Breakfast at the heartbreak hotel

[dainuhsoar]

title: Breakfast at the heartbreak hotel
rating: r for language and non-graphic sexual content
pairing: woohyun x sunggyu
wordcount: 5,100~

summary: an 'expectations vs realities' like meme.

notes: title is from Arctic Monkey's 'Piledriver Waltz'. Contains domesticity, it's an au. be warned of typos, mistakes and grammar-be-screwed.

*

            expectations vs reality or the one where i write and sensationalize what love is like and now i'm BREAKING THAT BEAUTIFUL IMAGERY sort of (5,100~ words)

kissing

            there are different kinds of kisses, like the light brush of the lips against cheek can be simply in greeting; the harsh lip-to-lip lock with added teeth and tongue can be out of desperation or aggression or hazy lust; the soft push-and-pull of lips against lips is undeniably the best kind there is, just mutual giving in and letting go.

            sunggyu's first kiss was that second type – desperate, angry and soulless, he was kissing someone he didn't love and he didn't care. it hadn't gone much further than a heavy make out session because they both knew it was wrong and their bodies didn't fit right and sunggyu didn't want to go through the awkward morning anyway.

            his first kiss with woohyun, though, was that third type. woohyun had laughed at something sunggyu said and he was leaning back and tilting his head back, neck arching a gorgeous line. and sunggyu just leaned in towards woohyun and took his face in his hands and kissed him right there in front of sungyeol and sungjong. the kiss was soft and slow and deep and it made sunggyu's eyelids flutter and his stomach drop shallowly.

            when they parted, woohyun looked at him with surprise and a bright smile and an almost "i love you" on the bow of his lips.

            from then on, all their kisses feel like that, like the world around them was gone because all they can see is each other's lashes when they open their eyes.

            reality:

            kissing is just an exchange of saliva and the press of skin against skin. for some reason it's considered a more intimate skin-against-skin contact because saliva is exchanged. in reality, sunggyu made out with the person he shared his first kiss with and then it did get further. it ended up in messy sheets and a bunch of questions sunggyu pushed away and a morning of headaches and assurance that they'd never see each other again.

            sure, there might have been a spark when he kissed woohyun for the first time. but it wasn't that beautiful. as in, woohyun was just there, sitting there, laughing and smiling like he always did. he had his hand on sunggyu's knee and sunggyu's arm was on the back of woohyun's chair. then woohyun turned to sunggyu and smiled and sunggyu leaned in and kissed him because the timing was right, the angle was right and he had been thinking about it anyway. woohyun wasn't surprised, could predict sunggyu's want from a mile away. the kiss made sunggyu's lips wet and tingly and it made him smile but it sure didn't give butterflies in his stomach or make his heart stutter.

            kissing isn't such a big deal. they kiss when they go different ways, they kiss when they're happy with each other, they kiss at all the appropriate times, like every other couple. it's not a sporadic instinct or sudden urge, kissing is a routine, it's a practice.

            sunggyu thinks he should care, right? he should care that kissing is something that doesn't give him flutters, that isn't an animalistic instinct in him. and whenever he says goodbye to woohyun at the door in the morning, whenever woohyun glances back at him and gives a small wave as he puts his shoes on, sunggyu thinks "i want to kiss him" and he can and he has to so he does it.

            to want it is a practice, is an always, not an urge.        

            *

sleeping in the same bed

            they share blankets and pillows and sleep on each other's side of the bed. woohyun likes the left side and sunggyu likes the right side because it's nearer to the bathroom door so he won't have to stumble round the bed to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night. woohyun just lets him have that side of the bed.

            they sleep with sunggyu's back to woohyun's chest, with woohyun's arms around sunggyu's waist. they sleep with light breathing and warm chests, with cold hands and cold feet that tangle together. the blankets always seems useless because they're pressed so close together that it gets unbearably warm. but they bear with it and close their eyes and kiss each other goodnight before falling into sleep so peaceful that it'll take more than the alarm clock to disturb.

            sunggyu wakes up only when woohyun wakes up and woohyun wakes up because his second alarm's ringing feels like glass shards slicing his eardrums. woohyun reaches over sunggyu to grab his phone and dismiss his alarm. sunggyu reaches up to hold woohyun's face in his hands as woohyun hovers over him and kisses him lightly, as his way of 'good morning'.

