Chapter Text
YEAR FOUR
At twenty-two, Wooyoung wants to propose.
It initially feels too fast. Maybe it is, in certain people’s eyes.
But that’s just too bad for those Certain People, huh?
It’s more like giddy and exciting, like skipping a ton of important chapters in a book just to see how it ends.
The apprehension part of it revolves around the fact that his family knows and adores San, but they know and adore him as Wooyoung’s best friend, his platonic soulmate. They don’t know just how far they’ve extended beyond that phase. Hell, he isn’t even out to them, not officially. He has a hunch that they’ve been able to put all of the right puzzle pieces together and figure him out by now, but it’s never been brought up or discussed. It’s the oversized, taboo elephant in every corner of every room they’ve ever all been bundled up in together. Unspoken truth. Way unspoken — possibly (hopefully not the case) even secretly unaccepted.
And now, suddenly, the next time he visits home, he wants it to be with a fiancée in tow.
He waffles on the reality of the situation. They’re still in school and still pretty young. They’ve only been an item for a couple of years. Maybe his emotions just feel too powerful for rationality right now, and maybe this is something he should keep to himself; see if it ebbs off, see if it calms down and settles back into Same Old, what it supposedly ‘should be’.
Maybe.
But Wooyoung finds himself starting to curiously look at how much damage a ring can do to a bank account, regardless.
The consensus is: Yikes.
Yikes.
But…
But.
________
He decides.
He decides without knowing what ring size San is.
That part is shortsighted and kind of sucks.
What doesn’t suck, though — and what particularly isn’t shortsighted — is that he finally, finally decides.
As a student with way too much anxiety about graduation already on his mind, too much stress about exams, the semi-normal too-much-apprehension over whether or not he’s choosing the right career path that he’ll be ‘expected’ to carry on his back until he’s ninety billion years old, it takes a lot of thought to figure out the logistics. Is it smart to move so quickly? Is it worth it when he can’t even afford the best ring on the market? Will San even say yes, or will he think — somewhat similarly — that it’s way too soon?
Will it bomb?
San would undoubtedly let him down easy, but still — could he live with that lingering personal humiliation, regardless?
Is the anxiety worth it?
The man wears a ring all the time, but it’s on his right hand, and it’s on his index finger. Even if Wooyoung managed to get his hands on it (unlikely; it’s literally always worn), it wouldn’t be accurate.
But, he thinks, as he finds himself sitting like a shrimp over his laptop on his bed, conflicted between ordering something online or showing up at a store in person…
Yeah.
It’s worth it.
________
Back at his childhood home, his tree is starting to bear fruit.
His mother messages him to let him know that oranges are appearing in sporadic spots along the young plant.
He’s been too preoccupied with school and preparing to propose to someone; he forgot all about it.
The news makes him happy.
________
He forces himself to wait until they’re both on the cusp of graduation.
The solidified decision happens when they’re taking a break on a date in Itaewon, a few drinks in and glued together on a club’s dance floor, his hand cupping the nape of San’s sweaty neck, a strong arm curled possessively around his waist, their hips flirting together, basking in the knowledge that both of them are turned on, hard, inevitably agreeing without words that sex is on the table at the end of the night.
Their eyes are locked the whole time. San’s eyes have always been so searing; when his attention is on a person, that person knows.
That same eye contact follows them back to San’s studio apartment. It follows them all the way to bed while Wooyoung is on top of him, pumping into him, excited like nothing else as he watches how his lover’s strong, solid body unfolds underneath him, how the older man becomes pliable to his carefully steadied thrusts and touches and kisses, how such hard muscles can tremble so weakly.
But that excitement isn’t alone. It comes arm-in-arm with the deepest affection, the deepest love that he’s ever experienced in his life.
Just before he comes, as San encourages, “Yes, yes, there, baby,” in a husky and vulnerable way that betrays his towering, muscular form, as his beautiful constellation-freckled neck arches to press his head back against the askance pillow, Wooyoung knows that the proposal is happening.
Such a strong, self-confident man — someone who’s normally naturally, easily more dominant in bed — letting go, unraveling, letting Wooyoung know that he’s trusted with taking the lead, holding the reins and doing something so different from the ‘norm’…
That proposal is happening.
It’s happening soon.
________
After enduring their own respective stress-soaked week of final exams — talking every night, but texting at a noticeably less rate than usual during the day — San spontaneously and conveniently suggests that they take a short, speedy ‘vacation’ (just a break, really) back to Jeju. Long weekend, it’s been a while, and coming straight down to brass tacks, they miss each other.
Of course, the response on Wooyoung’s part is a resounding yes.
And it jars the cogs in his mind to life, gets them turning.
It would be perfect, wouldn’t it? To propose where they met. Maybe even, with calculated preparation, on the same beach.
The idea (as cliche and corny as it might sound, like some sort of romantic drama) is nearly exhilarating to Wooyoung; he tries to keep his answer In Character, tries to Act Natural as he agrees. It’s delivered in an easy tone, tinged with a hint of gratitude at the prospect, and he thinks he does a pretty good job keeping everything as normal as possible. San can be spacey sometimes, so if Wooyoung gives anything away that this trip might lead to something special, nothing about his boyfriend’s reaction tells him that he has anything to worry about, that it isn’t noticed.
It relaxes him.
