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chan holds his breath as he watches felix spin through the air, once, twice, twist, and his feet come down. left on chan’s arm, right on hyunjin’s. they absorb the impact, but it’s nothing, they barely even have to crouch. felix is doing all the work. the grip of his sport slippers sticks to chan’s arm, and he breathes out. another breath, and he makes the mistake of looking at hyunjin, who’s looking at felix. utter concentration, of course. it’s to be expected, but it’s just so different from how hyunjin normally looks, when he’s laughing or pouting or smirking. not throwing felix ten feet towards the gym rafters. speaking of, they crouch, tense, snap their arms up as felix jumps, collectively launching him into another double layout. chan watches hyunjin’s slender fingers spider up his forearms as they readjust their basket, and felix lands horizontally in their crib. they toss him upright onto the mat and he grins.
“we should all get pizza!” he says breathlessly, and chan’s eyes flicker to the clock far above on the opposite wall. practice has been going faster and faster lately, competition speed-trance setting in. or maybe chan’s just been distracted.
jisung dismounts the beam and performs a ridiculous salute in chan’s direction. “we deserve pizza. we’re the best gymnasts in the world.”
“right,” chan says. the rest of the team are gathering now, haphazardly doing cool-down stretches. “fine,” chan relents, “but after this it’s clean eating until the competition.”
hyunjin salutes with two fingers. “fish and broccoli from here on out.” he smirks. chan looks away.
“who’s putting up the mats?”
-
they walk two blocks to the family-owned place in a post-practice-jittery clump. that’s the good thing about koreatown, how close everything is. jisung circles minho, talking about how he’s soooo close to getting the third rotation in his triple twist. changbin and seungmin put headphones in, jeongin’s watching the worlds from last year, and hyunjin and felix are cuddled up as usual. chan averts his eyes until they’re sitting across from each other over a red-and-white checkered plastic tablecloth and it’s unavoidable.
“so, we should still be practicing our balance elements the most, i think, and we still might need to change the combination in the middle.”
a collective groan rises from the table. “please no competition talk at the table, chan. it makes me nauseous,” jisung complains.
so chan just sits, orders, eats, while hyunjin fixes felix’s hair and wipes sauce from the corner of felix’s mouth and giggles into felix’s shoulder.
“—or separate?” their waitress is saying when changbin prods chan’s ribs with his elbow.
“hm?” chan blinks back into the restaurant at large, out of the terrible, consuming bubble of hyunjin-and-felix.
“the bill?” the waitress repeats, receipt tucked between her forefingers.
“oh, i’ll get it,” chan says automatically, and reaches to take the slip of paper.
changbin and jisung high-five, having side-stepped their turn on the paying rotation. chan just blankly scribbles his signature on the line; his wallet coughs out a few bucks that he tucks into the checkbook before snapping it shut. when he looks up, hyunjin and felix are both watching him, hyunjin’s mouth pulled into part of a smile, felix sipping his lemon water. four dark eyes that somehow give the impression of being utilized by both of them at once.
“thank you for dinner, chan,” hyunjin says, felix breaking into a grin around the straw.
changbin takes the checkbook from him, but chan only registers the dull slide of it out of his hand.
“sure,” he manages, “any time.”
-
the next day hyunjin is spotting felix’s aerials when minho says, “do you think they’re fucking?”
chan feels his breath hitch; he tears his gaze away from the mats and coughs, then coughs again. “what? who?”
minho’s pencil keeps scratching out the choreographic notation for their routine, but his flinty eyes flicker up to chan. “who do you think?”
chan blows out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “well—no! i mean, i’ve never thought about it.” but he’s thinking about it now. “it’s none of our business.”
“do you want it to be your business?”
“why would you ask me that? you’re the one who brought it up.”
minho lifts a shoulder in a half-shrug, swaps the pencil into his left hand. “you’re the one who keeps staring at them.”
chan presses his lips together. “okay, this is banned. i’m banning this topic from gym conversation.”
“should i put up a sign?” minho asks, so serious it makes chan’s face heat.
“you should stop slumping in the one-armed flag,” he snaps, and goes over to help jisung with his beam dismount.
