Too Many Men, 2 Minutes.

by tyvnflower

Chapter 2

“Sushi?”

“You know I hate seafood?”

Yeonjun watches Soobin and Beomgyu bicker with a smile. Soobin is trying to take Beomgyu out for dinner to celebrate, and Beomgyu is being difficult.

“Okay? Get the vegan option then.”

“Isn't this supposed to be my celebration? Why are we getting the food you like?”

“I'm paying.”

“I didn't ask you to pay?”

On the other side of the dressing room, Taehyun is on his phone while Kai laces up his boots. Everything is so normal.

“Do you not want free food?”

“Not if it's sushi.”

“Okay, what do you want then?”

“Pasta.”

“We got pasta last time though?”

Maybe Soobin is the one being difficult, actually.

Yeonjun's phone buzzes in his pocket. A new message from #14 Kang. Taehyun isn't looking at him when he looks up, though.

“You don't have to order the same dish?”

are you going out with them?

The message confuses him. No, he texts back.

“I'm telling you I'm not gonna try penne alla vodka.”

“Okay? No one asked?”

Are we still on then?

“Get a carbonara or something.”

“I don't like cream sauces.”

“I'm gonna strangle you. Let's go get that fancy ramen.”

Soobin perks up and Beomgyu rolls his eyes.

I'm in if you're in.

“Yes, God, that's a great idea.”

“Don't drool too much, Jesus.”

Soobin laughs. Beomgyu bumps their hips together. Taehyun looks up from his phone and at Yeonjun.

“Have a good night, YJ – don't celebrate too hard,” Beomgyu waves at him jovially.

“We have a mandatory Tuesday,” Soobin reminds sternly, even though he's visibly too relaxed to muster up any kind of real captain authority right now.

“I read my schedule, shut the fuck up,” Yeonjun retorts, friendly.

Beomgyu laughs and pulls Soobin out of the lockers by the elbow.

Kai stomps his feet on the floor once he's done lacing up like it's a little ritual, and he and Taehyun stand up at the same time, picking their bags up. Yeonjun does the same, a beat too late. They leave the lockers together, but don't really acknowledge each other until they're waiting for the elevator side-by-side.

“Your place, then?” Taehyun asks the shiny elevator doors.

“Yeah. I'll drive you.”

Kai chews his lips the way he does when they're strategizing. “Taking shotgun, Taehyun?”

“I can stay in the back.”

Kai digs his teeth into his lip a bit harder.

“You can both ride in the back,” Yeonjun offers as the doors open. “I won't get lonely.”

The two of them exchange looks while he gets on, and when he rests his back against the back of the elevator, they step on together, facing him, Kai hitting the button behind himself before turning back towards him.

“More ground rules?” Is he starting to be able to read them? Taehyun purses his mouth.

“Up to you,” he says eventually, shifting the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “Anything you want to add? For your own comfort?”

He looks between them. It makes sense, that he would have demands and expectations of this, too – but he can't think of a single thing. Taehyun said he gets insecure, but aside from the general knowledge that the two aren't his and neither of them ever will be, have they ever made him uncomfortable? Has anything they've done made him feel bad? Taehyun makes him nervous, but it's probably through no fault of his own. Yeonjun is just so far from over the part of his life Taehyun represents.

Well, there was—

“Don't bring up my fucking shoulder?”

The uncomfortable tension in the elevator shatters. Taehyun huffs in amusement and looks away.

Kai grins. “I think we can do that,” he responds for both of them, then raises his eyebrows curiously. “Preferences, then? Something we should know?”

Yeonjun breathes in through his nose, trying to stay calm. “On a public elevator?”

Kai tilts his head innocently. “It's a staff elevator? We won't run into a fan or anything.”

“Does it being our coworkers make it better? I thought we were all planning to stay in the closet.”

“Nobody has to know you'd prefer to do it with us,” Kai points out with a lighthearted shrug.

Still, Taehyun reaches out to bump their hands together. “Yeonjun is right. Wait for the car or something.”

“But the elevator's so fucking—”

They arrive before Kai can finish his sentence, and Taehyun raises his eyebrows at him wordlessly – for once, even Yeonjun understands the silent message he's sending.

 

---

 

“It's so clean in here,” Kai says as he's climbing into the back of Yeonjun's car, throwing Taehyun a significant look that Taehyun dismisses with a roll of his eyes.

“Thanks?”

“Next Sunday,” Taehyun says firmly, apparently continuing an argument that Yeonjun wasn't privy to before.

Kai arranges his bag under his feet, then sits back and looks at Taehyun dubiously. “Fill up the tires, too?”

Taehyun lifts his phone in front of his face like it's a shield. “Okay.”

Yeonjun huffs in amusement as he adjusts himself in the driver's seat. They're really not that different from Soobin and Beomgyu, are they? They don't fight with the same bite, but they have a similar laundry list of the sorts of grievances only couples have between them. I love you, but you need to clean your shit up. I love you, but shut the fuck up.

“Do you guys have a chore wheel or something?” He's not sure why he's so curious – he's already explored them as a couple, somewhat, but part of him wants to know even more.

Kai watches him as he backs out of his parking spot, while Taehyun stays hidden in his phone. Didn't they say they'll talk preferences? Kinks? Yeonjun is asking about how they do chores.

“We try.”

“Maybe we should get an actual wheel or something. Or like a schedule to stick to the fridge,” Taehyun suggests without looking up.

“Will that make you vacuum the car more often?”

“It doesn't need vacuuming? We don't even eat in it.”

“You throw your jogging shoes in the back, the floor is covered in dirt.”

“That's what the floor is for? I don't get it on the seats.”

So similar to Soobin and Beomgyu – Yeonjun can let it wash over him the same way as he navigates the car out of the parking garage, relaxed and practiced.

They calm down once they've made their way out onto the road proper. When Yeonjun glances up, Taehyun is watching the city lights through the window, and Kai is looking out at the road through the gap between the front seats.

“Yeonjun?”

“Hm?”

He reacts to Taehyun's quiet voice instinctively, but in retrospect, maybe he should have kept his guard up.

“Do you like to bottom?”

A lesser man would choke at that being asked all of a sudden.

Yeonjun is a lesser man; he has to cough the spit back out of his windpipe before he can even attempt to answer that – and it's not an easy one to answer, either.

This was bound to come up; he wasn't sure why he wasn't ready for it to. Maybe he was hoping that it could just go easily, smoothly – without anyone having to say anything. But none of this worked properly until they talked about it, did it?

He licks his lips and doesn't look into the rear view mirror at all, deliberately. “Wouldn't know.”

“Haven't tried?” Kai seems surprised, and Yeonjun isn't sure how to feel about that. “You top exclusively?”

“You've been with guys before, right?” Taehyun sounds a little like he's coming to a horrible, and completely wrong, realization.

“Yes,” he rushes to say before the cogs in Taehyun's brain spin out of control over a completely fake issue. “I've been with men. I've known I'm into guys for years – you two are not my gay awakening or anything.”

Taehyun hums, and Yeonjun thinks it sounds a bit like he's disappointed. “Lame.” A lot like he's disappointed.

Yeonjun snorts with the ridiculousness of it. He doesn't have a lot of experience, both in romance and in sex, but he's at least got himself figured out enough to know what genders he is and isn't attracted to. “Sorry to break it to you.”

Kai laughs, and leans forward in his seat, resting his forearm on the passenger's seat. “But you've never tried bottoming.”

This is such an inappropriate time to do this, while he's driving. He can feel his cheeks warming. “Never.”

He hasn't even explored in his own time. It's never felt… quite… right. He isn't sure if he's completely uninterested in trying, but if other men feel some kind of innate curiosity about inserting things into their ass, then he's not one of them. Should these two know that, before they get in bed together? He doesn't need to bare his soul to them just so they can fuck, does he?

“Do you want to?”

Maybe it can be as easy as glancing into the rear view mirror, where Taehyun is staring at his face while Kai studies his side profile and saying, “No, not really.”

“Okay,” he can see Kai looking over at Taehyun in his periphery even when he's keeping an eye on the road again. “We can figure something out, then.”

Should he… he should, right?

“I haven't topped before either.”

The car is suspiciously quiet. He keeps his eyes on the road.

“You said you've been with guys,” Taehyun says slowly, eventually.

“Yep.” He swallows hard. His hands are sweaty. Bad time to be having this conversation – but at least he doesn't have to look them in the eye. “Not… that way, though.”

“Sexually?” Taehyun sounds a little horrified.

“No,” he sighs. “I've just never done… anal.” He doesn't really talk about this with people; he avoids the talk in the locker rooms, he hasn't had a relationship where negotiating sex was ever necessary. “Hand jobs, blow jobs…” Rubbing clothed cocks together with another 19-year-old at his hotel room in Sweden until he came in his pants with the horrible, crippling realization that he is, indeed, painfully gay. He clears his throat. “Just not… that.”

“Huh.” He sees Kai's eyelashes fluttering from the corner of his eye.

“Did you not want to?” Taehyun's horror has shifted into something careful again.

“There just wasn't ever…” he hesitates as he makes a turn, then shrugs a little. “The time. Opportunity. Whatever. It's mostly all been… quick.”

“Aren't you supposed to be a celebrity?”

Confused, Yeonjun finally makes eye contact with Taehyun through the rear view mirror, meeting his squinted eyes head-on. “What, do celebrity players get more off-time than regular ones? I train just as hard as you guys. I mentor. I go on TV. I barely skip games in the season. Do you have the time to go around hooking up?”

Taehyun doesn't answer, but closer to him, Kai lets out a little huff.

“I guess we were lucky to get together while we were still young.”

Yeonjun clicks his tongue, but he doesn't really feel annoyed. Tired, maybe. Lonely again. “Guess you were.”

“Have you dated?” At least Taehyun doesn't sound like he pities him.

“Not something you need to know to hook up with me, is it?”

“No, just curious,” Taehyun admits flatly.

He pulls his bottom lip through his teeth, then sighs. “I went on a bunch of dates with this girl when I was a teen, we texted a lot while I was traveling around for tournaments and training. Didn't work out though, for obvious reasons.”

“Right,” Kai breathes out, even though it was Taehyun's question in the first place.

“Did you guys date? Before each other?”

Almost unsurprisingly, Taehyun shakes his head, catching Yeonjun's eye in the rear view mirror, while Kai nods.

“Back home, when I was still in the minor league. We didn't tell anyone; everyone just thought we were best friends, but to us it was more.” Kai smiles, like it's a pleasant memory, even though it clearly didn't have a good ending. “He didn't take it well when I got my opportunity to make something more out of myself. Didn't want me to move away, didn't want to be stuck at home while I was traveling everywhere, chasing my dream. He told me I'd be a novelty to my team and I'd be back after a season, that they'd never really respect me.”

Yeonjun glances over at him, just briefly, startled by the honesty. Kai says it like it's no big deal, and maybe it isn't to him anymore, now that he has Taehyun, but it sounds like something that would leave scars deeper than what Kai's tone suggests. “That had to suck.”

Kai shrugs. “It was pretty bad. Not really the goodbye I was expecting from him – but I guess he made it easier? After he flipped out at me, there wasn't really anything worth staying for back home.”

He wants to feel bad for Kai, but it's hard when Kai says it all so matter-of-factly. People leave. New people come. It is what it is.

“Let me guess, Taehyun was too busy with hockey to date?”

Taehyun snorts. “Aren't we supposed to be talking about sexy things?”

Yeonjun lifts one hand off the steering wheel to brush his hair out of his face. “Then tell me about how badly you wanted me back in juniors.”

He can see Kai grinning. Taehyun sighs. “I had a lot of goals, and getting laid didn't make the list.”

“Until I came around,” Kai says cheerfully, shooting Taehyun finger guns.

“I had a lapse in judgment,” Taehyun deadpans, and Kai laughs.

“A continuous lapse in judgment,” he adds.

“Nobody's perfect.”

Yeonjun lets his head sink back into his head rest. Is this how easy it can be? Admitting the shameful secrets of his personal life, or the lack of it? Laughing at the banter in the back seat while he drives down a familiar road to his apartment building?

 

---

 

When the other two settle in his living room, Yeonjun is suddenly sharply reminded that he doesn't actually usually have guests over. His apartment is a bit bare-bones, a testament to how little time he spends in it. It's metal, glass, exposed brick, an out-of-place comfortable cream sofa bought for the explicit purpose of being good for napping. Kai sits on the sofa with his own jacket in his lap, looking down at the sports magazines neatly stacked on the coffee table, the two simple wooden coasters next to them. It's a nice bachelor pad, but still a bachelor pad. Taehyun sits astride of the weightlifting bench in the corner, still in the leather he left the arena in, head swiveling around as he stares shamelessly at everything.

“Do you not keep mementos?”

Not the first thing he expected to talk about when coming back to his place to have sex with two men, but he'll take it. “I have some, in the bedroom. Mostly stashed away. The display at the arena is enough for me.”

Most of the achievements he's the proudest of, he's gotten with his team, anyway. He walks past the cups and medals they've won together almost every day when he goes to train, he doesn't need his house to be a museum, either. Most of the photos he keeps in his room are the more temporary rosters he's been on. Championship line-ups. Photos from training camps. A photo of his mom, wearing his first medal he won as a serious professional player.

Taehyun hums in acknowledgement, and kicks his feet. “Okay.”

“Could I get something to drink?” Kai asks hesitantly, wringing his hands together. “Not like, alcohol – just some water or something? I'm still a bit…” he waves his hand vaguely in front of his mouth. “From the game.”

Right. Yeonjun's mouth is dry too, but he's not sure if it has anything to do with the game. The ache in his muscles surely does, but not the scratch in his throat. “Sure.”

“Me too, please?”

He nods to acknowledge Taehyun too and slips into the kitchen to oblige, unsurprised when he hears the vague hum of a quiet conversation coming from the living room as soon as he's gone. They need time to strategize; calculate, right? And Yeonjun needed a breather, anyway.

He fills three glasses with water and lets himself take a bit too much time figuring out a way to hold all of them at the same time that wouldn't be too awkward. When he walks back out into the living room, the two of them are quiet again, Kai scratching at the denim of his jeans, Taehyun in the middle of taking his jacket off, finally, showing off the sleeveless shirt underneath again. It was not necessary to dress like that on his way to the game, and yet he did, and Yeonjun can't bring himself to hold it against him.

He gives out the glasses of water, getting quiet thanks from the both of them, and then they are just sipping water in perfect, awkward silence. The water soothes Yeonjun's dry mouth and his raw throat, and by the time he's getting to the bottom of his glass, he finds his voice again.

“How do you want to do this, then?”

“Well,” Taehyun leans forward on his hands on the bench. “You're letting me use your shower, for one.”

“Of course,” that part is a given. Yeonjun won't interrupt his ritual – Taehyun might not be superstitious, but players tend to take their rituals seriously. “But what are we supposed to do? Just watch the TV and wait around while you do your thing? The rules say not to leave you out of anything.”

Kai steps in, leaning forward where he sits too. “I could, um. I brought the lavender oil?”

Oh. “Not the menthol?”

Taehyun scrunches up his nose. “I'm not having sex with someone who will smell like toothpaste the whole time.”

Kai rolls his eyes fondly. “What he said.”

Yeonjun snorts. “Right. Lavender it is then, I guess.”

He sees Taehyun reaching for his shirt before he starts pulling it off of himself, right there in full view, but he doesn't stop him. Doesn't have to. It's a bit of an exciting feeling. He's doing this on purpose, to make them look.

“Show me to your shower?”

 

---

 

“Big bed for a single guy.”

Yeonjun snorts into his arms as Kai scoots over to him across the bed, then shifts to sit on his thighs. “Don't need to remind me I'm single, thanks.”

Kai laughs a little above him. “I'm just saying, your bed is just as big as mine and Taehyun's, and we share that one.”

He pouts a little, inadvertently. “I like to have a lot of space for myself.”

Kai hums, finally pressing his hands into Yeonjun's bare back, spreading long fingers across his flanks, right above his hips, then slowly gliding his hands upward, towards his shoulders. “I think I like having a smaller bed more. For the two of us? I like to stay close while we're sleeping.”

Yeonjun closes his eyes, and tries not to picture it. Not because it's inappropriate, but because it would be almost too pleasantly domestic. Taehyun and Kai, intertwined in their bed as they fall asleep. “Is Taehyun okay with that?”

Another hum. Kai's thumbs find Yeonjun's spine and frame it as they push their way up his body with gentle pressure. It's like his skin is waking up, warming up. “He likes it, too.”

“You two don't seem too physical.”

“We're used to keeping a low profile; we keep the physical stuff to the bedroom.”

“I'm not even sure I've seen you guys hug properly.”

Kai snorts.

“Even Soobin and Beomgyu hug,” Yeonjun points out thoughtfully, then jumps when he feels a rhythmical tap drumming gently but pointedly against his upper back.

“We're not Soobin and Beomgyu.”

He shifts a little where he lays on his stomach. “So I gathered.”

Kai sniffs, then runs his hands up Yeonjun's back again, pressing in a bit harder this time. “Is there anything going on with you three?”

Yeonjun resists the urge to roll his eyes. “There's not – why does Taehyun think there is?”

He's gratified when Kai laughs, which to him sounds like a confirmation that he's been interpreting Taehyun's odd looks and comments correctly. “I think he's still not over you showing up to a date with us in Soobin's jacket.”

“So it was a date.”

“Of course it was a date.”

“I wore it to impress you.”

“I got that – Taehyun wasn't so sure.”

“He's so suspicious when it comes to me,” Yeonjun complains without thinking better of complaining about Kai's boyfriend to Kai.

But Kai just laughs again. “He's a bit self-conscious.”

“Insecure?”

“Maybe.”

“Doesn't seem like him.”

Kai just lets his hands rest on Yeonjun's lower back for a moment. “Trust me. He's confident in a lot of things, but that doesn't mean he's some unshakable pillar of confidence.”

Yeonjun twists his head to the side to peer up at Kai through the corner of his eye. “Should I be gentle with him?”

Kai rolls his eyes and starts kneading at the muscle of Yeonjun's back, making him drop his head again. “You're not exactly the picture of confidence either, Yeonjun. No offense.”

“Do you think you are?”

“I have more experience than either of you, apparently. Someone here has to at least feel like they know what they're doing.”

“Do you? Know what you're doing?”

“Fucking the best hockey player in the country with my boyfriend?”

“Sounds fun when you put it that way.”

“It is fun,” Kai insists, squeezing a little harder, still pleasantly. “I really don't have a lot riding on this. I think that makes it easier for me too, you know? Don't have much to lose.”

“You're not worried about Taehyun, the way he worries about you?”

“Not really. I know he loves me, and until I actually see that changing, I don't really see the point in worrying about it.”

“Kai?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I turn around?”

There's a pause, and then Kai shifts his weight off of him. “Sure. I'll adjust the towel for you.”

It's an awkward shuffle; Yeonjun presses his oiled-up back into the towel to keep from staining the sheets, Kai swings back around to sit on top of him, but now they're face-to-face, and Yeonjun is so exposed, shirtless and with his sweatpants riding low, while Kai is fully clothed in a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up halfway up his arm. Kai trails his eyes up his body, from the waistband of his pants to the hollow of his throat, and Yeonjun tilts his head back, nervous in the quiet but determined.

“Something you need me to work on?”

He says it so carefully. Yeonjun looks at his glistening hands. “My quads hurt.”

Slowly, he pulls his leg up slightly, lets it press against the warmth of Kai's body. Kai studies his face.

“Okay.”

Instead of moving away to work on Yeonjun's leg, he puts his hands on Yeonjun's stomach, brushing his thumbs over his abs. “Any more questions for me?”

“What the fuck do you think Taehyun is up to back there?”

Kai's eyes seem to shine as he laughs, and climbs off to move down the bed, wiping his hands on the towel carefully.

“I could take off my pants,” Yeonjun offers, watching him do it, wilting a little under Kai's pointed look.

“Don't tempt me; I'm not taking that view away from Taehyun.”

Yeonjun drops his head back onto the sheets where he lifted it before just to hide his blush a little bit.

Kai would make a good physio, he thinks to himself when he feels his hands on himself again, warm and soothing. Now that Yeonjun knows that Kai wants to see him naked, having his hands all over his thighs and body all the time would probably drive him insane, but if he looks at it objectively, Kai would be good for the job. He has careful, precise hands, good at applying varied pressure, at going at just the right pace. His palms dig in just right; his fingers are a godsend, working knots out of his tired thighs.

He sighs, and through the door separating them from the bathroom, they hear a different sigh. A moan, even. Pitched differently than Yeonjun's, the two sounds harmonizing in the quiet room. Kai holds onto him a little tighter, maybe, and Yeonjun's throat closes just a little bit.

He closes his eyes. Kai's thumbs dig into his muscle, and his breath catches, leg twitching between Kai's palms. Once the first sound comes, they don't stop coming, small gasps and moans and mewls.

“He's so loud.”

Kai laughs. He pulls Yeonjun's shin between his own knees, and he makes contact with something warm and firm again. “He usually isn't. He's showing off.”

Please. Yeonjun laughs, but it's a little choked, high-pitched. He moves his leg, to press a bit harder between Kai's legs. “Payback for the championship?”

“Probably,” Kai allows amiably. He doesn't sound as affected as Yeonjun, but then again he is not the one whose leg is being kneaded, slowly up his thigh until Kai reaches the top, where it meets his hip.

“Didn't mean to turn him on,” Yeonjun argues against nobody in particular, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling. Turning Taehyun on by jerking off in their hotel room, too high off the euphoria of a win to remember to be quiet.

There's no version of that point in their lives where Taehyun would open the door and change the trajectory of their lives forever, is there? He never would, not after how Yeonjun treated him, not with Yeonjun's status, his own wavering reputation; he was one of the youngest members of that team, rooming with the star. Taehyun would never tell him that he's gay, that he wants him, and Yeonjun would never listen. Not before Sweden, not when he still held out hope for his own interest in girls. Not when he was still halfheartedly keeping things kindled between him and his ex. And Taehyun was just sixteen. It didn't make sense.

But now.

They're in their twenties, Taehyun knows that Yeonjun is only a human, too, and Yeonjun knows himself a bit better as well. The only thing between them is the beautiful man who is feeling Yeonjun's thighs up right now, and maybe he can stay where he is. Between them.

They can make it happen now, whatever could have happened then.

This isn't a big deal for Kai but for him and Taehyun, it's a second chance.

The sounds on the other side of the door taper off, and Kai's hands slow as they both curiously look towards it. On cue, the door cracks open, and Taehyun's face peeks through, his hair messy, soaked and dripping, big eyes squinted at them, face flushed, and lips pressed together in a serious little expression. Yeonjun is laid out in front of Kai on his back, shirtless, with Kai's hands all over him. They're technically following the rules, but it might not look like it.

“Yeonjun.” His voice sounds odd, but then again, he was obviously just pleasuring himself in the shower – Yeonjun's voice wouldn't be steady, either.

“Hm?” He tries to sound as normal as possible while Kai slowly lets go of his thigh and leans back, fully focused on his boyfriend.

“Come here.”

Yeonjun sits up immediately. “Here?”

“Bathroom.”

Kai's eyebrows shoot up. “You want him to help? I thought no one's allowed in there while you're getting ready.”

Taehyun blinks at his boyfriend. Yeonjun swings his legs off the side of the bed but doesn't get up yet. “You're not allowed.”

Kai's mouth twitches. “Oh, I can't but he can, huh?”

“Is that a problem? We can make it a rule.” Taehyun doesn't even hesitate to offer it, and Yeonjun's shoulders sink in relief.

“No, it's okay,” Kai rushes to assure him, sounding horribly amused. “So I can do whatever I want in here without the two of you, if he goes inside with you?”

The tip of Taehyun's tongue flicks out to wet his bottom lip. He blinks hard. “Yeah.”

Yeonjun stands up, and Kai throws himself onto his back, rucking his shirt up his stomach, drawing circles into his own skin. “Great. I'll have fun without you two, then.”

Taehyun looks at him fondly, then looks at Yeonjun a bit more apprehensively as he comes closer, slipping back away from the door while keeping it open. Yeonjun slips through the crack, closes the door behind himself, and then it's…

Him, and Taehyun, on opposite sides of the bathroom. It's not a big room; there are only a few steps between them, and they feel minuscule. The air is warm and humid from Taehyun running a hot shower, the mirror and the glass of the shower fogged up. Taehyun is naked, head to toe; he didn't even grab a towel to cover up. Yeonjun feels odd with his pants and underwear still on, even as his naked shoulders hit the door he's just closed. Taehyun is leaning up against the glass of the shower. They take a few seconds to breathe – Taehyun gives him a moment to take the sight in, maybe, or he needs to adjust to being watched just as much as Yeonjun needs to get used to watching.