            that's how sunggyu describes sleeping and waking up with your lover in the same bed.

            reality:

            in reality, sunggyu prefers it if they keep to their own side of the bed. by default, the right side of the bed goes to sunggyu because yeah, he doesn't want to stumble in the darkness in search for the bathroom door. but when one of them is ill, then the right side goes to that person.

            in reality, there's always a small gap between them because they like to sleep on their sides, tucking their legs and arms into themselves, back facing back. it's not that they don't enjoy each other's body warmth but it is unbearably warm after all and it's not comfortable to sleep when it's so warm, it's not possible to sleep peacefully because they'll wake up at random times at night feeling all sticky and kick the blanket off themselves only to feel cold again. not to mention, it's not like they're sharing a single-sized bed. they have a king sized bed for goodness' sake, there's no reason they should waste the money put into buying a bigger bed.

            they have their own blankets, pillows and bolsters as well. woohyun likes the fluffy thick type of blanket because burrowing into it makes him feel like he's being hugged. but sunggyu prefers a heavy quilt because fluffy blankets make his nose itch and he thinks heavy blankets let him sink into the mattress in a more comfortable way.

            sunggyu likes hugging bolsters to sleep because he can properly wrap his legs around something and be comfortable. woohyun is all edgy limbs and fidgety, he doesn't make a very good bolster. woohyun likes hugging pillows to sleep, pressing his face into the cool side of the pillow and snuggling his cheek into it. sunggyu is all warm and twitchy, woohyun won't have a choice but to let go.

            woohyun normally wakes up first, to the jarring tune of his alarm. but he doesn't need to reach over sunggyu because his phone is on the bedside drawer on his side of the bed. so he'll just quickly dismiss it and get out of bed without disturbing sunggyu.

            so they have a small distance between them in bed, they don't share blankets or pillows or bolsters. maybe sunggyu should be more concerned that it won't make a difference if they sleep in separate beds. but then again, if they do sleep on separate beds, who is sunggyu going to grasp for when he has a nightmare; who will shake woohyun awake when he doesn't wake up in time; who will provide that anchoring and reassuring dip of the bed when he climbs into the bed to join him?

            sleeping in the same bed isn't just for cuddles and kisses, it's kind of a necessity.

            *

saying "i love you"

            "i love you" is a phrase that is exchanged every day. it's kind of like a must-do on their daily to-do lists.

            in the morning, after sunggyu gives that first morning kiss to woohyun and woohyun smiles back, woohyun whispers "i love you" against sunggyu's lips and sunggyu doesn't say it back but grins in that way like "God, you're so cheesy, yeah? but you don't know how much i love it exactly."

            and when they have had their breakfast and woohyun is putting his shoes on, sunggyu sends him off at the door with a lightly nonchalant "love you and take care." and this time, it's woohyun's turn to not say it back but simply grin in that "you stubborn kid, you, i knew you'd say it back." way.

            and after a day of work, coming home, eating dinner, washing up and then getting ready for bed, sunggyu says "good night, love." softly before flicking the lights off. and woohyun will hum and say the same thing back.

            it's not that if they don't hear it every day, they'll suddenly lose faith in each other. it's just that sunggyu loves the sound of "love you" coming from his lips reminding himself that he has someone to love and he's so incredibly lucky to have found that someone so early and surely. woohyun just likes saying it and seeing the happy flush that colours sunggyu's cheeks when he tries to hide his gleeful grin. it should always be an easy, automatic thing to say "i love you" to the one you spend your days with.

            reality:

            reality is, no, it's not easy to say "i love you". it's not easy and will never be easy. sunggyu can't say it without bursting into a red hot blush first, he can't say it without stammering and looking away, he definitely can't say it when woohyun is looking at him or when woohyun is anywhere around him.

            woohyun doesn't find it easy too. he's found the words almost passing his lips several times but he'll always reel them back in, deciding it's too noisy or sunggyu isn't even looking at him or the time isn't right.

            what if you say it and the person gives you a look like you shouldn't even be standing there in the first place? what if you say it and then you go home and think about it and actually you don't love that person at all? because hearing it in your head and hearing it out loud, it's different. saying it out loud makes everything clearer. in your head, everything dances and clashes.

