Archive of Our Own

“Jun-ah, it’s nice to see you again.”

“Oh.” Junhui fidgets. Shifts to one foot, then the other. “Sure. I’m not going to be long, though. Just here to get my stuff.”

“Your stuff? Not here for me?”

“No,” Junhui says quickly. Sure of himself. Focus, stay focused, Junhui. “I can’t stay and chat.”

“But it’s been so long. I’ve been like, so lonely and totally regretting every decision I ever made that led up to our relationship’s demise. You should come in and stay for a bit.”

“Can’t.” Junhui shrugs. “I have to—”

“You should totally come in so we can have… one last romp.”

“Ok, cut,” Jihoon interjects, and Junhui peers over Soonyoung’s shoulder to get a good look at him, frown evident on his face as he zips up a bag he’d been rifling through—the overnight bag he’s had since like, the dawn of time, the one he’s using this weekend, Junhui assumes—sitting into his hip, shaking his head disapprovingly. “There is no way Wonwoo is saying any of that. Romp? I mean, seriously, Soonyoung-ah?”

“What?” Soonyoung whines. He shrugs, like he’s totally innocent. “He’s pervy!”

“He’s your friend?”

“Doesn’t negate the fact that he’s pervy,” Soonyoung quips. Which is kinda true. “Also, we have to prepare Junnie for the worst here. The last thing he needs is to go over for his Cuisinart and get sucked into—a conversation about feelings or something. It’s dangerous enough as it is!”

“Jeon Wonwoo is not dangerous,” Jihoon points out. He rolls his eyes, walking around the obnoxious Christmas tree they have up—flashing string lights and all—to step further into the room. “He’s—an ex boyfriend. He’s probably more terrified of Junnie coming over than Jun is!”

“For the record,” Junhui says, doing his best to remain dignified, “I am not terrified. I am… moderately nervous. Actually, maybe a little more than moderately. But only a little!”

Junhui thinks about it some more. Seeing Wonwoo. Him and Wonwoo. Him and Wonwoo, his ex boyfriend, boyfriend of three whole years, alone together for the first time since they decided to part ways, since they decided the constant bickering wasn’t worth it any more, since they both agreed they’d be happier apart. That Wonwoo. The Wonwoo that is still—well. Junhui doesn’t love him, but—two months is hardly enough time to move on from somebody like him completely.

“And like,” Junhui continues, “what if he’s all—apologetic and mushy or something? What if he tries something? Or worse: what if he’s like, much more muscular now than the last time I saw him?”

Jihoon hums, as if he’s thinking about it. “He has been hitting the gym much more frequently.”

“Jihoon-ah!” Soonyoung scolds before he turns back to Junhui, grabbing him by the shoulders, shaking him a little. Junhui’s eyes widen. Soonyoung looks mildly terrifying in the red glow of the Christmas tree lights behind him. “You’re much stronger than that, Moon Jun. You’re stronger, and hotter, and you don’t need him! Daily affirmations!”

“I’m stronger than this and I’m hotter and I don’t need him, I know,” Junhui nods, albeit sounding a bit distressed. “I don’t know, maybe it’s a bad idea, though. I mean, so what if my copy of Tomb Raider King stays there a little longer. I can just like, borrow Jihoonie’s!”

“Absolutely not,” Jihoon denies, “mine is a collector’s edition.”

“You have to be brave, Jun-ah,” Soonyoung tells him gravely. “The year’s almost over. I mean, don’t you wanna start 2026 all fresh or whatever? No more ties to the past. No more baggage! Especially no more baggage involving your—awful, putrid ex.”

“Again,” Jihoon says, “Wonu is literally still your friend.”

“And in the Wonu-Junnie divorce, we compromised that my loyalty would lie with Jun!” Soonyoung reasons. He throws an arm around Junhui, squeezing. “Besides, I like Junnie better than Wonwoo most of the time. He nags me less. It’s a Gemini thing, Jihoon-ah, you just wouldn’t get it.”

“I don’t think I want to.” Jihoon grimaces. He has a much more authoritative, serious voice as he goes on, “Also, would it kill either of them to actually talk about it? The breakup, I mean.”

Soonyoung lets out an affronted gasp, all on the behalf of Junhui. ”Yes, Jihoon, it would,” he says.

”There’s nothing to talk about, anyway,” Junhui adds hastily. Because they’re both adults, and they both made their decision, and that’s that. It’s over, they’re over, and once Junhui collects his things, he won’t ever have to see Jeon Wonwoo again—ok, until like, whatever birthday of whichever shared friend comes next, but—

“Right,” Jihoon says slowly, not at all convinced. “Nothing to talk about. Because you guys have… done so much talking about this all together already? Have worked out your feelings and emotions and can pinpoint an exact list of reasons as to why you guys won’t work together, backed by real evidence?”

”You’re doing way too much, jagiya. We’re ignoring you,” Soonyoung says, and then turns to face Junhui completely again, sucking in a breath. “Ok, let’s keep rehearsing. Now imagine this: Wonu answers the door, completely topless, and he’s holding Bomi. What are you gonna do?”

“Probably get a nosebleed or something,” Junhui says, unfortunately honest. The mere thought of it—Wonwoo, shirtless, holding his cat—sends a chill up Junhui’s spine. He is really, really starting to rethink this. “Maybe I shouldn’t go alone. If we leave now, you can come with, right, Soonyoung-ah?”

“Absolutely not,” Jihoon answers for him. He digs into his pocket to pull out his phone, waving it around, stuck on his lockscreen assumedly so Junhui can see the time, but all he really sees is the selfie of Soonyoung and him that he’s had set there for ages. Cute. “If we stay here playing pretend for another fifteen minutes, we’ll miss our train, Soonyoung-ah.”

“Ah, so what?” Soonyoung whines a little. He grabs Junhui again, this time latching onto his back like an oversized backpack, peering at Jihoon over Junhui’s shoulders. “Your parents’ house will still be there if we leave later.”

“Unfortunately, yeah,” Jihoon mumbles. Then, “But the massive snowstorm warning for tonight is not promising. We cannot go with Junnie. Sorry.”

“Snowstorm?” Soonyoung repeats. He steps away from Junhui and looks genuinely surprised. “How serious?”

“Like, stay inside, temperatures dropping below freezing, icy roads serious.” Jihoon frowns. “Have you not looked at—any form of news in the past week? It’s all anyone is talking about. What the hell, Soonyoung?”

“Oh, goddammit,” Soonyoung grumbles. He shakes his head then, like he’s trying to be more optimistic as he suggests, “Well, hey, you could always ask Myungho? Wonwoo’s always been mildly scared of him! He’d be good to bring as a buffer.”

“Hao’s going on that singles cruise with Mingyu and Seokminie,” Junhui laments. He pauses. “Though, I’m pretty sure they’re like? Kinda all doing each other?”

“Seokminie said it was hand-stuff only, so it doesn’t count,” Soonyoung says matter of factly. He shrugs, then goes on, “What about Jeonghannie hyung? Now that’s someone Wonu is more than mildly afraid of.”

“LA with Shua hyung for the holidays.”

“Oh.” Soonyoung hums, somewhat defeated. Curse their gay circle of friends, Junhui thinks. “Channie?”

“Visiting his grandmother’s.” Junhui sighs. He sucks in a breath, mentally hyping himself up. “Whatever. It’s fine, I can do it by myself. I am stronger than him, and I’m hot, and I do not need Jeon Wonwoo.”

“That a boy,” Soonyoung encourages. He reaches out to punch into Junhui’s shoulder, muffled slightly by the thickness of his sweatshirt. “I do not, even for a second, doubt you, Moon Jun. If anyone can face Wonu and come out on top, it’s you.”

“Actually, I was usually on the bottom,” Junhui says, solemn. Jihoon’s face twists, something similar to disgust, before Junhui continues, “But thanks, Soonyoung-ah. I guess I better get going.”

“That a boy!” he emphasizes. “Stronger! Hotter! Better!”

Junhui gives him a fist in solidarity, all he can manage right now. He starts gathering his things: phone, wallet, the rabbit keychain Jeonghan bought him in Japan that he claims is good luck and wards off evil (because he needs all the help he can get right now, thank you very much), and then pauses, frowning.

“Wait. I’m not gonna get, like, stuck in this snowstorm on my way home or something, right?” Junhui asks. He laughs awkwardly, just like—one strangled cackle, riddled in vague fear.

Jihoon just blinks, like he’s thinking about it. “If you leave now? No, probably not. It’s not set to start until later. Just—”

“No small talk, no ogling him, no bringing up how you’ve been doing even if he asks,” Soonyoung finishes. He counts them off on his fingers and then wiggles three digits in Junhui’s direction, only slightly threatening. He smiles then, all his teeth. “You’re gonna do great, Jun-ah, seriously! Right, Jihoonie?’

“Sure,” Jihoon says, noncommittal. He shrugs. Not fazed at all, really, and Junhui is unsure if he should take his lack of nerves as offense or something to comfort him. “Soonyoung-ah, we have to—”

“Alright, alright!” Soonyoung throws a hand at him, rolling his eyes. “Text me as soon as you leave, Junnie. Hell, take notes. I’ll need to know everything.”

“Will do,” Junhui says, huffing out another breath of nerves all while Jihoon gives him a halfhearted wave and a smile that Junhui knows he really means. “I got this.”

“Stronger and hotter!” Soonyoung insists, “Better!”

Junhui just has to believe it now.

* * *

It was Christmastime when Junhui and Wonwoo made things official.

Three years ago now, though it feels like a lifetime. They had danced around each other for a bit before that. A will they, won’t they sort of thing. Friends of friends that became friends themselves, or something close, something a little more than friends, but also a little like strangers, somehow. Junhui made Wonwoo nervous. Wonwoo made Junhui nervous. It was silly, and it was juvenile, and it went on for far too long, but Junhui made the first move. Seungkwan’s holiday party that one year. He had said, very plainly, “if you don’t like me, that’s fine, but if you do, I’d rather you kiss me before I get another year older.” And Wonwoo did like him, for him the record, so he did kiss him.

So it’s full circle now, that Junhui is hauling himself to Wonwoo’s place just before Christmas, here now only for his things, for whatever pieces of himself he had scattered across Jeon Wonwoo’s living space during their three years together.

“I have a box,” Wonwoo had said two weeks ago. It was Jihoon's birthday. Because they still share friends, because they can’t really ignore each other, even though seeing Wonwoo again hurt like hell and Junhui left early with Jeonghan and Jeonghan treated him to a pity cupcake from his favorite cafe. “It has, um. Your things. If you wanna…”

“I’ll get it next week,” Junhui said. Wonwoo nodded, and that was that.

It’s strange. Coming back to a place you once spent so much time at, days, nights, everything in between, only this time—there’s no warm welcome on the other side of the door, no hug, or a kiss, or any wandering hands, just—your things, in a box, waiting to be picked up and forcibly removed, the last dregs of Junhui being expelled from Wonwoo’s life.

Ouch.

But Junhui is strong, and he’s hot, and he’s—well, he could be doing like, mentally better but—

“Jun-ah.”

Jeon Wonwoo, on the other side of his door. His hair is a little messy, like he’s been tugging at it, maybe. Nerves, Junhui selfishly hopes. He’s in a pair of sweatpants, and a sweatshirt, his favorite one, Junhui knows, because any time Junhui slipped it on himself instead, Wonwoo would whine, and complain, and then he’d make a deal about getting Junhui out of it, and—no, focus, Junhui, focus.

“Hi,” Junhui returns. Casual. A bit cold. Strategic. He holds out his hands, hoping they don’t shake, and wiggles his fingers a little to try and mask it if they do. “My things?”

“I didn’t—” Wonwoo starts, then stops. “They’re in the kitchen. Do you mind coming in? If I leave the door open long enough, Bomi will get out.”

Goddammit. Is Wonwoo using his cat for leverage? He knows Junhui has a weakness for her. He knows this, and yet—

“Fine,” Junhui agrees. If only for her sake. He takes an awkward step inside, staying as far away from Wonwoo as possible. Like if they even brush for a fraction of a second something catastrophic might happen.

Wonwoo shuts the door behind him, gently. The apartment looks the same. Same couch, same throw pillows, same decor, same cat tower and gaming system, same pair of Wonwoo’s most used sneakers by the door, same—ah.

Same framed photo of the two of them, right on the table by the entry way. Ow.

It’s a photo Mingyu took of them. Two years ago, Junhui thinks, Wonwoo’s birthday. They look happy. They were happy. Junhui decides not to comment on it for now.