He keeps his hands behind himself, giving Yeonjun the full view. Yeonjun has seen him in most states of undress before, but it never felt like this; he's never let himself get more than a glimpse. Now he's staring – at the flushed chest and neck, nipples at attention from the cold air after all the hot water they were drenched in. Firm, built chest, slender waist, narrow hips. A sparse happy trail, leading to a semi that has Yeonjun covering his mouth as he's pretty sure it starts to water. Taehyun's legs are too slender for someone who skates as fast as he does. His body is insane; Yeonjun's skin feels like it's crawling all over.

When he looks back into Taehyun's eyes, he's too dizzy to read the look on his face; he's not sure what his own face is doing, but he's glad that his hand is covering half of it.

Taehyun worries at his own lip, careful. “You ever had your fingers in someone?”

Yeonjun sucks in his lips, biting down on them hard behind his palm, and shakes his head.

“Not even yourself?”

He shakes his head again. Taehyun looks down, somewhere towards the waistband of Yeonjun's sweatpants, then slowly looks up again, but his eyelids stay lowered, and he looks at Yeonjun partially through his lashes.

“Would you want to?”

Yeonjun swallows. Nods. Taehyun licks his lips, and Yeonjun can't tell if the motion of his tongue is painfully slow, or if time just slowed with how fast his thoughts are racing. Just a minute ago, he was under Kai's hands, and now he's here, staring at a naked Taehyun, who is slowly, so painfully slowly flipping around, pressing a forearm against the glass of the shower to brace himself, reaching down to touch himself, rubbing at his own dick to keep it hard, sighing quietly into the stillness of the bathroom.

He can read a cue, but his feet feel heavy as he makes his way towards Taehyun. He's not dry; it seems like he dried himself off somewhat, but his hair is dripping water onto his shoulders and back, and rivulets chase each other down over his skin, making Yeonjun gulp even as he finally lets the hand over his mouth go.

There's a distant hint of vanilla in the air when he gulps in air through his mouth as soon as it's free. Is this what Kai talked about? The bathroom smelling good once Taehyun is done there?

He presses his hand to Taehyun's back. Taehyun breathes in sharply, and the muscles on his back ripple as he brings the other arm up to balance himself better. He's damp; firm under Yeonjun's fingers as he lets them drag down from Taehyun's shoulder blades, down to the small of his back. Taehyun arches his spine in response, curving under his touch like a cat. His skin is a little chilled from being out of the shower so long. Shouldn't they get back in, so he can warm up? Should Yeonjun warm him up? Is that what he's here for?

Yeonjun shifts the hand pressed into Taehyun's spine to wrap it around his hip, then does the same with the other hand, steps in closer, not quite pushing them together, just brushing the front of his pants against Taehyun's ass and legs. Taehyun hangs his head. Yeonjun squeezes his fingers, and the muscles of Taehyun's back flex.

There was something Yeonjun should have been doing, but he's quickly forgetting what that was, as his hands seem to have a mind of their own, sliding his hands back upwards, squeezing at Taehyun's waist, then dipping his palms towards his front to press against Taehyun's abs on his way up to brush over his nipples.

Kai was right; Taehyun had been showing off before. He can obviously keep himself quiet when he wants to – he doesn't let out a single sound as Yeonjun feels him up, just small aborted sighs; small trembles he can't stop himself from letting out. Yeonjun is not the only one feeling this, is he? This tension as his hands make their way back down. As he wraps one arm around Taehyun's middle, pulls him tighter against his own body, feels the pressure on his dick spike pleasure though his brain blindingly. He almost forgot he was turned on, in his fascination with the body he was touching. Now he grinds in deeper, presses the fingers of his free hand into the skin under Taehyun's navel. Listens with satisfaction to the breath rushing out of Taehyun's lungs, as he curves even more, as his head hangs lower. Then his fingers close around Taehyun's dick, Taehyun lets out his first sound, quick and high-pitched, and he can't stop himself from lowering his head, to press a kiss to Taehyun's spine.

This part, he knows. The weight in his hand; the motions of it – teasing the tip, stroking down the shaft, reaching further down to tease some more, fondle at the rest of him. Wetting his hand with his drooling mouth, twisting his wrist for a new angle, the shudder that tells him that Taehyun likes this one better; the feeling of a partner getting harder in his hand as he works them up. He knows this well.

And Taehyun just lets him do it, even though this wasn't what he offered Yeonjun. He takes one arm off the shower wall, to grip onto the wrist of the arm Yeonjun keeps around his waist, but he just holds on, like he needs an extra point of contact to stay grounded. Yeonjun kisses the nape of his neck, Taehyun's shoulders go up with another little gasping sound, and Yeonjun rests his forehead on the skin his lips just touched. He loosens his hold, lets his hand rest at the base of Taehyun's cock, giving it a teasing little shake.

“Lube?” His voice is barely there, but they're so close, of course Taehyun hears him regardless.

“I'm already-” then he pauses, hisses through his teeth. “On the shelf. In the…” He lets Yeonjun's hand go to gesture towards the shelf on the inside of the shower. “There. Clear bottle.”

Yeonjun should let him go, but it's harder than it should be; his hands slowly let go, but then migrate to the tops of Taehyun's thighs. Is he hurting, from the game? He kneads at the muscle, letting his lips brush over the back of Taehyun's neck, over and over.

“Yeonjun.”

“Hm?”

“He's waiting.”

Right; this is not just about them – even though it feels like it, between closed doors, with his hands greedy on Taehyun's skin. Kai is out there, having fun without them, waiting for Yeonjun to handle Taehyun so they can get out there and do this together, like they planned to. He flicks his tongue out, skimming over the vertebrae he's been caressing with his lips, but Taehyun just tastes like soap – it's underwhelming.

“I'm going.”

Taehyun breathes out something close to a laugh. He shifts when Yeonjun lets him go again, adjusting his feet, flexing his back, pressing into the glass with his palms again. Yeonjun slips by him into the shower – it's there, just as Taehyun said. Clear bottle, with the word vanilla in bold, blatant letters on it. Flavored. Smelling sweet and warm in such an innocent contrast to what Taehyun has been using it for. His socks get wet because he forgot he was even wearing them when stepping into the shower, and he tosses them as he steps out, ignoring another snort from Taehyun. This is not as smooth and sexy as either of them were probably imagining.

“Why vanilla?”

He flicks the cap of the bottle open, and Taehyun licks his lips, adjusting again, just standing up properly instead of trying to maintain some sort of pose.

“I like the smell, and Kai likes the taste.”

Yeonjun can feel his own face twitch, and the corner of Taehyun's mouth lift in response. It hangs there, between them, the image of it, of Kai with his mouth all over Taehyun's body, and all of it tastes so sweet, with the lube all over his dick, smeared between his cheeks, trailed over his thighs with Kai's wandering hands until they're slick too; Kai's fingers gliding over them like when he's giving a massage, like when he was touching Yeonjun, like when he was on top of him, touching him, with lavender lingering in the air. His own back is still slick with the massage oil. He flexes it just to chase the chill of it cooling on his skin away.

“Coming?”

He swallows. There's a step between them, maybe two, and Taehyun is so flushed, still hard – he's ready to go; he's ready, but Yeonjun, who has never hesitated to step out onto ice and give it his best, he's—

“Nervous?”

Maybe. Fingering someone who's already been fingering themselves for a while before that probably isn't some impossible task that Yeonjun won't be able to pick up on quickly, but it's not just someone. It's Taehyun, looking at him expectantly, looking at him like he wants him, like he's willing to wait that extra precious second it takes him to gather his courage.

“Not as much as you.”

Taehyun lifts his eyebrows, shifts more towards him. “Me? It's not my first time.”

Yeonjun steps closer, emboldened by the hint of a challenge in Taehyun's tone. “Was Kai your first time?”

“Having fingers in me? No, I already had a habit of hogging the shower before Kai showed up to give it a happy ending.”

It makes him snort, and he thinks Taehyun is almost smiling when they come nearly chest to chest, sharing air. He thinks Taehyun curves towards him, again, just a little bit. A little extra magnetic pull, bringing their bodies just a smidge closer.

“So it's just been you, and Kai?”

Taehyun blinks his wide dark eyes at him, tilting his head. “Why so curious?”

He's challenging, but he still gives ground when Yeonjun presses closer until he backs him into the glass, making him wince at the feeling of the glass against his bare, overheated body. “Who was on your mind, before you met Kai?”

It might be a mean question – but Taehyun doesn't seem to see it that way. He rolls his eyes a little. Yeonjun is fishing, but maybe he needs that ego boost. If he could choose, he'd like to hear it over and over again. Taehyun wants him, wanted him, is going to want him once they step out of this bathroom as well. A little differently, but all the same.

“All kinds of guys.”

“Oh?” He closes the bottle again, just so he can push even closer to Taehyun, find space for his hands on his hips, tilt his head just right for a kiss, this time hesitating only for a breath before he goes for it. Just briefly, like a hello, and then it's easier to slide his hands down and grip onto the meat of Taehyun's ass, while Taehyun's hands come up to hold onto his sides and pull him closer, fingers slipping on the slick skin of his back, while he's kissing Yeonjun back. “Right-handed, decent shooting accuracy?”

Taehyun digs his fingers into Yeonjun's flanks harder the more thoroughly he kneads at Taehyun's ass cheeks like the world's most primitive massage, and the closer he comes to dipping towards his hole. He must be hurting him by digging the edges of the bottle into Taehyun's ass but Taehyun seems too busy kissing him to complain, or joke back at him.

The only words he takes a break from Yeonjun's mouth to say are, “Come on.”

He can't be coordinated while Taehyun is trying to eat him alive, mouth-first, so he pulls away, both his mouth and his hands, slightly endeared by the determined look that's left on Taehyun's face once he's gone, visibly ready to hold out to get this where he wants it to go.

“Your back is all slippery,” Taehyun points out while Yeonjun is pouring lube over his fingers.

He sniffs a little, getting a lungful of vanilla before he stashes the bottle back away in the pocket of his sweatpants, rubbing his fingers together. “Massage oil.”

Taehyun blinks at him – he looks odd, so serious with his flushed face and his mouth wet and reddened. “He was working you dry when I looked.”

Pun apparently not intended. Yeonjun kisses him, because he can. “You weren't watching the whole time.”

“Was it good?”

Yeonjun has his fingers halfway to Taehyun's ass, to finger someone for the first time in his entire life, but Taehyun doesn't sound teasing. “He's a good masseur.”

Taehyun licks his lips, and Yeonjun wraps an arm around him.

“Do you need him?”

Taehyun swallows. “Do you?”

Yeonjun leans in again, towards Taehyun's jaw, under his ear. Vanilla mixes with soap on Taehyun's skin, and he smells nothing but clean and soft and sweet. None of them are things he had ever associated with Taehyun, but it creates a pleasant contrast – Yeonjun's sharp, quick, serious, sweat-soaked Taehyun, the player, and Yeonjun's soft, sweet, hesitant Taehyun, the lover, the one splaying his fingers across Yeonjun's chest like he's bracing himself. “It's not about me.”

“Just touch me.”

He can take a hint – or an order, rather.

It's clear from the very first touch that Taehyun had been working himself open while they were in the other room – Yeonjun is no expert, but he can tell, when he rubs his fingers against him, that he's too loose – his finger dips in too easily; it makes his head spin. He keeps his lips pressed into Taehyun while he explores his body, kissing his jaw, his neck, just an absent-minded press of teeth and lips, feeling Taehyun's fingers running over his body, trailing behind a mix of vanilla and lavender.

One finger goes in too easily, and if Yeonjun wasn't so enamored by the feeling of it, by the thought of being inside Taehyun, he'd ask how many he had inside himself before he lost his courage and came to ask for help.

Why did he, anyway? Did he get lonely? Did he get insecure? Did he just want Yeonjun's fingers in him? He's not coherent enough to ask, or do much but add another and marvel at the lack of friction, the warmth, the tremble in Taehyun's jaw when he explores, rubs in with two fingers on the inside, with his thumb on the outside, with the fingers that slipped in towards Taehyun's perineum.

How did he never try this before? He knows how, but still. Taehyun grips the hair at the back of Yeonjun's head, not pulling but still tight, and Yeonjun's teeth clamp down on the side of his neck. Yeonjun works him carefully, trying not to be sloppy, not to be too much of a virgin. Can Taehyun tell how excited this makes him? He can probably feel it if nothing else.

Taehyun's hand slips between them to tug at his own dick, tightening around Yeonjun's fingers briefly, and Yeonjun can't think straight, so he unwinds the arm he had around Taehyun's back and uses it to push his own sweatpants and underwear down, grabbing at himself and lining them up, Taehyun quickly getting the hint and letting go of himself in favor of trying to hold the two of them together. It's his favorite sensation, maybe second to fingering Taehyun at this point, feeling his dick press against another, hard, oversensitive, too dry, always, at first, but Taehyun reaches into Yeonjun's own pocket to get the lube again, and Yeonjun withdraws his hand while Taehyun lets his hair go, and Taehyun spills the vanilla over Yeonjun's fingers before coating his own palm, and then they're just back at each other, kissing before Yeonjun feels the urge to trail down from Taehyun's mouth again, over his chin and towards his throat, and Taehyun takes his dick firmly in hand for the first time, and Yeonjun licks at the underside of Taehyun's chin while Taehyun's warm, slick hand slides from root to tip, twisting at the end deliciously before tapping them together, giving Yeonjun another deliciously indulgent pull before he slots them together again.

And finally, Yeonjun can hear him again. Not just sighs and gasps, but the moans, the mewls. They're quieter, but they're deafening in the echoey bathroom, when his lips are sealed around the hinge of Taehyun's jaw and they're right in his ear.

It's too much; Yeonjun knows even before his hips start twitching and he can't keep up the kisses he's been pressing into Taehyun's skin, and he can just close his eyes, press his face into Taehyun's neck and ride it out, digging his fingers into the muscle of Taehyun's ass again, bringing him as close as he can, wanting as much skin-on-skin contact as possible as he comes all over both of their fronts, shamefully, stupidly…early.

Taehyun's hand stills on him, but he doesn't pull it away. They breathe; Yeonjun feels cold. The more he breathes, the clearer his head gets, and the less he wants to pull away from where he's hiding in Taehyun's skin.

Holy shit.

Oh no.

He didn't realize that Taehyun was gripping his hair at the back again, but he feels as he lets go, pats down the part he was pulling at. Wasn't that the hand he held the bottle of lube in? Where did that go? Taehyun brushes his fingers over the back of Yeonjun's neck, then holds onto the side of it, pushing gently against his shoulder.

Yeonjun doesn't give.

Taehyun's thumb runs over Yeonjun's throat, soothing. The other hand, comes up, sticky, slick, dirty, holding his side again.

“Yeonjun.”

He can't bring himself to even hum in response. He hasn't felt like this since he was sixteen and faceplanted on the ice while trying to get on at the start of a match, right in front of the audience and the opposing team, having to pick himself back up and skate to his position with a nasty bloody scrape on his nose. God, he's so desperate. He came from a hand job? From some naked frotting? What is he, nineteen again?

It's been ages, but still.

Taehyun. Taehyun gets it on the regular, from his beautiful, loving, big, talented D-man boyfriend. With flavored lube to have a bit more fun, at their apartment here in the city or in hotel rooms wherever the team needs them, because they may be busy, but when Taehyun wants a cock in his ass, he gets it.

He wanted to get fucked, not for Yeonjun to cum on him while squeezing his ass like it was his personal stress ball.

Jesus, Yeonjun.

Yeonjun should have stopped him, when he felt it overwhelming him, maybe it would hurt his balls a little to be cut off right before the peak, but at least he wouldn't be here. All over Taehyun. Red in the face, hot all over with shame. Soft, hanging uselessly out of his pants. A fucking—

“Sorry.”

What?

He pulls back out of sheer confusion, finally looking Taehyun in the face. His eyes are half-lidded, shiny, and his mouth is so red, Yeonjun can't get his eyes off of it once he sees it. Slightly open, inviting, bright red.

Taehyun presses those pretty lips together, takes a deep breath through his nose. “Should've stopped.”

Right. Yeonjun wasn't the one jerking himself off – it was Taehyun, and it wasn't his first time with a cock in his hand. He knew what he was doing, when he kept going.

He licks his lips, and Yeonjun is so, so fascinated. “Wasn't thinking.”

“I…”

Taehyun swallows visibly, his throat jumping. “Wanted to feel you come.”

Oh. Oh, okay. Yeonjun swallows too. He can feel his own shoulders sinking; he should sit down. Instead he leans on the shower wall next to Taehyun's head, and it brings them close again, but Taehyun's warm breath feels pleasant on his face – he smells like toothpaste; he must have brushed his teeth earlier, too.

“So what now?”

Taehyun opens his mouth with a sound that's too wet and too loud, echoing through the bathroom. “That's up to you.” He squeezes at Yeonjun's side and catches his eyes. “Do you want to watch Kai fuck me now?”

It cuts through the sleepy haze that settles in him after an orgasm – Taehyun, this Taehyun, the bare, moaning, warm Taehyun he just had his hands all over, in Kai's lap; under him, on his knees for him. Any way he likes it – he's willing to show Yeonjun how he likes it, if he's willing to see. And he can't pass that up, can he? To see them together. He's been waiting to see it for too long now. Will they fuck like they kissed at the garage, when they wanted him to watch them? Not too hot, not too cold, making sure he gets a good angle to see? Showing off just a bit?

“You said he takes his time? Maybe by the time he's done with you, I…”

Taehyun's still open mouth twitches, the corners curling a little. “Could take over, maybe?”

Yeonjun swallows again. His mouth is so dry; he'll need a glass of water. Taehyun's hand moves from Yeonjun's neck and to his own cum-splattered stomach, Yeonjun's eyes following it thoughtlessly as his fingers drag through the mess. “We'll see.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

Taehyun lifts his hand, and Yeonjun twitches back when his fingers come close to his face, but Taehyun pushes past his resistance, to press them into Yeonjun's bottom lip, wiping them on his lip and chin, the smile twisting into more of a smirk as he lets it drop again.

“That's for juniors.”

Yeonjun scrunches his nose in disgust and tries to wipe it off with the back of his hand while Taehyun laughs at him, his eyes sparkling where they catch the light of the light fixture overhead. The lighting is so unsexy, and the room is cooling down rapidly now that there's no hot water running, and the cuffs of Yeonjun's sweatpants are all wet. And he ignored all of that, just because Taehyun's pants were off? He's pathetic. But Taehyun was in the same boat, wasn't he? Still is; hard and ready to go as soon as his boyfriend gets his hands on him. It wasn't just Yeonjun.

“You're boring,” Taehyun quips, amused, while Yeonjun wipes his hand on his sweatpants even though he's a couple steps away from a towel. “Do you spit too?”

Yeonjun tries to reply with a hum, but it sounds more like a grumble. “I don't let people cum in my mouth in the first place.”

He sees Taehyun's eyebrows jump, and he just knows he's being judged. He'd point out that not all gay men need to be huge fans of cum, especially the taste and texture of it in their mouth, but he's a bit too tired to argue.

“Good to know,” Taehyun says lightly, and brushes his hand over his stomach again.

 

---

 

Kai doesn't seem that bothered when they make their way out of the bathroom eventually, letting him know that they got carried away, and Yeonjun wasn't going to be of much use for the next twenty five to forty minutes at the very least. He seems amused, if anything, maybe excited in a way that makes Yeonjun wonder just how much he's aware of how different things are between him and Taehyun. He must be aware, doesn't he? He's been witness to it so many times now. He'd probably have to be blind to miss it.

He seems even happier when Yeonjun assures him that he doesn't care if Kai and Taehyun make out in his bed while he grabs himself a drink, trying to force the sluggishness out of his limbs by keeping himself moving, but it's not easy with the weight of the match on his shoulders, the satisfaction in his bones from finally being touched again by someone other than himself, with the contentment of a score settled between him and Taehyun.

Yeonjun fills one of the big water bottles he brings with him to the gym, and downs a quarter of it on his way back to the bedroom, where Taehyun has wrestled Kai's shirt off of him and is now nibbling at his chest, Kai's eyes shut and head tilted back, one hand steady on Taehyun's ribs while the other holds him up, sitting up in the middle of the bed with Taehyun all over him.

There's nowhere in Yeonjun's room to sit but the bed, and Taehyun lifts his head when the mattress shifts under Yeonjun's weight, taking a break from Kai to gulp some water down too from Yeonjun's water bottle while Kai lifts his head to look at them, the fondness on his face barely faltering when he looks at Yeonjun instead of at his boyfriend.

“You should change your pants, they're all wet,” he points out, and Yeonjun looks down, at the stains and the cuffs still heavy with all the water they soaked up. Taehyun got him wet too, pressing up against him earlier when he was barely dried off from the shower. They look a mess.

He sniffs. “Should I just take them off?”

Taehyun hums an enthusiastic affirmative with his mouth still full of water, and Yeonjun and Kai huff out a laugh that Taehyun brushes off with a shrug, putting the cap back on the bottle and handing it back to Yeonjun.

“It's your house – get comfortable.”

Yeonjun carefully puts the bottle down on the floor by the foot of the bed, then reaches for the waistband of his sweatpants. “Usually I just walk around naked when I'm here alone.”

Taehyun twists on top of Kai, leaning back against his boyfriend's chest, Kai's arms coming up to wrap around him loosely, like it's second nature by now. “Well, go ahead.”

They're both watching him, and Yeonjun can feel his face heating up. He has no trouble changing in front of other guys, he's been doing it for years, but context matters, doesn't it. “What? You want a striptease? I thought I was going to be the one watching.”

Kai's hand lowers from Taehyun's middle to wrap around Taehyun's dick, and Yeonjun watches Taehyun bite his lips to stop himself from reacting too obviously. “It'll be easier to give you a show if we're warmed up.”

Yeonjun's fingers feel numb and wooden, but he starts pulling at the string keeping his pants up to loosen it again. “I thought you were warming up the whole time we were in the shower.”

Kai hooks his chin over Taehyun's shoulder, and Taehyun reaches up to card his fingers through Kai's messy hair. “It's not as effective when you're alone.”

He takes a deep breath through his nose and starts stripping his pants down, leaving his underwear in place, bit by bit. It's barely sexy, but the two of them watch every stretch of skin as it's revealed with rapt attention, like every piece of him is a mystery to them, even though it hardly could be. His sweatpants drop to the floor, and he kicks them away and stands up, a bit of satisfaction lighting in his chest from how quickly their heads snap up to follow his motion.

Somehow it's easier than starting to take his clothes off in front of them, once they're already watching, once Taehyun has a hand in Kai's hair clasped into a fist while Kai keeps his fingers tight on Taehyun's dick, giving him something to push into. They want a show, so they're getting a show.

Taehyun has already seen his dick, but maybe it's the principle of it, even though he can't really get hard right now and he looks less than impressive mostly limp, pushing the front of his underwear down to show it off, catching both of their eyes in turn and then pulling the elastic down in the back so it barely covers his ass, turning so they can see the band slip over the swell of it, catch under it. He'd wiggle his ass if he was bolder, but he just smooths his palms over it on his way to slip his fingers under the elastic and pull his underwear down all the way, bending down just because he can, showing off.

His underwear joins his sweatpants on a pile on the floor and Yeonjun quickly realizes he can't look at them again. He doesn't think he's embarrassed himself, but still—

“Come here.”

He can't fully read Taehyun's note, but he can read the arms outstretched towards him just fine, and it's easy to follow Taehyun's voice, crawl across the sheet and give him the kiss he's obviously waiting for while Taehyun molds his fingers to the sides of Yeonjun's neck, and it's even easier to keep him occupied with more kisses while Kai shifts to reach for the lube they brought with them from the bathroom and left lying somewhere on the sheets. The vanilla hits his nose again when Kai's hands come back to play with Taehyun's dick again, the slide better now, smoother, and Yeonjun feels the vibrations of the noise Taehyun lets out in his lips before he hears it in his ears. He sucks on Taehyun's lip while he gasps as Kai latches onto the skin of his shoulder, always having to keep his mouth busy while he's focusing, and Yeonjun can't help but look down to watch Kai's fingers enter Taehyun's body. He wonders how that feels for Taehyun, knowing that's the third pair of fingers he's had inside him tonight. Kai doesn't leave it at two fingers for too long, but his point stands – does that turn Taehyun on? Does he even think about that? His eyes are closed, and he lets Yeonjun press his lips against Taehyun's limp ones without protest.

