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1. you take care of him
Gyuvin knows that, according to Ricky, they’re not actually dating. Except that they might as well be, and Gyuvin is just waiting for Ricky to catch up.
It’s Tuesday evening, still summer enough that the sun hasn’t set completely yet and that you don’t have to wear a jacket over your blazer. Gyuvin is on his way home, headphones securely covering his ears and blasting Ateez’ debut album, a plastic bag full of takeout dangling from his wrist. The apartment they’d managed to find, straight out of university, is a perfect walking distance away from one of the subways stations on the Circle Line, which also stops just in front of the chrome-and-glass office tower Gyuvin works in. After work, when it’s not too too crowded in the stations, Gyuvin will walk to the subway, ride to the stop near their home, and pick up warm takeaway before going home.
Their apartment building is just fancy enough to require a porter sitting behind his little desk in the lobby, so Gyuvin nods at him when he passes him on the way to the elevator. The elevator doesn’t take too long, and Gyuvin whistles along to the song blasting in his ears as he rides up. He’s still bopping his head when he keys in the code to their door (1-3-5-0) and shuffles inside, immediately kicking off his shoes in the hyungwan and knocking his headphones back so that they wrap around his neck.
“Jagi,” he calls, dragging out the syllables on purpose, in a way that is certain to make Ricky huff and furrow his eyebrows. “I’m home!”
“Living room,” comes the reply, which isn’t a surprise. Ricky always likes the squirrel away on their couch on warm afternoons, cracking open the doors to their balcony to let in the heat and the beams of sunlight, his tablet in his lap. Damn iPad kid, Gunwook would always joke, but there was the tinge of fondness to the edge of his voice, in the way most people who really knew Ricky talked about him had.
Gyuvin pushes through into the living room, and immediately comes face to face with Ricky curled up on the couch, his socked feet tucked beneath one of the decorative pillows. The thin hoodie he’s swaddled around his lanky frame definitely first belonged to Gyuvin. There’s no need to point that out, though.
“Hello jagi,” says Gyuvin, walking up and smacking a wet kiss against Ricky’s forehead, who scrunches up his face but doesn’t actually move away. “Busy day?”
“About a million papers to grade,” Ricky grumbles. “And half of those people definitely only signed up for an art history class because they thought it would be an easy pass. Tell me why one of them wrote that cubism originated in the seventeenth century?”
Everything that Gyuvin knows about art history he knows because Ricky told him or ranted at him across the breakfast table, so he’s not really one to weigh in on the situation. He makes a placating noise, brushing Ricky’s messy fringe away from his forehead, and triumphantly holds up his bag of food. “Come on, darling,” he coos. “Why don’t you drown your sorrows in savoury noodles and oily pork? I know you’ve been craving Korean-style Chinese.”
“Hmph.” Ricky pushes out his lips in an exaggerated pout, but puts away his tablet and obediently stands up from the couch. When he stretches, Gyuvin’s sweater rides up, revealing a teasing strip of pale skin above his shorts. Ricky has never been one for working out, and Gyuvin has always been partial to the softness of his tummy.
Still, he turns away his eyes, because they’re not there yet. Yet.
It’s kind of only a matter of time. Gyuvin has never been the most patient person, but when it comes to Ricky, everything is a little bit different. The warmth in his stomach and the excited shiver in his hands is just a little bit different.
The two of them set up for dinner on the balcony. An apartment with a balcony facing west is such a blessing, and both of them, in fact, thrive best when the weather is warmer. They slurp their noodles on the white wicker garden chairs Ricky had picked out for the apartment, and peacefully divide pieces of tangsuyuk, since Ricky is team pour (absolutely heathen) and Gyuvin is team dip (correct). As the sun sinks below the skyline, casting everything into shades of orange and peach, and then into gentle blues and navy, Gyuvin can’t help but look at Ricky in every light.
Just when he thinks Ricky can’t look any more beautiful, he is proven wrong again. When they met, Ricky was the most ungainly, most gorgeous sixteen year old Gyuvin had ever seen. At twenty, they were wild and free, chasing the high of moving out of their parents’ house and going to university together. And now, at twenty-six, he’s more mature, more elegant, and still as clumsy as he’s ever been—every version of him that Gyuvin knows folded up inside one perfect package.
Gyuvin hopes that there will be many more versions of Ricky that he will be able to meet in the future.
After they finish dinner, Gyuvin makes the both of them strawberry milks with freshly cut strawberries and sweet milk. Though he’s more partial to mango and always has been, strawberries are still up there as superior fruits. When he carries them out of the living room onto the balcony, Ricky’s face brightens up.