“You know,” Wonwoo starts, slowly, like he’s unsure if he should even be making conversation, anyway or not, “I’m a little surprised you actually came.”

“I told you I would,” Junhui reminds him.

He takes a step further inside, cooing when Bomi runs out from under the couch to circle around his feet. He leans down to pet her, right under her chin, the way she always liked. Junhui’s heart aches just the tiniest bit. He is not entirely a monster; he misses Bomi more than he misses Wonwoo maybe.

“Yeah, but, you know,” Wonwoo says vaguely. He shrugs, leading the way into the kitchen, Junhui giving Bomi one last pat on the head before following. “I thought you might send Myungho or something instead. Or at least bring Jeonghannie hyung.”

Junhui hums. “I thought about it,” he admits. “They were busy.”

Wonwoo hums back, pausing once he’s finally reached the kitchen counter, eyes taking in Junhui slowly, like he’s looking at him for the first time, like really looking at him. “Lucky me, then,” he decides.

“Right,” Junhui agrees absentmindedly, does his very best to look—literally anywhere else but at Wonwoo, tall, and broad, and stupidly still handsome, even though Junhui would very much not like to be reminded of that. “So, my things—”

“Jun-ah,” Wonwoo says, drags it out, too, like he used to when he was the tiniest bit aggravated, but fond. He leans against his kitchen counter and cocks his head. “Are you really just gonna grab your stuff and run?”

“Yes?” Junhui fixes him with a look, folding his arms over his chest, his only line of defense. He shrugs. “I’m… we’re not together anymore, Wonwoo.”

“Hence the box of your things, yeah,” Wonwoo says, mumbles it, really, like it almost pains him to say it, or like maybe that’s what’s bothering him. “I don’t know. We just—never spoke about it. Us. The ending.”

Junhui still feels guilty about it. Months of emotions pent up. It was a conversation more than it even was a breakup.

“I’m not making you happy anymore,” Wonwoo had said at the time.

“Not true,” Junhui had argued, or at least attempted. “I just can’t be what you want.”

So they split.

“What’s there to talk about?” Junhui asks. He takes a tentative step deeper into the kitchen. “We both agreed that we’d be better apart.”

“And are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Better?”

“I’m—” Junhui starts, then stops. He takes a deep breath. There’s a tiny voice in his head that sounds like Soonyoung vehemently repeating stronger, hotter, better, stronger, hotter— “My things, Wonu-yah.”

“Fine,” Wonwoo says. Seceding. He holds his hands up to show he’s truly innocent and everything, before spinning around to the box waiting on the counter, decent enough in size to sting just the right way. “This should be it.”

It’s the box Wonwoo’s latest gaming system came in. Junhui was there when it was delivered, and Wonwoo was ridiculously obsessed with it for a solid week, and then he had felt bad about not giving Junhui his undivided attention and made it up to him in about three different ways and like, at least four different positions. And now—now it’s just—Junhui’s stuff, collected and ready to be scraped out of Wonwoo’s place forever.

Funny, huh. The way time works.

“Thanks,” Junhui says. Polite, but cold still. Casual, still. Pretends like the box in his hands doesn’t suddenly feel like it weighs a thousand pounds, simultaneously burning holes into his palms, like it’s poison. “For getting it all together or whatever.”

“You’re welcome,” Wonwoo returns. Just as polite, but perhaps a little less cold. “Sorry it took me a bit. You were…”

He waves a vague hand. Everywhere, Junhui’s brain finishes. So intertwined that I didn’t know where to start, that I didn’t know if I could start.

Junhui feels bad, honestly. His apartment wasn’t like this. His apartment had two sweatshirts belonging to Wonwoo and a charging cable, maybe one of the books he had tried reading last year and never fully got into, and that’s it. Junhui had just given them to Seokmin one day to pass along. They never spent as much time at Junhui’s place as they did here; here, Wonwoo’s place, was more home to Junhui than his own apartment was at one point.

“Right,” Junhui says, terse. He nods, forces a tiny smile that does not contain even an ounce of joy. “I better get going. I don’t wanna get—”

It’s comical, the way it happens then. Because one second they’re standing in Wonwoo’s brightly lit kitchen, hum of the refrigerator next to them, distant sound of the TV playing in from the living room, digital clock ticking away from its spot on the wall behind Wonwoo and the next—it stops. All of it. Like a goddamn switch was flipped on like, the entire apartment.

Fuck.

“What the hell was that?” Junhui asks. He freezes in his spot, suddenly too afraid to move. Did he do that? Did he trip a wire or something? “Why did the—Wonwoo-yah, put the lights back on.”

“What?” Wonwoo asks through the darkness. His voice has the slightest edge to it, anxious. “I was standing right here across from you, why do you think I’m the one who turned it off?”

“I don’t know, maybe you were—”

“The power’s out,” Wonwoo says then. Voice grave. And afraid. And like, oozing with regret, all of a sudden. He starts walking around the kitchen, flipping switches and stuff like it’s really going to do anything. He scratches his head in genuine confusion, then heads over to the window, pushing his blinds aside just barely to peek out.

“What do you mean the power’s out?” Junhui asks. He knows full well what Wonwoo actually means by that, I mean, he’s not dumb, but it doesn’t— “You know what? I need to go. Do you want me to—I don’t know. I can like, call Mingyu and he can talk you through how to fix it or whatever? Or wait, why am I calling Mingyu, you have his number, you can—”

“Jun-ah,” Wonwoo says now, voice even graver, even more afraid, oozing with like, tons more regret somehow. “You’re not going anywhere. Have you seen outside?”

“What?” Junhui feels all the hair on his body stand straight up. In pure fear. Utter horror. “I have to leave. There’s like, a storm coming, and I have plans to FaceTime Soonyoungie later, and also, we’re totally not—”

Oh, god. Oh, fuck.

Snow, wind, hail—is that genuinely fucking hail? What the fuck? This is not happening. It was—it was like, moderately snowing when Junhui got here. Light flurries. Picturesque weather, really. Perfect for the holidays! How did it escalate to this?

“No way,” Junhui says, shaking his head. Denial is the first phase or whatever. “That’s not—it’s fine. The subway isn’t far, I’ll be fine. Just—give me a bag or something to cover my stuff. I don’t want my romance novels getting soggy.”

“You’re joking,” Wonwoo says on a cackle. He pulls away from the window to look at Junhui like he’s crazy. Does indeed ask, “Are you crazy? Jun-ah, it’s supposed to be the worst storm Seoul has seen in like, years.”

“Ok?” Junhui shrugs. He quickly moves to the counter, swiping his stuff. He’ll go without the bag, whatever. Most of his novels are just—smutty, anyway. It was never real literature, he can easily replace it. “And it wasn’t supposed to start until later. Meaning, it’s not even the brunt of it, so I can—”

“It’s not even the brunt of it, and yet it kicked my power off,” Wonwoo finishes. He clicks his tongue, peering out the window again. “Actually, it looks like the entire block’s power. Not a single building has lights on.”

“Maybe everyone is just really into environmental conservation these days,” Junhui tries to reason. He heads to the door, stuff in hands. “Light pollution is awful. Seoul suffers so badly from it. I read an article about it once and everything.”

“Jun-ah.”

“So thank you for my stuff,” Junhui continues, “but I will not be staying, because the weather is fine, and we are not together any more and I don’t—”

“Jun-ah.”

Junhui ignores him, struggling just barely to open the front door, “I’ll like—see you. Around. Since we still have mutual friends, probably, which is—”

Junhui pauses once he’s got the door open, pitch black greeting him outside. The hallway is long, totally drenched in darkness safe for the blinking of what Junhui assumes is the smoke alarm. He glances in the direction of where he knows the elevator is and sees nothing. No tiny glow from the up and down buttons to call it, not even the illuminated, red numbers at the very top.

Holy—

“You were saying?” Wonwoo says from behind him, voice suddenly—much closer than it should be, making Junhui jump, just the tiniest bit.

Junhui turns around with a grimace. Wonwoo’s got his phone flashlight on, so Junhui can make out the tiniest of smirks he’s wearing just fine. Junhui kinda wants to punch him.

“I’ll take the stairs,” he threatens.

“You mean the ones that are locked, at all times?” Wonwoo tilts his head. The bastard that he is. Junhui would cry if he didn’t feel such a violent irritation brewing inside of him instead. “Elevators out, roads are about to be closed—seriously, Jun-ah, what are you gonna do, scale the fire escape or something? You have to—”

“Why not?” Junhui shrugs. He jostles the box of things in his arms. “I’m decently athletic.”

Wonwoo just gives him a look. One that Junhui unfortunately knows well. The you-can’t–be-serious-there’s-no-way-I’m-letting-you-be-serious look. God fucking dammit.

“Is here really the worst place you could be right now?” Wonwoo prompts then, voice a little mushy, a bit sad, like he’s trying to make Junhui feel bad for him. It’s a tactic, Junhui knows. Because Wonwoo doesn’t really want Junhui to pity him, he only wants him to feel bad enough so he stops like—threatening to scale the building or something. He wants Junhui to pity him for Junhui’s own safety. Diabolical, really.

“Not the worst,” Junhui allows. He jokes then, “Could be stuck in the back of a cab with Jihoonie and Soonyoung after a night out.”

At that, Wonwoo laughs, loud, pretty, coming out like Wonwoo’s surprised by it.

“You’re right,” he says. “Terrible, handsy drunks. One time they made out like, half on top of me when I shared a backseat with them.”

Junhui laughs now, too. “Hot,” he says. “Lucky you.”

“I know, right?” Wonwoo grins. Tiny, and toothy, and it sort of reaches his eyes, or at least Junhui thinks it does because it’s still pretty dark out here. Hmf. Wonwoo tilts his head, then, opening the door a teeny bit further. Asks, “So?”

“Fine,” Junhui grumbles, slumped over a little as he shuffles back in, reluctant. “But as soon as the power comes back on, I’m leaving. Blizzard outside still or not. And you’re not allowed to stop me.”

“Whatever you say, Moon Jun,” Wonwoo says, a bit entertained, or maybe—fond. Or something. Junhui tries not to think about it. “I’m just glad you didn’t actually scale the building.”

“Yet.”

Wonwoo sighs. “Yet.”

* * *

Junhui was never good at silence, that was always Wonwoo’s strong suit out of the two of them. Junhui is chatty by nature. Prolonged silence makes him uncomfortable. Minghao says he’s got some kind of—disturbed inner peace or whatever, but Junhui thinks that’s just a load of BS that he says so Junhui gets offended enough that he leaves him alone.

Wonwoo never minded it. The first few months they had been dating, Junhui was self conscious. He got too excited sometimes, spoke too much, too fast, that half the time, you couldn’t even really understand him.

“I like hearing you talk,” Wonwoo always said. Set lose millions and trillions of butterflies in Junhui’s stomach, too, because he was good at that. “I’d listen to you talk for hours.”

Anyway—that was then. But Junhui still doesn’t do great in moments of quiet. Which is unfortunate considering he’s currently trapped in his ex’s apartment, and he’d really rather much not talk to said ex, but the power is still out, which means there’s no form of entertainment to fill the space, and the only real noise is the wind howling outside and Bomi in the corner, scratching away at a post, and if Junhui listens close enough, the very faint, deep breathing Wonwoo’s doing, fiddling on his phone.

They’re on opposite ends of his couch, living room illuminated by a few rogue candles Wonwoo found, blinds drawn open for any remaining light of the early evening to drip in. The box of Junhui’s things is on the coffee table in front of them. Junhui momentarily considers picking up one of his novels, but he’s not too sure if reading sex scenes in front of your ex boyfriend is like, proper guest etiquette, so he abstains for now.

But he is going kinda crazy.

“So,” Junhui breaks, awkward, but he kinda can’t take it anymore. “Are you—uh. Anything good happening there?”

“I still don’t have service either, if that’s what you’re asking,” Wonwoo tells him, not yet looking up at his phone. He laughs a little. “Seungcheolie hyung took like—eighty photos of Mingyu last time we hung out using my phone. So I’m trying to delete them. And also keep any that might be useful for blackmail.”

Junhui hums. Nods. He sinks a little deeper into the couch and takes a deep breath, trying to like, find his inner peace or whatever. Minghao would be proud.

Then, after a beat or two, “You’re allowed to speak, you know.”

