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Matthew knew his first birthday as an idol would be busy, but he didn’t know it would be quite this jam-packed. The MV shoot can’t get put on hold for a birthday celebration, so the bulk of his day is filled with B-roll reshoots, and by the time he’s whisked back to the company building to go over the scripted bits of his live, he’s already dead tired. It’s a good thing that the company’s whole birthday live premise is to have each member flanked by two others, so that Gunwook and Jiwoong are there to help him keep his sunshine energy up during his forty-five minute live.
Or maybe it’s not a good thing. He’s never really sure when it comes to things involving Jiwoong and him being perceived, together.
Either way, the live is the highlight of the evening, because after that, it’s hours of dull schedules, all on his own. Gunwook and Jiwoong get to go back to the dorm, but Matthew has a follow-up photo shoot, and a session with his tutor to go over all the Korean words he messed up during the live, and a rushed, late dinner of takeout food before the video team drags him into a studio to film a birthday message to be shown to himself on his next birthday.
It’s weird to talk to future Matthew about all the changes that are ahead, when he can barely envision what they’ll be like, and it’s weird to do it on his own. Almost all of their schedules thus far have been with the whole group, and doing things without his members there to be a support system is daunting.
Really, it’s just doing things without one particular member that’s so daunting, a thought he’ll only admit to himself when he’s alone, just in case anyone around him has mind-reading abilities.
Matthew doesn’t get back to the dorm until nearly one in the morning, and by then, the exhilaration of the live has worn off. The happy glow of all the birthday greetings flooding the chat has faded, replaced by a kind of quiet loneliness that only one person can fix.
The common area is mostly empty when Matthew lets himself into the dorm, and only the 04s seem to still be awake and out of their rooms. Gyuvin’s curled up on one side of the couch on his Switch, and Ricky’s on the other, watching something on an iPad with one earbud in.
“Hey, guys. Where’s everyone?”
“Ah, hyung!” Ricky says, looking up and tapping his screen to pause whatever he’s watching. “How was the live?”
“You didn’t watch?” Matthew asks.
“No, he did,” Gyuvin says, looking up too. “You messed up his message.”
“The word was fun,” Ricky pouts.
“Oh, god, that makes much more sense,” Matthew says, leaning back on the wall next to the door and rubbing one of his tired eyes with the palm of his hand. He had makeup on for the live, and he probably just smudged it everywhere.
“Did you like my present?” Gyuvin asks, eagerly, before Matthew can apologize to Ricky. “Cute, right?”
“It was adorable, Bin-ah,” Matthew says. “Where’s everyone?”
“He’s in his room,” Ricky says. He turns his eyes back to his tablet, mouth twitching, and Gyuvin snickers.
“Not funny,” Matthew says. “I asked about everyone.” He gives Ricky what he hopes is a stern look, but even if he pulled it off, Ricky isn’t looking at him anymore.
“Yeah, sure, hyung,” Gyuvin says airily. “He hasn’t been in there for that long. He’s probably waiting up for you.”
“And where’s everyone else?”
“Oh, Taerae-hyung’s in there, too,” Gyuvin adds. “I’ll bet he’s asleep, though.”
“He’s a… what’s it, a deep sleeper?” Ricky says casually, switching to English for the last two words, and Gyuvin cackles again.
“Yah, some birthday treatment this is,” Matthew whines, but he’s only going to dig himself into a deeper hole if he keeps fighting back.
This is all Jiwoong’s fault.
“Hey, can I smell the perfume?” Gyuvin asks innocently.
“It’s at the company,” Matthew mumbles, stalking off towards the hallway that their bedrooms branch off of. That damn perfume. Why’d he have to give such a thoughtful gift?
“Night, hyung!” Gyuvin calls after him, and Ricky echoes him. “Happy birthday!”
The thing is, all Matthew did care about was whether Jiwoong had gone to bed, and whether Taerae was in his room with him. He beelines for their room at the end of the hall without a second glance at his own door, cracked open with the soft sound of Zhang Hao’s voice trickling through it. He’d been so exhausted on the way home, but as he turns Jiwoong’s doorknob, he feels like he’s getting a second wind.
