Work Text:
"Delivery!”
Suho's voice, succeeded by two sharp knocks, suddenly pulls Sieun out of his marathoning-Math-worksheets-induced haze that had been going steady for three hours.
When he goes to open the door, his head is still spinning from the headrush. Suho stands there with the same bright grin and takeout in his hands that greets Sieun most days of the week. Something in him releases, shoulders loosening and the pressure behind his eyes lightening.
Sieun used to study with no end in sight—his only reward being his grades, but even those left him empty. These days though, seeing Suho after every expendable minute of his day is spent studying feels like that long-awaited reward he had been chasing after all this time.
When Suho shoves in in his usual manner, Sieun notices that he is carrying another bag.
“What's that?” Sieun asks, pointing at it.
“This,” Suho says while raising the bag and pumping out his chest, “is the beginning of your self care era.”
Sieun blinks at him. “My what now.”
Suho nods and barrels on. “I refuse to let that beautiful face shrivel into nothing.”
Sieun averts his gaze for a moment, cheeks blooming with heat. There he goes again. . .
In his pursuit of studying, Sieun ignores a lot of things in life. He ignores how his classmates discuss crushes in the lunch break while he gets another literature reading done. He ignores his hunger pangs in favour of just one more problem set. He ignores basic skincare which leaves his skin dry and rough and cracked lips smarting, because it’s a waste of precious time he could be using towards completing his labs.
And now Suho stands there in front of him as a burgeoning embodiment of all the things he used to ignore but cannot anymore.
Because Sieun ignores a lot of things in life, but he can never ignore Suho.
So after dinner, he lets Suho seat him down on his bed as he upends the contents of the skincare bag between them. Apparently, it's all courtesy of Youngyi, whose rigorous skincare routine intrigued Suho into joining her every night. To his surprise, it's a modest selection of items—sheets of facemasks, a bottle of serum, lip balms in two different flavours. It's the last pair of things that give him a pause.
He gingerly picks up the headbands, stroking along the brightly coloured terrycloth. One's in the make of a rabbit, while the other's a fox. He looks at Suho in askance. “You got these from Youngyi too?”
Suho, who is usually so shameless and unruffled, actually blushes. “I bought them for us, actually. Figured we shouldn't be using used ones, you know?”
Knowing that Suho lives hand to mouth supporting his parents abroad and grandmother, spending his hard-earned money on an indulgence for Sieun's sake. . . He wants to scold him, yet he can't help the warmth spreading through his chest at the gesture.
So he keeps quiet as Suho, in an echo from that very first bike ride, gently puts the rabbit-eared headband around his head. The band rests comfortably on his forehead, bangs pushed back and away from his face.
Suho stops and stares at him for a long moment. Oddly, his face grows red, almost like an alcohol flush. His eyes blink rapidly as if in a daze. Haltingly, he says, “Wow, Yeon Sieun, you. . .”
Sieun tilts his head in confusion, feeling one of the floppy ears gently fall sideways on top of his head. It was unlike Suho to be at a loss for words.
Suho clears his throat exaggeratedly and quickly puts his own headband on. His features being fox-like is a comparison that has been made ad nauseum. Now with the fox ears poking out of his head it makes such a fetching sight that Sieun is hit with a wave of this helpless feeling where he doesn't know what to do with himself. It's entirely too cute .
Sieun distracts himself by turning his attention to the products between them. “What next?”
“Now,” Suho says while ripping open the sheet masks, handing the packet with an illustration of a pomegranate to Sieun while he keeps the one with blueberries for himself. “We put this on for twenty minutes and relax.”
Suho shows him how to apply it to his face, carefully angling the cut holes on his eyes, nose, and mouth. The mask is too cold on his skin, making a shiver briefly dance down his spine before his body adjusts to the temperature.
Suho looks absolutely ridiculous, and Sieun is sure he does too. He's proven right when Suho insists on taking a selfie to send to Youngyi—their mask-clad faces pushed together with their matching headbands.
It's a silly photo. When Suho isn't looking he quickly sends it to his own chat. He makes it their chatroom background.
Sieun tries to go back to studying for the next twenty minutes it would take for the mask to do its magic, but Suho swiftly blocks his way.
“Sieun-ah~ You are supposed to be relaxing. Absolutely not.”
Sieun sighs. “What else am I supposed to do?”
Suho brightens. “Help me clear some Cookie Run rounds.”
As is becoming the pattern, Sieun ignores his books, once again, in front of Suho’s pleading.
And Sieun can't deny, it is relaxing. The cooling mask on his face, the rhythmic jump-slide of his fingers on the screen, and Suho tucked into his side—Sieun can't remember the last time he truly felt this relaxed and content.
They take off their masks once the twenty minutes are up, and Sieun copies Suho as he rubs the serum on his face in a series of aggressive taps.
“You have to be quicker and firmer with it,” Suho says, and then decides to take over to do it himself. Sieun lets him dab at his face all over with the precision of a soldier. By the end of it his cheeks bunch together by Suho’s hands where he just holds them there.
“Mmm look how soft your skin is now, my mochi ball,” Suho coos, squeezing his cheeks further.
“Knock it off,” Sieun mutters through the enforced pout.
“But isn't it so nice~” Suho grins. His eyes then widen with sudden realization. “Oh right! Last step.”
He brandishes the tubes of lipbalm like they're the golden chalice. “Your lips are begging. Please put them out of their misery, your highness.”
Sieun rolls his eyes at the dorkish display, fond despite himself. Right . The issue of Sieun's chapped lips is apparently discussed far and wide—by which he means from Suho and Youngyi to his friends at Eunjang. Something about the sight making them physically wince in pain or whatever. Sieun thinks they're all being a tad too dramatic.
He chooses the strawberry one. He briefly wonders if Youngyi only has fruit-flavoured products or if Suho specifically chose them.
Thankfully, the flavour isn't obtrusively strong when he applies it on his lips. But it is present enough that when he smacks them he can taste it on his tongue.
Suho looks over in interest. “Oh, does it taste like strawberry? Let me try.”
Sieun offers him the lipbalm, expecting him to apply it on his own self.
Instead, Suho leans over and kisses him.
What.
It's chaste, but lasts a second too long before Suho pulls away, smacking his own lips in consideration.
Sieun's mind blanks.
Since the past few months Sieun and Suho had been teetering on the edge of that unnamable thing between them. Like spring that gently creeps up on you, in the flower bud that is steadily nurtured until the day it blooms, they didn't need any grand confessions to make it obvious.
There had been too many near misses where they almost kissed, always getting interrupted because none of them were consciously planned. They never talked about it later.
And now, Suho does it just like that. Their first kiss. So nonchalantly, like he has been doing it all his life.
“Yah. . . Ahn Suho, Yah!” Sieun yells in shock, cheeks aflame and lips tingling not from any chemical present in the lipbalm. “What was that? So suddenly?”
Suho pulls an innocent face before he smiles, then giggles, then laughs and laughs as Sieun chases him around the apartment.
Sieun isn't mad about any of it. But it's that helpless feeling again where he doesn't know what to do with himself—all his bottled up emotions fizzing to the surface. So he goes after the one who will always make it impossible to ignore what he has suppressed all his life.
And the walls of his home, so wholly unused to this energy, echoes their laughter back.
*