yeosang asked, voice sympathy-softened, and when his lover just made a sort of agreeing sound in his throat, he tightened his hold on him and kissed his head.

They stood like this, embracing, until Wooyoung hesitantly announced that the food was done and San sighed, brought some distance between them. His eyes flicked down and up Yeosang's body, then widened lightly, did it again but much, much slower, a light smile tugging at the corners of his pretty mouth the longer he looked, the more that wanting amber in his eyes deepened, and then he laid his hands on the other's waist and slowly pulled him closer and looked at him like a man overcome with desire and confident that it would be fulfilled.

"Hey, handsome," he purred, and Yeosang's heart leapt and blushed as he loosely locked his arms behind his man's head. San glanced at his arms, lingered, before he made eye contact (with a detour over his lips). "Lookin' extra good tonight, Mr. Kang." Something like a self-satisfied little smirk. "My man in my clothes. Wanna show me the muscles you're hiding under that? You have such an efficient body."

It was fucking bribery at this point. And he could only pray that he did a decent job at hiding how tight with joy his chest was and how quickly his heart beat and how unable he was to look at him and how hot his face burned. In an attempt to regain some control, he raised an eyebrow at him. "Weren't you exhausted five minutes ago?"

His husband chuckled and leaned in. "Yeah," he affirmed with that annoying, smug tone, almost into his lips, "But I'm a different man now." And then he kissed him.

When they, a few moments later, joined their friend at the table, Wooyoung gave them a condescending look and tsked. "Fucking faggots," he complained, to which Yeosang stuck his tongue out at him, to which Wooyoung made the world's worst pretense smile and gave him the middle finger, to which Yeosang blew him a kiss, and so on and so forth. It was an eventful dinner.

After, they cuddled up on the couch, the three of them, listening to the crackling flames and the patter of the rain and the dull howl of the wind, sunken into rare silence, a tangle of limbs and caressing hands and content. It was beautiful, it really was, but Wooyoung's legs in his lap and San's arm around him reminded him too much of those terribly gorgeous thoughts he'd had in the kitchen and his little revelation from the hallway and the weight with which his marriage rested on it. There was no peace for his mind.

The daylight had long disappeared by the time he dared to look at his man, and then the flickering light of the dancing fire glowed gold on that utterly familiar face and he was so calm with his closed eyes and steady breath and Wooyoung slept leaned against that shoulder and something crawled into Yeosang's throat and choked him. He slipped from the couch, careful not to make a single sound, not to disturb them, and crept upstairs.

After feeding the cats, he fled to his room, let his mind run as he curled up alone in his bed, the patter of the rain on the slanted skylights a steady undercurrent to his jumping thoughts. Sleep didn't come easy, that night.

☆🍁☆

For a few days, he let it all ruminate, gave himself time first to understand, then to come to terms with. The trees yellowed outside, caught edges of burning orange-red, and he didn't use his headphones while doing chores or working on his projects so his thoughts could run free, and he kept to himself, as far as possible, and he spent hours petting Star or playing with Smoothie and Gecko while he kept thinking and thinking and thinking.

Because – and this became unmistakably clear when he wasn't alone – he'd developed an interest in Jung Wooyoung that wasn't platonic at all. And it wasn't merely physical either, oh no, Wooyoung was an attractive man far beyond his body. Yeosang, for the second time in his life, found that he had a crush on his best friend, and not the one he was married to.

Which begged the question: did he love his husband any less because of it?

But, no. No he didn't at all. Every fiber of him still warmed when he watched San get excited over his program, when he stood beside him and listened and watched as San showed him all the things it could do and how much easier it made a part of his job, and he still missed San when he wasn't with him, and he still looked at San and thought that he was the luckiest man in the world, and he still felt perfect when he kissed San and felt his smile widen against his own mouth. By god, he still loved Kang San, his sun, his man, his best friend, he still loved him so much it made him breathless.

Which did not stop his heart from fluttering when Wooyoung got too close, and when he took his hand or kissed his cheek, and when he beamed that infectious boyish smile of his, and when he flirted with him, as joked as it may be, and when he held him in his arms and those hands slipped under his clothes. And it didn't stop his mind from imagining kissing Wooyoung and going on little dates with him and listening to him forever and kissing him and that body bare in his hands and holding hands with him wherever they went and that sweet voice quiet against his hot skin and melting into hot water and him and those hands running through his hair and he could've spent days imagining him.

Wednesday of the week following his revelation, he'd accepted that he wanted Wooyoung romantically. This in itself already weighed on him, but then there was his husband and the fact that he would have to tell him. It was inevitable.

And terrifying.

But, as much as the conversation and its possible outcomes scared him, he knew that he had to, so he picked the next day on which Wooyoung wouldn't spend the evening with them (Friday) and decided that this would be the day he told him. Decision made, he picked up the book he'd been meaning to read – called 'Sunburn' – and prayed that it would distract him.

It did, and, additionally, took his breath with its hot summer beauty and wrecked his heart completely, and even though it was polite enough to fix it after, he spent a good ten minutes after finishing it staring into nothing to properly process everything that had happened and what it did to him. Sapphic books often had this effect on him; after all, he was once a lesbian himself.

Thus affected, he declined when San asked him whether he would come to that hang out with their friends in an hour, remembered what the old bookstore's owner had said about Wooyoung and told his husband to take the man with him. Their friends had been dying to meet him anyway, with how much the lovers always talked about him.

As the light of the day died away, he biked over field roads and along the river, passed through the neighboring villages, thoughts freely dancing along in the early autumn cold, wind in his hair and slipped under his jacket, and he thought about 'Sunburn' and his teenage years and his best friend, about all the things they'd gone through together, about those eleven years they'd already known each other, and about himself and his growth and changes, and he thought about Wooyoung and what he meant for his and San's relationship too.

When the sky freckled with stars, he realized that he'd failed to bring bike lamps, and so the way home was spent with most of his attention on the roads and paths he took, on trying to make out shapes in the hazy dimness of the nightly world, fingers numbing in the cold wind, ears long frozen. He arrived to a house as empty as he'd left it, and then he thought about his best friends and wondered how his and San's friends were to Wooyoung and pondered whether he should wait for them or go to bed.

Inside, when his fingers were no longer stiff and didn't feel like they would fall off with the next touch, he dug his hands out from beneath the blanket and took his phone. A minute ago, Jongho had texted him, and he wondered whether it was about Wooyoung or something else as he opened the message.

A video. A video of his best friends on some leather couch, dim, changing lights illuminating their fond smiles, San's arm around Wooyoung, Wooyoung's head tilted back to San's shoulder, the two of them melted into each other, looking at each other, mouths moving with words but the only sound was the apparently live music, half-finished cocktails in their free hands, San tilting his head back with laughter as Wooyoung grinned at him and as their hands, San's left one, ring glinting, Wooyoung's right one, lifting to his shoulder, almost absentmindedly met and their fingers slotted together, hold tightening as San returned to regarding Wooyoung with that dimpled, tipsy smile and those amber eyes that were so full with adoration.

'Oh,' Yeosang thought, watched the video again, watched that comfort, the gentle hands, watched his lover's 'I love you' eyes on Wooyoung, watched that scene that looked so much like an excerpt from a romance, 'Oh.' Seemed like he wasn't alone in his infatuation after all. He watched the video again. Just a few seconds long, just a moment of them, but he loved it dearly, and he watched it again and again until he knew it by heart.

Eventually, he saw that Jongho had attached a question mark to the message and remembered that he wasn't the one who had taken the video, and then realized that Jongho must've sent it to him because he'd gotten suspicious of the true nature of San and Wooyoung's relationship. Which was fair, seeing them like that, god Yeosang would've been jealous if that wasn't Wooyoung.

But it was, so he replied 'I know' to his friend, and 'me too.'.

Jongho read it almost immediately, followed by the jumping three dots of him typing. 'damn.' they concluded, 'ik we joked abt it but I didn't think hes actually ur third'.

'not a third' Yeosang texted, cheeks heating up with embarrassment, 'just our best friend' and then added 'for now'.

'ew'

Ignoring that comment, he considered, then told him: 'please don't tell the others tho, we haven't talked abt it yet bc this is a pretty new development and I want him to find out through me, not yall'. Paused, thought for a moment. 'if they ask, just tell em I said I know abt them being like that and am fine with it'

The other agreed reluctantly, promised not to say anything, and then Yeosang was left once again alone. He thought, watched the video again, analyzed himself, slowly figured out the complex curl of emotions in him, let the significance of it all settle. This was no little thing, this romantic interest in Wooyoung, and no matter what they would choose to do with it, it would alter their relationship, and that scared him. Of course it did.

So he awaited Friday evening anxiously. Did everything he could to distract himself, startled every time he glanced at the living room grandfather clock and saw that more time had passed and brought him closer to that horrifying conversation, listened to his heartbeat and tried not to fall asleep when he laid in his husband's arms, in the man's bed, San long asleep, so the next day wouldn't come so quickly.

Once he'd removed himself from the embrace to escape it's uncomfortable heat, he fell asleep far too easily, and before he knew it, it was Friday afternoon. He laid on the couch, reading 'Silent Earth' – highly interesting science book – hidden under a thick blanket that kept him warm despite him wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear, wind chasing leaves past the windows and over the balcony, quietly whistling around the house, and he was so absorbed in this book and its information on insects and their place in the ecosystem earth that he didn't even realize that San had come home until his presence appeared right beside him.

He looked up, glanced at the clock, tried to meet his husbands eyes, but the man kept his gaze down. "Hey," Yeosang greeted, lowering his book and putting up his legs when the other moved to sit on the couch. "You're home late. Overtime?" Finding that he had a bad view of his man with his knees in the way, he stretched his legs and instead settled with his feet on his lover's thigh.

San's hands found his lower legs beneath the blanket, began to caress and lightly knead his calves and shins. He still didn't look at him, tense, only able to muster up a faint smile that faded quickly. "The 3D-printer was done with the parts for the prototype when I was about to leave-" he replied, gaze on the blanket, his voice with that edge that only came into it when he was nervous or stressed, "-so I put it all together, which took forever, and when I was finally done it turned out there was a problem with the transmitters 'cause of the way I'd soldered them to the circuit board, and when I'd fixed that the Raspberry Pi acted up and-" He stopped himself, briefly closed his eyes, took a deep breath. "Can I talk to you about something, darling?"

Ah. Yeosang had a guess where this was going. "Yeah, sure." He put a receipt between the pages he'd been reading, closed the book, discarded it on the couch table, joined his hands over his abdomen, beneath the blanket. The creeping apprehension that had been so prominent in him the past days returned, nestled in the corners of his body like trembling cobweb. Here they went. "What's up?"

His husband hesitated, hands massaging his calves, then swallowed and inhaled deeply. "Okay. I-" Wet his lips. "I love you. I really do. I love you so much, Yeosang, I love waking up with you and sharing my life with you, I love being married to you, and I'd do it again any day. I don't want a future without you. I love you." A weak smile flickered over his face. "God, I love you so much."

He paused, let this hang in the air between them, let it nestle its warmth into the other's heart. "Remember what you said?" he said eventually, quietly, "About having endless love? Because I do. And I don't- I don't know how it happened, or when, but on Wednesday, at that bar, he told me the dumbest joke I'd ever heard, and he almost died laughing before he'd even finished telling it, and I just- he was so proud of that stupid joke, and he was so pretty, and- and I realized that I- I'm-" He stopped. Closed his eyes. "I have a crush on Wooyoung."

San sat there, tense as a drawn bow, mouth pressed into a thin line, sat like a man awaiting punishment, a light tremble in his hands as he brushed them over the other's skin, and this admission thickened the air and crawled into Yeosang's chest, and if he hadn't known this already, that his husband wanted their best friend like that, a tangle of emotions would've risen to his throat. But as it was, he dug one hand out from beneath the blanket, lightly lifted it, smiled at his anxious darling with all his love in his eyes.

His lover needed comfort. Assurance. And there was no better way to give that to him than physical affection. "Come here, baby," he demanded softly, lifting the blanket to invite him under it, and his heart ached with fondness as San tentatively took him up on his offer, the two of them shifting and adjusting until the man comfortably laid on his chest and the blanket covered them up to his ears.

Yeosang laid his arms around him, tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair, played with the soft strands, caressed his back with his thumb, kissed his head, adjusted the way his own head laid against the armrest, felt that erratic heartbeat through that chest, and his own heart beat with relief and uncertainty. He had to say something, he knew, had to tell him that he felt the same, but his mouth wouldn't open, and his throat wouldn't cooperate, as much as he willed them to, and so there was only the quiet between them and the ticking of the grandfather clock and the howl of the wind.

"You don't hate me now, right?" San asked into the silence, his voice meek and unsure and heartbreakingly timid, and he sounded so small, with half his face buried in Yeosang's chest, clinging onto him like his life depended on it, with that shimmer of hope in his nearly breaking voice. It stabbed the other right in his heart.

He tightened his hold on him and his voice returned. "Oh, my sun," he replied, quietly, heavy with adoration and pain and so much love, "I could never hate you." Made himself say the next part, not just think it. "I love you too much. And if it's alright for you, I'd like to keep doing that."

San took a deep breath, and with exhaling, he relaxed his tensed muscles, melted into him, a pretty little smile tugging at his mouth. "Don't ever stop," he demanded happily, snuggling deeper into him, but then he grew serious once more. "And you're really okay with that? Me crushing on him?"

Yeosang hummed affirmatively. "I'd be a real hypocrite if I wasn't, wouldn't I?"

His husband opened his mouth to reply, paused, then lifted his head and looked at him, doubtful. "What does that mean?" he asked cautiously, and when he got no verbal reply or explanation, his gaze darted about the room as he wet his lips, returned to making eye contact. "Darling, is that you telling me that you have a crush on him too?"

"Mhm," the other replied, because it was the only thing his throat could muster up. He averted his eyes, saw the disbelief spreading over that face, felt the stupid heat creeping into his stupid cheeks. "I was gonna tell you tonight, but I guess you beat me to it."

San's eyes widened. "You actually-" A foolish little giggle interrupted him, brought a radiant dimpled smile with it that made Yeosang's mouth feel terribly lonely. "I mean, I considered that you like him like that, but I didn't think you actually have a crush on him!" A giggle like rays of sunlight. "Can you believe how well we match each other?"

Helpless against his man's infectious joy, Yeosang rolled his eyes, smiling. "Why are you so happy that your husband has a crush on another man?" he demanded to know, aching to kiss him, to slip his hands under his clothes and run his hands up his back and kiss him until he forgot who he was, and San, his beautiful darling San, pushed himself onto his forearms and leaned down to him and kissed him breathless. They really did match well, didn't they?

His lover settled back into his chest when he'd satisfactorily kissed him stupid, and they enjoyed each other in silence for a wonderful little while before they picked up that important conversation. They talked about boundaries, expectations, wishes, fears, possibilities, agreed to open their relationship to Wooyoung and Wooyoung only, and when they'd finished all the serious communication, they gushed about him to each other and sighed dreamily and then dramatically when they suffered from missing him together.

Their conversation didn't end for a long time, went on while Yeosang cooked and San watched him from the table, went on as they ate, went on as they tidied everything away and checked the time and took one look at each other and decided to go to bed early, quietened as they stood under the hot spray of water in the shower together, gentle hands on flushed skin and in wet hair, even went on over the hum of the hair dryer, and they were giggly and content to their bones and warm to the cores of their souls when the door to San's bedroom closed behind them. Soft hands stripping each other of their clothes, admiring the bodies beneath, and then the conversation was forced to halt because their mouths were otherwise occupied.

It was one of those soft nights. One of those where San took all the time in the world to adore him with his hands and mouth, where their need was love-drunk and hazy, where San kissed down his abdomen and to his inner thighs with the reverence of a priest, where his night eyes with their desire-blown wide pupils were half-lidded and drowning in adoration, where he licked his glistening, perfect lips and quietly told songs of admiration, where he leaned over him and rested his forehead against his and said his name like a prayer as he undid him again.

It was one of those nights where their souls knit together anew and lingered on their bare skin when they laid in each other's arms exhausted and utterly content and humming with the leftover euphoria of pleasure. San traced his throat and neck and collarbones with his fingertips, whispered to him about wanting to give him the most beautiful necklace, and Yeosang giggled quietly and closed his eyes in lazy bliss as that gorgeous mouth found his skin. He was the richest man in the world.

☆🍁☆

It was a miracle that Wooyoung didn't immediately catch on to their little crushes. San stood behind him when he tied his hair up and slipped his hands under his open jacket and laid them on his waist and flirted with him and Yeosang lightly shook his head at him and thought 'you're way too obvious', and he sat on the couch legs crossed, body turned to Wooyoung, staring at him as he listened to him and thought that he couldn't possibly look more attracted to him, and they sat on the couch in the upstairs living room's bay and talked as they listened to the rain and cuddled up to either sides of Wooyoung and Yeosang thought that surely the man knew that they wanted him.

But he never did. Thank god he never did.

Still, just a week after the lovers had that conversation about their romantic interest in Wooyoung, they decided that something had to be done. It was Saturday, and rare sunshine lit up the world, and they decided to move their date a day forward and then, after a brief moment of thinking, decided to ask their best friend whether he wanted to go with him. Introduce him to the concept of being with them, so to speak.

They didn't tell him that it was a date, of course. He could work that out for himself, or, and this was the real reason, if he didn't want it to be one, there wouldn't be any problems for the lovers.

Thus, about an hour after lunch, the three of them freed their bikes from the bike rack beneath the roof extending from the shed, swung themselves into the saddles and headed off. Out of town, along the river, into the forest bordering the water, over soft soil strewn with leaves in yellows and browns and reds and oranges, beneath shedding trees burning in the milky October sunlight, wheels of their bikes rolling over crunching leaves and rocks between roots, talking over the breeze and the dancing leaves and the rush of their biking as they ambled along the gurgling river.

Then past wide meadows, gleaming train tracks in the distance, following the paved road into the next village, disappearing into the forest for a few hundred meters before fields stretched on either of their sides. Their conversation stilled, then, biking over bumpy field roads, gazing at the greening, flowering fields in shades of yellow and purple, growing hot under the relentless autumn sun, sleeves pushed up by the time they reached the tarred road into a village, considering the old houses.

Followed this road for a kilometer or two, up another hill, into a forest that speckled the pavement with patches of sunlight and vibrantly orange leaves, descended an earthen path to join another river, speeding up, wilting plants brushing their calves as the path narrowed, and it became clear that, if he didn't rely on the lovers for navigation, Wooyoung would've dashed ahead and vanished into the sunlit inferno of the forest. As it was, he rode too close to Yeosang and kept breaking when he almost rolled into him.

When the path broadened, Wooyoung snapped beside him, and Yeosang sighed and, through his heavy breath and over the rush of their bikes, described the admittedly simple way to their destination to his best friend, who beamed a thank you at him and took off. San filled his place, and they watched that whirlwind of a man flash down the path until he was nothing but a dot of quick black among the brightness of the forest.

"Wasn't kidding when he said he used to be a racing cyclist, huh?" San commented when they'd lost all sight of the man, and Yeosang agreed, smiling. And it wasn't that they were biking particularly slow, no, quite the opposite, but not even they could keep up with the torrent of sheer energy that was Jung Wooyoung.

They arrived at their destination much later than their best friend. Locked their bikes at the bike rack at the fence of the castle grounds, next to Wooyoung's, and San checked their groupchat and found that the man had texted them 'im outside the cafe' twenty minutes ago. Jesus. Just how fast was he?

The lovers shared a look, then their hands found each other and they wandered down the pebbled path leading past a neat garden with now waterless stone fountains and cleanly cut hedges, and Yeosang's gaze swept along the golden trees lining the path leading deeper into the castle grounds and over the spacious lawn stretching out before the old sandstone building. He squinted up at its artful facade and frescoes, against the bright sky, and then he was forced to look down at the steps leading onto the old, stone-fenced terrace before the castle and the people seated about the tables.

Wooyoung spotted them first, waved at them from his seat at a table in one of the corners, bathing in sunlight, lounging in the white metal chair, sunglasses, a lazy grin and his casual slouch giving him a cavalier air that was just a little too smug. His grin widened when the other two reached him, pulled out the other two metal chairs and sat down on them, cushioned by green pillows, and Yeosang hated how cool that man was.

"You sure took your sweet time," Wooyoung greeted them, not quite able to keep the gloating out of his voice. Asshole.

Yeosang stuck his tongue out at him just as San replied "Hello to you too, gorgeous." which resulted in a fascinating combination of a beaming smile and a self-satisfied kiss blown at Yeosang. Cute.

"Had an espresso while waiting for you slowpokes," Wooyoung stated brightly, gesturing at the small, empty cup in front of him, then he crossed his arms with the sort of overconfident smile that would've infuriated the other if he wasn't – as much as he hated it – so attracted to him.

"I think I'll get something too." San turned to look at Yeosang. "You?"

The man hummed, considering, then told him to pick something to drink and maybe a dessert for him while fixing the hem of his sweater, and a surprised smile visited his face when his husband gently laid his fingers under his chin and tilted his head up and kissed him, tangibly smiling. He watched him head to the open doors of the castle until he caught himself and returned his attention to the pretty man across the table.

Wooyoung had let down his hair, its wolf cut layers somewhat messy, framing his hard face with its onyx-golden gleam, ends brushing over his shoulders, a strand caught on the plastic of the sunglasses that fit him so well, black fabric of his shirt wrinkling under his crossed arms. Moles on his golden skin, dotted about his forearms, two enthroned on his face, beneath his slightly bigger left eye – now hidden by the sunglasses – and on his lower lip, and Yeosang wanted to kiss all of them a million times.

He averted his gaze to his hands, twisted the gold ring on his left ring finger, smiled sheepishly. "Why are you so competitive?" he asked, though only because he hoped that it would distract from his desire to kiss him, "This wasn't a damn race."

Wooyoung shrugged. "I like challenges." His gaze was hot on the other's cheeks, on his hands, on him, and he sounded genuinely confused when he asked: "Why are you flustered?"

Yeosang looked up, immediately regretted it, slipped his ring off his finger and let it jump between his fingertips. "What d'you mean?" His voice just affirmed his best friend's observation. Damnit.

"You're playing with your ring. You're nervous."

Caught, he returned the ring to its rightful place, lowered his hands under the table, made a point to keep them still. "No," he lied, blush creeping from his nape to his face, wishing his husband was there to save him before he realized that San would've started teasing him and made everything worse. Wooyoung was a bad, bad influence on that man.

The bad influence made a disappointed expression. "Is it 'cause he kissed you?" Without waiting for an answer, he sighed and shook his head. "Together for over seven years and you still get flustered. Embarrassing."

"Like you wouldn't," Yeosang shot back, infinitely glad that the man thought this was San's doing, "You'd even fold just 'cause he tilts your head up, you think you'd be any better if he kissed you?"

By the way Wooyoung's smile faded, his eyes must've grown wide behind those sunglasses. "I wouldn't- why would he kiss me?"