“Qubing-ah,” he says, happily. “Ah, how delicious. Yum.” He takes the glass, immediately putting the straw between his lips and taking a few pulls. When he swallows, he looks at Gyuvin, seriously. “Should I become a housewife, do you think? Just be here and be pretty while you bring me dinner and make me sweet milks after working all day?”
“You’d get bored so quickly,” Gyuvin says, knowingly tapping his straw against his bottom lip. “Come, what would you do all day?”
Ricky thinks about it for a long time. “I hate it when you’re right,” he concludes, sticking out his bottom lip in a pout.
“Yes,” says Gyuvin, looking at the drinks and the empty bowls of noodles in between them pointedly, ignoring the way that his heart flutters at the notion that he knows Ricky this well, that he’s able to read the other so easily. “Your life must be so difficult, Ricky.”
At those words, Ricky grunts, but he’s smiling in the way that gently folds his eyes into half-moons of joy and delight. Gyuvin thinks he could drown in this moment.
2. you know what he needs
Here is what Gyuvin understands: while his job is infinitely stressful, it isn’t as stressful as Ricky’s research is. Because, while the cases Gyuvin deals with sometimes do his head in, his job is incredibly stable and his superior, Sung Hanbin, is in Gyuvin’s opinion the fourth best person in the world (after his mom, Ricky, and Eumppappa, in that order). But Ricky’s research has always been more precarious, his job as assistant professor because half of his class is just staring at his ass rather than listening to his lectures (his own words), and the professor he does his research under is a veritable dick who doesn’t think boys should be pretty. Sadly, he’s also the principal authority with regards to Ricky’s field of study, and Ricky is stubbornly continuing on as if nothing is wrong.
Gyuvin always notices when Ricky is getting too busy with both deadlines and TA work and gets stuck in his head. He’ll always look a little extra pale, thin purple rings beneath his gorgeous boba brown eyes, and he’ll leave his hair unstyled most of the time. It always breaks Gyuvin’s heart to see his best friend like this. Normally, he’ll just dote on Ricky by bringing him his favourite bubble teas and strawberry-flavoured snacks.
This time, though, he has a plan. See, the Natural Museum of History in Seoul has a special exhibition: they’ve managed to get a whole host of paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance era that are normally scattered around the globe to be displayed in the same few halls. Now, Gyuvin will be the first to admit that he doesn’t know the first thing about art. But he knows that the Renaissance is Ricky’s area of expertise. And while the special exhibition’s tickets sold out within minutes, Gyuvin’s mum definitely has enough connections to procure him two entry passes when Gyuvin explains why he needs them—no extra questions asked.
So, on a random Sunday morning, when the tulip poplar and the birch trees are already swapping their leaves from green to vibrant yellow and orange, Gyuvin forces Ricky into a shirt and coat, styles his hair for him, and then puts him on the metro with him. Ricky puts up a fuss for all of two seconds and then obediently follows Gyuvin, looking adorable in his brown pea coat and with his fluffy hair. But when they get to the museum, he tries to backtrack, claiming that tickets have been sold out for weeks.
“Not when you’re eomma Kim,” says Gyuvin, wiggling his eyebrows. This would be the moment where he’d pull the tickets from his inner coat pocket and wave them around triumphantly, wouldn’t it be that he’s only got the tickets as a QR on his phone. Oh well. It’s the thought that counts, right?
Because the tickets eomma Kim gave them are so-called premium tickets, they don’t even have to wait in line, so they skip around to the front, where Gyuvin presents his phone with a flourish. They get waved through and stuff their jackets in a locker, before Ricky tugs Gyuvin along towards the exhibition hall, already chattering excitedly about the works that will be presented here.
“Everyone knows names like Leonardo and Michelangelo,” says Ricky, the tiniest bit wistful, as they drift past the paintings in their ornate frames. “But I’m also interested in works of relatively lesser known painters, you know?”
“Yes,” says Gyuvin, who definitely mostly-slash-only knows those names as two of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and vaguely from when Ricky was talking about them. He obediently follows Ricky when the other tucks his arm through his elbow and tugs him along. Honestly, this isn’t Gyuvin’s area of expertise at all , but just being here is worth it to see Ricky’s face light up with excitement as he explains form and composition and colour usage to Gyuvin.
They pause in front of a huge painting, which is almost overwhelming in size and painted with gorgeous colours—bright reds, golds, and dark hues of blue. In the middle of the image sits a pale woman, and a golden-skinned man descends from the skies to give her a child which suckles from her breast.