He eases the door open, and feels a flicker of disappointment as darkness greets him on the other side. If Jiwoong is actually asleep, that’ll be a major damper on his birthday. But as he slides into the room, the disappointment fades into relief; Jiwoong is sitting up in bed in the glow of his reading lamp, looking up from his journal towards the open door. It’s only Taerae’s side of the room that’s dark, and Matthew casts a glance over at Taerae’s form, curled into the wall and apparently asleep.
Matthew shuts the door behind him and stands frozen against it, watching Jiwoong cap his pen and shut his journal. He’s wearing his glasses and his needlessly luxurious black satin pajamas. Matthew teases him about every time he wears them, but the fabric feels so nice under his cheek when he cuddles up on Jiwoong’s chest.
“You coming over?” Jiwoong whispers.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Matthew whispers back. “I’ve got some… uh… issues with you.”
The word he wants is grievances, but he doesn’t have that one in Korean.
Jiwoong splits into a grin, and Matthew can’t help returning it.
“Come tell me over here,” Jiwoong whispers, patting the bed next to him. “Let hyung fix them?”
Matthew tiptoes into the room and dives over the foot of Jiwoong’s bed, crawling into it on his forearms and flatting himself out on his stomach next to Jiwoong’s body. It’s a single bed, so it’s a cozy fit.
“Scoot over,” Matthew whispers. “Make more room.”
“Why?” Jiwoong says, ditching his journal on his nightstand. “I like you close.”
Matthew lets out a quiet groan, hiding his face in Jiwoong’s side. He’s so over the top. Matthew hates it. Definitely hates it.
“Good birthday?” Jiwoong asks. “The best, right?”
Matthew feels Jiwoong’s touch on his back, lightly stroking over his shoulder to rest on his upper arm. His fingers settle there, gently toying with the hem of Matthew’s sleeve.
Matthew exhales from the bottom of his lungs.
It’s been such a long day, and this is just what he needed. He needed this badly enough to make it worth all the teasing from Ricky and Gyuvin, and the awkward excuses he’ll have to make if Taerae wakes up. He needed this moment of quiet comfort, to be held by someone who wants nothing more from him than to see him smile. He can feel his anxious energy melting out of him, even though he knows Jiwoong is probably just about to agitate him again. That’s a different kind of agitation, though. A much better kind.
Matthew smiles into Jiwoong’s satin pajamas, breathing in deeply and letting it out again, and Jiwoong waits for him to regroup.
“The best?” Jiwoong finally repeats, a good thirty seconds later.
“Coulda been better,” Matthew says, fixing a pout on his face and lifting his head.
Jiwoong was apparently expecting that.
“Oh, really?” he says, in a relaxed, lazy tone of voice. “Too much work?”
“Let me tell you my issues,” Matthew says, propping himself up on one of his elbows and peering up at Jiwoong from his stomach.
“So informal,” Jiwoong remarks, straightening out Matthew’s sleeve.
“Let me tell you my issues, hyung.”
Jiwoong inclines his head, smiling, as if to say go ahead.
Matthew shoots another glance over at Taerae’s shadowy side of the room.
“Just keep your issues quiet,” Jiwoong says, hushed. “Unless you want to skip the issues? Do something else?”
“You wish,” Matthew says, twisting his fingertips into Jiwoong’s satin shirt. He bites his lip so it won’t grin against his will.
“I do wish,” Jiwoong says, reaching to stroke the hair off Matthew’s forehead, and Matthew makes to slap his hand away. Jiwoong grabs his wrist in midair instead.
“No noise, remember?” he whispers.
“Okay, let’s get to the issues, then,” Matthew says, keeping his voice low enough that it won’t disturb Taerae’s slumber. He pulls Jiwoong’s hand down to the bed to play with his fingers. “The live. They’re all about the live.”
“Let me hear it,” Jiwoong says obediently, matching Matthew’s volume. “What’d I do wrong, Mattdu-ya?”
