[oneshot] almost home
Title: almost home
Pairing: giriboy/cjamm
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life
Warnings: vague sexual themes
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: four times girijamm roomed together + one time they didn't but ended up together anyway. winter roadtrip fic revolving around vasco's code name: 211 concerts. 3,130 words.
1. The day of the Ulsan concert, Siyoung jolts awake to the sound of Sungmin's rough voice in his ear. He rolls over and crushes his face into his pillow to get away from the noise, but it follows him, incessant and unyielding, like a very persistent mosquito. "Come on, dude." A push to Siyoung's side. "Time to get up." Another push, fingers digging into his skin through his flimsy sleep shirt. "We have sound check in an hour."
This early in the morning-well, it'd be the afternoon already if sound check was in an hour, but that's beside the point. The point is that this early in the day, Siyoung hates rooming with Sungmin on the road. Can't be helped. Late to bed and late to rise, Siyoung's carefully cultivated nocturnal schedule is always disrupted by Sungmin's annoying early-bird tendencies. Last year, every stop of the Ripple Effect concert had, without fail, begun with loud rustling at 7AM as Sungmin went through all five components of his morning workout routine. Siyoung's head aches just thinking about it.
Sungmin's body heat moves away, and his nagging along with it. Siyoung is allowed another three minutes to luxuriate in the warmth of his sheets before a splash of cold water breaks against his face. He splutters, breathing out through his nose as his eyes crack open, and sits straight up in bed.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
Sungmin's doubled over at the foot of the mattress, laughing his ass off. He darts out of the way when Siyoung forces himself forward to smack him, straggly bangs dripping into his face. "Next time," Sungmin says, tossing the cup from hand to hand, "I can just get Daewoong-hyung to set fire to the bed, if you want."
"Fuck you, for real," Siyoung mutters, unable to think of anything snappier when his mouth tastes like someone's taken a piss in it. He sags backward, head knocking into the headboard, and wipes his face off on a pillow. When he looks up again, Sungmin's still gazing at him, eyebrows raised. "I'm awake, jackass. Thanks a lot."
"Welcome," Sungmin returns innocently, teeth flashing.
Takes another ten minutes for Siyoung to drag himself out of bed and totter to his suitcase. All things considered, it isn't as painful as he expects it to be. There may be a lot of things he hates about rooming together, but he doesn't hate obliquely watching Sungmin do boredom pushups on the floor while waiting for him to get dressed.
2. After years of consistent touring, Siyoung's gotten used to most of the little particularities of cross-country van rides: looking out the passenger's side window to fields upon fields of dry grass, yellowed over for the winter, eyes burning from staring at his phone too long. The way the air in rental vehicles goes stale within the first thirty minutes of every ride. How easy it is to nod off, lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of their car.
Changjoong shakes him awake when they get to Daegu. Siyoung scrubs away the line of drool that's escaped his half-open mouth and unfolds himself from the seat. It's freezing outside, made even worse by the stiff wind blowing down the street. Siyoung retracts his head into the cocoon of his turtleneck, eyes thinning into slits behind his glasses, and follows the outline of Sungmin's back into the hotel.
Aside from the minimum requisite amount of sleep, they tend not to spend a lot of time in their room. It's more a repository for their suitcases than anything. There's always too much to be done-last minute sound checks, shopping districts to crawl, after parties to attend. Sungmin's birthday is today, which means he spends what feels like half the show ducking pinches from Vasco and the other half crowdsurfing. Either Daegu's rowdier than usual, or getting two hours of sleep the night before in Ulsan is taking its toll, because Siyoung can barely stand up straight after the third encore.
"What you need is alcohol," Vasco says helpfully on the way back upstairs. "After party's open bar."
Siyoung snorts and leans further into Daewoong's side. "I'm always pro-drinking, but you do understand that means we're picking up the tab, right, old man?" He accepts Vasco's punch to the arm when it comes, mouth twitching with his grin.
In their room, Sungmin trades his white t-shirt for a fresh one that's completely identical. Siyoung catches a flash of the stupid tattoo scrawled across Sungmin's abdomen and swallows a laugh as the cotton drops over it again.
"That shirt's gonna be even sweatier than your concert one by the end of the party," Siyoung points out.