            that's what sunggyu is afraid of, he's afraid that he doesn't love woohyun instead of being afraid if woohyun doesn't love him. he's afraid of not loving woohyun as much as he thinks he does, he's afraid of wasting woohyun's time, he's afraid of hurting woohyun. he's afraid for lots of things, most of them concerning seeing woohyun cry. so maybe he is a little too in love but too muddled by his fears to see that.

            woohyun, on the other hand, is a cocky bastard and is confident as hell that sunggyu loves him and that he loves sunggyu as much if not more. he just doesn't say "i love you" because he doesn't see the need to when it's so obvious already. it's just obvious. there's no way to explain how obvious it is but woohyun can feel it in the warm mark that stays even when sunggyu takes his hand away from woohyun's; in the look that sunggyu gives woohyun when their eyes search for each other in the crowd like "there he is" sounding more like "there he is" if that makes any sense- in everything. it's obvious, right? so obvious.

            the "i love you" comes easily into their heads and they can taste it on their tongues but those three words fight the want to be heard and wait patiently for the need.

            *

permanent reminders

            symbols as in tattoos or something permanent that reminds them that their other half will be permanent too.

            woohyun has a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, two bracket-shaped curves hung like an upside-down 'u'. he only got it tattooed after meeting sunggyu.

            sunggyu likes to touch the inside of woohyun's wrist distractedly, curiously because he doesn't know about the tattoo and doesn't want to ask because he wants to hear it from woohyun without prompting him. woohyun knows sunggyu wants to know, but he doesn't tell, just lets sunggyu continue to guess and worry at his bottom lip over it.

            and woohyun takes sunggyu's face in his hands and he presses a curve into the arched lines of sunggyu's eyebrows and sunggyu winces and his eyes flicker to the tattoo inside of woohyun's wrist because he's so close to it and if only he can see what it means at this proximity. woohyun laughs and kisses sunggyu's forehead then brushes his lips against the outer corner of sunggyu's eyes.

            sunggyu pushes woohyun's hands away from his head so he can line their faces together and kiss him properly, still guessing at the meaning behind woohyun's tattoo but somehow happy that he gets to guess for eternity because there's nothing quite like the thrill of mystery.

            reality:

            in reality, woohyun has only one tattoo and he doesn't even like it as much as he likes the long thin scar on his knee. in reality, woohyun has only one tattoo and sunggyu knows the meaning behind it and had given him an incredulous look and said "do my eyes really look like that?" and then tried to widen his eyes with his fingers. also, woohyun has only one tattoo but sunggyu has about five.

            sunggyu has a tattoo of a black star behind his earlobe, just a small one that's normally hidden by hair and that woohyun likes to kiss when he stands behind sunggyu and can see a point of the star peeking out from behind sunggyu's hair.

            another tattoo on the side of his neck, a line of angle brackets pointing upwards that stretch pleasantly whenever sunggyu stretches his neck and that woohyun likes to stroke when his arm is around sunggyu's shoulders so his hand can reach that side of sunggyu's neck where the tattoo is. he likes it when sunggyu squirms but doesn't say anything and shivers at the first touch.

            there's a simple black band around the middle of his right thigh that woohyun likes to rub a thumb over as he hikes sunggyu's leg around his waist.

            and there is a line of words in Latin, tattooed out in a typewriter font in the inside of sunggyu's arm. and another curve of a word in English just above his left knee.

            out of the five tattoos on sunggyu's body, woohyun doesn't know which is his favourite. he takes his time lining them out with his fingers, memorizing the way sunggyu gulps and sunggyu's breath catches and hands clench. even when woohyun's fingers aren't on his body, sunggyu feels the buzz of his touch along the lines of his tattoos. sometimes he thinks of getting more just so he can feel more of the buzz of woohyun's touch. but he likes to keep his tattoos simple and hidden, visible only for woohyun.

            and that scar on woohyun's knee is long and thin and white and ugly but sunggyu still kisses it as if it still hurts. woohyun got that scar when he caught sunggyu around the waist before sunggyu could step into shattered glass on the floor only to have lost his balance and landed on his knee painfully right into the danger zone. they had to surgically remove the glass shards from woohyun's knee and sunggyu had felt horrible because he was the one who broke the vase.

            between the tattoo and the scar on woohyun's body, sunggyu prefers the tattoo because he doesn't want to be reminded that he had hurt woohyun. but woohyun prefers the scar because he hadn't let sunggyu get hurt.