'Are you blind?' Yeosang thought. "That's besides the point," he said. Then he looked at the sky, frowned lightly at the clouds in the distance, got out his phone to pretend that he looked up the weather forecast when he really just texted his husband 'do smth gay to him when u get back'. "It's gonna rain later," he lied.

'?' his lover replied to him, 'I mean, with pleasure, but why?'

"Yeah?" Wooyoung asked, turning around to look at the sky himself, doubtful. "Doesn't look like it."

'i have a point to prove' Yeosang told his lover, then shut off his phone and shrugged as his best friend turned back to him. "I don't really trust the forecast either, but who knows?"

The man pushed his sunglasses up, bangs sliding from his face with them, just to make a distrustful grimace at him. "You're weird," he stated decidedly, giving him a judging up and down look.

"Says you of all people," Yeosang replied, and they were back to their bickering and light conversation. When Wooyoung said something particularly stupid, the other was tempted to reach over the table and take his hand and kiss his fingers to shut him up, and then that bastard stretched with a content smile and lifted his arms over his head and his sleeves slid to his shoulders and exposed his wiry, golden arms and their moles, and something stirred in Yeosang's lower abdomen.

His savior's steps approached as he crossed his legs, and he breathed a secret sigh of relief when San set down a silver gleaming tray and unloaded the various plates and saucers on it. He'd picked a chai latte and apple crumble cake sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon for Yeosang, a tall glass with some kind of light mocha beverage and chocolate strawberry cake for himself, and Wooyoung glanced up at him in surprise when the man presented him with a piece of lemon cake and a glass of freshly pressed orange juice.

Yeosang watched, very satisfied with himself, as San moved closer to the man currently inspecting his piece of cake and thanking him, but the words caught in Wooyoung's throat when San gently took his chin and tilted his head up and smiled down at him with that fond, dimpled smile, and then his thumb brushed over Wooyoung's skin, almost his lips, and he said "Just for you, sunshine." and leaned down and Wooyoung's eyes widened and his mouth parted and then San kissed the mole beneath his eye.

The whole endeavor rendered Wooyoung a mess. His golden skin flushed a sunset pink, he averted his gaze to the plate as soon as he could, and then he even went so far as to shield his face from them with one hand, touching his fingertips to his forehead, which just made him look even more flustered. He didn't seem able to speak.

Yeosang regarded him with a triumphant smirk that only briefly faltered when the stupid little jealousy that came with not being able to make him that flustered himself prodded at his heart, but he fixed his expression immediately and set his hand to his mug without picking it up. Self-satisfaction deepened his smirk when Wooyoung glared at him past his hand with accusing eyes that said 'You orchestrated this, you bastard'.

Yeosang didn't have to say a single word to get his reply across. Instead, he turned to his husband, began a conversation with him that was belatedly joined by Wooyoung and lasted until the forest path home forced them apart. He thought about that afternoon snack in the sunlight, then, mourned the warmth of the sun as he glanced at the slate gray sky, remembered how natural Wooyoung's bright, bold, flirtatious presence had felt, that he would be on this date with them, and how unfairly attractive he'd been with those goddamn sunglasses and the sleeves of his shirt pushed up to his shoulders and his hard face and brash grin and laid-back attitude, and that needy something in his lower abdomen still churned as he kept himself from adjusting his seat on the bike saddle.

He watched Wooyoung's back, that black hair dancing with the wind, the hoodie spitefully hiding the shape of him, the somewhat wide pants and the fact that he was ahead of him only giving an idea of those muscular thighs, and he wished the man was his lover and he could kiss him and slip his hands under his clothes and touch him to satisfy this steadily growing appetite, and so he could lay that gorgeous body bare and ravage it with his mouth and be undone by him. His mind was all too willing to supply imagined scenes befitting his desires.

Searching for ways to distract himself, he glanced over his shoulder at his husband, begging his thoughts to take any path that didn't concern itself with how well Wooyoung would fit against his body, and thus ended up with recollections of his teenage self. He remembered fifteen year old him, how adamant she'd been that she would never ever want, let alone date a man, and sixteen year old him, who had had a similar conviction, though theirs was nowhere near as strong, and then he thought that, wasn't it kind of funny? Here he was now, a decade later, married to a man and infatuated with two of them.

Recalling some of the aspects of his and San's sexual relationship, he thought 'she'd be disgusted' with no small amusement, and, entertaining such musings about himself and his husband and the history of them, he managed to almost entirely ignore his body and the pretty man in front of him.

Until they got home, anyway. They escaped the growing drizzle just before it turned to proper rain, hurrying into the cool safety of the house, and upstairs, it all got bad. In the bathroom together, the three of them, they washed their hands and rid themselves of their damp clothes, and if the sight of his husband's muscular upper body and broad shoulders and narrow waist and soft abdomen and of their best friend's lean torso and wiry arms and pretty, defined lines of shoulder blades and spine and v-line wasn't bad enough already, they seemed to be out to get him.

Because Wooyoung laid his hand on his waist as he passed him, his cold palm and long, slender fingers sliding on his skin as the man discarded his shirt and hoodie in the laundry basket, coming dangerously close to his hips, and because San, undoubtedly having seen how Yeosang froze at the touch and how his face flushed and how his breath caught, hugged him from behind when their friend had left and sneakily slipped his fingers past the borders of waistbands and brushed his lips over his neck and let his hands wander lower and gave his throat lazy, open-mouthed kisses and almost moved low enough to touch him where it ached the most, with just enough pressure to leave him desperate.

When his husband had followed Wooyoung from the bathroom, Yeosang leaned onto the wooden cabinet below the bigger mirror, attempting to calm his heart, taking deep breaths, and the heat curled and coiled in his abdomen and his skin burned with the memory of those damn touches and there was a throbbing pulse between his legs that flushed him with embarrassment. He wanted hands on his body and relief from the pressure and a mouth on his – or farther down, preferably – and he could've gone mad with the need coursing through his veins.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, willed his attention away from all that, and he was, once again, very glad that all this arousal wasn't as visible as it would've been if he was a man by birth. It made it easier to hide. San already knew, of course, but at least Wooyoung was still clueless, which he took as consolation. If this was a genuine date, if Wooyoung was their lover, he could've likely just acted a little slutty or flirted with them until they gave up pretending that they didn't ache to touch him too, but as it was, he could only hope that he would survive.

Still not quite fully composed, he left the bathroom, found his best friends in front of the living room fireplace, growing flames, wooden floor cushioned with the couch pillows, apparently having decided that more than two pieces of clothing was too much; Wooyoung's legs as bare as San's upper body. Yeosang cursed them internally.

They didn't see his scalding glare, though. Too engrossed in each other. Sat on the pillows, San leaning back onto his bare arms, flickering fire gold painting soft shadows onto his sun-kissed skin, softening the outlines of his muscles, his faint, pretty stomach rolls, Wooyoung's honey legs sprawled out in front of him, hands supporting him between them, subtle shift of muscles and sinews in his thick biker's thighs and strong calves as he idly tilted his equally bare feet to and fro in the warm radiance of the fire.

San, grinning, said something that made Wooyoung giggle his half-flustered, half-flattered giggle, and Yeosang stopped by the door and watched them, despite the goosebumps wandering up his arms. He didn't pay attention to the words of their conversation, just the pleasant back and forth of San's deep, smooth voice and Wooyoung's bright, slightly higher voice, took care to catch every shift of muscle beneath soft, golden skin, greedily drank up the picture of them so caught up in their moment, and he almost felt bad for the distinctly erotic thoughts that rose up with those delicious bodies half bare right in front of him when all he was looking at was a scene of domestic bliss.

His husband shifted his weight to one arm, lifted the other to run his hand through his hair, biceps and pectorals flexing, golden ring glinting in the firelight, fingers sliding through feathery strands of black, hand dropped to rest on his inner thigh, and Yeosang, following the movement with his gaze, saw the slightest disturbance of the even sweatpants fabric at his man's crotch and suddenly his throat felt dry. God, why did he have to marry such an infuriatingly attractive man?

In some hope for respite, he brought his gaze to Wooyoung's slouched form, wondering why the big, gray shirt hanging from his shoulders seemed so familiar, watching those slender fingers tangle with the sloping black hair and gather it in one hand, the now free fingers of the other hand plucking a hair tie from its apparent place between his lips, sleeves sliding to his shoulders as he tied his hair up and the sinews shifted in his pretty forearms, and then he adjusted one leg and it stole the other's gaze and that inner thigh laid bare for all to see, with its moles and delicate amber skin, and Yeosang had to avert his eyes to the dancing fire.

This observation had to stop. It only made it all worse, anyway. So he prepared himself, took a sort of deep breath, then closed the door behind himself and approached. His San, alight with a warm glow, looked up at him when he was almost close enough to sit down on the last free pillow, and his far from subtle eyes jumped over his bare upper body as his already dimpled smile widened even further.

"Yeosang!" Wooyoung greeted him, delighted, moving his legs closer to San so Yeosang could sit down comfortably, and he wasn't much subtler about taking in his half-naked body. He beamed at him in that bright summer day way of his. "I'm gonna see if we have any fun drinks, you want one too if I find something?"

Yeosang, averting his gaze from a mole on the man's inner thigh, just beneath the black hem of his underwear, hummed, considering. "Sure, why not," he concluded, lowering himself to the pillow and into the warmth of the fire; it swept over his cold skin in a wave of comfort. He spotted the small pile of card games. "Get snacks too, while you're at it." He traced the sharpness of those collarbones with his eyes, the dip at the base of his neck, the half-exposed shoulder where the shirt had slid to one side.

"Got it!"

"Thank you, baby," the other replied, so distracted by those goddamn legs that he didn't realize what he was saying, and then Wooyoung was up and his creaking steps left the room. Shame; he was such a treat to look at. Lightly shaking his head, he brought his attention to his lover, and, upon spotting his raised eyebrow and amused little smirk, asked: "What?"

San paused, listened for the distant sounds of their friend's rummaging, then his smirk deepened. "You're so down bad for him," he stated smugly, "I mean, I wanna fuck him too, but damn. Are you really that turned on?"

Heat that had nothing to do with the fire creeping into his face, Yeosang averted his gaze to the wooden floorboards between them; the ones that had been decorated with Wooyoung's long, golden legs a moment ago. "Shut up," he demanded, crossing his legs, hands in his lap, determined not to look at his man and that goddamn bare upper body. "It's not my fault he's just wearing a shirt." 'And you touched me like that, so this is partly your doing,' he thought, but didn't say. That was too embarrassing to admit.

"You're calling him 'baby' 'cause he's not wearing pants?"

Now he did look at him, if only to glare. That asshole and his asshole smugness. "You get hard thinking about giving him hickeys," he shot back, recalling an uncharacteristically filthy conversation about their best friend and its results. It was a little more complicated than that, of course, but that was besides the point.

San tilted his head aside once, relenting. "Touché. But you have to admit that they'd be really hot on him."

"And you have to admit that he's really hot in just a shirt."

The man sighed, making an expression of regret. "He is. I want him so bad, darling." He leaned forward, took the other's hand. "Let's hope we'll get him to want us too."

"Yeah," Yeosang agreed, gently pulling his lover closer to himself. He didn't think San's chances were all that bad, but both of them? Instead of voicing his worries, he made his man get into kissing range, only satisfied when San's hands supported him beside his hips and he could make out all the little details of the fire's light turning those dark eyes into liquid amber, glimmering with adoration and amusement and a little desire. "But let's not wait too long. I'm not doing that again."

His husband chuckled, his gaze – predictably – flicking to the other's lips and back up. "We'll do it this year," he decided, leaned closer, and this sounded like such a long frame of time until Yeosang realized that the year would only last another two and a half months. That wasn't too bad.

He hummed, briefly distracted by the warm, possessive hand settling on his waist, holding him. "Sounds good," he replied, eyes on those pretty lips and their pretty dip, lit by the fire, and suddenly he understood why it was called a cupid's bow; regarding that perfect mouth always made him want to kiss it, sometimes even made him dizzy with need, like being struck by an arrow. They looked so soft in the firelight, so warm, so inviting, and he only didn't lean in first because he knew that his husband would give in soon and save him the fleeting embarrassment of being caught wanting.

He was right, as usual. Tender mouth on his, parted lips perfect against his own, the soft, slow dance of years of familiar adoration, the quiet sounds of their meeting, briefly parting, meeting again lips dripping into the cozy symphony of crackling fire and drumming rain and distantly howling wind, kissing tangible smiles onto each other's faces, loosely locking his arms behind his husband's head as San kissed him deeper, moved in closer, made him lean farther and farther back until he lost balance and – with a half-giggled quiet shriek – dropped to the floor, bare back on the cool wood, taking his surprised darling with him.

His lover caught himself with his hands beside Yeosang's ribs, returning his breathless grin with a wide, dimpled smile, hair falling around his face, mouth kissed and glistening and in such desperate need for another mouth to be pressed against. The firelight glowed on his torso, threw shadows with his chest and abdomen and shoulders and arms, that muscular body above him, his own hands still brushing against each other behind his man's head, and he beamed up at his smoldering darling and silently begged for him to kiss him again.

"Still making me fall for you, I see," San commented cheerfully, and then he finally, finally leaned down and his arms flexed as more and more of his weight rested on them and Yeosang hastily, but gently brushed his hair from his face and then cupped it to guide him down faster and-

A pointedly cleared throat made them stop, made San lift his head and look ahead, up. "What did I say about doing nasty shit while I'm present?" Wooyoung scolded, with the usual, strangely strangled something in his voice that sounded almost like pain.

San, displaying no efforts to move, grinned at the man, and god, he looked so good from below, so perfect when he caged him in like that, and, most worryingly, now that Wooyoung had returned, Yeosang's desire to touch and kiss his lover increased tenfold. He liked the idea of their best friend watching them a little too much.

So when his lover did lean down and kiss him, with such intensity that it pulled a surprised gasp from him, he was perhaps a little overeager to meet the new fire in his man, who gave him a smug look that said 'I know what you are' when he pulled away far too soon. Yeosang wanted to punch him and kiss him breathless.

"Fags," Wooyoung commented with a scoff, but Yeosang noted that he, as far as he could tell, hadn't looked away from them once.

San sat up, giving Yeosang a hand to pull him up, the two of them reluctantly parting to return to their seats in front of the fireplace, across each other, as their friend approached, closing the door behind himself to keep the warmth in the room. "Maybe if you start joinin' us you'll be less of a hater," San addressed the man.

Wooyoung barked out a laugh, unloading his arms, handing Yeosang a bottle of raspberry soda. "Careful," he warned, some sort of strange amusement in his voice, giving San a bottle of lemonade. "If you keep offering, I might actually take you up on that one day."

San, gladly taking the bottle, grinned up at him. "Oh no." He spoke with the sort of dryness that crackled with sarcasm. "I can't imagine anything worse than a beautiful man making out with me."

Wooyoung rolled his eyes and dropped himself on the pillow across the fireplace, half between the lovers, stretching his bare honey legs over the wooden floorboards. Yeosang's hands itched to touch them. "Very funny, Mr. Kang, very funny," the man replied, copying the other's dryness. His thighs looked terribly comfortable, both as a headrest and as a seat, and there they were, right in front of Yeosang, and he could've just reached out and slid his hand along the tender skin of those inner thighs and traced those few moles and slipped his fingers under the hem of his boxers and applied some pressure and watched him try to hide how good it felt and-

"-rth to Yeosang?" a voice reached him, rudely interrupting his daydream of soft skin and muscle yielding under his hand, of little gasps and excited shivers and the flush of arousal and- fingers snapping in front of his face. "Dude? Are you good?"

Slowly, he looked up at Wooyoung, and some of his desire must've shown on his face, because the man's eyes widened almost imperceptibly and his pretty, pretty lips parted and his breath caught, almost softly, and he damn near flinched when Yeosang rested his hand on his shin. It was endearing. And he felt a little proud of himself too, for having an effect on the man the kind of which was usually reserved for his lover.

"Hm?" he asked belatedly, daring to move his hand to that tempting thigh, admiring the shy flutter of his best friend's lashes as Wooyoung blinked in rapid succession, the embarrassed averting of that gaze that was usually so happy to make him look away first, the genuine flusteredness with which he smiled. He loved it. He loved it so much. He was going to do absolutely everything he could to do that to him a million more times.

He didn't have much opportunity that afternoon and evening, as they were so caught up in their wild card games, their conversation, the snacks, the sheer coziness of sitting half-naked by the fireplace while a rainstorm fumed in the autumn cold outside and, after the soda was gone, the alcohol Wooyoung had brought, that Yeosang completely forgot his conviction to fluster the man. To his great luck, his bothersome arousal faded soon after they first started playing, with Wooyoung's legs crossed to make space for the game and the necessity of his full attention on the cards in his hand and on the floor.

He thought it was adorable how San pouted when he lost (which was often), and he thought it was adorable how Wooyoung threw his hands into the air and cheered when he won, and he thought it was adorable how Wooyoung cooed and pat San's cheek to soothe him, thought it not quite as adorable that he then followed this up by offering the already nearly empty bottle of wine to the tipsy man. Still cute, though.

He fed the fire another two logs when the daylight had long gone and they were giggly and loud with joy and alcohol, all their various attempts at cheating becoming rapidly hysterical until Wooyoung, in response to being accused of hiding cards to win, declared that if he had hidden cards, he would've shoved them up his ass and therefore there was no way to prove that he had or hadn't done it and San, with the sweetest smile, offered to check for the sake of fairness, which, for some reason, had the three of them roaring with laughter. Things got funny when you were drunk and infatuated and through and through happy.

Clutching their cramp-afflicted abdomens, catching their breath through half-laughs and happily sighed exhales, they eventually calmed down, though only until they looked at each other and burst into another fit of laughter so severe it hurt to breathe by the end of it. They swore, for the sake of the game, not to cheat anymore, which lasted until Yeosang realized that San had been laying down two cards at once and, dramatically affronted, accused him with a pointed finger.

To make up for his mortal offense, the other two made him bring more snacks, giggled at him when he swayed briefly on his way out of the living room, and then there was just the two of them in the thick molasses warmth of the night. "Wanna know a secret?" Wooyoung asked conspiratorially when he'd made sure that San was out of ear shot, and, with Yeosang's excited affirmation, reached under his pillow and produced several cards that should by all means be in his hand from beneath it.

Yeosang giggled and picked up the cards he'd dropped between his crossed legs and his body, and they couldn't stop giggling as they helped each other slide the cards into the deck, adding a few of the cards still on their hands and skimming through the deck to improve the ones they kept on hand while they were at it. Steps creaked closer, and they flinched back from the deck, but then the steps disappeared downstairs and the two of them relaxed.

"He's gonna search a while," Wooyoung told him smugly, "There's nothing downstairs or in the basement either." He said this as he lowered himself backwards until his shoulder blades met the floor, shirt sliding to just beneath his chest, unfolded his legs, lazily moved his arms above his head and stretched, pretty eyes closing.

Yeosang gave himself all the time in the world to regard him. The nimble hands loosely grasping each other, the pretty wrists turned outwards, the fading lines of tan along the subtly veined forearms, the dips of the elbows, the sinewy upper arms, the hooked nose and blissfully smiling mouth, the sliver of throat not covered by shirt, the soft ripple of his skin over ribs, the edge of his ribcage prominent due to the arching spine, the taut plane of his abdomen, the navel, the slope of his v-line, the dips of his upper hips, the black boxers that were just a little too tight on him, the flexed, muscular thighs, golden and glowing in the flickering fire light, the scarred knees, the shins and defined calves and their leg hair, the ankles, hell, even his goddamn feet were pretty.

He stared at him, shamelessly, at the moles dotted about his sweet honey skin, at the curves and dips and edges and lines of his lithe body, and he was overcome by desire to be closer to him, his own skin itching to be pressed against his, and he did what he never would've dared to sober; he acted on his want. Almost casually, he dropped himself towards the man, and it just so happened that he had to support his weight with a hand on that thigh, almost at the hem of his underwear, thumb dangerously far advanced on his inner thigh, and it just so happened that his face ended up at the height of that gorgeous abdomen.

Unclear on everything except needing to be closer to him, he leaned down entirely, nuzzling his face into his best friend's tensing abdomen, smile widening as he took a deep breath of his sweet orange and faintly fire smell. That soft skin, so warm against his cheek and nose and forehead and chin, the almost imperceptible heave of that breath, those hands moving to his head, one coming to rest on his back, the other slipping fingers in his hair, the tension of a giggle in those soft muscles.

"Well hello," Wooyoung said, fondly amused, almost automatically caressing him. "That looks uncomfortable."

Yeosang, legs still crossed, moved most of his torso's weight onto the arm supporting him beside the other, humming negatively as his hand on the man's thigh slid lower, fingertips brushing the fabric clinging to his inner thigh, as he turned his head, nose brushing that skin, parted lips lazily pressing a kiss to him. He felt the catch in Wooyoung's breath. "'M perfectly comfortable," he stated into his skin, left another kiss, wanted to slip between his legs and hug his sides and rest with his head right there for a few hours.

He kissed his abdomen, eyes remaining closed, and because it was so close to his mouth and because it was so easy and because he couldn't get enough of that gorgeous summer storm man, he did it again, and again, and then he saw no reason to stop. Wooyoung's body reacted to every one of those kisses, to every tiny shift of his hand on that thigh, and he could've spent hours touching him, kissing him, feeling him against himself, uncovering every last mole and scar and adoring all of him.

"Yeosang," the man said, with a strange, strangled quality to his voice, gently, almost not at all pushing at him. "You're drunk."

He was, yes, he was drunk, drunk on him and his body and the faint, warm citrus of his smell and his hands and the way he moved and reacted and his beautiful presence. He giggled at himself. Maybe the alcohol was a little at fault too. "Am not," he lied, kissed him.

Then the door to the living room clicked open and Wooyoung pushed him away with insistence, made him regretfully sit up, but then his husband appeared with snacks he must've pulled from thin air and Yeosang forgot his grievance. Wooyoung kept quiet for a little while, was almost distanced, but Yeosang would only realize the true extent of the man's flusteredness when San told him about it later.

For the moment, they descended into the same bubbling happiness from before, and soon Wooyoung was back to his old loud self as well. The rain drummed on the windows and the wind howled and the fire crackled and the house creaked in the storm and the space between them was full with golden warmth and loud joy and the night advanced far too quickly, and then it was past midnight and they agreed to go to bed so they wouldn't fuck up their sleep schedules.

Having tidied away the remnants of those blissful hours, they left the snug warmth of the living room, fire doused, and Wooyoung danced downstairs as the lovers moved to the bathroom to follow their evening routines. After, they were held up for a few minutes, cold bodies pressed against each other, mouths melted together, lazily making out in the cool bathroom lights, parting breathless and frowning lightly when they noticed that their best friend still hadn't come upstairs.

Missing him quite badly, they joined hands and headed downstairs, searching the man, finding him curled up in his bed. Voicing their dissatisfaction with him having left them, they climbed in beside him, cuddling up to either of his sides, settling with their heads on his shoulders and their arms over him, and Yeosang found that, as long as the man didn't lay his arm around him too, he could see himself sleeping like that. Wooyoung seemed rather surprised by it all, but delighted nonetheless.

