second's not the same
title: second's not the same
pairing: hakyeon/jaehwan
rating: pg-13
word count: 2,113
summary: hakyeon had never meant to let himself fall so quickly, or so easily. he never wanted to get attached in the first place.
"You fooled me from the start
when you let me start to love you" - The Neighbourhood, "Leaving Tonight"
Hakyeon had never meant to let himself fall so quickly, or so easily. He never wanted to get attached in the first place.
They never even kissed.
Except once. They had been in Taekwoon and Sanghyuk’s apartment (although Hongbin was such a frequent visitor he may as well have lived there; he was actually the one who invited them in the first place), all five of them with judgment slightly fuzzy due to the collection of bottles on the floor at various stages of emptiness. They sat in a circle, legs crossed, playing spin the bottle - “a child’s game,” Taekwoon had protested - on someone’s (Hongbin’s) suggestion. Hakyeon found most of his entertainment in the glares Taekwoon would send when Hongbin kissed someone just a little too long, and of course Hongbin would smirk afterwards as he was perfectly aware of what he was doing. It was a game to him: wind him up and watch him go.
Hakyeon got nervous for his own turns, but for the past two the bottle had pointed at Sanghyuk so when it happened for the third time in a row he felt almost relieved. Sanghyuk whined about it (loudly with drawn out vowels) but nothing could mask his wicked grin which Hongbin teased and in return received a punch on the shoulder that landed the upper half of his body in Taekwoon’s lap.
For everyone else’s turn he found himself more relaxed with the exception of the single time Jaehwan’s spin landed on him. Jaehwan leaned over almost immediately (“it’s just a game”) wanting to get it over with, but Hakyeon could feel his heart beating in his chest, and when Jaehwan leaned in he leaned away. He was hoping no one noticed, but felt Taekwoon’s hand in the small of his back, holding him in place (some kind of “if I had to do this, so do you” thing). The kiss was chaste, over in a second, and made Hakyeon wonder why he had been so worked up in the first place.
But it was over, and Hakyeon was able to release a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding, relaxed until the end of the game that was marked by Sanghyuk’s lack of interest, coinciding directly with the emptying of the last bottle. It took a hefty amount of internal motivation and a hand from Hongbin for Hakyeon to pick himself up off of the floor.
He brushed off his clothes and looked around the room. Sanghyuk had already retreated to his room while Taekwoon was cleaning up what had been left on the floor and Hongbin laid sprawled out on the couch watching but not offering help, expressing his impatience through an amplified yawn.
There was hand on his shoulder and he jumped, a delayed shout escaping his lips a second later, and two people in the room started laughing: Hongbin, who had seen everything from his spot on the couch, and Jaehwan, the one on the other side of the hand who had simply wanted to ask a question and hadn’t meant to startle him. Hakyeon sighed, relaxing his body through the breath, and met Jaehwan’s eyes with a small frown pulling at his lips.
Jaehwan smiled, a big grin that was all teeth and made him weak at the knees (a reaction he blamed on the fuzz in his brain), then apologized, “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he didn’t have his giggles under control until the end of the sentence. “I was just wondering if you could walk me back to my place.” Hakyeon stared and Jaehwan must have noticed his confusion because he began to explain. “I don’t know if my roommate is back, is all. I forgot my keys so if he’s not there I don’t want to sit outside of the door all night.”
Hakyeon nodded. He had forgotten that Jaehwan lived a few doors down. “But if you’re locked out, why don’t you just come back here?”
Jaehwan scoffed, then used his eyes to direct Hakyeon’s attention to Taekwoon and Hongbin, but Hakyeon still didn’t get it. “I just don’t want to be alone, okay?” he finally admitted, exasperated.
Hakyeon chuckled. “Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?” He was just teasing, but Jaehwan wasn't amused. Hakyeon turned to say his farewells, but no one responded, so he and Jaehwan left together, accidentally letting the door slam on the way out.
The hallway was slightly chillier than the apartment building, and Hakyeon rubbed his hands on his arms in hope that the friction would warm him. Jaehwan’s room was on the other end of the hallway, and Jaehwan stared at it for a second before he reached out his hand to test the doorknob and the door opened. “He must be have come back,” he remarked almost too quiet for Hakyeon to hear and walked inside. Hakyeon stood outside and was about to turn to leave when Jaehwan asked, “Aren’t you going to come in?”