Yeonjun nibbles on his upper lip, Kai runs his nose over the top of Taehyun's shoulder in an oddly affectionate gesture, and Taehyun mewls out something incoherent, that makes Kai stop jerking him off and has him petting over Taehyun's hip instead.

His fingers slip back out of Taehyun too, and Yeonjun takes the cue and moves back to give them space.

“Do you want to do it the way we usually do?”

Taehyun blinks, then swallows, then turns his head towards Kai to catch his eyes the best he can. “Do you want it?”

It's an oddly pretty sight; a naked Taehyun resting on Kai's bare chest, between his still-clothed legs, with Kai's hands on his hips, touching Kai's thighs with his own hands, grabbing handfuls of fabric and pulling the pant legs up Kai's legs. Yeonjun could get used to looking at it, if he was crazy enough to want to. They look at each other so tenderly; like no walls need to be up between the two of them. No layer of flirting or defensiveness necessary when Kai shrugs, squeezes Taehyun's hips and says, “It was a hard match today. If you're not feeling up to it…” there's no need to finish the sentence, even, as Taehyun just picks it up without a moment of hesitation.

“We both played – someone has to do the work.”

Kai drops his forehead on Taehyun's shoulder. “You were on the ice longer than I was.”

Taehyun huffs. “So you don't want me on top tonight.”

He does like that, then – Yeonjun got that part right at least. Taehyun likes to be on top, maybe in charge even, even though he's not the one topping. It fits his personality; Yeonjun tries not to smile.

Kai wraps his arms around Taehyun again, squeezing. “I just think you deserve a break – you worked hard today.”

Taehyun rolls his eyes, but covers Kai's hand with his own. “You can take over if I get tired.”

Kai lifts his head just to press his face into the side of Taehyun's with a thoughtful hum. They seem cozy – should he really be here, seeing this? “Okay.”

Taehyun lifts his free hand, pets down the side of Kai's head blindly. They're in their own world, not even seeing Yeonjun in front of them. “Lie back then. I'll get the condoms.”

Kai drops a kiss into Taehyun's palm and slowly lets him go, so Taehyun can unglue himself from his chest. “I have them in my pocket – I had time to get set up.”

Yeonjun gets just a glimpse of Taehyun's smile before he turns around and kisses Kai square on the mouth, Kai laughing briefly before Taehyun catches his lips again, reaching into Kai's pocket for the packet. He pulls back and looks at his own hand, whatever he's seeing obscured from Yeonjun's view by Taehyun's own bare shoulder.

“Ambitious.”

Kai glances at Yeonjun, then at Taehyun. “What? There's three of us.”

Taehyun lifts his hand, and now Yeonjun can see the three packs fanned out in his fingers, too. “Did you think I'd be fucking myself?”

“One of them could have been faulty? And some people don't do oral without them – I was thinking ahead.”

To Yeonjun's surprise, Taehyun whirls around with an almost scandalized expression on his face. “Do you do that? Only suck it with a condom on?”

It's so blunt Yeonjun can't help but laugh. “It's good practice when you don't know where it's been.”

Taehyun squints at him, obviously offended. “We're not going to give you an STD.”

“That's exactly what a person about to give you an STD would say,” Kai points out, and shrugs when Taehyun glares at him.

“We're clean. No HIV, no HPV, no BV–”

“I'm pretty sure that one is exclusive to vaginas,” Kai cuts him off, and Taehyun groans in frustration.

Yeonjun snorts. “I get it – I don't even know if you could sneak an STD through the medicals they put us through.”

“I've definitely roomed with a guy who had gonorrhea before,” Kai says in a deathly serious voice, his whole face scrunching up. “That or some. Major dick issues he needed to get checked out. You should not hear a man make sounds like that when pissing.”

Taehyun leans back on his hands, rolling his eyes again. “Can we not talk about gonorrhea when I'm about to put your dick inside me?”

Kai swings forward, taking Taehyun by the waist and kissing the frown off of his face. “Sorry. You can get back to getting on my cock.”

Taehyun's nose scrunches, but he lifts one hand to Kai's jaw anyway, kissing him back. “Shut up and go lay down.”

Kai kisses him one more time, then shuffles back towards the headboard, and Yeonjun thinks he can feel something stirring in his groin, even though it hasn't been that long, at the view of Kai's muscles flexing as he pulls himself with his arms up Yeonjun's bed, his sweatpants catching on the sheets and getting pulled down his hips, dangerously low by the time he settles down. He bites into his lip and lets himself look, and the pale skin splattered with moles, the patches of hair – his seems a bit less neat than Taehyun's, and Yeonjun is horribly curious to find out if he's right.

Taehyun seems to be watching his boyfriend with just as much focus as Yeonjun is while he gets one of the condom packets open almost absentmindedly, eyes weighty as they drag down over Kai's chest. Everyone is fit on their team, of course they are, but this is different, it goes past envy, past objective appreciation, it goes past impressive and right into sexy. Kai tilts his head to stretch a muscle in his neck, and it's obviously an innocuous gesture, Yeonjun can tell he doesn't mean to put himself on display, but it brings attention to the curve of his neck; the dark hair clinging to it; the line of his shoulder that goes so precisely into the dip of his collar bones, which top a firm chest; defined pecs atop a solid waist. His hip bones are showing with how long his pants are. There's a mole right next to one of them that Yeonjun could see himself kissing for days. His cock tents his pants when he's laid out like this, somehow still hard despite all the decidedly unsexy chatter. Yeonjun tries not to fixate on it too much. Long legs; thighs he knows would be as firm as a rock under his touch. All of Kai, not just…

“Help me out?” It's Kai's voice, tentative, and it's aimed at him. Right. They've barely done anything this whole time. They haven't even kissed. Kind of defeats the point of having a threesome as a couple for him and Taehyun, doesn't it.

“You want him to take off your pants?”

Yeonjun has never in his life heard Taehyun's voice and thought he sounded stupid, but there's something so mindless about the way he asks that, like there isn't enough blood in his brain to process the words he's hearing. It's somehow both endearing and a turn on, and Yeonjun just stares at his pretty gaping mouth while Kai responds with, “Yeah. Can he?”

Taehyun's head bobs mutely, and Yeonjun crawls up the bed maybe a bit too enthusiastically, Kai already smiling, a bit too self-satisfied by the time Yeonjun gets to kiss him. Kissing wasn't part of the deal, but he can't hold back anymore, not when pressing their lips together gives him an excuse to feel Kai's body under his hands, testing the firmness of it, squeezing his arms, his pecs, leaning on his abs to feel them flex under his fingers. Kai's hips are a bit wide, and he has to kneel extra wide to accommodate for it, and maybe he's giving Taehyun a show from the back too, settled naked over Kai's lap, Kai's hands finding the curve of his waist first to settle there, then migrating lower, right under his ass, squeezing at his thighs. His fingers are long enough to tease at the inside of them, and Yeonjun feels a warmth spreading through him, a tingle in his crotch. Maybe. Maybe they'll get more time to themselves. Later.

He licks at Kai's neck, lapping over the tendons of it just because he can't help himself, but then he moves away, reaching for his pants. He pulls the waistband back and peeks in, only vaguely aware that he's being weird, and ignores the grin with which Kai tilts his head back again. Are his ears a little red? His cock sure is. Flush and rock hard and he was right. Taehyun trims neatly, must have done it recently, but Kai doesn't. Yeonjun never considered himself to be someone who cares about body hair too much, for better or for worse, but he feels fascinated now, maybe more by the contrast than anything else, reaching past the elastic to touch it, feel it under his fingers. Coarse but pleasant – maybe just because it's Kai. Maybe he wouldn't enjoy tangling his fingers in pubes if it didn't come with a twitch in Kai's handsome face, with the sight of his bottom lip dragging through his teeth. If Taehyun wasn't waiting behind them on his turn. Maybe it wouldn't feel this exciting. He can barely even imagine it – taking him in hand and not feeling the same chill up his spine.

Kai lets go of one of his thighs to grip at his forearm, and Yeonjun knows what he's about to do – tell him to hurry up and let Taehyun take his turn, but then the mattress shakes as Taehyun shuffles towards them, clumsy with how quickly he's trying to move, and then he's next to them, handing Yeonjun the unwrapped condom, wordless but expressive with his big plaintive eyes. Yeonjun was the one who was supposed to be getting a show, but apparently they want him to be a part of this more than he thought.

He glances at Kai, whose jaw just tightens as he bites down harder on his lip, looking down at Yeonjun's hand wrapped around him. Yeonjun traces a vein with his thumb, rubbing at it, and they breathe in at the same time, shaky.

With his free hand, he finally pulls Kai's pants and underwear down, just enough to give himself space, trying not to notice too much the way the elastic digging into Kai's thighs makes them look. He takes the condom from Taehyun, who folds his hands politely between his thighs, and Yeonjun tries not to think about that. He could be all over Kai right now, all over Yeonjun even, but he decided to just—

He won't think about it too hard.

Instead he'll make eye contact with Kai, who'll only take his eyes off of Yeonjun's hands if Yeonjun ducks his head down to try and get his attention, and he'll enjoy the feeling of Kai, thick and hot and hard under his palm as he rolls the condom down his length, slowly enough for it to be fun for all of them, as they stare at each other, Kai abusing his own lip until he gives up and moves forward, Yeonjun responding instinctively by meeting him halfway for a messy kiss, letting go when his hands meet at the base of Kai's dick. He drags his hands up from his pelvis to his abs, then back down to his thighs, gripping at the clothes still clinging to him and pulling them down his legs as he moves away from the kiss, off Kai's lap, helping him get his pants off just in time for Taehyun to take Yeonjun's place in his lap, much less tentative, pressing their bodies together wherever he can, squishing their erections together between their stomachs.

He kisses Kai like he's trying to get every trace of Yeonjun's taste off of him, but the urgency of it doesn't read like insecurity to Yeonjun when he settles in next to them to watch them kiss, watch Taehyun's fingers scramble over Kai like they can't choose just one place to rest, like they need to feel all of him, leave scratches all over his skin – it reads like want.

Yeonjun's not sure what he expected, but he thinks that it must have been something just like this – the two of them look so smooth, so effortless together. Kai's hands fit on Taehyun's body just right, tracing practiced paths over his chest when Taehyun gets caught up in the kissing, squeezing his ass when he's leaning over to grab the lube again, Yeonjun having to sit up to get it for him so he doesn't have to get off of Kai. He taps out a little rhythm on Taehyun's knees while Taehyun pours maybe too much lube on his dick, the liquid pouring out between his fingers as he spreads it around. Maybe he just likes being messy; thank god for that towel they put down for Yeonjun's massage – he's probably going to have to toss it after this.

The whole room smells like vanilla and lavender now. Taehyun presses his face to Kai's while he's sinking down on his cock, and Kai holds his hand on his own stomach while he's adjusting, and Yeonjun watches Taehyun's strong thighs tremble, holding him up at an awkward angle, not quite seated yet. He wants to touch them, but he hesitates; something about the way Taehyun and Kai fit into each other seeming impenetrable, too perfect to be interrupted. Of course Taehyun can take Kai all the way; they've been fucking for years, they're in love, they kiss like they just discovered kissing while Taehyun squirms in Kai's lap, like no angle quite feels good enough, or like all of them do, and he can't settle into just one. He settles his hands on Kai's shoulders, Kai sneaks one down to feel at where their bodies meet before resting both of them on Taehyun's thighs, and it's like a silent understanding is passed between them as their lips part and Taehyun shifts his attention to getting himself off while Kai tries to keep pressing kisses into his skin wherever he can, on his neck, his chest and his shoulders.

If this is the pace Taehyun prefers for himself, then Yeonjun understands why he gets frustrated by Kai wanting to take things slow. It's a quicker pace than Yeonjun would even think he'd be capable of after a game, but maybe he's just eager. Maybe he's showing off again, when he keeps shifting, showing the lean lines of his body, leaning back and letting his abs show as he works his thighs until he's dripping with sweat from the effort; maybe he just wants them to watch. When he visibly gets tired and he leans into Kai, sucking on his neck while he just grinds against him, letting out sounds that make Yeonjun dizzy even though he's not making them right under his ear, Kai holds him close with one arm while he tries to help him move with the other. His eyes are closed, like he's trying to focus on the feeling of this, Taehyun's whole body rubbing against his own, Taehyun's insides tight around his dick, Taehyun's lips on his neck, the sounds of skin on skin, of Taehyun groaning, moaning, whining as the right motions make them come together just right. He's full of Taehyun and Taehyun is full of him, lost in each other.

Taehyun's nails scratch down Kai's arm, and maybe that's as much of a silent signal as tapping his stick on the ice to ask for a pass, because it's like Kai knows exactly what to do, knows that Taehyun is tapping out, too tired to keep going, and he pulls Taehyun up, part of the way off his dick, just so he can kick his hips up until they slap against Taehyun's ass, obnoxiously loud, quick and hard, over and over until Taehyun lets out something close to a scream into his mouthful of Kai's skin. To Yeonjun's surprise, Kai laughs out a breathy laugh and helps Taehyun get off of him the rest of the way instead of keeping at it that way, and he helps Taehyun lay down on his back, adjusting the already thoroughly ruined towel again. They should have had more than one. This is definitely getting on Yeonjun's sheets too.

Taehyun looks dazed, or maybe tired, or maybe ready to burst, or maybe all of those things at the same time. His eyes are barely open, he's flushed red all over and his hands shake when he reaches to pull his own legs back with his arms. Kai slaps at one of his arms and he lets go immediately, but it seemed involuntary. Yeonjun is a little fascinated – he never thought he'd see Taehyun like this, under any circumstances, this soft and mindless and vulnerable. Naked, with his cock straining and ass gaping and mouth left hanging open, sweating and breathing hard and reaching out his freed hand so Kai can tangle its fingers with his own while he introduces even more lube into the mix like Yeonjun might not be about to have to buy a new mattress already.

Their fingers squeeze together, and Kai asks in the softest voice Yeonjun has ever heard him use, “Make you come?” and Taehyun nods his head like it's deathly important for Kai to know that's what he wants.

They slot back together – one of Taehyun's legs hooks over Kai's elbow, and he bends down to kiss Taehyun's knee before starting to build a rhythm, and Yeonjun shifts to get a better view of them again. Taehyun seems to have gotten more vocal, or maybe it's just gotten harder for him to stay quiet. It's like he can't stay quiet now, making incoherent sounds, saying Kai's name, telling him yes, getting cut off when he tries to encourage him to keep going but loses his train of thought. He runs his hand down his own body towards his own crotch, turning his head to look at Yeonjun with his eyes wet like he's about to cry, and it hits Yeonjun with a start that this is not sacred. There are three of them. He's here to be here with them, and Taehyun got to feel him come, but Yeonjun didn't get to feel him.

Yeonjun licks his lips, sees Taehyun look down at them, and he moves forward, catching his mouth in a kiss, dipping his tongue into Taehyun's mouth and reaching down his body at the same time to jerk him off. The reaction is immediate and satisfying, Taehyun's whole body tensing before he lets out another high-pitched sound, trying to pull away from Yeonjun's kiss while fisting his hair so hard Yeonjun feels it stinging in his scalp. His eyes slip shut and he keeps moving, trying to push against both Yeonjun and Kai, squirmy from the pleasure. Kai has started swearing above them, hissing under his breath, and when Yeonjun tries to catch his eyes, Kai just closes them like he can't look. Is he having a hard time holding on? Didn't they say he took forever to cum?

Taehyun scratches at Yeonjun's forearm and Yeonjun just moves closer to kiss him at the same time as Kai pauses to just grind into Taehyun in calculated little circles, and then Kai reaches down, his hand meeting Yeonjun's as he just rubs his palm against the tip of Taehyun's cock, held steady by Yeonjun's hand, and Taehyun squeals into Yeonjun's mouth, twitches in his grip and it doesn't take him long at all after that to spill all over both of their hands, suddenly quiet, fidgeting silently while they work him through it, Kai easily slowing to a stop inside him, then petting down his thigh as he lets it down gently, soothing.

Taehyun sniffs and his fingers that were gripping at Yeonjun so tightly this whole time loosen – there are red marks all over his forearm, and his scalp hurts and he's pretty sure he's managed to get hard again already somehow. Yeonjun lets go of Taehyun as he softens and looks at his own, thoroughly stained hand – Kai's got it worse than he does, but it's still a mess. Kai doesn't seem bothered, smoothing both hands over Taehyun's legs and hips, kneading at his thighs soothingly, even though he's getting his skin sticky and dirty and disgusting. He'll need another shower after this for sure, if he can still stand with the workout his thighs got today.

Yeonjun lifts his hand all the way to Taehyun's face, and Taehyun squints at it lazily, assessing it for a moment before opening his mouth wide, sticking his tongue out. Equal parts disgusted and fascinated, he lowers his hand and lets Taehyun lick over it, obviously getting a mouthful of a mix of vanilla lube and his own jizz. It has to be the worst thing he's ever had on his tongue, but he doesn't spit it back out, he just holds Yeonjun's curious gaze with his sleepy eyes, flicks his tongue between parted lips to show off how dirty it is and then swallows like he's proving a point, showing off his empty mouth again afterwards. Then he flinches and whines, and Kai swears and pulls away from him, apologizing profusely.

“I should have pulled out, shit, sorry.”

Taehyun snorts and throws an arm over his face, breathing deeply, winding down while Yeonjun looks over at Kai, who he for a second almost forgot was still there. He watches him take the condom off his still hard dick, palming at it almost mindlessly while he looks around for somewhere to toss it, and Yeonjun sits up so abruptly his vision goes black for a second as he gets off the bed to get Kai a trash can from the bathroom. Kai blinks up at him, taken aback, but he takes a hint and drops it inside, following Yeonjun with his eyes while he puts the trash can away again.

“Taehyun?”

Kai eyes Yeonjun's crotch a bit too obviously when he faces him again, his hand on himself tightening – he looks good like that, kneeling on Yeonjun's bed, completely naked, a little shiny with sweat. He can take in all the details, every mole, every dip and curve – he can map out the soft parts, the hard parts, the slender and the thick. His thighs and his waist and his chest and his shoulders, just as impressive now as they are with his pads on. Gorgeous – he's absolutely gorgeous.

And Yeonjun wants to—

“Yeah?” Taehyun sounds a bit wrecked, but mostly soft and sleepy. It's sweet, so sweet Yeonjun has to try hard not to focus on it. Taehyun agreed to be vulnerable with him when he offered to have sex with him, but it still feels like stealing something that doesn't belong to him – only Kai should be seeing him at his gentlest, at his softest, when he's sleepy and content and his bare body isn't an asset he's trying to show off, it's just him, without any pretense, anything to hide behind. He's fit and tan and has a few scars on him from old injuries, a long vertical scar on his thigh that Yeonjun has always been curious about ever since he first saw it on him in the locker room back when they were young, but was never close enough with Taehyun to ask about it – it's much fainter now than when he first saw it. They've known each other for a long time now.

“Can I suck your boyfriend off?”

Instead of answering immediately, Taehyun sniffs again and lifts the arm covering his eyes, lifting his head just a bit to look at Kai, who's frozen where he is sitting on his heels, a deer in the headlights under Taehyun's squinting gaze. He seems determined not to give Taehyun anything to work with, but the situation seems pretty clear-cut to Yeonjun. Kai needs to cum, Taehyun seems too tired to do anything about it, and Yeonjun's ready to go again if Kai wants him to. It's not even about Kai being excited to get Yeonjun's hands and mouth on him again – it's not a slight to Taehyun. It's just biology. Kai needs a warm body and Yeonjun feels plenty warmed up right now – that's what he's here for, isn't it?

“Okay,” Taehyun says slowly, flexing his fingers where his hands rest by his head now. “Just, um…”

“Touch you?” Kai reaches out with his free hand to hold onto Taehyun's ankle, and Taehyun nods.

“Let me be here.”

Kai smiles at him, and Yeonjun feels invisible for just a second. “‘Course.”

Taehyun pouts and Kai shifts to kiss him, still hovering over him when he looks at Yeonjun again to ask, “What's comfortable for you?”

Yeonjun watches Taehyun caress Kai's cheek, staring at him fondly even though Kai's attention isn't on him. If he had to describe love in a single image, he thinks he'd choose Taehyun's expression, right now. It makes him want to leave the room, leave them to it, stop trying to fit himself in between them, but he can't do it now. Not when Kai is looking at him expectantly.

He swallows, and Kai's eyes drop to his throat, and he has a brief but vivid image in his mind. Lying down with his head hanging off the bed, with Kai over him, Taehyun plastered to his back maybe, wanting to be part of it. Insecure. Peeking out from behind Kai to watch as he rubs the tip of his cock over Yeonjun's lips, as he pushes his way inside, as he forces himself down his throat until he can't breathe right anymore.

Some other time, maybe.

“Just roll over.”

Kai doesn't question it, just flops over onto his back, watching Yeonjun approach the bed while Taehyun takes his hand, intertwining their fingers and curling up to his side, twisting like a sunflower seeking sunlight. Yeonjun tries to ignore him, tries not to let it shake him, but then Taehyun makes eye-contact with him as he's crawling between Kai's legs, and he feels something inside him shrivel. First. Taehyun might not have been Kai's first boyfriend, his first kiss or first fuck, but he comes first now. Kai is Taehyun's. No matter how badly Kai might want him in this moment, desperate to get off, Yeonjun is an afterthought.

He wonders if it just stings because he's used to being the center of attention – what do you mean there are two men who want each other more than they want him? He's a star; he's a celebrity. But so are they, in the world of hockey at least. They have their own fame, and each other.

And Yeonjun is—

Between Kai's solid thighs, and he can't help but trace the underside of them, from the knee down to Kai's ass, squeezing a little at however much his fingers can get to with Kai's hips still firmly on the bed. Kai tilts his head back, and Yeonjun doesn't look at Taehyun because Taehyun is still looking right at him. Yeonjun can hear him breathing, and when he leans down to kiss down Kai's chest, he's starkly aware that the reason only one of Kai's hands comes up to play with the hair at the back of Yeonjun's neck is that Taehyun is keeping Kai's other arm plastered to his own body.

Then there's another hand carding through his hair from the other side, and it's noticeably different – the fingers are shorter, and it's less gentle. More used to pulling at hair than caressing it, he's sure. He huffs through his nose, his breath fanning out on Kai's stomach.

Kai's hand strays lower, to his spine, drawing over his shoulder as he trails his lips over the length of Kai's dick, Taehyun's fingers reaching down as well, caressing over his cheek when he fits them around the head. They're gentle, and goosebumps raise over his skin in the wake of fingertips ghosting over ticklish spots, behind his ear, on his throat, at the nape of his neck. Kai grabs onto him instead of petting when he starts blowing him in earnest, his grip never as tight as Taehyun's, but firm and grounding. He guides Yeonjun into learning what he likes by tightening and easing his fingers, letting out little hums, tense little ‘mhm's, breathy ‘yes's. He's more subdued than Taehyun, in showing his own pleasure, in reacting to it. If Taehyun is twitchy, then Kai undulates, his leg slowly pulling up next to Yeonjun, prompting him to hold onto it, palm at it with the hand not busy keeping Kai steady for him to take into his mouth, pulling him out of the way so he can mouth and lick at the rest of him too. His hips raise to meet the motion of his head slowly, just pushing into the sensation, chasing it. Taehyun's the one to guide them back to the sheets with a press of his hand, and this time when Yeonjun flicks his eyes up, meeting just the underside of Kai's chin where his head is tilted back, and when he looks over at Taehyun it's a fire being lit instead of a fire smothered. Staring at him, the way Kai obviously won't. Hungry and curious, brushing his hair out of his face gently then pushing his head down and he's reluctant to tear his own eyes away, but they fill with tears when Taehyun forces him past his limit.

Taehyun's sharp gasp and Kai's soft sigh. Taehyun's serious, focused eyes and Kai finally tilting his head back toward him to smile, with his cheeks blushed, a flush on his neck. He's a little uncoordinated when he smooths a thumb over Yeonjun's full cheek, clumsy, while Taehyun's hand is still covering the crown of his head. Held, watched – the attention he's been craving. All his.