They talked, the three of them, their quiet voices among the warmth of the bed, tipsy giggles and caressing hands, until sleep took them to soft unconsciousness. Neither of the lovers ever knew that Wooyoung kissed their heads, and that he whispered 'I love you' into their hair and kissed them again, but they slept better for it, that night.

☆🍁☆

The next morning, Yeosang woke to find San gone and Wooyoung and him having switched places. The latter explained why he'd woken up; the man clung to him, leg and arm thrown over him, cuddled up to his side as though afraid that Yeosang would leave him, soft breath fanning over his skin. It was a beautifully familiar thing already, this closeness between them.

Laying an arm around his best friend, he opened his eyes and gazed out of the window, finding it unusually gray, condensation clinging to the glass near its edges, and he considered this for a moment or two before he returned his attention to the pretty man beside, half on top of him. Memories of last night resurfaced; of the sheer joy, of the utter warmth, of soft skin under his hands and mouth, of his husband flirting with Wooyoung so successfully that the man blushed and lost his bite and smiled shyly.

And then he thought of the way Wooyoung sometimes looked at San, with his heart in his eyes, of the way he flustered around him, of the way his boldness faltered when San reacted to it, of his beaming grins and the way he talked about San, with his heart in his voice and words, and he thought of how drawn to San he was, how he gravitated to him, how he melted into him like there was nowhere in the world he would rather be, how he lit up when San called him 'sunshine', and he thought 'oh.'.

Carefully, he removed himself from Wooyoung's embrace, slipped from the bed and into the damp cool of the room, helped himself to clothes from the man's closet. In the kitchen, he made himself coffee, the sounds of it echoing through the quiet house, and he sighed before he crept to the living room with a steaming mug in his hand and headed to the terrace.

Fog thickened the air, ghostly swaths curling through milky yellow leaves, whispering through still clover and the dark shadows of firs, enveloping the old wooden swing and vegetable patches almost completely, prickly cold on his face as he stepped into the ground-dwelling cloud. There was no trace of the winds of the past days left now, and the fog dulled all sounds, made the morning eerily quiet, hidden in the billows of mildly wandering gray. The firewood would be damp now.

He watched the fog's mellow churning, steam of the coffee disappearing into it entirely, a chill creeping under his too thin hoodie and even thinner shirt and pants and socks, nestling against his skin, and he took a deep breath of the water-clogged air and discarded his free hand in his pocket. That was that, then. San's romantic feelings for Wooyoung were reciprocated. Had they found the man crying twice because of this? Because he thought that it was doomed?

This was good. Wooyoung's crush and, considering how long he'd been like that already, potential love were good. It was the exact kind of development they'd hoped for. So why did it still make him feel odd?

It wasn't jealousy or possessiveness, and it was too soft to be real hurt, but this revelation made him somewhat uneasy; worries, perhaps, that he wouldn't be as lucky as his husband? That Wooyoung would only want San like that? It would make everything so complicated. And Jesus Christ it would fucking hurt.

Because there was no denying now that he would fall in love with Jung Wooyoung. He had run head first into loving him, sauntered into romantic infatuation, and every day he loved that bright whirlwind of a man more, loved his summer thunderstorm muchness and his warm sunlight infinity of love and his real rawness and rebel soul and adventurous heart, like a gust of wind swooping in through the window and messing up all the paperwork. It would've been strange not to love him.

He was good for them, this wild spirit. San was the calm, steady boulder in the surf, the warm fire in the hearth to come home to, the tender late evening sunlight on a mild summer day, the grounding force to rely on, brimming full with love that he beamed to all the world, at his very core a kind, gentle soul, and Yeosang wasn't the bravest of men, rather shy, preferred to keep to things he knew, loved quiet and security, dreaded risk, and though it made them perfect for each other, it made their idea of adventure somewhat mundane.

And then Wooyoung had come along and swept them right off their feet. He made them bolder, more curious about what might be out there, more willing to leave the comfort of their settled ways to try something new, perhaps even dangerous, and Yeosang couldn't wait to see where he would take them.

'No,' he thought, 'It won't be long until I fall in love with him.' And he could only hope that, by the time this happened, the man would feel similarly about him.

Twisting his wedding ring with his thumb, he decided against telling his husband of his realization of Wooyoung's feelings. He'd probably work that out himself soon anyway, and Yeosang didn't entirely trust himself not to get pessimistic about his chances while relaying it all to his man, which wouldn't be good.

He sighed deeply, took a sip from his half-empty mug, watched the fog, every part of him aching for the enveloping embrace of his husband's arms. He missed San. He wanted to melt into him and let it free him of all his worries, wanted to lean against him and wanted those tender hands to caress him, kisses pressed to his temple and head, that soothing, steady heartbeat and breath, he wanted that blissful belief that everything would be alright. He sighed in its absence.

"Whatcha sighin' about?" a tired voice asked behind him, startling him, and then Wooyoung's presence slunk behind him with creaking steps and arms wrapped around him and a chin dropped on his shoulder before he'd had any chance to face him. How hadn't he heard him coming?

Yeosang rested his cheek against the other's head, relishing in the warmth of him against the morning chill, the pressure of his hug, the comfort of it all. "Just miss him," he told the man, taking a sip of his coffee as he considered whether to say more, and Wooyoung sighed into the foggy silence it left, giving him an opening for conversation. "Whatcha sighin' about yourself?" he asked, mimicking his friend's slurred words.

"Miss him too." A brief pause; the following words with an audible pout. "Why's he gone anyway? It's Sunday."

Yeosang hummed quietly, thinking. "Probably on a run," he concluded a moment later.

"Lunatic."

And then, miraculously, they fell into a pleasant silence, stood together on the wooden floor of the terrace, watching the fog roll through the garden, silently enjoying the comfort of each other's presence. Wooyoung's quiet was a rare thing, one reserved to the softest moments, one they'd only gotten to know several weeks into their friendship with him, and Yeosang loved it dearly. He liked to think that they got to see this soft, silent side of him because he let himself relax completely around them.

A yellow leaf floated to the colorful leaves carpet beneath the pear tree, disturbing the near soundless tranquility of the fog, and he finished his coffee and shivered, properly cold now. Wooyoung tightened his hold on him. "Let's go back inside, hm?" he suggested gently, in that tone that made it impossible to disagree, and he let go of him somewhat reluctantly when the other had lifted his head.

This soft silence still clung to them back in the kitchen, where Yeosang discarded his mug and the two of them made their breakfast beside each other, the somewhat warmth of the house slowly but surely replacing the chill the morning had drawn up in them. Wooyoung laid his hands on his waist, moved him aside to get to the drawer he'd stood in front of, and Yeosang felt the touch long after it had passed.

He imagined that they would spend the day with each other, the three of them, doing their separate things in the same space, eating together, lounging on the couch when they had nothing to do and basking in each other's presence, and this fantasy seemed likely to come true until they sat down at the table and Wooyoung hesitated with his spoon in his hand. "I'm meeting up with your friends later," he told him, a tad careful.

Yeosang, through his genuine joy for the man and mild disappointment, continued buttering his slice of (self-baked!) bread. "That's nice," he replied, smiling lightly, "What for?" He remembered now, of course, that Hongjoong had asked them whether him, Yunho and Jongho could 'steal Wooyoung for an afternoon', and he remembered his excitement about their friends taking such a liking to the man and the following wariness regarding the things that might be said about him and San in their absence.

Wooyoung paused as if that same question had just occurred to him. "I have no idea." He said this jovially, as though the prospect of doing something unknown with people he barely knew was no big deal to him. It probably wasn't, considering some of the stories he'd told. "All I know is that I have to be at the fountain on the market place by two, and that Hongjoong isn't sure whether his partner is coming yet."

The other's gaze snapped up at the man, eyes wide with surprise. "He finally told them?!" And didn't tell anyone?! Asshole.

"I mean I assume they're dating, are they not?"

Ah. Nevermind. He sighed deeply; would've been too good to be true anyway. "No, they're not." At his friend's surprised expression, he shook his head in disappointment. "They've been like that for years. Best friends since they were kids, in love with each other forever, but they're both way too scared to do something about it."

"Wow." Wooyoung stopped, the sort of smile that announced that he'd just had an idea spreading over his face. "Y'know what? I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that just now. Let's see if they're still not together by next month."

Yeosang frowned. "Wooyoung," he asked, wary, "What are you planning to do?"

The man shrugged, smiling. It did nothing to ease the other's nerves. "But d'you really think San's out on a run? In this weather?" he then asked, frowning lightly himself, "I mean it's what, eight? On a Sunday?"

It was an ungraceful change of topic, but one Yeosang welcomed nevertheless; he loved talking about his husband. "Yeah, he does that every week," he answered happily, picking up his open-faced sandwich, "I go with him sometimes, but only in the summer, 'cause I'm not a morning person." Heavy rain, slowing steps, muddy path. "You should join us sometime. It's fun!"

Wooyoung grimaced. "No thank you. The only exercise I need is biking and carrying book crates."

"You could come to the gym with us too."

"Eh, I'm not the biggest fan of-"

"He works out in compression shirts."

"-not being fit! Does your gym have a free trial time?"

Yeosang snickered. He'd thought that would work. "Nah, but we have memberships, and we can bring someone once a month each." He paused to take a bite and eat it. "You wanna go with us tomorrow? It's arms and back day."

The man swallowed, somewhat forcing the smile. "Yeah, sure. You'll show me how to use all that stuff?"

"Of course, babe, don't even worry about that." Internally, he already tried to remember whether any of his black tank tops would be ready to wear the next day, imagining those eyes on himself. "We could get food after."

Wooyoung smiled, looking down at his bowl of muesli, prodding the small pieces of apple and pear with his spoon. "That sounds nice," he agreed, almost shyly for some reason, "But weren't you gonna meet up with Seonghwa right after the gym?"

Yeosang could recall something like that now, but, hoping he had time for food with his best friends before that, produced his phone from his pocket to check the time. He laid it onto the table, rapidly tapping the screen to turn it on, and only when he saw that picture of his best friends mid-laughter, playing with a heap of fallen leaves somewhere in the wilting forest, he remembered that he'd wanted to avoid Wooyoung seeing that at all cost. It felt like a confession to him, that he'd changed his lock screen from his husband to his best friends, and he thought that surely Wooyoung had to see now that he was falling in love with him.

But the man didn't, just cooed at him and teased him about the picture, and he flushed as he unlocked his phone and checked his calendar (it told him that he had just enough time for food after the gym) before he turned to the message San had sent him almost twenty minutes ago. Aware of Wooyoung's gaze remaining on his phone, he opened the chat with his man, and, seeing that the voice message he'd been sent was not accompanied by a treacherous 'Don't listen to this if Wooyoung's there', he upped the volume and played it.

"Hey, my love, good morning," San's familiar voice, a little snatchy with panting, sounded from the speaker, "I went on a run, as you've probably already guessed, and I'm, uhm, I'm at the sun view, just stretching, y'know, taking a little break, and there's fog all over the ground and down in the valley, and the air is so clear up here, and, uhm, the sun's just coming out and it's making the fog glow, it's so beautiful, and it made me think of you." A chuckle. "I mean, I'm always thinking about you, but y'know. Made me extra think of you."

Yeosang sighed lightly, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, regarding the phone with fond eyes like it could substitute for that beautiful man. His San, forever a romantic, oh he loved it.

"There's that kinda feeling in the air, y'know? Like nostalgia, but for the future. Also for the past, kinda, but mostly the future. Like those nights on the swing out back in the garden, remember? When we were kids."

Of course he remembered. How couldn't he?

"And I guess I just want to say I love you. If you were here, and I wish you were, I could've said all this better, but I couldn't wake you up to ask if you wanna go with me, you're so pretty when you're sleeping, and with him cuddling with you, that was just too cute, so this is what you're getting instead. But yeah. I love you." A deep breath, an audible smile on those next words. "I'm sorry I left you two, my pretty men. Give him a good morning kiss for me, okay?"

Yeosang smiled widely by the time the voice message ended, and he fell in love with his husband all over again. He would've put on his shoes and ran up to meet him there if he didn't know that the man would be back in about twenty-five minutes. 'found one,' he texted back, and then, following the duty given to him by his man, he leaned over and kissed Wooyoung's cheek.

It took the man two whole spoons of his muesli to regain his speech, which was longer than usual. "Did he say 'my pretty men'?" he asked when he did, "Like, plural?"

The other hummed affirmatively, swallowed his bite. "What?" he asked at his best friend's surprised expression, "You know how sappy he is. Especially after cuddling all night." And as their conversation carried on, as Wooyoung grew brighter and bolder, he thought that San was right. Wooyoung really was such a pretty man. Their pretty man. His pretty man.

So when he, almost half an hour later, discarded his dishes in the sink and told that very pretty man that he'd go feed the cats and be right back, he did it reluctantly. He didn't want to leave that kitchen, didn't want to leave that thickly sweet presence, didn't want to stop looking at him, at his gorgeous face and slender hands and subtly veined, nice forearms, sweater sleeve pushed up to his elbow, lounging on the chair, watching him, like he was just waiting for someone to climb into his lap and slip their hands under his clothes and occupy his mouth with their own and touch him into molten glass.

Yeosang went upstairs to escape him, unsuccessful at redirecting his mind as he fed the cats, and then he heard the front door open and decided that he could use a little more time for himself, still. Into the bathroom it was, acting out his morning routine, absentmindedly gazing out of the window and watching the fog slowly fade as he waited for the gel on his arms to dry, shuddering in the cold until he slipped back into his – well, Wooyoung's – hoodie. It still smelt a little like him and his orange blossom scent.

When he was done, he slunk downstairs, avoiding the floorboards and steps that creaked when he heard indistinct voices from the kitchen, creeping to the ajar wooden door, pushing it open just far enough to see. And he was not disappointed.

Wooyoung stood leaned back against the counter, in the star-mapped shirt, arms crossed, cocky, confident, complacent, smirking at the other man, and San stood close to him, almost too close, the black and gray shirt tight on his sweat-glistening skin, hugging his body so perfectly, his biceps and shoulders and abdomen and dear god his fucking chest, heaving with ebbing away pants, muscular and defined and perfect to nuzzle into, his hair damp and halfheartedly carded back and clinging to his neck and forehead in black curls, and he stared the man in front of him down with a dark expression and darker eyes.

Yeosang recognized it immediately. That, simmering in his husband, curling into his low, dangerous voice, was pure want. And it was in Wooyoung too, in his cocksure attitude and flickering eyes and bitten inside of his lip, and though it took Yeosang a moment, he realized that it was in his challenging gaze and overconfident words and teases and dares too. Those two looked at each other like they were ready to eat each other up.

Yeosang, for his part, carefully leaned against the doorframe and watched, half expecting them to descend upon each other like two men starved any second now. And then Wooyoung said something particularly wicked and San's jaw worked and he moved closer and caged him against the counter, arms beside him, all up in his space, so close now that they were mere centimeters from pressing their bodies together, using the few centimeters he was taller than the man to tower over him.

"Watch your mouth," he warned, low and almost snarled, all that superficial anger that was nothing but sheer desire cloaked to be concealed. That, Yeosang noted, was new.

And Wooyoung faltered. Just a slackening corner of his mouth, just a dry swallow, just a brief flicker of nervosity, then his mean smirk reclaimed its place on his face and he raised an eyebrow at San. "Or what?" he challenged, "Whatcha gonna do, huh? Cuddle me to death? Please."

San, unlike anything Yeosang had ever seen before, smiled. A sadistic upwards curl of the corners of his mouth, growing slowly until he looked like he would ruin Wooyoung entirely and relish in every second of it. "Or I'm gonna show you exactly how I can put these muscles to use." It was a promise clad in a threat, an admission of desire disguised as intimidation, and it visibly halted something in Wooyoung. San scoffed. "But you'd like that, wouldn't you? Fucking slut."

Yeosang, shocked that his man, his sweet, gentle man, had a side to him that could get this mean, nearly choked on air when Wooyoung's bravado fell away completely and the man averted his gaze and turned his head from San and flushed deep red. He fucking blushed. He tried to regain his cockiness too, failed miserably, completely butchered what would've been a snarky comeback if he hadn't stammered on it and been able to make eye contact.

San regarded him with disappointment and disdain, but the hunger in his eyes screamed when he shifted his weight to one arm and lifted the other and grabbed Wooyoung's face, fingertips digging into his chin, and forced his head back to face him. "At least look at me when you talk back." A satisfied, downright sadistic smirk disfigured his face when the other failed to make eye contact. "Pathetic," he spat, half-shoving the man's head away as he let go.

Wooyoung made a barely audible, choked sound in his throat, and San shifted his weight and leaned barely closer to him in the process and Wooyoung's hips flinched barely forwards, like the sliver of a much, much bigger movement that had escaped restraint, and San noticed and grew infinitely more self-satisfied and purposefully leaned in, mouth to his ear, whispered a single word that made the man go rigid. From the shape of his mouth, it looked like something along the lines of 'whore.'.

It was the strangest thing Yeosang had ever seen. He'd known, obviously, that San was more on the dominant side, and that Wooyoung was not – at least not around San – but he couldn't in a million years have guessed that Kang San could be like that. Mean. Ruthlessly demanding. Borderline sadistic, predatory. He'd had a guess that Wooyoung would be into that sort of thing, though.

The worst part, however, was how tight it made him feel, how the needy pressure between his legs returned, the pulse, how badly he wanted his men to follow down the path they'd begun and give in to their desires, how badly he wanted, no, needed to watch his husband wreck his best friend, how unbelievably, infuriatingly hot it was. He was absolutely going to turn this into a fantasy next time he masturbated.

Suddenly aware of what he was thinking, heat crept into his face, and embarrassment made him avert his eyes, made him push away all thoughts about sweaty skin and hot panting and two bodies desperate to be closer to each other, made him unthinkingly clear his throat to ground himself.

"My love!" San's bright, jovial voice beamed through the kitchen in reply, and Yeosang barely managed a smile before his lover enveloped him in a tight hug. He smelled like sweat and damp forest, shirt nearly drenched, skin hot, and, as he pressed them together, something hard in his pants pushed right into the other's crotch. Jesus fucking Christ.

Yeosang hugged him back, moved his mouth to his husband's ear under the guise of kissing his head. "Do you seriously have a fucking boner right now?" he whispered, as quietly as he could, stole a glance at Wooyoung when his man hummed affirmatively; their friend stood at the counter, flushed crimson, eyes locked on the floor, a noticeable bulge at his crotch. Alright.

San kissed his neck, open-mouthed, body tense with restraint. "I'm gonna take a shower," he whispered back, hot breath on his skin, "Come with me?"

The actual question here, Yeosang knew, was 'D'you wanna help me with the boner he gave me?', and of course he agreed. "C'mon, baby," he said, louder so Wooyoung would hear him, "Let's get you into the shower. At least thirty minutes, hm?" He imagined that their friend had something to deal with too.

His lover kissed his neck, gave it a soft-mouthed bite, lifted his head. "Forty-five," he corrected, equally louder, "I'm cold as hell, and I wanna cuddle."

Yeosang tsked. "Clingy ass." Over San's shoulder, he caught Wooyoung's eyes, gave him a reassuring smile that he hoped conveyed that he wasn't upset at what he'd seen (the opposite, really), but the man could only hold his gaze for a second, and he wasn't sure if that was enough. Well, he'd find out later.

For now, he pried his man away from himself, aching for his body, the pressure of him, the moment it was gone, took his hand and led him to the upstairs bathroom. Door at the top of the stairs and bathroom door closed, San stopped holding back, and he kissed him hungry and all tongue and teeth and need, gasping and whimpering and moaning into his mouth, desperate hands stripping him of his clothes, running over him, and Yeosang met his feverish desire equally.

In the shower, hot stream of water, on his knees, holding onto those hips for support, hands in his hair, tugging and pushing, his jaw straining, breath labored, closed eyes, eager for that blissful symphony of sounds that tangled with the rush of the water, humming and constricting his throat and swallowing after the crescendo of his husband's pleasure, and he melted into him when the man pulled him up, kissed him deep and warm and still so needy, head dropped back on San's shoulder, muscular chest against his back, mouth on his throat as those fingers undid him completely.

They were all giggles and glowing skin and soft joy when they dried each other's hair, hum of the hairdryer stripping them of their ability to converse, but they kissed each other sweet in between and after, and they settled in the bed, San on his chest. Downstairs, water rushed, only audible in the absolute quiet of them listening for it, and then his man looked at him and his expression became serious.

They discussed the situation, what had happened, laid out their emotions and feelings about the whole thing, and when they were done, San teased him about it and he groaned and decided to shut him up by kissing him. As always, it was highly effective, and by the end of it, his man was a lovely mess of adoration and kiss-drunken haze and love that spilled from his eyes and glowed in his smile. It was the most beautiful thing in the world.

Wooyoung was gone when they returned to the downstairs kitchen. His shoes no longer stood in the hallway, and, unable to find him in the garden, the lovers begrudgingly accepted that the man wasn't home. They had spent much longer than planned upstairs, but it was still just past eleven, and Wooyoung wasn't supposed to meet up with their friends for another two hours; they couldn't help thinking that he'd left to escape them. It didn't feel all that great.

Half-seriously complaining about having been robbed of a morning with Wooyoung, Yeosang, standing beside his man, jokingly accused him of being the sole perpetrator of it all, with the way he'd treated their best friend, and San, instead of taking the bait and turning it on him like usual, slumped on his chair as if to make himself small and leaned ever so slightly closer to him, his expression becoming a picture of soft pleading as he tentatively took one of the other's hands.

"I'm sorry, my darling," he apologized, earnestly, looking up at him like that, like the possibility of having upset him physically hurt him, like all he ever wanted to do was please him, like he was more than willing to drop to his knees and beg if it was asked of him; it was kind of pathetic. Yeosang could see himself getting used to it. "I'll make it up to you," his lover promised, and even his voice was pleading now, "I'll do anything for you."

The other sighed lightly, fondly, lifted his free hand to his face, brushed at his bangs and cupped his cheek with one motion, watched that beautiful man melt into the touch like it was the most precious thing, eyes fluttering close as he turned his head just enough to kiss the heel of his hand, once, twice. A wave of adoration rolled over Yeosang, tightened his chest and spilled love into his eyes and smile and made him think 'I love you' and 'I love you so much'.

"I'm being dramatic," he confessed, gentle caress of his thumb on that soft skin and over one of its sweet moles, "You don't have to-"

"Please." San kissed the heel of his hand, looked up at him, already half begging. "Let me."

There was something very satisfying, almost intoxicating to having a man like Kang San submit to him like that. A complete turn from the way he'd acted that morning. And maybe Yeosang liked it a little too much, this power over him, and maybe it should've concerned him that he felt the first shy curls of heat reaching for his lower abdomen, but he'd always reacted somewhat strangely to his husband acting like this. Previous to meeting Wooyoung, he never would've thought to pretend he needed more convincing just to have this longer, but now?