“Gorgeous,” murmurs Ricky, who almost looks moved, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “Tintoretto was such a master in his craft. Look at the passion put into every part of this painting, the boldness of those brush strokes.”
The Origin of the Milky Way, reads Gyuvin, on the plaque next to the painting. He raises his eyebrow. “Did this guy really think that the milky way was born from the milk of this lady’s tit?” he asks.
An older lady that was watching the painting next to them harrumphs and moves away, clearly listening on into their conversation. Ricky muffles his giggle into the palm of his hand. “First of all, this painting is based upon an old Greek or Roman myth, as the renaissance painters loved to do. And secondly—you need to remember that the people from those times didn’t have access to modern science as we have it. So, they came up with their own creative interpretations of natural phenomena, like stars, but also lighting, floods, and drought. The things that impacted their lives.”
“Huh,” says Gyuvin, who definitely has focused for at least eighty percent on the way Ricky sparkles when he talks about the things he loves. He already looks leagues better than he did this morning, some of the tiredness and grumpiness washed away to make place for happiness and excitement. “That makes a lot of sense.”
“Keep up, Qubing,” says Ricky. “I only make sense.” He tugs at their arms, still linked together, and pulls Gyuvin along. All Gyuvin can suddenly think of is how domestic they look, shuffling from painting to painting like this. He doesn’t say anything, but a small smile tugs around his lips.
After leaving the museum, Ricky treats Gyuvin to barbecue for lunch. It is probably an overindulgence, but Ricky absolutely refuses to budge on this, stating that Gyuvin did something for him, so he wants to do something back. Gyuvin is not one for looking gift horses in the mouth, so he obediently follows along. They sit nearly knee to knee, squished into the back of a homely, underground barbecue place. The ahjussi running the floor is an absolute ass, which confirms Gyuvin’s suspicions that this will be amongst the best meat he’s had in a long time.
“I’m glad you’re here, Gyuvin-ah,” Ricky says, leaning across the table and squeezing Gyuvin’s hand with his own. His hand is warm and slightly dry, and his eyes are droopy and pleased. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“For you, always,” says Gyuvin, smiling softly, unsurprised at himself at how much he means those words. “Always, Ricky.”
3. you allow him to go at his own pace
Gyuvin is somewhere in between half-asleep and half-awake when Ricky slides into bed with him. While they both have their own bedrooms, complete with full bed and bath for both, Ricky tends to treat those rules more as guidelines than set rules, coming and going to Gyuvin’s room as he pleases. Unless Gyuvin has his hand down his pants (it’s a situation that has happened before, and they’ve both kind of awkwardly laughed it off, though Gyuvin did notice how suspiciously quickly Ricky had turned tail out of the room again), it doesn’t really matter.
The lamp on Gyuvin’s nightstand is turned on when he startles into full wakefulness due to the mattress dipping down next to him. He doesn’t remember if he fell asleep with it on or whether Ricky turned it on now, but in the pale yellow light of it, he can see Ricky’s charcoal smudged hands, the bare of his shoulder where his large shirt is slipping down on one side, and the glimmer of mischievous joy in his eyes. A brief glance at the digital clock stuck to the wall reveals to Gyuvin that it is a time that could be categorised as somewhere in between late night and early morning.
“Wuzzit?” he mumbles at Ricky, who easily tucks himself beneath the blanket next to Gyuvin, immediately sticking his ice-cold feet between his calves.
“Gyuvin-ah,” says Ricky, voice nearly a whisper. “Gyuvin, look. I drew you.”
He nearly sticks the sketchbook he was carrying up Gyuvin’s nose in his haste to show it to him, and Gyuvin needs to take a handful of heartbeats to gather his bearings and focus his eyes, blinking away the sleep where it is clinging to his lashes.
Honestly, this could’ve been a moment where Gyuvin could have gotten annoyed at Ricky. The other is blatantly and almost obnoxiously invading his private space, and waking him up when he definitely needs to be up for work at a normal time in the morning. Ricky probably doesn’t even realise it, so used to Gyuvin’s easy acceptance of his antics. The truth is that it should be infuriating and annoying and all of those things, but it just isn’t.
“You’re not looking at my drawing,” Ricky harrumphs, and that’s when Gyuvin notices that he must have taken longer than he wanted, his eyes stuck on the gentle curve of Ricky’s nose. He also sees how Ricky is blushing and refuses to meet his eyes, hands fidgeting with the corners of the pages.
“Sorry,” says Gyuvin, sitting up a bit more so that he can bend himself over said drawings.