Hakyeon stared at him. “I was just going to go back to my place. Are you sure?”
“You’re my friend,” Jaehwan said with a shrug, as if it explained everything. “Besides, you don’t need to be driving.”
Hakyeon didn’t bother mentioning that he didn’t have a car (and Jaehwan knew it, he had simply forgotten for a moment) as he stepped into the apartment and slipped his shoes off. He looked around the room but saw no sign of anyone else. “Are you sure he’s back and that it’s not just unlocked because you left your key here?”
“Even better.” Jaehwan let his weight fall onto the couch, and Hakyeon noticed his shoes were still on despite being untied. Jaehwan patted a spot on the couch next to him before gesturing to Hakyeon. “Come here.”
They didn’t kiss after the game that night. Not once.
But they touched. A lot.
And Jaehwan was good at it. It didn’t take him long to figure out exactly how to make Hakyeon sigh and gasp, his fingers dancing and gliding across his skin in a way that made Hakyeon think they had a mind of their own.
But they were nothing more than those stolen touches. That message was clear enough when Hakyeon woke up with Jaehwan’s back to him and a fair amount of space between them. When he left (before Jaehwan could wake up) he made sure to leave a pot of hot coffee (for when he did). When he saw Jaehwan a few days later he acted as if nothing had happened.
Hongbin choked on his drink when he found out, a bit of iced coffee dripping down his chin to be quickly mopped up with a napkin. Hakyeon rolled his eyes and reached to offer a pat on the back, but Hongbin had stopped coughing. “I’m sorry,” he said after another sip of his drink, “you just never struck me as the one-night-stand kind of guy.”
Hakyeon shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe you’re right.” He let his head fall and rested his chin on his hand, using his free hand to stir his own drink with his straw. “I don’t know.”
But Hongbin was right, because it kept happening. And every time Jaehwan got close Hakyeon couldn’t help but feel he was being pushed farther away.
He wanted to say something. It had been two months and his feelings had been eating him from the inside and were trying desperately to push themselves out of his chest.
But Jaehwan didn’t seem to notice - or care, but Hakyeon didn’t think that was the case for he had never known Jaehwan to be so cold on purpose. But that didn’t do anything to ease the sting.
He was going to confess, he decided, to himself as much as Jaehwan. He had flowers this time, an attempt to present the sincerity of his feelings that hadn’t yet been understood. They were a deep red orange colour, and he ran his fingertips over a few of the petals, fascinated by the soft smoothness. He had put a lot of thought into choosing them and his emotional well-being seemed to ride on Jaehwan’s acceptance. He had written a note on a small card and stuck it into the center of the bunch. It took him three tries to write the card, three tries to be satisfied with his penmanship. Finally pleased, he opened the front camera on his phone, making sure his hair and outfit were perfectly in order before walking out of the door.
To put it shortly, it was a disaster.
Hakyeon didn’t take a cab, he didn’t have much change to spare at that point in the month, so of course it started to rain, and it rained without mercy. It had been nice weather when he had gotten the flowers, so he opted to not wear a coat. When he entered Jaehwan’s apartment building his hair was dripping and his shoes left small puddles as footprints.
He didn’t text Jaehwan ahead of time, so he didn’t answer the door, and had Hakyeon decided to text then maybe the situation that followed could have been avoided.
Because Jaehwan didn’t answer the door, but someone else did. It was some shirtless guy that Hakyeon didn’t recognize. He had mussed up, blond-dyed hair with dark roots and sleepy eyes, and looked him up in down in a way that made him more nervous than uncomfortable. Hakyeon had hidden the flowers behind his back before he knocked on the door, and was glad for that.
He heard Jaehwan’s voice from inside the apartment, rapidly coming closer. “Wonsik? Who’s at the door?”
Wonsik? That wasn’t his roommate’s name.
Wonsik moved aside and Jaehwan took his place in the door, a look of surprise crossing his face the second he saw Hakyeon. “You’re soaked.”