"Sure, Mom," Sungmin says. He shrugs his jacket back on, hood eclipsing his face. "If you're so worried, you can do my laundry when we get home."
"I'm just taking efficiency into consideration." Siyoung drags a hand across his eyes, blinks the stars out of his vision, and then extends his arm. Sungmin surveys him for a minute before crossing the room and sliding beneath it to shoulder Siyoung's weight. Siyoung's arm clamps around Sungmin's neck, legs floundering a little before his knees lock.
"You sure you're gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," Siyoung says, sagging against the hard line of Sungmin's body. He smiles when Sungmin grunts. "Just get me a cigarette."
On the flight back to Seoul the next morning, they're all hungover as shit. On Siyoung's right, Daewoong keeps burping every two minutes. Jury's out as to whether or not he's still drunk from last night. Two rows in front of them, Sungmin has the physical fortitude to turn around and pelt him with complimentary peanuts, so his headache can't be as bad as he says it is.
3. Sungmin fucking hates rooming with Siyoung.
No, that isn't totally fair. He just hates everything that comes along with living with Siyoung: half-finished bottles of sweet tea and empty takeout containers making their own little ecosystem on the heated floorboards, dirty dishes stinking up the sink, makeshift ashtrays everywhere, an ocean of sneakers at the front door to trip over in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. The crisp clack of Siyoung clipping his nails at 3AM, or crunching on honey butter chips when Sungmin's trying to sleep.
Sungmin's house isn't the pinnacle of cleanliness, but at least there's no unidentified fungus growing in a plastic cup on his windowsill. The dust bunnies lurking in the unswept corners of Sungmin's room haven't mutated into dust dragons yet. Still, it's easier when they're in between concert stops to stay at Siyoung's new apartment in Seoul, closest to the office now, than going home and coming back to rehearse every day. The thin futon Siyoung drags out for him is more comfortable than the bunk beds in his studio. Having to listen to compilation tracks blare from Siyoung's phone at ass o'clock in the morning is a small price to pay.
They're living and breathing the same music for the next week, anyway. At this point Don rings in his ears at all hours of the day, intruding on his dreams, backtrack to his subconscious. The night before their flight to Busan, Sungmin rolls over after hours of practice and finds himself trapped in that bleary no-man's-land between waking and sleeping. He coughs twice, throat dry. Skit's playing over the intermittent clicks of the space heater. Can't tell if Siyoung's really bent over his laptop or if it's just another thing Sungmin's head came up with, but the unopened bottle of tea that his arm reaches up to catch on instinct feels real and solid. "Go back to bed," he hears Siyoung murmur. A moment later, the music cuts off as Siyoung plugs his earphones in.
4. In Busan, the hotel above the bar mixes rooms up and only gives them one bed. "At least it's a king," Siyoung comments drily, dragging his suitcase across the carpet. "Nothing we haven't done before."
It's true. Sungmin remembers nights spent vegetating on the floor of Changjoong's house, drunk and warm, comfortable even with someone's foot wedged into his back. Prior knowledge shouldn't make this feel any different, but he doesn't really get much time to think about it. Sound check is in ten. They've got a long night ahead of them.
Contrary to popular belief, Sungmin's favorite thing about performing isn't that he gets to take his shirt off all the time. It's been years since he first got on stage with a microphone in his hand, but it's still humbling to shout into it and hear of the roar of the crowd shout back. The Rain Shower encore call and response is the best part of every night. He doesn't have to do any work during the chorus at all, just bends over, points the mike at a sweaty face in the front row of the audience and lets them take it away.
They're still singing it at the after party. Sleety rain's starting to come down outside, but the inside of the bar is so hot it's almost uncomfortable. The rounds of soju Daewoong keeps ordering don't help. His answer to various questions about his solo album get progressively less coherent as the night wears on. By one in the morning, having embarrassed himself at length on the dance floor, Siyoung falls back into their booth, giggling into his palm. "Having fun?" Sungmin asks, tossing an uncaring arm over Siyoung's shoulders.
All he gets is a wet hiccup in reply. Sungmin lets out a huff of laughter and squints up at the disco ball twirling on the ceiling. That's about how he feels, too.