He sucks a bit harder, determined not to let either of them down, to prove himself worthy of the spotlight, and he's rewarded with two different voices showing their appreciation, two pairs of hands petting all over him, and he used to think that he knows what he likes already, but this is a new one. This warm feeling that turns hot when it settles in his hips and makes him grind into the bed, ruining his own sheets with the precum leaking from his own cock; that's a new one, and he thinks he loves it, maybe. When Taehyun reaches down to help Yeonjun out by fondling at Kai's balls while Yeonjun slides his hand up Kai's thigh again and Kai's body ripples again with all the stimulation, and Yeonjun looks up to see Taehyun and Kai holding hands so tightly their knuckles have gone white, both flushed and handsome, breathing heavy for him, it's perfect.

Taehyun looks at Kai, almost searching, and Yeonjun doesn't feel bad about it this time, just follows Taehyun's eyes to the vein that's becoming more and more pronounced in Kai's neck as he keeps tightening his jaw. His abs are twitching, the thigh flexing under Yeonjun's hand where he keeps it splayed on Kai's leg, and Yeonjun thinks that–

“Get off,” Taehyun says quickly, his voice urgent but not harsh – there's no anger in his tone, and his hand is gentle where it presses on Yeonjun's shoulder.

He follows the instruction, letting Kai's dick slip out of his mouth and watching as it's almost immediately replaced by Taehyun's hand, who works it quickly and efficiently, the first string of cum coating the back of his hand almost immediately. Yeonjun has barely pulled back, and he pays for it with a streak across his nose that makes him flinch back, the chuckle Taehyun lets out at the sight of it finally making him look away from Kai's twitching cock and towards Taehyun, who glances down at his own busy hand like he's embarrassed to be caught looking at Yeonjun while working his own boyfriend through an orgasm. Yeonjun pets at the side of Kai's leg throughout it, and Kai's face is covered with his hand, the only thing visible even when Yeonjun sits up to get a better angle being his tightly shut eyes. He's red in the face, pink all over. Taehyun seems to know exactly when to let up by the tone of the cacophony of groans Kai lets out into his own skin, and when he's done, he rolls over to kiss Kai's shoulder, then a spot on his neck. Kai reaches over and pets a hand through Taehyun's hair, who groans and says something about Kai getting his hair dirty, barely loud enough for Yeonjun to hear.

Kai then blearily looks at Yeonjun and smiles again, reaching out for him, and Yeonjun was turned on before, could probably come again right now if someone gave him a hand, but he's almost sure all the blood in his hard-on goes to his face when Taehyun peeks out from his new perch on Kai's shoulder, looking at him warmly, when Yeonjun comes closer again, hovering over them on shaky, tired arms, then lowering himself to kiss Kai, close-mouthed, soft. Kai tries to part his lips but he pulls back away from it, too aware that the inside of his mouth tastes like a mix of precum with the tint of vanilla. Yeonjun is not sure what Kai likes about the taste of vanilla lube. Yeonjun feels a little like he sucked off a candy cane, and not in a good way.

Kai pouts at him, visibly disappointed, and Taehyun shifts towards him too, pouting his own mouth as well, except he makes it look inviting, expectant. Yeonjun is almost nervous to do it, but it's just as simple as kissing Kai. A peck and an unhappy huff when he pulls away.

“You're both gross,” he manages to get out.

Taehyun scrunches his nose at him. “I saved you from a mouthful of cum – you're welcome.”

Kai snorts. “And I'm not the one with spunk on my nose.”

Yeonjun gives them the most unimpressed look he's capable of and reaches over to grab Kai's discarded pants and wipe his face into it. Then he grabs the water bottle he brought around earlier, and takes a good long drink from it before bringing it back to the other two.

Kai's eyes are closed, his breathing slow and even, but he's still obviously awake, and Taehyun's eyes are squarely on Yeonjun's dick.

“Do you need a hand? You could have just…” he mimes jerking off obviously – he must have wiped his hand on the towel that's still there somewhere, under his and Kai's bodies, because it looks much cleaner now.

Yeonjun swallows, looking down at his own flagging erection. “I'm not sure I even can go twice in a day anymore. I haven't tried. I might pass out if I do.”

He says it jokingly, but he's not sure he wouldn't. It's been a long fucking day.

Taehyun licks his lips. “We can try.”

Yeonjun grips the water bottle a bit harder. “I can't see you guys out if I black out,” he points out, his voice tense. It's too easy to imagine when Taehyun looks at him like that – looking down at him as he sucks him to completion. Telling him to get off so Yeonjun can cum on his own stomach like a civilized person, on Taehyun's clavicles, maybe, if he feels a bit wild, and Taehyun staying down because he's a freak and likes having to force semen down his throat. Swallowing his load. Kissing him afterwards, spitting some of it on Yeonjun's lips to gross him out. Laughing. Pressing against him. Naked, sticky, dirty with lube and cum and sweat and spit. Well-loved. Hot as hell.

Kai swallows, looking at Yeonjun as well now. “Mind having guests over? We… our apartment is pretty far and…”

They're post-game. Exhausted. It's late. Yeonjun's bed is big, even though they're going to have to change the sheets if they're going to sleep in it. Take turns in the shower. Christ.

“Sure, whatever.”

Taehyun springs up – maybe they're not all exhausted. Or maybe Taehyun just wants to do this badly enough. Kai watches him with fond eyes, but all Yeonjun can think about is what they'll look like tomorrow, waking up next to him in the morning.

“I can suck your dick without a condom, right? Don't ruin this for me.”

 

---

 

Yeonjun didn't pass out, but he almost wishes he did. He wishes he wasn't there for the aftermath, the kisses (he wasn't right about Taehyun's attempt to feed him his own cum, but he didn't expect him to try and feed his cum to Kai until he saw the mess of spit and his own release pass between their lips – to Kai's credit, it seemed more like Kai indulging Taehyun's kinks than anything else), all the touching, the content hums. He wishes he was not brushing his teeth at the sink while Kai was in the shower helping Taehyun clean himself up, that he didn't hear the noises Taehyun makes when Kai trails kisses down his throat, getting distracted from the point of cleaning up and going to bed by his boyfriend's body. He showers alone while they get their own toothbrushes from their bags and take care of that together. They tried to offer that they could all clean up together, but Yeonjun's shower isn't big enough for three, and he was by far the cleanest out of all of them. He still feels better, once he's clean, Taehyun obviously waiting around in the bathroom for the two of them while they finish cleaning up. He ogles Yeonjun while he dries off and puts his pajama pants on, and he looks soft and tired in the training clothes he's decided to use as sleep clothes, a pair of gym shorts and a loose T-shirt. It's the way he's used to seeing Taehyun, in workout clothes or in hockey gear, but it's different, with the way he's standing, the look on his face. The Taehyun he knows is focused and sharp and always ready to go, but this Taehyun isn't going anywhere. He's smiling and sleepy and boyish – he's more like the younger Taehyun Yeonjun remembers – the one who would hang out with their teammates until late at night, sprawled out on the couch in some hotel suite, drinking beer and shooting the shit.

He's always had something in him that Yeonjun thinks he's always lacked, and it's somewhere in the look he's giving Yeonjun right now – in the look he shoots sideways at Kai, his eyes scrunching a little more as Kai attempts to make sense of the bird's nest that is his hair at the moment. He reaches out and grabs Kai's wrist, pausing the frantic motions of his wrist as he tries to put it in order.

“Don't worry about it – we're going to sleep.”

Yeonjun sees through the mirror as Kai looks at his reflection, but he pretends to miss it, putting a shirt on to give them some privacy. Kai asked for permission to go without, and Yeonjun would have slept naked if they weren't here, but he can't stand the idea of being even half-naked in the bed with them while they try to sleep.

Taehyun snorts loudly. “We've seen worse things.”

Yeonjun huffs as he pulls his shirt the rest of the way down his stomach. “Have you ever seen Soobin's bedhead? He always looks like he just got electrocuted.”

Kai looks at him through the mirror again, and Taehyun squints at him, unimpressed.

“You're not doing a great job convincing us that you're not sleeping with Soobin, you know,” Kai points out, sounding a bit exasperated.

“Me and Soobin?” Yeonjun raises his eyebrows, fake-shocked. “He's straight.”

Taehyun rolls his eyes. “Yeah, so is everyone on the team.”

Kai snorts, and Yeonjun shrugs. “Right.”

There's a beat of silence, and Yeonjun sighs. “He's taken – exclusively. At least I never got the invite.”

Taehyun and Kai exchange looks that Yeonjun can't read. He decides to ignore it and go lay down instead.

“Turn the fan on when you're done ok?”

 

---

 

Too human. Too real. Too pleasant.

Yeonjun wondered what they'd look like in the morning, and he got his answer, roused from sleep by his own internal clock at four a.m. again. Kai wasn't joking about liking to stay close in his sleep – they're sleeping face to face, with barely any space between them, legs tangled up and Kai's arm thrown over Taehyun's side. They look peaceful, comfortable. Cozy. They're warm, too, Yeonjun knows that, because he woke up curled up to Taehyun, seeking the warmth in his sleep since some unfortunate shift during the night pulled the blanket partially off him, exposing his back to the chilly room.

He's sitting up against the headboard, watching them breathe when he should be out of bed already, washing his face, making himself a shake while downing some water before he goes on a run, so he can come back, get his breakfast in and his training bag in order to get back to the arena. He has plans in the afternoon for some individual training with a member of their coaching team, and he wanted to get some ice time in before that. A proper workout at the gym. His body hurts, but he knows he just needs to move it to get his blood pumping, push through it until it passes. Instead he's wasting time in bed, staring as Taehyun shifts almost imperceptibly closer to Kai, his jaw working a little in his sleep. Yeonjun's room still smells a bit of vanilla.

They haven't really talked about what Kai and Taehyun's morning routine is like. Maybe they'd be waking up at this hour too, if they thought to set an alarm – or maybe they like to sleep in after a winning game, especially if their celebration includes having sex when they're already both tired. They've won a game and then scored with each other – that should earn them a lazy morning, if they're the type.

But Yeonjun isn't, is he? Yeonjun has things to do; places to be. That's why he doesn't have a partner, or friends, or a life in general. He eats and breathes and sweats hockey. The other stuff can wait for the end of his career. Fifteen more years, more if he's lucky – then he can sleep in, look for someone who would look at him the way Kai and Taehyun look at each other. Just… another decade and a half.

He finally gets up, slipping into the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face to wake himself up. The two of them are still curled together, fast asleep when he walks back out, and he can't bring himself to disturb them. They're adults – they'll know what to do if they happen to wake up while he's out on his run, won't they? He can just go through his routine like always. They'll adjust.

 

---

 

They're in the kitchen when he comes back from his run. Taehyun is drinking out of the water bottle they left in the bedroom with its cap off like it's a giant plastic cup, and Kai is bent over the counter, his pants riding down, still shirtless, looking at something on his phone.

“You owe me twenty,” Taehyun says in a careful voice, a bit too quiet for the casual words. Kai looks up from his phone, looking surprised.

Yeonjun's red in the face, sweating, and usually he'd be beelining for the shower, but Taehyun's eyes have his feet pinned to the floor.

“Ah, you went running?”

He nods dumbly at Kai's question, and Kai nods, sniffing slightly.

“We weren't sure. I thought maybe you went to the gym or the arena. Taehyun thought you'd come back soon, though.”

“We bet on it,” Taehyun says casually and takes another drink from the water bottle before handing it to Kai, who obviously finishes it for him, putting it down in the sink.

“You were waiting for me, then?”

Taehyun shrugs, a little jerkily. Kai finally stands up straight, slipping his phone into his pocket. “We didn't want to just disappear on you if you were coming back.”

“Plus,” Taehyun adds, almost too quickly. “You drove us here, and our car is back at the arena. It would just make the most sense for us to go back there together.”

Yeonjun takes a deep breath. “Right.”

It feels like they're back where they started – a little awkward, trying to somehow maneuver around each other, teammates who don't know each other too well trying to be friendly.

A silence stretches, and he swallows hard. “I'll drive you. Just give me a second to wash up and change.”

“Sure,” Kai says brightly, barrelling past the awkwardness like usual.

“Thanks,” Taehyun says faintly.

Yeonjun retreats to his room, to escape the tightness pressing down on his stomach.

 

---

 

He feels a bit better once he's cleaned up, and he offers to make protein shakes for the two of them too before they drive over to the arena. They accept, and Kai stays in the kitchen with him, chatting about his morning workout routine while Taehyun wanders into the living room. Yeonjun was right, technically – they do sleep in later than him, but only about an hour on most days, usually more, but the unfamiliar environment made Taehyun's brain think they're in a hotel room and kicked him into an away-game sleep schedule, and he woke Kai up just so he wouldn't be alone in an unfamiliar apartment.

It's kind of endearing, as is Kai's enthusiasm about Yeonjun's protein shake mixing skills. Yeonjun hesitates for a second when Kai first responds to a sip of his shake with an overly enthused happy hum, his eyebrows jumping up his forehead, thinking Kai is trying to make him laugh or be overly appreciative to be polite, but then he proceeds to genuinely compliment it, mentioning subtle things about the taste, admitting that he's not the best at making them himself.

“It's more Taehyun's forte. I'm better with the PS5, Taehyun's better with the blender.”

It makes Yeonjun laugh, and Kai's eyes narrow prettily when he smiles at him back. Yeonjun thinks about kissing him for a brief, terrifying moment, but then it passes.

When they make their way back to the living room, Taehyun has managed to dig out Yeonjun's dumbbells, and he's sitting on the bench again, doing biceps curls, so focused on his own arm that he barely notices them until Kai wanders over to drape himself over the couch and lean into his field of view.

Taehyun pulls his forearm up, holding the weight to his shoulder, and blinks over at them. Kai grins at him, wide and easy, and Yeonjun waves the two shakers he's holding in the air. For a second, it's like he barely sees them, his eyes misty, face blank, showing no reaction at all.

“Ready to go?” Kai's voice is gentle, and so is the shake of the head with which Taehyun gets himself out of wherever his head was at. He puts the weight down on the floor and shakes his arm out.

“Yeah, uh. I'll just grab my bag.”

 

---

 

They drive to the arena and realize that there's really no point in them splitting up if they're all headed to the gym anyways, so they go together. A couple of their teammates are there too, but nobody questions them arriving at the same time. They go through their routines, keeping their eyes and hands to themselves, only glancing at each other when they get pulled into a conversation about yesterday's game. Kai complains loudly about being tired, and Taehyun snorts at him from where he's a bit too obviously taking it easy on his legs today. Or maybe it's just obvious to Yeonjun, who knows exactly what kind of workout his thighs got yesterday.

He shuts his eyes against the vivid image of Taehyun riding Kai until his legs give out and does a few more reps on the row machine than he usually would, just to help clear his head. It feels a little like the memories of last night are something he needs to sweat out, work out of his system, like a too-indulgent meal he needs to repent for by going as hard as he can. Sweat rolls down his back, and the thicker the rush of blood in his ears gets, the more he feels like he can just breathe.

It doesn't matter – what happened last night doesn't matter, with all the things they've got going on, in the middle of the seasons, with play-offs coming up soon, with more away games on their roster, plane rides, games, training, interviews, celebrations, title-chasing, reputations to keep up, it's just a blip on the radar. Best case scenario, he's made some friends; queer friends, who he can talk to if he ever decides that his love life is important to him, actually, or if he meets someone who makes him change his mind. Queer friends who aren't afraid to talk about it. Unlike Beomgyu, unlike Soobin. Maybe they should just learn to accept it. Hang out together, the five of them, until he, Beomgyu and Soobin learn how to accept both sides of their lives from Taehyun and Kai.

Or maybe Beomgyu and Soobin are just as open and unafraid in their personal lives as Taehyun and Kai are in theirs. Yeonjun wouldn't know, would he? He's met their parents briefly, when they came to watch them play and then met up with their sons afterwards, but it's not like he came up to either of their moms and asked them if they know they're fucking around with their own teammates. Maybe he's the only one who carries his sexuality with a heavy heart. Who feels genuinely guilty about feeling this way about his teammates.

Maybe he just needs to grow up.

He chats with the others about the day ahead, and the couple guys who aren't busy with other stuff agree to go get a warm-up skate in with him before his individual training session. Taehyun and Kai just kind of tag along, there in the lockers while everyone gets their skates on, then out on the ice while they do speed drills together. Taehyun beats Yeonjun at sprints, and Yeonjun can't believe his own fucking eyes as Taehyun smirks at him, skating up to him for a high-five. Wasn't he supposed to be exhausted?

Yeonjun claps their hands together, gripping Taehyun's firmly and slapping him on the shoulder, and Taehyun's smile grows.

“You're crazy,” Yeonjun informs him, disbelieving, and Taehyun laughs a youthful, boyish laugh.

They disperse slowly but surely, everyone having their own stuff to get to, but Kai and Taehyun linger, still there while Yeonjun is just juggling a puck on his stick, playing around now that most of the others have left. He still has some time until his individual, maybe an hour or so. He should eat. Taehyun and Kai are leaning against the boards, bent over them, chatting about something. They're not touching, but it seems intimate to Yeonjun now that he knows what they look like alone together.

“Yeonjun!”

He drops the puck when Kai calls out to him, fumbling it; he bends over to pick it up before he starts skating towards them, cocking his chin in acknowledgement. “Yeah?”

“Any lunch plans?”

Yeonjun sniffs, glancing between the two of them, coming to a gentle stop at the boards next to them. “I'll probably just grab something from the buffet, why?”

Taehyun shrugs, sizing him up. “Just getting hungry. Mind if we tag along? I don't feel like going back home to cook today.”

They're still sticking close to him; if they wanted to make it clear that they were just his teammates, and nothing else, that that whole song-and-dance with them clinging to him for days on end was just about his injury and then just about wanting to fuck him, then they wouldn't be doing this, would they? They wouldn't follow him around like this.

“Sure, I won't mind the company.”

Both of them smile at him, and their expressions are so warm; they're both so handsome. It's easy to get his hopes up, with their eyes on him like this.

 

---

 

The two of them don't leave after lunch like they should; they follow him to the locker room, where he's supposed to get his training gear on, throw on pads and put his skates back on – he's meant to be gearing up for his individual, but they're right there on his heels, and Kai closes the door behind them, enclosing the three of them in an empty locker room. Yeonjun feels his abs tighten in anticipation, but he goes over to his bag to take his training gear out, instead of paying them attention.

“I've got like fifteen minutes until the coach gets here,” he points out as he lays the pieces out on the bench, not looking at them.

“Okay? And?” Kai's tone is teasing. Yeonjun snorts.

“Are you just here to watch me put my pads on?”

“Unless you want help with that.”

Taehyun's quiet words finally make him turn around towards where they're lingering by the door. Kai's hands are behind his back, Taehyun's crossed over his chest, and they're watching him expectantly. He sizes them up and swallows. There's a little tingle in his spine – the emptiness of the locker room is unsettling, putting him on edge, making it feel illicit. Illegal.

“I know how to put my pads on,” he says lightly, but it doesn't feel light in his chest.

“I don't doubt it,” Taehyun replies, and it sounds like a challenge.

Yeonjun chews on his lip, then reaches for his garter belt. They watch him with rapt attention as he fastens it around his hips, waiting him out, not pushing, not backing down. He sighs, then sits down on the bench, facing them. “Is this going to be a thing?”

Taehyun's eyebrows twitch up. “We're not dressing you up before games, if that's what you're asking.”

Yeonjun snorts. “No shit. Soobin would have a heart attack if he saw one of you helping me put my jock on. You know what the fuck I mean.”

They exchange a long look, and then Taehyun pins Yeonjun down with those big serious eyes of his. “Enlighten us.”

He clicks his tongue. “Are we fucking now? Is that what this is? I thought you two just wanted to have a threesome.”

“We told you we wanted you,” Kai points out, gentle but argumentative anyway.

“Yeah – you told me you wanted to fuck the top player in the league with your boyfriend. Pretty sure you've done that yesterday. So what's this?”

“Do you not want to be fucking us?” Taehyun asks, so blunt and flat that it goes straight past any layer of embarrassment still brewing in Yeonjun. “We had a good time last night – we'd be down to do it again.”

“There's a lot of things we didn't get to do,” Kai adds, a bit wistful.

“We could help you figure out that whole top and bottom thing,” Taehyun tacks on, with just the slightest edge of amusement.

Yeonjun scrunches his nose. “You want me to be your fuckbuddy?”

Taehyun shrugs. “You said you're too busy to fuck around. It would be convenient; we'd be down.”

He's so casual about it. Wasn't he the one all torn up about it? Insecure? So nervous about letting Kai fuck around with him, and now he's offering Yeonjun even more of his boyfriend. On a regular basis. On a silver platter. What the fuck is wrong with them?

He leans on his spread knees, looking up at them a bit skeptically. “Is fucking each other not enough anymore? Why the fuck do you want me to join in?”

“We're not putting our sex life on pause for you or anything,” Taehyun retorts, a bit sharper now, a bit less patient. There it is; the bit of tension he usually carried about this whole thing. “We'll still be us, we're just giving you the option of joining in on the action every now and then, if you're in the mood. You're hot, and we like having sex with you – it's not rocket science, Yeonjun.”

Yeonjun's jaw tightens at Taehyun's dismissive tone, but maybe he's not wrong. Maybe it can be that simple. He thought it could be, didn't he, when he intentionally went out of his way to invite Kai over. Fucking his teammates, casually. Conveniently. They're hot, he's hot, he needs to get off and they're always around. It makes sense, but it just won't fit neatly into the empty space in his chest. But he's an adult. He can handle this. Whatever. Fuck it.

He swallows past the dryness in his mouth. “Wanna give me a hand then?”

 

---

 

It's strange; he hasn't put much thought into the way he puts his gear on in years now – he's been doing this for ages, spent more days of his life in it than out of it probably. It's as easy as breathing. Jock, garter, knee pads, socks, pants, skates, shoulder pads, elbow pads, jersey, helmet, gloves. It's meditative in the repetitiveness, in the sound of velcro straps opening and closing, the laces on his skates digging into his palms as he tugs at them to tighten them up. Putting gear on is a ritual of its own; mindless but soothing.

Everything is different when it's not his own hands pulling his knee pads up his leg, when two sets of hands are holding the pads in place while they pull the straps tight and pat them closed, the rip of the velcro mixing with two different steady breaths. They're so different in this too – for once, Taehyun is taking his time, just like Kai usually does with himself, tugging at the pads gradually instead of just shoving them quickly up Yeonjun's leg, like Yeonjun knows Taehyun does when gearing himself up. He still tightens Yeonjun's straps too tightly, much tighter than Kai does on the other side, and Yeonjun has to reach down and push his hands away to adjust them, Taehyun watching him silently the whole time with an unreadable look on his face. Yeonjun swallows, looking at his eyes from up close, taking him in, on his knees in front of him – it's a view of him Yeonjun has never had before, and it feels a bit wrong. Taehyun's proud straight back and bare knees on the carpet. What are they even doing?

He kisses Taehyun, because it feels right, and Kai squeezes his thigh, smiling at him when Yeonjun looks over to check for his reaction. Taehyun apologizes quietly, and Yeonjun shrugs at him.

It's odd, but it's so warm. They pull his plain dark blue training socks up over the pads, and then he has the two of them leaning over his lap while he sits back, watching the backs of their heads while he feels their fingers on his thighs, clipping the socks to the garter.

Kai taps the back of his shin when they're done with the softest, “Up,” Yeonjun has ever heard in his life, and he almost stands up in a daze as they move back and stand up as well, and Taehyun hands him his pants, so he can step into them and pull them up his legs, feeling under almost the same amount of scrutiny as he did taking his pants off for them, not even twenty four hours ago. He pulls the pants up to his waist, and then Kai is there, right in his face, taking the laces at the front into his hands, and Yeonjun is a bit too aware of how close Kai's hands are to his dick, his stomach pulling tight as Kai tightens the laces without looking down, maintaining eye contact, then reaching for the belt, pulling it too tight at first, obviously deliberately, waiting for Yeonjun's shocked little gasp as it squeezes down on his waist before loosening it back up with a satisfied little smirk. Yeonjun reaches out, his fist closing in the fabric of Kai's shirt, and Kai listens without him having to say it, leaning in to press soft kisses to his lips while he clips the buckle of his pants closed.

Yeonjun breathes out with the sound of it closing, right against Kai's lips. He doesn't want to let him go, not really, feeling too warm; feeling clingy. He needs more of this, and less of Taehyun guiding him to sit back down by the shoulder, pressing an apologetic kiss to his cheek. He has an individual in what… ten minutes? He should focus, but instead he feels like he's floating as each of them takes one of his skates, sliding them on his feet, fastening them for him. They look to him for guidance, and he struggles to walk them through it. He needs them done up well – they're messing around, but he'll have to practice in them. They can't fuck up this part.