“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon muttered, bringing his gaze down to his own shoes. “I should have said something ahead of time. I didn’t know it was inconvenient for you.” His hands were shaking behind his back and he was afraid to speak for fear his voice trembling just as badly. It all made sense after that, the reason why Jaehwan had been distant and much less than eager to commit.
Jaehwan stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “What’s going on? Do we need to talk?”
Hakyeon still had his face looking down at the ground, and a couple tears slid from his eyes to his cheeks. He didn’t wipe them because he didn’t want Jaehwan to notice he was crying, using all of his energy to will them not to succumb to gravity and reveal themselves.
“Hakyeon.”
He forgot the tears and looked up, sniffling loudly and swallowing his whimpers. Jaehwan reached over to try and comfort him with a hug, but Hakyeon stepped back and shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand now. You don’t have to explain anything.” He dropped the flowers before turning to leave at a pace dangerously close to jogging. If he had remembered the note he wouldn’t have done it, but it was too late and by the time Jaehwan called after him he was already outside.
The rain hadn’t let up since he had gone in, but since he was already soaked going inside it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. There was a bench a few meters down the road, made of metal so it wet the seat of his pants when he sat on it, but he disregarded it as he held his head in his hands and sobbed.
The nice thing about the city was that people walked by and pretended not to notice. The day-to-day routine held much more importance than a random man crying on the side of the street.
If it wasn’t for Sanghyuk noticing him when he returned to the apartment building and dragging his sorry, water-logged butt inside, he didn’t know when he would have done so himself. Taekwoon wrapped him in a blanket and made some tea, anything to keep him warm, but it took more time than anything to coax the words out of him, and even then most of what he was able to manage were whimpered repetitions of Jaehwan’s name.
Taekwoon was visibly tense, and Hakyeon had to beg him not to go down the hall and confront him. He had already ruined Jaehwan’s night enough, he didn’t need Taekwoon making it worse.
He fell asleep on their couch that night. He knew he’d be sore in the morning, but the ache of loneliness promised by his own apartment would have been much more unbearable.
pairing: hakyeon/jaehwan
rating: pg-13
word count: 2,113
summary: hakyeon had never meant to let himself fall so quickly, or so easily. he never wanted to get attached in the first place.
"You fooled me from the start
when you let me start to love you" - The Neighbourhood, "Leaving Tonight"
Hakyeon had never meant to let himself fall so quickly, or so easily. He never wanted to get attached in the first place.
They never even kissed.
Except once. They had been in Taekwoon and Sanghyuk’s apartment (although Hongbin was such a frequent visitor he may as well have lived there; he was actually the one who invited them in the first place), all five of them with judgment slightly fuzzy due to the collection of bottles on the floor at various stages of emptiness. They sat in a circle, legs crossed, playing spin the bottle - “a child’s game,” Taekwoon had protested - on someone’s (Hongbin’s) suggestion. Hakyeon found most of his entertainment in the glares Taekwoon would send when Hongbin kissed someone just a little too long, and of course Hongbin would smirk afterwards as he was perfectly aware of what he was doing. It was a game to him: wind him up and watch him go.
Hakyeon got nervous for his own turns, but for the past two the bottle had pointed at Sanghyuk so when it happened for the third time in a row he felt almost relieved. Sanghyuk whined about it (loudly with drawn out vowels) but nothing could mask his wicked grin which Hongbin teased and in return received a punch on the shoulder that landed the upper half of his body in Taekwoon’s lap.
For everyone else’s turn he found himself more relaxed with the exception of the single time Jaehwan’s spin landed on him. Jaehwan leaned over almost immediately (“it’s just a game”) wanting to get it over with, but Hakyeon could feel his heart beating in his chest, and when Jaehwan leaned in he leaned away. He was hoping no one noticed, but felt Taekwoon’s hand in the small of his back, holding him in place (some kind of “if I had to do this, so do you” thing). The kiss was chaste, over in a second, and made Hakyeon wonder why he had been so worked up in the first place.