He curls on to one side on his dorm’s bed, his phone resting on the mattress beside his pillow, listening to the love of his young, stupid life prattling on about things they should try to do during their short stint on the island, which one of them should take the lead and nail down plane tickets or accommodations, excitedly wondering if there’s any specific side — nothern, southern, eastern, western — that neither have seen yet.
All the while, a little black ring box sits tucked into the back of his nightstand’s drawer, so innocent and (now more than ever) so incredibly precious.
________
They decide to extend the weekend vacation by a day, so they can fit in a trip to Busan on Friday and spend a few hours at a popular jjimjilbang before cabbing to the airport and flying to Jeju. The train ride goes by surprisingly and blessedly fast; they’re lucky enough to grab tickets for seats that are side-by-side, and for the full couple of hours, San has Wooyoung’s hand tugged over, resting on his thigh with their fingers intertwined.
It’s risky, doing something so softly intimate in plain sight of other passengers, but it’s a risk neither of them seem to mind taking.
Wooyoung is thankful that the armrests lift up. He often suffers from motion sickness in moving vehicles and the train is rocking slightly for the full duration of the ride. He can rest against San and try to nap, or at least close his eyes.
He smiles whenever San’s thumb absentmindedly grazes along the edge of his hand while he watches the scenery drift by. It’s so gentle, so comforting, and the touch — mixed with a faint hint of the older man’s cologne — successfully lulls Wooyoung into occasional bouts of dozing.
He’s lightly asleep when they begin to arrive in the Busan station. San wakes him up by squeezing the hand that hasn’t been let go since they sat down and rousing him with low murmurs of his name.
“Nnndid I drool on you?” Wooyoung asks groggily without checking for himself, not quite entirely conscious yet.
San huffs out a quiet laugh and finally pulls his hand away.
“Nah,” he says. “Wouldn't care if you did, anyway.”
________
Spas are pretty great, Wooyoung remembers, as he and San lay flat on their backs in one of the scattered sauna rooms, firm neck pillows tucked underneath the top of their spinal cords. The room is shaped like a squat little flower vase on the outside, the tiles around them spreading a golden hue throughout on the inside. Wooyoung stares up at the gracefully curved walls, slowly crawling up into a funnel above them. It’s hot as hell, but he can feel his mind relax in ways that it hasn't in a long time.
At one point, he turns his head to the side and studies San’s profile.
San’s eyes are closed and his face is relaxed. His perfect nose leads down to the outline of his naturally pouting lips, his chin resting less prominently as his jaw forgets what it’s like to clench with stress or frustration.
Wooyoung smiles.
He scoots his hand over and rests it lightly on top of San’s. The older man doesn’t move, doesn’t open his eyes, but those lips curve into his own smile.
Wooyoung takes a deep, long breath, settles in as much as he can — tough going, seeing as he’s physically uncomfortable; he and heat have never tried on a Get Along teeshirt. His skin is very sensitive to it and frankly, he loathes it.
But San’s hand shifts out from under Wooyoung’s to rub his thin fingers over the younger man’s achy knuckles. It’s like he can pick up on what’s going on, even though Wooyoung has been cognizant of how still he’s been keeping his body.
It’s wonderfully distracting. Almost like, heat? What heat?
He doesn’t know if he truly believes in how certain environments and sounds and temperatures can change the energy or health of someone’s body, but even as he feels the heat getting a bit too cloying, his anxiety about what he’s going to do tomorrow evening (when they’re watching the prelude of a sunset on Hyeopjae Beach, as the bottom of the sun starts to sink beneath the line of the ocean) temporarily sloughing off of his mind like meat from a bone. Maybe it’s a mental and emotional placebo, especially with the small, affectionate offering from San, but he’ll take what he can get.
His hair is damp with sweat when they finally get up to leave the sauna room. He runs a hand through the unpleasant strands of it, pushing it back while his eyes magnetize, naturally, to his boyfriend.
The fabric of San’s shirt is soaked below the front and back of the collar. His face is flushed pink, kissed with tiny droplets of sweat running from his temple to the sharpest point of his jaw. He blows out a slow, puffed breath and reaches into one of the cubbies beside the room to retrieve Wooyoung’s day bag. San doesn’t like to carry bags with him; it’s commonplace for him to hand whatever essential he needs transported around with them — phone, keys, wallet — to Wooyoung with the expectation that the younger man will be his little pack mule for the day.
(He caves every time. Because San’s eyebrows always angle up in the middle with apologetic hopefulness, and he says please. But, mostly, because Wooyoung loves him.)
As Wooyoung’s fingers slip into the strap of the bag to pull it away, San frowns a little.
“You okay?” he asks, concern tugging his eyebrows together. “You’re really red.”
Wooyoung’s arm lowers, his bag’s zippers tinkling softly against one another as it hits the very bottom of his exposed knee, “Huh?”
“You’re red,” San repeats, like the first time wasn’t clear enough.
Wooyoung shrugs one shoulder. “Yeah. The room was pretty hot, San.”
San’s expression falls flat.
Wooyoung shrugs again, both shoulders now, defensively. “What?”
