Chapter Text
Aish, you’re really so annoying.
Chanhee isn’t sure what Changmin is talking about, but that doesn’t stop him from immediately retorting, I’m annoying? You’re annoying!
Changmin hiccups on a watery little laugh. Younghoon only left moments ago, after pressing a long kiss to Changmin’s forehead, and Changmin is still coming down from the wave of their emotional talk. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you were awake? he asks Chanhee, though he sounds amused more than annoyed.
Ah… I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.
I know. Changmin flops down on their bed. Can’t exactly help it, can you? Raising their arms up, he looks at their shared hands—the nails and knuckles and veins. I’m not going to let you breakup with hyung, he tells Chanhee.
Chanhee jerks. He hadn’t thought Changmin had heard that particular thought of his. He wasn’t meant to. Chanhee clenches their hands into fists. I have to. He doesn’t want to argue about it. He wishes he could say this from outside of Changmin’s body. He’s already taken so much from Changmin. The two of you deserve to–
It’d break Younghoon’s heart.
Chanhee suspects that it would, but… He’ll have you. He’ll get over it.
No, he wouldn’t! Changmin is fierce. Chanhee, he’s in love with you.
He loves you too! Chanhee shoots back. Do you think I’m stupid? You think I don’t know? He wants you. He’d be with you if not for me. Isn’t this whole alternate universe proof of that?
Maybe he does love me. Changmin’s inner voice trembles. But not as much as he loves you.
Chanhee isn’t sure if that’s true. Younghoon secretly carrying a torch for Changmin for all these years doesn’t feel less than. Sighing, he wraps their arms around themselves, trying to have, trying to hold. I just want you to be happy, he tells Changmin, almost petulantly.
When have I ever given you the impression that your broken heart would make me happy? asks Changmin, indignant. Is that really what you think of me?
Let me do this for you! Chanhee explodes. It’s unfair, one-sided, that Changmin won’t let him reciprocate. There’s no reason for Changmin to be the only one to give ground; Chanhee should sacrifice something too. For Changmin, he wants to. It’s only natural. Changmin deserves it.
I’m not going to let you breakup with him, repeats Changmin. There’s an air of finality in his tone, and Chanhee is struck, suddenly, by how much Changmin must care about him. He never said a word about his own heartbreak over Younghoon. He even encouraged Chanhee to pursue him in their original timeline. Chanhee’s been wrestling with that realization for a while now, wondering why Changmin would do that, but now that he thinks about it, wasn’t it an act of love?
Because Changmin loves him.
Chanhee aches. He wishes he were in his own body so that he could wrap Changmin in a tight hug, press their foreheads together, and breathe together. He wishes that he could promise everything would be okay, that he had some miracle plan in his back pocket to make everyone happy.
Instead, he squishes their cheeks between his hands and concedes, I suppose there’s no point in dwelling on it now. They don’t even know if they’ll ever get back to their original timeline.
What choice do they have except to move forward as best they can in the current universe they’re in?
Chanhee-yah, says Changmin softly. He smooths their hands down their neck to drum lightly against their collarbone. Will you help me plan something for our anniversary with hyung?
Don’t you want that to just be… you know, yours? Chanhee asks, then explains, You shouldn’t have to share that with me.
Changmin smiles. We share everything, don’t we?
Chanhee immediately forces their mouth back into a frown. It’s true that they’ve long subscribed to a casual philosophy of ‘what’s mine is yours’—and Chanhee’s never thought twice about it before—but maybe they shouldn’t have been so quick to let everything between them bleed together in the name of being best friends. Maybe Changmin deserves to have something of his own. And besides, it’s not like Chanhee had ever shared Younghoon with him in their original timeline.
I want you to help me plan something, Changmin insists. I think… I’d be lost without you. I’m not– you know I don’t have dating experience. I can’t imagine doing it without you, he admits.
Well, Chanhee supposes that makes sense. He pulls their lower lip between their teeth and, after a moment, agrees, Okay. I’ll help you plan something for your anniversary.