He takes his glasses off with his other hand, folding them against his chest and slipping them into the breast pocket of his pajamas. With them on, he looks cuddly and soft; without them, he looks too much like glammed-up Jiwoong at the music video shoot. It takes Matthew a second to overcome his urge to skip to the part where he pounces on him, and refocus on the task at hand, which is giving Jiwoong shit for being too obvious during the live. Another thing Matthew definitely, definitely hates: Jiwoong’s dumb model face.
“Don’t sleep with those in your pocket,” Matthew says, eyeing Jiwoong’s glasses. “You’ll crush them.”
“So thoughtful, babe,” Jiwoong says.
Matthew digs his nails into the back of his hand as punishment for the forbidden pet name. Jiwoong nearly yelps, but he catches himself at the last moment, looking over into the darkness instead.
Across the room, Taerae rolls over. He settles down again, facing them frozen on Jiwoong’s bed. Matthew can barely make out the dark lines of his closed eyelashes, barely fluttering.
“We can keep a better eye on him this way,” Matthew whispers, and Jiwoong looks back at him, nodding. At least if Taerae is facing them, they’ll know the instant he opens his eyes.
“So lay it on me, then,” Jiwoong whispers, settling a little deeper into the bed. He pulls his glasses out of his satin pocket and puts them on top of his journal instead.
“Okay, let’s start with the touching,” Matthew says, wiping his smile off his face the best he can. He wants to channel oppa vibes right now, not sunshine ones. “Right from the start, all the touching. You know we can’t do all the touching.”
“There was no touching,” Jiwoong counters. “I completely laid off you. I gave you a wide berth.”
Matthew doesn’t know that word, and Jiwoong can tell.
“Space,” he explains, squeezing Matthew’s hand. “I gave you space.”
“Nah, you were, like…” Matthew gesticulates in midair with his other hand, trying to find the words. “Hand on my shoulder the moment the thing started, you know. And then you kept groping my muscles.”
“Mattadu, I was so good,” Jiwoong enunciates, widening his eyes at him in his best imitation of a cutesy baby face. It’s such a failure of an attempt that Matthew laughs at it, even though he’s trying to act all severe.
“You get ten times less cute the moment you start trying to look it, hyung.”
“But really. I kept my arm all bent half the time, like this.” Jiwoong demonstrates, turning the hand that Matthew isn’t grasping into a bent-up wing. “You didn’t notice?”
“Not really,” Matthew concedes.
“Well, I did,” Jiwoong says petulantly. “Because you told me you’d ignore me all day tomorrow if I was too touchy. And I’m a good listener, Mattadu.”
He drops his arm-wing and uses that hand to successfully brush Matthew’s bangs back off his face. Matthew is too busy parsing out every moment of the live in his memory to notice what he’s doing and stop him this time.
Was Jiwoong really not that touchy? Matthew could have sworn Jiwoong was all over him. He remembers Jiwoong’s hand resting on the hinge of his shoulder, its warmth drawing his focus every second that they were in contact. He knows Jiwoong was blatantly fondling his arms, rolling up Matthew’s shirtsleeve to show off his muscles, muscles that Matthew knows Jiwoong is far more attracted to than he should be letting on. That all definitely happened.
“Even though I know you could never,” Jiwoong adds, tucking the longest strands of Matthew’s bangs back by his ear.
“Never what?”
“Go a whole day without talking to me,” Jiwoong says. “Still. I don’t want to take that risk.”
“I couldn’t do that to you,” Matthew says. “You’d probably be in tears by the end of it.”
“You’re too nice to do that to me,” Jiwoong agrees. He gives Matthew one of his prettiest smiles, one of those unassuming sheepish ones.
Matthew brings Jiwoong’s hand to his cheek, nuzzling it to hide the surge of affection he’s feeling about his face. It’ll ruin the whole game if he lets on how badly he wants to bury himself in Jiwoong’s pajamas again.
Time to introduce a new piece of evidence, if the touching one wasn’t strong enough.
“Okay, well, you called yourself Jiwoon,” Matthew says. “God, whipped much?”