He honestly doesn’t get what his body heat has to do with anything, at first. No, seriously — he doesn’t. It’s just sort of… normal for him. He hasn’t seen a professional for it yet, but it’s significantly affected him for only about a year now. He sometimes gets hives and rashes on various parts of his body whenever he sweats too much. Walking into a spa was a decision he made for San. He couldn’t turn his boyfriend’s excitement about the idea down.
San sighs dramatically before he grabs Wooyoung’s wrist and pulls him away from the sauna’s door.
He leads them into the ice room.
The ice room is incredible.
It’s an immediate relief across Wooyoung’s warm skin, cold and comfortable and soothing, and he barely notices as San tugs him further inside toward the back of the room.
The floor spikes a cooler temperature up through his feet and his legs, and in the moment he feels… amazing.
San’s hands take hold of his shoulders to turn him around. One of them plants itself against the middle of his sternum and gently pushes him back against the cold-tile wall.
“Here,” he says softly. “Cool down, this should feel good.”
Ohh, it does.
Wooyoung’s hands raise, find San’s waist and curl into his shirt as he breathes in, deep and long. The cold chills his throat and lungs.
“Good?”
Wooyoung’s eyes half-open to meet San’s. No frown in sight anymore, just a calm little smile that Wooyoung wants to kiss right off of his face. Which he currently can’t do, because there are two other people in the room with them, sitting on a nearby cold-tile bench.
Once his body has sufficiently cooled off, they leave to head outside and wade slowly through an expansive foot bath that looks more like a long, luxury pool paved with smooth stones. They walk over the stones side by side; the urge to hook his pinkie into San’s is almost irresistible.
San attempts one of the sitting hammocks over the water. He almost falls trying to get into it. Wooyoung digs his phone out of his bag because he needs a video of the charming idiocy. San is all stumbles and smiles and embarrassed chuckles until he finally settles, slowly rocking back and forth, the balls of his feet dragging slow, flowing streams along the water.
Wooyoung takes a few candid pictures before sidling up behind San, gripping the hanging ropes of the hammock and threatening to start pushing him like he’s on a swing.
He feels his boyfriend lean back, seeking his body and relaxing even more when he finds it.
Wooyoung’s heart almost breaks.
This is going to be my husband.
*Husband*.
That thought follows him back inside, upstairs to the ramen bar, all throughout lunch, in the cab heading to the airport… everywhere. The word is branded with hot iron against the forefront of his brain and at one point during the drive, San asks him if he’s okay because he’s been a little quiet.
Wooyoung just smiles through it.
He pulls the travel bag in his lap closer to his stomach.
The ring is in there.
He has to hold himself back from proposing right then and there. It’s a very strong practice of will power and self-restraint.
________
The airport experience is interesting.
They notice at the eleventh hour that they can’t find any way to check into their flight from their phones anymore, and they start to gently panic.
They fidget in line for the customer service desk. Wooyoung is nervous — his previous marriage anxiety is only heightening the problem and he doesn’t notice that he starts to rock from one foot to the other, over and over.
San eventually stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Woo,” he says. Wooyoung can’t read the tone of his voice; if he’s also anxious, he’s hiding it pretty well. “We’ll figure it out.”
They do.
It’s just not the greatest news.
They’re informed by the woman behind the plastic partition between them that their flight left nearly twelve hours ago.
Wooyoung’s mouth forms the first syllable of a ‘what’ before glancing at his boyfriend, who is fixing a blank stare at the representative. The gears turning in his head are almost visible.
San accidentally booked their flight at eight in the morning. Not eight at night.
But it’s fine.
Wooyoung actually laughs.
He slaps San on the shoulder as he does so and walks away, letting the dumbstruck man work through things without worrying about any judgment coming from a person at his side.
San is all contriteness and apologies when he finally breaks away from the customer service desk, finding Wooyoung as he’s rearranging the stuff in his carry-on duffle bag at a nearby terminal’s waiting area. Wooyoung just smiles as he wraps it up, yanks the zipper to close the bag, and turns to him full-on.
“You’re so fucking cute,” he says quietly. He wants to reach out and touch the other man’s chin. He resists.
Which is hard, because San gets shy — he sniffs with embarrassment and adjusts his backpack’s strap over one shoulder. “No, that was kind of stupid.”
“I’d kiss you stupid if I could right now,” Wooyoung replies in a loud whisper. There aren’t many people around them, so he doesn’t feel like it could be a problem. “Just let it go. We have a new flight, right?”
“Yeah,” San mutters. “It boards in twenty-five minutes.”
Wooyoung smiles wider, gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder he’d whacked only moments ago.
“Then we’re fine,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
Which is a nice gesture.
But San is San. He does worry, and he isn’t hiding it this time.
Wooyoung can’t place a finger on what’s going on in his boyfriend’s pretty little head as they go through security, collect their belongings and make their way to their new gate. He watches the other uncharacteristically quiet man closely; he sees the stilted movements, he notices the stone-strong blank expression, and he can just feel that something is so unnecessarily wrong with the energy between them. It’s almost like San can’t accept that their flight had been so fucked up, even though it was an easy, easy fix.
When they’re settling in on the plane, Wooyoung glances sidelong at San as he pushes his bag under the seat in front of him.
“San-ah,” he says softly. “Are you alright?”
San often underestimates how well Wooyoung knows him by now. He doesn’t do it intentionally, of course not. It’s just not what he tends to take into consideration, but something he innocently overlooks. They’ve been together long enough, though, that Wooyoung can spot a change or glitch in San’s ‘system’. He can tell when something actually isn’t okay.