Changmin pats their cheek. You’re the best, he coos, like this is any regular favor he’s asking of Chanhee. Like they aren’t both still tense with an emotion somewhere between frustration and heartbreak. Trying to make it feel normal, Chanhee guesses.
He pats their other cheek. Younghoonie likes things meaningful more than materialistic, he tells Changmin. Wining and dining is all well and good, but at the end of the day, what hyung really wants is to know that you love him just as much as he loves you. He’s a needy lover. It’s always worked well with Chanhee, who likes to be needed.
He wonders how well it will work with Changmin. What kind of lover is Changmin? Does he like to be needed too? How would he plan the perfect date for himself? What does romance mean to him? Chanhee wishes he knew.
The only boyfriend he has ever seen Changmin with is in this strange alternate universe, with Younghoon, and Chanhee isn’t sure if that counts. Because how much of that was Changmin trying to be what Chanhee was to Younghoon in their original timeline instead of just being himself?
I can do that, muses Changmin softly. It’s easy to love Younghoon-hyung.
Easy? Or hard? asks Chanhee before he can stop himself, because spending years pining fruitlessly after your best friend’s boyfriend feels like the opposite of easy to him. It feels like it’d be brutal. Hasn’t he felt the hurt radiating from Changmin over it?
Easy. Loving him is the easiest thing in world. Changmin laughs, and it sounds self-deprecating. I never said it wasn’t painful.
Shame rushes up on Chanhee all over again. How could he have been so blind to Changmin’s hurting for all those years? But not just Changmin’s. Hasn’t Younghoon been hurting too? How self-centered has Chanhee been to have missed that?
I could write him a love poem, Changmin suggests. Do you think he’d like that?
I think he’d love that, says Chanhee, and he means it. He’s just afraid of what emotion Changmin might put to paper.
Chanhee does his best to stay silent during their anniversary dinner. His absence feels like the best gift he could give Younghoon and Changmin at this point. He lets Changmin have this: their body, their boyfriend. He’s quiet as Changmin swirls red wine around the glass. They settled on a classically romantic dinner in the end.
Younghoon’s smiles are soft. He speaks in a low tone, like he’s afraid that everything might disappear if he’s too loud. He whispers words of love, and Chanhee’s heart pangs, uncertain if he means the words for him or for Changmin.
Or for both of them, maybe.
“I’m grateful,” says Younghoon, slowly, carefully, “that I get to have you in my life.” His gaze is meltingly tender, and it makes Chanhee want to cry. It makes Chanhee want to wrap his fingers around Younghoon’s shirt collar and pull him in for a kiss. It makes Chanhee want to curl up and dissolve entirely.
One year, he thinks despairingly.
Changmin echoes the thought aloud. “One year, huh?” He doesn’t draw the comparison to Younghoon’s longer relationship with Chanhee in their original universe, but he doesn’t have to. Surely, they are all thinking about it.
“You always were cautious about things.” Younghoon’s voice is wry. Fond.
“You weren’t any better,” retorts Changmin. He nudges Younghoon’s foot under the table. “Think of how many more years we could’ve been kissing for if we hadn’t both been so shy!”
In which timeline? Chanhee wonders, then immediately regrets the thought. It isn’t fair of him. There is no undoing the past—not even in this strange alternate universe they’ve fallen into, because they still have their original memories, don’t they? They can only move forward.
He stays quiet through the rest of dinner, dessert, the walk along the Hangang. When they pause at one park bench, Changmin pulls a lined piece of paper from their pocket and unfolds it. The poem he wrote Younghoon. A love song without music.
Chanhee retreats into himself as Changmin reads it to Younghoon. The moment isn’t meant for him, and besides, he’s got something more pressing on his mind. They can only move forward. Chanhee is determined to figure out how. Whether in this universe, or if they somehow manage to make it back to their own, surely there is some winning combination of moves. Surely, there’s a path to some happy ending for all three of them.