He made a conflicted expression, as if he had to seriously consider whether he wanted to allow his lover to do something for him to make up for something that needed no making up for, and he got the distinct impression that, were he to retract either of his hands or keep his little act up for more than another three seconds, San would actually get on his knees and beg. It was a tempting prospect.

But he couldn't draw this out any longer. He wasn't Wooyoung. "Alright," he relented, pretending to do it somewhat reluctantly, "If we do today together, I'll forgive you." Relief washed over San's face, melting into a grin when Yeosang leaned down to kiss him, and it was so hard not to grin right back when that beautiful man beamed against his mouth.

Half an hour later, in the downstairs kitchen, music flowing from a speaker, ingredients spread on the wooden table, they made cinnamon rolls. Well, Yeosang did the actual baking, while San, who was absolutely useless in the kitchen, sat at the table and watched him while he talked. He had a few sheets of paper and a purple pencil, with which he drew rough sketches to illustrate his explanations of his current work project, lamenting about one of his coworkers who apparently had a personal vendetta against him, the dramatic cadence of his monologue reaching cartoonish heights when he laid out his plan to bribe Yunho into secretly programming their current project to malfunction whenever said coworker tried to work on or use it.

Over the music, the continuous stream of his lover's voice, the rolls taking shape beneath his hands, the numb gray light of an October noon, he was brought back to those autumn weekends they'd spent in this house, when they were just falling in love and figuring out how to navigate this new kind of pull between each other, visiting San's grandmother as an escape from the stress of their last school year. They'd spent hours roaming the countryside, far too short stormy days inside, talking way into the night lying next to each other in the guest room bed, occupying the kitchen like they were now and pretending not to notice the knowing looks from San's grandmother.

One late November weekend in particular, it had stormed both days, allowing only one walk to the fields and back from which they returned freezing and half drenched, and they'd changed into their pajamas even though it was barely five and San had acted like he didn't notice that Yeosang took his hoodie instead of his own and they'd filled the kitchen with the soft gold of their shy infatuation as they made cookies. There had been music too, though from the living room record player and out of their control, and when the cookies were in the oven, a waltz had sounded from the living room and San had decided to teach him how to dance to it.

His grandmother never told them that she'd seen it, but the waltz was followed by another, and another, and another, until they were breathless with joy and it made them too giggly to keep seriously waltzing. The touch of San's hand in his and San's other hand on his waist had burned on Yeosang's skin for a long time, and he'd pretended not to be flustered when he'd sat on the counter and San, after retrieving the cookies from the oven, had stood between his legs, hands just a little too close to his thighs, and looked up at him with those adoring eyes.

He indulged in those memories now, smiling lightly, his best friend still sat at that kitchen table while he baked, the world outside that room still entirely forgotten about, still wearing his best friend's hoodie. And it seemed that his lover recalled that weekend too, because when he'd closed the oven behind the tray of cinnamon rolls, 'Vadim's Slipper' by Salad abruptly cut off and was replaced by the orchestra of Viennese Waltz.

Smiling widely, Yeosang raised an eyebrow at his man, readily lifting his hands when San stepped into his space, now melting into the position fluidly instead of awkwardly adjusting his arms by his best friend's instructions, and San just smiled at him with that adoration that made him glow and laid a hand on his waist and joined the other hand to his and led them into the familiar steps. And suddenly they were eighteen again, young and in love and the only people in the world, floating over the creaking wooden floorboards in thick socks and cozy clothes and wrapped in the bright warmth of joy.

With the growing speed of the music, their light steps quickened, a cascade of giggling and laughter spilling from them when the rhythm grew almost unmanageable, their muscle memory the sole savior of the whole affair, barely avoiding the table and its chairs, his head tipping back with laughter when he misstepped and it almost cost them their balance, but somehow they caught themselves and continued their whirled dance around the kitchen until the song slowed and seamlessly faded into the next one.

This one Yeosang recognized as the one that had played for the first dance at their wedding, a gentle, sweet melody, and their expressions were utter love as they traced that path around the kitchen, never averting their eyes from each other's. They were twenty-three, then, freshly married and gliding over light parquet, alone with each other despite the glittering crowd watching from the edge of the dance floor, hours old gold rings gleaming with every turn beneath the warm lights, delicately embroidered white and black suits whispering beneath the music. Still young, still in love, but utterly familiar with it now.

An eternal few minutes, they danced with each other like this, and when the song had ended, San adjusted his hands and dipped him back, arm around his waist, sliding his fingers between his, and kissed him long and deep and so, so tender. After, breathless, beaming at each other, they switched their hands, Yeosang's on San's waist, San's on Yeosang's shoulder, and fell into the rhythm of the music.

It took Yeosang a few tries to fully accustom himself to leading, causing several small collisions, and he proudly grinned at his man when he finally got the hang of it. San giggled and mouthed 'I love you' and happily leaned into his guiding movements, and they were mostly fine until they realized that the music kept getting faster, and that they were by far not used enough to these switched roles to be able to keep up.

They tried anyway, with a considerable amount of half-nervous, half-surprised giggles, which eventually resulted in tripping over each other's feet and stumbling into the fridge, where they collapsed against each other and laughed until their muscles cramped. Gasping for breath, laughter tapering out into breathless giggling, they made eye contact, and Yeosang fell in love with San all over again.

His husband looked at him, with his heart in his fond eyes and a smitten, dimpled grin, his back against the fridge, and Yeosang mimicked the smug, flirtatious smirk of someone about to say the worst pick-up line in history and laid his forearm to the fridge, leaning closer to his man. "Baby, you're like a high amperage current-" he said, putting on a Cool Guy voice, "-and I'm a high resistance wire, 'cause ya got me hot." He emphasized that last word.

San, visibly suppressing his laughter, exaggeratedly shyly tucked his bangs behind his ear, averting his gaze, then made eye contact and bat his lashes at him. "Heard you like numbers," he replied, mouth twitching into a grin before he tamed it, "Me too. Wanna compare ours?"

Yeosang nearly lost his grip on his smirk, laughter threatening to make it past his throat, briefly scoured his brain for another bad line; when he found one, he deepened his smirk. "How 'bout you come back to my place? I'll teach you simple harmonic motion."

San bit his lip, made a show of looking him up and down, laid his hand on his chest and slowly let it wander downwards. "Sounds good," he agreed with a flirtatious sing-song, "Let me be DNA helicase and unzip your genes?"

"Only if you let me select all your clothes and click delete."

At last, his lover couldn't keep in his giggle, and Yeosang leaned in and caught it with his mouth. In the first few seconds of it, when he could still remember what they'd done before, he slipped his previously free hand under San's hoodie and shirt, and his smile widened when his man gasped into his mouth at its cold, abdomen tensing under his palm and fingertips. Then he lightly changed the angle of his head and kissed him deeper and melted into those warm hands on his neck and jaw, cupping, pulling a little closer.

Another few seconds and Yeosang readily opened his mouth, slow dance of their lips fitting itself to the rhythm of the music, quiet sounds of it almost disappearing under the song as he slid his hand up his husband's torso, tracing, mapping, memorizing, hips almost automatically shifting to meet San's as the man slid his fingers into his hair and lightly pressed against his nape and the back of his head to kiss him deeper, and a little smile tugged at the corners of his lips when he brushed his hand over San's chest and the man sighed into his mouth.

He'd never get enough of making out with this man. The wet slide of their lips, the roaming hands, their bodies pressing together, the way they fit into each other, the blissful sighs, the lazy licks into mouths, the push and pull of deepening and relenting, demanding and giving, the pleasured little noises his hand on that muscular chest pulled from his man, the satisfied little smile tugging at his lover's mouth when the man got the same reaction from him, the teeth on lips, the rare, breathless words muttered into the already closing space between their mouths, his husband's tangibly growing... interest, the hand on his ass guiding the languid, light rolls of his hips, the way they picked each other's composure apart, god, he loved it so fucking much.

Hence his glare at the timer when its jarring ringing announced the completion of the cinnamon rolls' baking time. Reluctantly, he left his messed up, utterly kissed darling, running a hand through his own messy hair as he crouched down in front of the oven and opened it to check on the dough. Needed another five minutes.

When he stood up, San was already behind him, arms sneaking around him, hands slipping under clothes, hot breath and wet mouth on his neck and the dip between jaw and ear, touches traveling beneath his navel, following the faint trail of curling hair, teeth on his skin, set on bruising it, body pressing itself to him, something hard against his ass. He barely managed to set a five minute timer before those hands took his waist and turned him around and pushed him into the counter.

He caught himself with his hands, opening his mouth to protest, but then San was kissing him again and he forgot what he'd wanted to say. Hands on his chest, playing with it, tongue in his mouth, hips shifting against his, lower back and spine dipping under his fingertips, and he would've been content to keep doing exactly this for the next few hours. Still, he happily tilted his head away when his man sought his neck, sighed blissfully at the combined stimuli from his chest and neck, made eye contact with San breathless and flushed and kiss-drunk when the timer rang, and there was something about that man with his hazy eyes and swollen, glistening, parted lips and soft panting that told him that they'd be getting back to this later.

'Damn,' he thought, watching him extract the cinnamon rolls from the oven, heart slowing, 'Someone's in the mood today.' And he sure as hell wasn't complaining.

Pushing himself away from the counter, he stretched his arms over his head, closing his eyes, arching his back to crack his spine, and yes, maybe he did do it because he knew that his husband wouldn't be able to resist taking his exposed waist and pulling him closer. Smiling lazily, he dropped his arms on the man's shoulders, loosely locked them behind his neck, relaxing into his hold, greeted by a sweet, several seconds long kiss.

"Hey, pretty man," San added when they'd parted, with that fond voice, softly swaying them with the music, and he looked at him with those tender eyes. "Hungry?"

Yeosang hummed affirmatively, moving with him, with his beautiful man, all those hard edges of his features softened with the adoration his lover had for him, smile just soft enough not to bring out the dimples yet, and it was both cute and kinda hot. But maybe he was just in love, and that was why anything and everything San did was attractive to him.

"Good." The man's smile widened, and now those pretty dimples did dip his cheeks. "Go get dressed, suit and tie. I'm taking you out."

The other lit up. "Hell yeah," he replied, excitement in his voice, and he kissed his lover one last time before he slipped from his grasp and happily sauntered upstairs, then up the ladder-stairs and into his room. He searched his kind of walk-in closet for his suit, fingertips lingering on the fabric of the protective bag around his black wedding suit before he moved on, and it took forever to find every component of his standard black suit and even longer to find a tie. It was black, yes, but it also bore silver night sky embroidery, so that wasn't ideal; he couldn't for the life of him find another one, though.

By pure luck finding his black leather dress shoes among the boxes stowed away beneath one of the clothes racks, he gathered his suit, tie and shoes and left the closet, got dressed in the quiet of his room, heard San coming upstairs as he zipped up his pants, hurried with his white dress shirt – the ability to make quick work of the buttons always gave him a little kick of euphoria – and black waistcoat and suit jacket, though he was completely lost when it came to the tie. The last time he'd worn one was... it might just have been his wedding.

Shrugging, he laid it over his shoulder and picked up his shoes, on his way down the ladder-stairs noticing that his constellation-adorned socks matched the tie and smiling about it. He made it to his husband's room just in time to watch him slip into a light gray dress shirt of his own, somewhat stiff fabric smoothing over his muscular chest, lifting slightly as he adjusted the collar, backlit by the dull daylight that couldn't take the honey gold from his skin, abdomen and chest and collarbones disappearing behind the buttoned up fabric far too quickly.

San noticed him in the doorway as he tucked his shirt into his pants, acknowledged him with a sweet smile before he returned his attention to his actions; finished the somehow neat tuck of his shirt, zipped his pants up, his wedding band gleaming as he flicked his wrist to then fasten the buttons at his forearm, whatever they were called. He'd never understood why the man did that thing with his wrist, exactly, but it was hot either way.

It was astonishing, really, how quickly his lover managed all those fucking buttons, and downright unbelievable how easily he tied his black tie. And then he already reached into his closet and fished a waistcoat from it and Yeosang knew that he'd spend a good portion of their date just staring at his man.

It was the mouse gray suit. Of course it was the goddamn mouse gray suit. Already, San slipped into the vest, adjusting one or two times before he considered himself in the body length mirror parked beside the closet and fastened the four black buttons keeping the vest together; the fabric hugged his narrow waist, slunk over his broad shoulders, fit just loose enough not to be considered pornographic, and when the man lifted his hands to fix the lapels, the light gray shirt sleeves strained over his biceps.

Yeosang swallowed. God help him, he was not a strong man.

His husband – briefly, he marveled at the fact that he'd somehow managed to marry that god of a man – made eye contact with him through the mirror. "Need help with that?" he asked, gesturing at the tie when the other just returned confusion, and he was on his way before Yeosang ever had the chance to reply.

"Oh, astronomy, nice," San commented, taking the tie from him, and then he undid the buttons of the other's waistcoat and fastened the topmost shirt button (which Yeosang had admittedly forgotten about), gaze catching on a spot on the man's neck, laid the tie around his neck, shifted it under the collar, nimble hands making short work of the knot. Adjusting, slowly tightening it, he glanced from the silver embroidery at him and back and, like it was the most normal thing in the world, added: "Won't outshine the stars in your eyes, though."

Yeosang averted his gaze to his lover's shoulder, watched the fabric move with every slight motion from the body beneath, heat creeping into his face. One day, that man and his sweet mouth would be the death of him. "That's gay," he replied, because he didn't know what else to say.

San raised an amused eyebrow at him, tightening his tie for him, adjusting until its position satisfied him. "We are gay." He got to refastening the buttons of the other's waistcoat, deliberately slow. "Last time I checked, we're both men."

"You haven't heard?" He wanted to kiss him stupid, but was conflicted whether the suit should stay on during what came after or not. "I'm a woman who chopped off her boobs. I don't even have a dick."

"You have a dick alright." San smiled, smoothed out the collar, the sleeves. "It's just... cute." He chuckled when the other scowled at him. "And, anyway, isn't it shallow and exclusive to tie manhood to having a dick and a flat chest?"

Yeosang sighed. "Tell the transphobes, not me."

"See?" Satisfied, his husband smiled at him, let his hands linger, brushing invisible things off the fabric. "You're more man than any of those will ever be. And, most importantly-" He gingerly took the tie and pulled him closer and kissed him, kissed him sweet and smiling and longer than usual. "-You're my man."

Yeosang still secretly smiled about that when they sat in the car, him in the passenger seat, staring at his man, as he'd predicted. But it really wasn't his fault. San, as if the suit wasn't bad enough already, had slicked his hair back save for a few strands he had allowed to escape him, and his clear-cut profile and sharp, kind eyes and soft smile and pretty mouth and faint moles and straight nose gave him so much to look at, and he wanted to kiss that freckled neck and maybe leave a bruise or two among the night sky clusters of moles, lay a claim to him. A rare bout of possessiveness.

He knew its origin, though. His man getting hit on was no rarity by any standards, and especially in that mouse gray suit that brought out his proportions and the warm gold of his skin and underlined his handsome edges and made everything about him more authoritative, he thought that it was really only a matter of time. A gleeful part of him wished some poor soul would gather up enough courage to ask San for his number so he could gloat at it when his lover pointedly laid an arm around his waist and politely informed them that he was married.

He wouldn't be granted that satisfaction. Which, honestly, was just as well; in the next bigger city, San showed him to a diner and ordered comparatively healthy burgers and fries, didn't even have to look at him to know that he'd want a soda for it too, and just as Yeosang wanted to ask why they'd gotten all dressed up just to get fast food, his husband conspiratorially leaned over the table, hand on his, and quietly told him that he would've taken him to a fancy restaurant if there were any that served normal food in decent portion sizes, and that they would just have to pretend.

If that wasn't his lover of seven years, Yeosang might have thought it was weird or cheap, but with San, with his darling San, it turned into a little adventure. They took a strange joy in treating the diner like it was a five star restaurant, somewhat proper table manners and all, holding themselves like they had enough money to buy the whole business, old money eccentrics laid on a little too thick, giggling to themselves when they noticed a passing stranger's or diner guest's odd looks, and to anyone else, it probably would've seemed dumb. To them, it was exciting.

This charade of wealth continued as they explored the city center, hands joined between them, sauntering into stores whenever they felt like it, somewhere along the way picking up lollipops that made their kisses taste like candy sweet artificial strawberries, putting on a business-like act when they visited stores with things that were so grossly overpriced they had to keep their eyes from widening at it. San, particularly, was incredibly good at this little game of theirs, and with that certain something about him that made people want to please him, he managed to waste a rich people watch store's employee's time for almost an entire hour. It was hysterical to witness.

For dinner, they went to a sushi place Seonghwa and Yunho swore by, evening city light falling through the windows and into the dimly lit space, and it was there that they finally dropped their act, instead content to eat in silence. Their feet bumped into each other under the table, Yeosang had difficulty to keep his eyes from taking in all the softly amber-glowing details of his best friend, grew shy when he realized that San was doing the same to him, and whenever their gazes met accidentally or on purpose, their smiles grew a little wider.

Sometimes, being silent together said more than any words could.

The ride home, however, was far from silent. In the dark of an October evening, just past seven, city lights disappearing behind them, only lit by the distant shine of headlights and the dim green glow of the old stereo, they sang along to songs slightly slurred by the speakers, reminisced about the past, joked and flirted and filled the warmth of the car with their laughter, laid out grand dreams of the future that quickly turned from semi-realistic to 'and then I'll tame a dragon and we'll see the whole world'.

This fantastic vision escalated into a full-blown fantasy science-fiction saga so ridiculous they still giggled about it when they closed the front door of their home behind themselves and slipped out of their shoes, and it only ended because the house smelled like a rich, buttery warm dream of food. San joked that he wouldn't mind a second dinner.

The cause of this smell was, of course, Wooyoung, who looked up from his phone when they slunk into the kitchen with the smug faces of people about to charm someone into giving them what they wanted. The man tapped on his headphones, then slid them around his neck, looked them up and down and raised an eyebrow.

"Hey, sunshine," San greeted him, went around the table to run his hand over his shoulder while Yeosang moved to the sink to wash his hands, "That looks delicious." He looked at their friend as he said it, and though he'd probably meant the food, it really could've been either.

Wooyoung hummed, agreeing. "It is." The rush of the tap concealed any sounds that might have followed, and with his back to them, Yeosang couldn't see whether they did anything, so he hurried himself to finish and dry his hands. The cinnamon rolls, he noticed, had been moved from the stove but otherwise remained untouched.

And then there was San's presence behind him, arm sneaking around his waist, mouth visiting his neck for a sweet, lingering kiss before the man moved on to wash his own hands. Yeosang felt Wooyoung's gaze on them, though it flitted away when he turned and leaned back against the counter, and he, for the first time, realized how this must be for Wooyoung. The man had to be used to their affection by now, but he couldn't imagine that it didn't still sting a little to see them like this, what with his romantic feelings for San.

This whole thing had to be quite confusing for him. Obviously, he didn't know about the lovers' crushes-turning-love for him, and here they were, treating him almost like he was part of their relationship. It felt good to have him with them like that, felt right, natural, but it was still very unusual, wasn't it? Maybe they should tone it down? But no, it was far too late for that. It would only be weirder if they pulled back now, would probably upset Wooyoung or even make him worry that he'd done something wrong, and that was no good.

The best solution, in his opinion, was to tell the man about their hearts, but unfortunately, this was the most risky and terrifying solution too. So. That was off the table for now.

Pulled from his thoughts by a hand on his waist, he lightly shook his head to return to the moment, gave his man a questioning look that lasted until he realized that their best friend must've pointed out their suits and asked about them. San, proud beside him, tugging him into his side, grinned at the man. "We look good, don't we?" he teased.

Wooyoung didn't let this deter him from his apparent mission to commit every crease and wrinkle of the fabric to memory, just hummed affirmatively. "Hot, yeah." He frowned lightly. "Why, though?"

"Do we need a reason?"

The other tsked, but didn't look away from them. It was staring, at this point. "If I'd known I was missing out on all that-" He gestured at them. "-I would've told your friends I'd come down with a cold and stayed home." A flirtatious smirk dragged a corner of his mouth up. "I mean, anyone looks good in a suit, but damn. Those would stay on."

Yeosang shook his head in disappointment. "Fag," he accused.

Wooyoung beamed and blew him a kiss. "Just for you," he chirped, then pointedly looked San up and down. "Maybe your man too, if he stops being a dick."

Faux offended, San gasped and frowned. "What did I do?!"

But their friend just stuck his tongue out at him and returned his attention to his food. Of course, he couldn't keep it there for long, and soon they sat at the table, the three of them, deeply sunken into their usual type of playful conversation, during which Yeosang realized that sitting next to Wooyoung while wearing a tie was a stupid idea. Whenever he tried to evade affection, the man just grabbed his tie and pulled him closer with it and trapped him there, and he prayed that the man didn't notice how hot his face grew with it and how quickly his heart beat. San's hand on his thigh, caressing, moving steadily closer to his hip and the inner parts, was not fucking helping.

In that moment, he was glad that Wooyoung had reservations about touching him too suggestively, because god knows he would've suffered otherwise. The man's eyes were plenty telling. Add in his accurate guess that San would be picking their make-out session up where they'd left it a few hours ago, his husband's increasingly hungry eyes and silky flirts and entirely inappropriate touches, and Yeosang couldn't catch a single fucking break.

To no one's surprise, San declared that the two of them would be going to bed early, and Wooyoung gave them a smug, knowing look and told them 'Have fun' and called after them to use protection. Yeosang backtracked two steps just to give him the middle finger, which was near impossible with his man holding on to him like he was seconds away from giving up his flimsy restraint.

In the bathroom, acting out their evening routines, San already had his hand halfway down his pants, and when Yeosang told him to get a grip and give him at least time to finish his skin care, his lover reluctantly retracted his hands, stood behind him and ran his hands over him with the unfortunate barrier of fabric between their skin. He tried not to let the hot breath and open-mouthed kisses on his nape and neck and jaw distract him, but it was kind of hard to focus with that unfairly attractive man pressed up against his back touching and kissing him like it would kill him to wait any longer.

Surprisingly, he managed. Less surprisingly, he didn't stand a chance the moment the latch of his room closed, and even less surprisingly, his husband didn't bother with such trivial things as properly getting undressed.

However.

That night, for the first time, San's dark velvet words, whispered into ears and skin, punctuated by kisses, growing more smug with every pleasured reaction he elicited from the other, included references to a certain man. Yeosang would've lied if he'd said it didn't make him even needier.

In the quiet after, bare to their souls and spent and tangled up under the blanket, they whispered to each other about love and fate and parallel universes and a summer whirlwind of a man who had roared into their hearts like it was the most natural place in the world for him to be.

☆🍁☆

October came to a vibrant end with a Friday whose afternoon the three of them spent in the downstairs kitchen, listening to music, maltreating pumpkins with knives, preparing various snacks with the help of the abundant apples and pears stored in the cellar shelves, the large paper bag of nuts they'd picked that week and chocolate, with growing unease listening to Wooyoung listing all his ideas for horror movies they could watch. There might have been some apple cider involved.