-
this is not chan’s life. chan’s life was interrupted two months ago when hwang hyunjin and lee felix walked into it, bags slung over their shoulders, bleach-blonde hair haloing them under the industrial lights. and now he’s living a strange, adjacent version of it. chan had been wary; lots of gymnasts think making the jump to acrobatic will be easy after they don’t qualify for the olympic team. but then they danced. and yes—it was dancing, not just skills set to music. gymnasts and coaches alike want to sometimes pretend that there’s overlap between the two, but chan’s never really seen an athlete that counts beats instead of breath, nor a dancer with the discipline to execute a triple pike. so, god sent those two to humble him. hyunjin bent and folded himself impossibly, felix weightlessly balanced on his counterpart’s head or shoulders or foot. they moved in perfect unison, their expressions impassive, toes pointed, then flexed.
they were good, probably better than anyone already on the team besides minho, and on top of that, felix’s application had informed chan in perfect, bubbly handwriting that he weighs a feather-light sixty-two kilograms. and they still needed a permanent topper—puberty was having its way within jeongin.
chan had weakly handed over the practice schedule.
before that, chan would’ve liked to say a lot of things. he would’ve liked to say that his acrobatic gymnastics team was the best in the country. he would’ve liked to say that his team was focused, serious, competitive. he would have loved to say that everyone got along, and they remained undistracted by petty gossip and interpersonal drama. but the truth is, chan will admit two months later, that the starstep gym for dance and gymnastics is abuzz with rumors, and only one of those things is true at any given moment.
-
it had been a nightmare reconfiguring the whole thing. chan and changbin stayed bases, but minho was not happy about being moved up to second middle instead of first, though jeongin seemed relieved that he wouldn’t be thrown into the air anymore. the rest was just. adjusting.
“are they aliens?” jisung asked immediately after the door swung closed behind them, following their first practice with the team.
“don’t be ridiculous,” chan sighed, sinking down into a butterfly.
“for once, i think jisung’s assessment is completely sane,” seungmin said drily.
chan laced his fingers over the toes of his sport slippers and pulled his feet towards himself, muscles still warm from a full practice. “they are not aliens. according to their applications, hyunjin comes from ballet, and felix was in olympic training.”
“well what happened there? put that kid on tv and the world forgets about the fierce fucking five just like that,” changbin snapped his fingers demonstrably.
“which one is which, again?” jeongin asked.
chan put his head to the knuckles of his thumbs. “hyunjin is taller.”
there was a tittering, fidgeting little silence. finally, minho said, “they’re pretty,” and the whole team shifted, the relief of the admittance palpable.
“they’re so pretty,” jisung agreed.
“so pretty it kind of makes you nauseous. like vertigo.”
“like a funhouse mirror but from victoria’s secret? and they’re standing on either side of it?”
“you’re thinking of a snapchat filter.”
“well, right. but in real life.”
“they’re not just, like, the miscellaneous kind of ‘pretty’ you admire for a half-second on the street,” seungmin said slowly. “they’re the kind of pretty that levels towns.”
jeongin grabbed the strap of seungmin’s leotard and snapped it. “gay.”
chan had just unfolded from his stretch and rounded them up to disassemble equipment.
but they weren’t wrong. hyunjin and felix were pretty—are pretty. chan can’t fucking escape their prettiness, so deeply does it permeate his thoughts, hyunjin’s hairtie in his mouth, arms raised to gather behind his head. felix’s cupid’s bow, the feature perfected by whatever holy sculptor fashioned him. hyunjin’s little beauty mark, felix’s dusting of freckles. more than that, the lines of them when they dance, when they jump, when they twist in the air. they’re good, chan tells himself, that’s the only thing that matters. but his eyes wander. to felix’s ski slope nose. to hyunjin’s delicate brow. and they keep reminding him, like a bolt of lightning each time: they’re pretty. a shimmering, brand-new-familiar realization, like he's known his whole life, like he's just found out—they’re pretty like girls, they’re pretty like models, like angels, like a two-headed dragon, like lovecraftian horrors, like it hurts, to be that pretty. hurts who, is the question.
/
felix’s room is all pink, like usual, and hyunjin dives onto the down comforter with relish. felix snorts and stoops to plug in the fairy lights that line the ceiling, then shrugs off his team jacket as he stands.
“i like the routine,” hyunjin says.
felix raises an eyebrow. “up to your exacting standards, mr. nutcracker?”
hyunjin grins and pulls felix by the wrist down next to him. “it’s fun.” their noses brush. he tucks felix’s bleached hair behind his ear. they’ll both have to do their roots soon. hyunjin is thinking of going back to black, though.
“the routine or…” felix asks, wiggling his eyebrows at an alarming rate.
“all of it,” hyunjin laughs, “but especially him.”
“especially him,” felix agrees.
hyunjin sighs, wistful even to his own ears. “do you think he’ll ever come on to me? i hate doing everything myself.”
“you love doing everything yourself,” felix corrects, rolling away to face the ceiling and its pink glow-in-the-dark stars. “you hate not being noticed while you’re doing it.”