They’re all, as Ricky had said, drawings of Gyuvin. And Gyuvin is honestly shocked at the attention and care put into the drawings. There’s one of him curled up on the couch with Eumppappa in his lap, when she stayed over at their house when Gyuvin’s parents went on a long weekend trip to Japan. Next to that is a large close-up of Gyuvin’s concentrated face, eyebrows furrowed and tip of his tongue poking out of his lips. Ricky had scribbled who even works on a sudoku with this much concentration??? next to the drawing. Rude—those sudokus keep his mind fresh, thank you very much. The next few pages continue like that: Gyuvin on a park bench with a drink in his hand, grinning widely, a full body drawing of him standing in the doorway with his briefcase in his hand as he leaves for work, him bundled up in a large scarf and coat, sat on the short seat of the Seoul underground with his legs bent awkwardly close to his body. For some of these drawings, he knows no photos were taken, so Ricky must have translated them directly from his mind’s eye to these drawings. Gyuvin is incredibly touched, something pleased simmering underneath the surface of his skin.
When Gyuvin looks to the side, Ricky’s face is closer than it’d been before, their shoulders brushing as Ricky tries to peer at what Gyuvin is looking at. From this distance, Gyuvin can count Ricky’s individual lashes if he wanted to, and spots the tiniest freckles scattered across the bridge of his nose. Tension thickens the room between them, as Ricky also seems to realise that Gyuvin is looking at him, a furious red blush blooming beneath his skin.
I could kiss him right now, Gyuvin thinks, heart hammering in his throat. The two of them are almost gravitating towards each other, faces only separated by the tiniest slivers of space. I could kiss him and he would let me.
But then Ricky breaks eye contact, clearing his throat, almost embarrassed. “Look, Gyuvin,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, his finger nervously tapping on the page. “I used a new technique here. Do you think it worked well?”
“Right,” says Gyuvin, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He quickly nudges his nose into the side of Ricky’s cheek, a wordless nuzzle, and then looks back down at the page once more. “Let me look at it again to appreciate it in the best way . . .”
4. you kiss him (and he kisses you)
When the autumn cold finally and firmly arrives, they all go down to Gunwook’s parents’ beach house for a weekend, down at Daecheon beach, as they’ve been doing for the past six years. Back in university, it was to celebrate finishing midterms, and now it’s become a bit of a tradition, even if Ricky is technically the only one of them who is still studying.
It’s the four of them this year—Gyuvin, Yujin, Gunwook, and Ricky. Yujin officially got invited when he came of legal age, and was smuggled along one (1) time when he was still nineteen, giggling as he tucked into the backseat next to Ricky. On Friday night, Gunwook picks them all up by car, as the only out of the four of them with both a licence and an actual vehicle, and they tuck their backpacks in the boot of the car. Then they drive down to Daecheon, stopping just before the final turn onto the beach road to fill up on meats to put on the barbecue, bottles of soju, packets of instant ramyeon and a near infinite collection of salty and sweet snacks. It almost doesn’t fit into their car, wouldn’t it be that Yujin is nearly a professional tetris player in how he manages to stack everything.
The house isn’t that big: a little square building on the beach line, with blue walls and a pointed roof. There’s two bedrooms, one with a double bed and one with two single beds (the first one goes to Ricky and Gyuvin without question, and Gunwook and Yujin easily take the latter), and one bathroom and an extra toilet. The front of the house is made up of a large living room slash kitchen, and there’s a mudroom to put your dirty shoes and wet coats, a deck out front with a barbeque, circle of plastic chairs and a glass table, and that’s all it is.
Every time Gyuvin steps out of the car and plods down to the beach, backpack slung over his shoulders and cardboard box full of groceries, it’s like he is breathing for the first time, over and over again. Yujin has brought his football, like always, and he’s peeled ahead in front of them, rucksack shaking up and down across his back as he races across the sand.
“Don’t trip and fall!” Ricky yells, somehow a worried mother. “I’m not allowing you into the house if you’re covered in sand.”
Ah, that’s more like him.
They settle in for the night, eating the simple meal kits Gunwook forced them to buy: a stew with seafood and a chicken, shrimp, and rice noodle dish. Afterwards, they all spread out across the couches and plush seats of the living room. Gunwook puts on a rerun of some variety show, and Gyuvin pays half attention to it, the other half of him focused on the way that Ricky has tucked his cheek against his shoulder, shifting ever so slightly every time he laughs along with the audience on the television.