He just has to figure it out.
They deserve it. Changmin and Younghoon. Maybe even him too—although he’s had his years of happiness, more than his fair share, so if someone has to lose out, he figures it might as well be him.
He’d rather it be him than one of them. He loves them. It’d be enough, just to see them both happy.
So that’s plan B.
Plan A is… still a work a progress, but he’s not about to give up. He can feel Changmin’s heart quivering inside their chest, can feel Younghoon’s hands taking theirs in a gentle grasp, thumbs rubbing lovingly across their knuckles, and he knows. They’re worth fighting for.
I’m a lover, not a fighter, he thinks for one helpless moment. Then Changmin presence nudges up against his inside of their shared existence: something warm and fierce and familiar.
Are they mutually exclusive? Changmin wonders in a way that feels like he’s leading Chanhee. Loving and fighting?
Chanhee supposes they aren’t. Must love always be something soft and delicate? Can’t it also sometimes be ferocious? He lets himself savor the feeling of Younghoon’s hands covering his and Changmin’s, lets himself linger over the way Changmin loves him, and the decision comes easily.
He’ll fight.
Whatever that means, whatever it takes, he’ll fight for some solution that makes all three of them happy.
Younghoon spends the night with them in their room. Chanhee is pulling Changmin’s pajamas on when he feels Changmin’s consciousness flutter off to sleep inside of them. Being brave always did tend to sap Changmin’s energy. It’s nice to know some things never change. Out of the corner of his eye, Chanhee sees Younghoon flop into bed and pat the spot next to him—a silent invitation.
Chanhee takes it, and realizes, suddenly, that Younghoon doesn’t know that Changmin is asleep. He doesn’t know that it’s just the two of them now.
And, well, how could Chanhee pass up an opportunity like that?
He cocks his head to one side in his best impression of Changmin and smiles at Younghoon. “Hyu-ung,” he singsongs, “do you ever think about… I mean, okay, so it’s been one year for us in this world, yeah? Do you ever wonder how it happened? Do you suppose I made the first move, or was it you?”
“Oh, I’m sure it was you.” Younghoon’s smile is wry, almost self-deprecating. “I could never find the courage.”
Chanhee hums. Somehow, he’s disappointed by the answer. “Do you really think you’re so passive?” he asks and gently squishes Younghoon’s face between his hands. “Even in the other timeline…” He trails off, realizing that he’s derailed himself from his original mission. …I made the first move then too, he finishes silently, then quickly reorganizes his thoughts. “What will you do if, or when, we get back to the other timeline? Will you still be so shy, or will you…” He bites his lip, waits for Younghoon to fill in the rest of the question.
“What do you want me to do?” asks Younghoon quietly.
Still so deferential! Frustrated, Chanhee presses his forehead to Younghoon’s. “I want you to be honest with me,” he whispers. “What do you want us to be, hyung? How do you really feel about Chanhee, and how do you really feel about me? Who… What do you want? Tell me the truth.”
“How do I feel about Chanhee?” Younghoon echoes. He sounds amused, and it makes Chanhee’s heart wrench. Younghoon pulls back to stare quizzically at him. His mouth twitches. “I know you it’s you, Chanhee-yah.”
“Oh.” Chanhee can’t decide whether to be embarrassed about being seen through so easily or to be touched that Younghoon knows him so well that he can tell when he’s the one in control. He decides to forgo both in favor of his desperation to know the truth. “I still want to know.” He clasps the front of Younghoon’s sleep shirt. “I need you to not be so passive for once in your life! What do you want, Younghoon?”
Younghoon’s gaze darkens. “There is no single want…” he begins to say.
It sounds to Chanhee like he’s hedging. He clutches Younghoon’s shirt tighter. “Be honest with me,” he begs.
Younghoon is quiet for a long moment. Until finally— “I… still carry a torch for Changmin,” he admits slowly, “regardless of the timeline.” He wraps his hand over Chanhee’s and squeezes. “But I love you. Regardless of the timeline. That hasn’t changed. Jagiya, that will never change.”