“you are such a bitch to me.” hyunjin rolls away too. “what, you don’t think he’s handsome?”
felix reappears in hyunjin’s line of vision, replacing pink stars with pink blush. “of course i think he’s handsome. i want him inside of me yesterday.”
“i want to be inside of him yesterday.”
“well i’m glad we’ve got that figured out. best sex train ever. some human centipede action. can’t wait.”
hyunjin rolls his eyes. “you are so much grosser than everyone thinks. you’ve never even seen that movie.”
“it’s a cultural touchstone. and i’m not gross i’m cute,” felix says, pitching his voice up and scrunching his nose.
“was making you self-aware the worst mistake i’ve ever made? tell me now. i feel like a mad scientist gone too far.”
“nnnooooo,” felix sings, swinging a leg over to straddle hyunjin’s hips. “because now i can help you with evil schemes. like this one!”
hyunjin chews the inside of his lip, fitting his hands under felix’s sport tank top and pushing the fabric up. felix takes pity and bites the hem of it between his teeth, exposing his chest. hyunjin sighs and settles his wandering hands at felix’s waist. something about seeing his pink, cheerleader nipples always helps hyunjin think better.
“we need a better evil scheme because this one isn’t working. if i’d known he was a libra ahead of time…”
“di-fide’n’con-ker?” felix proposes around his shirt.
“how would that even work? he’s one person.” the black fabric snaps back down on hyunjin’s knuckles, and he yelps.
“no, we would be doing the dividing and the conquering. we’ve been attacking as a unit so far, right? so now we show him our um… personalized talents? like in pageantry.”
hyunjin pouts until felix clicks his tongue and removes his shirt. his smile comes running back. “god, you’re sexy when you’re evil. nevermind about being a mad scientist. i regret nothing.”
felix grins back, the same grin that had made hyunjin look twice at him across the room at prelims two years ago. the shape of his mouth had split his sharp, imperial face with unending kindness and innocence and allure and charm. all spilling forth with a crushing kind of popular-girl flavor that hyunjin just had to taste.
“me neither,” felix says. “i can’t wait to have him.”
“me neither.”
/
the competition, somehow, makes everything worse. chan had been half-expecting to be soothing first-show jitters, even though the both of them probably have more competitive experience than chan could dream of. even so, he hadn’t expected—this. this absolute focus that chan has only glimpsed on either of them occasionally, now sharpened into wicked twin points. jisung and jeongin have to run around in the smaller warm-up gym to free themselves of nerves, and they’re not even on the performing team. changbin and seungmin are in the typically bored mood of the second team, which leaves minho to fuss about the difficulty points with chan, and hyunjin and felix to… sit. on the bench. calmly.
“are you guys… good? nervous?” chan tries when they move to watch the orange county team.
“nope!” felix says cheerfully.
“i’m alright,” hyunjin says, the shadow of a smile on his lips.
chan doesn’t say anything else until moments before they walk on, whispering a little, “we can do this,” to his teammates. hyunjin glances backwards, and chan catches something in his dark eyes. the glint of trophy gold.
“i know,” he says, like it’s funny.
-
it’s terrible, seeing them do the routine like they mean it. not that they’ve been slacking in practice or anything, it’s just—this is different. felix is weightless, twenty feet in the air, handling the balance elements like an afternoon walk. hyunjin is steady on top of chan, executing his position changes with deafening precision. louder than the music, chan can hear him daring the judges to look closer: no wobble. observe: the hand extended, chalk glove outlining the grace of his fingers.
the dance portion is ridiculous, it’s so easy. chan knows they’re synchronized without checking his periphery. skills are a blur; felix in the air, again, again, hyunjin’s hands on his forearms, catching in one breath, throwing the next. minho’s layouts are smooth as ever.
and then it’s over. they place first. in all of california. for the first time ever.
the podium’s a blur of medals and flowers, hyunjin’s lips at his ear, saying, “told you.”
chan buys them ice cream, like they’re kids, but there’s nothing childish about the way felix eats his popsicle. and that’s just the beginning.
the first practice back, felix walks in with freshly bleached roots, but hyunjin follows with a head of newly black hair. it shines under the gym lights like a halved obsidian. it makes his eyes seem even darker than before, and chan’s stomach twists like a bad landing. hyunjin also starts volunteering to put the mats up with chan, which seems strange, until the first time they’re in storage together and hyunjin keeps having to squeeze past, so close chan can feel his heartbeat. he also takes an interest in the routine for nationals, suggesting adjustments and ways to increase difficulty. he stays late with a pencil tucked behind his ear, which chan didn’t even know people did in real life, scribbling away in the team notebook. there’s also the fact that felix is always in some new, impossible “stretch” that puts his ass in chan’s direct line of sight no matter where he is in the gym. like one of those paintings in video games that follows you with its eyes. but his teammate’s ass.