So when San just nods, Wooyoung’s mouth twists to the side with disbelieving worry. He doesn’t push it like he normally would — San doesn’t respond well to what could in any situation be considered ‘nagging’, and only trying to dig and dig and dig up something that he’s obviously burying deep down on purpose would only make everything worse. Wooyoung would be much pushier if they were still fresh in their relationship; he used to push the boundaries to suck every single little secretive personal thing out of the other man and that is, admittedly, what started a few of their arguments back in the beginning.
But now, they know each other in an intimate sense. More intimate than just physically.
Wooyoung may be a stubborn shithead sometimes, but he isn’t a moron.
He lets it go, for the time being.
________
He doesn’t get a chance to whine about being left in the dark when they finally arrive at the hotel, tired and mildly stressed and generally worn out. He tries to gauge how his boyfriend is feeling once their luggage is set down, and it’s more than clear that the other man is too exhausted to be bugged by anything. His eyes are half-closed and his footsteps are trudging.
“San,” he says softly when they’re side by side in the bathroom, getting ready for some much-needed sleep.
“Wooyoung,” San answers, slurred and mumbled around a moving toothbrush. “I’m fine, please.”
He refrains from asking anything, but he falls into his own weird silence. San’s lack of patience is uncharacteristic. Wooyoung has never met a more tolerant person and he might be wrong, but he thinks that he can detect a tone of ‘knock it off’ within the muffled folds of his voice.
They slide into the cool, crisp, over-bleached comforter on the bed and right before Wooyoung starts drifting into twilight, San murmurs, “I just wanted this to be special.”
It’s so quiet that Wooyoung almost doesn’t hear it.
He shifts closer and wraps his arm around San’s firm, tapered midsection, nuzzling his head up under a strong chin.
“It is special, pabo,” he responds. “It’s with you.”
He feels San’s muscles relax.
They fall asleep.
________
Getting some sleep after such a long prior day must have been extra restorative, because when Wooyoung wakes up and groggily rolls over, San is already awake, calm and settled, scrolling across his phone with a thumb.
“Hi,” Wooyoung offers, raspy.
San smiles, turns his phone’s screen off and places it on the blanket over his abdomen. “Morning.”
Wooyoung, even in the slogging swamp of the newly awakened, is relieved to see that the uncomfortable tension from the night before is gone.
They shower together and kiss under the warm water.
They dry off and dress up in silence, but it’s a serene silence. There’s no anxiety, no worry. They’re just comfortably existing in one another’s space.
Which — Wooyoung thinks, his mind drifting to the tiny ring box still protected in his backpack — is the goal of the day.
The day itself is fun.
They haven’t rented a car since they’re only on the island for a day and a half, so they willingly put themselves through the mental gymnastics of getting around by other means.
Public transportation is limited and Wooyoung finds himself becoming anxious, watching San closely, side-eyeing him, reading the way he’s acting. He’s concerned that any hiccup in the plans that they might make on the fly will set off that odd bad mood again.
It doesn’t. San stays relaxed and normal. They even miss a bus after two separate beach visits and the man doesn’t flinch after they’ve stepped off to head to a restaurant three blocks down the road for dinner.
On the walk, Wooyoung’s hand lingers feather-light over the tiny box’s bump in his pocket. The rough texture of his jeans feels a lot more jarring across his fingertips than it usually should.
He wants to intertwine their fingers with the other hand and squeeze.
He doesn’t.
Act casual, be normal.
The energy becomes more lively during their meal. Jeju has delicious seafood, much fresher than what he’s ever eaten around Seoul. Food is such a huge part of their culture, so naturally comforting, that it’s not hard for him to feel better about how San has been acting since the customer service rep at Gimhae told him that he accidentally made a simple mistake.
How his ears turned red, how he kept looking at his sneakers, how he kept grumbling apologies under his breath all the way up until they took off.
He’s acting much more like himself now.
They’re seated at a table near the wide open doors that look out onto the ocean and the air between them is easy and lovely — they simultaneously decide fuck it and feed each other across the table like they did on their first date, their feet touching like they did when they finally hung out in person after months of only speaking over the phone.
San does start to seem antsy, though, when they near the end of their early dinner. It makes Wooyoung nervous, more nervous than he’d like to be considering he’s hours (max) away from getting down on a fucking knee.
The idea sends a cold chill up along the length of his spine.
“Let’s go to the beach,” he blurts after they stand up at their table.
San pauses halfway through pushing his chair in and blinks emptily at him.
Wooyoung shrugs, choking on his sinking heart over the reaction. “What? We’re in Jeju, why are you surprised?”
San blinks again, and this time it’s like Wooyoung just backhanded the weird, hesitant confusion straight out of him. He smiles slightly. It’s not enough to conjure his dimples.
“Okay,” he says.
The subject is dropped until they get there.
________
Wooyoung is helplessly in love with San.
Helplessly.
There’s nobody in the world like San. His presence, the way he carries himself, his ability to adapt in social settings, his sense of humor, even just his voice and the words he uses with it… everything is just so uniquely him. He’s a genuine individual straight down to the marrow of his bones. Nobody can influence him to stray away from his morals and his beliefs, but at the same time, he’s open minded and willing to entertain anything that conflicts with them.