But then, as if counteracting his own words, he lets go of Chanhee’s hands.
Before Chanhee has the chance to respond, he softly adds, “But I would hate to be the reason you and Changminnie have a falling out.”
Chanhee’s head swims. What does that mean? “You wouldn’t be,” he protests, because it sounds horribly like Younghoon is suggesting that he shouldn’t be with either of them. “Changmin and I… We always stick together. You know that. Hyung, you know that! We’d choose each other every time. We always do!”
Younghoon arches an eyebrow, and Chanhee flushes, suddenly worried that he accidentally made the argument that he and Changmin would both be better without him. That maybe they don’t need him at all.
But Chanhee needs Younghoon. And—remembering the overflowing feelings of Changmin’s quiet pining for Younghoon for all these years, persisting through the confusion of perceived rejection—he thinks that Changmin probably needs Younghoon too.
He opens his mouth, unsure of how best to explain the point he’s trying to make. “Maybe this timeline is the best possibility,” is what comes out. A thin, hushed realization.
It feels almost like a confession.
“Maybe it doesn’t get better than this. You and Changmin get to be together,” he points out quietly, “but I still get to have you too, sort of. Maybe this is the best outcome.”
Younghoon’s face contorts, and Chanhee braces himself for an emotional backlash. Will there be tears? Younghoon looks like he might cry.
Instead, he gets Changmin suddenly roaring awake inside of him, outraged words clawing their way up their throat: “Yah, Choi Chanhee, you selfish bastard, don’t you ever say that again!”
“Selfish?” Chanhee squawks back. “How am I–?” Can’t Changmin see that he’s trying to be as unselfish as possible?
“Selfish to self-sacrifice when no one else wants you to! Can’t you see that?” snaps Changmin.
Younghoon looks rattled by the fierce argument between the two of them playing out on a single mouth. His brow furrows, until he finally makes sense of what’s happening—just as Changmin starts whacking their shared forehead.
“Stop hitting yourself,” he taunts, and really, it’s beyond childish. “Chanhee, why are you hitting yourself?”
“I’m not! I’m hitting you!” Chanhee retorts in as haughty a tone as he can muster.
Biting back an ugly laugh, Younghoon puts a stop to it, takes their hands in his. “Changmin is right,” he tells Chanhee softly. “Neither of us want you to sacrifice yourself. That’s not the best outcome. Not at all.”
Changmin nods vigorously. “I want our original timeline back.” His voice is surprisingly sincere, especially after the juvenility he’d just been pulling.
“I want you as your own self again,” says Younghoon firmly, and Changmin nods a second time. “We want you back.”
Chanhee wants to believe them. He really does.
I miss you, says Changmin silently, and Chanhee startles, confused, because haven’t they been together this entire time? It’s not the same and you know it. Changmin sounds sad. Can you hurry up and get your own self back? I miss you every day.
Chanhee feels the corners of his mouth lift in a smile despite himself. There’s meaning in that Changmin didn’t say this aloud. The sentiment wasn’t intended for Younghoon to hear.
It was meant for Chanhee alone.
Me too, he tells Changmin, and although he isn’t quite sure if he means that he also misses himself or if it’s that he misses Changmin back, he thinks Changmin will know what he means.
Here’s the thing…
Chanhee can’t stop thinking about it. For the first time since he woke up in this new reality, he finds himself wishing that he could keep a barrier up between his thoughts and Changmin, because suddenly Changmin occupies his mind in a wholly new way.
I miss you every day.
They’ve literally never been closer, and still Changmin misses him? How is Chanhee supposed to move past that proclamation?
Is he insane, or is that one sentence somehow more romantic than anything Younghoon has ever said to him in their five years of dating?
I miss you every day.