Around six, when it had grown dark, they found places for their pumpkins, lit tea lights within their hollow cores, admired the way their flame-glowing grimaces cast golden shadows over the leaf-blanketed lawn, readied the bowl of candy by the door, skipped into the downstairs living room and lit the hearth. The lovers prided themselves in having established their house as a promising destination for trick or treaters, which Wooyoung commented with absolute delight.

The first few times the doorbell rang, however, were – except for one first visit of a ghoulish gang of an allosaurus, a medieval knight and a blue tiger with gigantic yellow eyes – their friends; Hongjoong and Seonghwa arrived together, naturally, as did Yunho and Jongho, and Mingi was the last as always, which he made up for with a bag of face paint he'd stolen from his flatmate. Wooyoung wasted zero time greeting them like they'd known each other for years.

A short discussion and much high-pitched joy over the three cats later, they decided to wait with the movies until nine or ten so they would hear the doorbell, and Yeosang pulled his knees to his chest on one end of the couch and watched. Yunho and Mingi played with the fire, using the cast iron poker to move about the wood and ash, only ceasing when Wooyoung presented the bottle of apple cider, instead cheering and declaring the man their new favorite.

Ten minutes later, Wooyoung pushed San onto the couch, a malicious glint in his eyes, bag of face paint in one hand, and he discarded the bag in Yeosang's lap as he laid one hand to San's chest and straddled his thighs, the man's hands automatically settling on his hips. Yeosang knew that five pairs of eyes snapped to him for his reaction, but he just watched his best friends with the sort of light smile one might miss if they didn't pay attention to him.

It was almost funny. Wooyoung sat in San's lap, clipped his hair back with little black cat hair clips, took his chin and tilted it this way and that, frowning lightly, considering, humming, and all San did was hold him and look up at him like there was nothing he'd rather regard. He lifted his hands when the gorgeous man in his lap searched himself for a hair tie, pulled the black hair tie he'd started wearing around his wrist for situations like these off his wrist and offered it to the other, and Wooyoung lit up like a little sun.

Funny, because every fool could see how infatuated San was with that man, and Wooyoung still didn't get it. He roped Yeosang into helping, asking for things from the bag with one-word demands, the three of them losing their place in the messy conversation between all eight of the friends, and soon, they gave up talking altogether.

The lovers did, anyway. Wooyoung still made demands, gave orders to the man under him, strewed in compliments that widened San's smile until he had to be told to stop smiling so his dimples wouldn't interfere with the process of painting a skull onto his face, and he talked with that absentmindedness stemming from his concentration on his work that didn't allow for anything but genuineness.

He seemed, for once, completely engrossed and serious about something, which San apparently took as a personal challenge. Yeosang watched, fascinated, as his husband slowly ran his hands along their best friend's thighs, thumb drawing crescents on his inner thighs, hands half moving over his ass on their way to his hips, easily slipping under his – Yeosang's – hoodie, undoubtedly wandering to his bare waist and abdomen beneath, applying a little pressure, dipping past waistbands here and there if Wooyoung's increasingly flustered demeanor was anything to go by.

San's second biggest weapon (his heart eyes) was quickly shut down with the excuse of having to paint his lids black, but somehow, even the light flutter of his lashes and his soft smile managed to convey the adoration so present in his eyes. The funniest part, still, was Wooyoung painting the teeth, hesitant and shy about touching San's lips while San looked up at him like he couldn't wait to kiss him, both of them completely caught up in each other, and San didn't give up his mission of distracting the other.

Then Wooyoung moved on to the man's neck and Yeosang smirked to himself. That was going to be fun. San, with his head on the backrest, eyes closed, hands stilling on their best friend's hips, did his best to pretend that he didn't relish in the fingertips and wet brushstrokes on his neck and throat, and it probably would've worked too if he didn't sigh blissfully when Wooyoung tipped his chin farther back and smudged black paint on the white vertebrae painted on his throat. If the other noticed, he didn't let it show.

Rest of his neck and collarbones painted black, Wooyoung made generous use of the setting spray, then climbed off the man's lap and told him to go put on a black suit. San, briefly walking backwards, made a mock salute, said 'You got it, baby' with the stupidest grin and, happily humming to himself, disappeared upstairs. Job done, Wooyoung turned to the group of people seated around the room and grinned at them before he asked: "Who's next?"

The doorbell rang just as he dropped to the floor in front of Yunho, cross-legged, notably much farther from him than he'd been from San, and Seonghwa gave Yeosang a Look as the two of them went to open the door. They were faced with a group of young teenagers in elaborate pop culture reference costumes, and when they closed the door a minute or two later, Seonghwa stopped him from returning to the living room.

"What the hell was that?" they asked quietly.

Yeosang tilted his head in confusion. "The orange creature-thing? That's Marcus, he's-"

"No," they interrupted him, "In the living room. San and Wooyoung. I mean, it was bad last time, but I swear they were two seconds away from kissing at least five times. What's up with that?"

"Oh, that." He leaned into the wall and sighed lightly, smiling, recalling that picture of his best friends. "They're in love." Like he still had to say that. Like it wasn't obvious. Just two days ago, his husband had sat down with him and told him, told him that it wasn't just a crush anymore, and Yeosang had smiled at him and caressed his hand and told him 'I know'.

His friend paused, considered him, kept quiet as laughter roared from the living room. Yeosang averted his gaze, twisted his wedding ring, suddenly wished himself into his best friends' arms, hopefully observed the top of the stairs for a sign of his lover, leaned down and picked up Star when she came demanding affection. With the siamese cat in his arms, running his fingers through her beige fur, purring rumbling against his chest, he felt much better about his man's absence already.

"You are too," Seonghwa concluded eventually, quiet and heavy in the dark hallway, "In love. With both of them." They sounded somewhat surprised.

Heat crept into his face, going unseen only because of the dim light filtering through the small, warped glass window on the front door. "Pretty much, yeah," he admitted, leaving out the semantics of being unsure whether the way he felt about Wooyoung counted as being in love yet, glancing at the closed door to the living room. "Funny, isn't it?"

They frowned lightly. "I don't know about funny. You and San, you've been in love since I met you, and you started talking to Wooyoung, what, two months ago? How does that happen?"

He raised an eyebrow at them. "You think I'm not aware of how crazy that sounds?" Looked down at Star, the way she leaned into his caresses, prepared himself for those next words. "It's- I don't know, Seonghwa. He's good for us. He feels right. Isn't that all that matters?"

They hesitated, regarded him, but eventually they sighed. "I s'ppose you're right." Hongjoong's characteristic laugh flowed from the living room, dulled by the door, and they cast a longing glance in the direction, a sheen of sadness washing over them; they sighed it from their face, deeply. "Wish it was always that easy."

"It is." Strangely enough, he found himself believing the words.

A pained expression flashed across their dimly lit face. "He's my best friend. I can't just-"

"Yeah, you can. San did. And we turned out alright, didn't we?"

"You know that's different."

"Is it?" Glad to have averted the topic of the conversation from himself, Yeosang pressed harder. "You think he was a hundred percent sure I was in love with him too? You think he wasn't taking a risk?" He paused, briefly, to let the words settle. "The only difference between you and San back then is that he loved me more than he was scared of ruining a friendship that hadn't been one in a long time."

As if on cue, his husband appeared atop the stairs, painted skull dimly lit and starkly set apart from his entirely black clothes – suit and shirt and tie and all – and slicked back hair, and for a split second, he could've counted as a little scary; then he spotted Yeosang and lit up, crescent eyes and dimples and teeth and all. "Darling!" he cheered quietly, hurrying down the stairs, taking his hand, snatching him away from their friend, showing himself off in what little light illuminated the hallway. "I look so sick!"

Yeosang's heart softened infinitely. He stepped into his man's space, lightly adjusting his tie, smoothing out the lapels of his waistcoat. "Get rid of that smile. Makes you look stupid."

To his credit, San really did try his best to look serious, forcing his face to relax, trying a glower, but, evidently, he was too excited to keep it longer than a few seconds and returned to his beaming grin. It glowed even in that dark. "He did such a good job, didn't he? It looks kinda real."

"If by real you mean cartoonish, sure. But he tried, I'll give him that."

Faux annoyed, his lover dropped his smile and sighed. "Babe, can you just admit that I look hot as fuck? I have eyes, you know."

"Exactly, that's one of the problems. Skulls aren't supposed to ha-"

San kissed him. Hands on his waist, swallowing the surprised noise he made, kissed him deep and sweet and with the kind of intensity that said 'shut the fuck up', and Yeosang giggled into his mouth and melted into him and his hold and his lips and- his lips! The face paint!

Gasping, he broke the kiss, only now realizing that the kind of odd taste of it wasn't, as he'd thought, some leftover weird candy remnant but the damn paint, and with horror, he spotted that the teeth on his man's lips were now completely smudged. "He's gonna kill us," he stated, hurrying to wipe any possible paint from his own mouth, "I'm putting the blame on you." Briefly, he checked the useless hallway mirror in some faint hope for a hint on whether he had any paint on him, then moved to return to the living room and dramatically tell the story to their best friend, with some creative liberties.

His husband stopped him halfway to the door, grabbed the collar of his shirt, whispered "It's too late anyway." and kissed him. And there was nothing quite as disarming as the love of his life kissing him like there was nothing in the world he'd rather be doing.

Still, Yeosang eventually managed to break free from the spell, slipping from his man's hold and fleeing to the bright warmth of the living room, where Yunho was halfway to sporting a clown face and getting increasingly worried at the amount of laughter it brought. None of the five had noticed him yet, and he slunk to the couch, lowering himself on it as he opened the camera of his phone and removed any paint that had made it to his mouth.

San was less subtle. "Sunshine!" he called, barely halfway through the door, and Wooyoung turned around almost immediately, grinning; until he saw the state of the man's mouth. Neither of them noticed the smug looks their friends exchanged.

"Kang San!" Wooyoung scolded, frowning, "What the fuck did you-" Realization dawned upon him, gaze flicking to Yeosang and back, and outrage joined his expression. "Get your ass here right now!"

Ducking, the man followed his request, dutifully sitting down beside Yunho, and Yeosang watched with no little satisfaction as Wooyoung abandoned the clown-faced man to fuss over San. "Fucking fag," he grumbled, picking up the white and black paint and a brush, and when his thumb moved about San's lips to clean up and fix some of the bad smudges and a tiny little satisfied smile tugged at the corners of the man's mouth, Yeosang realized that it had all been a plot to get their best friend to touch his lips again.

'Fucking fag,' he thought. He got ready to watch it all play out again anyway, and was honestly kind of disappointed when a body lowered itself to the couch and blocked his view; frowning, he looked up, and then he met Jongho's eyes and knew he was about to embarrass himself so bad. The man typed something on his phone and turned the screen to him.

'are u finally dating' the screen asked, and Yeosang sighed regretfully and shook his head. He snatched the phone from his friend and typed: 'still not sure if he wants me like that so were waiting'. From the corner of his eye, he saw Hongjoong finish the bottle of apple cider. Damn. Thinking of Hongjoong, where was Seonghwa? He'd left them in the hallway, after his admittedly kind of mean words, should he go check on them? Apologize?

The phone disappearing from his hands brought his mind back to the conversation, if briefly. He glanced at Hongjoong, at his best friends, at Hongjoong, considered removing himself from Jongho's impending teasing under the excuse of getting Seong- ah. Nevermind. There they were, already sitting down beside Hongjoong, leaning into his side, dropping their head on his shoulder with a sigh. The man seemed inclined to protest, but didn't when he spotted their quiet expression.

The phone tapped against his hands. 'what if he doesn't?' the screen asked now.

He hated that thought. Shrugged, typed: 'lets not think about that' and prayed that that would be the end of it; but of course it wasn't. Over the span of the next few minutes, he forced himself through the embarrassing affair of admitting to Jongho of all people that he was utterly down bad for Wooyoung, absolutely not helped by the fact that he looked up every time the man giggled to see what amused him and the even worse fact that his face must've made it incredibly obvious how much he loved seeing his best friends so close with each other.

So when the doorbell rang, he gladly used the chance to escape, overtaken by his husband, who absolutely delighted in the little spook he gave the kids, admittedly overdoing it a little after, much to their fun, but he produced little plastic dinosaurs from his pocket (why the hell did he have those?) and gave them out to the little group as reconciliation. Yeosang, leaning against a wall, hidden by the dark, watched his man with those kids and thought, for the hundredth time, that he'd be a wonderful dad in a few years.

He was looking forward to it, already. Imagining how Halloween would go when they had a kid; almost always, there was a sibling sooner or later, sometimes they were still little kids, sometimes teenagers, but in all of them, San plotted and planned with them, acted terrified when they jumped out to scare him – though sometimes it was genuine shock too, with that jumpy man – and made sure that their costumes were exactly to their tastes and the coolest around. And once, as the kids at the door excitedly chattered about the dinosaurs and San watched them with a delighted smile, there was someone in Yeosang's little fantasy who had never been there before, someone whose shrieking laughter rang through the warm air like sunlight.

Lightly shaking his head, he slipped his hand in his husband's when the man passed him, returned his questioning look with a soft smile and didn't elaborate on his quiet dream of the future. It would slip out one day, in the safety of exhausted peace and bare skin and the depths of the night, but for now, it was his little secret, one he brought to his mind and admired like a gleaming treasure every now and then.

Over the course of the evening, they settled into the comfortable warmth of the living room, heated by the fire, each other's company and the food. None of them escaped the fate of painted faces, the perpetrators being Wooyoung and Yunho, and Yeosang wouldn't have minded it nearly as much if it didn't mean that he couldn't kiss his lover, who, to make it worse, lounged on the couch in his entirely black suit and skull face paint with the lazy arrogance of someone who knew he was the hottest guy in the room. It was infuriatingly attractive.

All that changed when it was time to bring on the movies. Yeosang, like usual, sat beside Jongho, knees to his chest, and he couldn't stop glancing at his best friends on the floor in front of the couch, Wooyoung sat with his back to San's chest, San's arms around him, their legs somewhat propped up beside each other. It was no secret that San hugged the man to comfort himself, not the other way around, and though Wooyoung teased him about it, he seemed perfectly happy melted into him, enveloped by him like that.

The only really big change from last year's Halloween was Wooyoung's presence, but Yeosang didn't have to be a genius to know that it was an improvement. Of course it was. Wooyoung fit into their group like he'd always been supposed to be there.

The downside to Wooyoung's presence was, however, that he knew his way around horror movies and took a sick joy in picking the worst of them. Two movies in and Yeosang was convinced it couldn't get worse, and then the man started the next (and last) one and showed him that it could, in fact, get worse, and that this was only the tip of the iceberg of how bad it could get. He was suddenly very glad for Mingi and San's intolerance to any type of horror media and the way it created a buffer between them and the really bad stuff.

The movie left him uneasy, somewhat on edge, and so he didn't protest when Wooyoung caught him on his way from the kitchen to the living room and wrapped his arms around him. He'd planned to keep helping with carrying the leftovers of their lavish indulgence in homemade snacks into the kitchen, but with his best friend's arms around him, soft breath on his neck, a calming presence, he gave up on that plan immediately, instead returning the hug.

They stood like that, embracing, until the living room had been cleared of anything that didn't belong there and Wooyoung left him to drop himself on the now empty couch, sprawling, shirt and hoodie riding up to his ribs, one ankle nearly brushing the floor, the other leg put up on the cushioning, his bare, honey midriff so inviting to look and touch and kiss and god, so pretty, with the soft curve of his v-line, the stretched abdomen, the hint of a trail of hair beneath his navel, the lower edge of his ribcage, and-

"-mind if we crash here?" Yunho's voice sounded from somewhere to his side, snapping him back, and Wooyoung sat up straight at the question as the other four agreed that they didn't really want to go home yet. The lovers agreed, of course, and San opened his mouth to say more, but Wooyoung beat him to it.

"We have a guest room with a bed and two extendable couches," he lied with a faint, sly smirk that anyone who didn't know him better would mistake as a smile.

"Couch!" Jongho called, immediately followed by Yunho and Mingi doing the same, and Wooyoung's satisfied smile at having instigated a there-was-only-one-bed moment for Hongjoong and Seonghwa was all Yeosang needed to know. In truth, two beds would remain empty tonight, with the lovers and their best friend undoubtedly sharing one, but their friends didn't need to know that. Maybe it would be good for Hongjoong and Seonghwa.

An hour later, he fell into San's bed tired beyond himself, having given their friends bedclothes for their respective sleeping places and solved any further issues that had come up, and he barely noticed his men climbing into the bed beside him before he was out like a light. He slept surprisingly good.

The next morning brought two surprises.

Number one: Wooyoung was up before either of the lovers. By the time they crept downstairs, still in pajamas, the man happily hummed to himself as he flitted about the kitchen, setting the table for breakfast, dressed in San's clothes – which was still an image they had difficulty dealing with normally – and greeting them so jovially one would think he'd won the lottery or something. By the time the rest of them had gathered in the kitchen, he'd prepared the whole breakfast himself and was just about to head off to the nearby bakery and get freshly baked goods.

Number two: the impossible had become possible. It started weird already; Seonghwa joined them in the kitchen quite literally glowing. Even if they hadn't caught a sliver of sunlight in the door to the living room, they would've been alight. Inexplicably happy, smiling like they didn't have a single worry in the world, chirping about the beautiful morning and the set table and how good it was to see everyone and wasn't it cool to have a sleepover again? They all thought it was fairly odd.

Next, they got to preparing their smoothie, which was the first normal thing they'd done. This however was far overshadowed by Hongjoong finally completing the group in the kitchen, heading straight to Seonghwa without so much as acknowledging any of the others, equally glowing, and almost casually laying his hand on their waist, to which they looked at him with that disgustingly fond smile that all of them knew so well. Highly unusual scene in itself, it was somewhat evened out by the two of them quietly talking to each other like they were the only people in the world, completely unaware of six other people closely listening to every word, and then the aforementioned impossibility turned possibility.

Seonghwa, giggling, glowing from every centimeter of their skin, placed the knife with which they'd chopped an apple down, gently took Hongjoong's chin, lightly tilted his face up and kissed him. Right on his mouth. Like it was no big deal.

After a few seconds of utterly stunned silence, in which the two parted and made sappy eye contact, the kitchen erupted in chaos. Somewhere among the combination of cheers, curse-heavy relieved exclamations, hands meeting wood or other hands and the shocked, then deeply flushing faces of the apparently new couple, Yeosang noticed Wooyoung's satisfied cackle. Ah. Set himself a challenge and won it by a tiny sliver, that lunatic.

The lunatic biked to bakery and back in a record time of twenty minutes, during which the others bombarded the new lovers with questions, teases and other things that they seemed somewhat overwhelmed with and didn't really answer until Wooyoung had returned and brought food, which settled the bubbling excitement in the kitchen into a processable stream of conversation of normal volume.

Upon being pressed, Seonghwa revealed the events that had lead to this; apparently, that conversation in the hallway with Yeosang and the subsequent display of affection with San had given them something new to think, and then, when them and Hongjoong had ended up in the same, kind of narrow bed, next to each other, Seonghwa had kept them talking for about half an hour, the conversation turning to the future, and they had gathered all their courage and locked all their worries out and told Hongjoong about their heart.

"They make it sound better than it was," the man informed the six of them, fond eyes never having left his partner, "Started tearing up halfway in. It was kinda pathetic."

Seonghwa frowned at him. "Hey! At least I said something! You were crying too when-" Abruptly, they cut themself off, and the brief, heavily flustered silence that followed from both of them caused an eruption of expressions of disgust.

It was an eventful morning, to say the least.

As expected, the new lovers left first, as soon as breakfast was done and they'd removed the bedding from the guest bed themselves and dumped it in the laundry, flushed the whole time. They left the house hand in hand, and the others exchanged knowing glances among themselves; they weren't going to be hearing from those two any time soon.

Wooyoung and Yeosang, for their part, bragged about being the reason those two idiots finally stopped dancing around each other, which their friends – and San – acknowledged and begrudgingly offered to compensate with free food. They high-fived each other grinning triumphantly.

In the afternoon, when their friends were gone and San and Wooyoung had left on a long walk, Yeosang laid on the upstairs couch with two cats on his chest, petting them, relishing in the silence of the breathing house, the emptiness of it, and recalling the events since the last afternoon. He thought that his future wouldn't be all that bad if it was anything like that.

☆🍁☆

November, he fell in love. He couldn't have tied it to a moment or even a day, but one morning, he woke up and simply knew. The windows of San's room bore diamonds of condensation, fog rolled over the land in milky swathes of ghostly gray, he shivered under his blanket and sleepily searched his way to the closest warm body and melted into tiredly adjusted limbs and nuzzled into a softly heaving chest, and when he, a while later, watched Wooyoung blissfully sigh at a sip of the coffee Yeosang had made for him, he knew.

He was in love with that man. And it didn't scare him. It didn't worry him. He simply rested his chin on his hand, flicked a tiny paper ball made up of a discarded sticky note at him, smile widening lazily at the scandalized expression it caused, let the golden warmth in him spread from his pleasantly tight chest to every last nook and cranny of his body and soul, and to every little smile, every sentence, every question, his mind supplied 'I love you'. He thought that he would have all the time in the world to say it.

Later, in the candlelit dark of the upstairs living room, cuddled to San's side, mug of hot chocolate in his hands, a day like a ray of sunlight behind him, he told his lover all about it. And San, just like he himself had those one and a half weeks ago, chuckled and caressed his hand and told him 'I know'. This night was one of those soft ones, one of those where hands and mouth were more devotion than pleasure, one of those where names sounded like prayers, one of those were reverence tangled tightly with endless love and made everything tender.

It was funny, the way you changed when you'd fallen in love with someone for the first time. How a simple thought of them could light up an entire day, how breathless they made you, how, suddenly, all they had to do was say your name with that tender tinge of fondness and you were dreaming up the rest of your life with them, how you softened at the mere mention of them, how the world ceased to exist when you were with them, how deep their absence cut, even if it was just an hour or two, how they could have deep eye bags and messy hair and morning breath and the ugliest pajamas known to mankind and you'd still think they were the most gorgeous thing in the world, how, every time you thought you couldn't love them more, you fell in love again and again and again.

Some days, Yeosang thought it would kill him if he didn't get to drown in Wooyoung soon, and other days, he thought that he could wait forever if it meant that he got to watch him realize that they were inevitable. Falling in love with the summer made person was one of the easiest things he'd ever done.

He fell in love with the world anew, too. With the changing matte fire blanket of the shedding forest, the sprouting fields, the deer bolting through the low fog when he disturbed them on a morning walk along the field roads, the glittering white frost coating everything in sun-sparkling diamonds, softly crunching beneath his booted feet, the white clouds of his breath, the heavy rain drumming on windows and cars and walls, the roaring leaf-flecked wind that always made him think of Wooyoung, whether he was already thinking of him or not, the slate gray autumn sky, the rare, pale sunlight that warmed his skin, the birds visiting the bird feeder, the creaking of old wooden floorboards beneath steps, with everything.