chan can’t sleep. or—he can, but he dreams of them. nothing… too embarrassing, mostly just weird, twilight zone-y vignettes. practice but felix shows up naked and no one finds it strange. competition again but hyunjin proffers the trophy, now filled with viscous black liquid, for chan to drink from. hyunjin and felix’s audition, again, except they’re conjoined, a perfect seam, two hands beckoning him forward. hyunjin’s black, black eyes.
clearly they want something from him. or maybe they don’t, maybe they just move through the world in mysterious, erotic ways that chan will never understand.
thankfully, he’s not left suffering for much longer before they show up at his apartment. unannounced. he opens the door on a sunday and there they are, grinning ear-to-ear, with a bouquet of… flowers?
“calla lily and aster,” hyunjin says, pressing them into chan’s chest as he and felix wiggle past him into the entryway. chan closes the door on instinct, and then just stands there with his flowers. it strikes him that this is the first time he’s seen them in regular clothes. hyunjin’s in a white turtleneck and black jeans, felix in a pink hoodie. somehow it’s more attractive than the skintight leotards.
“um,” he says.
“we’re so sorry to just drop by,” felix says, neatly hanging his jacket in the tiny closet.
“we were in the neighborhood,” hyunjin explains, “and your address was on your gym form.”
“right,” chan gets out. “um, do you want water or…?”
“do you have lemonade?” felix asks, at the same time hyunjin says, “no need.” they glance at each other.
“i just have orange juice,” chan says blankly.
“perfect!” felix says, so chan practically runs into his kitchen and pours a cup, checking his reflection in the window above the sink to find himself very red and sweaty. and then felix has a cup of orange juice and they’re all standing in the entryway again.
“we aren’t staying,” hyunjin says, reaching into his jacket and extracting a cream envelope. “we’re inviting you to dinner.” he hands the envelope over. the paper is thick, high quality, and it appears to be sealed with actual wax.
“oh,” chan squeaks out, “ thank you!”
hyunjin retrieves felix’s jacket and helps him put it on. “don’t be late.”
felix grins. “we’re so excited!”
“so,” hyunjin repeats, and then they squeeze out past him, hyunjin pausing to brush chan’s shoulder free of invisible dust, and they’re gone.
chan has no idea what to wear, so he panics and wears his only suit, and when he gets there felix opens the door and exclaims “a suit!” and chan wants to die. so. hyunjin skids around the corner, hair up, little blue apron tied around his waist. chan swallows.
“come in!” felix says, ushering him. chan toes off his shoes and steps into the kitchen, where hyunjin sits him down and felix returns to the stove, where something is sizzling. “it’s just stir-fry,” he turns his head to say, “but there are cookies as well.”
“and other dessert options, too,” hyunjin says, having scooted his stool close as possible to chan’s. “in case you don’t like oatmeal.”
chan fidgets with his sleeves. “oatmeal’s good. great.”
“good,” hyunjin smiles, and then felix sweeps plates onto the table, filled with meat and broccoli and rice.
“i hope you like it, here,” felix hands him chopsticks.
“did you… make everything?” chan asks tentatively, glancing at hyunjin’s apron.
“yup!” felix cheerily confirms. hyunjin seems unfazed.
“well i’m sure it’s delicious.”
and it is. and the way they look at him while he eats is only a little unsettling.
“why gymnastics, chan?”
“i, uh, used to do football, but my parents were worried about concussions.”
felix raises an eyebrow. “gymnastics doesn’t seem so much better on that front.”
“actually, statistically it’s a lot better. just, the severity when it does happen is… yeah. but they said at least it would only be me up there. ha.” chan gulps down water from his glass. “what about you guys?”
“since i was little,” felix answers. “and hyunjin has an appreciation for the abilities of the human body.”
“and the arts,” hyunjin adds.
“all of the arts,” felix says with an eyeroll. “one time he got these new paints and—oh well, i guess we can just show him later.”
“yes we can,” hyunjin says, and to chan’s shock, leans down and kisses felix on the mouth.
he seems to realize after he’s done it; both of them freeze after he pulls away. chan coughs. “oh, um, you guys are…! that’s so cool, oh, totally cool with me and all, i just. didn’t know!” he’s out of water, so he just holds onto his glass with both hands until his knuckles go white. after a moment felix plucks it from his hands and moves to the fridge. hyunjin reaches across the table and takes his hand.