The words reverberate inside of Chanhee, and he wishes, more than anything, that he had the privacy of his own mind back so that he could obsess over their meaning in secret. Is it vain of him to wonder– to wonder if– if, in addition to the deep love that he knows he and Changmin have for each other as best friends, if Changmin might also have romantic feelings for him?
If Changmin hears that particular thought of Chanhee’s, he gives no indication of it.
Chanhee can’t tell if he’s relieved or disappointed. Sure, his dignity remains intact, but at the cost of remaining in the dark about Changmin’s feelings. Which, maybe, it’s for the best. Because if Changmin doesn’t feel any love of that type towards him, Chanhee isn’t sure if he’d survive the humiliation of Changmin’s reaction to him so utterly misconstruing his feelings. Because if Changmin doesn’t… not one bit… then it’d just be a misled, pathetic dream of Chanhee’s, wouldn’t it?
But still, Chanhee wonders, is wrong of him to dream?
He imagines a third timeline—one where neither of them ever became trainees. Would he and Changmin still find each other? Chanhee would like to think so. They’d choose each other every time. They’d meet somewhere else, somewhere out of the public eye, and they’d still be best friends.
Of course they’d be best friends. But maybe they’d always be on the precipice of something else too. Something more. Maybe their feelings would build slowly. Maybe the transition from best friends to that something more would feel like the most natural thing in the world. Would they even need to talk about it, or would they just wake up one morning and know?
It’s all too easy to picture. Chanhee would let his fingers linger over the freckle just below Changmin’s lower lip, Changmin would place the palm of his hand flat against the front of Chanhee’s ribcage, and they’d look each other in the eye and find the words at the same time. As easy as breathing.
But then Chanhee remembers how he sniped Changmin’s budding romance with Younghoon—unknowingly, but he did it all the same—and wonders how Changmin could ever love him at all.
That’s not fair.
Chanhee’s heart leaps into his throat as Changmin chooses that moment to let him know he’s been listening in.
Why should Younghoon-hyung have any influence on our relationship?
How could he not? Chanhee despairs. He wishes he’d never learned of Changmin and Younghoon’s almost-what-if before he met them. He wishes he’d known from the very start.
Changmin makes a short, frustrated noise. Almost a sigh. If you’d known, you wouldn’t have pursued hyung, he reminds Chanhee, as if Chanhee needs reminding of that fact. But I… I think I’m glad you did, confesses Changmin. Quiet and rushing. You made him confident in a way that I never could.
Why were you so shy about him anyways? Chanhee finally asks. He’s been wondering ever since he learned about Changmin and Younghoon’s history before him. It’s not exactly like hyung is an intimidating figure or anything. What was there to be afraid?
Everything. Changmin’s answer is immediate. Losing him. Ruining our friendship.
But couldn’t you tell he liked you back? From the glimpses of Changmin’s memory that he’s seen, it’s obvious even to Chanhee.
Something dull spasms inside of their chest. He could like me back and we could still ruin our friendship, says Changmin quietly. What if it didn’t last? Then we’d be exes and still in the same idol group. I think that’d be worse than never having him at all.
Would you do it differently? asks Chanhee. Knowing what you know now. Would you still be afraid to confess your love to– to a friend?
Changmin doesn’t reply.
Chanhee can tell—he just knows because he’s inside of Changmin’s brain, isn’t he?—that Changmin recognizes that his question isn’t just about Younghoon. What Chanhee really wants to know is: Would Changmin confess his love to him? Is there anything to confess? Does he have romantic feelings for him too?
After the world’s longest pause, Changmin eventually tells him, I couldn’t say.
But he doesn’t have to say, not in so many words, when he’s already said it silently for years. His actions, his behavior, his treatment of Chanhee have said it so much clearly than words ever could. Chanhee can’t believe he’s taken it for granted for so long.
But not anymore. He decides then and there that he can put in the work—that he will—to love Changmin just as much as Changmin loves him.
Maybe this is the happy ending Chanhee is so determined to fight for.