One rainy afternoon, Wooyoung gave him his annotated copy of his favorite book, and Yeosang pounced at it like a hunting cat, greedily swallowed every word, printed or red pen ink, ravenous for all the pieces of him between the lines, lapping up every last sliver of his thoughts and emotions curled up behind narrow sticky notes and scrawled, red words, buried himself in the story and dug his way out through little heaps of Wooyoung, fed his hungry heart until the book laid closed in his lap, stripped bare.

He kept the book a little longer, pretended that he hadn't read it in one sitting, front to back, and in exchange, he gave the man his own favorite book; an equally annotated copy of 'Sunburn'. He almost grabbed that beautiful face and kissed him breathless when Wooyoung returned the book with his own annotations in red, and the only thing that stopped him from giving in to the unbearable, bleeding raw need in him was his promise to his husband that they'd tell him together. San didn't see much of him that night, holed up in his bed, re-reading his favorite book for the fifth time, but now with the addition of Wooyoung's annotations.

He dreaded the weekend before Wooyoung's birthday. Friday morning to Sunday evening without the man? It sounded like torture.

But then there was the Thursday evening, then the three of them in Wooyoung's bed, and then it was Friday morning. Wooyoung and Yeosang woke up when San was about to leave, and Yeosang watched his men hug each other for a long, long time, taking deep breaths, savoring the embrace as long as they still could; and then San was gone and the two of them returned to the bed for another thirty minutes, Wooyoung on his chest, pleasant weight, warm body, one half of his face buried in his chest. The position was familiar to him, having done the same countless times with San, but, as he was horrified to find out, it was Wooyoung's first time lying on someone like that.

It made parting that much harder. But as much as Yeosang didn't want his best friend to leave, he wanted him to miss his train even less, so he eventually reluctantly removed the man from himself and slipped from the bed. Unwilling to get any farther from him than absolutely necessary, he consulted the other's closet, fond, tired eyes watching him from the bed, and he turned around when he'd put on pants and thick fluffy socks (that were originally San's but had somehow ended up there). Sleeping shirt discarded on the floor, he picked up the shirt he'd chosen; black t-shirt with a pingu print, noot noot and all.

A soft, tired chuckled sounded from the bed, followed by rustling sheets and the soft thud of bare feet on wooden floor. Wooyoung regarded him from the bed with the kind of tender amusement that melted everything into a timeless haze of content. "Baby, there's no way that's going to fit you," he told him, gentle but decisive. His voice, faintly roughed up, mellow, quiet in the peace of the morning, didn't carry a single trace of a joke.

And Yeosang's breath caught. For the first time, there was nothing joking or flirtatious about the term of endearment. Nothing but the raw adoration softened by tiredness, nothing but that gentle tenderness, nothing but the warm gold of his soul. It burned itself into his heart, into his memory, nestled there among all the gorgeously tender things, and he almost asked him to say it again, say it a thousand times. His knees were weak with it, his chest too full, threatening to overflow.

Catching himself, he averted his gaze to those pretty slender hands on the dark green sheet. "Not with that attitude," he replied, belated, and now he had to wear it because that word clung to it.

"No, dude, you're too-"

But he'd already slid his arms in and wrestled it over his head. As the man sighed, Yeosang adjusted the shirt, pulled it down, arms filling out the sleeves, fabric a little tight over his chest and shoulders, just loose enough on his abdomen and sides to allow his skin to move without shifting the shirt too. Huh. This hadn't looked nearly as tight on Wooyoung.

His best friend pushed himself up from the bed, barefooted steps whispering over the floor as he moved to him with the slow, tired gait that usually meant hugs that lasted several minutes. "What'd I tell you?" he asked, but his voice stayed mellow. Instead of crossing the entire distance between them, he slowed almost to a stop still half an arm-length from him, hooked his fingers into the belt loops of his pants and pulled him closer, acted like he didn't know how it made his heart flutter. "You're gonna stretch it out." His fingertips briefly traced the hem of the shirt, then his hands slid under the fabric and came to a rest on his waist.

Yeosang stubbornly kept his gaze on those gorgeous sharp collarbones, briefly thought how pretty they would be if they were bruise-blemished, then shrugged and, somehow properly processing the hands on his waist, lifted his arms to the man's shoulders, loosely locking behind his neck. "Easier for me to wear."

Wooyoung sighed, though fondly. "You're really gonna do this to me right before I have to leave, baby?" As if tasting the nickname, how it felt to say it with sincerity, trying it again to figure out how it sounded like this.

Yeosang melted. If his sleep-raw darling wasn't holding him, if they didn't stand so close together, he might have simply collapsed, alight with the softest love, completely enamored with the way Wooyoung's honey voice sounded on that term of endearment, processing the words that had come before it only when he'd basked in the warmth of that last one. Instead of replying, he shifted into those warm hands on his waist, satisfied to find them picking up on his wish, pulling him a little closer, thumbs caressing his skin. It was beautiful.

Wooyoung leaned into him, left a kiss on his cheek, and Yeosang didn't even mind when the man gave his bicep a soft-mouthed bite. He'd come to understand them as a sign of affection. "You're so lucky I love you," his best friend told him, exhaling as he snuggled into the crook of his neck, and all he could do was agree silently and kiss his head.

Around noon, alone with his memories of that beautiful man, he laid in San's bed and gazed out of the window. The whole morning, he'd been filled with a sort of low thrumming, just under the surface of him, and he already missed Wooyoung. God, those three days were going to be hell.

He thought about mornings in the kitchen, evenings cuddled up on the couch, seconds of moments that had caught in him, that very morning, the way Wooyoung had called him 'baby', their morning together, fleetingly brief, and then his man had to get his packed gym bag and leave him to the emptiness of the house, and he thought about that Halloween evening, about the week before, about Wooyoung's radiant grin, about that hand in his when they went on a walk, about that Monday evening in the gym, how none of them had been able to keep their eyes and hands off each other.

His mind stumbled upon a conversation he'd had with him, then. Wednesday evening, when San was still out with his coworkers, Wooyoung and him had sat in the living room reading together until, quite suddenly, the other had slammed his book shut and stared at him until he'd done the same. Then, plain as ever, Wooyoung had told him 'San wants to fuck me.'.

Yeosang had picked up his book. 'No shit,' he'd said, and when the man had kicked him and urged him to elaborate, he'd sighed and discarded his book. 'Why d'you think he keeps offering you to join us?' It had been a stupid thing to say, because then Wooyoung had asked him half-jokingly if that meant that he'd be up for that too, and Yeosang hadn't been able to reply. They'd gone back to reading without ever finishing that conversation.

'I wanna fuck you,' he thought now, in San's bed, sighing deeply. The things he'd give for just a taste of him, god, it was terrible. And his lover with his silk tongue, always putting images in his head, one filthier than the last, using his graphic imagination to his advantage, painting him scenes that he would never be able to forget. And Wooyoung's gorgeous lithe golden body, how perfect it would look bare, how perfect it would feel, reactive and needy and always trying to get closer, pretty throat bruised and oh god.

For a while, he simply laid there, eyes closed, mind brimming full with Wooyoung, growing restless with hunger, and then he sighed and gave up fighting it. Short trip to the bathroom, washing his hands, then he was back on San's bed, hand slipped under his underwear, relieved exhale as he touched himself, finally soothed the building pressure. The fantasy was a familiar one; Wooyoung over him, mouth on his chest, hand between his legs, everything watched by San waiting for his turn.

All was well until just touching wasn't enough anymore, until he ached too much to ignore, and then he fingered himself imagining it was Wooyoung. He wasn't a particularly loud person in bed, much less when masturbating, but his mind had a knack for making his little fantasies so real for him that he almost pleaded the imaginary man to give him more, because it still wasn't enough. It still wasn't fucking enough.

The night stand fought against his hurried, desperate pulls, locking up in that annoying old wood way, but then he finally got what he wanted. Pants and underwear pushed down to his shins, legs put up, he fucked himself with a dildo, pretending it was his best friend, arching and meeting his own rhythm with his hips in an attempt to get more, and his mind was hazy with pleasure and need and the image of that man leaning over him, and even he couldn't stay silent anymore.

It was kind of pathetic, the way his voice broke on a moaned rendition of that beautiful name, the way he grew unbearably taut, the way he kept up this futile quest for that sweet relief, the way his quiet, breathless voice faltered around half-articulated pleas. In his fantasy, Wooyoung panted into the crook of his neck, beautiful sweat-glistening body over him, hot back under his digging fingers, mouth and teeth at his neck, his throat, dark, sultry voice half-moaning the sweetest things into his skin. In his fantasy, Wooyoung undid him.

Sweating, already trembling, his legs opened further, hips tilting upwards, and his breath caught and it was all too much and far too few and he swore he just needed a little more, and then fantasy Wooyoung slowed and his hand followed suit. It gave him some time to catch his breath, but he couldn't do it for long, couldn't deny himself for too long, and he-

A throat cleared. Despite his pleasure-drunk state, his eyes snapped open, found the door, and a shiver ran up his spine as he made eye contact with San. Far too gone to care, he closed his eyes, let his head tip back to its original position and returned to his suddenly much easier search for relief, San's eyes hot on his skin, taking him in, and he pressed his head back into the pillow and gave himself up to the pull of pleasure.

After, when he laid on the bed breathless, hands stilled, basking in the humming gold of his satisfied body, he was, for a moment, in a state of utter peace; until reality began to settle in and he realized what had just happened.

Fuck.

Embarrassed heat rushing to his face, he laid his hands over it, for now choosing to ignore the state of his fingers, chest heaving with slowly calming breaths, heart still racing in his chest, forcing his heavy legs to close. And as if all of this wasn't bad enough already, there was still that thrum in him, just under the surface, fizzling into ripples when he shifted and the silicone thing in him moved with it, and he didn't think that he'd get rid of it any time soon.

Measured steps moved over the hardwood floor, approaching, and then the mattress dipped at the foot of the bed. "Hey," his husband addressed him, softly, a careful gentleness to his voice, apparently mistaking the lightly trembling heave of the other's breath for something like building tears. "You okay?"

Unable to speak, wishing he could just sink through the bed and disappear, Yeosang forced himself to attempt a nod. All of this was kind of embarrassing to begin with, and now San had watched him get off to their best friend? And Yeosang had seen him, acknowledged him, and just kept fucking doing it? And now his body whispered to him about hands and a mouth on his skin and fingers that weren't his own sliding up his inner thighs and- Jesus, get a fucking grip.

San's hand laid on his knee, thumb caressing, made him draw in a deep breath. "Talk to me, my love," his man demanded softly.

"No," he replied, aware of his own contradictions, "You saw."

There was a brief pause, thumb halting. "You're embarrassed," the other eventually concluded, delighted, "You're blushing, aren't you?" He sounded awfully smug.

"Shut the fuck up," Yeosang snapped, but there was no real edge to it. He just wanted to disappear right now.

Instead of being granted that, the hand on his knee moved between his thighs, barely down just yet, easily overcame the weak resistance he put up and spread his legs, exposing him, wandering along his inner thigh, never close enough to where he really wanted it. "Thought you'd be working on the new cat tree." San shifted, removed the pants and underwear from the other's legs, agonizingly slowly moving over him. "Got home fully expecting an empty house." One of his hands laid hot and heavy on the man's lower abdomen, slid up, under the shirt, smirking at the light, reflexive arch of his torso. "Imagine my surprise when, instead, I found my husband fucking himself in my bed and moaning my best friend's name."

A pathetic, embarrassed whimper left Yeosang. He had two options; either flee and endure the memory of this for a while, or get his man to make him so far gone he no longer felt the humiliation and worry about it later. The second one seemed much more promising.

"And you know what?" San asked, the smugness of his voice almost entirely replaced by the dark velvet of hunger, taking his hand off him to remove his hands from his face, "It was the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen."

Over the next hour or two, Yeosang was once again reminded that his husband knew how to ruin him completely, and that he took great pleasure in doing it. Among other things, like how easily the skin of his man's back gave under his nails, he learned that, with proper preparation, he might be able to take both of his best friends at once, and though there was plenty of stinging pain and endlessly slow easing in of fingers involved, he thought that it wasn't all that unrealistic of a fantasy. Also, he wouldn't be walking much any time soon.

He passed out in San's arms, nothing left to give, bare bodies slotted together, only barely took note of the man draping the thick duvet over them before his consciousness faded. Thus, he didn't notice when his lover eventually carefully slipped from him, opening the windows wide to ban the thickly sweet sex smell from the room, letting in the late November cold and the windy afternoon symphony of rustling leaves and low howl in crevices of the old house and distant town sounds and rare roar of a passing car. Only frowned lightly in his sleep when the body returning to his arms was cool against the snug warmth of him and the blanket.

Soft voices woke him up around five. There was San's, quietly delighted, absentmindedly playing with his hair as he talked about something too scientifically complex for Yeosang's waking, muddled mind, and occasionally, there was Wooyoung's too, slightly distorted by a speaker. Following the brief horror when recalling what he'd done earlier, he nuzzled deeper into his husband's chest, though his flaring up embarrassment crawled back to the depths it had come from surprisingly soon. He doubted that Wooyoung hadn't done the same at one point or another.

When he blinked his eyes open, he was met with nightstand lamp dimness and a video call, the screen showing their best friend in the driver's seat of a car, lit only by the deep yellow of a nearby street light that made his hard, handsome features hazy, hair freely falling to his shoulders, and suddenly an ache tore into Yeosang's chest and he felt that beautiful man's absence like a hot iron on his skin. He needed him, needed to melt into his presence and listen to that warm, bright voice and feel him against himself, needed to be with him, needed the whirling gold of him.

The tiny image of Wooyoung on the screen waved at him, smile widening, and it tugged at his heart and made him smile back, if tiredly. Closing his eyes, he adjusted his arm over San's torso, his leg between his man's, snuggling closer, his muscles announcing their disagreement with even this little tensing, and when he settled, he felt the soreness in his whole body. Great. No gym tonight.

His husband, realizing that he was awake, stopped his retelling of a paper he'd read recently and ran his hand to his shoulder, caressing. "Hey," he greeted softly, his caresses traveling over the other's shoulders and cheek, "How are you feeling, my love?"

Yeosang made a sound in his throat that could've meant anything. He wasn't really sure what to answer; all he knew was that he didn't want to leave the bed and, after taking a moment to consider himself, that he was really fucking hungry. When was the last time he'd eaten? Breakfast? If Wooyoung was home, he could've cooked for them, could've sat with them and filled the room with his brightness, could've cooed at him and caressed him and kissed some part of him when he complained about his muscles, but Wooyoung was some four hours by car away and wouldn't be with them until Sunday evening. It wasn't fucking fair.

San briefly tightened his hold on him, kissed his head. "Anything hurting?"

The other sighed and made a regretful expression. "Feel like I ran a marathon," he supplied, slurring the words, "Jus' while liftin' weights 'n wearin' one of those abs belts, y'know the ones? With the electric 'mpulses."

His man chuckled. "An ab stimulator?"

"Mhm. That." Yeosang sighed, more deeply this time. "'M hungry as fuck. Why aren't you here, Wooyoung?" He opened his eyes, gave the man an accusing look. "Y'could've cooked."

"Wow." Faux offended, Wooyoung touched his hand to his chest and made a hurt expression. "Is that all I am to you? A personal cook?"

The other rolled his eyes. "I guess I miss you too, or whatever." He considered the car on the screen, eager to change the topic. "Where are you anyway? Aren't you visiting your family?"

"Yeah, I am. Just came out to the car for some privacy, 'cause they can be... a lot. They really wanna meet you two, though." A mischievous smirk crept on the man's face. "I could go inside right now and let them."

San chuckled. "That might not be the best idea, sweetheart, I doubt we'd make a good first impression." A little smirk tugged at a corner of his mouth. "You wouldn't do this to your boyfriends, would you?"

Yeosang almost choked on nothing. Why would that idiot say that?! This was far from an ideal situation to have that conversation in!

But Wooyoung just shrugged, as clueless as ever. "You're not my boyfriends, are you?"

Sadly, no. Not yet.

"Not with that attitude," San replied smugly, then grew more serious. "Okay, but for real, please don't do that? If we're gonna meet your family, I want it to be in a better setting than with us cuddling in bed."

Their best friend hummed, considering. "Fine," he relented eventually, "But just 'cause you asked so nicely. And 'cause that-" He vaguely gestured at them. "-Is definitely not family friendly. You look like you're half-naked."

More like completely naked, but the man didn't have to know that. Better if he didn't know what they'd gotten up to earlier. San replied to him, Yeosang closed his eyes, melted into his man, listening to his best friends' conversation, sore but content, wishing the man in the phone laid cuddled up to San's other side instead, and everything was good until his stomach gave him an unfriendly reminder of his hunger.

Sighing deeply, he reluctantly interrupted the conversation to tell his husband that he really had to eat something, but he lit up when his lover suggested that they just order food. Instructing Wooyoung not to go anywhere, San discarded the phone on the nightstand, and the man jokingly complained about being robbed of the sight of their bare upper bodies as they carefully untangled, shivering in the cool of the room. Yeosang winced when he stood up.

At the closet, he stopped, for the first time getting a look at San's back; red streaks of long, thin abrasions ran over his soft golden skin, on shoulders and arms and down to the middle of his back, in sets of four or five that left no doubt to their origin. "Shit, I'm sorry," he apologized, lightly running careful fingertips along scratch marks, "That must've hurt. I didn't realize how hard I..." He trailed off, stopped by his own dignity and Wooyoung. Was it bad that he thought those scratch marks didn't look all that horrible on him?

San smiled at him, handed him underwear from the shelf reserved for the other's clothes. "It's okay, darling. I like them." Upon spotting the man's unconvinced frown, he chuckled and kissed him until it was gone. "Proof of how good I made you feel, if you ask me," he added, whispering, "And I kinda liked the sting."

Yeosang began the somewhat painful process of getting dressed, skillfully ignoring his own clothes in the closet once he'd put on his underwear. "Masochist," he whispered back, and in reply, his man giggled. He returned his voice to its normal volume. "Can we order pizza? But from the service we usually get, not the one we had last time, that pizza was weird."

San looked at him, in love. "Anything for you, pretty man." He kissed him, soft and sweet and lingering. "Anything for you."

☆🍁☆

The weekend was hell. The lovers missed their best friend like crazy, and though the three of them video called Saturday night too, they hugged him like they hadn't seen him in years when he returned Sunday evening. It was to no one's surprise that the three of them ended up together in Yeosang's bed, soft patter of the rain on the slanted skylights, and talked quietly until they grew too tired to. Wooyoung was asleep first, and the lovers whispered to each other about their hearts, regarding the beautiful man between them.

The next day, on an evening walk, the lovers discussed what might be a good time to tell him about their love, with barely more than a month of the year left. Yeosang confessed that he knew that Wooyoung was very much crushing on San, and San chuckled and told him 'I know' and 'He's in love with you, too' and that he thought that the man had had feelings for Yeosang since they'd started talking to him, maybe sooner. These news lit up his heart for days to come.

On Wooyoung's birthday, he spent the morning after the beautiful breakfast doing chores, preparing the upstairs rooms for the evening, getting the guest room ready – he winced remembering what Seonghwa and Hongjoong must've done in it – and spent the afternoon baking the cake and creating his and San's contribution to the buffet. Wooyoung had discussed the evening at great length with them.

Seonghwa arrived around four, surprisingly without their boyfriend, critically inspecting the cleaning job Yeosang had done and reluctantly admitting that it was good, storing the tiramisu in the fridge for now. They'd come early to help, they told him, and immediately regretted it when he, delighted, showed them to the parts of the new cat tree that still had to be mounted to the wall. Together, they had the wooden perches, small platforms and pathways installed and introduced to the cats by the time Wooyoung got home.

San arrived with Yunho just a few minutes later, straight from work, Yunho with a box of honey biscuits he proudly declared his own creation, and with Wooyoung in the kitchen, roping Yeosang into helping him with the food he himself would contribute to the buffet, it was left to San to open the door for arriving guests. Alongside the usual suspects, Wooyoung had invited his friends from before he'd moved into the house, who trickled in between the others.

In the living room, their friends acquainted themselves with each other, somewhat hesitant at first but increasingly friendly with each other, and every now and then, a new person peeked into the kitchen to greet Wooyoung, who flitted about the room buzzing with joy. Yeosang returned the shy lifted hands or awkward nods of greetings with equally shy returns of the action, and once, when he didn't notice the woman at the door until he'd finished a bout of bickering with his best friend that didn't paint him in the best light for someone who didn't know their dynamic, he felt his face actually heat up while he returned her greeting.

It was a nice evening, all things considered. The house hadn't been so full in a long time, thrumming conversation that didn't rarely include laughter, joy about the lavish assortment of homemade food and meeting friends and making new ones clinging to every corner like golden dew in a spider's web, people sat around the crackling fire in the hearth and lingering by the food and sat on the floor with one or two of the cats, and Wooyoung glowed like the summer day sun the whole time.

Yeosang, like he did often at social functions, remained at the periphery of it all, observing. He watched Wooyoung interact with his friends, watched the subtle shift in behavior around each of them, watched the way he acted with them, watched, fascinated, how he mesmerized the people around him with his stories, and he made himself avert his gaze when one of Wooyoung's friends – a young woman who was just as touchy and flirty as the man – got all up in his space and flirted with him in that subtly joking way that friends used with each other. It was stupid, he knew, but it conjured up the spikes of jealousy.

He saw San's jaw work, the man's eyes locked on that scene, and was glad to know that he wasn't the only one. Unlike him, however, who stayed out of it and swallowed his dislike down, his husband waited until a few minutes had passed, then left his conversation with Jongho and another young woman and made his way to their best friend. Announced his presence with a touch to the man's shoulder, smiling down at him with that fond smile, and about a minute passed until San sat on the couch with an arm around a beautiful man who had melted into him, the two of them looking at each other like that, caught up in a conversation that was all their own. San's wedding ring glinted as he took Wooyoung's hand in his.

Somewhere throughout the evening, someone brought out a few bottles of wine and several other beverages for those who didn't drink, further heightening the cheery mood. Yeosang felt the intensity of it all weigh down on him, creeping under his skin, the volume seeming to rise and rise and rise, and when it got too much, he escaped a conversation with two of Wooyoung's friends who seemed to be interrogating him and fled to the balcony.

The biting cold of a late November night welcomed him, and as he gently closed the door behind himself, he let the tension trickle from him. Slipping from the light seeping through the glass door, he stood by the freezing railing, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, feeling the icy air fill his lungs. The door dulled the sounds of the party, cold prickling his skin, breath dripping from his lips in ghostly white plumes, the wind brushed through the now almost entirely bare trees, catching in the dark line of firs, the thermometer proudly declared it to be five degrees below zero. He shivered.

It couldn't have been more than a minute of standing out there, hugging his own body, breathing in the somewhat quiet calm of the nightly garden, when the balcony door creaked open. "Hi," Wooyoung greeted softly, pulling the door close behind himself, "Whatcha doin' out here?"

Yeosang dropped his arms, wrapped them around his best friend when the man was close enough, pressed him to himself and relished in the warmth spreading from all the points at which they touched. "Needed some fresh air," he muttered into the other's hair, "Pretty hot 'n stuffy in there."

