↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

six

1945, Seoul.

Seonghwa is lying on his back in the orchard.

He scrunches up his face.

The sun is dazzling bright in the little windows of sky he sees through the leaves and branches of the apple trees.

The days are hot again, long again, like the first time he met Hongjoong.

He blinks sleepily, almost dozing off.

"Hey, hyung."

He hums lazily.

"You ever kissed anyone?"

Seonghwa's eyebrows shoot up, and he turns his head to look at Hongjoong, lying in the grass beside him.

He's staring straight up at the branches above them, his mouth twisted a little in a way that makes a semi-dimple show, his hands idly tearing blades of grass to bits.

"Why do you ask?" he says, an embarrassingly shy flush to his cheeks that he'd gladly blame on the heat.

"Joon Jae hyung has found a girl," he reports sulkily. "He said he kissed her. And she tastes like strawberries."

"Strawberries?" Seonghwa laughs.

"He must be lying, right?"

"I wouldn't know what girls taste like, Hongjoong, I've never kissed anyone."

Hongjoong turns, all sleepy eyes and amazement.

"Really?" he says.

"Why do you sound surprised?"

"I don't know, you're handsome," he mumbles. "I figured you'd get all the girls."

Seonghwa can feel his face warming.

It's not like that's the first time he's heard it, and it's not like he's unaware of the fact that he's good looking.

It's just that he's never heard the words from Hongjoong's mouth, and somehow it affects him more than when the old ladies at his father's dinner parties say it, or when his aunts squeeze his cheeks at family get-togethers, or even when the boys at school call him pretty boy when they talk about him.

Gets his heart racing, his ears burning.

He's been staring stupidly for a while, he realizes.

He should say something, he realizes.

"I go to an all-boys school," he points out flatly. "What girls?"

"Fair point," Hongjoong says, turning back to the sky.

Seonghwa still watches him, the way his chest rises and falls with every steady breath, the way his eyelids dip lazily, dancing on the precipice of sleep, his lashes splaying over pale skin, and he wonders if anyone has been this close to Hongjoong, close enough to see his lashes and the light sheen on the skin of his cheeks and the delicate curve of his generous smile.