The bar doesn't clear out till well past three. Sungmin's relegated sole responsibility of dragging Siyoung back up to their hotel room. They trip over the threshold together, feet dumb and heavy. Sungmin spends five minutes groping for the light switch before giving up and helping them feel their way to the bed instead. They almost make it without banging into anything, but gravity is hard when he's this drunk. Siyoung's ankle gets twisted in his and they land with a loud thud on the mattress, Siyoung sprawled on top of him, a bony knee bruising Sungmin's thigh.
"Get off me," he grumbles, wriggling.
"No. I like it here." Siyoung's latched onto him like a fucking leech. Sungmin's head is spinning too much for him to bench press him up and away.
Relaxing seems to relieve some of the crushing weight. Siyoung's a pretty warm blanket. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, Sungmin's hands float down to Siyoung's waist of their own volition. He's trying to shift into a more comfortable position when something wet grazes the side of his neck.
Sungmin tenses, but he doesn't move. "Shit," Siyoung mumbles, exhaling across Sungmin's collarbone, and then he's hauling himself up, eyes glittering in the low light. A thin hand braces itself against Sungmin's chest. Sungmin could toss him off the edge of the bed now, easy, but he's not sure he wants to. His hands bunch in the thick material of Siyoung's coat. When Siyoung leans forward to straddle his crotch more firmly, Sungmin can feel the half-hard outline of Siyoung's cock through his jeans.
Sungmin doesn't currently possess the mental capacity to parse that one out, but he kinda gets the feeling it isn't that complicated. At any rate, he's still lucid enough to rasp, "Hey. Siyoung."
Siyoung's gaze trails up from Sungmin's chest to meet his eyes. His tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip. Sungmin watches the bump of his Adam's apple bob as he swallows. His face doesn't move any closer, but his other hand does come up to slide against the close crop of Sungmin's hair.
Sungmin exhales slowly. Resists the urge to lean into the impromptu scalp massage. "We gotta sleep," he says, finally, squeezing Siyoung's hip.
Siyoung leans forward. A blink of an eye passes like an hour here in the time dilation of the extremely wasted, and Sungmin almost thinks Siyoung's going to kiss him. It's a near miss. Siyoung's head lands in the vicinity of his ear, instead. In the next moment, stretching out beyond eternity, his breathing evens out.
In the morning, Sungmin wakes up to spectacular face bloat and, for the first time, a completely empty hotel room. The whole place is pristine. Even Siyoung's luggage is gone. It takes a lot of hydrating and a painful shower for Sungmin to remember everything properly. When it comes back to him, the careful press of Siyoung's body against his, the feeling of Siyoung's mouth against his pulse, Sungmin's headache gets ten times worse. Shit, shit. He's the last one out to the van.
(5. The ride to Gwangju's too quiet. Or-well, rides are always quiet, but this time it's the wrong kind of quiet. Too tense, too awkward. Siyoung doesn't look back once, but he isn't asleep-Sungmin can hear his phone clacking all the way from the back. He settles for staring at Daewoong's dozing profile. Nurses the tattered remains of his hangover with the bottles of water rolling around on the floor of the trunk.
He really fucking needs to pee by the time they get to the hotel. When he comes back out to the lobby after relieving himself, Siyoung's nowhere to be found. In his place, Changjoong's brandishing a set of keycards in his hand. To his credit, he doesn't ask.
Sound check is an unmitigated disaster. Rehearsal wise it goes okay, but Siyoung won't even stay on the same side of the stage as Sungmin. There's a moment during practice for Don where the two of them are lowkey running in circles around a bemused Vasco, who gives them a couple of curious looks but ultimately says nothing. Sungmin gives up after that. Trying to keep up with Siyoung often felt like attempting to catch a fish with his bare hands. Not for the first time, he kind of wishes Swings were still around, if only to kick some sense into Siyoung's ass.
Sungmin abstains from the recreational drinking after the show that evening. It wouldn't help him sleep better, anyway. He signs his own weight in Ripple Effect albums and watches Siyoung make a fool of himself on the dance floor again, from the safe distance of the bar. Sungmin stares down at his folded hands and tries not to dwell on how shit it feels to not be talking.