“Just trying to make my dongsaeng smile on his birthday,” Jiwoong says, shrugging. “What’s wrong with that? The fans love an inside joke.”
“That’s beside the point,” Matthew whisper-whines. “Yah, you’re being so…”
Jiwoong tucks his free hand behind his head, leaning back onto it against the headboard.
“Being so what?” he smiles, relaxing.
Matthew can’t find quite the right word in time. It’s hard to find new ways to complain about all his favorite things that Jiwoong does. He can feel the upper hand slipping away with every second that passes, and Jiwoong’s smile only grows giddier.
“I have a question for you, Mattchu-ya,” he says. “Why’d you keep grabbing my arm?”
“I did not.” Matthew ducks his head.
“Hey, hey,” Jiwoong says immediately, shaking his hand free of Matthew’s to lift his head back up by the chin. “I’m not complaining. Don’t stop doing it.”
“But I wasn’t doing it,” Matthew pouts.
“Okay, well. If you weren’t doing that, then here’s another question.”
“You already asked a question, and you only get one.”
“Give me one more?” A hint of whininess slips into Jiwoong’s deep voice, and he bugs his eyes out. It’s a fairly hideous expression, far less effective than Matthew’s pout.
Matthew sighs exaggeratedly, just barely managing to keep from laughing.
“Fiiine.”
“Thank you, your highness,” Jiwoong teases. He scoots down in the bed, lowering himself until he’s laying next to Matthew, and rolls onto his side to face him. Their faces are just inches away from each other, too close for Matthew to see his face properly without it getting blurry.
Matthew can’t believe it’s been months, now, since the first time Jiwoong was so close to him that it made his eyes cross to focus on his lips. Somehow, the closer their bodies get, the calmer Matthew feels. It’s like the power balance shifts as the space between them shrinks; when they’re close enough that all it would take is a twitch of one of their heads to bring their lips together, their age difference doesn’t matter anymore. Jiwoong doesn’t want to be in control when they’re this close. That’s all for Matthew.
“You kept searching for my gift,” Jiwoong says. “Kept asking if each one was mine.”
“Yeah, I was a bad guesser. So what?”
“You seemed to be thinking about my gift a lot, huh?”
Jiwoong grins as Matthew frowns at him.
“Hey, I’m just saying. You’re the one who did it, not me. So if one of us is being obvious…”
“I was just excited,” Matthew says. “Because before the live, you’d been all like just you wait, mine’s gonna blow you away.”
“And did it?”
Matthew lifts his arm to rest it around Jiwoong’s waist and nods. He can feel Jiwoong’s muscles tensing underneath his touch, freezing up as if he’s holding his breath.
“Are you wearing it now?”
Jiwoong leans forward before Matthew can answer, bringing his nose to the front of Matthew’s neck. Matthew tilts his chin back instinctively, and Jiwoong breathes in, dragging his inhale up the soft hinge of his jaw.
“I thought you would be,” Jiwoong murmurs, nose trailing over the spot where Matthew had rubbed his perfume-covered wrist right before leaving the company.
Matthew squirms. A chill had just shot down his spine.
“It was so cute, how badly you wanted it,” Jiwoong continues. He pulls his head back, and Matthew feels cold without Jiwoong on his skin. “Wanted to see how much I was willing to spoil you in public.”
“Unfair,” Matthew complains. “You hyped it up, I was just following through.”
He hooks his hand more firmly around Jiwoong’s waist, and he can see Jiwoong suppress a smile as he lets Matthew tug him closer again.
“All I’m saying is I’m not the only obvious one,” Jiwoong shrugs. “Don’t get sulky about it.”
“I’m gonna sulk about it, because it’s not true.”
“Good thing you’re such a cute sulker.”
Jiwoong brings his fingertips to Matthew’s lips to poke at his pout, but Matthew’s just come up with a new complaint.
“You called me a flower, hyung. What was that?”
Jiwoong lets his hand fall, looking exceptionally pleased with himself.
“Wasn’t that a good one?” he says proudly.
“No! That was corny as hell, hyung. Did you see Gunwookie’s face, oh my god, he was so fed up. He tried to kick you under the table but he kicked me instead…”
None of it can shatter Jiwoong’s lopsided smile.