            *

each other's scent

            they snuggle up on the sofa as the television blares, blanket over their legs. they haven't washed up yet but it's too comfortable and too warm and too peaceful to do anything but fall asleep. the tv continues blaring and sunggyu has already drifted into sleep. his head drops to rest on woohyun's shoulder.      

            woohyun can smell the cologne sunggyu uses, musky and sweet and it makes woohyun want to taste him more than anything. woohyun can smell sunggyu's raw scent, fresh and flowery like the soap he uses but the soap scent couldn't have stayed with him for the entire day, could it? or maybe sunggyu uses that soap so much until the scent has fused with sunggyu's raw fresh and clean scent. whatever it is, sunggyu smells good and it makes woohyun breathe in deeply and press his nose to sunggyu's hair.

            woohyun smells like pine and coffee. pine because that's probably the air freshener at woohyun's office, coffee because woohyun sits near the pantry where coffee is always brewing. sunggyu finds the mix of the scents comforting and it lulls him to sleep as much as his exhaustion does. he presses his nose closer to woohyun's shirt and breathes it all in.

            reality:

            in reality, they never come back not smelling like sour exhaustion. they come home tired and hungry and wanting nothing more than to lie down. woohyun takes a shower once he gets home. sunggyu just lies on the sofa and drifts off to sleep. it's only until woohyun kicks his legs that sunggyu wakes up, rolls off the sofa and takes a shower too. his showering time is always shorter than woohyun's because he just needs to get clean, doesn't appreciate being wet.

            in reality, all sunggyu smells like is his green tea scented shampoo and honey scented soap. but before showering, sunggyu smells sour with sweat damp on his back and a confusing mixture of cologne and perfume from the studio he works at.

            in reality, woohyun comes home from work smelling too much like cheap coffee and flowery perfume because he doesn't have many male colleagues, which relieves sunggyu a bit. but the strength of the scent of coffee is so ridiculous, woohyun may as well be working at a cafe or something. after showering, woohyun smells exactly like sunggyu, sweetly green-tea and honey.

            they smell like each other when they're at home and there's something inexplicably comforting about that.

            *

when one of them is ill

            when sunggyu catches the flu bug, woohyun tucks sunggyu into bed and insists he can't go to work today. sunggyu will be saying things deliriously, like he hasn't thought it through and then roll around in bed and whine about his throat or his nose or how his eyes feel tired but he can't sleep because he can't breathe properly.

            woohyun kisses his forehead and puts an extra blanket over sunggyu and calls in to work sick for sunggyu before doing the same for himself. sunggyu isn't a child, he can take care of himself. but judging from the angry whining and "fuck i need water, where's the fucking water?" from the bedroom, woohyun thinks it's better if he stays home to take care of sunggyu.

            he makes soup for sunggyu and then tucks sunggyu back into bed. he wakes sunggyu up for medicine and then tucks sunggyu back into bed. and sunggyu still has a slightly stuck nose the next morning but he feels so much better and he smiles gratefully at woohyun at the breakfast table.

            reality:

            sunggyu is whiny and vulgar when he catches the flu bug. he buries himself under his quilt blanket and refuses to do anything because work sucks and standing sucks and even eating sucks. woohyun asks if he wants him to stay home with him. sunggyu pops his head out of the quilt to give woohyun an incredulous look and say, "i'm not a baby, i don't need you to watch over me." in a nasally voice.

            so woohyun goes to work and all he does is send text messages to sunggyu to stop texting him about how he thinks he sees the light and to remind him to take his medicine. and when he gets back home, sunggyu has a sour look on his face like something smells bad as he watches tv under his makeshift cloak, made from his blanket.   the next morning, sunggyu is perfectly fine and making breakfast for both of them.

            woohyun, though. when he catches the flu bug, he's incredibly bossy and has a low tolerance for sunggyu. sunggyu asks woohyun if he wants him to stay home too. woohyun glares at him and barks at him to stop being so lazy, get out and go to work. at work, sunggyu texts woohyun, asking him how he feels and woohyun replies with short and sharp replies like, "horrible." with an angry emoji tacked to the end.