“What?” Junhui turns to look at Wonwoo again, and this time, Wonwoo’s already looking back at him. Junhui glances at Bomi instead in an effort to avoid eye contact, and she slinks away underneath the coffee table. “I know I can. I’m not—I just don’t have much to say. What’s there to talk about? Nice weather we’re having?”

“Ha-ha,” Wonwoo says, flat. “I’m just saying. You usually—don’t do well with silence.”

“I do very totally normal with silence, thank you,” Junhui lies. He doesn’t like that Wonwoo still—knows things about him like that. Doesn’t like the fact that Jeon Wonwoo probably still knows him more than anyone else in the world. “What do you wanna talk about then? I mean, any conversation starters you got? Since we’re stuck here. Together.”

“I don’t need to talk about anything,” Wonwoo says with a shrug. “Actually, the quiet is kinda nice. For once I’m not bombarded with my neighbors dramas. She always has the TV volume up way too loud.”

Junhui laughs a little. He remembers. So many late nights here up with the distant sound of whatever show she had on rotation then. Junhui found it funny, Wonwoo found it outrageously annoying. He never complained to anyone else, though; it just felt too rude to. Obviously, because he’s just so good.

Wonwoo continues, then, chucking his phone to the side to land somewhere between them. “If you wanna talk, we could—”

“Not—talk like that,” Junhui stops him. Careful. A bit cold again. Because he already knows. “I don’t—let’s not make it awkward.”

“I don’t think things could be awkward, Jun-ah,” Wonwoo mumbles, like Junhui’s ridiculous for even suggesting it. “We’ve—ok, no you’re right. Fine. What are you doing for Christmas?”

“Christmas? Nothing,” Junhui says with a shrug.

Christmas in the past was always spent with Wonwoo. Last year they went to dinner—Junhui’s pick—and then a movie, and then Wonwoo brought him home and it had been corny, but Wonwoo liked corny sometimes, so Junhui wore a—stupid, tiny, red outfit that Wonwoo went equally stupidly crazy for, fucked him for what felt like hours. Corny. Admittedly very good, too.

The year before that Junhui had bought Wonwoo a new camera. Junhui remembers Wonwoo had insisted on trying it out immediately, and then he remembers spending a long time in Wonwoo’s bed, together, and sometime between their umpteenth kiss and the umpteenth photo of Junhui, Wonwoo told him he loved him for the first time. Junhui wonders where those pictures of him are now. If Wonwoo dumped them in the box of his things, too, and Junhui will have to find them later or something.

“I was gonna try out this recipe I found,” Junhui continues. “It’s a soup. Spicy. You’d like it.” He pauses, suddenly feeling awkward, suddenly feeling like—he really does wish he didn’t know Wonwoo as well as he still does. Hastily, he adds, “Probably. Maybe.”

“Cool,” Wonwoo says and very pointedly says nothing else.

Junhui moves on, “What about you, then?”

“Oh, nothing.” Wonwoo shrugs. He yawns, stretching his arms over his head then. Rolls his wrists out towards the ceiling, cracking his knuckles. “I was just gonna sleep. The day off is nice, but no one else is really around to do much, so.”

“Right,” Junhui agrees. “Seungkwannie asked if I wanted to join him for dinner with Hansol’s family who are visiting. American Christmas sounds fun in theory, but I don’t think I could withstand all the English for that long.”

Wonwoo laughs a little, nodding. “Mingyu tried to convince me to join the singles cruise,” he adds, frowning.

“Oh?” Junhui laughs, but it’s awkward, a little—choked out. “It sounded like fun. All you can eat buffets and orgies? Right up your alley, Jeon Wonwoo.”

“Right, my two favorite things,” Wonwoo jokes. He nods, and Junhui laughs a bit, allows himself to. “No, being trapped on a boat with the three of them did not sound at all appealing. Also, I don’t think I wanna, uh—you know.”

See other people. Kiss other people? Date?, Junhui wants to ask. Wants to know if Wonwoo’s been feeling the same way he does.

He doesn’t ask, though. Can’t, shouldn’t.

There’s another beat of silence before Bomi comes back over, hopping up onto the couch and curling up by Junhui, staring, expectant. Junhui reaches out to pet her, gentle fingers scratching behind her ears.

“She missed you, I think,” Wonwoo says, like he doesn’t know if he should. “She always liked you a little more than she likes me.”

Junhui laughs, hoping the dim lighting of the room is enough to hide the way his cheeks pink just a bit. “That can’t be true, is it, Bomi-yah?” Junhui coos, Bomi snuggling into his palm deeper, purring. “You love your daddy.”

Wonwoo stifles a laugh from across the couch. “Daddy?” he repeats. He’s grinning. Like—like the most annoying man in the world, which he very much is.

“Oh, fuck off,” Junhui swears with a roll of his eyes. His cheeks run even hotter, with embarrassment, or—or, whatever. “I didn’t—don’t be a weirdo.”

“I would never,” Wonwoo says, feigning offense. He even holds a scandalized hand over his chest and everything. He’s so stupid.

Stupid, and yet Junhui laughs, because he was Junhui’s favorite brand of stupid for three years straight, and he’s still Jeon Wonwoo—maybe the only man Junhui ever truly loved, and now—now they’re supposed to be strangers.

Now Wonwoo’s supposed to make a joke and Junhui is supposed to shrug it off, now Wonwoo will make plans and memories and none of them will have to do with Junhui, and he’ll be here with his cat in the apartment Junhui used to spend more time in than his own, with that picture of the two of them still by the door, except it shouldn’t be, because they broke up, they decided together it was over, and so it is.

And yet they’re—stuck together. Now.

* * *

“I’m just gonna ask,” Wonwoo says at some point a little past the hour two mark, bag of chips between them on the coffee table, game of cards laid out which Junhui is losing horribly at, “You’re not like, seeing anyone, are you?”

“What?” Junhui pretends he can’t hear Wonwoo over the crunching of the chips he’s got in his mouth, over his nervous shuffle of cards as he plans his next move. He doesn’t even really know the name of the game they’re playing. Wonwoo explained it once, something about finding matches and then keeping three, and Junhui kinda lost him then, but he was too embarrassed to ask him to explain it again. “I don’t—I’m seeing you. Right now at this moment.”

“Jun-ah.” Wonwoo scoffs, and Junhui knows that’s not what he meant, but he’s—he’s panicked, trying to stall. He’s very aware they’ve exhausted all their small talk and cat related talk, but this? This? “Come on.”

Junhui rolls his eyes, pulling a card from the spare deck. No match, so he gestures for Wonwoo to go. Says, a bit lamely, “You can’t—Wonu-yah—”

“Is that question off limits or something?” Wonwoo asks, completely innocent. His eyes are all wide behind his glasses. He looks at Junhui for just a moment and then back to his cards before Junhui can even get all squirmy under his gaze or something. “I didn’t—look, I’m only asking as like, a friend or whatever. We agreed on friends, didn’t we?”

“With due time, yeah.”

Junhui would argue that it is hardly due time. Junhui was actually thinking they wouldn’t touch the concept of friends for at least another eighteen months or so. Or maybe for forever. Agreeing on being friends after a breakup is just like—the formality. Especially if you have mutual friends. Was Wonwoo seriously thinking they could like, meet up for coffee sometime in the future or something? Catch a movie together? Grab dinner and then dessert and then inevitably like, end up in the same bed again, because that’s how it always goes, Junhui’s seen the movies, he is not stupid.

Is Jeon Wonwoo stupid? God.

“Alright, well,” Wonwoo waves his hands around, nearly flashing his hand of cards in the process, “no time like the present. When we’re, you know, trapped in my apartment together or whatever.”

“I didn’t need the reminder,” Junhui huffs. He looks over his own cards, doing his best to distract from the Christmas cookie scented candle illuminating their game right now. It’s a little overly sweet smelling, nearly makes Junhui nauseous. Something tells Junhui it was a gift from Seokmin. Junhui gestures with his—losing—hand to said candle. “You have more of these, by the way? It’s gonna burn out soon.”

Wonwoo shrugs, unfazed. “Hopefully the power kicks back on before that happens.”

“Don’t you have food in your fridge that’s like, going bad?”

“You think I have food in my fridge?”

“Yah, Jeon Wonwoo.”

“Yah, Moon Jun,” Wonwoo echoes. He snorts out a laugh. “Are you gonna answer my question or no?”

Junhui rolls his eyes, clicking his tongue. He reaches for another spare card, because he’s still losing. Jeon Wonwoo is annoying, seriously.

“No,” he says simply. Because Junhui’s not in the business of necessarily lying or anything. “I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Oh.” Wonwoo nods slowly. Like he’s processing it, turning it over in his mind again and again, like it’s more complicated than Junhui really means. Wonwoo’s turn. He successfully makes a match and then gestures for Junhui to go again. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” Junhui scoffs. Finally gets a match himself. Ha. “Would I lie?”

“It’s not that you would have lied, per say,” Wonwoo says with a shrug. He reaches for a handful of chips now and takes them one by one, tiny bites. “I just find it surprising, maybe? I think part of me assumed that when we—you know. That maybe there was somebody else.”

“You think I—when we were together?”

“What?” Wonwoo’s eyes go wide again, this time with more fear than anything else, looking right at Junhui, too. Junhui, somehow, is brave enough to hold eye contact. “Of course not. I just—maybe you had found someone better, or like, you were actively looking for better, which is why—”

“There wasn’t anyone else, Wonu,” Junhui stops him. He shakes his head, sighing. Because Wonwoo is—a bit ridiculous. “We didn’t—that’s not why we broke up. I didn’t want to date other people then.”

“Then,” Wonwoo echoes. “Are you trying to now?”

“Wonwoo.”

“Ok, fine, I’m sorry,” Wonwoo relents. He puts his hands up, innocent, and then takes his turn. This time, he goes fishing for a new card. “I’ll stop. I just—it’s weird.”

“What’s weird?” Junhui asks. Maybe a little offended.

Should he be offended? I mean, what does Wonwoo even exactly mean by that? Is it weird that Junhui isn’t trying? Weird that they broke up when there was nobody else? Weird that Junhui is now legitimately trapped in his ex’s apartment and is being forced to talk to him?

“The fact that I’m—not rushing to date anyone now?” Junhui prompts. “Some people need to like, date themselves, you know. Maybe I’m doing that. In fact, yesterday I went to like—a really sweet hotpot place all by myself, and also I like—”

“Not that,” Wonwoo stops him, rolling his eyes a little, but it doesn’t have any animosity behind it. The tiniest of smiles threatens to tug up at the corner of his mouth, but Junhui ignores it, if only because it makes his heart thump just a beat louder than it should. “I meant—it’s weird to… imagine you with someone else. Selfishly.”

“Oh.” Junhui wasn’t expecting that. That kind of honesty, so easily, right now. Wonwoo took a while to open up to him when they first started dating. He was shy, and embarrassed, and feelings were something he didn’t wanna worry Junhui with, especially when Junhui wasn’t always the best at talking through them. They met in the middle on it, got good at their own kind of communication. Junhui guesses they still have it. “I—you’re right. That is selfish.”

His voice is light when he says it, but he means it. They’re not dating anymore, Junhui could meet someone tomorrow, and there would be nothing stopping him from making a move. Wonwoo could, too. Would he, though? Does he want to or is he—

“I know it is,” Wonwoo says with a shrug. Junhui’s move again. Another match. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still mean it.”

“Fine, sure,” Junhui allows. Pretends the weird, nauseous feeling in his stomach is just from the scented candle, and the chips on an empty stomach, and not—not this, that, a too-honest-confession. “I guess you could still mean it if you wanted to.”

Wonwoo just hums. Junhui isn’t looking at him, looks at his cards instead, hyperfocused solely to give himself something to do, but he can feel Wonwoo’s eyes on him, gaze heavy on Junhui’s profile. He’d be uncomfortable if he wasn’t already—painfully immune to Wonwoo’s eyes on him. Old habits die hard, he guesses. All of them.

“Would it be weird for you?” Wonwoo asks then. Slowly makes his move. His cards are running out; he’s almost won completely. “If I… you know. With someone else.”

Ah.

Junhui’s tongue feels swollen up now, unable to move, to speak. It would be weird, is the thing. Wonwoo with anyone—Junhui hates it. He’s not necessarily a jealous person, he never was, but Wonwoo is—was—his, and it’s—no.

Wait, not no. It’s—that would mean Junhui was selfish, too, and also, he and Wonwoo are not together and it’s—

“No, it wouldn’t,” Junhui lies. Says it before his mouth can catch up with his brain, before he says something wrong, or embarrassing, something he might mean, but regret. “We’re not together, Wonwoo. I don’t—I can’t care.”