“I thought it was pretty smooth,” he says. “The only thing smoother would be if I’d actually gotten you flowers, and then been all like you’re the prettiest flower of all.”
He’s such a fucking dork. Matthew groans, Jiwoonie-hyuuung, and buries his face in the pillow. Jiwoong giggles at his reaction, a bit too loud, and there’s a rustling from Taerae’s side of the room.
“Shhhh,” Jiwoong hushes, still chortling.
“Don’t shush me, you’re the problem,” Matthew hisses, lifting his face again.
“You’re blushing,” Jiwoong says.
“Where?”
“Where else? Your cheeks.”
“That’s just from the pillow.”
“Oh, of course. Just the pillow. Nothing about you liking my pick-up lines.”
Jiwoong raises his eyebrows at him, and Matthew pokes him in the side with the hand around his waist. Somehow, Jiwoong manages to keep from yelping at that. It’s a miracle Taerae hasn’t sat up straight in bed yet, with all this ruckus just across the room.
But luckily, Taerae settles down again, and instead of poking him back, Jiwoong wraps his own arm around Matthew’s shoulder. Matthew takes the invitation to snuggle right into his front. It’s much funner to argue when they’re cuddling.
“Got any more issues with me?” Jiwoong murmurs.
“Probably dozens,” Matthew smiles. “A whole laundry list.”
“A what?”
Oh, that one was English. “Like, a super long list,” Matthew explains. “Could write a book on all the issues I have with you.”
That seems to please Jiwoong.
“I have an issue with one thing you said today,” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It was cruel.”
“Cruel?” Matthew repeats, surprised. He can’t tell from Jiwoong’s tone if this is just more of their banter. Sarcasm doesn’t always translate.
“What you said to Zhang Hao’s fox,” Jiwoong whispers, his face cracking open again, and Matthew relaxes. Banter. “You said you’d hug him when you sleep.”
“Oh, jealous much?”
“Very.”
“Is this because I won’t commit?”
Jiwoong snorts.
“The fox doesn’t count as a side piece if we aren’t dating,” Matthew reminds him. He suppresses his own snicker, watching Jiwoong’s body tremble from his quiet laughter.
“Then date me. I’ll let you keep the side piece,” Jiwoong whispers.
“Nice try.” Matthew crinkles up his nose at him. God, he wants to roll onto him and smother his lips. Just wants to crawl under the blanket and tangle their bodies together so thoroughly that they’re stuck like that all night, one pile of limbs. Taerae probably wouldn’t mind.
Jiwoong’s chortling subsides, and his ribs stop shaking under Matthew’s arm. His lopsided, wide smile slowly melts, his features reverting to their unnerving stoic form. All he’s doing now is looking at Matthew, waiting for Matthew to pick up his game again. He’s more than willing to be toyed with, over and over, and Matthew is usually more than happy to take advantage of that particular characteristic.
But today is Matthew’s birthday, and it’s been such a long day. He doesn’t want to keep toying with Jiwoong. He just wants to be with him.
“Hyung,” he whispers, lifting his hand to Jiwoong’s cheek.
“Mhm?”
He strokes his thumb over the slight hint of stubble emerging along Jiwoong’s jaw.
“Wish we could celebrate for real,” he murmurs.
Matthew knows that’s out of the question. He supposes they could wait for everyone to go to sleep and sneak off to the bathroom together, but honestly, he’d much rather just cuddle in a comfortable bed and admit defeat on achieving anything more than kissing. The rest can wait until they’re truly desperate.
Jiwoong’s tongue darts out for a split second, moistening his lips.
“I wish we could too,” he whispers back. “But I’m just glad you’re here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you might go right to bed, and I’d miss you.”
Matthew would never have done that. Not when his thoughts had been racing towards this moment all day, all through the music video shoot and the live and the meetings and the filming — the moment when they’d finally be alone together. Well, alone with Taerae.
“Never,” Matthew says simply.
“No one said anything to you after the live, right? At the company?”
