Se-min shot Cha-hyeon a look for a few seconds, like, thanks for stating the obvious. It was half serious, half teasing, but seeing that face shining like someone who’d just feasted on stamina food made him want to smack him.
Of course… he’d liked it. He’d been floored that something this good even existed, but there’s such a thing as moderation… acting like a beast in heat, seriously…?
Skipping over the fact that he’d enjoyed it himself right up until he cried from the strain, Se-min’s gaze turned even more curt. Cha-hyeon, quietly snickering as if he found it all amusing, put on an apologetic face.
“What should I do? If it hurts, want Hyung to give you a back massage?”
“…A massage?”
Both of Cha-hyeon’s hands mimed grabbing and kneading the air. He probably meant an actual massage, but to Se-min it just looked like a cute little squeeze-squeeze, and his scowl loosened on its own.
Sure, Hyung being cute was cute and all, but getting a massage was still better than doing nothing. Lips going soft, Se-min nodded.
“A massage… yeah. Do it.”
“Yeah? Then take off your clothes, Se-min.”
The tone was as breezy as saying the weather was nice, and Se-min’s eyebrows shot up. The cheeks that had gone soft snapped round and stiff. Dropping the hands that had been doing the squeeze-squeeze in the air, Cha-hyeon jerked his chin like, what’re you waiting for?
Se-min’s swollen eyes narrowed to slits.
“…Why do I need to take off my clothes for a back rub?”
“Who gets a massage with clothes on? You take them off for a massage. People keep them on?”
Eyes wide, he even looked a touch innocent, but Se-min wasn’t getting played. Before, he might’ve followed Hyung’s lead without a flicker of doubt at this point, but the current Se-min was different.
“Stop, hnn, stooop, it hurts, hngh…!”
“Good boy, okay? Let’s really stop here. Just this once and we’re done.”
“Hht! You said that earlier too…! Ahhn!”
After spending a few hours with Cha-hyeon breaking his promises over and over, all trust had evaporated.
Fixing his gaze on the wide-eyed, blink-innocent Cha-hyeon, Se-min bristled and snapped.
“Don’t try any funny business.”
“What? You calling Hyung’s idea a trick?”
Cha-hyeon’s round mouth stretched into a long grin. His shoulders started to shake in a peculiar way, but since Se-min couldn’t trust him, he just said everything on his mind.
“It’s a lie. I don’t buy it. You’d strip me and then… cop a feel, squeeze out lotion, slather me up till I’m slick, and rub your hands all over.”
“Se-min, what exactly have you been watching lately?”
He’d blurted an old fantasy without meaning to, wound up as he was, but he still jutted his chest like he was in the right. He was convinced now that Cha-hyeon had been up to something from the start.
Looking both absurd and funny, Cha-hyeon gave a small shake of his head. He folded his hands neatly, as if abandoning the massage idea. Confirming that, Se-min muttered an add-on.
“I’ll just… take a bath and pop something for muscle pain. Meds work really well on me, so I’ll be fine soon. You can wait on me, Hyung.”
He couldn’t do anything about the dull ache in his insides, but muscle soreness was the kind of thing that got better if you moved. Some slow stretching with a little pharmaceutical backup would probably help a lot. He was the type who responded well to basically any over-the-counter pill.
Oh—would a painkiller ease the ache down there, too? As a kind of worry he’d never had before crossed his mind, the lines between his brows deepened.
“Kff…”
A small laugh slipped out of Cha-hyeon. The furrow eased slightly as Se-min looked over. Wetting his lower lip, Cha-hyeon gave him a gentle look.
“Yeees, understood. Should I go buy the meds?”
“No… There should be some in the first-aid kit at home, u—ugh…”
As he slowly tried to sit up, a groan slipped out. The sting was sharper than he’d expected. He froze, clutching his lower back, trying to smooth out his pinched expression.
“Oh dear.”
Cha-hyeon’s hand touched his waist. It wasn’t exactly warm, but just the slow, gentle rubbing made it feel like the pain eased a little.
The hands that had been hugging his own back dropped away. Rubbing in slow circles down over where those hands had been, Cha-hyeon whispered, like he couldn’t stand how pitiful this was.
“Hyungie doesn’t have a heal skill… Should I at least blow on it—hoo—so it won’t hurt?”