“Right,” Wonwoo says slowly. Confused, somewhat. Like maybe he didn’t expect Junhui to say that. Or maybe he didn’t want him to.

“Wonu-yah,” Junhui starts on a sigh, “this is why I didn’t want us—”

“It’s ok, Jun,” Wonwoo says. When he looks up from his cards, he gives Junhui a smile that’s too tight in his cheeks for Junhui to think it’s real, forced instead. Junhui feels his heart sink, then twist. “It was a silly question. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“It’s not silly,” Junhui tries. He’s never been great with his words when trying to comfort people. Physical touch, doing things for someone, that was always better. So Junhui’s hands twitch, ache to reach out and at least give Wonwoo a gentle squeeze to his leg, but they don’t, they can’t. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Wonwoo tells him. Firm. Like he really does mean it, despite everything.

And Junhui’s traitorous heart continues to sink, to twist, to ache, for Wonwoo.

He watches as Wonwoo picks up another card and then waves it around a little, sliding it with the other one he has left. “I’m all out,” he says. Smiles a little bigger now as he says, “I win.”

“Congratulations, Jeon Wonwoo,” Junhui says, lackluster. He smiles a little, too, just because it’s almost impossible not to, just because it’s Wonwoo, his Wonwoo, the Wonwoo that used to be his. “I’m sure you’re thrilled.”

Wonwoo smiles back, but it doesn’t reach his eyes again. Because he is not thrilled, not even really the slightest bit happy, about any of it, is the thing. Neither of them are.

* * *

They’re four hours in when the closest thing to a miracle happens.

Junhui’s laid flat on the couch, one of his smutty novels in hand because he’s given up pretense of trying to be polite like that, especially when they’ve talked in circles about their mutual friends, Bomi again, and even the old man that works in the restaurant by Junhui’s place they used to frequent (who Junhui had a surprisingly large amount of updates on). Wonwoo’s on the floor, sorting through a stack of video games, attempting to alphabetize them. Or maybe he’s organizing by genre. Or the color of the case. Junhui is sure he must’ve tried all of it, at this point.

In any case—it’s getting old now. This whole snow storm thing. It’s been old, for the record, but especially so now. It’s nearing midnight, and there’s zero signs of any power coming back on, and the candle supply is almost out completely, and the heat that had been trapped in the apartment is also starting to dwindle away, and Junhui is halfway through reading about his protagonist that’s about to get her world totally rocked by the buff, secretly soft hearted love interest when it happens.

A miracle.

Junhui thinks he’s dreaming it at first. His phone, on the coffee table, obnoxious against the wood of it as it vibrates. He pauses, sitting up, making eye contact with Wonwoo.

He makes a face, somewhat horrified. “What the hell did you have in that box of things?”

“What?” Junhui makes a similarly terrified face back. “What do you mean what did I have? It’s my phone, dumbass.”

“Oh.” Wonwoo goes red—Junhui can see that even in the dim lighting. “Your phone. Obviously that’s the only thing you have that would be vibrating, and—wait, oh, my god, your phone!”

Junhui ignores whatever the hell Wonwoo was getting at to leap for said phone, nearly jumping for joy when he sees the contact, Soonyoung, followed by about ten tiger emojis flashing across his screen.

“Soonyoungie,” he answers, relieved, hopeful, confused, ecstatic, because the power most certainly isn’t on yet, but the cell phone towers? Maybe it’s a sign that good things are finally coming. Junhui is not particularly religious but he prays to any god out there that can hear him that they keep this up.

“Jun-ah, oh my god!” Soonyoung’s voice comes excitedly through the phone, a little grainy, but him nonetheless. “I thought Wonwoo murdered you or something. Where the hell have you been?”

“Not murdered,” Junhui says, only somewhat regretfully, because—well. Maybe it would’ve been a better option than being trapped in here. “Tell your boyfriend his weather report was total ass. I got stuck, Soonyoung-ah.”

“Jihoon-ah, jagi, Junnie says your weather report sucked bad.” Soonyoung giggles, and then must grasp the gravity of Junhui’s statement because he gets a lot more serious as he goes on, “Wait, stuck? Stuck as in—at Wonwoo’s?”

“Yes,” Junhui says regretfully. He glances at where Wonwoo has been sitting patiently, very still, looking at Junhui like some kinda kicked puppy. Junhui switches his phone to speaker in a moment of pity and holds it out. “Say hi, Wonu-yah.”

“Hi.”

“Jeon Wonwoo, you son of a bitch,” Soonyoung squawks into the phone. “I cannot believe you’re holding Junnie hostage there right now. I do not care if I’m all the way in Busan, I will trudge through snow, sleet, or hail just to beat the shit out of you for it.”

“I’m missing the part where the massive snowstorm is my fault?”

“Soonyoung-ah,” Jihoon groans, muffled, and then his voice is much clearer as he goes on, “Is it still bad there? It’s kinda starting to let up for us. We somehow made it to my parents’ before it started to come down heavily, but. Been stuck inside since we got here.”

“The power has been out and the streets are still—blocked with snow,” Junhui reports grimly. He looks to the window where the snow is still falling, albeit maybe a bit lighter than it had been. Or maybe that’s just Junhui’s wishful thinking. “So, yeah. It’s still pretty bad.”

“Wonu-yah, I swear—!” Soonyoung starts again, and then there’s some rustling, another aggravated Soonyoung-ah, and then it’s Jihoon again, “I’ll start praying for a Christmas miracle if you guys want. You hanging in there?”

“Aw, Jihoon-ah,” Wonwoo coos, sarcastic, “you’d do that for me?”

“Not really, but.” Jihoon snorts. “We at least have power here. How the hell are you guys staying entertained? What are you doing?”

“Don’t say each other,” Soonyoung interjects quickly. “It better not be each other!”

Junhui feels his face flush, eyes wide when he looks at Wonwoo, who’s already looking at him. He looks just as surprised, though he laughs just the tiniest bit. Annoying.

“We’re not—” Junhui huffs, regaining his composure. “We are mature adults, Soonyoung-ah.”

“Right,” Jihoon says. His voice is careful now, and he’s enunciating everything excruciatingly slow, like he really wants them to hear him through the shitty connection. “So I take it that means you talked. Like, really talked, about yourselves. About your relationship. Or like—“

”Oh, no,” Junhui says suddenly, panic setting in, activating only on fight or flight survival instincts alone, “What was that? I think we're—oh, my god, I think we’re breaking up.”

”What?” Jihoon asks, perfectly clear. “Jun-ah, I can hear you just fine.”

”Jihoon?” Junhui says, stupid. He sits up, switching the phone off speaker to hold it to his ear. Does not look at Wonwoo, and for good reason. “Soonyoungie? Fuck, this sucks. Hello? Soonyoung-ah?”

”You can hear me just fine, you asshole!” Jihoon swears, followed by a cackle of Soonyoung’s in the background, and before it gets any worse, Junhui hangs up, even promptly puts his phone on do not disturb just in case they call back.

Because he’s like, a totally normal, well functioning, adjusted adult. Or whatever.

“Fuck,” Junhui concludes, mustering up all the acting skills he used to use back in school plays growing up, “we lost them.”

Wonwoo just hums, a somewhat knowing grin on his face. Junhui wishes he were stupid, wishes he made that whole phone call a little more realistic, but it’s—well. How dare Jihoon? When he knows perfectly well there is nothing for them to talk about, too. The nerve.

”That’s a real bummer,” Wonwoo laments.

He leans back on his hands from his spot on the floor still and Junhui is just thankful he’s in a sweatshirt, because he just knows Wonwoo’s arms would be flexing like that, and it’s already bad enough his pretty, brown eyes are looking up at Junhui, and—and—Junhui can’t go there right now, absolutely not.

“Convenient timing, too,” he adds.

Junhui’s turn to hum. He shrugs, shoving his phone underneath him as he picks up his novel again, hardly focusing on the words on the page, too busy trying to come up with yet another excuse to cover up that one.

“Yeah, well,” Junhui feels his palms get sweaty again, “the universe works in mysterious ways. Jihoonie was saying a whole lot of nothing, anyway. How’s your um, organizing going, by the way?”

Junhui knows he’s being stupid, knows he's immature, too. Should he and Wonwoo talk about it? Yes, probably, maybe. But also—there really is nothing to talk about. What good will it do? Rehashing something they’ve already laid to rest, something they already decided together. It’ll only make it worse. Resurface old, sour feelings, give Wonwoo a real reason to hate Junhui, and that, Junhui isn’t sure he can take.

“It’s—“ Wonwoo starts, then stops. “I wanna talk about it.”

Junhui pauses, practically frozen in fear. Palms even sweatier. The words on the page before him look foreign, all of a sudden, unfocused gibberish, because he can’t—they can’t—

“Talk about what?”

”Jun-ah.” Wonwoo’s tone is different now. Firm, but rounded at the edge, like it’s dulled out from wear. A little broken. “You know what. You’re not—getting out of here any time soon, and it’s starting to feel—suffocating or something, like, the world’s largest elephant in the room, and I think you owe it to me to—“

“Fine, ok, lets talk,” Junhui sets his book down, blood pumping again, a little furiously now, coursing through his veins hot. “Go on, Wonwoo.”

”Don’t—put this all on me,” Wonwoo says, a bit shy, all of a sudden. He leans up, however stays seated, half crossed legged, blinking up at Junhui. “You were the one that started it. That wanted to call it off between us. So I think I’m just looking for an explanation, or like, at least one, solid reason.”

”What?” Junhui feels his eyes widen. Under attack. Vulnerable. “It was—we decided together. It was mutual. We agreed—“

”You started pulling away,” Wonwoo says, a bit accusatory, but his voice sounds small and Junhui is trying his best to stay composed so he lets him go on, “Things changed between us, and when I tried to ask you about it, it just—made it worse. You got defensive, and then I did, and—“

”I didn’t start pulling away,” Junhui says. Did he? They broke up because they started to—clash. Junhui felt like Wonwoo was going to get bored of him. Could feel Wonwoo starting to get bored of him and he didn’t want to be there for when he officially did. “You—it wasn’t working.”

”To you,” Wonwoo points out, and now his tone is sharper, makes Junhui feel more on edge. “And when I tried to talk about it, you refused, just like right now.”

”Not true,” Junhui argues.

Wonwoo was always the more sensitive out of the two of them, Junhui knows. They talked so much through everything in the beginning. Junhui wasn’t used to using his words so much, but he did, made it a habit, just for Wonwoo. He thinks about the end, about how anxious talking would make Junhui would feel, how half the time he would uselessly distract Wonwoo instead, kiss him, take him to bed, and by the time it was the next morning, they would have both forgotten what it was they were upset about, but the feelings never went away, only built up, marinated.

“It is true,” Wonwoo argues back. “You started getting colder. You started staying over less. When I told you I loved you, you wouldn’t say it back. And then when we ended it, you made it seem like it was me who was the bad guy, and now all—“

”The bad guy?” Junhui echoes, eyes wide. He’s discarded his book completely now, thrown to the side, and he sits straight up, alert. “I did not make you out to be the bad guy. Wonu, there is no bad guy, we—we’re adults.”

”That’d be more believable if you started acting like one.”

”Me?” Junhui stands now, and Wonwoo scrambles to get up as well, just—stand there while Junhui paces, angry, just the tiniest bit, maybe a little more than the tiniest bit. “I have been adult. We went out separate ways, and I pushed aside any differences so we could—stay friends, and forgive me for like, not wanting to be trapped in your apartment, the one place I spent more time in than maybe my own apartment, the one place that’s just you, everywhere, when it hasn’t even been like, six months without you yet. Hell, it’s hardly been three!”

”You’re not the only one suffering,” Wonwoo says. “You think I wanna be here, too? Stuck, when I could be—“

”Could’ve had me fooled considering how much you keep—trying to reopen old wounds and argue about—“

”I’m not trying to argue,” Wonwoo says evenly. Junhui is still pacing, but he’s still, in the middle of the room, always still, some kind of calm within the storm, any kind, always. “I feel bad.”

”I don’t want you to feel bad, Wonwoo-yah, it was a decision we came to together—“

”I know what it was, Jun,” Wonwoo says, aggravated now, Junhui can tell, “but when you love someone, sometimes you can’t help but feel a little shitty when you hurt them.”