            when sunggyu gets home, woohyun is still in bed, under sunggyu's blanket because his own blanket is fluffy and makes him sneeze till his brains feel like it has become mush and leaking out through his ears. tissues are everywhere around him and the first thing he says to sunggyu when he sees him is, "don't touch my tissues." in a nasally voice before groaning at the effort of using his voice and dropping back down onto the pillow.

            woohyun makes sunggyu sleep on the sofa that night and sunggyu has a restless night of flipping around and around. of course he wakes up earlier than woohyun and when woohyun pads into the kitchen coughing lightly but looking well enough to go to work, sunggyu gives him a good morning smile. and woohyun smiles back and asks, "you didn't catch my flu, did you?"

            and sunggyu feels fine except for his aching back and he says so. woohyun laughs and when sunggyu leans over to kiss woohyun's lips, woohyun leans back and says, "i still have a cough. i'm trying to protect you from catching the flu here, don't waste my efforts please."

            sunggyu feels the need to reply that he's the one who passed his flu to woohyun in the first place but he knows woohyun never sees the point in blaming anyone.

            *

conversations and phone calls

            they talk about everything, from the weather to more important mushy things like feelings or whatever. sometimes they talk about sports and new video games, other times they talk family and fears. they can share anything and everything with each other, they don't mince on their words and are honest.

            phone calls aren't often but they call every day after work. woohyun will sunggyu to ask if he left work yet. if sunggyu hasn't, woohyun goes over to pick him up because sunggyu's workplace is on the way home for woohyun anyway.

            when they weren't dating yet and were still friends, woohyun thought sunggyu was hard to talk to. sunggyu didn't like talking about himself as much as he liked talking about music or books or softball. woohyun gave up trying to get sunggyu to open up to him at one point. woohyun liked him but he wasn't worth the effort.

            they were with a couple friends at a diner one night and their friends left one by one until only sunggyu and woohyun were left, talking about the recent softball game between two small time leagues. and then woohyun asked if sunggyu played when he was younger and sunggyu said "not really" and nothing more. sunggyu was tense and clearly didn't want to talk about his childhood or anything about himself, so woohyun glanced at his watch and said it was getting late but what he really wanted to do was just get away. and sunggyu just nodded and told woohyun to go home first because his milkshake was still unfinished although only foam was left in his glass. but woohyun wasn't going to refute that.

            woohyun stood up. sunggyu grinned at him and said goodnight before taking a sip of the foam in his glass. and woohyun sat down again, thinking 'one more try won't hurt.' and he had tried and tried and he fell more and more in love and believed 'he's worth all the effort' and sometimes he'd call sunggyu in the middle of the night only to not say one word for three hours, just listening to sunggyu's soft breathing on the other line.

            woohyun tried and tried and finally sunggyu took his hand, kissed the back of it and said, "thank you for not giving up on me."

            reality:

            sunggyu was a huge bitch to woohyun and would snap, "it's none of your business." whenever woohyun asked about him. in fact, if sunggyu remembers correctly, the first thing he said to woohyun was "it's none of your business" after woohyun asked him what he thought about the movie they just watched. it was reflexive answer, as reflexive as when you'll swat your hand when a fly buzzes around your head. sunggyu couldn't bite his tongue back and woohyun was annoyed because all he did was ask a harmless question.

            "sorry." sunggyu apologized but it didn't fix the rude image woohyun had of him.

            woohyun didn't dislike sunggyu, and sunggyu was myungsoo's friend and myungsoo was his friend and the three of them hung out a lot. so he didn't give up trying to befriend sunggyu even though all sunggyu was interested in was pushing him away. myungsoo told woohyun sunggyu was just hard to get along with and looked kind of guilty. woohyun told him it wasn't his fault sunggyu was a jerk and myungsoo said "it's not his fault either." with a sad smile on his face woohyun mistook for guilt.

            then at the diner, after everyone else had left, sunggyu was being a bitch to woohyun again and woohyun wanted to flip sunggyu off and just go home so he finally confronted sunggyu and said, "why are you such a bitch to me when i've done nothing to you? you're only making myungsoo uncomfortable you know."

            and sunggyu felt guilty but wilful and he glared at woohyun and blurted out, "you think i don't know that? he's my best friend." and he felt childish and stupid when comprehension seeped into woohyun's expression.

            woohyun snorted and was about to leave when sunggyu said, "i'm sorry, alright? i'm really sorry." and he looked sincere, still a little angry, but sincere and his voice was hard but teary. and woohyun sat back down, sighing in frustration and said, "i swear i'm not an asshole but i'm only friends with him because i want to be more than that with you."

