Red | Sookai ✔

one: scarlet

Red is love. Red is life. Red is the colour of Hueningkai's cheeks when he (finally) stumbles out of bed.

The clumsy, late awakening frightens Soobin. Just a little, though. After all, he's gotten used to his boyfriend's adorable sleeping---and waking up---habits.

(Watching someone sleep for months does that to you.)

"Hyung," Hueningkai whines, hand fluttering over his eyes to shield them from the sunlight slanting through their---their, their, their, Soobin'll never get tired of the word---translucent white curtains. "Stop watching me sleep. I told you that before. It's creepy."

(Hueningkai's the cutest in the mornings, when he's sleepy and rosy and practically glowing with golden dew. Soobin's told him that countless times, as if that justifies Hueningkai waking up to Soobin's large eyes staring down at him every morning.)

"But you're too adorable for me to stop," Soobin teases, pinching his boyfriend's cheek playfully. Hueningkai's too groggy to react, instead opting to glance around the sunlit room with glassy brown eyes. Soobin loves those eyes. He'd die for them.

"You..." Hueningkai rubs the slumber away from his eyelids, shards of halcyon light bouncing off his gorgeous knuckles---Soobin thinks Hueningkai has the prettiest hands--- "...need to sleep more." He reaches out to the space above Soobin's cheekbones, and Soobin hates how Hueningkai touches those detested dark circles so gently. He doesn't want to share Hueningkai's tenderness. Even if it's with his own eyebags. "Your eyebags are getting worse."

Soobin laughs. It's not easy for him to laugh anymore. Every time he forces that dreaded sound out, his throat feels like powdered glass. But when he's around his boyfriend---his sweet, happy boyfriend---laughing is just a little bit simpler. It makes his throat feel like mud instead of glass. Sticky. Not painful.

"I'm fine," he says, and he believes it. Because as long as Hueningkai's around, everything's fine. Soobin could move mountains. He could move the world. "Three hours is more than enough."

"There are twenty-four hours in a day and you need at least eight of them."

"But that's eight hours less time with you."

Hueningkai smiles fondly, and Soobin feels his heart skip a beat in his chest. No matter how many times he sees it, he'll never get tired of Hueningkai's grin. It's a smile he wants to bottle up and store away forever, a lucky charm to light up all his rainy days.

The grin disappears, though, when Hueningkai's hand momentarily shoots out to the empty space next to him. He withdraws just as quickly, his face falling. Soobin feels bad, guilty, because he knows it's his fault Hueningkai's instinctively reaching for his plushies every morning, every night, every day, as if searching for a friend long gone. A phantom limb created because Soobin threw them all away.

He can't help it. He can't help the way he wants Hueningkai all to himself. He can't help the way he doesn't want to share Hueningkai's love with anyone, anything. And he can't help the way he'd used to look at Hueningkai hugging his plushies, and he can't help the way he'd been jealous of actual stuffed animals.

(Soobin has a problem. He knows that. Of course he knows that. He just---just can't help it.)

Distract him. Soobin lightly pulls his boyfriend's face into his hands, fingers tapping themselves over Hueningkai's sleep-puffed cheeks. The sparkle returns to his boyfriend's eyes, and Soobin's neon heart pulses its way up his sleeve and splays itself across every inch of his forehead in tattooed onyx fireworks. He feels his chest tighten when Hueningkai leans into his touch, soft and warm and perfect in his hold.

Soobin thinks Hueningkai is the most beautiful person in the universe.

"You have to sleep more. Okay?" There's unwavering sincerity in Hueningkai's gaze, love fit for the heavens. Hazed in the gilded burn of daylight, Hueningkai looks like a star---bright and shining and almost too dazzling to look at. A star. Soobin's star. And when Soobin doesn't reply immediately, his name drips off Hueningkai's tongue like molten honey. "Soobin? Hyung? Sleep more. Okay?"

There's nothing Soobin wants to do more than make his boyfriend happy, so he answers, "Okay."

"Promise me."

"I promise."

(Promises are meant to be broken.)

But, even for just a moment, Hueningkai is happy, and that makes Soobin happy too. It makes a grin split his own cheeks until they hurt, the song of his heart rising to a feverish tempo. It makes him laugh through the mud-soaked recesses of his scratched throat as he pulls his boyfriend into a tight embrace.

Hueningkai's smile is red. Lively, pretty, red. Soobin loves it. Soobin loves him.