‘Perfect’ is such a weird word.
But in Wooyoung’s eyes, he’s fucking perfect.
He’s perfect.
Wooyoung still, even after all of these years, doesn’t know what sort of good karma he’s put into the universe that’s granted him the opportunity to be San’s boyfriend, lover, best friend, even just someone lucky enough to be close to him somehow.
He’ll never take it for granted.
“Are you okay?” the older man asks him when the bus drops them off at the beach. “You’re quiet.”
“Ah?” Wooyoung replies without thinking. He doesn’t even realize that he’s been subconsciously looking at everything except San.
When he does glance up at him, he only sees dimples.
“You’ve been quiet,” San says again.
“No, I haven’t.”
San snorts and nudges him with his elbow.
“Whatever you say,” he reasons. “Let’s walk a little before we lose daylight.”
Losing daylight is precisely what Wooyoung is somewhat dreading.
They find the steps that lead down to the sand, take their shoes and socks off, and stroll in silence for a little bit. San obviously has something on his mind, but Wooyoung isn’t a hundred percent cognizant of it because his own mind is racing. His mouth is twisting as he nervously chews on the inside of his cheek, eyes only flicking up from the sneakers hooked into his fingers to gauge where they are.
They’re close to that place.
That Place.
The place where they met.
“Do you still have that picture?” San asks, almost like he’s reading Wooyoung’s mind. It’s weird timing, but endearment wins over suspicion.
Wooyoung smiles down at the sand. He knows which picture San is referring to.
That blurred, strange photo, when the man accidentally walked in front of the shot that Wooyoung had been trying to catch of the ocean.
The chance encounter that happened what feels like centuries ago.
His hand seeks San’s out and finds it. Their fingers lace together. Fuck the rest of the world. This is a moment for them. Not anyone else.
“Yeah,” he admits. “I still have it.”
San hums, his thumb rubbing along the outer curve of Wooyoung’s palm.
“That’s cute,” he says.
Wooyoung huffs out a small, breathy laugh. “Cute?”
“Mhm.”
They slow to a stop almost instinctively, like their own inner compasses are telling them that this is it. This is the spot. This is where their eyes first met, with their skin bathed in the sunset, bright and soft like an orange peel, their connection hammering itself firmly into place, mutual attraction sweeping the two of them off of their feet.
San releases Wooyoung’s hand and Wooyoung scrubs it down the denim over his thigh. He’s suddenly terrified. He’d never really put much thought into how he’d like to propose or be proposed to before San came along — it hasn’t been pressing or important enough to take up enough space in his mind and feel like a real possibility. He hadn’t realistically considered the prospect until after he and San slept together for the first time, when he was sure that he’d met his soulmate.
He’s still not positive that he puts a lot of true belief in the general concept of soulmates, but whatever the hell he has with San comes as close as possible so it deserves the title. It’s a nice title — it fits what they have together pretty succinctly.
His parents have always vaguely hinted (word used loosely) that they’d like him to get married before he’s too old to meet The One.
Wouldn't this be a fun surprise?
The best friend who’s already like a second son to them?
Their society won’t even want them to do it. People might frown on them. Maybe his parents will disown him over it or something. Maybe San’s parents will react poorly and tell them not to see each other anymore.
Can he tell anyone at all if they decide to go on with this?
A knot forms in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t have time to get upset about it because San is gently turning him around so they can face one another.
Those high cheekbones are bathed in the glow of a fresh sunset. That smile, bracketed by wonderful and happy dimples, is calm and collected. San is at peace right now. He’s in his element by the ocean, breathing in the crisp sea-swept air, ignoring what other people ‘might think’, curling an arm around the small of Wooyoung’s back and cradling the base of his spine like it’s the most precious thing he’s ever laid his hands on.
“Hey,” he says, the low purr of his voice pouring over Wooyoung like liquid gold. “I love you.”
Wooyoung’s brow furrows. He’s confused; that was abrupt.
One of San’s eyebrows twitches. “Not the reaction I was expecting.”
Shit.
Wooyoung forces his face to relax.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
He doesn’t follow that up with anything else.
San’s sunny smile starts to fade away. It’s heinous to watch.
No, absolutely not.
Wooyoung moves in to nuzzle his nose along his boyfriend’s jaw. “I love you, too.”
Now.
It has to be Now.
“One sec,” he says like a fucking doofus with no other explanation, pulling back and turning away so he can fumble around in his pocket, too irritatingly deep.
He pulls the ring box out and hides it in his palm.
But when he spins back around, San — at the speed of light, it seems — has lowered to the ground.
And he’s on one knee.
________
It’s pretty stupid, how in sync they are with one another.
Everything sort of comes together for them, in any situation and under any circumstance.
The ability to process what’s happening right now, though, is a little bit beyond Wooyoung’s comprehension.
In no way would he ever expect his Moment — the Moment for him, the one that he’s been trying to plan on for a long time (in his book), the one in which he would finally dig up the courage to propose to someone — to be interrupted and halted by being proposed to, himself.
A lot is going through his mind.
There’s a nagging little part of him that is convinced this is a silly joke, despite the fact that San isn’t laughing.