And so Chanhee finds himself, once again, lying awake in bed inside of Changmin’s brain and thinking about sex.
Changmin is awake too. But he’s quiet, listening to Chanhee’s thoughts, waiting to see what Chanhee is going to do. If he’s going to think anything interesting.
Nosy, Chanhee chides without any real heat. He doesn’t mind Changmin listening in, not when he’s thinking about Changmin. About the time he jerked him off—or did that only count as masturbation? Chanhee still isn’t really sure—because when he thinks about it, couldn’t there maybe be an argument to be made that sex was the only thing missing, separating their friendship from a romantic relationship? They’re already so emotionally intimate with each other. They already love each other.
They already love each other.
Maybe it’s different—it has been different—from romantic love, but it doesn’t have to be, does it? Sure, the way Chanhee feels about Changmin is different from the way he feels about Younghoon, but maybe that’s just because they’re different people. Maybe Chanhee just couldn’t see it before.
He splays his hand across Changmin’s abdomen, feels the way their breath quivers under his touch. Was sex the only thing missing? he asks plainly.
That’s… an oversimplification, says Changmin, but it doesn’t sound like he’s protesting. He knows that Chanhee knows it’s an oversimplification. He nudges their pinkies together. And haven’t we been– I mean, we’ve been having sex together for a while now, haven’t we?
Chanhee snorts. Ah yes, I suppose Younghoon and I have both been inside of you now.
At the same time even! Changmin quips, but beneath it, Chanhee can pick up on a current of nervousness. He’s not certain that Chanhee likes– that he wants–
I wish I could be inside of you for real, Chanhee blurts before he can talk himself out of it. Changmin-ah, I… Can’t you tell how much I want you? You’re so… He drags his hand up Changmin’s torso, caressing the skin until he holds his jaw in his grasp. Beautiful. You’re beautiful, Changmin. Of course I want you.
I think you’re unbearably sexy, confesses Changmin shyly. It always felt like a betrayal of my feelings for hyung to think so, and yet… You drive me wild too.
Chanhee feels their cheeks heat. He’s not sure which one of them is blushing. He wishes, desperately, that he were back in his own body now, that he could explore these revelations with Changmin with his own hands.
You’ll just have to make do with my hands, I guess, Changmin teases. He rubs his thumb over their lower lip, pulling until Chanhee opens his mouth. You’ve been so good to me, Chanhee-yah. Let me be good back to you?
And how could Chanhee say no to that?
Hardly daring to breathe, he lies still and lets Changmin run his hands over the surface of their skin. Their nerves prickle, spark with every touch. Chanhee savors the sensation: Changmin’s fingers brushing down the line of his hipbone, ghosting towards his wiry thatch of pubic hair, closer to where their blood is already starting to rush.
A small part of Chanhee is embarrassed to be riled up so easily. But a larger part of him doesn’t care—not when anticipation is sparking through his body like wildfire, not when he knows that Changmin is just as hot and bothered.
Desire roils both of them. Blistering arousal as Changmin finally touches. He runs a light finger along the length of his dick, and Chanhee feels it. He feels it deep in his guts, twisting, burning. He wants. Oh, how he wants.
Ch-changmin, he practically whimpers. He’s usually the one teasing. He’s not used to being on the receiving end.
Changmin wets his fingers with the precum already beading at the tip, then curls his hand and strokes downwards. It’s delicious. Chanhee gets it suddenly, that it’s definitely not masturbation. Changmin’s intention owns their actions, and Chanhee reaps the rewards in the sensation spreading through him. It must’ve been just the same when he jerked off Changmin, only in reverse.
You always were a smart one, coos Changmin, and it only sounds halfway mocking. He thumbs along the edge of his cockhead, rubbing until Chanhee involuntarily jerks his hips up, trying desperately to meet the friction.