But it was over, and Hakyeon was able to release a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding, relaxed until the end of the game that was marked by Sanghyuk’s lack of interest, coinciding directly with the emptying of the last bottle. It took a hefty amount of internal motivation and a hand from Hongbin for Hakyeon to pick himself up off of the floor.
He brushed off his clothes and looked around the room. Sanghyuk had already retreated to his room while Taekwoon was cleaning up what had been left on the floor and Hongbin laid sprawled out on the couch watching but not offering help, expressing his impatience through an amplified yawn.
There was hand on his shoulder and he jumped, a delayed shout escaping his lips a second later, and two people in the room started laughing: Hongbin, who had seen everything from his spot on the couch, and Jaehwan, the one on the other side of the hand who had simply wanted to ask a question and hadn’t meant to startle him. Hakyeon sighed, relaxing his body through the breath, and met Jaehwan’s eyes with a small frown pulling at his lips.
Jaehwan smiled, a big grin that was all teeth and made him weak at the knees (a reaction he blamed on the fuzz in his brain), then apologized, “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he didn’t have his giggles under control until the end of the sentence. “I was just wondering if you could walk me back to my place.” Hakyeon stared and Jaehwan must have noticed his confusion because he began to explain. “I don’t know if my roommate is back, is all. I forgot my keys so if he’s not there I don’t want to sit outside of the door all night.”
Hakyeon nodded. He had forgotten that Jaehwan lived a few doors down. “But if you’re locked out, why don’t you just come back here?”
Jaehwan scoffed, then used his eyes to direct Hakyeon’s attention to Taekwoon and Hongbin, but Hakyeon still didn’t get it. “I just don’t want to be alone, okay?” he finally admitted, exasperated.
Hakyeon chuckled. “Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?” He was just teasing, but Jaehwan wasn't amused. Hakyeon turned to say his farewells, but no one responded, so he and Jaehwan left together, accidentally letting the door slam on the way out.
The hallway was slightly chillier than the apartment building, and Hakyeon rubbed his hands on his arms in hope that the friction would warm him. Jaehwan’s room was on the other end of the hallway, and Jaehwan stared at it for a second before he reached out his hand to test the doorknob and the door opened. “He must be have come back,” he remarked almost too quiet for Hakyeon to hear and walked inside. Hakyeon stood outside and was about to turn to leave when Jaehwan asked, “Aren’t you going to come in?”
Hakyeon stared at him. “I was just going to go back to my place. Are you sure?”
“You’re my friend,” Jaehwan said with a shrug, as if it explained everything. “Besides, you don’t need to be driving.”
Hakyeon didn’t bother mentioning that he didn’t have a car (and Jaehwan knew it, he had simply forgotten for a moment) as he stepped into the apartment and slipped his shoes off. He looked around the room but saw no sign of anyone else. “Are you sure he’s back and that it’s not just unlocked because you left your key here?”
“Even better.” Jaehwan let his weight fall onto the couch, and Hakyeon noticed his shoes were still on despite being untied. Jaehwan patted a spot on the couch next to him before gesturing to Hakyeon. “Come here.”
They didn’t kiss after the game that night. Not once.
But they touched. A lot.
And Jaehwan was good at it. It didn’t take him long to figure out exactly how to make Hakyeon sigh and gasp, his fingers dancing and gliding across his skin in a way that made Hakyeon think they had a mind of their own.
But they were nothing more than those stolen touches. That message was clear enough when Hakyeon woke up with Jaehwan’s back to him and a fair amount of space between them. When he left (before Jaehwan could wake up) he made sure to leave a pot of hot coffee (for when he did). When he saw Jaehwan a few days later he acted as if nothing had happened.
Hongbin choked on his drink when he found out, a bit of iced coffee dripping down his chin to be quickly mopped up with a napkin. Hakyeon rolled his eyes and reached to offer a pat on the back, but Hongbin had stopped coughing. “I’m sorry,” he said after another sip of his drink, “you just never struck me as the one-night-stand kind of guy.”
Hakyeon shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe you’re right.” He let his head fall and rested his chin on his hand, using his free hand to stir his own drink with his straw. “I don’t know.”
But Hongbin was right, because it kept happening. And every time Jaehwan got close Hakyeon couldn’t help but feel he was being pushed farther away.