Of course, as luck would have it, Changjoong snores like a goddamn vacuum cleaner when he's drunk. Sungmin lies awake staring at the ceiling for an hour before sliding his feet back in his combat boots. Across the street from the hotel lobby, the bar's closed down for the night, but a lone figure's sitting out on the curb, huddled against the wind.
Sungmin definitely isn't dressed to be outside, but he pushes the door open and walks out anyway. There's a lit cigarette hanging in between Siyoung's long fingers. He doesn't move away when Sungmin sits down next to him, not so close that they're touching anywhere, but close enough that smoke gets in Sungmin's face when Siyoung breathes out.
"Couldn't sleep?" Sungmin asks, teeth chattering.
"Something like that."
Sungmin cranes his neck back to stare up at the cloudless sky. "Yeah. Me neither."
They sit like that for a while, just listening to each other breathe. Then: "Weird," Siyoung mumbles, staring at the pavement. He sounds a little angry at himself, or maybe just resigned. "It was too weird, not rooming with you."
Can't live with it, can't live without it, Sungmin thinks. He pulls at the strings of his hoodie, cold fingers twisting in between the laces. Kicks at the burnt-down butts littered next to the curb. Without looking at him, Siyoung holds his cigarette out. Sungmin hasn't actually smoked in years, bad for the body, bad for the soul, but he knows an olive branch when he sees one. He plucks it out of Siyoung's hand and takes a long drag.
"Your new tattoo is ridiculous, you know," Siyoung says abruptly, and Sungmin half thinks he's drunk again. When he turns and stares right at him, though, his eyes are clear. "What are you doing out here?"
Sungmin winces. "Freezing my ass off."
"I'm being serious."
"Me too, man." He rubs a finger against his lower lip and frowns. "I dunno, you've just been acting weird since yesterday, the hotel room-"
"So you think it's weird," Siyoung says flatly.
"No-listen, dammit." He takes another frustrated drag of the cigarette. It goes down the wrong way and he starts coughing, chest tight. His eyes squeeze shut as he pounds on his chest to get all the smoke out.
When he opens them again, Siyoung's cackling, gaze softer. "I'm listening."
"Honestly, fuck you," Sungmin mutters. He passes the cigarette back and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "It was weird for me, too, okay? That's all."
"That's it?" The familiar, lopsided smile appears on Siyoung's face. If shit-eating grins were trademarked, Siyoung would be the sole owner of the patent. A wave of relief floods through Sungmin's chest, expanding to tingle in his fingers. He hadn't known he'd even missed it. "Just admit it. You can't even go a day without me." There's something in his voice that Sungmin can't interpret until he scoots closer. Sungmin recognizes the stubborn set in his jaw-from a day ago, from November and their trip to Jeju, from the way Siyoung watched him sometimes when they were practicing in the studio. His retort (doesn't that mean you couldn't last a day without me, either?) dies in the back of Sungmin's throat.
All the warning he gets is Siyoung's iron grip against the nape of his neck, and then they're kissing, two idiots attached at the mouth, slowly turning into popsicles on the side of the road. Post-concert nights have ended much worse. Siyoung tastes like a fucking ashtray, but his tongue is warm. Their shared body heat is enough to keep Sungmin rooted where he sits.
When Siyoung pulls back, his lips are slick with spit. His hand is still digging into Sungmin's shoulder. "Was that weird?"
"A little," Sungmin says thoughtfully, licking the raw spot behind his lip where Siyoung's teeth had sunk in. "But I could get used to it."
They kiss again. Keep kissing, hard and wet and hurried, until Sungmin's stomach lets out a pitiful noise. The only grocery on the street open this late (or early) is a 24-hour FamilyMart diving off the corner. Sungmin stocks up on onigiri and steals half of Siyoung's dukbokki. After that, Siyoung tastes less like ash and more like gochujang.
"You know," Siyoung says on the walk back to the hotel, "you might as well move in, too." He shrugs when Sungmin raises his eyebrows. "You're practically subletting, anyway."
"No thank you," Sungmin says, grimacing. He points the thin wooden stick in his hand at Siyoung's face. "You are a horrible roommate. You never fucking clean."
"I could learn to," Siyoung offers. "For you."