His beautiful eyes, so brown against the slowly dying sunlight, are peering up into Wooyoung’s with something almost ethereal — the most serious, incredibly vulnerable honesty, a small and hopeful smile trying to blossom across his lips, his eyebrows drawn upwards in the middle.
His hands rise to open a small, black, velvet box and hold it out toward Wooyoung.
The ring settled inside is thin and speckled with tiny, tiny diamonds.
Or what Wooyoung assumes are diamonds.
Settling for cubic zirconia doesn't seem like San’s speed.
They’re beautiful, regardless.
He loves it immediately, regardless.
It’s overwhelming, regardless.
His shock is short-lived; it snaps him nearly in half when it breaks and his emotions are ripped completely out of his control. He’s always known people to cry when their significant others pull out a ring and he’s never understood why, has even thought that it’s a little dorky. He doesn’t happy-cry (if he has before, he doesn’t remember it) and he doesn’t overreact to things unless it’s on purpose. Crying is mostly associated with sadness, in his mind.
He starts sobbing.
And he’s not sad.
Cliche as it sounds, it feels like a dam is breaking inside of his chest.
He coughs and cries and sinks to his own knees in front of San, momentarily forgetting the box in his hand and dropping it to the light sand beneath them. He forgets everything that’s been making his stomach turn into gnarled knots all week — all of the stress, the uncertainty, the anxiety — and sits back on his heels, burying his face in his hands, hiccuping as he tries his best to wrangle the tears back in, distantly worried about making himself look fucking foolish by overreacting.
“Wooyoung?” he hears San ask softly, and it just makes him cry a little harder. The tone is so guarded, so worried, like all of the hope is being rapidly vacuumed straight out of it.
He sniffles loudly, wetly, unattractively and grapples off to his side with one hand, finding the box and pushing it forcefully forward, thumping it against San’s chest. He squeezes his eyes tight, hears San’s own ring box clapping shut, feels one of his warm hands wrap gently around his wrist.
“Wooyoung…” he says again, but the name trails off. Bewildered.
Wooyoung swipes his free arm across his eyes like a child trying to brave through a skinned knee after falling off of his bike. His cracks them open even as he can feel that the rest of his face still scrunched up like sour, puckered lips, and though he’s without a doubt positive that right now he’s the ugliest he’s ever looked in front of San since they first laid their sights on one another, he’s met with an expression that could drop him faster than a bullet to the brain.
San’s smiling, dimples reappearing and digging impossibly deep into his cheeks, his eyes nearly closed with kittenish happiness.
Happiness.
“Do it the right way,” he manages to say. His voice is tight and Wooyoung catches the movement of his adam’s apple bobbing under his chin as he swallows, hard, forced like something is stuck in his throat.
This is all so surreal that it feels ridiculous.
“Please, Woo, I just… please do it right.”
Wooyoung laughs from the stomach, briefly but genuinely, a fresh wave of tears welling up to burn literally every single thing that exists around his orbital bones. It’s uncomfortable but he nods, his hands shaking as they lift, join together, and slowly open the ring box.
“Marry me,” he blurts. Dimly realizing how rude that sounded, he weakly adds, “Please.”
San is as bright as that peaking sunset. He’s as clear as the translucent, glistening water a few feet away from where they’re now both kneeling, and he’s as beautiful as the horizon. He’s still smiling, but his nostrils almost imperceptibly flare and the corners of his eyes scrunch.
He brings his arms up again. He reopens the box still clasped between his palms.
His voice is smooth and low; it’s a noticeable contrast against how his grip on his own emotions is slipping.
He says, “Only if you marry me.”
They’re so stupid.
They’re both so dumb.
The whole situation is so dumb.
The realization that this entire time they have been so perfectly synched and meant to propose to the other on the same day at the same time in the same place.
It is, in the most literal sense, unbelievable.
But hasn’t it also been unbelievable that someone like Choi San exists within the confines of such a large and diverse universe?
It’s been unbelievable that some sort of maybe-fate brought them together in such a strangely specific way, right on this very spot.
It’s been unbelievable that the interaction led to this moment.
And it’s been unbelievable that San, who could probably (in Wooyoung’s biased opinion) have anyone he wants, chose him.
Chose him for life.
He barely computes the gut-punched “yes” that flies out of his own mouth before his box is gently plucked from his hand. He watches through blurry tears as San slides the ring onto his finger and it fits perfectly.
He wonders in a daze how the man managed to get his ring size.
Unfortunately, Wooyoung couldn’t manage much the same on his end.
So, he winged it.
When he tries to return the sentiment, that very emotionally important moment of putting a ring on the love of one’s life, the ring doesn’t make it past San’s second knuckle.
Winging it didn’t work.
“Fucking damnit,” he huffs as he releases San’s hand, curling his fingers around the ring, almost like he’s subconsciously trying to hide it. “Damnit, no…”
The miscalculation frustrates him to the point of crying harder.
It’s so embarrassing.
But San is understanding and sincere. He gently works Wooyoung’s fingers apart until he can take the ring for himself, pulling it in and holding it in his own closed fist to his chest like it’s a precious jewel.
“It’s okay,” he says. He sniffs and laughs a little, the sound heavy with a sentimental weight. “It’s okay, we can figure it out when we get home.”
His other hand extends to swipe a thumb over Wooyoung’s cheek, rubbing away his tears.
God he loves this man.
