Hanjae

the stadium lights were blinding, a mixture of digital screens on every surface displaying commercials and glow-sticks being waved around by fans. hanjae leaned back in his seat, one relaxed arm casually draped over the backrest behind as he tried his best to act like he was actually invested in the score. he was playing the part of the supportive bro perfectly — cracking jokes, shouting at the ref when a bad call was made, and drinking whenever his nerves spiked.

but he wasn’t sweating because the stadium was warm. every time glanced over at him, his heart sank a little further to his ass. goddamn, dude. fellas is it gay to admire your bro? he was conflicted; it wasn’t his fault was questionably beautiful, anyone would have his reaction. that was what he told himself. but he couldn’t let his admiration show, that was for damn sure - not here, not when they were surrounded by randoms, and certainly not when he was still terrified of what admitting it would change between the two of them.

time passed painfully slow, and his ass was starting to hurt from the hard pressure of the cheap seat against his ass. he leaned back again, clearing his throat, doing anything to seem casual even when he was leaning suspiciously close to , hand halfway around his shoulder.

the announcer was going on about some random shit hanjae wasn’t paying attention to. brand shoutouts, or something. at least, that was what hanjae assumed was going on until the big screen faded from a replay of the last 5 seconds of the game to hanjae and surrounded by big hearts and corny visual effects.

the music shifted to something upbeat and obnoxious; the unmistakable signal of the kiss cam. hanjae froze, and he narrowed his eyes at the screen as if he didn’t think it were actually himself.

it finally settled in when turned to look at him. his cheeks warmed, unmistakably from his own embarrassment. he turned his head away, avoiding whatever came next, whether it be caving and kissing him (unlikely), laughing in his face, or signing ‘no’ at the camera.

"i mean, fuck, bro," hanjae laughed softly, his entire face flushing a deep, betraying crimson. this cute, annoying smile forced its way onto his face and he felt himself breaking a sweat even more than before.

”that’s... this is wild. they think we’re a couple? or, what, they want us to make out?” he attempted at a joke, rubbing the back of his neck. he realized with another pang of embarrassment that his arm was still behind ’s shoulders and he lifted it with feigned nonchalance, exhaling.

the crowd was still stuck in cheers and whistles, pointing at the screen where their faces were displayed in giant, high definition pixels. hanjae didn’t dare look at with any kind of expectance, suddenly finding intense interest with a blank spot on the wall, or the dirt on his shoe.

”there’s actually no way. how do they know we aren’t, like, siblings or something?” he added lightheartedly, glancing ’s way for a half second before pretending to read a sign across the stadium.

hanjae had agreed to the strip market before he’d really thought about what agreeing meant.

that was on him. had mentioned going, hanjae had said sure, and then he’d gone home and spent an objectively unreasonable amount of time deciding what to wear. not because he cared, obviously. he just happened to have plans with his best friend and happened to want to look decent while doing it. there was nothing weird about that.

now, twenty minutes into walking around the market, he was beginning to question the wisdom of his decision.

there were families everywhere, groups of teenagers wandering around with drinks in their hands, vendors calling out about food, and enough couples that hanjae was starting to notice them against his will. he kept catching little things: somebody sharing fries, a girl fixing her boyfriend’s collar, two people standing shoulder to shoulder while they argued over which stall to go to next.

it was annoying.

mostly because was beside him doing absolutely nothing wrong, and hanjae was still having the vague, irritating feeling that he was supposed to be doing something.

he shoved his hands into the front pocket of his quicksilver hoodie and glanced over. “where are we going again?”

he knew where they were going. he’d already looked at the market map twice in the car.

still, was the one who suggested coming, so hanjae figured he could make him responsible for the itinerary.

they wandered past a row of little shops, hanjae slowing whenever something caught his attention and then speeding up and pretending he hadn’t. he stopped at one booth selling cheap sunglasses, picked up a pair, and held them against his face.

“these go hard.”

they did not go hard. they were ugly as shit.

he put them back anyway, then caught looking at him and immediately frowned. “what? i can pull them off.”

hanjae moved on before he could get an answer, though his ears had already started getting warm.

it’s fine fine. this is fine. guys go to markets together all the time. friends go places together. friends could spend an afternoon wandering around and buying stupid shit and getting food without it suddenly meaning something, probably. yes. probably.

he glanced at one of the couples passing them and made a face.

“why does everybody here have to be so fucking affectionate?”

he sounded genuinely offended by it, as if the market organizers had personally arranged the couples just to piss him off.