"Who are you? That's almost disgustingly romantic," Sungmin accuses, and laughs when Siyoung reaches out to smack his arm.)
fin
Pairing: giriboy/cjamm
Rating: pg13
Genre: slice-of-life
Warnings: vague sexual themes
Author: gdgdbaby
Notes: four times girijamm roomed together + one time they didn't but ended up together anyway. winter roadtrip fic revolving around vasco's code name: 211 concerts. 3,130 words.
1. The day of the Ulsan concert, Siyoung jolts awake to the sound of Sungmin's rough voice in his ear. He rolls over and crushes his face into his pillow to get away from the noise, but it follows him, incessant and unyielding, like a very persistent mosquito. "Come on, dude." A push to Siyoung's side. "Time to get up." Another push, fingers digging into his skin through his flimsy sleep shirt. "We have sound check in an hour."
This early in the morning-well, it'd be the afternoon already if sound check was in an hour, but that's beside the point. The point is that this early in the day, Siyoung hates rooming with Sungmin on the road. Can't be helped. Late to bed and late to rise, Siyoung's carefully cultivated nocturnal schedule is always disrupted by Sungmin's annoying early-bird tendencies. Last year, every stop of the Ripple Effect concert had, without fail, begun with loud rustling at 7AM as Sungmin went through all five components of his morning workout routine. Siyoung's head aches just thinking about it.
Sungmin's body heat moves away, and his nagging along with it. Siyoung is allowed another three minutes to luxuriate in the warmth of his sheets before a splash of cold water breaks against his face. He splutters, breathing out through his nose as his eyes crack open, and sits straight up in bed.
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
Sungmin's doubled over at the foot of the mattress, laughing his ass off. He darts out of the way when Siyoung forces himself forward to smack him, straggly bangs dripping into his face. "Next time," Sungmin says, tossing the cup from hand to hand, "I can just get Daewoong-hyung to set fire to the bed, if you want."
"Fuck you, for real," Siyoung mutters, unable to think of anything snappier when his mouth tastes like someone's taken a piss in it. He sags backward, head knocking into the headboard, and wipes his face off on a pillow. When he looks up again, Sungmin's still gazing at him, eyebrows raised. "I'm awake, jackass. Thanks a lot."
"Welcome," Sungmin returns innocently, teeth flashing.
Takes another ten minutes for Siyoung to drag himself out of bed and totter to his suitcase. All things considered, it isn't as painful as he expects it to be. There may be a lot of things he hates about rooming together, but he doesn't hate obliquely watching Sungmin do boredom pushups on the floor while waiting for him to get dressed.
2. After years of consistent touring, Siyoung's gotten used to most of the little particularities of cross-country van rides: looking out the passenger's side window to fields upon fields of dry grass, yellowed over for the winter, eyes burning from staring at his phone too long. The way the air in rental vehicles goes stale within the first thirty minutes of every ride. How easy it is to nod off, lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of their car.
Changjoong shakes him awake when they get to Daegu. Siyoung scrubs away the line of drool that's escaped his half-open mouth and unfolds himself from the seat. It's freezing outside, made even worse by the stiff wind blowing down the street. Siyoung retracts his head into the cocoon of his turtleneck, eyes thinning into slits behind his glasses, and follows the outline of Sungmin's back into the hotel.
Aside from the minimum requisite amount of sleep, they tend not to spend a lot of time in their room. It's more a repository for their suitcases than anything. There's always too much to be done-last minute sound checks, shopping districts to crawl, after parties to attend. Sungmin's birthday is today, which means he spends what feels like half the show ducking pinches from Vasco and the other half crowdsurfing. Either Daegu's rowdier than usual, or getting two hours of sleep the night before in Ulsan is taking its toll, because Siyoung can barely stand up straight after the third encore.
"What you need is alcohol," Vasco says helpfully on the way back upstairs. "After party's open bar."
Siyoung snorts and leans further into Daewoong's side. "I'm always pro-drinking, but you do understand that means we're picking up the tab, right, old man?" He accepts Vasco's punch to the arm when it comes, mouth twitching with his grin.
In their room, Sungmin trades his white t-shirt for a fresh one that's completely identical. Siyoung catches a flash of the stupid tattoo scrawled across Sungmin's abdomen and swallows a laugh as the cotton drops over it again.
"That shirt's gonna be even sweatier than your concert one by the end of the party," Siyoung points out.