Taehyun is the one who helps him into his shoulder pads, Kai momentarily standing off to the side while Taehyun leans over him, unnecessarily close while he does the straps on his arms up, smiling slightly when their eyes catch, a slight pink tint to his face, his breath warm on Yeonjun's skin. Way too close. He's not complaining. Taehyun finishes with the other set of straps too, then starts tugging at the pads, testing if they're tight enough, readjusting them even though he got them perfect the first time. Then he lays his fingers in the inch of space between the bottom of his shoulder pads and the waist of his pants and looks at Yeonjun expectantly, and Yeonjun initiates the kiss he's so obviously waiting for. Taehyun's fingers leave his waist almost immediately and rush up to hold his jaw, to prolong the kiss, keep Yeonjun close while he goes in for the next one himself, letting it linger.

How is his head supposed to not spin when they each drop a kiss on his neck while they fasten his elbow pads, when they both kiss him again before Kai hands him his training jersey to pull over his head, and everything on him is still tingling when he has to tell them goodbye, after the coach peeks into the locker room to let him know he's arrived, thankfully while both of them were just sitting on either side of him, nothing inappropriate about them, except for the fact that every place where Yeonjun felt his gear press against his body felt like they were touching him. It persists, even after they're gone, even when he's supposed to be focused on the game, it's like he has them pressed into him everywhere, closing in on him, gripping at his chest, at his waist, warming his legs. They're all over his lips, and all over his sheets when he makes it back home, Yeonjun drinks in Taehyun's smile through his water bottle and feels Kai's eyes on him while he putters around his kitchen, like he's waiting for the food to be done to have a bite.

They don't text, and he doesn't text them, either. They'll see each other at the mandatory; there's no need to check. His palms sweat anyways when his eyes catch on the single dumbbell resting by the bench in his living room. When he's in the shower and smells vanilla in the air. He's nervous; he's dizzy. He's warm when he's alone in his bed, trying to sleep with only the sound of his own breath echoing in the room.

 

---

 

It's an overwhelming week. The coaching team packs their schedules full, scared by how their performance has been dropping lately, right before they need to put their noses to the grindstone in play-offs. Sure, they can relax with the knowledge that they'll qualify, but they need to keep in shape. So they do their best to whip them into that, before they leave for an away game on Saturday, and by the time they're piling onto the team bus, this away game close enough for them to make the travel this way, he's ready to sleep the entire journey away, the bill of his cap pushed firmly down over his face, sunglasses in place, his most comfortable padded jacket cushioning him instead of a blanket as he slides into a random window seat.

He's physically exhausted from attending daily practice, going extra hard on himself in the gym, getting personal one-on-ones from the coaching team after almost every practice as they all seemed to have notes on how he handles himself on the ice. Once again, the questions about his shoulder kept raining, even though he had physical proof in the form of faded bruises and all-clear X-rays that there was nothing wrong with it. Their team was freaking out, and they were freaking Yeonjun out, and it didn't help him rest any more than all the training did.

Plus there were all the things, now that he okayed that whole friends with benefits idea that Kai and Taehyun threw his way; little things that were only more overwhelming in their subtlety. If their care felt like a lot, but something he could find himself relaxing into while he was injured, now he's struggling to breathe through every swell of it now that it's not just concern but some kind of genuine affection for him, attraction or whatever they'd call whatever they feel when they look at Yeonjun with those smiles he thinks he never noticed were so pretty before, so sunny, so full of life.

It feels different when they touch him now, pat his back or his shoulders, knock their helmets together when he scores in a practice game. Pats on the ass are no longer an innocent fun teammate thing, but a reminder of what it felt like to have their hands on him, Kai teasing him by pushing him into the boards, bullying him a little like some of the guys like to do. It feels a bit weighted; Kai's grin a bit more than just teasing. Taehyun tosses him a roll of clear tape to fix his knee pads in place from across the locker room one day, and Yeonjun's fingers actually shake as he rolls the tape over his socks, unable to stop imagining Taehyun on his knees in front of him, doing it himself. They eat lunch together, surrounded by teammates, rarely even having the time to be alone, but meeting their eyes still feels different.

He feels insane with it, because nothing is really going on, but it feels like everything is at the same time.

It doesn't help that they've found opportunities to kiss him anyway, somehow, in the hallway outside the locker room while no one was around, in the changing room, at the parking garage, behind the cover of a doorway when the coaches took them outside to exercise in the cold air. Sometimes both of them sneak a kiss in, sometimes only one of them, but they're always both around. Always at his side.

Beomgyu makes no secret of the fact that he's noticed it, keeps staring at Yeonjun skeptically, expectantly, but he doesn't confront Yeonjun, and Yeonjun doesn't owe him jack shit. So he keeps his mouth shut, meets Beomgyu's searching eyes defiantly and does his goddamn job the best he can, even though, on most days, his skull feels like it's filled with scrambled eggs where his brain should be.

And on Saturday, he curls up in his seat, determined to sleep, even when he hears Kai's voice mixing with the voices of their teammates as they board the bus, and it sounds out over Yeonjun's head and then in front of him as Taehyun and Kai take up the two seats right in front of him. He doesn't have to acknowledge them, not when it's ass o'clock in the morning and he's had a rough week. For a moment he thinks that they'll leave him to it, their voices blending into a blur with the other players' in his ears as he lets himself drift, but then he feels a tap on the bill of his cap, and he has to reluctantly lift his head, just to check who dared disturb his sleep. He's met with Taehyun's face, tired and a bit crumpled, with just a hint of humor to it as he hands Yeonjun a single airpod through the gap between his and Kai's seats. Yeonjun blinks at it in confusion.

This is Taehyun and Kai's thing – he's noticed it, more than once, them sharing earbuds on long bus rides with their heads tilted together.

He has to swallow multiple times before he can speak up. “What's Kai gonna listen to?”

Kai twists in his seat, waving his switch in the air, too full of energy for the early hour for Yeonjun's taste. “Pokemon Sword, probably.”

Yeonjun snorts, and Taehyun smiles, and Yeonjun gives in, reaching out to take the earbud from Taehyun's fingers. “I'm probably gonna fall asleep anyway, though,” he warns, noting with embarrassment how soft his own voice went as he said it.

“I'll try not to play any death metal, then,” Taehyun replies lightheartedly, and sits back in his seat properly again.

As Yeonjun slips the earbud into his ear and settles back down for his nap, he hears the first beats of a song coming on, playing low, probably deliberately to let him sleep. It's a pleasant song, some R'n'B track Yeonjun could see himself playing in his own free time.

He fists his hands in the sleeves of his jacket and tries not to imagine what it would feel like to fall asleep to it with Taehyun pressed into his chest, or breathing in his face, close enough to just lean forward and kiss.

 

---

 

HLSSK    23     14   3   2   4       67 : 42

 

For the next few games, they feel unstoppable. Yeonjun isn't sure how, or why, if their coaching team's sudden freak-out was actually beneficial for the team, or if everyone was somehow able to get their head in the game again, but they shoot back up in productivity rankings. Yeonjun's back on the horse; sweeping up points for himself, scoring, assisting, doing what is his job to do on his team. He's there to score points, and now he's making himself useful again as he should be, getting clips of him played on the news that his mom records on her phone in terrible quality to send to him later. They win all of their games, both home and away, and Yeonjun gives breezy, happy interviews about how he's caught his breath again after his injury earlier in the season.

And in his free time, he… lives.

He hangs out with his teammates, goes out drinking with them, then goes out on the town with Kai and Taehyun on their days off or just for food on days when they have practice. Sure, he still keeps to his workout routine, tries to be diligent about his food intake, but he lets himself breathe in between all the work. It feels easy when, instead of the lingering feeling of guilt whenever he gives himself a break, whenever he cracks open a beer or spends a day off sightseeing in an unfamiliar city, there are almost always two extra bodies, next to him or closing him in in between them, talking to him, smiling at him, whether it's from up close or from across a room, familiar and comfortable and—

Yeonjun got too used to them too fast; they slot into his daily routine during away games, slot into the monotony of practice, into his inner rolodex of worries – what about the next match? What about his health? What about practice? Is his mom doing well? Are his aunts doing well? Is Taehyun's knee okay after it got directly hit with a puck in that last game? Is Kai's jaw okay after he caught a mean right hook just for trying to pay the other team back for pushing Beomgyu around?

Maybe at any other point in his life, it would just feel like extra stress on his shoulders, something he'd have a hard time handling, but he's not the same Yeonjun who was sulking in his room back when this whole thing started. He feels lighter now – breathing comes to him a bit easier these days.

He's also getting laid on the regular now, which probably doesn't hurt.

He doesn't celebrate every win with them – one of them is the day Taehyun got a puck in the knee, and he's not really in the mood to do much but sleep it off. Another day, Yeonjun, Soobin and Beomgyu manage to rack up 12 points between them in a single match and end up celebrating the game together. Most of the time though, he finds a way to be there – after home games, usually, when it's the easiest thing in the world to just drive them to his place from the arena and spend the night with them.

They always stay over afterwards, and a part of Yeonjun hesitates when he sees them pull out actual sleep clothes out of their bag at one point. They join him on his morning runs; Taehyun and him exchange protein shake recipes, and they actually test out his bench and Yeonjun has to pretend like he's unaffected by the two of them doing bench presses in front of him, spotting each other smoothly, practiced. Taehyun nags him about doing bench presses alone without a spotter, and it sounds like he's just making up excuses to come over more. Kai blows him, on his knees in a hotel room while Taehyun rubs his hands all over Yeonjun's torso, and Yeonjun gets to find out that he really is the only one opposed to having cum in his mouth, although Kai seems notably less excited about it than Taehyun does and ends up spitting most of it out after letting Taehyun have his treat by tasting it straight off of his tongue.

He gets to top for the first time after a 3:0 home game success, sinking into Taehyun from behind in a hotel bed, with one of Taehyun's slow playlists on just in case their teammates get back from their celebrations early and they need to hide the noise. Kai is right next to them for it, just watching as Yeonjun struggles not to make his first time a terrible, disappointing one, then kind of fails anyway, when something about the enthusiasm with which Taehyun moves against him, basically doing his work for him – always the dynamic one; on top of someone or on his knees – something about the sound he makes when they get the angle just right, and their fingers intertwine on Taehyun's stomach; it's just too much, it's just too good, and he holds Taehyun against him as he spills into the condom a little too fast again, too early for Taehyun to have gotten much from the experience, but he lets Yeonjun pull him as close as possible, craving the closeness, needy for the skin-to-skin contact as he comes down from his high, and he jokes around about it a little bit, ribbing Yeonjun mostly about how long he took to find out much he'd like it, obviously careful with his feelings in a way which makes Yeonjun bright red in the face.

It feels worth it though, worth the vulnerability, worth the embarrassment, when he gets to hold Taehyun on top of him while Kai fucks him harder and faster than Yeonjun has ever seen him go, more used to his careful strokes or just holding still while Taehyun sets his own pace, and Yeonjun buries his face in Taehyun's neck and lets the sound, the smell, the feeling of the two of them wash over him.

He falls asleep in their room that day, face-to-face with Taehyun who has Kai plastered to his back. They didn't mean to sleep, but they held a quiet conversation so long they all drifted off. Yeonjun tells them about a tryst with a boy in Sweden that rocked his world; Kai tells them about the spring when he realized for the first time he was in love – and Taehyun tells them about how he spent his and Yeonjun's last junior championship together, the only time Yeonjun has ever worn a captain's C on his uniform, jerking himself off in the shower to the thought of Yeonjun railing him in his jersey while he told his captain about how good of a job he did on the ice. They make fun of him for using a serious situation to share his old sexual fantasies, and Taehyun reminds them flatly that he doesn't really have sweet stories to tell that don't involve Kai. To his own surprise, Yeonjun moves closer to hug and reassure him at the same time as Kai does, and it almost doesn't feel wrong, not when Taehyun brushes them off all the same.

It's just the truth, is what he tells them, dismissive. Not much else to it.

They talk about the possibility of Yeonjun bottoming, too, but he remains a bit skittish about it. He doesn't think he doesn't want to, per se – maybe he just likes to take it slow. Maybe that's something he's learning about himself. Kai and Taehyun don't seem to mind; they're patient with him – accommodating. It makes him feel less like the world is slowly spinning off its axis, with him falling further and further into something that he can barely understand, even though on some level he's aware that that's exactly what is happening. He's losing control of this, fast, but it feels too good for him to care.

 

---

 

After spending over a month waiting for the ticking bomb that is Beomgyu's patience with him to finally blow, Yeonjun is struck dumb when he opens the door of his apartment on his day off, just to find Soobin there, in his street clothes, odd in Yeonjun's eyes without a training bag tossed over his shoulder, the blade of a stick peeking out behind his shoulder. He doesn't come empty-handed, but he's not holding a tablet to go over plays with him or a hockey stick, he hands Yeonjun a bottle of whiskey and gives him an awkward, sympathetic smile.

Soobin sheds one of his three nice jackets – it's the jean one Yeonjun got him this time, Beomgyu's favorite – and they sit in Yeonjun's living room, on the far sides of the couch from each other, sipping the whiskey while Soobin works himself up to having a serious, genuine talk with him.

Yeonjun is braced, so he doesn't even flinch when Soobin takes a deep breath, then says, “So, what's going on with you and Huekangs?”

He clicks his tongue, and takes a sip of the alcohol – at least it's tasty; Soobin obviously cares about him. “Did Beomgyu send you here on a fishing expedition for some gossip?”

Soobin looks a little guilty, but he doesn't waver. “You're three extremely important parts of a team I'm supposed to be captaining. Player morale is my responsibility, too – felt pretty important to be aware of what's happening.”

Yeonjun pulls a face. “Player morale is higher than ever.”

“Yeah – and why's that?”

“Soobin—” he stops himself, knowing he was about to snap even though Soobin hasn't really done anything to deserve that. “Look. I get what you're doing and why, I get that making sure that everyone on the team is alright is your job too, but this isn't really any of your business. It's between me and the guys.” He hesitates, taking a quick sip before adding, “I don't get on your case about you and Beomgyu, either.”

“So it is like me and Beomgyu,” Soobin concludes, serious, and Yeonjun huffs.

“Depends, Soobin – what the fuck are you and Beomgyu? It's not like you're updating the entire team on your relationship status, either.”

Soobin purses his mouth, then huffs through his nose too and shrugs, looking away as he takes a drink. “We're dating. We told his parents last summer.”

So they are out to their families, then – Jesus. Yeonjun needs to get with the program. “Well – good for you two. Congrats, I guess.”

He raises his glass in a little toast, and Soobin returns it with a snort.

“Are you dating either of them?” Soobin asks when they're done finishing their glasses, and Yeonjun stares at the bottom of his own like it has all the secrets of the world etched into it.

“It's really not that serious, Soobin.”

He reaches over for the bottle, pouring himself a few fingers more, then waves it at Soobin, who shakes his head.

“Not that serious?”

Yeonjun presses the rim of his glass tightly to his lip, then lowers it without taking a drink. “We're friends – we got closer when that whole… shoulder debacle happened.”

Soobin watches him attentively, nodding when Yeonjun goes a bit too long without elaborating. “And?”

“Sometimes they come over and we do some naked team bonding,” Yeonjun sniffs, then downs the whole glass he poured himself in one go. “Happy?”

He watches as Soobin's face slowly scrunches, his handsome features contorting into something pained. “So you're hooking up with the team's best defensemen?”

Yeonjun's eyebrows hike up his forehead. “Would you be less concerned if I was hooking up with someone with a lower point average?”

“Probably,” Soobin admits a bit too easily, pouting. “If you guys break this off badly, we could be screwed in the play-offs.”

Yeonjun rolls his eyes, but he has to admit Soobin isn't wrong – they don't need tension on the team in the middle of the season. If he has a reason to end it with Taehyun and Kai, he needs to leave it until after they win the title. They'll have a nice celebration fuck, and then he'll tell them he's out. It'll be nice and clean.

“There's barely anything to break off, but sure. We'll keep it together for the team, don't worry.”

“I guess if there's anyone I can trust to do that, it would be you guys,” Soobin says pensively, twisting the glass in his hand.

“I know how to pick my hookups,” Yeonjun says carefully and puts his own glass down.

Soobin smiles, just a little upwards pull of the corners of his mouth, dimples digging into his cheeks. “You do – I had no idea there even were any. Smoothest operator on the team.”

Yeonjun squints at him. “Didn't you literally come here because me and the guys were too obvious about sleeping together?”

“Hey, I didn't know if you were actually already doing it or just winding up for it until you told me. And it's different when you're keeping it inside the team. It gets more obvious.”

He watches Soobin curiously as he picks at a dog hair on his sweatshirt, looking a little guilty. He knows he and Beomgyu are obvious, coasting on their teammates' goodwill. That much is clear. “Does that mean that you knew about Taehyun and Kai already, too?”

Soobin snorts and looks up at Yeonjun. “I don't know, dude – they live together, have only one car between them, they always room together at away games and Taehyun talks about spending Christmas with Kai's family like every year. I took a wild guess.”

Huh. It's strange; Yeonjun has always thought that Soobin and Beomgyu were the more obvious ones with the looks and the touches and the way they treat each other in general, but as far as Yeonjun knows, they still live in separate apartments; Soobin sleeps in his privileged captain's singles at hotels, and never pulls at strings to get Beomgyu in his suite, even. They leave the arena separately most days, unless they have explicit plans together, and Yeonjun's only seen them interact with each other's parents the same way he's seen his other teammates interact with his mom. Polite, friendly. Normal.

They're probably doing a much better job hiding their relationship than Taehyun and Kai are. Was he just never paying them enough attention?

Yeonjun sighs and rubs his hands against his own thighs. “Does this talk mean that Beomgyu is gonna leave me the fuck alone now? He's been pissy with me for like a month now.”

Soobin smiles, fond the instant his boyfriend gets brought up. Gross. “You could just talk to him about it, you know. He considers himself your friend.”

He's almost taken aback by that – does he? Are they more than just teammates in Beomgyu's eyes? More than three prongs of a formidable trio on the ice? “I don't kiss and tell – you're lucky I've got too much respect for you as captain to just tell you to fuck off.”

Soobin rolls his eyes, but he relaxes into the couch a little. “You mind if I tell him that there's something going on between the three of you, anyway? He's going crazy wondering if he's just making it up.”

Yeonjun sometimes wonders if he's just making it up, too.

“Sure, Soobin. Spread the gossip around.”

 

---

 

It works, because Beomgyu stops treating him like Yeonjun has been wounding him emotionally non-stop for weeks after his and Soobin's little talk, and now just ribs him whenever he sees him looking Kai or Taehyun's way instead. In some ways, that's worse than just being prickly with him, but it also lets him see Beomgyu smile more often again, even if he's laughing at Yeonjun now, most of the time.

Something in him loosens further now that part of the burden of the secret is off his shoulders, and he feels himself relaxing into this new reality of his, leaning into the curve, letting the inertia carry him. He just hopes he catches himself, or that he thinks to brace before he crashes, and reality doesn't rush in to meet him face-first.

The next wake-up call is his mother. She promised to come see him play soon, but he has no idea when she's planning to do so until she's texting him while he's at warm-up, wishing him good luck for the game before letting him know that she'll be watching. His heart jumps into his throat at the message, the excitement of knowing she'll be there almost overwhelming. A home game, with his mom somewhere in the seats, his favorite people on the ice, playing the game he loves, that he feels like he was born to play.

He doesn't feel guilty at all, pulling Kai to the side, letting him know he's canceling any celebration plans so he can hang out with his mother while she's in town, and if anything, Kai looks excited for him too. It's an extra bit of warmth in his chest, and he feels like he's buzzing with energy during the whole lead-up to the game; while he's gearing up, while they're listening to the head coach talk, while they're stepping out onto the ice.

He can't tell exactly where his mom is, but he can feel her presence when he scans the audience with his eyes.

During first period, while they're on the bench next to each other, Taehyun pops his mouth guard out and leans towards him to say, “She's in 104,” before leaning back out of his space, jamming the plastic back between his teeth. Yeonjun stares at him, flabbergasted, not sure how Taehyun even knows what his mother looks like.

The nice part of it is, Taehyun's right, and during a face-off in the neutral zone, Yeonjun takes a second to pop his head up and find her in the crowd, wrapped up in a scarf in the colors of his team, looking healthy and happy and excited. He smiles to himself, and when they score just two minutes later, he knows exactly which part of the boards to skate up to for his celebration. Seeing the pride on her face is worth the world to him, and he catches up to Taehyun as they're trickling into the locker room for the break just so he can wrap an arm around his shoulders and squeeze him in gratitude, shaking him until he laughs.

“Rip them a new one for her,” he says jovially, squeezing Yeonjun's side briefly, and Yeonjun just grins wider.

It's a solid game on their part, just the showing their fans are used to from them; confidence and finesse and just enough physicality that the other team knows not to fuck with them, especially with their treasured first line, but not enough to get them in serious trouble. They're not known for being brutal; they're skilled and they're quick and they don't let mind games shake them, and it's enough for them to consistently stay among the top teams in the league.

The locker room buzzes after the game even though it's not an outright riot after a multiple game winning streak, and Yeonjun's mood keeps sailing at an all-time high as he rushes through pulling his gear off, showering and changing, his legs bouncing when he has to pause to listen to the coaching team's debriefing, eager to just get out of here and spend the time with his mom.

His heart jumps again when he opens the door of his changing room and she's just there, standing in the hallway still wrapped in that blue-and-orange scarf with a wide smile on her face. He drops his bags on the floor immediately and barrels into her arms, squeezing her as tight as he can without crushing her bones, letting her laugh an endeared laugh into his shoulder while he takes a deep breath, inhaling the unmistakable smell of home clinging to her hair.

He hugs her a little too long and then still holds her by the shoulders while he asks her how she's been, if she's been healthy, if she's been eating well, how his aunties are, how her work has been going. They call all the time, but it's different when it's in person, when he can watch her face while she assures him she's okay, and he can make sure she's not just forcing herself to tell him everything is okay to stop him from worrying. She looks reasonably well-rested for a working adult, she looks like she hasn't lost weight or anything since Yeonjun last saw her in person, and everything else he can glean off her is that she seems just as excited to see him as he is to see her. She's okay – he can relax. She's okay.

With his excitement, he forgets where they are completely, and he's only reminded once Soobin emerges from the changing room, cool as a cucumber, waving at Yeonjun's mother who returns the wave with a smile. She's familiar with Soobin – he's been at Yeonjun's side for long enough now to be someone his mother should recognize.

“Nobody gave you any trouble, Mrs. Choi?”

She shakes her head, and Yeonjun blinks at her, confused. “Not at all. Thank you, Soobin.”

Soobin gives her a polite semi-bow and starts walking away down the hall, Yeonjun looking after him in confusion. He looks back at his mom, who just smiles up at him.

“What was that about?”

“Oh,” she looks a bit taken aback, like she didn't know he didn't know. “Soobin talked to the staff for me so they'd let me into the player area without a permit. Since I wanted to surprise you, I just got in with a regular ticket, and…” she shrugs, and Yeonjun makes a mental note to buy Soobin a new jacket or something. He's currently his favorite teammate, hands down.

“I'll pay you back for that ticket, that's ridiculous – you should have asked me for a freebie.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise!”

He sighs at his mother's insistence, then turns around to get his bags from where he threw them on the floor earlier. “Still. I'll pay for it. And I'm buying you dinner.”

She huffs at him, but doesn't get to reply, because more of Yeonjun's teammates trickle out of the changing room, and they all greet his mom politely, not trying to linger, until it's Taehyun and Kai making their way into the hallway, and they hesitate.

Yeonjun hesitates too. They're friends now – does that mean he has to introduce them to his mother?

“Oh, Taehyun, is that you?” His mom smiles brilliantly, and Yeonjun watches in shock as Taehyun goes a little pink in the face.

“Ah, yes, ma'am.”

“I feel like I haven't seen you in person in forever! I remember when you were about as tall as me!”

Taehyun laughs awkwardly, and Kai laughs next to him heartily, Yeonjun's mother's face turning to him instead. “And you're Huening, right? They always mention you two together.”

Kai nods his head, folding in on himself a little, shyer than Yeonjun is used to seeing him. “Yes, ma'am.”