On the bus back to their hotel, the box tucked into Wooyoung’s pocket (to keep the ring safe, for now) feels much different. The weight of it doesn’t carry the additional pounds of uncertainty and anxiety. It feels solid now, secure, comfortable like a weighted blanket.
He keeps one hand resting protectively over the bump it makes during the drive.
San’s fingers stay linked between his.
________
They take turns that night.
It’s not the first time they’ve done it, but it is the first time they’ve done it with a new chapter of love settling into their hearts and their futures.
San is so concentrated with his movements, grinding into Wooyoung with slow, measured body rolls, taking his time like the world has temporarily halted its orbit to give them all the time they need to themselves. His lubricated palm drags along Wooyoung's cock just as slowly, as he whispers praises around trembling, labored breaths — how good Wooyoung feels, how much he loves him, how he could do this all night if Wooyoung wants him to.
The man can move his hips like nobody’s business when he has a few drinks in him at a club while he’s dancing, but when he uses the talent during sex it’s next level. Wooyoung is curling the fingers of one hand against the strong muscles of his lover’s back, the other hand fisting the hotel sheet underneath him, and he’s whimpering behind his tightened lips, trying to stay quiet for the sake of the people in the rooms on either side of theirs.
He gives up after a while. It feels too good and he knows how much San likes when he’s vocal in bed, even if it’s just noises, not words.
When Wooyoung gets too close, San can sense it. He’s always been able to. He hears the escalating moans and knows when to stop, pull out, and move to straddle Wooyoung’s hips, resituating.
He rides Wooyoung for what feels like hours.
He’s sat up straight so Wooyoung can drag his hands down that perfectly sculpted torso, brush his thumbs over San’s nipples, hold his slim waist and feel all of the muscles there clenching and shifting with the movements as he works Wooyoung into a frighteningly fast need to come inside of him.
Too fast.
Record breaking.
Wooyoung rises, sits up and hugs San tight against him, pressing open-mouthed kisses along his neck freckles as the man exposes them, basking in the open and unapologetic groans that he lets out into the darkness of the hotel room with every upward thrust, until he can’t take it anymore and comes without warning, bowing his head into the crook of Wooyoung’s neck, hissing and growling through the waves. It’s enough for Wooyoung to follow suit, holding San’s hips still so he’s fully inside of him, gasping, shaking, overwhelmed with the pleasure of the sex and the pleasure of loving this man, his perfect match, his fiancée.
When they’re done and laying together in the afterglow, San strokes along Wooyoung’s shoulder blades, his fingertips lighter than a feather.
It lulls Wooyoung to sleep, but not before he manages to push a weak kiss against his fiancée’s strong chest.
________
A few weeks after flying back to Seoul, most of Wooyoung’s room is in boxes.
“Aren’t you obligated to stay here or something?” is a question from one of his roommates.
It’s not presented with anger or disappointment. The question carries more concern than anything.
“I’ll come back for a few nights a week,” is Wooyoung’s response. “Just consider it like half moving out.”
The decision is met with multiple tight-lipped skepticisms.
Yeosang is the worst, though.
He knows that his friend is only worried about the sudden transition, and that he’s unabashedly sad to see him leave. Wooyoung doubles down, reiterates that he’ll still be sleeping in the dorm on occasion and spending time with him; he’s just getting most of his stuff over to San’s apartment preemptively, because he wants to make it feel like home.
Because for a little while, it will be home. Once the semester is over, once he graduates, he’ll be moved in entirely. Permanently.
Yeosang takes the news about the engagement itself much better, though. His smile is wide and genuine, his congratulatory embrace tight and warm. He knows how long Wooyoung has been wanting to bite that particular bullet and has been a largely dependable shoulder through the anxiety and uncertainty that came along with the decision.
Wooyoung wouldn’t give this little gremlin up for the world.
He knows that the feeling is mutual.
That’s why (the only reason why) starting to move out guts him, just the tiniest bit.
________
It’s been almost a month since the Jeju trip.
It’s also been a single week on the dot since San requested for Wooyoung to hand the ill-fitted ring over instead of protecting it like a wounded baby bird.
Wooyoung concedes, reluctantly. He’s still a little embarrassed about the snafu, but San is so gently reassuring.
It’s really hard to purchase something like a ring without doing sneaky research on the size of the other’s finger, so his nagging anxiety over the problem is at least understandable.
But San — beautiful, perfect, predictably kind and understanding San — doesn’t care.
He just smiled when he took the ring back, carefully closing the box and pulling Wooyoung in with a sturdy hand on the middle of his back, kissing him on the forehead.
“I’ll make it work,” he’d said.
He picks Wooyoung up at his dorm one night for a quick date, some ‘Us Time’ in the midst of a tornado-ing week of finals and the stress of moving.
Wooyoung slides into the passenger seat of San’s car. Halfway to buckling up, he pauses. The first thing he notices and hones in on is that stupid, too-small ring looped onto a simple silver chain around San’s strong neck.
That’s more than enough to cancel his sheepishness out entirely, instantly.
He releases the seatbelt. As it whirs loudly away from him and clatters back against the door, he leans across the middle console and kisses San, long and slow.
When he pulls away, San is already smiling. His expression is one of unmistakable (if confused) adoration.
“What was that for?” he asks.