When you love someone. Love, present tense. Junhui feels sick all of a sudden. Feels like Wonwoo’s living room is too small, too tight, and Junhui feels hot, and claustrophobic, and seriously considers scaling the fire escape right now, snow, sleet, hail be damned.

“Loved,” is all Junhui says. Corrects.

There’s a beat. “What?” Wonwoo asks.

“Past tense,” Junhui explains. “Loved.”

Junhui stops pacing to look at Wonwoo, through the dimly lit room, moon from outside doing more to illuminate his features than any shitty smelling candle in here. Junhui feels his heart ache. Pretty, Wonwoo is. Always the prettiest that Junhui had ever seen. His eyes are sharp, but also kind, and he’s got that—stupid, perfect bone structure that rounds out in his cheeks after a good meal, and there’s his pretty, pink lips, the same ones Junhui used to kiss, taste, tug, the same ones he gets the urge to feel again before he snaps out of it, wakes up, remembers why they’re really here, what’s really going on.

When Wonwoo still says nothing, Junhui tries, “You can’t say—“

”I know that, Jun-ah.” He stops him. Cold now, colder than he’s been all night. “I didn’t—whatever. Let’s drop it. You’re right, it’s not worth talking about. Any of it.”

Junhui knows he doesn’t mean it. Knows he wants to keep going, knows he has more to say, knows he probably has an entire bulleted list of what to say, because that’s just how Jeon Wonwoo is sometimes, and Junhui knows that because there’s no one else in the entire world that he knows better.

But he doesn’t argue. Accepts it, accepts Wonwoo’s attempt at peace because it’s easier, because hopefully the snow will let up soon, and then Junhui can go home, and maybe he’ll cry for a minute or two, call Soonyoung, and that will be that, it’ll all be over.

“It’s late,” Wonwoo says. And it is. Junhui’s been here for hours, and the sun has long set, and Junhui suddenly gets hit with a wave of exhaustion he didn’t know had even been building. Maybe it’s only just come out. Spurred on by their latest topic of conversation or something. Emotional exhaustion more than anything else. “We should sleep. You can take my bed, if you want. I’ll stay out here.”

”I can’t let you do that,” Junhui says, careful. “I should stay out here so you—“

”Jun-ah,” Wonwoo says on a sigh. “I don’t feel like arguing anymore. It wasn’t actually an offer. It was more of a, you will take my bed. Ok?”

Junhui doesn’t feel like arguing anymore either.

So instead he sighs back, nods. He lets Wonwoo lead him down the hallway to his room, the room that Junhui has stayed in countless times before, has done everything and anything in, with Wonwoo. Lets Wonwoo toss a pair of sweats out of his dresser at Junhui, and Junhui doesn’t bother resisting because it’s been a long day, because they both don’t want to argue anymore, because it’s not worth it.

“You know where the bathroom is, if you wanna wash up,” Wonwoo tells him as he snags a pillow off his bed. He lets out an awkward laugh. “I think you had some of your skincare stuff in your box of things, actually.”

“Thanks,” Junhui says, laughs back, just as awkward, doubly as painful. “I appreciate it.”

Wonwoo gives him a tiny smile, hardly even noticeable in the near dark. “Sleep well, Jun-ah,” he says.

But he won’t, probably not, not really. The truth is he hasn’t, not in the past two months, anyway.

* * *

They say you should never go to bed angry; Junhui isn’t too sure what they say about—going to bed unsettled, though, stuck in your ex’s bed, surrounded by everything that reminds you of him, smells like him, is him, while he’s outside, sleeping on a shitty couch covered by two shitty throw blankets, both of you alone.

So Junhui can’t sleep. Maybe he’s still wired from the events of the day, the nerves, the admitted excitement, the anxiety. Maybe the guilt is still eating him alive. Maybe everything is just wrong, all of it.

Junhui rolls over in Wonwoo’s comforter, staring up at the ceiling. He takes a deep breath, exhales, and when the smell of Wonwoo’s cologne and laundry detergent is the only thing that clouds his brain, he sits up, craning his neck to see past the curtains slightly ajar, revealing a sliver of the outside world. It’s hardly snowing now, only a few flurries. Maybe by the morning they’ll have the roads clear. Junhui thinks if he focuses hard enough, he can hear the distant sound of the plows clearing the way. Maybe, or perhaps it’s just wishful thinking.

He rolls over to the other side now, comes face to the face with nightstand, the one on Wonwoo’s side of the bed—or what was his side, Junhui thinks, they’re all his side now—stacked with a spare pair of Wonwoo’s glasses, a chapstick, some chunky headphones, and then tucked under that, a photo, pressed into the corner of the desk neatly, hidden, but not entirely secret.

It’s of Junhui. Nothing about it is special, at a glance. In the photo, Junhui’s—here, in his bed, and the Junhui in the photo is smiling, and he’s got Bomi on his chest, one hand behind her ear while the other reaches for something off camera. For Wonwoo, Junhui’s brain unhelpfully supplies. His lips are a specific, bitten shade of dark pink, like he’d been kissed silly just a few moments prior. He looks tired and he’s wearing a sweatshirt with their university logo printed on it. A year into their relationship. Christmas again. One of the photos Wonwoo had taken on his new camera. Right before Wonwoo had told him he loved him for the first time. Junhui loved him back. That part was special.

God.

Junhui feels like he really, really might get sick now. Nauseous. Dizzy. He kicks the blankets off, suddenly overheated, and sits up all the way, tucking the photo back away, like he shouldn’t even hold it, like it’s forbidden, poison, a danger to touch, to even know it’s still here.

He should leave, probably. Somehow. At the very least, he should be outside, on the couch, or better yet, just—awake, can sit at the kitchen table and think, go over him and Wonwoo and their relationship over and over again, come up with a reason as to why it was him that was the problem in the end, why all of a sudden Wonwoo’s love felt too big, why he pulled away, why he treated Wonwoo the way he did, why he still wants, wants him, Wonwoo, even after everything, even after he knows he doesn’t even deserve him.

God.

He leaves the picture on the nightstand when he heads to the door, just praying that Wonwoo isn’t already asleep, hoping that he won’t have to bother him more than he already has when Junhui comes out with a ‘yes, I know you said you don’t feel like arguing, but please take your room, you have to take your room, because I can’t sleep when everything in there is just you, only you, all you.’

He’s halfway to the door when it slowly swings open, anyway, Wonwoo on the other side, eyes wide, almost like he’s scared. Surprised to see Junhui or something.

“Oh,” he says. “You’re already awake.”

”Yeah,” Junhui says. The obvious. His voice is quiet, like he’s afraid he might yell again, get upset, might scare Wonwoo away. “I couldn’t sleep.”

Because I can’t stop thinking about you, and how I’m an asshole, how I’ve been one, and how we left us, left things, left everything, not only now, but back then, too.

“It’s—I think you should take your bed,” Junhui says instead. Says it because it’s easier, because they have to work past this, move on. “Not fair for you to be stuck outside. It’s probably much colder, anyway, and stuff.”

And you run cold, Junhui does not add, you always did.

“And,” Junhui says instead, “I know you don’t wanna argue, but I don’t either, and I’m not sleeping well in here, anyway, so can you please just—“

”Ok,” Wonwoo says, surprisingly easy, with a sigh, and a nod.

“Ok?” Junhui asks. He shifts on his feet, sitting into his hip. Junhui can hardly make out Wonwoo in here, not with his back blocking the light from the window, but he sees him nod, albeit maybe a bit reluctant.

“Fine,” he confirms. “That’s—whatever.”

”Ok,” Junhui says slowly. He feels—thrown. Feels out of place and awkward, was ready for another back and forth, ready for something else to make him feel a little alive again, to send a spark through his body, make his blood run hot, run warm with something so very distinctly Wonwoo. “I’m gonna—wait. Did you need something first? You—I mean, you were coming in and—“

”Oh.” Wonwoo nods again. “Yeah. I wanted to say sorry. Not for um, before necessarily, but. I used a word I shouldn’t have. So I wanted to say sorry for that.”

A word he shouldn’t have? Junhui thinks about it. Nothing in particular comes to mind, but then again, Jeon Wonwoo was always the more careful with his words out of the two of them. Always meticulously choosing, never saying anything he didn’t mean.

“What did you—“ Junhui shrugs. Decides he doesn’t want to revisit it at all. “It’s fine.”

”It’s not,” Wonwoo says, taking a step further in the room, closer, just the tiniest bit. He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it up off his forehead, letting it stick out a little silly, and Junhui finds it in him to not be as endeared as he really might be. “I told you I loved you, and that—made you upset. Which is valid. So I wanted to—apologize.”

”Ah.” Junhui nods. Did not expect that. Because it’s true that Wonwoo doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean, and yet he said that then, and now, now he’s— “So you don’t mean it.”

Junhui isn’t sure if it’s a question or a statement. If he even wants an answer, or if he just wants Wonwoo to leave it at that, up to his imagination, for him to toss and turn and sit with until he feels just crazy enough to do something stupid like move on completely, to find someone else, even if just for a little, to soothe over the Wonwoo-shaped-ache in his chest.

Wonwoo sucks in a breath, slowly, but sharp. Like it hurts. Junhui feels like it hurts. All of it. This right now, in Wonwoo’s bedroom, in a room that feels suddenly too tiny, too suffocating, too—filled with a sudden tension, thick and familiar.

“Is that—I mean, do you want me to answer that?” Wonwoo asks, careful. Always careful with his words. He takes a step closer and Junhui feels the room get even smaller. “Honestly?”

”I don’t know,” Junhui says. Honestly. “We shouldn’t be saying things like that to each other, anyway.”

”I know,” Wonwoo says. He’s looking at Junhui’s mouth. Even in the darkness, Junhui can tell. Can feel it. He suddenly wishes he could really feel it. Wonwoo’s mouth on his, hungry, hot, familiar, his— “But if you want it.”

”Want is tricky,” Junhui says.

Junhui wanted Wonwoo to be happy. That’s why he initiated it, in the end. Why he pulled away. Why he tried to convince Wonwoo he was unhappy with Junhui himself.

“I know,” Wonwoo echoes. Closer now, somehow. Maybe Junhui’s moving, too. A gravity pulling him closer to Wonwoo without him even really realizing. “We don’t have to be—“

”I want you to mean it,” Junhui says then. Firm. Surprises himself, maybe Wonwoo, too, if he didn’t already know Junhui the way he does, know him better than Junhui knows him, better than either of them know anyone else in the world. “I want you to say it again, and I want—I’m sorry, but I want you to—“

”I love you still,” Wonwoo says, within an instant. Means it, obviously, because he wouldn’t say anything he didn’t mean. “I never stopped.”

”That’s selfish of me,” Junhui says. He means that, too. “I shouldn’t make you—“

”I know,” Wonwoo cuts him off, and then he’s a lot closer, inches apart, really, and he’s— “My turn to be selfish now.”

Wonwoo’s kissing him. For the first time in months, for the first time since the breakup, since about two days before the breakup, for the first time in what feels like a goddamn eternity when it comes to Jeon Wonwoo.

He’s kissing Junhui, and Junhui is selfish, but so is Wonwoo, and it feels like coming home. Warm. Familiar. Easy.

It’s soft, somehow, gentle. Hungry, wanting, but gentle, still. Wonwoo’s got one hand at Junhui’s waist, and the other holds him in place, thumb and pointer finger at Junhui’s chin, and Junhui wants more, needs to feel more, needs him all over.

A part of Junhui feels like it’s dying inside. Maybe the part that had been so—angry, so adamant with his feelings about the breakup. Maybe the part that had been lying when it said he didn’t miss this. Didn’t miss Wonwoo.

The other half of Junhui feels like it’s being woken up again, given new life. Blooming under Wonwoo’s touch, under the slightest insistence of his tongue in Junhui’s mouth, there, but still somehow polite, hardly taking, just asking, asking Junhui. And he’d let him; of course he’d let him, so he turns his head to deepen the kiss, opens his mouth further to invite Wonwoo inside and makes a noise at the back of his throat, trapped between the two of them, just them, here now.

“Wonu,” Junhui manages, breathy, nearly muffled by Wonwoo’s lips on his again, before he grips Junhui by the hips and moves his mouth to the side, kisses at the corner of Junhui’s mouth, before his jaw, and then his neck, and— “Wonwoo-yah, oh.”

”Tell me if you want to stop,” Wonwoo mumbles, bent over a little as he bites at Junhui’s neck, Junhui dropping his head back for better access. “If you don’t want me—“

”I’ll say it if I mean it,” Junhui tells him, and then he pushes any remaining sense of responsibility he has away before he pries Wonwoo off his neck, kissing him again, less gentle than they had been, too much tongue, bitey, but good, especially if the way Wonwoo groans has anything to do with it.