Pursing his lips in a little hoo, he blinked innocently. Looking at that with swollen eyes, Se-min hesitated and spoke.
“…Hey, Hyung. I’m curious about something.”
It had been nagging him bit by bit, and this time he couldn’t hold back the question that suddenly sprang up.
“Why… do you keep acting cute?”
“…….”
The hand sweeping broadly along his lower back slowed, then stopped cold.
Like someone stabbed out of nowhere, Cha-hyeon stared at him. At that stunned face, Se-min flapped his hands in a panic.
“No, I mean—at first you didn’t have your memories and you were all over the place, so I didn’t think to bring it up. But you kept going, ‘Hyungie, Cha-hyeon Hyungie,’ and saying you’d go ‘hoo’ for me because it hurt, and talking like a baby, and I couldn’t get used to it… It’s not like you regressed from a head injury or anything… No, forget that part—!”
Cha-hyeon behaving in ways the original him wouldn’t—on the bright side, it was refreshing, but because it was so different from the version he knew, it felt oddly unfamiliar too.
And on the other hand, seeing him shamelessly say filthy things and do obscene acts he would never normally do—it was like a devil wearing an angel’s mask, or a wolf pretending to be a deer, and Se-min couldn’t shake the weird sense of dissonance.
Sure, the Hyung with memories and the Hyung without were the same person, but with his behavior that different, it sometimes felt like dealing with a whole other man, and things got awkward…
Those drifting thoughts stopped short when Cha-hyeon thunked his forehead against Se-min’s shoulder. After a few soft thunk, thunks, he raised his head.
Because he’d done it while rubbing his waist, the distance between them was extremely close. Under the fluorescent light, Se-min could clearly see those eyes—so black they almost gleamed.
“It’s aegyo.”
“…Ah. Aegyo.”
He hadn’t imagined that word would come out. Parroting it blankly, Se-min finally realized why he’d been acting like a baby.
Aegyo—from Cha-hyeon-hyung? It felt like staring at an equation that shouldn’t compute, but what came next forced him to revise fast.
“Isn’t that what people do when they’re dating—show aegyo and act a little weak?”
His lashes drooped, casting a long shadow under his lids. Se-min could only stare, forgetting even the ache in his back.
I… guess? Somehow persuaded, his mouth just opened and closed. That unbeatable phrase, “when we’re dating,” did it.
So now that we’re a couple, that’s why Cha-hyeon-hyung acted weak with me and showed aegyo—so I’d want to protect him?
A ticklish warmth spread through his chest. He had accepted Hyung’s proposal to date, but he’d braced himself for the fact that this relationship had an end.
So even while doing couple things, he’d tried not to step too far past the original line—so it wouldn’t hurt too much when they went back to just Hyung and Dongsaeng… Heat flooded Se-min’s ears.
“But from your point of view, it looked like my skull got cracked open…”
“I—I never said your skull was cracked!”
The end of his sentence scraped like a rusty hinge.
Lowering himself to meet Se-min’s gaze, Cha-hyeon slowly straightened up. His hand was still at Se-min’s waist. The hand that had been rubbing his back slid a little, then settled at his side, almost like an embrace.
“Then give me a kiss.”
“…Whaaat?”
At the inexplicable logic, Se-min’s voice jumped. But Cha-hyeon brazened it out.
“You made me say out loud that I was doing aegyo—so embarrassing. And you hurt Hyung’s feelings by not getting how I felt.”
Se-min’s lips worked like a goldfish’s. Put that way, he had no comeback.
Cha-hyeon presented his cheek. Maybe he’d already shaved that morning—his jaw and cheek were smooth. Lips pressed tight, Se-min stared, then leaned in, hesitant.
“……”
Smooch. His lips brushed the offered cheek. Despite the fact that last night they’d tried every position for their first sex guiding and he’d shown every ridiculous side of himself, this little cheek kiss felt even more embarrassing. Which made sense—kissing was pure affection.
Doing this… really feels like we’re dating. Like newlyweds…
The heat that had pooled in his earlobes spread to the rims. If this familiar space suddenly felt like a newlywed home, was that getting way ahead of himself? At the cheeky thought, Se-min’s face went up in flames.