“Free,” Wooyoung replies softly, moving in for a second kiss and murmuring against his lover’s lips, “I love you.”
________
The day Wooyoung officially moves in is when San arranges a refitting for his ring.
When the fitting is done, it slides onto his ring finger like butter and Wooyoung can’t get over how final it feels, now that they can both wear their commitment on their hands at the same time, telling the world that they’re spoken for.
San’s smile when Wooyoung takes his hand to kiss the ring could rival the beauty of the northern lights.
________
YEAR FIVE
Wooyoung is twenty-three when he and San make the rainy, short-ish trek from Seoul to Ilsan.
His hands fidget in his lap.
He told his parents a week ago, over the phone.
His mother wasn’t surprised. She was happy, though, that her middle child had his shit together enough to graduate, find a stable place to live, and meet the love of his life before his mid-twenties.
His father was quiet. It was frustratingly hard to get a read on him without being in his presence. He likes San, always has, but the news isn’t exactly the greatest to an older generation, more traditional Korean. He’s appreciated San as Wooyoung’s friend — not as his lover, let alone fiancée.
His father is why he feels so anxious.
His little brother, too.
How can he explain all of this concisely and simply enough for a kid to understand?
San is quiet during the drive, a comforting hand resting just above Wooyoung’s knee. He asks twice in the half hour on the road if Wooyoung is okay, met both times with the answer of, “I don’t know.”
If San is nervous, too, he doesn’t show it.
Wooyoung is selfishly thankful for that.
His senses are so heightened by the time they pull up to his childhood home that he can practically hear and feel the wet gravel crunching underneath the car’s tires. San parks and turns slightly, one hand on the steering wheel, the other still blanketed over Wooyoung’s thigh.
“Babe,” he says, his voice low and calm. “It’s going to be okay.”
Wooyoung stares down at his fiancée’s hand and nods. “Yeah.”
“Trust me.”
He nods again. “I do.”
“Hey.”
Wooyoung looks up.
San is smiling, his eyebrows drawn together with genuine empathy. “I get it. Your mom is fine with this. Your dad likes me. It’ll be alright.”
Wooyoung searches San’s eyes and sees nothing but confident reassurance.
He nods again.
“Okay,” he half-whispers back. “Okay.”
San takes the lead approaching the home’s front door. He allows Wooyoung to trail behind him, allows him to have and work through his own small moment of insecurity. They’re hand in hand but Wooyoung is trailing slightly behind, only grounded by the way San’s thumb rubs across the ring on his finger.
Wooyoung mimics the gesture. A sign to tell the other man, I’m okay for now.
San gives his hand a squeeze before squaring himself, exhaling long and slow, and knocking on the home’s door.
Barely five seconds pass before Eunkyung swings it open, her smile vast enough to wrap around the planet, forgoing all generational manners with her arms open wide to accept a willing San into them.
While she embraces and rocks him with a plethora of happy tidings, Wooyoung looks beyond them in the doorway at his father.
The man’s stern face doesn’t last long; it takes less than a breath for him to smile, slide passed his wife and future son-in-law, and pull Wooyoung into a strong, tight hug.
Anxiety melts away.
Joy blossoms.
This is what Wooyoung was hoping for.
Later that night, in his childhood bedroom that his parents have unexpectedly allowed them to stay together in, he almost sacrifices his sleep for figuring out how to talk to his brothers.
Even by a little past midnight, he’s still up.
At almost one o’clock, San’s had enough.
“Wooyoung,” he says with a gravelly, sleepy voice. “Baby, stop stressing. Please.”
Wooyoung’s first instinct is to argue, I’m allowed to stress, it’s my place to stress, this is heavier on me than you, but voicing all of it to San won’t do much — it’s all true, and San won’t fight him.
Wooyoung reluctantly decides that he’ll talk to his brothers once he has a decent amount of sleep.
San likes that choice, even in the hazy fog of semi-consciousness.
He can barely keep his eyes open when Wooyoung finally plugs his phone in to charge. Doesn’t matter; he still winds his arm around the younger man as if to say, ‘you’re valid, but please cuddle with me and get some sleep’.
________
The next morning, Eunkyung decides to teach San how to prepare the best french toast for breakfast.
Wooyoung wakes up while the two are conversing in the kitchen. He catches a glimpse of his mother and his fiancée working shoulder to shoulder in front of the stove when he trudges (apparently not too loudly) out of his room.
He backs up quietly.
He’ll scream into a pillow about how much that small, secretive, soft scenario affects him later. For now, he retreats, crosses his arms together and takes a moment to glance out of the living room window.
His orange tree.
The one that sprouted from a fruit straight out of Jeju.
It’s flourishing.
He slides the backyard door open and wanders closer to it, ignoring how his toes complain about the cold and dampness of dew on the grass.
There’s a very, very ripe orange waiting for him.
The others are smaller, but this one is practically yowling for him to notice it.
He plucks it, curious.
It’s the first one in his dumb little tree to ripen.
The timing seems almost comical.
He turns it around in his palm a few times, then digs his thumbs very slightly into its skin. It yields perfectly, and leaves rind residue under his fingernails.
He decides that during tonight’s family dinner, San gets the first slice, right after I peel it.
Because it’s been five years, almost to the day, since he planted the thing.
Everything is full circle.
It just makes sense.