He must be a greedy man, Chanhee realizes, because he finds that this isn’t enough at all. He wants Changmin. He wants to be back in his own body so he can have Changmin on top of him, knees planted on either side of his chest. He wants to dig his fingers into the soft sides of Changmin’s tummy, just above his hipbones, to hold him tight. He wants to kiss Changmin, open-mouthed and filthy, and feel Changmin bite at his lips because surely he would.
He can imagine it so easily. The hunger rushes through him. Twin flame to his desire.
Changmin tightens his grip and suggests, You could push my face into your mattress and fuck me hard.
I want to, Chanhee gasps. His head swims with the vision. Younghoon has always been a soft lover—his gentleness something Chanhee has always identified with—but he finds the picture Changmin paints is somehow no less romantic for its ferality.
Maybe the two of you could share me. As he says it, Changmin’s imagination bleeds into Chanhee’s: the image of him and Younghoon on either end of him, Chanhee buried in his ass while he gags around Younghoon’s cock. In the vision, Chanhee could lean forward and taste the heat of Younghoon’s breath.
In reality, his brain is just starting to white out when Changmin’s bedroom door is flung open.
Chanhee’s eyes fly open. Embarrassment snakes into him, making everything hot and fuzzy, as he looks to the doorway and finds Younghoon staring at them with eyes wide, his mouth softly ajar.
“Don’t– Oh my god, close the door!” Chanhee hisses. He tries to lift Changmin’s hand from his dick, but Changmin refuses to let go. Changmin, you heathen what is wrong with you?!
He likes it, observes Changmin. His frank tone makes Chanhee squirm, even as he recognizes the truth in his words. Younghoon’s cheeks are dusted a lovely pink as he steps further into the room and closes the door behind him.
His gaze is locked onto them, eyes so laser focused that Chanhee suspects he isn’t even aware that he’s licking his lips, that he’s sinking slowly to sit at the foot of Changmin’s bed. “Are you…” His voice is raw, unable to find to words to ask the question he’s wondering. Finally, he settles on: “Is it both of you?”
“Yeah,” says Changmin, voice barely more than a whisper. He pauses for a moment to thumb messily at the tip of his dick before returning to his tight, quick strokes. Chanhee struggles to contain a moan. “I’m tossing him off.”
Younghoon’s breath hitches. His pupils look blown. “I wish…” he says throatily. “Fuck, I wish I could see you do this as two– as yourselves.”
It’s not meant as a confession, but Chanhee takes it as one anyways. Younghoon wants to see the two of them together, as their own separate selves. He wants them together. He wants them together. It makes Changmin’s fantasy feel even more real, which in turns brings Chanhee back to the edge.
“H-hyung,” he hears himself pant—or is it Changmin?
Younghoon leans closer, places his hand on their ankle. His fingers circle the delicate structure of bone and ligaments. “I’ve got you, jagiya.”
Warmth explodes inside of Chanhee.
Changmin’s hand carries him through it, milking the moment for as long as he can. Their eyes flutter. Tingles spread through their body, sparking at the ends of each nerve, and as he comes down from it, Chanhee finds himself focused on the spot where Younghoon is touching their skin.
I love you, he thinks. His heart swells with the feeling of it all.
Changmin doesn’t question whether he means him or Younghoon. I know, he replies, and Chanhee knows that no matter how Changmin interpreted it, he has it right.
Slowly, Younghoon releases their ankle. “You… I…” He sounds dazed.
“Would you– What if we– ” Chanhee and Changmin talk over each other. “Can we be together?” asks Changmin. “All of us,” clarifies Chanhee.
“Yes.” Younghoon’s answer is immediate, stumbling over himself to get it out. “Please. Please.”
Relief melts through Chanhee and Changmin, like a releasing a breath they hadn’t even realized they’d been holding. “The best,” murmurs Changmin.
“A trio,” agrees Chanhee.
Younghoon nods, the movement fervent. “Yes,” he says again. “Yeah, that’s… It’s never better than when we’re all together.”
Chanhee props him and Changmin up onto their elbows. Cum is drying across their tummy and Changmin’s fingers, but Chanhee finds he can’t bring himself to care; his usual fastidiousness has gone on holiday for the moment.