“No, no one,” Matthew admits. Whatever amount of obvious they’ve been being, it’s apparently still in the money-making category, not the crisis category. And if their chemistry was a problem, WakeOne just wouldn’t have let Jiwoong be the member on Matthew’s live. It’s not like they didn’t know he’d be touchy and flirty and… well, that Matthew would be touchy and flirty right back.
“You’re not… actually upset, are you? About all my…issues?”
Matthew honestly feels insulted that Jiwoong even feels the need to ask. He should know by now that his issues are the best part.
“Hyung,” he says, trying to affix a sense of finality to the syllable. “No.”
“Yeah, I thought not,” Jiwoong says smugly. “Otherwise I’d have to teach you a new word.”
“Which word?”
“Hypocrite.”
“Okay, I know the word hypocrite,” Matthew complains, although he sort of didn’t. Couldn’t have come up with it off the top of his head, at least.
“It’s a good word,” Jiwoong says. “It’s what you’ll be the next time you call me obvious.”
“You didn’t even call out my worst moment today,” Matthew admits.
Jiwoong’s cheek smiles under Matthew’s thumb. For a moment his eyes widen, surprised that Matthew is actually fessing up to something, but the moment passes before Matthew can start to regret fessing up to it.
“What was your worst moment?” Jiwoong asks.
“When I put words into your mouth,” Matthew giggles. That really was fucking risky of him, if he’s being honest. That was just as obvious as anything Jiwoong did all day, for real. “When I said the whole dumb thing about the fox being your present. That was so…like, that was…”
“Such a giveaway,” Jiwoong finishes. His eyes are shrinking into tiny little crescents as he beams. “Damn, that was so obvious. What was it you said, something about how I’d want you to think of me when I’m not there?”
“Something like that,” Matthew says. “I wasn’t thinking. It was so stupid.”
“That was basically an exposé. I’d absolutely say that to you.”
“Yeah, because you’re whipped.”
“No, because I love you.”
Jiwoong wraps his hand around the back of Matthew’s neck and pulls his head straight to his chest before Matthew has time to stammer out a response.
He’s said the words before, many times. He even said them on the live just that day — but that wasn’t like this. Not alone, in private, in the dark. That all makes it different, and Matthew’s thoughts freeze.
“You looked so cute in that beret today,” Jiwoong says quietly, soothing the words into Matthew’s scalp. He must know he just sent Matthew’s heart into a panicked overdrive, and maybe this is supposed to calm it. Or maybe Jiwoong is oblivious. He does tend to be at least a little oblivious.
“Th-thanks,” Matthew whispers.
For a moment, all he hears is Taerae’s even breathing from across the room. He wonders if Jiwoong is holding his breath. Matthew sure is.
“You forgot to yell at me about one thing,” Jiwoong whispers.
“Which one?” Matthew pulls his head back, surprised, to look up at Jiwoong’s face again.
“The card,” Jiwoong says. “What it said on the front of the card.”
He’s watching Matthew’s lips, but he doesn’t move to kiss him. After all, Matthew is the one in control when they’re this close.
“I didn’t want to yell at you about the card,” Matthew breathes. “I liked the card.”
“I thought you would,” Jiwoong says, relieved.
“Yeah. I… loved the card.”
It’s the most he can give back right now, but he thinks Jiwoong knows that it’ll be his turn to hear it soon. Matthew is too much of a coward to face those words just yet, and Jiwoong loves him enough to understand. He can see him start to smile, and Matthew chews his lip, feeling his cheeks start to burn.
Love isn’t a strong enough word for how he felt about Jiwoong’s card. It said so many things that Matthew would never be able to find the words to say, not in Korean, not even in English. We’re in the same boat now. When you’re tired, hyung will row harder. Trust and follow me, all written in Jiwoong’s messy scrawl in a card with I love you printed in English on the front. It was so typically Jiwoong; all that pretty language, dripping with sincerity, giving Matthew something that he never knew he wanted enough to ask for.
Matthew couldn’t stop smiling when he was done reading it. Even now, just thinking about it, he feels kind of like he’s going to cry, and he can’t let that happen.