“That's lovely – have you been taking good care of my Yeonjun?”

Oh, she has no idea. Yeonjun can see the thought cross their faces as well. They both go a bit red in the face.

“Always, ma'am,” Taehyun assures her, firmer than Yeonjun expected him to sound.

“Good,” his mother says simply, stepping closer and reaching out to pat their arms. “Thank you.”

A weird kind of guilt settles in Yeonjun's stomach as he watches them accept her gratitude awkwardly – he'll probably never be able to explain to her how important they were to getting his head back in the game; how good they've been making him feel. How it's felt, the past few weeks, that he's found in them some fundamental part of his life he had been missing for a while, before they came around and made themselves available to him. They saved him, in a way, and she'll probably never know.

 

---

 

“You look happy.”

He looks up from an overpriced plate of pasta into his mother's face, and the soft smile on her lips hurts his chest; a genuine physical pain spiking through him. There's a relief in it, and a depth of love he probably won't be able to even begin to fathom until he becomes a parent himself. It makes breathing a little difficult. But she's not wrong, thankfully.

“I think I am, mom.”

She props her cheek on a fist. “You haven't seemed this happy for a while.”

It feels a bit weird, to put into words the way he has been feeling. “I haven't been this happy for a while.”

Maybe it's been ages since he's been able to breathe this easily. Taehyun texted him earlier, just to tell him to have fun tonight. No ulterior motive, no offer to celebrate with them some other day, just. A simple wish for his friend to have a good time.

It might be just that – that heavy, crushing blanket of loneliness, of isolation, of alienation, slowly being lifted off of him by two pairs of strong hands. Protecting him as always, from things he's not big or strong enough to tackle himself. Having his back. There for him to lean on, to rely on, so he can do his best in the front, taking his opponent by attack.

A sly look appears on her face, and he looks away before she can even speak up. “Is there something I should know?”

I'm gay, mom. I made friends, mom. Sometimes I sleep with my teammates, and it makes me feel wanted in a way I think I've been craving. They make me feel safe. They make me want to be more like myself. They make me want to be brave enough to tell you all this, so you can know all of me, too.

He shakes his head, staring down at his food. “No. I've just… it's been a good season.”

There's a pause, and then she speaks up again, careful. “Despite the injury?”

Yeonjun sighs, and reaches for his shoulder, massaging it. “Because of it, maybe.”

He looks up, and she's looking at him with obvious confusion on her face. He sighs again – maybe he does owe her a bit of an explanation.

“I think it put some things into perspective for me, you know? Made me… think more about how I want to be living my life. I had a lot of time to think while I was lying down letting it heal.”

She heaves a sigh of her own. “I wish you didn't have to get hurt to have an epiphany like that.”

“Me too,” he admits plainly, shrugging. “But that's the nature of the game.”

His mother smacks her lips, shaking her head as she gets herself a nice forkful of her own dish. “I should have taken you to the tennis club instead. Maybe ballet – you'd be dashing as a ballerino.”

It makes him snort, and she laughs along with him. He hopes they both know the truth – that there's nothing he'd rather be doing. Nothing he'd trade this for. Nothing in the world.

 

---

 

The way the season is set up gives them a full week break before play-offs, and their downtime becomes basically all that the team talks about, whether they're in the lockers or having lunch together. One of their goalies is going to vacation in South Africa, Beomgyu is traveling to his childhood home, Soobin is tagging along for his sister's family vacation to spend some time with his nephew. Some of the guys are staying, just because they have families here in their home city to spend time with, or because they're sick of traveling around for the season. A few of them are planning a group hiking trip, but Yeonjun turns their invitation down. He's never been a huge fan of hiking.

He shouldn't be surprised, but he still is, when Taehyun looks up from his chicken breast salad to carefully ask if he has any plans for the break. Kai doesn't lift his head, but Yeonjun can tell by now that his ears are peeled, tuned fully into the conversation.

Yeonjun clears his throat, a little awkward. “Um. I'm visiting family, too – I'm flying over on Wednesday, one of my cousins gave birth recently, and they want me to meet the little guy.”

Kai coos, and Yeonjun laughs. He hasn't seen his extended family in forever – he's only seen pictures of the baby in their family group chat.

“What about you guys?”

“We're going on a camping trip on Friday with my sisters and their partners!” Kai sounds genuinely excited, and Taehyun's smile seems genuine when he aims it at the side of Kai's face. “We're taking everyone to a spot our parents used to take us, out in the mountains.”

Yeonjun raises his eyebrows. “Isn't it too cold to be camping?”

“The Huenings are crazy,” Taehyun says flatly. “The whole family. Kai's parents took a trip to Egypt in mid-July last year.”

Kai snorts. “It was cheaper, and it had less tourists around.”

“Yeah, because nobody's crazy enough to try and beat that kind of heat.”

Kai rolls his eyes fondly, and Yeonjun laughs at them with warmth blooming in his chest.

“We'll be fine,” Kai assures. “We know what we're doing.”

“Sure,” Taehyun quips, curt, shoving a forkful of salad into his mouth.

Yeonjun eats a few bites himself, then hesitates. He has two days for himself before his flight, and he planned to use them to get his apartment in order for the most part, maybe take advantage of the freebie ticket the coach of the junior team slipped him the last time he stuck around to watch the kids practice on Tuesday and catch the game. They're playing on home ice, and the crowd is usually thinner and skews much younger when the kids are playing – junior games tend to be pretty pleasant affairs in his experience.

He looks up at Taehyun and Kai, who are focused on their own food. It hits him all at once, how badly he wants to spend time with them. After how intertwined they've been lately, he can't imagine not seeing them all week, even if he'll spend half of it distracted by his family. Maybe that should worry him. Maybe that's what having close friends is like – he wouldn't know.

“Do you guys… have any plans for Tuesday night?”

They look at him at the exact same time, perfectly in sync like always.

“No?” Kai says, but the question mark at the end is clear from his tone.

“Why?” Taehyun adds almost immediately.

“I might… go see the juniors play? The coach gave me a ticket. I could probably get two more from him? If you'd want to – the kids are good; they're gonna make a good showing.”

“They're #2 in the rankings right now, aren't they?” Taehyun asks, seeming genuinely interested. “Even after their best forward got injured right at the start of the season.”

Yeonjun blinks at him, surprised – most of the other guys don't really keep tabs on the junior leagues. They hear about the good players, sure, the bright prospects who shine at championships, who get signed with senior teams even before they become of age because of just how hopeful they seem. Very few of them take a genuine interest in the goings-on in the league, though, much less the minutiae of it, like player injuries or exact rankings.

“You keep up with the junior leagues?”

Taehyun shrugs, casual. “I keep informed – they're the future of the game, right? The future of this team, if we're lucky.”

Yeonjun huffs, and Kai speaks up too, swallowing his mouthful. “We've been to their games before, too, when we could fit it in our schedule.”

“I'd love to go see them Tuesday, too,” Taehyun says with a smile, and Yeonjun pauses.

It's probably the very first time while talking about their plans for anything where Yeonjun has heard either Taehyun or Kai say I and not we.

It takes him a second for his brain to catch back up, before he can ask, “Uh… how many tickets do we need then?”

“Three,” Kai steps in, firm. He's noticed too – Yeonjun can tell. Taehyun seems oblivious, but he's not stupid.

Yeonjun clears his throat again. “I'll give him a call.”

 

---

 

They meet by the front entrance on Tuesday, and Yeonjun finds himself staring at it, so unused to seeing the building from this vantage point at this point. He usually gets in through the garage, or goes out the back through the staff entrance to avoid the fans. It's been a long time since he had just… gone in through the front like this.

He's bundled up in a cap with their team logo, a thick scarf pulled over his mouth and a pair of glasses, just in case they'd get spotted by the people attending the match and it caused a commotion, but the two familiar figures find their way to him anyway. They seemed to have the same concern as he did, although visibly less so – Kai just has a mask on his face, and Taehyun is wearing an obnoxiously big pair of sunglasses that manages to eat up half his face. To Yeonjun, they just look like adorable, painfully recognizable versions of themselves, but he could see why they'd get less recognition just at first glance than he would. They do get into sports magazines, but they're not on TV nearly as much as Yeonjun is.

They don't talk much on their way to their seats, just exchanging a couple words about how they've spent their Mondays, but the ice breaks a bit once they're seated in the special seats usually reserved for staff, families and players. Taehyun takes his hat off and pushes his giant glasses up into his hair, making a mess of it, but Yeonjun doesn't feel like pointing it out to him. Kai pulls his mask down just under his lips, and shoots him a smile.

He and Taehyun get into an involved discussion about which players they're the most interested in, and Yeonjun shares all the little observations he's made about their play and abilities while watching them practice that Taehyun might have missed just watching them play. Even Kai seems interested, even though it's pretty obvious at this point that he doesn't fully share Taehyun's passion about the junior league.

They chat as the audience trickles in, a few people in seats close to them turning around to gawk at them, one young kid even coming close to have them sign his cap before running off back to his parents, but it's mostly peaceful, until a man in a suit Yeonjun immediately recognizes as one of the coaches for the junior team makes their way to them. He's obviously surprised to see Yeonjun with his teammates instead of having brought along his family or friends, but he recovers quickly.

“The head coach was wondering if you'd like to come by the locker room before the game, talk to the boys a little? For motivation?” He looks at Taehyun and Kai, obviously a bit nervous. “All of you can come, if you want.”

“We'd love to meet the team,” Taehyun assures him enthusiastically, and the man visibly relaxes.

He leads them to the player area, past their own locker room and into the junior locker room, where a room full of bright, young, fresh faces turn towards them like they're the royal procession and not just three guys a couple years older than them – over half a decade for most of them, to be fair, but Yeonjun still feels a bit self-conscious. He knows he looks decent; he's not ruining his celebrity player image right now or anything, but he still has to try not to wither under their hopeful eyes – he can tell what they're thinking when they look at them: they want to be where they are, too, one day. Pro in the major leagues. Nice paychecks, titles under their belts, trophies in the showcase in the hallways. Their jerseys in the hall of fame one day. He used to be just like them.

There are many reasons he never strove for the captain position, and one of them is that he sucks at giving pep talks, but he tries anyway when the coach gives him the floor, trying to somehow convey his own thought process before a game in just a few short sentences, so he doesn't bore the poor guys to death. Focus on your own play; don't let the opponent get into their groove. Force them to play your game, by your rules, at your pace.

Taehyun speaks up too, once Yeonjun is done, and he seems so much more well-spoken than Yeonjun felt. He's well-informed about the other team, too, and drops a few lines in about how to handle their sort of play specifically, making eye contact with the D-men of the team as he stresses the need for a strong defense. Yeonjun thinks he'd make a good head coach, if he wanted to. He's quick, and has a strategic mind – rarely loses his cool, and he's good at expressing himself.

It makes him realize he's never heard Taehyun mention anything about what he's planning to do with himself at the end of his playing career. He's never talked about having an alternative path like Kai did, never seemed to waver or hesitate about the fact that he was here to play, much like Yeonjun himself. What do people like them do with themselves, once their careers are over? Yeonjun still has no idea.

When Taehyun is done speaking, all the players look expectantly towards Kai, who laughs awkwardly and just wishes them a good game and good luck. It makes the entire locker room laugh, and Yeonjun catches Taehyun grinning.

 

---

 

It's a tight game, but the kids eke out a win in overtime, and the three of them drop by the locker room to congratulate them, shaking hands and patting backs. Yeonjun promises to buy them all a warm drink the next time he comes around to see them practice, and they're all but clapped out of the room afterwards. They end up wandering towards the elevator, headed to the parking garage by sheer force of habit, and they spend a good minute laughing at themselves as they change directions to go through the staff door out back instead.

Once they're back outside, the harsh wind hits them, and Yeonjun pulls his scarf further up his face.

They pause in front of the door – they didn't really make plans for afterwards, but looking at the two of them, at the harsh light next to the door illuminating their faces, he feels reluctant to just let them go. He's about to go five days without seeing them – probably the longest he won't be seeing them since the start of the season. There has to be some excuse he can pull out to have them stick around longer.

Taehyun flips the collar of his jacket up to cover his neck, and exhales a thick plume of mist. “Do you want to come over? We've got beer and some cod I was planning to make for dinner.”

Yeonjun stares at him, overcome by… something. Some kind of emotion stirring in his chest at how easy this thing feels. He looks at Kai, and Kai smiles, soft and inviting, and Yeonjun smiles back.

“Sure – I'd love some cod.”

 

---

 

They have beer while Taehyun makes dinner, and Yeonjun and Kai hang around the kitchen until Taehyun declares that they're stressing him out and insists they take it to the living room, and Kai shows Yeonjun his extensive library of Playstation games, even as he admits that he barely plays most of them. Taehyun shouts over from the kitchen that Kai is dangerously addicted to buying new games on a whim, to which Kai sheepishly says that most of them were on sale, or releases he'd been looking forward to forever. It's kind of sweet.

Yeonjun tries to pay attention while Kai shows off the one game he has been playing a lot of, some Spider-Man game with admittedly pretty graphics. It's fun enough to watch the character move on screen and listen to Kai try to explain the story, so Yeonjun just sits back and drinks his beer while Kai chatters, throwing in a question every now and then to reassure him that he's still listening.

Taehyun offers to bring their dinner over to the living room once he's done preparing it, but Kai categorically refuses to eat on the couch, so they squeeze themselves into the breakfast nook again, the fit a bit more comfortable now that they're comfortable with being close, the press of their legs against his just a grounding presence more than anything, now. Taehyun is a good cook, and Yeonjun tries to make sure he's aware of that. Taehyun smiles at him gratefully, and Yeonjun wants to press his lips into that smile, but it feels a bit wrong in this context – a bit too romantic. It's Kai's job to kiss a smile like that; not Yeonjun's.

He and Kai clean up the kitchen when they're done while Taehyun watches on from the breakfast nook and talks mad shit about their dish-washing skills, obviously a bit too satisfied with not having to clean up himself, lounging on the table like a happy, lazy cat, stretching every half a minute and making his shirt ride further up his body with every wiggle.

They do their best to behave, really, relocating back to the living room eventually, trying to pick something to watch on the TV, making small talk, keeping the conversation light and friendly and their eyes off the bedroom door. At least Yeonjun does that; he's not sure how the other two feel, he just knows that when Taehyun throws his head back over the backrest, sighing miserably as they dismiss another thing none of them really want to watch and says, “I don't wanna watch TV,” neither he nor Kai say a word of protest, and when Taehyun gets up and walks off to the bedroom, they both don't hesitate to follow.

 

---

 

In the afterglow, Yeonjun lies on his side with Taehyun glued to his back, petting down his stomach and Kai on his other side, facing him, tracing a thumb down his cheekbone, and he feels warm. He needs to get home tonight, needs to be at the airport at 8 am tomorrow, but he doesn't want to go. Taehyun kisses his shoulder, and he closes his eyes. Kai pets back his hair and kisses him on the lips.

It's hard to tell them to stop, with the sleepy contentment spreading through him, weighing his limbs down, and he lets himself be pushed over onto his back and kissed more, over and over, the two of them switching places smoothly, anticipating each other's motions before they happen, trading Yeonjun's lips and bare skin between them, kissing one then the other. They're gentle with him, enough to have something heavy grow in his chest. He can barely breathe through the two sets of lips assaulting him lovingly.

Kai and Taehyun and Taehyun and Kai and Kai and—

“Stay over tonight?” Whispered into his shoulder. Hesitant. Kai's hand is warm on his waist but he thinks the voice is Taehyun's.

“Can't. Flight.”

A disappointed sigh – definitely Taehyun's.

“Should I drive you home?” It's Kai.

“No, I'm good.”

A click of the tongue. Warm weight lifts off his shoulder, leaving the side Taehyun occupied cold. “You look tired.”

He reaches out for him, finding his wrist where he's holding himself up on his arms, wrapping his fingers around it. “Give me like half an hour. Maybe some coffee.”

“It's almost midnight,” Taehyun points out, scolding.

Yeonjun yawns and shrugs. Kai snorts.

“We didn't think this through.”

“You're telling me,” Yeonjun grumbles and curls up into Kai's chest, seeking the warmth of it. Taehyun settles back against his back almost immediately.

“I'll make you coffee if you promise not to drive,” Taehyun offers, and Yeonjun reaches back to pet down his hip. He's pulled on some underwear, but nothing else.

“Thanks, baby.”

He feels Taehyun nuzzle further into his back, Kai's arm wraps around them tighter, and he thinks he might die if he doesn't get to nap like this.

 

---

 

Visiting his family is a bit strange – it's not bad, by any means. He loves his aunts, and he loves his cousins, and his cousin and her husband are nothing but welcoming, letting him sleep in their guest room while he's visiting. He meets his cousin's baby son right after they get back to the house on Wednesday, and he's the sweetest little thing Yeonjun has ever seen, making Yeonjun waver yet again about what the idealized vision of his future should be like. They have a big family dinner that his aunts and other cousins come around for, and he regales them with hockey stories while they catch him up on how their families have been doing. He's busy almost constantly, chatting away, soaking in the presence of his family, a feeling he always ends up missing sorely, no matter how hard he tries to keep in touch.

But then he wakes up on Thursday, alone in a twin-sized bed, warm enough and yet feeling a bit cold. He checks his phone, but he has no notifications. The itch stays with him as he gets up and joins the others for breakfast, as he showers and changes into a fresh set of clothes. He pulls up the group chat they've made with him, Kai and Taehyun it, where the last message sent is him reassuring them he had made it home okay on Tuesday.

He tries to come up with some excuse to message them – he could take a picture of the view outside his window, or offer to walk his aunt's dogs and take pictures of them while he's out. He could just tell them good morning; ask how they're doing.

Instead, he buries his phone in his hoodie pocket and goes out into the living room to needle his cousin into doing yoga with him.

 

---

 

He cracks, eventually, not even twenty four hours later. He's at his other cousin's house for a movie night, and they're drinking wine and having fun watching awful cheesy romance movies. Yeonjun has a good time until he doesn't, and he blames the wine for him retreating upstairs into the empty guest bedroom, so he can sit on the bed in the dark, only wisps of moonlight streaming in through cracked-open blinds, and dial Kai's number.

“Yeonjun?”

Taehyun's voice comes through the speaker instead of Kai's, obviously surprised, a little breathless.

“Yeah, uh. Yeah. Hi.”

He hears shuffling on the other side, a huff. “What's going on? Do you need to talk to Kai? He's right here.”

“Hey!” Comes a second voice, fainter. Yeonjun snorts in amusement.

“No, it's. You're okay. Either of you.”

He thinks Taehyun must have put him on speakerphone, because his voice sounds a bit different again when he speaks up next. “What do you need? Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” He's not sure what to say – he's not sure why he called at all; he just wanted to hear their voices.

“You sure? Your voice is a bit weird,” Kai says with clear concern in his voice. He sounds about as loud as Taehyun now – he's definitely on speakerphone.

“I'm just… sleepy.” He sniffs, then gives up. “And a bit drunk. Been drinking wine all night.”

Kai laughs, and it sounds so warm it makes Yeonjun smile even though he's laughing at him. Yeonjun wants to see him. He wants to wake up to his pink morning face and his sluggish speech. His morning voice and the warmth of his body. “Are you drunk-dialing us right now?”

“Shut up, I—” he swallows back the words missed you. It's not even been two full days. He's being insane right now.

“You what?” Taehyun sounds amused, too. He's not prying – just looking for whatever opening Yeonjun will give him to tease him a bit more.

Yeonjun doesn't know what to say, though. “I'm, uh…” He swallows hard, stares at the wall ahead of himself, where a painting of a vase of flowers hangs over an empty dresser. “Guys? Have you ever thought about having kids?”

They're both quiet, so long he almost thinks he accidentally hit a nerve somehow, but then Taehyun speaks up.

“We've talked about it. Kai likes kids a lot.”

“We should be eligible to adopt, if we get married,” Kai adds, his voice subdued.

“But that's… a long time away,” Taehyun says it carefully, and Yeonjun can tell he's watching for Kai's reaction right now, tentative. “Once we're done with playing. We don't have the time right now.” He pauses, then adds, “And I don't think I'm ready for that, anyway.”

Yeonjun nods even though they can't see him, and doesn't realize it until Taehyun continues.

“Don't tell me that the kid's given you baby fever.”

He snorts. “Nah, I just…”

“Planning to have kids of your own, one day?” Kai asks it gently, like he can tell it might be a touchy subject. And it is, isn't it – for men like them. Not as easy as finding a partner and putting one in them when they feel ready. They have options, but it will never be as easy as it could be.

It might be worth it, though. To feel the kind of love Yeonjun sees when he looks into his mother's eyes. To feel how he felt, holding his cousin's baby; the same fondness, the urge to care for, to protect, provide for. To nurture a life he's decided to make himself responsible for.

“Maybe. Think I'd like to. That, or just training kids.”

He's not sure why he says it, but he can't bring himself to regret it, not when Taehyun's next words sound softer than he's used to hearing them, too.

“You wanna train juniors?”

“Yeah, or just— kiddie league. You know? The little ones. Make ‘em fall in love with it, like I did.”

He's been on the ice for over twenty years now, most of them spent with a hockey stick in his hand, and he's loved every single one of them.

“That sounds great,” Kai says, hushed.

Yeonjun sighs. “Taehyun?”

“Hm?”

“Do you have a plan? Post-career? Gonna coach or something?”

Taehyun takes a bit to answer. “Sure. Coaching sounds good. I'd like to get involved in the administrative stuff – help organize events, coordinate things. I'll be the guy handing out medals one day, if things work out.”

Yeonjun huffs in amusement. “Sounds like it would suit you.”

“He looks great in a suit,” Kai says happily, and Yeonjun's smile widens.

“I've seen it happen.”

“It's even better when you know what he looks like under it, I promise.”

There's a noise a little like Kai got a shove for his trouble, and Yeonjun laughs along with him. “I can see that. We should make that happen. Win a title, we'll have all the suit and tie affairs we could possibly want.”

“I can mingle – network,” Taehyun quips, lighthearted.

“You'll get your career started, and me and Kai can get our rocks off. Sweet.”

Kai laughs again, even louder this time, and this time Taehyun joins him. Yeonjun gets caught up listening to them laugh, listening to them breathe, and lets the conversation hang a bit too long.

“Are you headed to bed soon? It's pretty late over here.”

Yeonjun licks his lips. He forgot all about his family downstairs; fuck. “Nah, I'm. We're having a movie night. I snuck off.”

“You snuck out of a movie night to get on the phone with us?” Taehyun sounds disbelieving, flabbergasted. Yeonjun wishes he could just hang up the phone and not have to deal with the rest of this conversation.

“Is the movie terrible? What were you watching?”

It was a decent movie – a fun movie. But he missed them. He misses them so badly. “It's uh – romance movie. Don't remember the title.”

Kai sniffs. “Is the main guy hot? I can't watch those if the main guy isn't hot.”

“The main guy is always hot, Kai – that's why they get cast for those roles. You just don't get straight women's taste.”

“Hey, plenty of straight women like you and Yeonjun just as much as I do.”

“That means there's overlap – doesn't mean they're the same thing.”

“I just don't see what Lea sees in that one actor guy – his face looks like an egg.”

Yeonjun bursts out laughing, and they suddenly go quiet, like they forgot he was even there.

“The main guy's pretty hot,” he assures Kai once he calms himself down. “He's no Kang or Huening, I don't think he could score a point shot to save his life, but he's alright.”

Taehyun snorts. “You should go finish that movie.”

“Probably.”

“Everything's alright with you, right?” Kai tags in, careful once more.

No; he's being pathetic again. Just when he thought he was ahead. “Yeah, I'm good.”

“Okay. We'll go back to fucking, then,” Taehyun says a little bit too like he's having way too much fun dropping that particular bomb.

“You were having sex?!”

He doesn't get a reply, just a laugh and then the sound of a phone call cutting off on him.

 

---

 

If there's one good thing about all of it, it's that neither Kai nor Taehyun seem too eager to bring up his strange drunk phone call once he gets back home. They meet at the first mandatory of the play-off season, and Kai asks him how his break was, casually, in front of everyone while they change into workout clothes for their warm-up. He tells them about a funny little mishap they had with the baby, and when he asks Kai about the camping trip with his sisters, he and Taehyun don't even try to hide that they went on it together. Kai is not the biggest fan of his little sister's current partner, but Taehyun thinks Kai is just being weird. They offer to show him pictures later, vaguely, and he agrees just as vaguely.