"Sure, Mom," Sungmin says. He shrugs his jacket back on, hood eclipsing his face. "If you're so worried, you can do my laundry when we get home."
"I'm just taking efficiency into consideration." Siyoung drags a hand across his eyes, blinks the stars out of his vision, and then extends his arm. Sungmin surveys him for a minute before crossing the room and sliding beneath it to shoulder Siyoung's weight. Siyoung's arm clamps around Sungmin's neck, legs floundering a little before his knees lock.
"You sure you're gonna be okay?"
"Yeah," Siyoung says, sagging against the hard line of Sungmin's body. He smiles when Sungmin grunts. "Just get me a cigarette."
On the flight back to Seoul the next morning, they're all hungover as shit. On Siyoung's right, Daewoong keeps burping every two minutes. Jury's out as to whether or not he's still drunk from last night. Two rows in front of them, Sungmin has the physical fortitude to turn around and pelt him with complimentary peanuts, so his headache can't be as bad as he says it is.
3. Sungmin fucking hates rooming with Siyoung.
No, that isn't totally fair. He just hates everything that comes along with living with Siyoung: half-finished bottles of sweet tea and empty takeout containers making their own little ecosystem on the heated floorboards, dirty dishes stinking up the sink, makeshift ashtrays everywhere, an ocean of sneakers at the front door to trip over in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom. The crisp clack of Siyoung clipping his nails at 3AM, or crunching on honey butter chips when Sungmin's trying to sleep.
Sungmin's house isn't the pinnacle of cleanliness, but at least there's no unidentified fungus growing in a plastic cup on his windowsill. The dust bunnies lurking in the unswept corners of Sungmin's room haven't mutated into dust dragons yet. Still, it's easier when they're in between concert stops to stay at Siyoung's new apartment in Seoul, closest to the office now, than going home and coming back to rehearse every day. The thin futon Siyoung drags out for him is more comfortable than the bunk beds in his studio. Having to listen to compilation tracks blare from Siyoung's phone at ass o'clock in the morning is a small price to pay.
They're living and breathing the same music for the next week, anyway. At this point Don rings in his ears at all hours of the day, intruding on his dreams, backtrack to his subconscious. The night before their flight to Busan, Sungmin rolls over after hours of practice and finds himself trapped in that bleary no-man's-land between waking and sleeping. He coughs twice, throat dry. Skit's playing over the intermittent clicks of the space heater. Can't tell if Siyoung's really bent over his laptop or if it's just another thing Sungmin's head came up with, but the unopened bottle of tea that his arm reaches up to catch on instinct feels real and solid. "Go back to bed," he hears Siyoung murmur. A moment later, the music cuts off as Siyoung plugs his earphones in.
4. In Busan, the hotel above the bar mixes rooms up and only gives them one bed. "At least it's a king," Siyoung comments drily, dragging his suitcase across the carpet. "Nothing we haven't done before."
It's true. Sungmin remembers nights spent vegetating on the floor of Changjoong's house, drunk and warm, comfortable even with someone's foot wedged into his back. Prior knowledge shouldn't make this feel any different, but he doesn't really get much time to think about it. Sound check is in ten. They've got a long night ahead of them.
Contrary to popular belief, Sungmin's favorite thing about performing isn't that he gets to take his shirt off all the time. It's been years since he first got on stage with a microphone in his hand, but it's still humbling to shout into it and hear of the roar of the crowd shout back. The Rain Shower encore call and response is the best part of every night. He doesn't have to do any work during the chorus at all, just bends over, points the mike at a sweaty face in the front row of the audience and lets them take it away.
They're still singing it at the after party. Sleety rain's starting to come down outside, but the inside of the bar is so hot it's almost uncomfortable. The rounds of soju Daewoong keeps ordering don't help. His answer to various questions about his solo album get progressively less coherent as the night wears on. By one in the morning, having embarrassed himself at length on the dance floor, Siyoung falls back into their booth, giggling into his palm. "Having fun?" Sungmin asks, tossing an uncaring arm over Siyoung's shoulders.
All he gets is a wet hiccup in reply. Sungmin lets out a huff of laughter and squints up at the disco ball twirling on the ceiling. That's about how he feels, too.
