love you to the stars and back - Hongbae oneshot book

past

Admittedly, it's funny when the alcohol makes the two even more emotional and sappy as usual, so he joins them. Though sometimes, it gets a bit tear-jerking too.

Dongheon has always been a melancholic guy, but even for him, a two hour long sob about how on bad days, I wish I could run away into the past and never return means that something has been going horribly wrong. That night, Minchan held him close and didn't let go until they both fell asleep on the couch. And Hoyoung had brought Minchan's blanket and his own from their rooms, as well as all the pillows he could find to give them the necessary physical comfort in the early autumn chill.

He doesn't remember where he spent the night. It wouldn't have made a difference; the floor next to the couch was painful, and his own bed cold.

What he does remember is the warmth in Dongheon's eyes when he wordlessly poured him a glass of water in the morning and how he let Dongheon pull him into a hug that he still thinks about to this day.

Because that's the thing with physical closeness — Hoyoung used to flinch when he wasn't the one deliberately choosing to engage in it, suck in an uncomfortable breath. But he finds himself making more and more exceptions as time passes, and he thinks that Dongheon's openness with his affection is, while not the sole reason, definitely one part of this change of heart.

More than change, Hoyoung thinks, it's acceptance. Or maybe it's both, one thing fading into the other until all that's left is a warm feeling lingering in his chest like a candle has been lit in an abandoned room.

*'☆°*

It's facetiming Yongseung on the quick ten minute walk between the train station and home. Yongseung lately has been difficult to see, his days packed with classes at the Performing Arts school he diligently attends, his part-time job at the retirement home and the reliably regular visits at the coffee shop at the end of his street. He still plans out his day by the hour and gets upset when he gets thrown off his schedule. It has gotten better though; Hoyoung remembers when he used to plan by minute and basically set himself up for frustration because life never operates exactly how one wants it to.

And Yongseung has eventually managed to squeeze Hoyoung into the little spare time he has without sacrificing his careful order so Hoyoung thanks him by making the most out of it.

He talks about the practice room videos Yongseung occasionally sends, admires his body control. He mentions Minchan still stumbling over the books in his bedroom floor just to see Yongseung grin. He asks about Yeonho, who lives in the same apartment complex as Yongseung but refuses to use his phone if not to send unrelated dog memes and other silly photos into the group chat, so Hoyoung doesn't really ever know what he is doing, and chuckles at the disastrous stories Yongseung tells of the two of them being a menace to their neighborhood together.

"You're a menace to him," Gyehyeon would scoff and give Yeonho a good shove that might send him straight to the floor. Hoyoung is too glad that Yongseung is overcoming his serious people-pleasing to care.

He doesn't see him face-to-face except for fleeting seconds in front of the library. Somehow, Yongseung finds it in his week to get some reading done in the evening and when Hoyoung feels like it's been too long, he deliberately drives a little detour back from work just in hope to catch a glimpse of him. It's too much to ask of fate to have them meet at the traffic light, but it has happened before: Yongseung, leaning against the streetlamp, carrying a heavy looking book under his arm and slowly blinking in surprise before grinning at him through the window.