They hang around him while they stretch, run and do their warm-up exercises like usual, but there's no time to mess around, no time to find a nifty abandoned corner to kiss them in. He catches Taehyun's eyes in the locker room while Taehyun is waiting for Kai to finish tightening the straps on his chest guard, and Taehyun gives him a tight smile that Yeonjun returns. They share water bottles; the two of them box Yeonjun in against the boards while they're messing around during a break in practice, and Beomgyu has to skate over to save him, Kai obviously having a good time making Beomgyu pull him off of Yeonjun by himself, even after Taehyun backs off with a laugh as soon as Beomgyu tells them to get their hands off the goods.

“We're just getting him ready for the play-offs,” Taehyun argues lightheartedly while Beomgyu drags his boyfriend across the ice. “He needs to get used to getting bullied a little.”

Beomgyu looks at him skeptically. “Isn't it literally your job to make sure he doesn't get bullied?”

“Hey, we can't be everywhere at once,” Kai argues jovially, wrapping his arms around Beomgyu casually. “We need to make sure he knows what to do when we're not there to get guys off of him, too.”

He just earns himself an extremely flat look from Beomgyu. “Are you sure that's what you're doing?”

Kai knocks their helmets together. “Positive, sir.”

Beomgyu snorts. Soobin skates up to them all of a sudden, eyes fully on Beomgyu still enveloped in Kai's loose embrace.

“What's this all about?” He sounds more curious than anything else, to his credit.

“I'm scolding your D-men for you,” Beomgyu replies primly, extricating himself from Kai's hold and gliding over to Soobin to shove him in the chest lightly. “You should keep an eye on your team – they're bullying our star player.”

Yeonjun rolls his eyes. “I was fine.”

Beomgyu just raises his eyebrows at him. “Oh, I bet you were.”

Soobin just wiggles his eyebrows at Yeonjun too, teasing, and Yeonjun groans, pushing off the boards to get away from all of them before anyone can say anything else.

 

---

 

He's getting on the elevator later that day, ready to get home from practice, when he's flanked by them again, and they squeeze into the elevator together. It's not unfamiliar to him. He's been in this predicament with them many times before, but there's a weird tension in the air, as Kai pushes the P1 button and Taehyun glances over at Yeonjun.

“Have you told them?”

Of course it's about this.

“Who?”

“Beomgyu,” Kai replies even though it was Taehyun who asked.

“Or Soobin,” Taehyun adds. “Either. Or both.”

Right – the deal was staying in the closet. It was a glass closet anyway though, wasn't it? The two of them could tell Yeonjun wasn't straight; Soobin could tell that they were a thing, and they could tell that Soobin and Beomgyu were a thing. So why is everyone keeping secrets?

“More like they figured it out – you're not subtle.” His tone is too flat, but he's a bit tired of this. They could just commiserate over this, instead of just eyeing each other with suspicion all the time.

Kai snorts a little, but Taehyun still seems serious.

“So you didn't tell them?”

He sighs. “I told Soobin.”

Taehyun visibly bristles. “Why?”

“He asked,” Yeonjun replies simply, hiking the strap of his bag further up his shoulder. “I felt like he had a right to know – as my friend and my captain.”

“What if he—”

“Then I'm going to tell everyone that he and Beomgyu have been dating for years now?” He meets Taehyun's eyes, just as serious as Taehyun for once. “You're not the only ones keeping secrets. It's a big boat, Taehyun – we can fit on it together.”

Taehyun presses his lips together tightly.

“Still a bit weird when your captain knows who you're fucking,” Kai says with force lightness in his voice.

“He's already guessed you were fucking each other,” Yeonjun admits, shrugging. “What's one more guy in the mix?”

“He knew?”

Yeonjun thinks it's pretty rich of Taehyun to act surprised, when he admitted in front of their teammates that he was Kai's plus one to his let's-hang-out-with-our-partners trip with his sisters just a few hours earlier. “You don't make as big a secret of it as you probably think.”

“You didn't know,” Taehyun argues.

“I wasn't looking for it,” Yeonjun admits, and then Taehyun's lips tense again.

“My point exactly,” Kai jumps in, clearly trying to save the situation somehow. “Most people don't want to know where their teammates' dicks have been.”

Neither Yeonjun or Taehyun really react. Kai shifts on his feet, and the elevator door opens.

“Unless it was, like, a model.”

Yeonjun sighs and walks off the elevator ahead of them, walking quickly. He's hoping to get away from them, but Taehyun catches up, catching him by the elbow and turning him around to face him.

“How did he react?”

Yeonjun blinks, a bit taken aback. Taehyun doesn't seem pissed off, not really. Maybe he's just uncomfortable. Maybe it's a bit of a terrifying feeling, to be out in the open, after hiding such a big part of yourself away for so long, even if it's just at work.

“How do you think?” His reply is still too deadpan. “He was worried about us quitting this whole thing in the middle of playoffs and throwing the team balance off.” He can see Taehyun about to protest and shakes his head. “He trusts us though. And hey – I promised to let you down gently after the finals if I have to.”

Taehyun's face scrunches up anyways. “If you have to.”

“Yeah, if… you know.”

Then Taehyun's face smooths out, and his eyebrows raise. “I know?”

Maybe Yeonjun is the one who doesn't know. He glances over at Kai, who is watching them with a neutral expression on his face. “Something… happens.”

Taehyun's Adam's apple jumps. “Like what?”

It's a good question – what would they have to do for him to quit them? To want out? It's not like they're going to find out they're sexually incompatible on their thirtieth fuck. They already have boundaries up to handle Taehyun's insecurities – Yeonjun hasn't felt out of place in between them for weeks now. He knows he likes their personalities, their schedules line up perfectly to sneak in time to have sex, to find time to spend leisure time together, even. They're kind of perfect. Where could it possibly go wrong?

“You two decide you're done experimenting or something,” he says a bit weakly, unsure. It's the option that would make the most sense – it would be the two of them cutting it off, for them reasons. It's too hard to fit a third person into their schedule and still have time together as a couple. Taehyun's tired of sharing. Kai realizes he's had enough fun already. Yeonjun becomes old news; he'll stop being worth their time.

“It's not really experimenting when we already know we're into it,” Kai points out, stepping closer.

Taehyun's hand tightens on his elbow. “We told you. It's not about threesomes, it's about you.”

“Fucking the same guy can get old, too.”

Kai lets out a wounded noise and comes all the way to them, throwing an arm around Taehyun's shoulders. “Hey, speak for yourself! Some of us love fucking the same person over and over again.”

Taehyun rolls his eyes so hard it looks painful, and Yeonjun can't help but to smile. “That's different.”

Kai's eyebrows jump. “Is it? What's different – that I like him? I like you too.”

Taehyun's grip slides down Yeonjun's arm, until he holds his wrist loosely instead. He's looking down at their hands, pensive.

Yeonjun shakes his head. “You're dating.”

Kai's arm tightens around Taehyun's shoulders. “Yeah.”

He can tell Kai is missing the point on purpose, but he can't really find the energy to argue. Whatever, happens, happens, just… “Let's just not make this affect the game, alright?”

Taehyun squeezes at his wrist, then lets go. “You know us.”

Yeonjun nods firmly. “And so does Soobin. So we're good. You don't have to worry about it.”

“So Beomgyu knows, too?” Kai asks, still keeping his arm around Taehyun firmly.

“I think he'd wheedle it out of his boyfriend even if I tried to swear him to secrecy.”

Kai huffs. “Makes sense.”

Taehyun leans into Kai slightly. “So much for keeping things under wraps.”

Yeonjun shrugs. “I don't think the whole team knows yet. It still counts, probably.”

Taehyun relaxes with a tired snort. “I guess.”

Then there's a beat, then another, and they just stand there in the dark garage, quiet.

“Can we kiss? We missed you today.” Kai looks open and sincere, and Yeonjun lets his own shoulders lower.

“Yeah, okay.”

It's weirdly… sweet. He kisses Kai softly and it feels like reassurance, he kisses Taehyun firmly and it feels a bit like making up. It feels like they needed this. He kind of wishes he could hug them too without it getting strange – he wishes they could come home with him instead of parting from him at their car.

For the first time since they started this, he watches their car back out of the parking spot, waves at Taehyun who lifts one hand off the steering wheel as he guides the car past him towards the exit.

He sighs. Wasn't he supposed to feel energized at the start of the playoffs? He feels anything but.

 

---

 

In game four of their first series, Taehyun fractures his clavicle. Yeonjun isn't on the ice when it happens – nobody is really expecting much of anything to be happening when it does; Taehyun is behind the goal with the puck, waiting for the fourth attacking line and a fresh defenseman to jump in so they can start a new play, a minute or two before the end of second period. They're up 2:0, and sitting on their lead pretty comfortably; the other team is having a hard time finding their way through the neutral zone.

Taehyun goes into a standard breakout play, passing to the D-man who just hopped in and heads to the bench to get switched out as well when he catches a direct hit from a forechecker who just missed his pass and goes crashing into the boards face-first. He didn't see the guy coming, a bit too tired from being on the ice for too long, didn't brace. The other player loses his balance and falls down on top of him where he crumples onto the ice for good measure, getting up quickly and skating up back to where the action is happening while Taehyun stays down.

He's close to the bench, so a bunch of players, Yeonjun included, lean over the boards in front of the bench to watch as he stays curled in on himself for a while, then slowly starts picking himself up on his knees, clutching his left arm tightly to his torso as he uses his stick as a crutch to help himself stand.

The referees are taking forever to pause the game, and Yeonjun thinks maybe Taehyun should have just stayed down and forced them to blow the whistle as he makes his way to the bench, bent over.

His replacement hops over the board and into the game, but Yeonjun only pays attention to the other side of the bench.

Kai's voice, clear as day, asks, “You good?”

And Taehyun audibly grits his teeth through a tense, “Shoulder. Can't move the arm.”

Someone on the medical team orders Taehyun to go to the back, and he disappears through the door leading to the locker room. Yeonjun's skin itches. Everyone sits back, a bit stunned, but Kai stays bent over himself. One of the coaches pats his back.

During the break, Kai heads towards the medical team instead of the locker room and nobody stops him. Yeonjun wants to follow, wanting the update too, but it would be strange coming from him, so he just follows the rest of his team, trying to relax. When the head coach comes in, he lets all of them know that Taehyun broke his clavicle. He's out of the game.

Kai comes in a few minutes later, telling the rest of them that Taehyun said he's going to kick all of their asses personally if they don't end this series tonight by beating the other team down. He does a good job sounding jovial, but his eyes tell a different story. Yeonjun wishes he could go over there and kiss him, then go to the back and kiss Taehyun, too.

Taehyun's waiting for them in the hallway as they go out for third period and gives out high-fives with his good hand. He's a bit pale, and his eyes show that they've pumped him full of pain-killers. His arm is in a sling – fractures like these take weeks to heal. He'll miss a lot of games, even if they make it through to the finals. Despite that, he grins at them, encourages them to raise hell out there. He grabs Kai's hand instead of just slapping it and shakes it tightly.

“Play for two,” he says seriously, and Kai nods just as grimly. Taehyun squeezes his hand before letting go.

He grabs Yeonjun by the shoulder and shakes him when it's his turn. “I'll be watching. Don't fuck it up.”

Yeonjun snorts, but it makes him smile, and he pats Taehyun's side before moving on.

They beat the other team to the ground – there won't be a game five.

Kai sits next to him on the bus without asking and hands him his phone. It's open on his texts with Taehyun, and there's a slightly shitty photo of an X-ray image and a message saying everything's good. Yeonjun hands the phone back and sinks into his seat with a sigh. Kai leans forward, resting his forehead on the seat in front of himself, closing his eyes. They rest that way, until Kai turns his head towards him, peeking an eye open.

“Do you have headphones with you? I didn't bring mine. It's boring without the music.”

It's boring without Taehyun. Yeonjun digs his earbud case out of his pocket, and they split it, the way Kai usually does with Taehyun. He realizes he has no idea what kind of music Kai listens to, and the ride gets a bit easier as they find something to talk about that's not Taehyun's injury. Kai eventually sinks back into his seat as well, and Yeonjun wishes he could hold his hand.

 

---

 

He goes to visit their room once he's dropped his things off at the hotel, but Taehyun is already asleep. Yeonjun looks at him over Kai's shoulder, Kai stepping back to let him look properly when he notices. Taehyun still looks a little pale. Yeonjun feels the kernel of worry rattling in his chest.

“He won't need surgery,” Kai says quietly, clearly trying to be reassuring. “It's pretty minor. Four, six weeks maybe? Probably should be more, but it's playoffs.”

“And it's Taehyun.”

Kai huffs. “Yeah.”

Yeonjun licks his lips. “Is he flying back with us?”

“Yeah, they won't rush him back.”

He feels a familiar tension in his back – he should get back to his room, now, go rest, go sleep. But all he wants is to stay, pretend to be resting while he stares at Taehyun like he could mend his bones if he glared them down hard enough. This is a shitty situation; he hates it. For Taehyun, for the team. For Kai.

“Do you… wanna stay here for a bit? Hang out?”

Yeonjun wants to, so badly. If he could sleep here with them without their teammates noticing, he would.

“You think he'd be okay with it?”

Kai lets out a choked-back laugh. “I think he can stomach us hanging out by now.”

He's probably right – but the rules said to always include him. “Maybe.”

Kai reaches for his hand, and Yeonjun lets him take and squeeze it. “Come on. Do you want to see the pet GC?”

Yeonjun lets himself be pulled into the room, waiting for Kai to close the door before they make their way to the empty bed, still hand-in-hand. “The what?”

Kai reaches for his phone that was resting on top of the covers and then sits down on the bed, pulling Yeonjun down next to him. “The pet group chat. Me and my sister have a group chat where they just send pictures and videos of their pets – I have to live vicariously through them, since Taehyun and I can't get any right now.”

He starts pulling up his messages, and Yeonjun just looks at him. His hair is messy, he looks tired; he's wearing a hoodie with their team logo on it, with a plain black shirt underneath, but his shoulders still look wide, like they do in his gear. He's trying, in a shitty situation, sucking on his bottom lip as he focuses on finding what he needs. His nose has this charming little bump on it that Yeonjun thinks he could find himself pressing his lips to, over and over again, if they were… that sort of thing to each other.

Yeonjun shifts and wraps his arms around him, comforted by the warmth, by the width, by his back pressing into Yeonjun's chest while he hooks his chin over Kai's shoulder. Kai stops scrolling and looks over at him, their eyes meeting at an awkward angle.

“Is this okay?”

Kai raises a hand and covers one of his wrists, rubbing at it with his thumb. “Sure,” he says softly, then smiles, and then lifts his phone. “Are you a cat person or a dog person?”

 

---

 

Yeonjun sits next to Taehyun at breakfast and rushes to his aid a bit too obviously to assist him whenever Taehyun runs into an issue because he can't move his arm. There are plenty of them, really, since Taehyun is left-handed and just put his dominant hand out of commission, but he's dexterous enough to help himself for the most part. It's not even his first injury to that side, as he helpfully informs Yeonjun who had restless dreams about visiting Taehyun in the hospital all night. He's been through this before.

And he'll survive, if they win the title.

No pressure, of course.

“You're not being subtle,” Beomgyu points out dryly. He's sitting at the same table as they are – Kai and Yeonjun have Taehyun between them on one side, and Beomgyu and Soobin are sitting opposite them, Beomgyu directly facing Yeonjun as he looks at them with judgment all over his pretty face.

“About what,” Yeonjun retorts, just as flat.

Beomgyu stares at him, unamused.

Taehyun sighs. “Is Kai being subtle?”

“Huh?” Beomgyu blinks at Taehyun, obviously taken aback.

“Why is Yeonjun getting shit from you? Kai carried my coffee for me and ditched you guys to come check on me yesterday. And you get on Yeonjun's case for helping me open a bottle?”

It shuts Beomgyu up for a long moment, and even Soobin looks over at Beomgyu to wait for his response. “Well…”

“Well what?” Maybe Taehyun's temper is shorter because of the injury. Yeonjun gets the feeling that he's trying to force himself into calmness, be so aggressively okay with having to skip over a month's worth of matches, knowing that Kai will have to be out there without him, that he'll be stuck in PT while they'll be out there battling for the title. It comes out of him in a sharp burst, in words spoken too sharply towards a teammate who's just needling them about them messing around. “Does everyone knowing that me and Kai are close make a difference? I'm close with Yeonjun now, too. Should we just not show it? Because it's new? Because he's in 3Choi and not in Huekangs? Seriously, Beomgyu – where's the problem?”

They hold eye contact, Taehyun's eyes steely and Beomgyu's cautious, and then Beomgyu leans back and sighs.

“No problem.”

“Right.” Taehyun sits back too and takes a drink from the bottle Yeonjun just opened for him.

Yeonjun and Kai exchange looks over his head, neither of them obviously sure whether to be amused or worried.

 

---

 

Taehyun is in a foul mood all day; Yeonjun drops by his and Kai's room when he's done packing and ends up helping Taehyun get his own things together so Kai doesn't slow himself down doing it. They resort to trying to distract him with physical affection so he stops pulling faces for at least a few minutes, pulling him in for kisses while they're at a hotel room, and putting their arms around him outside of it. Their other teammates join in, obviously just as aware of how much this is going to suck for Taehyun as he and Kai are, and Taehyun somehow ends up in the middle of conversations all up until he falls asleep on the plane, collapsed onto Kai's shoulder.

Yeonjun has to lean all the way out of his seat to look, and Kai throws him a smile when he catches him looking, giving him a thumbs up.

He thinks his nap on the plane is more restful than the sleep he got last night, when he knows he can just lean to the side and check if Taehyun is sleeping well.

Back home at the arena, Taehyun joins them for the debrief and scheduling, even though everyone knows he won't be taking part in the next series whether he wants to or not, and afterwards, Yeonjun offers to drive them home. The truth is, he just doesn't really want to part from them right now. Even if he lives a fifteen minute drive away from them, it feels too far; he'd sleep over the next six weeks if he could.

He's not sure why he's so bothered, really. Injuries are incredibly common; Taehyun's is minor, just incredibly inconvenient, because it's not something he can just shrug off and power through. Maybe he's just projecting the same panicked, choked feeling he gets whenever he's out of commission onto Taehyun. Maybe he just cares too much – he's only just managed to make friends on the team, and now it's his time to accept that having people to care about beyond the professional stuff means that he might make himself sick sometimes, thinking about if they'll be okay, just like he does with his mother, with all the other people in his life he loves and treasures. His rolodex of worries, now full of things that might happen at home while he's out on the ice.

Taehyun insists he comes up to their apartment with them, and Yeonjun takes the chance to help them with their bags. When he offers to cook, both he and Kai shut him down on the spot, and Yeonjun orders them food to stop him from arguing.

They're in the middle of eating their takeout in the breakfast nook when Taehyun lifts his head and says, “If you two plan on babying me for a month, you can fuck off.”

Kai snorts, obviously taken aback, and Yeonjun pouts.

“Wish I could – this whole week's gonna be one mandatory after another.”

Taehyun rolls his eyes. “Thank god. I'd lose my mind having you both around hovering.”

Kai reaches across the table to touch Taehyun's wrist with his fingers. “We're just enjoying having you around while we can – away games are gonna suck without you.”

“I might make it to some – if it works out with my PT schedule.”

“You should be resting, not going around to games,” Yeonjun scolds and nudges his leg under the table. “We need you back as soon as possible.”

“You can watch them on TV and talk shit about our plays in the group chat,” Kai offers jovially, patting Taehyun's wrist before going back to his food. “We'll read them back at the hotel like it's the newspaper.”

Taehyun huffs out a laugh, and Yeonjun jumps on it, grateful to have Taehyun accepting some levity. “You can practice your coaching skills.”

“Half of them would be just telling you to get Beomgyu to stop chirping before he catches one in the face,” Taehyun jokes halfheartedly.

Yeonjun nudges his foot. “We'll take that kind of feedback, too. Invest in some good tape to shut his mouth with.”

“Stick tape might work,” Kai offers.

“I think shin tape would be a better idea,” Taehyun counters, genuinely thoughtful. “I don't think the stick tape adhesive was made to be put on your skin.”

“Maybe he'll watch his mouth if it's covered in a rash,” Yeonjun suggests, propping his chin on a fist.

Kai cackles. “I don't think Soobin would appreciate us testing it out.”

They exchange looks, then Taehyun smirks a little, and Yeonjun thinks both he and Kai malfunction a bit, seeing him smile.

 

---

 

They start round two with a home game as well, and Yeonjun feels grateful for it as they adjust to this new normal. The empty space next to Kai in the locker room; the lack of him at Yeonjun's side during warm-up, the absence of his voice among the chatter on ice. He and Kai still exchange looks, share water bottles, stretch together. Maybe more than they usually would, even, sticking closer together now that Kai has no one else to gravitate to. Yeonjun starts waiting for him to get done changing in and out of his gear in the locker room, and they walk to their cars together, kiss each other goodbye.

He's nagged Taehyun into giving him daily updates in the group chat, and they're mostly photos of him doing everyday tasks accompanied by snarky comments about how he's just living his stupid life. Sometimes they're actual updates from his physiotherapy appointments, videos of him doing his exercises, and Yeonjun has to stop himself from playing those on loop to watch Taehyun's face for signs of discomfort. Of course there's pain and discomfort – it's a fracture. Broken bones hurt sometimes.

Taehyun invites him over the day before their match and gives both him and Kai the most enthusiastic head Yeonjun thinks he's ever gotten from anyone in his life right on the sectional in the living room, then produces a thermos of tea from behind the couch and suggests in a barely-there voice that Yeonjun stay over for the night. He can't bring himself to say no, even though it's obvious that the sleeping arrangements will suck, with the smaller bed and Taehyun's injury, even though he probably shouldn't be getting distracted right before a match.

It doesn't feel like he's distracting himself, though, when he brushes his teeth in their bathroom, wearing Kai's pajama pants; when he cuddles up to Taehyun's good shoulder and Kai fits his chest against Yeonjun's back, spooning him. Kai's lips on his shoulder, brief and affectionate, and Taehyun's stomach under his arm, Taehyun's eyes on his, looking content for the first time since he took that hit, they feel like determination; like purpose. He's never wanted to win more; never wanted to make it further; never wanted to have his teammates by his side until he grows old more than right then.

 

---

 

On the day of the match, Yeonjun randomly checks his phone on his way back to the locker room from the bathroom, just to find a text from Taehyun, a cute selfie of him winking while doing a V with the hand that's peeking out of the sling, obviously taken from a seat at the arena. The message underneath just says, don't fuck it up!

It makes him smile, and he brings his phone over to the locker room to show Kai, who grins at it as well. They take a photo of their gloved hands doing their best V-signs together, and send back a, don't worry.

Thankfully, they don't fuck it up. First line struggles to score during first period, but second line picks up their slack, keeping the other team's goalie on his toes. The other team is loud and in their faces, most of the chirping sent Kai's way telling him how useless he is without his other half, just a minor league bruiser, and Yeonjun just hopes that he keeps his mind on Taehyun up in the VIP seats.

Soobin has apparently noticed as well, because he bangs the blade of his stick against Kai's skates where he's hunched over on himself in the locker room during the break, and gives him a little pep talk Yeonjun doesn't catch, too busy getting a cramp in his thigh kneaded out of him by a physio. Kai looks a little better afterwards, and Yeonjun gets the feeling that he should be grateful for Soobin more often than he is.

Second period goes better, their game is more confident, more in their usual tempo. Soobin gets a rare point for a goal scored in for his player stats when he ends up having to stay on the ice with the two wings from second line, and Beomgyu cheers for him the loudest. Yeonjun feels a bit left out, and when he gets one for himself he's half-convinced that he only managed to get it in between the pads because of his own sheer refusal to not score a point in a game where even Soobin gets a goal scored.

In the break between second and third, Taehyun casually wanders into the locker room with a steaming cup of what smells suspiciously like mulled wine, apparently in a good mood, ribbing the defense line about their play and congratulating Soobin on his goal. He doesn't congratulate Yeonjun on his goal, but it feels more like a playful jab than Taehyun actually ignoring him, so he lets it slide. It's cute – he's cute, with his cheeks and nose pink from the cold and the wine, no doubt, eyes a bit blurry. Yeonjun hopes he's not mixing the alcohol with his painkillers – he'd have to give him an earful about that. Kai doesn't seem worried, though, so maybe he knows better than Yeonjun would that Taehyun wouldn't do that.

