smultronställe

VI.

It's 12:50 in the morning - you have enough presence of mind to glance at the neon green time displayed on Jaemin's oven, even as he trails his lips down your neck and his hands grip at your waist, pulling your hips to his. You're a little drunk, you will admit, and you know Jaemin is, too. This changes nothing, not when your fingers are threaded through his hair and his cold palms are against the bare skin of your stomach, right underneath your tank top.

You only have a bare idea of how this has come to be.

It's 11:54 p.m., and you're knocking on Jaemin's front door, one, two raps of knuckle against hardwood before he's pulling the door open and you into a hug that's tighter than any he's ever given you before. The two of you wave goodbye to your rideshare driver and you close the door behind you. He pours you the drink of the night - a white wine, you're pleasantly surprised to find - and hands you your glass before staring at you with glistening eyes. Jaemin's always been full of so much love, but your heart leaps at the amount that's present in front of you tonight. He turns on the TV for background noise only for Grey's Anatomy to come on, much to the amusement of both you and Jaemin. He keeps it on anyways.

A 'cheers' and a conversation later - updates on Yvonne's health and how Ved's funeral, which you'd attended a week prior, had gone, discussion of how Jeanie's taken to her bovine patch, talk of how Jaeeun's doing in school and of how Mark's finally adopted a puppy after years of saying he will - and your glass is empty, just begging to be refilled. Jaemin's still hardly a sip or two in, and you suppose he's started pacing himself so he doesn't get drunker than you. There's a need to be on the same plane that's palpable between you two, but you ignore it as best you can in the same way you ignore the wetness in your shorts when he leans close and places his hand on top of your knee.

It's 12:21 a.m., and you've swung your bare legs onto the couch, your calves against Jaemin's lap as you sit sideways while his body is turned straight ahead. He's laughing at some dumb comment you've made about the recent season of Grey's Anatomy, and his palms are rough but gentle as they knead at your leg muscles on impulse. You offer to fill up the glasses - they're both finally empty - and he waves it off with a 'maybe later'. It's only after this that you realize you don't want to get up anyways.

Jaemin tells you of how his grandmother used to use 'faux pas' constantly but had never clarified its origin, causing him to believe it to be a Korean phrase until coming to America for his higher education. He re-enacts how he'd realized the phrase to be French only after mispronouncing it as 'fox pass' after reading it out loud during an Intro to English Literature course, and your peals of laughter and apologies for laughing so hard drown out the on-screen argument between Owen and Amelia. You tell him of how your med school graduation invitations had been accidentally sent out entirely in Comic Sans, and Jaemin practically bends in half to contain himself.

Neither of you are giggly drunks alone or around other people. For you, there's just something about Jaemin. For Jaemin, there's just something about you.

It's 12:44 a.m., and you're fucked. You only realize that you've inched closer to Jaemin when you bend sideways to place your glass on a coaster on his coffee table and you're able to grab his bicep easily for balance. You've hugged him, rested a hand against his skin casually, teasingly flicked him in the arm plenty of times, but it's times like this that you remember the fact that, even during his busy schedule being a father and a surgeon at once, he fits in time to go to the gym. The muscle is rock hard under your splayed fingers, and when you slowly return back from setting the glass down, you find that you're almost on his lap: move a centimeter more, and you will be.

Turning your head only makes your budding lust-fueled panic worse: his face is closer than you'd thought. Jaemin gulps upon making eye contact with you, tongue darting out to slide against his mildly chapped bottom lip. Your breath hitches as he drops his gaze to your mouth, which is slightly parted in surprise, and you're suddenly hyper-aware of everything around you.