There’s a desk to Junhui’s left up against the wall that has Wonwoo’s computer monitor on it. Mingyu always used to make fun of him for it—there’s no reason a grown man needs to have a gaming system in his bedroom, he would say—but Junhui never cared, so Wonwoo never got around to moving it, and so it’s still there. Which is—good, Junhui thinks, great even, because it’s prime real estate for Wonwoo to prop Junhui up against, Junhui only mildly concerned for how well put together the desk is before he says fuck it and rests his entire weight against it, and then Wonwoo nudges between Junhui’s legs, makes room for himself in between them, makes the fire in Junhui’s belly strike hot.

With Wonwoo’s lips still preoccupied on Junhui’s, Junhui reaches for the hem of Wonwoo’s sweatshirt, pushes underneath it to feel Wonwoo’s skin, feel over the vague definition of his abs, the admittedly very enticing swell of his pecs, and goddammit—Jihoon was right, he has been working out more than usual. Junhui never stood a chance, not ever.

“Take this off,” Junhui demands, because he deserves to see Wonwoo’s handiwork, or—ok, maybe deserves is really not the right word for it, not when he’s—the reason they’ve deprived themselves of this, but Wonwoo doesn’t seem to care, because he tosses the sweatshirt off, lets it land somewhere behind him once he tugs it off his head, glasses askew when he looks back down at Junhui through them.

Such a loser, Junhui thinks fondly, and then also can’t help but feel the way his dick is starting to fill out, too. Maybe Junhui is the loser. Whatever. Bigger fish to fry right now, or something.

Wonwoo just stares, lips parted, a little swollen, glasses still stupidly crooked, one hand at Junhui’s jaw, thumb dangerously close to his lips, edging closer.

“Your glasses,” Junhui mumbles, reaching up to fix them, and then before he leans back he stops at Wonwoo’s chest and presses his mouth there, right over his heart, feels it thump, thump, thumping beneath his lips before he drags it down further, presses another kiss along his ribs, one right above his belly button, and then—

“Fuck, Jun-ah,” Wonwoo swears, low, dirty already, but maybe they’re both just—desperate for it, need it.

“I know,” Junhui says absently, and then he presses another kiss over Wonwoo’s chest before he gets to his mouth again, lands one there, then Wonwoo’s jaw, pushing his head to the side a bit, giving himself more room to work with. “You look—“

Junhui doesn’t finish. Stopped only by Wonwoo trapping the hand holding his jaw in his own, bringing it to his lips, pressing a far too gentle kiss over Junhui’s knuckles, one that kinda throws Junhui out of it, puts him off kilter, too sweet.

“You’re beautiful,” Wonwoo tells him. Earnest. Honest, of course. He lets go of Junhui’s hand to reach for his shirt now. “Can I see you? Wanna.”

Yes, of course, anything, even if Junhui shouldn’t, even if they shouldn’t be doing any of this right now.

Junhui peels his top off, helplessly moans when Wonwoo’s hands grip him there, over the flesh at his hips, or dip into the smooth curve of his waist, fingers traveling up to thumb over his nipples, sensitive. Junhui feels like his entire body’s on fire. He hasn’t been touched in two months. Hardly any time, really, but when you go from Jeon Wonwoo at least a night a week to absolutely nothing, well.

“Wonu-yah,” Junhui gasps, Wonwoo’s hands all over, and his mouth hot against his neck again, and Junhui’s dick so uselessly hard, trapped in the sweats he’d borrowed from Wonwoo, “Wonwoo. Let me—stop. I wanna—“

Wonwoo makes a confused noise, pulling away with wide eyes, hair sticking up in a few directions from where Junhui had admittedly been pulling on it, and it takes Junhui a good four seconds to regain composure and like, control over his body, for him to reach out, palming over where Wonwoo is hard through his own sweats, pressing down with the slightest of pressure.

“Oh,” Wonwoo says, surprised, a moan, nearly. “Jun-ah, you—“

“Is this ok?” Junhui asks, quiet, a little nervous, but when Wonwoo nods with enough enthusiasm to be considered consent and encouragement, Junhui lets the fear dissipate, puts more pressure on his cock, grabs hold of him through the material, too.

Wonwoo moans for real this time—Jun-ah, fuck, oh my god—and Junhui hums, pleased.

“Want it in my mouth,” Junhui says, little to no decorum. “Can I? Wanna make you feel good.”

“You’re already—“ Wonwoo sucks in on a gasp, head dropping back as Junhui strokes him through his pants, just barely. “You’re—yeah. Please, I want it. Want you—“

It’s easy work getting Wonwoo out of his pants, even faster getting him fully hard, especially with Junhui on his knees in front of him, eyes big, hungry, peering up at Wonwoo with that look he’d mastered so well, a sure fire way to get Jeon Wonwoo hot and bothered, ready and nearly begging it.

“Jun-ah, holy fuck—“

Junhui can’t really remember sex before Wonwoo. It must’ve been boring. It must’ve been unfulfilling. Because even now, with Junhui’s on his knees, his own cock completely neglected, he feels his entire body a flame, feels like he might burst at any second, just from watching Wonwoo, listening to him, feeling him hot and heavy on his tongue.

Junhui wonders if it could ever be like this with anyone else. If anyone else would ever take the time to learn him the way Wonwoo did, and vice versa.

He wonders what any of this means. Wonders how they’re supposed to come back from this. Wonders what the immediate conversation following is supposed to go like. Wonders—

“Jun-ah, Jun, oh, my god,” Wonwoo moans, hands gripping the desk now, knuckles nearly white with the force of it. “You’re so—so good, baby. That’s so—“

Baby.

Ah. Junhui hasn’t heard that in—well, since the breakup. Before then. Two months, and some change, probably. The pet names, they came less and less as their relationship got more strained. Junhui didn’t realize how much he missed it until now. How special it made him feel.

Could he get that anywhere else? That feeling? Could anyone else find him special? Could anyone else love him the way Wonwoo did, the way he apparently still does?

Junhui is difficult, he knows. Finicky. Fickle. Here and there and then gone with his emotions, his thoughts. Wonwoo didn’t mind, he never did. He understood him—he loved Junhui. Loved him so much it flourished. Started talking about the future, and forever, and things they call their own together, and that’s—that’s when it started. When Junhui started to pull back, when he let himself get annoyed on purpose, when he got cold, when he said I love you less and hoped Wonwoo wouldn’t notice if he made it up to him in bed later that day, and he—he’s awful. He’s mean. He’s—

“Good, baby,” Wonwoo continues. He moves one hand from the desk, coming to brush through Junhui’s bangs, delicate, gentle, like Junhui’s something to be revered, maybe. Like he’s deserving of it. “I missed this. Your mouth. You, like this.”

Just this? Junhui doesn’t ask. I wouldn’t blame you if that was it. Wouldn’t blame you if you hated me otherwise, but you don’t, I know you don’t, you said you love me, and you don’t say things unless you mean it, and—

“Fuck,” Wonwoo swears. “Gonna come. I’m gonna—Jun-ah, pretty, you need to—“

Junhui gets the hint. Pulls off, jaw aching in a way he had missed, replaces where his mouth was with his hands and pumps, fast, tight, the way he knows Wonwoo needs it to finish.

“Wanna see you come,” Junhui tells him, catching his breath, voice a little hoarse, but in the best way, the way he missed. “Need it, Wonu.”

“Fuck.”

“You’re always so pretty when you come,” he continues. Gets a horrible, fleeting thought of someone else seeing Wonwoo like this, flushed, undone, whining, and feels sick. “Pretty all the time, but when you’re—“

Wonwoo reaches for him then, pulls him up off his knees and kisses him instead, tongue in his mouth, no doubt tasting himself there. It’s hungry. Hurts a little, in a good way, the way Wonwoo would only kiss him when he really missed him, after a few days apart—after things like Junhui visiting family back home or that one time Wonwoo had gotten the flu—kisses him with tongue and teeth and a bite, possessive, mean, Wonwoo.

Junhui takes it because he wants it, needs it. Would be stupid not to. He tightens the grip he’s got around Wonwoo’s cock, and it’s then that Wonwoo’s finishing, spilling into Junhui’s fist with a groan into his mouth, one that Junhui swallows down, eager, like a reward.

“Jun-ah, baby,” Wonwoo mumbles, almost delirious as he comes down, chest heaving, deep breathing. Junhui doesn’t even get to respond before he’s on him again.

And it’s softer after that, the kiss, that is. Gentler, just the tiniest bit. Less teeth, less bite, more languid, sweeter. Junhui takes it all the same as he did earlier. Wants it. Needs it.

Especially so when Wonwoo shifts a little so his thigh is in between Junhui’s legs, presses right against his erection, and he’s—

“Wonu,” he gasps, a moan, embarrassing, but not to Wonwoo, of course not.

“What do you want, hm?” Wonwoo asks. He’s got his lips pressed against Junhui’s neck, hot, but still gentle, like a ghost of a touch, a looming presence, eerily comforting. He presses his leg up, more pressure, and Junhui keens.

What does he want? This. Whatever Wonwoo will give him.

“I want—“ Junhui starts, and then grinds back down a little, startles a moan out of himself and Wonwoo, too, apparently, his eyes wide where they watch Junhui once he pulls away from his neck, fixated, content. “Just—let me? Like this.”

“You wanna—“

“Wonu-yah,” Junhui repeats on a whine, hips moving with a little more purpose now, friction from the sweats he’s still got on just deliciously mean. “Please.”

Wonwoo didn’t want to argue earlier, so he doesn’t argue now. Instead, he puts a hand on Junhui’s waist, his mouth on Junhui’s again, and guides him just slightly, keeping Junhui in a steady grind against his thigh. It’s—it’s embarrassing, nearly, but Junhui can’t find it in him to care, not when it feels so good.

Junhui missed this. Wonwoo, hot and sturdy and real, beneath him, against him. The way he whines when Junhui gets a particularly good bout of friction, the way he holds Junhui tight at his hips, subtly guiding him, enough for that to be something else entirely for Junhui, the way he kisses, talks to him.

“God, you look good,” Wonwoo marvels. He leans back, brushing Junhui’s hair out of his face, thumb catching below his eye. Is Junhui crying? He doesn’t think so. He hopes not. He doesn’t—want to know. “How’s that? You like it? You want more?”

“It’s good,” Junhui gasps, whines, a little pathetic, but more so because Junhui does need more, needs more of Wonwoo, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

He imagines it would have been too much too soon to ask Wonwoo to fuck him for real. The bed would feel too intimate, anyway, would make it too serious. There was one time Wonwoo fucked him against this desk. Bent Junhui over it and just had his way with him. Junhui only remembers because it was so rare that they weren’t in bed, or on the couch, or another—horizontal location in the apartment. Wonwoo was always too sweet like that.

“Finish what you started,” Junhui would tell him, in the kitchen, or in the bathroom of a dive bar, anywhere but here—home, bed. Junhui would complain sometimes, all in jest, but still. “Where’s your sense of excitement, Jeon Wonwoo?”

“Later,” Wonwoo would say. “The way you deserve.”

“Good,” Wonwoo echoes. He reaches out, one hand bringing Junhui in for another messy kiss, the other brushing over his chest, over his nipples again. Junhui shudders, even more sensitive than he was before, and when Wonwoo does it once more, he moans, hot into Wonwoo’s mouth. “Good boy,” Wonwoo adds. “Let me hear you.”

Humiliating, even, but Junhui likes it. Likes the way it makes him feel, the way Wonwoo’s always made him feel, likes the way Wonwoo holds him, lets him use his thigh, and it’s—so much, and should be more awkward than it is, but Junhui can’t find it in himself to think so, not one bit.

He’s desperate, has been. For release, to feel it again, to feel it with Wonwoo. To feel it with Wonwoo presses up against him, sturdy, and here, and home. God.

“Oh, I'm almost—“ Junhui cuts himself off with another moan, slumps against Wonwoo a little, impossibly closer. One of his hands comes to hold Wonwoo at the back of the neck, fingers twisting in his hair while he shoves his face in his neck, hides there. “Wonwoo, honey, baby—“

”Fuck,” Wonwoo swears, low in his throat, so deep within it’s coming from somewhere in his chest, somewhere around his heart as he continues, “Just like that, Jun-ah. Look at you. Wish you were—riding my cock like this instead.”