He wanted to say something. It had been two months and his feelings had been eating him from the inside and were trying desperately to push themselves out of his chest.
But Jaehwan didn’t seem to notice - or care, but Hakyeon didn’t think that was the case for he had never known Jaehwan to be so cold on purpose. But that didn’t do anything to ease the sting.
He was going to confess, he decided, to himself as much as Jaehwan. He had flowers this time, an attempt to present the sincerity of his feelings that hadn’t yet been understood. They were a deep red orange colour, and he ran his fingertips over a few of the petals, fascinated by the soft smoothness. He had put a lot of thought into choosing them and his emotional well-being seemed to ride on Jaehwan’s acceptance. He had written a note on a small card and stuck it into the center of the bunch. It took him three tries to write the card, three tries to be satisfied with his penmanship. Finally pleased, he opened the front camera on his phone, making sure his hair and outfit were perfectly in order before walking out of the door.
To put it shortly, it was a disaster.
Hakyeon didn’t take a cab, he didn’t have much change to spare at that point in the month, so of course it started to rain, and it rained without mercy. It had been nice weather when he had gotten the flowers, so he opted to not wear a coat. When he entered Jaehwan’s apartment building his hair was dripping and his shoes left small puddles as footprints.
He didn’t text Jaehwan ahead of time, so he didn’t answer the door, and had Hakyeon decided to text then maybe the situation that followed could have been avoided.
Because Jaehwan didn’t answer the door, but someone else did. It was some shirtless guy that Hakyeon didn’t recognize. He had mussed up, blond-dyed hair with dark roots and sleepy eyes, and looked him up in down in a way that made him more nervous than uncomfortable. Hakyeon had hidden the flowers behind his back before he knocked on the door, and was glad for that.
He heard Jaehwan’s voice from inside the apartment, rapidly coming closer. “Wonsik? Who’s at the door?”
Wonsik? That wasn’t his roommate’s name.
Wonsik moved aside and Jaehwan took his place in the door, a look of surprise crossing his face the second he saw Hakyeon. “You’re soaked.”
“I’m sorry,” Hakyeon muttered, bringing his gaze down to his own shoes. “I should have said something ahead of time. I didn’t know it was inconvenient for you.” His hands were shaking behind his back and he was afraid to speak for fear his voice trembling just as badly. It all made sense after that, the reason why Jaehwan had been distant and much less than eager to commit.
Jaehwan stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “What’s going on? Do we need to talk?”
Hakyeon still had his face looking down at the ground, and a couple tears slid from his eyes to his cheeks. He didn’t wipe them because he didn’t want Jaehwan to notice he was crying, using all of his energy to will them not to succumb to gravity and reveal themselves.
“Hakyeon.”
He forgot the tears and looked up, sniffling loudly and swallowing his whimpers. Jaehwan reached over to try and comfort him with a hug, but Hakyeon stepped back and shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand now. You don’t have to explain anything.” He dropped the flowers before turning to leave at a pace dangerously close to jogging. If he had remembered the note he wouldn’t have done it, but it was too late and by the time Jaehwan called after him he was already outside.
The rain hadn’t let up since he had gone in, but since he was already soaked going inside it didn’t seem to make much of a difference. There was a bench a few meters down the road, made of metal so it wet the seat of his pants when he sat on it, but he disregarded it as he held his head in his hands and sobbed.
The nice thing about the city was that people walked by and pretended not to notice. The day-to-day routine held much more importance than a random man crying on the side of the street.
If it wasn’t for Sanghyuk noticing him when he returned to the apartment building and dragging his sorry, water-logged butt inside, he didn’t know when he would have done so himself. Taekwoon wrapped him in a blanket and made some tea, anything to keep him warm, but it took more time than anything to coax the words out of him, and even then most of what he was able to manage were whimpered repetitions of Jaehwan’s name.
Taekwoon was visibly tense, and Hakyeon had to beg him not to go down the hall and confront him. He had already ruined Jaehwan’s night enough, he didn’t need Taekwoon making it worse.
He fell asleep on their couch that night. He knew he’d be sore in the morning, but the ache of loneliness promised by his own apartment would have been much more unbearable.