            *

fights

            fights are short-lived and meaningless. they always forget why they fought in the first place. sunggyu says that woohyun is the one who usually starts it. woohyun argues that sunggyu is the prick who fusses over the stupidest shit. all it takes is one hug and kiss and they're fine again.

            the biggest fight they had was when sunggyu forgot woohyun's birthday and woohyun tried hard not to be sulky but he sulked anyway and sunggyu shoved him lightly in the kitchen when they were washing the dishes and asked why he was sulking in a joking manner. and the last of woohyun's resistance snapped and he shoved sunggyu back harshly and mumbled that it was his birthday darkly and turned back to the dishes.

            sunggyu had face palmed and apologized for forgetting, not even bothering to explain himself because nothing should have made him forget it was woohyun's birthday. woohyun still wasn't happy and ignored him. he wouldn't even look at sunggyu and brushed past him when he was done with the dishes. then sunggyu got frustrated and the cold war began.

            they ignored each other and avoided each other and it was like they forgot each other's existence.

            until three days later, they were passing each other in the hallway and woohyun's shoulder clipped sunggyu's and sunggyu couldn't live another second without touching woohyun and he just wanted woohyun to fucking look at him again. so sunggyu grabbed woohyun's wrist and pulled him into a kiss.

            they were fine after that, sunggyu apologized again and woohyun said he'd already forgotten about it. they'd both forgotten about it. and it was never mentioned. and sunggyu remembered woohyun's birthday next year. it was as simple as that.

            reality:

            they remember every single fight and none of them are meaningless because to woohyun, nothing concerning sunggyu is meaningless. their biggest fight lasted two weeks.

            woohyun had gone out drinking with myungsoo because myungsoo had problems with work and money. he didn't call and tell sunggyu he'd be late. sunggyu cooked for both of them and fell asleep watching tv while waiting for woohyun to come home. when he woke up, woohyun still wasn't home, the food was cold and he was dead hungry. but he didn't eat, just dumped everything into containers and went back to bed.

            the next morning, sunggyu didn't speak to him and woohyun knew why and he tried to explain that myungsoo was having a hard time and needed support and stuff. he thought sunggyu would understand and said it was okay. but sunggyu crossed his arms and frowned and said, "why didn't he tell me?" and then woohyun sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned, "are you going to start on 'he's my best friend' thing again?"

            sunggyu grew from pissed off to fucking pissed off and he told woohyun to fuck off and he wasn't that childish. woohyun was having a hangover and didn't want to deal with sunggyu's childishness, which was what he said flat-out, which only made sunggyu even more fucking pissed off. then the cold war started and lasted for about two weeks.

            they pretended the other didn't exist but sunggyu still woke up and made breakfast for both of them and woohyun still called and picked up sunggyu from his work place. they ate meals and sat in trains next to each other silently; they still slept in the same bed and shared the same sofa, and communicated with glares and impatient noises as they jostled past each other at home. basically, it was very strange caring for someone who technically didn't exist to them.

            the behaviour didn't stop until it woohyun forgot to bring his umbrella out one morning and it rained when he was walking to the bus-stop and when he finally reached the unsheltered bus-stop, sunggyu appeared 3 minutes later, soaking wet and panting as he held the umbrella in his hand.

            "you forgot you fucking umbrella, you idiot." sunggyu snarled, throwing the umbrella at woohyun, who caught it clumsily as he stared at sunggyu.

            he laughed as he shook his head. he opened his umbrella and pulled sunggyu closer to him as they walked back home together, arms around each other's waist as their wet shirts stick to their bodies and simultaneously to each other. they didn't apologize for the fight two weeks ago even when both of their cheeks still burned with embarrassment at the memory.

            *