“You wrote the wrong way on the card, though,” Matthew adds. “The words on the front were…the long way, not the short way.” Vertical and horizontal are escaping him.
“Oops,” Jiwoong shrugs. “Did you care?”
“Not a bit,” Matthew says.
He tilts his head to the side, dropping his eyes to Jiwoong’s lips, and watches Jiwoong respond immediately, like he’d been trained. His own chin tilts in the other direction eagerly, ready for Matthew to fit them together. Only Matthew doesn’t lunge for him. Not yet.
“What’s that about?” Matthew teases, licking his lips. “You want me to kiss you?”
“Don’t be mean,” Jiwoong whines.
“Shouldn’t you kiss me, on my birthday? Why do I have to initi—”
Matthew's words are swallowed up by Jiwoong’s lips meeting his own. He exhales, letting Jiwoong flatten all the air out of his body as he presses him into the mattress, his head blocking out all the light from the reading lamp as it lingers above Matthew’s. Matthew feels his brain wipe itself clean, like it's sighing.
Jiwoong’s tongue flutters lightly across his own through the gap in their lips, and Matthew responds too eagerly, anchoring his fingers into the crown of Jiwoong’s hair to get a better grip for all the making out he hopes is ahead. He’s not great at playing hard to get once the kissing actually starts, and Jiwoong is already giving in, letting Matthew in deeper and deeper, his hips falling heavily into Matthew's as he sinks his weight into his body.
Matthew spreads one hand out across the nape of Jiwoong's neck, trailing fingertips over his skin, and Jiwoong inhales so sharply that it almost whistles.
“Easy,” Jiwoong murmurs, surfacing. “We might have an audience, remember?”
“So kiss quietly,” Matthew complains, pulling Jiwoong’s head back down and grazing his teeth across his lower lip. He can feel it tightening as Jiwoong smiles.
“You’re delicious,” Jiwoong whispers. “Just like you said.”
He leans in to peck Matthew again, and Matthew frowns. “What’d I say?”
“Delicious. You’ve got a delicious body, remember?”
God damn.
“You’re not supposed to tease me,” Matthew whimpers. “Korean words are hard.”
“It was just too cute,” Jiwoong coos. “And too true.”
He lowers his head again, but this time, Matthew halts him with a hand on his chest.
“We gotta reposition,” he commands, as much as someone can make a whisper into an order. “Put your back to him, so if he wakes up, he doesn’t wake up to the sight of this.”
“Smart,” Jiwoong whispers back, rolling off of Matthew and onto his side, facing him. “And light off?”
“Even better.”
He watches Jiwoong fumble for the switch on his reading lamp, squinting as he stares right into its dim glare.
“We have to be up at six,” Matthew says. “Fifteen minutes of birthday kissing, and then I should go to bed.”
He wants Jiwoong to complain, and Jiwoong doesn’t disappoint. “You wasted all that time tonight harassing me, and then you only give me fifteen minutes to touch you?”
“Twenty,” Matthew concedes. “I can stay twenty minutes.”
He wishes he could stay all night, let Jiwoong cuddle him right to sleep.
The room goes fully dark as Jiwoong finds the switch, and a satin arm drapes over Mathew’s chest again, pulling their bodies flush together. He feels Jiwoong’s warm breath across his lips as he lowers his head back into the pillow, and then suddenly Jiwoong is burrowing back into his neck, inhaling his own perfume again.
Matthew hugs his arms around Jiwoong’s neck, clutching him as close as he can, and closes his eyes. It’s been such a long day, and he finally feels like it’s over. Finally peaceful, finally safe.
“Next year, I’m gonna find some way to get us to a hotel,” Jiwoong whispers.
“On my actual birthday? With all my schedules? Good luck with that.”
“Okay, around your birthday,” Jiwoong insists. “Sometime in the month of May, I’ll make it happen.”
“If you say so,” Matthew snickers. “Trust and follow, right?”
He finds Jiwoong’s jaw in the dark and lifts it to his own. The best birthday, finally. As long as Taerae can stay asleep for twenty more minutes.