Thus Far in Effect | HEEHOON 🔞

That's... Stupid

The following morning, Sunghoon woke up feeling lighter and well rested. Having Heeseung gently petting his hair as a way to wake him up had definitely aided in the feeling of absolute comfort. It did not, however, make him feel any less weird about their relationship. Then Heeseung had softly told him he'd made breakfast and that he should eat before leaving. Sunghoon almost cried again when he realised Heeseung had made his favourite, probably because of how shitty the day before had been for him.

"You should take my key," Heeseung had said as he was walking Sunghoon out. As if Sunghoon didn't know where the door was in the very small apartment. "I'll pick it up later," he added, just so Sunghoon knew that he would not be keeping it for long, even though it was technically his key.

"Yeah, okay," Sunghoon agreed; he'd decided he wasn't going to think too much about any of it or he'd go insane.

Once they were done with breakfast, Sunghoon walked out of Heeseung's apartment, wearing his clothes, smelling like him and taking his spare key from him. He really couldn't let himself think about it, unless he wanted to delude himself into thinking they were dating. Which they obviously weren't, Heeseung was just that good of a friend.

His inner conflict was only aggravated when Heeseung suddenly kissed him outside his apartment. Sunghoon had just got past the door, had turned round to say bye to Heeseung and had unexpectedly got kissed. For a solid second, he panicked. Kissing wasn't something they did, they had never kissed before, so Sunghoon was understandably confused and surprised. That didn't mean he didn't reciprocate the kiss, his response was a little delayed only. Maybe he should have been concerned and worried over the fact that they were literally in public after they had a conversation about keeping it low and quiet. He'd learnt that he was very weak towards Heeseung, therefore unable to resist his charm.

The kiss kept on getting longer and deeper, resulting in Sunghoon holding onto Heeseung's shoulders and the back of his neck while Heeseung had one hand sliding under his t-shirt and the other tilting his head.

"Well, that's new." The new presence had them jumping away from each other, though there was no denying what they had been doing. "Am I interrupting? 'Cause I'm not going back, I need Heeseung-hyung's help," Riki had, perhaps too casually, said as he continued to walk closer. "I even messaged him about it, should have known not to come when he didn't answer." Sunghoon's heart was racing in his chest, and he had lost the ability to speak for a moment. He also couldn't fully interpret Riki's tone; it seemed his usual unbothered tone, but it also seemed somewhat offended.

"Right, yeah, I— I read that..." Heeseung tried to fix his clothes and hair just a little, and then completely gave up. There was no point to it. "Let me just... Give me just one second," Heeseung said, anxiously moving his hands around.

While Heeseung let Riki in, Sunghoon decided to get out of there instantly. He did not speak to anyone, nor did he look over at them. His face was completely flushed red, he could feel it radiating heat as he tried to process what had happened. Not only did now Riki know about them, at least partially and with several wrong assumptions, but Heeseung had kissed him out where anyone could have seen. Sunghoon hoped Heeseung would explain everything to Riki, or as much as was needed, for him to understand that they weren't together. That what he saw wasn't precisely new or of his business at all.

His plan for the rest of the day was to remain inside and not interact with anyone if it wasn't absolutely necessary. This plan was put into action and was effective for exactly an hour and fifty-eight minutes, then someone called on his door. There was a very tempting impulse in Sunghoon to ignore whoever was on the other side, telling himself they would go away if no one responded. Except, after five minutes, they were still insistently alternating between knocking and ringing. Accompanying these were an annoying number of messages from Riki, which could only mean one thing.