“chan,” he says carefully, like he’s trying not to scare a stray cat. “felix and i love each other, but we aren’t very… traditional, let’s say.” felix snorts from where he’s very slowly filling chan’s glass with ice. “and we would love to invite you to the bedroom.”
and there it is. chan probably should have guessed. but he couldn’t let himself believe it until—well. until now.
“yes,” he finds himself saying. “i mean—really? both of you… want to—”
he’s interrupted by felix’s hand on his cheek, cold from the ice. his eyes sparkle. he says nothing, just leans down and, painfully slowly, kisses him.
after that, all chan can manage is a weak, “okay.”
/
hyunjin is giddy as they lead him into felix’s bedroom, and while he takes in the abundance of pink, he looks at felix to find him just as thrilled. he wants to kiss him, he wants to scream. but there will be plenty of time for all of it.
hyunjin gasps when they finally get his shirt unbuttoned. “told you!”
“i know,” felix pouts.
“t-told him what?”
“oh, nothing,” hyunjin smiles, thumbs pressing over chan’s very sensible nipples. he shivers. hyunjin just can’t get over how cute he is. “you’re mesmeric,” he breathes.
“i am?” chan chokes out, like he doesn’t believe it. god, he’s so oblivious it’s electrifying. just like felix was, but hyunjin isn’t sure he wants to teach this one any better. he’s not even sure it would work on chan. there’s something so unshakeable in him, something hyunjin sees when his eyes are on felix in the air, something he feels in chan’s forearms when they hold each other there.
“oh yes,” felix confirms. “we’ve wanted you since forever.”
“we’ve been waiting,” hyunjin adds.
“you have?”
“aster is for patience, darling,” hyunjin says, unbuckling his belt. moment of truth. he can feel himself salivating. chan “chris” bang’s dick is exactly as handsome as he’d imagined. hyunjin claps his hands together; it’s like getting everything he wanted for his birthday. felix peers over his shoulder and moans. chan is red-faced below them, eyes on the ceiling. he squeezes them shut once hyunjin gets his mouth on him, felix moving to kiss behind his ear and card through his hair.
they’re both so excited they barely know what they want to do, but eventually they put the ikea table together, felix riding chan, hyunjin sitting pretty in slot b with his hand on felix’s cock, with his other on felix’s waist, guiding, and with his eyes on chan’s expression, shifting, like tides. chan loves the feel of felix, because who doesn’t, because it’s in the name, hyunjin had joked last year, feel-lix. so hyunjin moves to the shoulder and lets chan have the waist, since it’s his first time. chan’s abs flex and relax in time with his brows furrowing and smoothing; hyunjin traces a line down the middle of his chest, in the impressive valley there. there’s a science lesson about erosion and the formation of mountainous regions here somewhere.
felix comes first, beautifully and vibrantly like always, but chan is the kind of person that denies himself pleasure for whatever reason, so hyunjin grabs the vibrator once felix falls to the side, exhausted. slotting their hips together is dizzying, their cocks bumping together, and hyunjin wipes the side of chan’s jaw with a thumb.
“ready?” and turns on the vibrator between them. chan moans, loud, and felix says something into his ear that’s not for hyunjin.
“come on,” he urges, breathless, “come on.” and that, chan does. o-face. snapshot. he almost wishes he’d told felix to get out the polaroid and document this. chan is so competent, always, but finally, they get to see him fall apart in pleasure. hyunjin is overwhelmed shortly after, and reaches for felix’s hand on instinct, which meets him halfway. he holds tight, and lets go of the vibrator to grab chan’s chest for both stability and enjoyment, and he says, “ah, good, yes,” without much thought. and how good it is.
after panting on the comforter and minimal cleanup, they lay on either side of him, no doubt glowing with contentment. he’s so broad, but hyunjin’s arms are long so he easily reaches felix’s fingers, laces them together with his own.
“next time i’ll fuck you, i promise,” he tells chan. “we just didn’t know if you’d want to.”
“no i—” he visibly swallows. “yes. please do that.”
hyunjin laughs, “i already promised, didn’t i? oh, and you have to see how you can fold lix up and make him make these little noises—i’ll show you.”
felix squirms on the other side of chan. “well hyunjin will have to show you how he can blow you in crow pose.”
“that too.”
chan just coughs and asks, “so, there’s. you want to… have a next time?”
hyunjin and felix meet eyes over his chest. “oh yes,” hyunjin says. “and the time after that.”
“and the time after that,” felix agrees, lifting his head to bite at chan’s ear.
chan smiles, and hyunjin is just—captivated, for a second. he thinks it might be the first real one he’s ever seen. “cool,” chan says. “i’d like that too.”