Wooyoung hummed, agreeing. "Cold as fuck out here, though." He nuzzled into the crook of the other's neck, tightening his hold on him, and for a wonderful little while, they simply stood like that in silence, embracing, relishing in the warmth of each other against the cold night. Then Wooyoung took a deep breath and whispered: "I love you."

Yeosang's chest tightened with love, and he didn't say it back, he never did, couldn't get it past his throat, but he kissed the man's head and caressed his back and hummed, agreeing. He'd be able to say it too, one day, just not yet. So he just stood and held him and hoped that the man could read the patterns of his heart, hoped that he felt the love pouring from every centimeter of him, hoped that he knew that he loved him like it was breathing.

The man shivered, then sighed. "Let's go back inside, hm?" Slowly, he loosened their hug, and then he took his hand, intertwined their fingers and looked at him with those soft, adoring eyes that always melted his heart completely. "I wanna show you off, baby." There it was again, that sincerity that knocked the breath from Yeosang's lungs and rendered him incapable of anything but staring at that beautiful man, dimly lit by the indirect yellow of the living room, a picture of tenderness.

The need to kiss him lingered in his mouth as he let him pull him inside, hands joined, reentering the stuffy heat of the house, keeping the door open to air out the room, and Yeosang was helpless against his best friend dragging him to the couch, right into the group of people, over half of which he barely knew, heat creeping into his cold-flushed cheeks that had nothing to do with the fire and everything with the fact that several gazes followed them. He didn't meet anyone's eyes.

Wooyoung half-pushed him onto the couch, right into San's side, into San's arm, and before he'd even properly sat down, Wooyoung already cuddled into him, throwing his legs over his lap, resting his head on his shoulder, bedding their joined hands in his own lap. When Yeosang had finally sorted himself out, adjusted to the two men at either of his sides, his husband greeted him with a tender 'hey, my love' and gently tilted his face to himself and kissed him, right in front of all those people.

Flustered, he looked down at his lap when he was let go, twisted the ring on his free left hand with his thumb, watched San's hand find its place on Wooyoung's leg. Briefly, he worried what the others must be thinking about this, but then he remembered that all of the new people he'd talked to had seemed well-acquainted with him despite this being the first time he'd ever exchanged a word with them and that their friends already knew about this anyway and realized that this was nothing that hadn't already been expected. Tentatively, he laid his free hand on Wooyoung's thigh, began caressing him, and then Wooyoung prompted him to confirm something that he'd just told the group and he was pulled into the thrum of conversation.

Past midnight, as the night grew older, the house gradually emptied, until, around two in the morning, the only people left were the three of them and three of Wooyoung's friends whose way home was too long to attempt so late. As agreed upon in advance, Yeosang showed them to the guest room and the downstairs living room couch, then considered the upstairs living room and decided to take care of it the next day. Acted out his evening routine half-asleep, kissed his man good night, made a weak attempt to escape Wooyoung's cheek kiss, then crept up to his room.

Finally alone, only him in the quiet space, he cuddled into the blanket and let the thick tension of so many hours of so many people roll off him and sank into exhausted sleep.

The next morning, he woke up to snow. Slate gray sky beyond the slanted windows, thick white flakes tumbling from the churning mass of clouds, gathering in little piles at the bottom of the glass. Lighting up, he hurried out of bed, quietly cheering to himself as he got dressed, and he nearly slipped on the ladder-stairs down. Happily humming to himself, he fed the cats, checked the time – half past six – then slunk downstairs.

Through the kitchen windows, the garden hid itself beneath a thin blanket of pure white, punctuated by dark shapes of plants and branches, and he ripped himself away from the view to instead cross the room and open the door to the living room. Careful, as quiet as possible, he slipped inside, awkwardly whispering a greeting when he noticed that the young woman who had slept on the couch had woken up as well, and when she returned it to him with a smile, he asked her if she wanted a coffee as well; she was delighted to find out that he'd be able to make a latte macchiato for her.

Moving on, he made it to Wooyoung's bedroom, not bothering to knock before he silently opened the door – and froze in the door frame. His men were awake already, but instead of the soft, adorable scene he'd expected to find, San hovered over their best friend, pinning his wrists to the bed beside his head, supporting himself on his knees, one of them between the man's thighs, and Wooyoung grinned up at him with the kind of breathless joy that always accompanied him losing a wrestling match he'd started.

"Can you not let a man wake up in peace?" San scolded, sounding a little breathless himself, and beneath the disgruntlement of his voice, there was an exhilarated delight, so subtle most anyone would miss it.

Wooyoung giggled, writhing in a pretense of attempting to escape, gaze flicking somewhere below the other's face as his back arched lightly and the hands holding his wrists down tightened their grip, and when he made eye contact again, his eyes were full with joy and a warmth that came dangerously close to desire. For being pinned down and trapped, he enjoyed himself an awful lot. "Didn't even do anything!" he defended himself, half a laugh between the words.

"You bit me like five hundred times!" Now pouty rather than irritated, San leaned down ever so slightly, shoulder blades pushing out, hard edges under the shirt, biceps flexing, filling out the sleeves. "And I'm not even gonna start with the tickling."

The other's laugh dimmed in his throat, coming out more like a close-mouthed giggle, biting the inside of his lower lip, grinning. He looked like someone who was exactly where he wanted to be. "Wasn't tickling you," he corrected, a little smugly, "Jus' touchin'. And it's not my fault you taste so good." He shifted, back arching slightly, almost reflexively, and when he licked his lips, his briefly deforming grin and warm eyes made it terribly obvious how attracted he was to the other.

San moved one of Wooyoung's wrists over his head, joined the other one to it, holding both down with one hand, easily overpowering the weak, writhing attempts at escaping that were never meant to work. "Just touching?!" he repeated, incredulous, his free hand hovering between them, and Wooyoung's gaze flicked down to it and returned to the man's eyes with turned on expectancy. It was kind of pathetic how easy it was to read him.

Undoubtedly under the guise of getting revenge or something along those lines, San moved his hand lower, to where the hem of their best friend's shirt had ridden up to the waistband of his pajama pants, and when he slid his hand under the fabric and up his tensing body, Wooyoung failed to hide his little gasp as he rose into the touch, arching, one of his legs lightly put up. "So this's just touching t'you?" San challenged, then removed his hand from his skin just to bring his fingertips down on his lower abdomen, something similar to tickling him but softer.

The man's abdomen tensed, laughter bubbling up, accompanying a quiet, delighted shriek, and now he really did try to escape, get himself out of touching range, his protests made empty by the way he grinned and giggled like a man who was getting what he'd hoped for. And when San laid his whole hand on him, heel of it just over the waistband of his underwear, slowly creeping to his chest, he tilted his head back, eyes closed, and didn't even try to hide how his body arched into the hand, pretending to try getting out of the other's unrelenting hold on his wrists, teeth digging into his inner lower lip.

Yeosang considered clearing his throat to save the man any further embarrassment. That might just have been the most pathetic thing he'd ever seen, Jesus, could Wooyoung make it any more obvious that he wanted to be touched? How the fuck did he manage to look so slutty in loose pajamas? And why was it hot?

He watched, unable to avert his eyes from the way that pretty man so blatantly offered his body, and he probably would've watched forever if Wooyoung, when San's hand brushed over his chest, making the curve of his taut body deepen, edge of his ribcage and smooth plane of his abdomen and shirt slid to just below his collarbones, didn't make a sound that came close to a blissful little moan. He didn't seem to notice.

But Yeosang did. Oh he noticed alright. The sound burned itself into his mind as he revived his own body, lifting a hand to knock on the door frame, and the dull noise snapped through the room. The tension in Wooyoung's body dropped, eyes opening, worried flick to the door, and at the same time as his eyes widening like he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't be doing, San calmly slid his hand off the other's skin, released his wrists and sat back on his heels.

Yeosang raised an eyebrow at them, but didn't further comment. "Good morning," he greeted, "I was gonna wake you up, but I see you've done that yourselves. Coffee?"

His husband beamed at him, all crescent eyes and dimpled cheeks and showing teeth. "Yes, please!" He beckoned him closer, took his hand, pulled him down just enough to kiss him. "Thank you, darling. Did you sleep good?"

The other hummed affirmatively, casting a glance at the man still on his back on the bed, finding him flushed, forearm over his eyes, shirt still exposing most of his chest and all of his abdomen, so goddamn inviting to touch and kiss. He chose to ignore it. "Woke up and the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the snow," he said instead, watching his man's face undergo the stages of confusion, realization, disbelief and excitement in just over a second, "It was so pretty."

San's gaze slid to the window, and then he lit up impossibly more. As he articulated his utter joy about the soft, thick, white flakes dancing past the glass, Yeosang couldn't resist looking at their pretty best friend again, at his gorgeous golden body, with its moles like embers of a campfire against the dark night sky, with its gentle lines and taut skin, with its nearly bare chest heaving lightly with his breaths, and his hands itched with the need to run all over him, commit every curve and dip of him to his memory, and his mouth ached with the need to taste that amber honey skin, kiss it, play with a dark nipple and make him rise into it, hitching breath, digging fingertips.

He shook his head to rid it of those thoughts. Informing his men that he'd get to making coffee, he fled the room, fled the temptation of that gorgeous man, made a detour to the guest room and calmed himself with a deep breath before he knocked. He waited several seconds but left when he didn't get an answer, passing the young woman – Áine, if he recalled correctly – on his way to the kitchen, and he found it irritatingly difficult to get that picture of Wooyoung on the bed like that out of his mind, that sound he'd made, almost like a moan.

Busying himself with the four coffees, he brought his mind back to the previous evening, thinking over his interactions with his best friend's friends, trying so hard to keep his thoughts there, but they flipped him off and sauntered right back to Wooyoung and his lithe sunbeam of a body, the way his ribcage made an edge in that flawless curve of pulled taut abdomen and stretched chest when his back arched, the way he rose into touches like he couldn't help it, the way his head tipped back, eyes closing, exhaling blissfully.

It was a curse.

He was saved, ironically, by that very man dancing into the kitchen, beaming again, giggle that seamlessly flowed into bubbling laughter when San, following close behind, wrapped his arms around him, pressing his back to his chest, arms tight around his waist, nuzzling into his nape, swaying steps moving the two of them over the hardwood floor. A little shriek slipped in between laughter when the other shifted his head and did something, likely with his mouth, and Wooyoung almost managed to escape San's arms; then the man grabbed his wrist, momentum of his interrupted step spinning him around, and pulled him against his chest, hugging him with one arm on his shoulder blade and the other on his waist.

In that position, the sparking joy transformed into a much softer, calmer content, both men smiling widely as they melted into each other, slow, small, swayed steps keeping them moving. Yeosang shook his head at them. Slept in each other's arms and still didn't get enough of each other. If he'd had his phone, he would've taken a picture, or a video, but as it was, all he could do was regard them with a heart brimming full with love. His beautiful men.

Eventually, he was forced to return his attention to the stove and the preparation of the coffees, and he was just in the process of pouring the milk into two of the three tall glasses and the one mug when hesitant steps whispered into the kitchen, undoubtedly belonging to Áine. In response to her appearance, Wooyoung slipped from San's arms and wandered around the kitchen table, and San, apparently still in need for physical affection, turned to Yeosang.

He approached, laid a hand to his back, slid it down to his waist, silently greeting him with a lazy kiss to his shoulder. Thankfully, he had the grace to wait for him to finish the coffees before he gently turned him away from the counter and to himself, hands adjusting just to find his hips, and Yeosang barely had the time to think 'What about-' before his husband kissed him. Deeper this time, longer, sweeter, but it still tasted like morning breath. Not that it mattered; he was long used to that.

Beyond the windows, the quiet snow fell, and in the warm kitchen, breathing in the smell of the freshly brewed espresso, he watched the love of his life sink into a chair beside their best friend, lay an arm over the backrest of the other's and smile softly as the man melted into him. He thought that he wanted to see them lean into each other like that for the rest of his life.

☆🍁☆

Before they knew what had happened, December 1st came around, and the lovers' resolve hardened. Two weeks. In two weeks, they'd tell their best friend how they felt. And they'd be happy to take any opportunities arising sooner than that, of course.

The days were a blur of cold, the smell of baking Christmas cookies wafting through the house, quiet mornings, lively dinners and the warmth of each other's arms, passing far too slow and so quickly he'd blink and it was evening, and almost an entire week had flitted by in no time at all when Yeosang stood at the upstairs stove on Thursday evening. He'd gotten quite good at making all sorts of food.

The front door opened just as he finished stuffing the last of the soon-to-be roast apples, and his husband joined him in the kitchen just as he closed the oven and started the timer. "Hey, my love," San greeted him, arm wrapping around his waist, and then he kissed the breath from his lungs.

It was the softest thing. All gentle mouths and tender hands, two lovers melted into each other, already so utterly familiar with each other, with the mellow gold of sinking into the amber honey of each other, and still they were so in love with it, still all the world disappeared when they met like this. They'd never get enough of each other.

San declared the sweetest things against his mouth, their smiles melting together, called him 'my darling' and 'love of my life' and 'my beautiful man' right into his lips, and caught in the ocean of utter adoration rolling over him, Yeosang grinned and replied 'my sun' and 'I love you' and 'loser', and San grinned back, kissed him so perfectly tender, said 'your loser', and they giggled and kissed and kissed and kissed. Yeosang never wanted to do anything else.

So when the timer rang, having completed thirty minutes, he was reluctant to end that soft making out. He did it anyway, gently pushed his husband away from himself, but one of those hands stayed on him, caressed his lower back as he leaned down to extract the tray with the apples from the oven, rested on his waist as he stood at the stove and inspected them, the rich, sweet scent of the roasted fruit and warm brown sugar and cinnamon and chopped walnuts and melted butter filling the kitchen.

San made a slow, delighted gasp. "Oh my god," he commented, pulling him a little closer, "These smell so good, I wanna eat like five of them right now."

Yeosang snorted. "Maybe eat a few slices of bread first, 'cause you only get two. And I doubt that'd be enough for your hungry ass."

The man left him immediately, hurried to the table, paused as he reached for the freshly baked but no longer warm bread, and enthusiastically dug in when the other assured him that he didn't have to wait for him. Yeosang smiled to himself as he began making the vanilla sauce, fondly amused about his lover's excitement for sweetness. Like a kid that ate their portion of dinner as fast as possible to get to the dessert.

Thus occupied with food, San kept quiet, leaving only the sounds of his preparation and devouring of open sandwiches and the quiet noises of Yeosang finishing up the dessert, and in that comfortable silence, he let his thoughts ruminate. They always curled back into the gold of the kitchen, made him cast glances at the man sat at the kitchen table, bathed in the warm light of the ceiling lamp, reflection in the night-black window blurred, this beautifully familiar scene that felt so much like home.

When he had poured vanilla sauce over the once more warmed up apples, topped it with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a small piece of walnut, he warned his man not to touch them and went downstairs. Wooyoung should've gotten home a little while ago; he was honestly surprised that they hadn't been greeted by him yet. Instead, he searched him in the strangely quiet lower floor, increasingly confused by his absence.

He halted at the closed bedroom door, listened intently, a frown creasing his forehead at the complete and utter lack of noise. Hesitantly, he knocked, and when he got no reply to this, he opened the door and slipped into the room.

The bed bore a vaguely human-shaped heap of stillness, buried beneath the thick duvet, nestled into a room that felt too heavy. He recognized this too well; the dull thickness of pain. His own chest caving to a soft ache, he made his way across the room, careful, hesitating near the edge of the bed before he continued his approach, and then that ache in him deepened when he saw how Wooyoung had buried himself in his bed, blanket drawn up to his ears, hiding his face below his nose, saw the pink puffiness of his eyes, splotches of dried tears still clinging to their corners, saw the steady heave of his breath, asleep.

San's smile faded when Yeosang returned to the upstairs kitchen with a troubled expression, and as the other set the tray with the apples onto the table, a worried frown settled on his formerly beaming face. He laid an arm around him when Yeosang sank into the chair beside his. "What's up?" his husband asked, gently, caressing his shoulder.

The other transferred one of the apples to his plate, considered how to phrase this. "He cried," he told him eventually, quietly, "I mean, he's sleeping now, but he cried." There wasn't much doubt to the reason for that; he wanted to cradle his face and tell him 'I love you' with his eyes and kiss him until they'd forgotten that they'd ever felt any less than perfect, he wanted to end Wooyoung's pain forever. "You should sleep with him tonight. He looked like he needs it."

Thus, he went to sleep alone. Curled up in his bed, listening to the raging wind lashing over the roof, drifting into uneasy sleep that left him still tired the next morning. But he made himself get up, got dressed, descended to the floor below and fed the cats, then joined his husband in the downstairs kitchen; they drank coffee and ate breakfast in that comfortable morning silence that had become rare since they'd met Wooyoung.

When San had left for work, he stood at the sink and busied himself with the dishes, contemplating whether he should follow the soft thrum under his skin and creep into bed beside Wooyoung, settle against the warmth of his body, pour his love into absentminded caresses. Wooyoung, much like San, was best comforted with physical affection, and Yeosang had years ago figured out that there was no ache that couldn't at least temporarily be soothed by pulling the man into his chest and hugging him to himself, caressing, softly playing with his hair, letting him melt on top of him. He didn't imagine that it would be much different for Wooyoung.

But before he ever arrived at a conclusion, his best friend sauntered into the kitchen like a dancing ray of morning sunlight, humming with light, radiating jovial content, a figure of warmth and joy as he wrapped his arms around him from behind and rested his chin on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, giggled when Yeosang pretended to attempt escaping. Well. So much for needing comfort.

"Your mood is way too good for this early in the morning," he complained, relaxing into the warm embrace, and his voice was much too soft to give his statement any bite.

Wooyoung let out a hummed, close-mouthed giggle, nuzzling closer to him. "Slept so good," he replied happily, "Your man's tits are comfy as fuck. But-" His tone abruptly changed to smug as one of his hands crept up the other's torso. "-So are yours." To demonstrate, he grabbed one.

Yeosang shrieked in dismay, attempting to escape from his best friend's surprisingly strong grip, and he'd almost made it out and away when the man caught his wrist and yanked him against his own chest, immediately trapping him in a hug. The pressure of the hand that had squeezed his chest burned on his skin, simmered below, and it took his heart far longer than he liked to calm down. If they were lovers already, this hug would've been a kiss, maybe even would've turned into a little making out, and he sighed deeply at the loss of it.

An hour later, they sat and laid in the sort of nest they'd built in front of the glass door to the terrace, all pillows and blankets and warm hoodies, Wooyoung on his back, holding a book some distance over his face, legs loosely slotted between Yeosang's, Yeosang leaned against the wall holding the door frame, book in his lap, legs put up, a thick duvet spread over them, the two of them reading together. It was one of the rare activities they did together that didn't involve Wooyoung talking incessantly.

Beyond the glass lay the December cold, seeping even through the door, slate gray sky and ribbed trees, their skeletal branches black against the churning mass of clouds, even the yellow carpet of fallen leaves dulled by the numb daylight, only the row of firs remaining stubbornly green at the dawn of winter, their looming shapes jagged teeth against the blurred sky. It was a glum morning.

Thus, he didn't spare the garden much attention, even though his book frustrated him, and instead took to periodically spending minutes staring at his best friend. Against what one might believe, this was an entertaining thing to do, as Wooyoung read with his face as much with his eyes, little shifts in his expression betraying his thoughts; and then there was of course the fact that the man was a pleasure to look at, even with his messy, open hair splayed on the pillow in a tangle of feathery black strands. Especially because of that.

Sighing, he brought his attention to his book, read page number fifty-one, which confirmed his heavily growing suspicion of who the murderer in the murder mystery – not a mystery, really – was, and he lightly rolled his eyes and set his book down, peeling himself out of the blanket. The other gave him a questioning look as he stood up, but he didn't bother replying as he made his way out of the living room.

When he returned from the upstairs kitchen, empty bowl and paper bag filled with tangerines in his hands, his friend refrained from looking up, frowning at his book, and he only absentmindedly moved his legs as Yeosang carefully returned to his place beside the glass door. Reluctant, he eyed his book, considering giving it up (he was almost sure of the entire plot already), then he sighed and turned to the tangerines.

Peel and white stuff discarded in the formerly empty bowl, he pried it in half, softly kicked the other, watching his face melt into beaming delight as he gladly took one half of the fruit. Cute. Yeosang watched him, smiling lightly as Wooyoung returned to reading and absently pried single slices off the half, putting them in his mouth, that gorgeous mouth, jaw working as he chewed, and Yeosang made himself avert his gaze when an ache of emptiness in his own mouth overcame him.

As he read, dissatisfaction with the book growing steadily with every little scoff and frown at a sentence or scene, he peeled tangerines, gave Wooyoung one half of each, and they bathed in a tranquility of the soft tear of peel from flesh and the whisper of flipping pages and the gentle rustle of fabric and occasional small sounds belonging to reactions to their books. It was comfortable in that particular kind of gray winter day calm, mellow but numb at its edges, gloomy but with a haze of tenderness.

At a particularly bad part of the book, he had to put it down to gather himself, using the time to gaze at the garden; and then he lit up. Kicking his best friend, he watched the thick white flakes tumble from the dull sky, ghostly blanket already lowered onto the world, a centimeter or two of pure white. Patches of grass, leaves and branches protruded it here and there, but the steadily thickening snowfall slowly but surely buried even those.

Wooyoung, likely having spotted the snow, made a mildly disgusted sound and almost pointedly nestled further into the pillows and blankets, turning his back to the glass, continued reading. It was fairly weird that he didn't like snow, but then again, Jung Wooyoung was a weird man, so he supposed this shouldn't surprise him. That man went about biting people, for god's sake, disliking snow paled in comparison.

He watched the snow for a while, absentmindedly peeling and eating a tangerine, and when he grew bored of it, he sighed and returned to his book, which he only really still bothered to read because he wanted to see if his guess of the murderer was right. It frustrated him to no end.

It was still snowing when he finished the book about two hours later – it had been a rather thin one, only around 270 pages – and he couldn't even properly appreciate it over his disappointment with the book. Despite the cover's advertisement of a fluffy white cat, the book did not contain a single cat whatsoever, and, as if that wasn't bad enough, not only had he been right about the murder since page ten, but the murder hadn't even taken place in a bookstore or its surroundings, which he thought was very bold for a book titled 'Murder at the Bookstore'. He did, however, sympathize with the murderer for having attempted to kill the main character, because god, he'd never had to endure someone that fucking obnoxious and, worst of all, plain stupid.

Discarding the book with a petty throw to his right, onto the hardwood floor, he sat up, stretching as his best friend cast him a questioning look at the dull thud of the book's impact. He replied with a scowl, then reached for his phone and began the procedure of rating and writing a review for said book. And he rarely read books he ranked lower than four stars, but this was just... no. He wanted his three hours back.

Phone tucked away in his hoodie's pocket, he considered the garden, his good mood slowly seeping back in as he watched the white flakes tumble onto the several centimeter thick blanket that had swallowed any surfaces completely. He wouldn't let a bad book sour his day for him, oh no, it didn't deserve that kind of importance.