The bar doesn't clear out till well past three. Sungmin's relegated sole responsibility of dragging Siyoung back up to their hotel room. They trip over the threshold together, feet dumb and heavy. Sungmin spends five minutes groping for the light switch before giving up and helping them feel their way to the bed instead. They almost make it without banging into anything, but gravity is hard when he's this drunk. Siyoung's ankle gets twisted in his and they land with a loud thud on the mattress, Siyoung sprawled on top of him, a bony knee bruising Sungmin's thigh.
"Get off me," he grumbles, wriggling.
"No. I like it here." Siyoung's latched onto him like a fucking leech. Sungmin's head is spinning too much for him to bench press him up and away.
Relaxing seems to relieve some of the crushing weight. Siyoung's a pretty warm blanket. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, Sungmin's hands float down to Siyoung's waist of their own volition. He's trying to shift into a more comfortable position when something wet grazes the side of his neck.
Sungmin tenses, but he doesn't move. "Shit," Siyoung mumbles, exhaling across Sungmin's collarbone, and then he's hauling himself up, eyes glittering in the low light. A thin hand braces itself against Sungmin's chest. Sungmin could toss him off the edge of the bed now, easy, but he's not sure he wants to. His hands bunch in the thick material of Siyoung's coat. When Siyoung leans forward to straddle his crotch more firmly, Sungmin can feel the half-hard outline of Siyoung's cock through his jeans.
Sungmin doesn't currently possess the mental capacity to parse that one out, but he kinda gets the feeling it isn't that complicated. At any rate, he's still lucid enough to rasp, "Hey. Siyoung."
Siyoung's gaze trails up from Sungmin's chest to meet his eyes. His tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip. Sungmin watches the bump of his Adam's apple bob as he swallows. His face doesn't move any closer, but his other hand does come up to slide against the close crop of Sungmin's hair.
Sungmin exhales slowly. Resists the urge to lean into the impromptu scalp massage. "We gotta sleep," he says, finally, squeezing Siyoung's hip.
Siyoung leans forward. A blink of an eye passes like an hour here in the time dilation of the extremely wasted, and Sungmin almost thinks Siyoung's going to kiss him. It's a near miss. Siyoung's head lands in the vicinity of his ear, instead. In the next moment, stretching out beyond eternity, his breathing evens out.
In the morning, Sungmin wakes up to spectacular face bloat and, for the first time, a completely empty hotel room. The whole place is pristine. Even Siyoung's luggage is gone. It takes a lot of hydrating and a painful shower for Sungmin to remember everything properly. When it comes back to him, the careful press of Siyoung's body against his, the feeling of Siyoung's mouth against his pulse, Sungmin's headache gets ten times worse. Shit, shit. He's the last one out to the van.
(5. The ride to Gwangju's too quiet. Or-well, rides are always quiet, but this time it's the wrong kind of quiet. Too tense, too awkward. Siyoung doesn't look back once, but he isn't asleep-Sungmin can hear his phone clacking all the way from the back. He settles for staring at Daewoong's dozing profile. Nurses the tattered remains of his hangover with the bottles of water rolling around on the floor of the trunk.
He really fucking needs to pee by the time they get to the hotel. When he comes back out to the lobby after relieving himself, Siyoung's nowhere to be found. In his place, Changjoong's brandishing a set of keycards in his hand. To his credit, he doesn't ask.
Sound check is an unmitigated disaster. Rehearsal wise it goes okay, but Siyoung won't even stay on the same side of the stage as Sungmin. There's a moment during practice for Don where the two of them are lowkey running in circles around a bemused Vasco, who gives them a couple of curious looks but ultimately says nothing. Sungmin gives up after that. Trying to keep up with Siyoung often felt like attempting to catch a fish with his bare hands. Not for the first time, he kind of wishes Swings were still around, if only to kick some sense into Siyoung's ass.
Sungmin abstains from the recreational drinking after the show that evening. It wouldn't help him sleep better, anyway. He signs his own weight in Ripple Effect albums and watches Siyoung make a fool of himself on the dance floor again, from the safe distance of the bar. Sungmin stares down at his folded hands and tries not to dwell on how shit it feels to not be talking.