“like, dude, we get it. you like each other. you don't have to be attached at the fucking hip.”

a few seconds passed before hanjae seemed to realize he was still walking alongside , close enough that their shoulders occasionally bumped whenever the crowd narrowed.

he immediately shifted half a step away. then, after thinking about it, shifted back.

the crowd tightened around them near one of the food stalls, forcing them closer together. hanjae glanced down when the back of his hand brushed against ’s.

he didn't move away this time.

instead, he looked ahead and shoved one hand deeper into his hoodie pocket while the other hung awkwardly at his side. he kept noticing the space between them, which was stupid. it was barely any space at all.

after another few steps, hanjae's fingers brushed 's again. he hesitated, then quietly reached over and caught his hand.

it was casual. at least, that was what hanjae was going for. he loosely laced their fingers together and kept walking like he'd done it a thousand times before, even though his shoulders had gone noticeably stiff.

“it's crowded,” he muttered, staring straight ahead.

a few seconds passed. “makes it easier.”

he knew that wasn't really true. there were plenty of ways to keep from losing each other in a crowd that didn't involve holding hands.

hanjae's thumb shifted once against 's hand before he seemed to realize what he was doing. he immediately stopped moving it.

“don't uh, don’t make it weird.”

he looked at then, his expression caught somewhere between defensive and embarrassed.

“it's not weird.”

he looked away again.

“friends do this shit. they do, right?”

the thing about hanjae was that he could turn practically anything into a competition if he tried hard enough. he raced people to elevators, kept score during pickup games nobody else remembered agreeing to, and had once spent twenty minutes arguing with a nineteen-year-old at the gym about who could hold a plank longer. he liked winning, liked being watched while he did it, and liked even more when the person watching happened to be someone whose opinion he cared about.

so inviting over and then deciding he should work out in front of him was not suspicious. it was normal. hanjae worked out all the time. he was a gym coach. he literally got paid to know what he was doing with his body.

the fact that he'd changed into a pair of basketball shorts that made his legs look great before arrived had nothing to do with it — and neither did the forty-five dollar fitted tank top from tiktok shop. that was just what he felt like wearing.

they'd been hanging out for maybe an hour, doing the usual nothing that somehow occupied an entire afternoon. hanjae had the TV on without really watching it, one of his legs stretched across the couch while sat nearby. waffle had been asleep on the floor until a noise from the hallway sent him scrambling upright and trotting away to investigate, and hanjae had spent several minutes telling him to stop being a fucking narc before going back to whatever stupid video he'd been showing on his phone.

it was comfortable. familiar. exactly the sort of afternoon they'd had a hundred times before.

which was why hanjae's sudden decision to get up and exercise was completely reasonable.

he stretched his arms over his head, yawned, and looked toward the open space on the floor.

“i've been sitting too long.”

he didn't wait for to care. hanjae wandered into the middle of the living room, rolled his shoulders a few times, and bent forward to touch his toes. then he straightened and looked toward the couch.

“don't look at me like that. i'm not doing anything.” (whatever that meant).

he started with some push-ups, mostly because they were easy and he didn't need any equipment. his form was annoyingly good, too; hanjae had enough experience correcting other people's mistakes that he couldn't bring himself to half-ass his own. down, up, steady pace, shoulders where they were supposed to be. after a while, his hair started falling into his face, and he blew at it uselessly before finally pushing himself upright.

“jesus, hold on.”

he groaned and reached for the hem of his tank top.

there was a brief, unnecessary amount of consideration involved in what happened next. hanjae grabbed the fabric, pulled it over his head, and paused with it bunched around his arms while he freed his hair from the collar. once it was off, he shook his head to get his dark-blue hair back into place, ran both hands through it, and tossed the shirt onto the arm of the couch rather than the floor.

he immediately felt stupid about the whole thing.

“it's.. fucking hot,” he said.

it was not fucking hot.

the apartment was cool enough that he wasn’t sweating as much as he would’ve been at the gym, where body heat lingers in the air from all the other guys.

hanjae knew this, but there was no going back now. he'd already taken the shirt off, and putting it back on would somehow be worse. so he planted his hands on the floor again and started another set.

he could feel himself becoming increasingly aware of the couch behind him.

not , specifically! just... the couch.

the couch, where just so happened to be sitting.

hanjae kept his eyes down and concentrated on his breathing. he got to fifteen, then twenty, then decided twenty-five sounded like a better number because twenty sounded lazy. his shoulders were beginning to burn pleasantly, and his hair was sticking to the side of his face again, but he didn't stop until he'd finished the extra five.

when he finally sat back on his heels, he wiped his forehead with his wrist and breathed through his nose.

yeah, this is good. i’m not trying to impress anyone. especially not him. i’m impressing myself, actually. what else would this be for.

he was working out in his own apartment. shirtless. in front of his best friend. nothing strange about that. men had muscles. men showed their muscles. that was just how the world worked.

and if happened to notice, well, good. obviously. hanjae worked hard for this shit.

he pushed himself upright and reached for his water bottle, trying to act like he hadn't just spent the last several minutes wondering whether his back looked good from that angle. he took a long drink, then glanced toward the couch.

his eyes lingered for half a second too long.

“what?”

hanjae lowered the bottle.

he stared at with a faint frown, suddenly suspicious in the way he got when he thought someone was laughing at him.

“why are you looking at me like that?”