Instead, he kicked Wooyoung, who ignored him soundly. Asshole. The man was barely more than halfway through his admittedly thicker book, which was mostly because he was a slow reader, contrary to every other part of him, and partly because his book wasn't written like someone's unfinished first draft. He should know; it was one of his recommendations.

For a minute or two, he watched him read, and he could've done this forever, but he didn't want to. He wanted to talk to him, wanted to go out into the snow, enjoy this taste of winter, forget all about the stupid book he'd read, so he kicked him more insistently, frowning pointedly when it only earned him a glare. That wouldn't do. For his next attempt, he employed San's strategy of pouting at him until he was given the attention he wanted.

It worked. Barely a minute later, Wooyoung sighed exasperatedly and lowered his book with a pointed sort of violence, giving him an irritated expression. "What?" he demanded.

Yeosang didn't give up his artificial pout just yet. "I know you don't like snow, but can you come on a walk with me? I'll make hot chocolate when we get back and we can keep reading."

The man glanced at his book, at him, at his book, made a face of consideration, then sighed, searched around himself for something to use as a book mark, settled on a folded chocolate wrapper that he slid between the pages. "Fine," he agreed, supposedly reluctantly, then smiled at him, with a little smirk. "But just 'cause you're so cute, pookie."

The other grimaced. "Nevermind. I don't want you to come with me anymore."

Wooyoung snickered. "You know you do, babygirl." He began sorting himself out of the blankets. "Where are we going?"

Shrugging, having winced at the nickname, Yeosang got up. "We'll see when we get there." He didn't really care; he just wanted to hold his hand as they walked.

But that wasn't his priority when they left the house in their winter clothes. Oh no. His priority consisted of sneakily scooping snow off cars they passed, molding it into a sphere in his gloved hands and hurling it at his best friend while grinning gleefully. Wooyoung gasped in offense, an affronted frown on his face as he turned around, and Yeosang already kneaded a second snowball before the man had a chance to complain.

This one hit him square in the chest, splatters of snow clinging to the spider on his zipped close breast pocket (a copy of the much larger one on the back) and Wooyoung didn't try to argue with him after that. His grumpiness about the snow disappeared into thin air as they fought and fled along the streets, replaced by laughter and delighted shrieks when he was hit, their panting breaths drawing clouds into the flake-speckled air, steps printing into mostly untouched snow, hiding behind cars and ducking and evading, taunting when they managed to dodge a white bullet and taunting when they landed a shot.

When they reached the fields beyond the edge of town, a particularly vicious throw had Wooyoung scrambling for balance after an unsuccessful attempt at dodging, and then he made a stupid step back that ended up dragging his feet out from under him. Yeosang laughed as he watched him land on his ass, laughed with his man, and when Wooyoung fell again upon attempting to stand up, he laughed until his abdomen hurt.

They calmed down some after, breathless with joy and from all the running in ankle-deep snow, and Wooyoung showed him his cold-reddened, trembling hands and complained about them being numb. Yeosang, acting annoyed, gave him his left glove, then took his right hand, intertwined their fingers and stuck their joined hands into the pocket of his thick jacket, all the while voicing his grievances about the freezing cold of the man's skin.

His best friend told him how wonderfully warm his hand was, and the glove too, and when Yeosang rolled his eyes, Wooyoung giggled and kissed his flushed cheeks with his cracked lips. Seamlessly, this melted into conversation, and they smiled as they strolled along the snow-blanketed field roads, forest to their left, snow-whitened nothing to their right. The barely visible hill in the distance melted into the sky, making the border between them invisible.

They came home around one, nearly two and a half hours after they'd left, frozen to their bones, and they got snow all over the hallway floor, hats and scarves and gloves and jackets and pants and shoes crusted with snow, and Yeosang giggled as Wooyoung, scandalized and disgusted, pried clumps of snow from his hair. In the bathroom, over the bathtub, they removed most of the snow from their clothes, then hung them over the turned up living room heaters to dry, hurrying to their pile of blankets and pillows in nothing but their shirts and underwear, everything else too wet to wear.

All cuddled up beneath the thick duvet, Wooyoung settled on his chest, Yeosang waited for his burning hands to finish warming up properly so he could text his husband. His face had recovered already, his feet were still blocks of ice, but the incredible heat of his best friend's body slowly seeped into his own cold one, and he tucked his hands between them to speed up the process as he asked the other how he was still so warm.

Wooyoung, nuzzled into him, shrugged lightly and muttered 'dunno' before he sighed happily, melted even further into him and became unresponsive. Cute.

About to text San, Yeosang remembered that his lover was probably still out with Yunho and Seonghwa and decided against distracting him. Instead, he threaded the fingers of one hand into Wooyoung's hair, tipped his head toward the glass door and watched the soft fall of the snow as he played with his best friend's hair.

He must've dozed off sometime along that, because when he opened his eyes, San had crouched down beside them and regarded them with a soft smile. "Hey," his husband greeted him, "So this is what you didn't answer my texts or call for, hm?" Smile never leaving his face, he tsked. "I thought we don't do favoritism."

Yeosang paused, attempting to figure out whether the man on his chest was awake, and when he concluded that he wasn't by his steady breathing, closed eyes and unresponsiveness to the conversation, he regarded San with a little smirk. "Not favoritism if I don't like either of you," he replied smugly, "Would've ignored him too if he'd tried to talk to me."

His man chuckled. "Sure, darling." He reached to him, smile widening when Yeosang regarded his approaching hand warily and shrank away from it, plucking an invisible thread from his shoulder. "Have you two eaten yet? I could cook."

"Please don't."

"Oh it's alright, I don't m-"

"I'm saying that for my own good."

San gasped in offense, frowning at him. "I can cook!"

Yeosang grimaced. "Remember when you fucked up the mashed potatoes?"

"That was one time!" The man crossed his arms, sporting an insulted pout. "And I make mean pancakes. And!" He lifted one hand, accusingly pointing at him. "And I'm good at making pasta!"

The other made himself look doubtful. "I don't know if I'd call it good, exactly."

"Why are you so mean to me?"

That was a trap. San knew very well why. He just hoped that Yeosang wouldn't be able to tell if his hurt was genuine and resort to the utterly embarrassing but safe option of telling him the true reason, but he'd played that game one too many times. "'Cause you suck," Yeosang answered, maybe with a little too much enthusiasm.

"Then why don't you get up and cook yourself, if you're so much better at it," his husband replied huffily, standing up, pointedly looking anywhere but at him. He was so cute when he pretended to be offended. "Sorry that I'm nice."

"No," Wooyoung interjected, apparently having been woken by the lovers' conversation, "Please, Sannie, can you make pasta for us? He's not that good at cooking either."

Yeosang adjusted his hold on the man in his arms. "Just means you're a bad teacher, sweetheart."

In response, Wooyoung pushed himself up, leaned forward and down and dug his teeth into the other's shoulder. Several moments of curses and wrestling later, Yeosang knelt over him, holding his wrists down so he couldn't fight back, frowning down at a man who beamed with exhilaration, and he couldn't be entirely sure that this hadn't been the goal of the whole endeavor. Slut.

"Will you stop fucking biting me?!" he demanded, choosing to ignore the way the other's body arched and bent as it writhed halfheartedly.

Instead of a verbal reply, Wooyoung made a biting motion at him, baring his teeth, his jaws snapping shut with the dull clack of teeth on teeth, and all the while, he grinned like a small, very annoying sun. Weirdo. Yeosang loved it.

But because he'd never admit this, he made the man promise him to never do it again, pretending not to notice the crossed fingers as he did so, and he made a show of staying on guard even when he released him. When Wooyoung twitched, as if to lunge at him, he scrambled up, shivering at the cold of the living room against his bare legs, and fled upstairs with his blood hungry best friend on his heels.

Half an hour later, they sat at the downstairs kitchen table and talked. They were never short of conversation, the three of them, and Yeosang loved listening to either of those gorgeous men.

To his dismay, they parted ways much to soon, with San disappearing into his office to get some more work done, Wooyoung returning to his book and Yeosang finally bringing his attention to the day's chores, and he sighed about this as he did laundry. He missed them already, his best friends, and he didn't stop missing them until they were reunited in the hallway, giggling with excitement as they put on their heater-warm winter clothes, stumbling into the icy afternoon, sky gray and dusk-tinged.

Their garden became a mess of thrown up snow and figures shaped by gloved hands, bathed in the warm yellow light of the outside lamp, breaths forming golden clouds, faces flushed from cold and joy, and still the soft white flakes lazily tumbled from the night-black sky, the unfamiliar depth of the snow making their periodic outbursts of snowball fights labored and catching them when they hurled themselves aside to dodge or throw. Their bright grins and laughter and exclamations filled the space, isolated them from the rest of the world in a delightful whirl of snowflakes and dancing breath and milky golden light.

Giggling, breathless, they stumbled inside an eternity later, going through the same lengthy process they'd gone through when him and Wooyoung had come home at noon, except that this time, they each disappeared to their rooms and slipped into their softest pajamas and regrouped in the upstairs living room, where the lovers showed off the three by one point five meter screen they'd built and how the mere press of a button lowered it from the ceiling to its position at a perfect distance from the projector and the couch. This was perhaps the fifth time they showed this off to their best friend.

Yeosang and Wooyoung sat on the couch, arranging the board of open sandwiches and cut fruit and the tangerines and cookies and hot chocolate on the couch table and the duvet over themselves, and they whispered and giggled with each other while San connected his laptop to the projector and found the first Lord of the rings movie. They were famished and alight with joy and giddy with excitement, only briefly dimmed as they mourned the absence of the cats; Star and Gecko slept curled into each other on Yeosang's bed, Smoothie laid on his little pillow on one of the downstairs living room windowsill, above the heater.

And then San joined them on the couch, sinking beneath the blanket on Wooyoung's other side, and their voices quietened as the movie began. The open sandwiches disappeared completely in no time at all, shortly followed by every last slice of food, San dutifully peeling tangerines and handing them halves, and then, much slower, the cookies and hot chocolate vanished too. They settled into each other, then, Wooyoung the core, the lovers cuddled up to his sides, Yeosang's legs in his lap, San's head on his shoulder, absentminded caresses in the perfect warmth.

At some point, the lovers' caressing hands slid beneath their best friend's shirt, lazy tracing of the gorgeous lines of his abdomen and sides and sometimes even chest, and who was really to say whether their hands occasionally drifted too closely along the waistband of his underwear and too close to his nipples and too high up on his inner thighs? The two of them didn't particularly pay much attention to their hands on the man who had grown still under their touches.

Yeosang registered, distantly, that his husband shifted his head, tucked his face into the crook of their best friend's neck, his content sigh a quiet thing in a moment of silence from the movie. The lovers' hands brushed against each other, and then San's shifted to Wooyoung's waist, arm half around him, holding like it was a claim, and Yeosang could only assume that it was one of those soft, open-mouthed kisses to the man's neck that made him tense up and then freeze.

This was uncharted territory. Neck kisses, especially ones like that, were a complete novelty, and he ached to do it too, to press his lips to that gorgeous honey skin and kiss and bruise and oh god how he wanted this man. He envied his lover for having dared to kiss him like this, internally scolded himself for his own cowardice, worked up the courage to shift his head on the other's shoulder, closer to the crook, closing his eyes as he sighed happily, his breath undoubtedly brushing over the man's skin. From there, it would be easy to convince himself to kiss him.

But he never got that far. For no discernible reason, Wooyoung jerked upright, removed himself from the tangle of their limbs and hurried from the room, and the lovers shared a confused look. What the fuck was that about?

San reached for the mouse on the couch table, paused the movie (at two hours and four minutes) then turned to him with a grave expression. "We have to tell him." His voice was quiet but insistent. "We're just hurting him while we wait."

Yeosang agreed, of course, but... "I don't think this is the right moment," he said, hesitantly.

"There is no right moment." San averted his gaze to his hands, traced his wedding ring. "If we wait for that, we'll die without ever having told him. Now is as good as any other time." He sighed lightly, looked up. "I almost didn't tell you either, back then, 'cause I kept thinking there's going to be a better moment. But that's just an excuse."

Well. That made sense. And it was silly anyway, to keep pushing it up; he knew Wooyoung wanted them. What was there to be scared about?

'Everything,' he thought to himself, twisting his wedding ring, trying not to go down the path of imagining all the ways in which this could end badly, catastrophically, ranging from right now 'What if we read him wrong?' to distant future 'What if one of us breaks up with only one other person?', his eyes glazing over as he worried and considered and became increasingly, horrifyingly aware of the looming inevitability of it all.

Undoubtedly sensing his nervosity, his husband took his hands, stopped him from fidgeting, prompting him to look at him. "Hey," he began softly, "It's gonna be okay, my love. We already have everything figured out, we just have to tell him." He tightened his hold on his hands, noting that Yeosang's expression didn't lighten. "I can do most of the talking. We're in this together. Even if we ruin everything, we'll still have each other. Okay?"

Yeosang closed his eyes, took a deep breath. San was right. No matter what, they'd have each other. And they were good at talking, weren't they? This was just another conversation that had to be held, even if it wasn't easy. "Okay." When his husband kissed him, tender as the warm morning sunlight, he already felt better about this whole situation, but not entirely at ease. That was okay. It made sense that he was nervous about this.

They remained in silence, holding each other, until the living room door creaked open and Wooyoung reappeared. Watched, he made it to the couch, stopped in front of the screen, paused there, eyes closed against the projector's light, then sank into the armchair beside the couch, knees to his chest, hugging himself. He looked troubled, picking at his nails, avoiding their eyes, opened his mouth as if to say something, then didn't.

The lovers waited, in the silence, intertwined hands beneath the blanket, leaning into each other, and for a few terrible moments, nothing happened; then Wooyoung took a deep breath and turned to face them.

"I can't do this," he told them, quietly, his voice on the edge of trembling, "I can't- I thought I could, I thought I was selfish enough to- to take whatever I can get, but I'm not. I won't do that to myself. I can't do this."

The lovers glanced at each other, somewhat confused, mostly worried at the man's distraught state. "Can't do what?" San asked carefully, observing.

Wooyoung regarded them, quietly for a moment, searching their faces, then he sighed and turned to face the table. "I know you want to fuck me. Both of you." He chuckled darkly. "You're not subtle about it, you know? And that just now, the way you were touching me, you can't tell me that couldn't have ended with- with sex. And I can't fucking do that. I can't. I won't. Not like this." He paused, drew his arms tighter around himself. "Not when it won't mean the same to you."

Oh.

"I know," the man continued, never giving them a chance to reply, "I know, it's stupid. But that's just my fucking luck, isn't it? Of course it had to be you." He let out a single, sad laugh. "I mean, who does that? Out of all the goddamn people in the world, who the fuck goes and- I know I never should've let it get that far, fuck, I wish I hadn't, but I-" Eyes glittering with unshed tears, he turned to them. "You just had to make that impossible, didn't you?

"It's not fair. It's not fucking fair. And I won't keep doing this to myself. I can be your friend, I can even be your best friend, but you don't get to treat me like I'm part of your relationship just 'cause you want to fuck me. You're married. Start fucking acting like it." He took a deep, trembling breath, closed his eyes, gathering himself. "You don't want to hurt me, right? So stop making me hope. Please, I won't say it, we can be friends, we can keep watching Lord of the Rings and I'll never bring it up again, you don't have to tell me, I know. Just turn on the movie and I'll-"

"No," San interrupted him decisively, "We won't be doing that."

Pained, Wooyoung dug his hands into his own legs. "Please. There's nothing you could say that would be better than that."

"I'll try anyway."

"You can't ma-"

"Wooyoung." San said this with the sort of authority in his voice that didn't leave room for objection. "Listen to me. We won't just keep watching the movie. And that's not because we want to hurt you or something, but because we're not gonna reject you at all."

Slowly, Wooyoung turned to look at the lovers, expression entirely unreadable. "What?"

"We're not rejecting you."

The man frowned. "Why?"

San sighed lightly, squeezed Yeosang's hand beneath the blanket, never averting his eyes from their best friend. "Is us being in love with you such a strange thought?"

Yeosang's breath caught, hand tightening in his husband's, awed at the smooth delivery of those words. There was a soft tremble to them, one only recognizable if one knew what to look for, betraying the man's nervosity, and Yeosang's heart thundered in his chest as he watched Wooyoung's mouth part, eyes widening in disbelief, a desperate edge to the way he looked at them.

Wooyoung unfolded, sat up straight. "Are you serious?" he asked carefully, hands fidgeting in his lap, visibly struggling for composure. "You- you're-" He wet his lips, gaze darting away, back to them. "Both of you? Really?"

Yeosang looked down, feeling two pairs of eyes on him, heat crawling into his face. "Yeah," he admitted quietly, his heart in his throat, and that one syllable took him far more courage than he'd like. He had no idea how he managed to add: "Both of us."

For a few horrible seconds, utter silence filled the living room; then Wooyoung audibly slumped against the backrest of his armchair, hid his face in his hands and broke out into something that could've been sobs and could've been laughter and could've been both, his chest heaving with it as the sound rang through the tense air, and Yeosang worried until the scant visible parts of the man's cheeks dipped with a grin so wide it must've been lighting up his whole face.

But he didn't relax until Wooyoung slid his hands from his face and tipped his head towards them; glowing would've been an understatement. Even in the dark, his exuberant joy made him beam like the summer sun, bright and intense and pouring from every centimeter of him, and it took the breath from Yeosang and never gave it back.

He would always wonder what possessed him, what made him brave enough, but in the moment, it was as though he was in a trance, pulled forward by his heart, rising from the couch, blanket slipping from him, unaware of the questioning gazes on him, approaching the arm chair, and before he knew what had happened, Wooyoung stood before him, so close, barely lit by the dim glow of the screen, a picture of gorgeous bright joy and warm eyes and desire that pulled them closer like they were magnets, helpless to the force of each other, and there was so much hope and happiness and love and want in those eyes, and his grin had softened into a wide, close-mouthed smile, and he watched it dim and those lips part and those eyes asking, pleading, and he wasn't breathing anymore and oh god those hands on his face, hesitant, tender, and he closed his eyes and-

Wooyoung kissed him, and it was like coming home. That soft, soft mouth on his, that beautiful man, and he melted and wrapped his arms around him and pulled him closer and kissed him and kissed him and kissed him, and Wooyoung kept kissing him back, and he kissed him and lost himself in the tight flutter of his heart and the warmth of that man pressed against him and the tender mouth that fit so perfectly to his and he kissed him and he fell in love with him and it was soft and golden and eternal.

When he, lips still humming with that kiss, watched his best friends drown in each other, smiling against each other's mouths, he thought that he was the richest man in the world.

☆🍁☆

The whole weekend, they didn't leave each other's sides, touching and kissing and giggling and falling in love, and Yeosang thought that the pride in his husband's voice when the man asked their friends 'Is it cool if I bring my boyfriend?' was the cutest thing in the world, and then he turned and saw Wooyoung beaming like he was the sun made person and couldn't resist kissing him breathless. He didn't think that he'd ever get enough of that.

He missed his lovers when they left him for work, and he did a bad job at hiding his relief and joy when they returned and he got to sink into their presences. Over the course of the next weeks, he learned just how much Wooyoung had been holding back on sexually connoted touches, learned all the ways in which he kissed, learned how giddy he got on dates, learned how he softened infinitely at those tender terms of endearment, learned how his lovers fit into each other, learned how perfectly the man matched them, began learning that gorgeous body and all of its little things.

Sex with Wooyoung was different. Where San was all slow heat and demanding and giving all tinged with syrupy devotion, Wooyoung was bright intensity made up of an intoxicating blend of love and needy desire and flirted teasing, and where San loved touching more than anything, much of Wooyoung's pleasure seemed to stem from his mouth. And god, what a mouth that was.

By January, Yeosang had gotten somewhat used to the fact that him and his husband had a mutual boyfriend, and by February, he could no longer imagine a future that didn't include Wooyoung. That man had swept into their lives and messed up all their settled ways, and it wasn't that they hadn't been whole before, it was just that Wooyoung made their lives fuller, brighter, in a way that they never could've done without him. He was electric and loud and wild as a summer afternoon thunderstorm, and he was hot and intense and maddening as a scorching summer day, and he was, sometimes, soft and quiet and tender as a warm ray of sunlight.

In spring, Wooyoung took them traveling, two weeks in the brewing heat of a country far south, and when they returned to the April cool of home, their souls had knit together and they hadn't even noticed it happening. As San slept, the three of them in his bed, Yeosang traced the first shadows of those summer freckles on his bare shoulders and presented them to Wooyoung like a treasure of the finest gold.

The summer was hot and sweltry, bearing down on them, the sweet amber of his lovers' skin deepening, sprouting those faint freckles on San's shoulders and arms and chest and neck and nape and cheeks, drawing luxurious, blurred tan lines on Wooyoung's lithe body, and his lovers bloomed with the heat and the relentless sun and the long, sultry days, and with the cool summer night breezes dancing in through open windows, drying their sweat on their hot skin, a tangle of limbs and love, whispers among the hum of the living night.

He memorized every curve and line and edge and mole of Wooyoung's body, figured out all the different ways in which he could make it arch and tense and rise into him, deciphered all of the quiet and loud sounds he made, learned him from the planes of his skin to the patterns of his soul, fell in love with every piece of him. He learned his husband new too, all the changes their boyfriend brought, and he fell in love with those, too.

Sometimes, in warm nights around the flickering heat of a campfire in the garden, the lovers and their friends in a circle, huddled around it, air filled with the scent of smoke and roasted food and the sweet tinge of wine, he retreated to that familiar place at the periphery of it all and watched his best friends, in some way clinging to each other because they could never be away from each other, and then he sighed fondly and smiled and couldn't look away from them and their love for each other. It was a gorgeous, golden thing, always humming between them, and he could never get enough of it.

After his and his husband's four year anniversary, autumn crept in much too soon, ending a summer of tangled hearts, and one day the last heat had gone and the days grew short and glum and rainy, and Yeosang delighted in it. He loved autumn, and he loved Kang San, and he loved Jung Wooyoung, and he could hardly believe that it had been almost a year already, and he could hardly believe that it had only been less than a year.

Then there were foggy mornings and glittering white frost and fire crackling in the hearths, and Wooyoung had become such a natural part of his life, his relationship with San, that he didn't know how he'd ever lived without him. He didn't want to ever have to do it again, and he didn't think that he had to.

One night, both of his best friends cuddled up to his sides, their bare bodies entwined and slotted together perfectly, and in the timeless, exhausted peace of the space between pleasure and sleep, he told them about this, shared the little fantasy of their future that he'd treasured since last Halloween. Their conversation lasted hours.

And years later, he stood at the downstairs kitchen counter, chopping up a pumpkin he'd grown in the garden, shivering in the cold draft from the open window, but he wouldn't close it for the world. From the garden, the high, bright laughter of his daughters and pieces of his lovers' voices drifted in, and he smiled down at the cutting board and watched the late afternoon sunlight play with the twin gold rings on both of his ring fingers. He wanted to spend the rest of his life like this.