Of course, as luck would have it, Changjoong snores like a goddamn vacuum cleaner when he's drunk. Sungmin lies awake staring at the ceiling for an hour before sliding his feet back in his combat boots. Across the street from the hotel lobby, the bar's closed down for the night, but a lone figure's sitting out on the curb, huddled against the wind.
Sungmin definitely isn't dressed to be outside, but he pushes the door open and walks out anyway. There's a lit cigarette hanging in between Siyoung's long fingers. He doesn't move away when Sungmin sits down next to him, not so close that they're touching anywhere, but close enough that smoke gets in Sungmin's face when Siyoung breathes out.
"Couldn't sleep?" Sungmin asks, teeth chattering.
"Something like that."
Sungmin cranes his neck back to stare up at the cloudless sky. "Yeah. Me neither."
They sit like that for a while, just listening to each other breathe. Then: "Weird," Siyoung mumbles, staring at the pavement. He sounds a little angry at himself, or maybe just resigned. "It was too weird, not rooming with you."
Can't live with it, can't live without it, Sungmin thinks. He pulls at the strings of his hoodie, cold fingers twisting in between the laces. Kicks at the burnt-down butts littered next to the curb. Without looking at him, Siyoung holds his cigarette out. Sungmin hasn't actually smoked in years, bad for the body, bad for the soul, but he knows an olive branch when he sees one. He plucks it out of Siyoung's hand and takes a long drag.
"Your new tattoo is ridiculous, you know," Siyoung says abruptly, and Sungmin half thinks he's drunk again. When he turns and stares right at him, though, his eyes are clear. "What are you doing out here?"
Sungmin winces. "Freezing my ass off."
"I'm being serious."
"Me too, man." He rubs a finger against his lower lip and frowns. "I dunno, you've just been acting weird since yesterday, the hotel room-"
"So you think it's weird," Siyoung says flatly.
"No-listen, dammit." He takes another frustrated drag of the cigarette. It goes down the wrong way and he starts coughing, chest tight. His eyes squeeze shut as he pounds on his chest to get all the smoke out.
When he opens them again, Siyoung's cackling, gaze softer. "I'm listening."
"Honestly, fuck you," Sungmin mutters. He passes the cigarette back and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "It was weird for me, too, okay? That's all."
"That's it?" The familiar, lopsided smile appears on Siyoung's face. If shit-eating grins were trademarked, Siyoung would be the sole owner of the patent. A wave of relief floods through Sungmin's chest, expanding to tingle in his fingers. He hadn't known he'd even missed it. "Just admit it. You can't even go a day without me." There's something in his voice that Sungmin can't interpret until he scoots closer. Sungmin recognizes the stubborn set in his jaw-from a day ago, from November and their trip to Jeju, from the way Siyoung watched him sometimes when they were practicing in the studio. His retort (doesn't that mean you couldn't last a day without me, either?) dies in the back of Sungmin's throat.
All the warning he gets is Siyoung's iron grip against the nape of his neck, and then they're kissing, two idiots attached at the mouth, slowly turning into popsicles on the side of the road. Post-concert nights have ended much worse. Siyoung tastes like a fucking ashtray, but his tongue is warm. Their shared body heat is enough to keep Sungmin rooted where he sits.
When Siyoung pulls back, his lips are slick with spit. His hand is still digging into Sungmin's shoulder. "Was that weird?"
"A little," Sungmin says thoughtfully, licking the raw spot behind his lip where Siyoung's teeth had sunk in. "But I could get used to it."
They kiss again. Keep kissing, hard and wet and hurried, until Sungmin's stomach lets out a pitiful noise. The only grocery on the street open this late (or early) is a 24-hour FamilyMart diving off the corner. Sungmin stocks up on onigiri and steals half of Siyoung's dukbokki. After that, Siyoung tastes less like ash and more like gochujang.
"You know," Siyoung says on the walk back to the hotel, "you might as well move in, too." He shrugs when Sungmin raises his eyebrows. "You're practically subletting, anyway."
"No thank you," Sungmin says, grimacing. He points the thin wooden stick in his hand at Siyoung's face. "You are a horrible roommate. You never fucking clean."
"I could learn to," Siyoung offers. "For you."
"Who are you? That's almost disgustingly romantic," Sungmin accuses, and laughs when Siyoung reaches out to smack his arm.)
fin