That night, all of them fall asleep quickly and easily, exhausted from the long week. The following morning, Gyuvin wakes up completely tangled with Ricky, so closely that it is difficult to see where one begins and the other ends. Normally, it is a more embarrassing event when they separate, but this time Ricky is looking at Gyuvin’s lips with an interesting intensity. It flutters butterflies low in Gyuvin’s stomach.
As always, the day at the beach house is spent mostly fucking around, chasing after Yujin’s ball along the watery shoreline, and eating so many snacks that Gyuvin thinks he’ll actually grow to be a circle. That night, when they’re all exhausted and content, all played out, Gyuvin and Gunwook bend themselves over the barbeque set up on the deck. They’ve dragged over the large bag of charcoal and the torch from the mud room, and manage to create a small fire below the grate, where they roast juicy beef ribs and thick cuts of pork belly. Wrapped in their big coats, and Yujin with his little beanie tucked over his ears, they eat it right there on the table outside, dipping the slices of meat in ssamjang and wrapping it with perilla and lettuce leaves. Gunwook brings out the bottles of soju, clinking together in their little plastic bag, and Yujin shows off all of the drinking tricks he’s learned. Gyuvin feels oddly proud of his son.
“I’m glad to be here with you all,” says Gunwook, when they’re all a few shots in, his smile perhaps more wobbly than it was before.
Gyuvin has half a mind to tease the younger about it, but then he catches Ricky’s gaze. Ricky is already looking back at him, eyes full of molten interest and something close to desire. It causes Gyuvin’s toes to curl in his boots. He already knows how this night will go. For now, he just turns to Gunwook, a genuine smile on his face. “I’m happy to be here with you too, Wook-ah,” he says, and both Yujin and Ricky chime in with their agreements. “We’ve done well for ourselves, huh?”
After they’ve cleaned up dinner all together, Ricky claims the shower first. Next is Yujin, and then it’s finally Gyuvin’s turn. He stands underneath the warm water until he perceives all of his extremities again, and then rushes back to the master bedroom, pyjama shorts pulled up messily up his legs and sleep shirt still sticking to his half-dried back.
In the bedroom, Ricky is already waiting for him. He’s half sat up, leaning against the headboard, and his hair is half-dried and messy against his forehead, eyes wild and attentive. When Gyuvin nearly crashes through the door, chest heaving with some uncontrollable emotion, Ricky sits up a bit straighter, arms falling open in clear invitation.
Gyuvin walks over to the bed, sighing gently, and sits down on the bed next to Ricky. Within a second, he’s got a lapful of excited, blond boy slash man, who cups Gyuvin’s cheeks with his palms and presses his mouth against Gyuvin’s. He tastes like determination and warmth, and kisses like Gyuvin is his salvation. It is easy to get lost in the push and pull of it, so Gyuvin does, his hands settling on Ricky’s hips like second nature.
No words have been exchanged so far, but they both know what is going on here. They kiss until they’re breathless, until Ricky has to physically pull back and take in lungfuls of air, his knees on the side of Gyuvin’s lap like he is praying.
“I have been waiting for you,” Ricky says, like a confession, after they’ve both recovered a little bit. “I have been waiting for this.”
“I know,” murmurs Gyuvin, leaning up again to nudge their lips together again, something chaste. “I know, jagi.”
Ricky has gone slightly cross-eyed in his efforts to look down at Gyuvin’s lips, and seems to barely register the words, humming slightly. His fingers come up to thread through the fine hairs at the back of Gyuvin’s neck, and then he is slotting his lips against Gyuvin’s again, tongue swiping across his lips to plead for entrance, which Gyuvin easily grants. Over and over again, until Gyuvin is dizzy with the desire of it, until the flames are burning low in his gut.
“We’re, we’re dating, right?” Ricky gasps, in between kisses. He looks so pretty. Gyuvin suddenly remembers how painters of the olden days would paint the faces of their lovers into gods and angels. He wishes he were a better artist. Ricky has a face that definitely deserves to be on those oversized canvases in museum halls, exclaimed over by many and treasured only by Gyuvin.
“Yes, jagi,” says Gyuvin, nudging their noses together, a smile so bright that he could spawn entire milky ways of it with ease. “We’re dating. It was only a matter of time anyway.”
5. and so on . . .
“By the way, what did you mean with, it was just a matter of time?”
“Well, I mean—what do you think it sounds like?”
“Gyuvin! Don’t answer my question with a question.”
“Sorry, sorry, jagi. I’m just saying that it was pretty obvious to see where this was going to go, and I was just waiting for you to—Ricky! You know I’m ticklish. Ricky!”