”Wonu,” Junhui says, surprised, chiding.

Wonwoo always had a dirty mouth. It was—a lot, when they first started having sex. Junhui had never been with somebody that wanted him so unapologetically. The things Wonwoo would ask of him, would say to him, would suggest—it was so much. It was exciting. It was one of Junhui’s favorite things about him, if he had to get superficial and a little R-rated about it.

“Could’ve made you feel so good,” Wonwoo continues, anyway. “So full. Would have fucked you the way you always wanted it.”

He shifts a hand again, this time dragging over Junhui’s stomach, somewhere around his still hard, still leaking dick, but doesn’t touch it. Settles on his abdomen instead.

“Deep. That’s how you always wanted me, yeah?” Wonwoo continues, presses his hand a little into Junhui’s stomach, “You’d feel it. Here.”

“Fuck you, oh my god,” Junhui whines, no matter how ridiculous the implication may be, how absurd Jeon Wonwoo is, he’s still—oh, my god. Junhui wants all of him. Wants to feel him there, where his hand still is, and then feel him on his tongue and in his lungs and in his head, all the goddamn time, and it’s—it’s wrong, so wrong. “Fuck, Wonu.”

“You’re so close, baby, go on,” Wonwoo tells him, voice low. He sweeps another gentle hand across his cheek, impossibly sweet. “Finish for me. You’ve been so good.”

And he’s not, is the thing. Junhui is selfish, and he was mean, and he got so—afraid of the way Wonwoo loved that he left, made Wonwoo want to leave, because it was better than staying and inevitably fucking it up, he was certain.

But Wonwoo’s here now, and he’s saying it, and he doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. Good, he says, so, so good, Jun-ah. And Junhui doesn’t want to fight, not with Wonwoo, not with himself right now, so he doesn’t. So he drops his head back, sucking in a breath, and feels the faintest touch of Wonwoo’s mouth in his neck, and he finishes, with Wonwoo’s lips pressed to his temple, with Wonwoo; Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonwoo.

“Fuck.”

“Right,” Wonwoo agrees with a breathless laugh. He presses one more kiss to Junhui’s cheek, one of his hands rubbing at the small of Junhui’s back. Sweet. “Pretty. So pretty,” he mumbles.

And Junhui says nothing. Can’t, because Junhui is tired. Mentally, and physically, and emotionally, has been for months.

So he doesn’t say anything he knows he should—I’m sorry, can we talk, we should talk, we have to talk, I’m so, so sorry—but instead he untangles himself, body aching, kisses Wonwoo himself this time, sweet, gingerly, and then he waits for Wonwoo to get him a new pair of sweatpants, a towel to wipe the come off the both of them, and he doesn’t argue, neither of them want to.

Junhui takes the bed again, and this time, Wonwoo does, too. Together. They don’t argue it. They don’t want to.

But Junhui still doesn’t say sorry, still doesn’t try talking about it, about the breakup, about the sex, any of it.

“Goodnight, Jun-ah,” Wonwoo says, closer than he’s been in months, so close that Junhui can feel the rumble of his voice all the way to his chest, feel it ping around in there like a pinball machine, wrap around his heart and tangle, tug. He likes it, Wonwoo being that close. Feels good, for once. “Sleep well.”

And for the first time in months, Junhui will.

* * *

Junhui wakes up to what sounds like a TV blaring the morning news and a body rock solid next to him.

It takes him a minute to come to. To realize what’s happening. It was a good, deep sleep. The kind that you only get after a long day of work, or like, after an orgasm, and—ah. Right.

“What the hell is that?” Wonwoo grumbles, seemingly confused as well, but especially so when he looks around and notices the way one of his arms is trapped under Junhui’s body, the two of them still tangled up together, sleepy eyes widening just a bit. “I—”

“Sorry,” Junhui says quickly. He sits up, way too fast for the morning that he almost gets dizzy, but Wonwoo just smiles, sheepishly retracting his arm.

He looks cute, Junhui thinks, unfortunately. Face a little puffy from sleep, lips a pouty red, hair standing up on the side, endearingly messy. At the base of his neck, there’s a pinkish, barely there mark in the shape of Junhui’s lips. Because that happened. Fuck. Junhui looks away before his ears can turn all the way red.

Wonwoo rolls over, heading straight to the window, curtains still pulled slightly ajar so they can see outside. It’s bright out, mid morning, maybe, and from what Junhui can tell, there’s still snow on the ground, but—

“The streets are clear. Must’ve done them early this morning,” Wonwoo says. Almost a bit—regretably. There’s still the white noise of the television seeping in from the living room, left off on whatever channel Wonwoo must’ve had on before it went out. “You could probably… um. I mean.”

He stops there. Leave, Junhui fills in the blank. Be free. Never see me again, which is what you wanted, isn’t it?

“Right,” Junhui says, and his voice is a little hoarse, so quiet that it doesn’t even sound like himself. He stands now, too, bed between them, and Junhui feels simultaneously out of place and also like he’s never belonged anywhere else more, in Wonwoo’s sweats, wearing Wonwoo’s scent from bed, a few possessive bites lingering on his chest in the shape of Wonwoo’s mouth. His Wonwoo—the Wonwoo who used to be his, his now ex. “I should go, then.”

“Go,” Wonwoo repeats. An agreement or a question, Junhui isn’t too sure. “Just like that?”

“I shouldn’t…” Junhui trails off. More unspoken words settle between them, heavy, stagnant, suffocating.

I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have been so selfish. I shouldn’t have fucked you, I shouldn’t have wanted it, and I shouldn’t have shut you out all those months ago, but it’s too late, we can’t undo it, we have to move on.

“I’ve already overstayed my welcome,” Junhui jokes instead. Shifts uncomfortably on his feet, awkward. “I think it’d be best if we both—”

“No, of course,” Wonwoo stops him, and his voice is even, calm, but Junhui can’t help but notice the slightest twinge to it, sour, bitter. “You should go. You only came here for your stuff, anyway.”

Junhui pauses, throat dry all of a sudden. He wants to say more. Sorry, to start. Wants to at least acknowledge last night even. But Wonwoo folds his arms over his chest, gives Junhui a very neutral expression, and Junhui decides that this is it, this is his out, his chance to seal the wounds once and for all, to leave it. Leave them.

“Right,” Junhui says. Quiet again, too quiet.

So they don’t argue anymore.

Wonwoo leads the way to the living room, TV still playing, lights in his kitchen and his hallway back on, almost like the last twelve hours didn’t happen, a blip in time, a few, forgiving hours that won’t count towards them, towards the future. Bomi is on her bed in the corner, still sound asleep. The photo of the two of them framed by the door remains, and Junhui still doesn’t say anything, can’t bring himself to.

Because when he leaves now, this is it. No more belongings lingering in each other’s apartments, no more opportunity to see each other beyond a friend’s house, no more them, no more Wonwoo-and-Junhui, together, but Wonwoo, and then Junhui, and the end.

He gets his things. Zips up his coat again. He even goes out of his way to change back into his jeans, leaving Wonwoo’s sweats folded neatly on his bed, just for the sake of not having one last thing to return. He thinks about wearing them home for one, brief, selfish second. A keepsake. Then he decides against it. Better that way.

The lights in the hallway outside are on now, too. Elevator dings in the distance. Like Junhui hardly ever left his own place, really. A blip in time, truly.

“Thanks for my things,” Junhui says at the door. Wonwoo still looks serious, unbothered. “And—everything.”

All Junhui can manage right now. Maybe ever.

“You’re welcome,” Wonwoo says. Nonchalant. Shrugs. Hardly smiles. “Good to see you, Jun-ah.”

“You, too,” Junhui returns. Because he’s polite. Because it was, even if it feels like Junhui’s heart is being torn out of his chest bit by bit, painful, ugly, not in the way he wishes he could give Wonwoo his heart again, whole, full of love, wrapped up in a pretty Christmas bow just for him or something. “I’ll see you around, probably.”

“Probably,” Wonwoo says, distracted. He’s already halfway to closing the door. Junhui is an idiot, and he’s mean, and he’s selfish— “Merry Christmas, Jun-ah.”

But it won’t be, obviously can’t be.

* * *

Junhui wonders how long he’s supposed to feel this empty for.

It wasn’t even this bad after the initial breakup. This achy, guilty, gaping hole in the middle of Junhui’s chest. When they first broke up, Junhui had felt like he did the right thing. Felt like he had set Wonwoo free, and so he could at least go on peacefully knowing Wonwoo would eventually be happy. He didn’t really think about himself then. Poured himself into work instead, and hung out with his other friends, and yes, obviously it hurt, he’s not a goddamn robot, but like this—no, nothing Junhui has ever felt has even come close.

Perhaps it’s because it’s Christmas. Because there’s snow outside, and couples shuffling together hand in hand on the sidewalk, gifts to be shared, memories to be had, and at one point, last year, hell, just four months ago even, that was Junhui, but now he’s—now he’s left his ex in his apartment with a hickey in the shape of his own mouth and nothing else except maybe a matching achy, guilty, gaping hole.

Does Wonwoo feel this way, too? Junhui hopes he doesn’t. Hopes he still made the right decision. Separate, apart, no more room for arguments and anxiety and—and fucking shit up, fucking a good thing up. Fucking Wonwoo up, the best thing.

“Am I a bad person?” Junhui asks once Soonyoung picks up his call, on the first ring, even, which tells Junhui that either Jihoon’s parents place is so boring it’s driving Soonyoung insane, or Soonyoung just genuinely thought Wonwoo was gonna kill him or something.

“Christ, Jun-ah. I thought you were still like, dead or suffering at Wonwoo’s place.” That would be the latter then. “Are you home yet?”

“Yes,” Junhui says, almost—oddly wishes he wasn’t home, though. “They cleared the roads earlier this morning. I got back a little while ago.”

“And now you’re sitting around wondering if you’re a bad person.”

“Yes,” Junhui repeats. Huffs. “How’s Busan?”

“Nice, now that it’s less snowy.” Soonyoung snorts. “I’m hiding from Jihoonie’s mom because she won’t stop feeding us. Jihoonie ran errands for his dad and left me here to sleep, so now I’m too afraid to move. Moms, y’know?”

“I know.” Junhui laughs, despite himself. “Tell her I said hi.”

“Sure,” Soonyoung says. Then, gentler, “You’re not, by the way. Like, a bad person, that is.”

Junhui hums. “I feel like one. Right now. Have. For like—a little while, at least.”

Soonyoung hums back. “Because of Wonu?”

“Gee, how’d you guess?”

“Shared Gemini intuition,” Soonyoung jokes. “Was it bad? Seeing him again?”

Yes. No. I was stupid. Stupid at the time of the breakup, and stupid now. We fucked. We didn’t talk about it. Didn’t talk about that, or the breakup, not the way I really wanted to, the way I really should have, and when I left, it felt like I was leaving a part of me there, but I decided this, I chose this, so now I have to live with it.

Junhui does not say any of that, though. “Kinda,” he says instead. “On one hand it’s like nothing changed. The way we talk and stuff. On the other hand—”

“A big, awkward elephant in the room.”

“Right,” Junhui confirms. “Massive. Can hardly see around it.”

Soonyoung laughs a little, then sighs, like he’s defeated, or maybe like he’s not sure what he should say, if he should say what Junhui can tell he’s obviously thinking. Gemini intuition and all that.

“Love isn’t so black and white, you know,” he decides on. “Which means—sometimes you think one thing is the answer, but it’s really… well. You have to look at the big picture.”

Sometimes you think one thing is the answer. Hm. And then sometimes you break up with somebody because it’ll save you from a bigger heartbreak in the future, one not guaranteed, but one you’re almost positive will happen because of you, because you’re broken.

“Soonyoung,” Junhui starts, “I don’t—please no introspective bullshit right now. I’m too emotionally drained for that.”

“It’s not introspective bullshit,” Soonyoung says with a scoff, but lighthearted, thank god, because Junhui’s still feeling fragile and it’s possible he may cry otherwise. “I’m just saying. Relationships aren’t so easy and they’re also not permanent.”

“Obviously they’re not permanent,” Junhuii huffs, “that’s the whole problem with—”

“Decisions aren’t permanent either,” Soonyoung interrupts. “Just because you do something doesn’t mean you can’t undo it.”

“But if things are better—”

“And are they?” Soonyoung asks. Sounds eerily similar to how Wonwoo did, just some hours ago, yesterday.

Are you better? he asked.