It’s not fair, mourns Changmin suddenly, that I still haven’t gotten to touch your dick at all.
Chanhee imagines shoving him off the bed. It’s what he’d do if he were in his own body. Instead, he wiggles Changmin’s fingers and contemplates where he should wipe them off. Maybe Changmin’s sheets—?
Younghoon catches their hand and brings it to his mouth.
—or maybe not. Entranced, Chanhee watches as Younghoon carefully kisses their fingers, his lips smearing through their cum. Probably Chanhee should not find this as erotic as he does, and yet. He can feel Younghoon’s tongue pressed to their knuckles.
Changmin lets out a low whine. “Stay,” he demands, and Chanhee can’t help but feel proud at how far he’s come. How shy he used to be. Now, he’s pulling Younghoon into bed with them and forcing him to be the little spoon.
Chanhee can feel Younghoon’s heartbeat through his back. Its steadiness lulls him towards sleep, and as he’s drifting off, he hears Younghoon promise, “Always. As long you want me to,” and his and Changmin’s simultaneous response:
“Always.”
Chanhee wakes up confused.
The scruff of Younghoon’s hair tickles his nose—he remembers them falling asleep cradling him—but there’s a second warmth pressed against his back that surprises him. Trying his best not to wake Younghoon, he rubs the sleep from his eyes and twists around.
He blinks.
Changmin’s sleeping face greets his bleary gaze.
It takes Chanhee a moment for understanding to sink in. And when it does, he no longer cares about not waking anyone else up. He shrieks and grabs either side of Changmin’s face with his hands—his own hands!
“Changmin!” he cries, and oh, he is crying, isn’t he? His vision swims with happy tears as Changmin’s eyes blink open.
“Chanhee?” Changmin marvels. He butts their foreheads gently together. “Chanhee!” The joy is evident in his voice. Their lips hover mere centimeters apart, sharing air, and Chanhee doesn’t hesitate.
He crashes into Changmin. The kiss is bruising, needy. Their fingers curl around each other, pulling close-close-closer then away again so they can look at each other. It’s real. They’re real. He’s real. Somehow Chanhee can feel it—something deep inside of him tells me that they’re back in their original timeline. Their original universe. He brushes his thumb over the freckle below Changmin’s lower lip, savoring the tactile feeling of it.
“Oh.”
Chanhee turns at the sound of Younghoon’s voice. There’s wonder in it. Fragile hope. His eyes dart between Chanhee and Changmin, before settling on Chanhee.
“You’re back! I… I missed you.”
“I’ve been here the whole time,” Chanhee reminds him, because in a way, hasn’t he been? Next to him, he can feel Changmin go stiff, tense with uncertainty and caution. What do the words said in that other universe mean now that they’re back in this one?
Younghoon tucks a lock of Chanhee’s hair behind his ear, touch lingering, then lets his gaze slide past him to Changmin. He offers him a shy smile. Chanhee does his best to stay out of the moment, letting Changmin and Younghoon feel each other out with some silent conversation happening entirely in their eyes.
Eventually, Younghoon turns back to Chanhee. “Did you mean it?” he asks. Soft. Earnest. “The thing you said about the three of us all being together?”
“Yes.” It’s not even a question in Chanhee’s mind. He fully intends to put his money where his mouth is and work on a three-way relationship between them all.
Changmin pulls Younghoon’s hand into his. “It’s never better than when we’re all together,” he reiterates, echoing Younghoon’s words from the night before. With his other hand, he takes one of Chanhee’s, and Chanhee feels a fierce fondness rush through his veins.
It was worth it, he realizes suddenly. The surreal anguish of being trapped inside of Changmin’s consciousness in that other realm was worth it if it meant the three of them figuring this out. He slips his free hand into Younghoon’s, completing the circle, and squeezes tight.
He doesn’t plan on letting go anytime soon.