No, the answer was. The answer Junhui did not say out loud. Not without you.

“They’re—”

“You don’t have to tell me, Junnie,” Soonyoung tells him gently. “But you’re the only person who can truly know how you feel, and I think you owe it to yourself to at least be honest about it, yeah?”

Junhui swallows the lump in his throat and nods, even though Soonyoung can’t see him. “Yeah,” he says. Feels like crying again, although he won’t, he can’t really do that with Soonyoung on the phone without him threatening to come back to Seoul early again or something.

“You’re not a bad person,” Soonyoung emphasizes. Adds, “I know Wonwoo doesn’t think so either.”

“Right,” Junhui says. And he knows he should feel better, and he also knows Soonyoung is right, and he knows what he wants, knows what he wants to do, what he should do, but can he? Is he brave enough? Would it make Wonwoo hate him more?

“Stop overthinking,” Soonyoung says then. “I can feel you overthinking through this goddamn phone.”

“I am not—”

“Soonyoung-ah!” A voice cuts in, sing-songy, bright, and Junhui laughs right before Soonyoung swears under his breath—dammit, she found me—before he responds, louder, “Be right down, eomma!”

A beat.

“Jihoonie’s mom,” he explains. “I gotta go. She made an early lunch. And then probably a second and third course to the lunch.”

Junhui laughs. “Go, eat,” he says. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will be,” Soonyoung assures him. He hums. “Just go easy on yourself, kay, Jun?”

“I know,” Junhui says. Promises, “I will.”

“Oh!” Soonyoung says right before he hangs up. “And Merry Christmas.”

Christmas, Junhui thinks once the line goes dead. Feels even worse than he previously had, because it was Christmas when he and Wonwoo had started dating, when Wonwoo kissed him for the first time, when he told Junhui he loved him for the first time, and now. Now it’s Christmas and they’re apart, will continue to be, because Junhui made his bed, and now he has to lay in it, no matter how overcrowded with—demons that look exactly like Jeon Wonwoo it may be.

But—god. If he doesn’t want it. Want him, Wonwoo. Wants to fix it. Could he? Or is it already too far past the point of being fixed, completely irreversible? What would Wonwoo think? Say? What would their other friends say? Junhui is fickle, and he’s a coward, and he’s selfish and yet—Jeon Wonwoo loved him all the same.

Could Junhui get that anywhere else? Does he want it from anyone else?

No. Easily no.

Junhui isn’t—a total, hopeless romantic, but there are some people, he knows, that are meant to be together. Is that them? Junhui thinks so. Does Wonwoo?

He’s up before he can answer it himself. Before he can talk himself into thinking Wonwoo despises him. He has to see him again. Has to apologize, at the very least, tell him the truth about the reason he hurt Wonwoo, the reason he hurt them, broke this off. He owes it to Wonwoo, at least. Owes it to himself, at least.

His shoes are on and his coat is zippered to the top, brisk air kissing his cheeks as he swirls around the corner of his building to the subway, beelining to Wonwoo’s. He’s never moved so fast in his life. His heart is pounding and there’s so many nerves in his stomach—good and bad—that it’s making him all kinds of sick, but he loves Wonwoo, he always has, he never stopped.

He’s sorry. He’s awful. Cruel, and insecure, and mean, but Wonwoo loves him, he did, and Junhui, he never stopped either. He could be better. He could try again. He could start from the beginning. Friends, at least. Anything would be better than—being apart, than seeing Wonwoo and pretending he feels nothing, not even the tiniest spark of affection, at least.

He’s in front of Wonwoo’s door again, knocks before he can fully talk himself out of it. Or at least he thinks he knocks. He can’t hear anything over the pounding of his heart still, the thump, thump, thumping all the way between his heart, erratic, nervous, every beat sounding exactly like Jeon Wonwoo’s name.

He considers turning around. He’s selfish. He’s mean, and he’s undeserving of Wonwoo’s love, probably, but Wonwoo deserves this, an apology, to know why he did it, how he feels, how he’ll always feel.

Another beat. One last second for Junhui to consider turning around and hightailing it out of there until the door swings open, and it’s—

“Wonwoo.”

“Jun-ah?”

He looks tired. There are bags under his eyes, and he’s in the same sweatshirt he was wearing last time Junhui was here, and his hair is a little messy, like he had been tugging on it—nerves, Junhui assumes, but wishes wasn’t true—and there’s the shape of Junhui’s mouth still on the side of his neck, and Junhui loves him, has, always will.

“What are you—I mean,” Wonwoo starts, then stops. He looks back into his apartment, and sighs. “Bomi will get out.”

“I’ll be fast,” Junhui says, or something like that, because he still can’t hear himself over his heartbeat, rapid now, and his brain is working on autopilot, scratch that, not his brain, but instead his stupid heart is, a direct connection between it and his mouth. “I wanted to—you needed to hear it from me. The truth.”

Wonwoo gives him a look. Confused. Intrigued, maybe, or maybe he’s just—upset still, and Junhui can’t really take that, though he knows it’d be warranted, knows he’d be deserving of it.

“About?”

“Us,” Junhui says quickly. “Me. You and me.”

“Jun-ah,” Wonwoo sighs, aggravated, annoyed now, distressed, Junhui can tell. “We both agreed we were done talking about it. Actually, I think we both—kinda agreed we didn’t need to be doing this again. Seeing each other, so—”

“It’s Christmas,” Junhui stops him. He swallows hard around nothing, throat dry, painful. “It was Christmas when you first kissed me, and it was Christmas when you first told me you loved me, and it’s—I know it was only a few years, but I’ve spent every Christmas with you since, and now—now it’s Christmas and we’re not together, and it’s me, it’s my fault.”

“Jun-ah—”

“You kept the picture of me you took after you said you loved me for the first time,” Junhui says. Somehow, brave. “I saw it. In your room.”

Wonwoo’s cheeks turn pink. He’s handsome. Gorgeous, always the most gorgeous. “I meant to—put it with your things,” he says.

“And the one of the two of us from your birthday that Mingyu took, you still have it in the hall,” Junhui adds. “And you still are too honest with me, and you still wear your heart on your sleeve, and you still look at me like—like that, even after I ruined everything.”

“Old habits,” Wonwoo says dismissively. He shrugs. “And you didn’t ruin everything. Don’t put the blame on yourself. We can let it go.”

“No, but I did,” Junhui insists. “I was—I was so afraid of you, Wonwoo. The way you… loved. No one ever loved me like that before, and when you did, it was—it was so fucking scary.”

Wonwoo says nothing, eyes a bit wide, ears still a bit pink. Shy now. Or maybe surprised. Junhui doesn’t think he’s looking for an answer, anyway, so he continues, “It was one thing that you loved me. Like, really, really loved me, but. When you started talking about the future, a future with us, it freaked me out entirely. Like, he wants me that long? Forever? Wants to—do everything with me?”

“Why didn’t you say—”

“I didn’t say anything because I was afraid it’d freak you out,” Junhui explains. Poorly, realizes how it sounds even more stupid out loud, but he says it because he has to, because he can’t keep this in anymore. “You’d figure out I was emotionally—detached, or whatever, and that’d be a turn off, and then we’d be so deep into the future when it all came to that it’d be too late, that you’d hate me more, resent me, and I didn’t—I was so selfish, I didn’t want it to come to that.

“I did pull away,” Junhui continues. “I don’t know if it was entirely on purpose. Everything got too big all of a sudden. Our relationship and your feelings and my own. So I figured, if you hated me, if we fought more, there’d be more reason to end it. It’d make more sense than me just—being a coward down the line. I was trying to—well. It doesn’t matter what I was trying to do, because I went and ruined it either way, and now I just—I wanted to tell you the truth. Because it’s Christmas, and Christmas makes me think of you, and I’m selfish, and I’m sorry.”

He finishes. Takes a deep breath that feels shaky, and prays to any god out there that may listen that he doesn’t cry. Junhui isn’t much of a crier. Especially not when it comes to—crying in front of his ex.

Wonwoo just—stares. Eyes wide still, pretty still. His mouth is pulled apart in a tiny ‘o,’ confused, processing, and, although Junhui would wish not, annoyed, probably.

“Jun-ah,” Wonwoo starts again, “you know that—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Junhui tells him. Stops him with a hand, brave still, very solemn, graceful even. “I’m not trying to drag this out or something. I just figured you should know. Like, the truth, or whatever.”

“I used to hate Christmas,” Wonwoo says then. Casual. Sudden.

He steps forward, clicking the door shut behind him. They’re in the hallway now, just the two of them, and Junhui’s done a lot in this hallway, honestly—laughed at a stupid joke of Wonwoo’s, or trudged behind him after a night out, or kissed Wonwoo silly against his door before they snuck inside—but a confession, a reconciliation, whatever this is, well, that’s a first.

“What?”

“The holidays,” Wonwoo elaborates. “Even when I was little. It felt so commercial. And cheesy. In a bad way, like everyone was forcing it. Forcing—some kinda joy or whatever. Like, why wasn’t it like that all year? Why did everyone only have to go out of their way to do good things around the holidays, you know?”

“That’s—” Junhui frowns. “I don’t see how—”

“But when I met you,” Wonwoo ignores him, “you were—you were always good. Sweet to everyone, and especially sweet to me, and that party three years ago—Seungkwannie’s holiday party? I almost didn’t go. I didn’t want to go. But something in me made me, it told me—”

“That’s when you kissed me the first time,” Junhui says. The obvious.

“Duh.” Wonwoo, somehow, laughs, just the tiniest chuckle. He sighs. “You were always easy to love. Even when you thought you were being difficult, and closed off, and—downright annoying sometimes—”

“Yah.”

“—I loved you. Easily,” Wonwoo finished. “You were too good not to.”

Junhui feels like he’s dying now. Like, he’s going to die here, in the hallway of Jeon Wonwoo’s building, a place where he laughed and loved, anything and everything, and now he’s gonna die here, too, death by Wonwoo and all things him, all things their breakup.

Oh, well, Junhui guesses, he probably deserved it.

“Loved,” Junhui croaks. He’s not crying, he seriously swears it, but there’s a lump in his throat and he’s— “Past tense.”

“Love,” Wonwoo corrects. And his voice is a little shaky, too, but he looks at Junhui when he says it, so he must mean it. Never says anything he doesn’t mean. “Present. You already know that.”

“Wonwoo-yah,” Junhui tries. Embarrassed. Broken down. “What are we doing?”

“Talking finally,” Wonwoo laughs again, lighter this time, shrugs. “Hey, Jun-ah?”

Junhui hums in response. Feels a sickly feeling still sinking into his stomach, along with something else, something a whole lot like love, unshakable, even though he shouldn’t, even though he’s selfish, not good at all, no matter what Wonwoo says.

“What are you doing today?” Wonwoo asks. “For Christmas, that is.”

“I’m—” Junhui stops. Wonwoo smiles now, slowly, shyly. “I wanted to try a new recipe. Soup. It’s spicy.”

“Spicy,” Wonwoo repeats. He hums. “I’d probably like it.”

“Maybe,” Junhui says, but quiet, hardly audible. Wonwoo smiles just a tiny bit brighter. Junhui is in love, in love with Wonwoo, and maybe he’s allowed to be selfish, just now, about this one thing. “Wonu—”

“You love me still, too,” Wonwoo says, sure of himself.

“We’re not—we broke up.”

“We did, yes,” Wonwoo says. He nods, leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across a broad chest. Shrugs. “Two months is sort of nothing in the grand scheme of things.”

“Wonwoo.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean, Jun-ah,” Wonwoo tells him. “I don’t think you do either. You were never great with words, sure, whatever; but you were always careful with them.”

Junhui thinks about it. Him, and how he’s been feeling, and how cruel he was—not only to Wonwoo, but also to himself. He thinks about him and Wonwoo together. Good, great even. Wonwoo was great. Wonwoo always understood him, still does, still wants to. Wonwoo who loved so hard, so openly, who’s willing to do it again.

And Junhui wants it, wants him. Has always only wanted him. Want—such a tricky, funny thing. Difficult, and slippery, and selfish, and yet—

“If you don’t want to try again, that’s fine,” Wonwoo says slowly, “but if you do, if you like me, I’d rather kiss you before I get another year older.”

And Junhui wants him. All of him.

He laughs, but it’s a little wet sounding, packed with relief, maybe. “Wasn’t that my line?” he asks.

Wonwoo shrugs. Smiles. “It worked once.”

And Junhui does like him, for the record. He kisses him.

It’s Christmas, after all.