Taehyun sits next to Kai on the bench like it's second nature, and gets into a playful argument with him when Kai keeps asking for a sip of his drink. They end it by knocking their heads together, and Yeonjun is both endeared and a little envious. Yeonjun doesn't have a free spot next to him, but he has a free lap, and a craving for Taehyun's touch. When Kai gets up to walk with Taehyun so he can go back to his seat, Yeonjun jumps up too, making up an excuse about going to the bathroom before the game resumes.

It gets him some ribbing from Taehyun once they're out of earshot of the team, but it also earns him a kiss, so he thinks it all balances out in the end.

They get major pushback in the third, but they handle it. Yeonjun catches a stick in the face halfway through and gets his cheek cut open, but they're able to use the advantage to score, so he honestly can't bring himself to sweat it. Game one is their game, and they go back into the locker room satisfied.

Maybe for the first time since Yeonjun has known him, Kai rushes through changing out of his gear, which just means he and Yeonjun get done around the same time and they leave together, checking their messages while putting on their jackets and exchanging looks. Taehyun's text said to meet him by the staff door, so they make their way there, and let Taehyun hug them in congratulations as tightly as his injury allows.

“I'm buying you some mulled wine,” he says to Kai, who lights up immediately, then looks over to Yeonjun. “And you're coming over.”

Yeonjun frowns and pouts his lips. “I don't get mulled wine?”

Taehyun raises his eyebrows at him, unimpressed. “You probably make twice the money we do – get your own.”

And maybe it says something about the progress they've made, or maybe that Yeonjun has made, with that deep feeling of guilt that used to induce in him, that he's able to laugh it off, even though he does end up paying for everyone, even an extra cup for Taehyun, insisting that they will all need it if they're walking to Kai and Taehyun's apartment in the cold.

At the apartment, to Yeonjun's lack of surprise, Taehyun suggests they celebrate his win, then tries to argue with the combined forces of Yeonjun and Kai when they point out that he can't take painkillers right now and he still has a very recent injury. Yeonjun gets the feeling that Taehyun is more bored than horny, and feels a bit vindicated in that theory when Taehyun's solution is offering to watch while the two of them get off together.

Kai points out that Taehyun is the one into post-game sex, more than either of them, but Taehyun just says that they should do it for him, then, if he can't play or fuck at the moment. Maybe he just had a little bit too much wine, or maybe he did somehow manage to condition both of them into expecting sex after matches, because they do it anyway. Yeonjun settles into Kai's lap, cataloging all the ways he himself fits there differently than Taehyun usually does; the way Kai feels under him, from a different angle, without Taehyun between them. It feels special in some odd way, so he gets reckless, adventurous, skirting the closest they've gotten to the whole Yeonjun bottoming thing by letting Kai press a couple fingers inside him while Taehyun pets his thigh for comfort, and Yeonjun is forced to admit that he thinks he gets it when he barely needs Taehyun's hand loosely wrapping around his dick to have an orgasm that has him seeing stars. Kai ends up blowing Taehyun to help him take care of his erection since it's awkward for him to jerk off with his off-hand and he's too hard to ignore it, and Yeonjun thinks that Taehyun ended up getting everything he wanted in the end, when they're settling into bed together later, Taehyun's face relaxed and content as he stretches his legs before he settles in, closer to Kai, who takes the middle of the bed this time.

“We should talk about the away games,” Taehyun says into the fabric of Kai's shirt at some point, and Yeonjun's fingers clench into the same shirt where they were resting over Kai's stomach.

“Yeah? You wanna set ground rules?”

They should – there will be a lot of opportunities for him and Kai to be alone, and Taehyun doesn't want them to be doing stuff alone. Yeonjun could use the reminder not to get bold.

Taehyun grunts. “Do whatever you want, just. Keep me updated.”

Or not. Yeonjun lifts his head off the pillow to look at Taehyun, but his eyes are closed. “You sure?”

Kai doesn't look as surprised as he is – he's reaching out to card his fingers through Taehyun's hair peacefully. Taehyun hums in agreement. Yeonjun looks between him and Kai, and when he catches Kai's eyes, Kai smiles at him and reaches out to pull him towards his other shoulder.

Taehyun reaches down to tangle their fingers together. It's warm here, with them, in their bed. Yeonjun will miss it when he's back to his own bed, to a single room and hotel sheets.

 

---

 

When he's packing his bag for the away game, he has Taehyun and Kai on speakerphone, in a call while Kai gets ready too and Taehyun most likely lounges around, just chatting with them since he can't be of much help to Kai at the moment. It feels oddly homely, makes him feel like they're around even though he's alone in his apartment, fills his big empty bedroom until it gets more bearable.

“It'll be boring without you,” Taehyun says thoughtfully, and Yeonjun pauses balling up a hoodie with their team logo to look at his phone. He wishes he could see them, too.

“You'll miss us?” Kai teases, voice warm.

He expects Taehyun to snark back, but he just hums, agreeing. Yeonjun thinks about sitting in a dark room, upstairs at his cousin's house, feeling their absence like a hole in his chest.

“We'll miss you too,” he says, dropping down onto the sheets, and takes a deep breath when there's no answer from the phone.

He blinks hard, then picks up his phone to look at Taehyun's contact picture – a photo of him and Kai that Yeonjun took while they were eating dinner out on one of their off days. Somewhere in between his ribs – or one of his ribs at this point. Enveloping his lungs, embedded in his chest.

“We'll be back on Thursday.”

“I know,” Taehyun assures, but sighs right afterwards.

“We'll be back before you know it.”

 

---

 

Game two is an overtime loss, and Yeonjun is grateful to Taehyun for voicing comfort with them spending time together without him, because he thinks he'd be taking the failure way worse if he couldn't spend the aftermath wrapped up in Kai, their arms around each other as they monitored the game on Yeonjun's phone while Taehyun gave his commentary over the phone, his voice coming out of Kai's phone speakers.

It becomes a strange sort of normal over the next few matches – he spends the days before and after them at Kai and Taehyun's apartment when they're the home team, then spends the night after the game with Kai, on the phone with Taehyun after the away ones. Their phone bills go insane, and Yeonjun thinks it's almost funny; the three of them clinging to each other like a group of teenagers. He thinks maybe it's because they've been struck by this at such a bad time; torn out of their routine, just when they started to get so used to having each other around.

Whatever it is, he's content with it, he's happy this way. Whether he's falling asleep in their bed in whatever configuration they come up with to fit three men into a small bed for two, or he's celebrating a win with Kai in a hotel room, moaning into a phone with Kai's mouth around his dick and fingers massaging his prostate while Taehyun breathes heavily into his ear, asking for pictures when they're done.

Taehyun starts showing up to practices when he can make it, just watching them play, handing them water and towels. When their teammates rib him about not being able to stay away from the ice, Taehyun throws back that he's training for a coaching job, and it makes Yeonjun smile.

It's what seems to work the best to keep Taehyun's head level while he recovers – he hangs around the coaching team, talking strategy, getting familiar with the game from their side, and he spends most of Kai and Yeonjun's free time with them. As the weeks go by, Taehyun's psyche seems to recover much more quickly than his clavicle does, and he's grateful for it.

 

---

 

Taehyun is cleared to get back on the ice tentatively around the time Round 3 starts up, and even though he's not allowed to fly out with them to their away game, most of the updates he sends while they're gone are of him hanging around the arena. One of them is a selfie of him with the junior team when he joined them for practice, deeming it light enough exercise to not scare the fuck out of his doctor, and the wide smile he has on in it melts Yeonjun's heart.

He and Kai play the third series like their lives depend on it, determined to give Taehyun the chance to play again before the season is over – if they get into the finals, then Taehyun should be ready to join them, if not for the first game, then at least for the last. There's a tension in the air even when they're alone together, supposed to be relaxing, cuddling while Kai keeps zoning out trying to play games on his switch and Yeonjun keeps zoning out watching replays of the other team's games obsessively. The only thing to cut through the fog are Taehyun's updates and evening phone calls, when he keeps them on speaker while he putters around the kitchen, swearing up and down that he figured out how to use a knife with his right hand just fine and coos over all the younger players he gave his number out to, so they can always text him for advice.

Round three is not easy, but they make it, for Taehyun more than for the title in Yeonjun's mind. They skip most of the celebrations to run back to Yeonjun's room, call Taehyun and confirm that he should be cleared for the last two games in the finals. Yeonjun thinks he takes his first deep breath since the start of the round that night. They end up barely celebrating the win at all, video calling Taehyun instead until the early hours in the morning, talking about their match-up for the finals, about Taehyun regaining full mobility, but still being a little weak with the stick. He needs to hold on just a bit more. Needs to get well, and then he can play with them again.

Kai has to sneak into his room while everyone is asleep, and their teammates rib him about celebrating them making it into the finals with a hookup. Yeonjun laughs as hard as the others, but for a slightly different reason, and it's worth it to see Kai's flustered face as he's unable to defend himself. Being on the phone with Taehyun until 4 am wouldn't have sounded less embarrassing than just getting laid after a big win no matter how you slice it.

He only gets his celebration sex once they get home; Taehyun taking full advantage of being able to put strain on his arm and shoulder again to thank them both for how hard they've been playing through all of the playoff games. It feels different from a lot of the other sex they've had, for some reason, maybe because Taehyun is just so much more enthusiastic now that he can fully participate, but maybe there's something else to it too, and the two of them feel like Yeonjun does, and losing themselves in each other's bodies is the kind of comfort that melts their bones too, fills them with the same kind of all-encompassing relief that it does him, until he feels tears in his eyes while he's crushing Taehyun against him like he always does when he finishes inside him, and he's reluctant to pull back, reluctant to show it, even though Taehyun has to feel the wetness against his skin.

Yeonjun knows he does when he starts smoothing his hands up towards his hair, ruffling it at the back gently, even as he shakes a little, still turned on, with Yeonjun's still hard dick inside him. He leaves a kiss in Yeonjun's hair and tells him that he did well this season, in a hushed voice that Yeonjun knows isn't quiet enough for Kai not to hear, not with how close to them he is, hot where his leg is pressed up against Yeonjun's. Kai runs a hand up his spine, and Yeonjun shuts his eyes tighter.

He tells Taehyun that he did amazing and leaves gentle kisses down the line of his collarbone. Kai's hand tightens at the nape of his neck, and he moves away from Taehyun to accept a kiss from him. Kai strokes over his cheek with one hand and over Taehyun's hip with the other.

Yeonjun thinks that it's that night when he realizes he doesn't want to do this without them anymore. Can't imagine trying to go back to a life where they're not around all the time, where he doesn't get to hold them like this, where he doesn't get to be held like this. He thinks about himself at the start of the season, the dullness of his life where the only bright spots were the ones illuminated by the arena lights, by the blinding white of the ice. Everything else always felt like an afterthought, like a necessary monotony that he had to deal with to get back to the part he loved the most.

But now, with this, with his arms around Taehyun, with his arms around Kai, with their hands intertwined with his, the two of them them taking turns kissing him with practiced precision, with their smiles and their messages and their interests and the plans for the future he can't wait to be there to see pan out, he thinks… maybe.

Maybe life can exist outside of the ice too, with the right people around.

 

---

 

Game one is a tie. Taehyun has befriended the coaching team by now enough for them to let him watch it from the bench, and he looks strange with his helmet and jersey on without all the padding, but it's worth it just to have him there; Kai seems to breathe easier with him around. He hurls some choice insults at the other team after he hears some snarky quips being sent Kai's way about having a hard time without the ‘talented one' next to him on the ice, and he gets so heated that the coach's assistant bursts out laughing and has to turn around to compose himself so he doesn't get caught by the cameras.

When the opposing team's defenseman gets a penalty for cross-checking Soobin into the boards, giving him a nice juicy bruise on his face, Taehyun squirts Gatorade at him as he's passing by their bench and almost gets sent back into the locker room by the head coach, who's a bit tired of him messing around during one of the three most important games of the season. Yeonjun thinks he gets it, though, the restless energy coursing through Taehyun who just won't stand still, always talking to someone, doing something, helping tape sticks, handing people drinks. He's almost there. He's almost back, and they have the title within reach.

He's so close, and he can't relax now. Yeonjun gets it. Feels it, even.

They go into overtime, five-on-five, and Taehyun sees them off with the, “Don't fuck it up.” that Yeonjun is used to hearing by now.

When the horn sounds out a goal scored, deafening even in the large arena, at least to Yeonjun's tired ears, he can't help but think it's a situation just like the one where Taehyun got injured. The last shift heads to the bench, unopposed as most of the other team heads back for a change too, leaving a D-man behind the goal on their side, and a single forward from the other team, skating up into their defending zone to forecheck. Their D-man skates up towards the right side to duck the forechecker as another defenseman jumps into the game, and as Yeonjun hops onto the ice with the rest of first line, the D-man with the puck passes to his fresh teammate, and the forechecker misses the pass, the puck slipping easily past his stick. Yeonjun forces himself not to look back and just rushes to line up at the blue for a pass or just ready to cross once the puck is in. He's covered immediately, but the defenseman gets the puck to Soobin, who gets it past the D-man covering him with a little deke. The other team pulls back to cover the center area and make it harder for them to find an angle to shoot at the goal from. Soobin passes to Beomgyu on the left wing, who gets into a scuffle in the corner, pinned down by two opposing players, and one of their D-men has to skate up to help him. Yeonjun goes up behind the goal to collect the pass, taking the puck when the defenseman manages to poke it out from under Beomgyu's skate, but the player covering him only lets him get into the other corner before he has to pass to Soobin, who's waiting low near the blue line.

Soobin pretends to hesitate whether to risk a point shot, pulling back for a swing that has the player covering him wavering, ready to twist into a blocking posture then unsteady on his feet as Soobin makes a quick pass back to Yeonjun, who managed to sneak himself into a shooting angle in the meantime, shaking off the player who was stuck to him earlier.

He shoots without preparation, sending the pass straight towards the goal. He swings, shoots and scores. The horn blares, and game one is theirs.

 

---

 

The next time he goes grocery shopping with Kai and Taehyun, they buy him a toothbrush to keep at their apartment. He finds Kai's hoodie in his laundry and Taehyun's sunglasses in his car. He really has a terrible habit of leaving things around.

His mother calls him and they make plans to go on a little weekend vacation together, once the season is done. The whole time he has the urge to ask if he can bring a plus one – or a plus two.

 

---

 

Game two is Taehyun's first time on ice after his injury, and the coaches are strict with keeping his ice time to the minimum, laying into him whenever he tries to prolong his shift even a little bit. He obviously vents his frustration in a productive way, bullying the other team much more than he usually does instead of getting pissy with the coach. It still gets him in trouble when he gets an interference penalty in the second and a dressing-down during the break.

It doesn't matter though. Penalty or not, something about the game feels right again with Taehyun back in the line-up, and it shows.

Taehyun repents by scoring a point shot in minute seven of the third, starting a series of lucky shots that somehow sink behind the goalkeeper's back, and game two is theirs as well.

 

---

 

On their off-day after game two, Yeonjun gets to meet one of Kai's sisters – she lives close by and came to watch her brother's big game for once. She's fun to be around, and Yeonjun is pretty excited to meet her and spend time with her over dinner. She complains about Kai not wanting to get Soobin's autograph for her, and once he's done laughing at Kai's obvious embarrassment as he tries to explain to her how it would feel to come up to their team captain and tell him that he's his sister's favorite player on their team, he texts Soobin to see if he's free.

It turns out his sister plays, too, both of them do, and he's treated to all the deeply embarrassing stories of young Kai losing to girls and of his older sister intimidating his whole primary school team and then winning them over by teaching them how to do backhanded shots. Kai tells him, a bit miserably, that half of the team he was in for most of his time playing junior hockey had a crush on her, and he had to field guys asking for her number like he was a call center and not a teammate. They're a bit funny together, more deadpan and snarky with each other than openly loving, but Yeonjun thinks it's charming. It makes him wish he had siblings of his own again; a feeling he hasn't had in ages.

After dinner, they go to a park halfway between the restaurant and their hotel, and they meet up with Soobin, who, in his infinite captain of the team wisdom, brought along a marker and a hat with their team logo to sign for Kai's sister, and while they're chatting, Soobin obviously curious about the women's leagues and she obviously excited to meet her favorite player, Yeonjun leans over to Taehyun, touching their hands together, a bit taken aback when Taehyun catches his fingers with his own.

“What?” He asks with a smile, and he looks so relaxed, so okay that Yeonjun forgot what he was going to say for a long moment.

“You have siblings too, right?” He vaguely remembers something about a sister, too, maybe he saw her a few times, at their games or when Taehyun was being picked up from camp.

Taehyun nods. “I have a sister, too. She's a lot older – we're not as close as the Huenings.”

Yeonjun hums in acknowledgement, and Taehyun squeezes his fingers. “You?”

“No. Just my cousins.”

He wants to feel sad about it, but Taehyun smiles instead of looking sympathetic, so he smiles back instead.

“You could meet them. Come see the baby. Off-season.”

“Am I invited, too?” Kai grins, wandering over towards them since it became obvious that his sister and Soobin are a bit too engaged in their conversation to include him right now.

“Of course; what would we do there without you?”

The answer seems to satisfy Kai, who comes over all the way to throw his arms around them, hanging off their shoulders. “Then you need to meet my other sister, too. She might make it for game three.”

Yeonjun shifts to wrap an arm around Kai's back in return. “I'd love to.”

It only occurs to him when he's changing to go to bed that he should have probably wondered why Kai's sister didn't think it was weird for him and Taehyun to bring a random teammate of theirs along for dinner.

 

---

 

He meets Kai's other sister before game three. He brings her with him through the staff entrance, and she insists on hugging Yeonjun hello. The question of whether she knows what he and her brother are to each other rests on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it back and just smiles at her when she tells him about how Kai and Taehyun talk about him all the time, and how some girls on her team look up to him, too. She invites them all to come see them play too, and Yeonjun gifts her one of their team hoodies just to repay her somehow before they have to let her go take a seat before the game.

She's lovely, just like Kai, and Yeonjun wonders if it runs in the genes. The looks definitely do – if Kai wasn't a guy, and a big one at that, they'd look like perfect carbon copies of each other. He says that to Taehyun while they're doing their warm-up skate, and he agrees so enthusiastically Yeonjun almost bursts out laughing.

“Sometimes I look at one of them and think to myself that she's really pretty and have to remind myself that it's just because I'm into their brother.”

Yeonjun snorts. “They have you questioning your sexuality?”

“Questioning reality, more like,” Taehyun replies dryly, and Yeonjun laughs again.

 

---

 

Game three is the big one. They're up 2:0 in the series, and they play best-of-five. It could be all over in sixty minutes of playtime. Yeonjun lowers himself towards the ice at first face-off with a buzzing in his brain. Beomgyu has his fierce face on again; Soobin looks fairly stoic, but he takes account of the whole five-man unit around him before he moves in for the face-off. They're on home ice. They have a good season behind them. A good team, players and staff both. They got this far. Now they just need a little nudge. They need to be there for the tip-in.

First period is a disaster. It's like it took two games for the other team to figure their play out, and now they play them like a fiddle. The fact that they only get a two-goal lead out of pushing them around for twenty minutes is the sole merit of their goalkeeper, who holds his ground against the flurry of shots coming at him like a hall-of-famer. Yeonjun catches Kai, Taehyun and one of the other defensemen coming up to him during the intermission, to figure out where they're lacking, find a way to guard him better through his perspective. Their coach isn't furious, but he's deeply frustrated, and Soobin spends most the intermission going over strategy with the coaching team, then relaying their thoughts to the players along with one of the assistant coaches.

The vibe is different when they get back on the ice for the second, or at least Yeonjun feels like it is, and it shows in their play. By minute ten, they've tied the match up, and Yeonjun feels a bit like they've regained their footing. They've been on home ice the whole time, but it feels like their ice again.

Five minutes before the end of the second period, Yeonjun gets tripped during a breakaway, and they clear the ice for a penalty shooting. He's leaning over the boards in front of the bench, drinking water while Beomgyu gives him ideas on how to approach it, until the main ref comes up to tell him they're ready. He looks at the coach, but catches Taehyun's eyes instead, and he bumps their gloved fists together, twice like they're used to, knuckle to knuckle first, then top down, and does the same with Kai, who's right next to him.

“Good luck,” Kai tells him brightly, like it's just another regular season game.

“Don't fuck it up,” Taehyun says, like always, but then adds, “And relax.”

Yeonjun snorts, and lets his shoulders drop. He collects his helmet from Beomgyu who was holding onto it for him, picks his stick up from where he rested it on the boards, and goes to shoot his shot.

Beomgyu said this goalie is slow with the catching glove. If he can get a quick wrist shot in near the shoulder glove-side, he definitely has a chance. He's not impenetrable; a solid goalkeeper, but not the shut-out type. He's not a hall-of-famer in the making.

Yeonjun is, though.

He shoots earlier than the goalie expects him to, ready to face him closer to the crease, tight on the goal line. He just skates up into the slot, picks a spot and goes for it, exhaling as the ref blows his whistle, signaling a goal. 3:2 in the second. Not the worst showing.

Taehyun grins at him as he gets back on the bench, mouth guard hanging out the side of his mouth. “Not bad.”

“Good shot,” Kai seconds, sounding much less teasing and way more sincere. It's charming, the mix of it. Yeonjun could get used to it.

“Doubted me?”

“After our last penalties? They should,” Soobin points out, but laughs when Yeonjun shoves his shoulder as he sits beside him and pats Yeonjun's knee. “Redeemed yourself there.”

“They might even start to believe you're a good shot,” Beomgyu teases from Soobin's other side, and Yeonjun groans.

“Fuck off, all of you.”

 

---

 

He thanks Beomgyu for the tip-off with the goalie on their way to the lockers during intermission, and Beomgyu laughs at him, hooking an arm around his neck, dragging his head down obnoxiously as they walk.

“I have eyes, dumbass. I saw where you were shooting. You're welcome.”

He smacks a kiss against Yeonjun's temple before they walk through the door to the locker rooms, and finally lets him go.

The second intermission is much more relaxed than the first, but they're aware that they need to stay vigilant. If anything, Yeonjun feels wired while he's supposed to be resting; restless, eager to get out there and finish this. Give their city, their fans, their team that title. Win it, for his mom, for Kai's sister in the VIP seats. For Kai, for Taehyun, for Beomgyu, for Soobin, for everyone who's put up with him this year.

For himself.

He can do this, he knows it. When he looks up, he sees Kai looking at him, and something about the bright look in his eyes tells him that Kai knows it, too. He looks like he's excited to be there when it happens. Yeonjun is excited for him to be there, too.

All the suit and tie affairs they could possibly want. Taehyun will network, they'll keep each other company and drool over their lover in a nice-fitting suit. Eat hors d'oeuvres and drink sparkling wine and then go home and… well. One of their homes.

They'll find ways to celebrate. Yeonjun's not sure if he's willing to trade his bottom virginity for a title, but he wouldn't be opposed. He wouldn't be opposed to just spending a night with them. A weekend with them.

He should talk to his mom about that mother and son vacation.

 

---

 

Skates hit ice for the start of the third with an impatient feeling. Yeonjun can't wait to see the other team's response; he's itching to know how they'll try to throw them off their game, knock them off-balance and stop them from taking an early win. He's restless to show them how hard they'll have to try to make that work, because he's not about to let them take that lead away from them.

He'll deepen it, if he has to; if they give him no other choice.

The answer is physicality. Going into battles full-force, slamming his teammates into the boards left and right. He takes more hits in the first half than he thinks he's taken in the first two games combined. A collision during a break into the attacking zone has his teeth hurting even when he takes a seat on the bench. It doesn't clean up the other team's play, if anything it gets messier, but it doesn't make it exactly easy for them to get into their rhythm. Nobody scores for ten minutes, the shots-on-goal count is at minimum. One of their forwards comes back hobbling after going into the boards knee-first, and they have to change shifts awkwardly until they figure out if he can even continue playing. Even when he hops on the ice again, seemingly fine, it's clear that they're rattled, showing weakness.

Yeonjun gets frustrated, and pays for it with a tripping penalty when he tries to stop the other team from getting into a breakaway and rushing for their goal. He argues just for good form but he knows it was the right call. He fucked up, and he tosses his gloves to the floor when he sits down in the penalty box, clutching his stick in a white-knuckled grip. The camera in the box blinks at him innocently, and he has to admit he understands why some players throw towels over it, or place water bottles strategically to block the view. Being stared at while he has to sit on his ass for two minutes, watching his team struggle to make up for his mistake makes him want to punch someone's lights out. He looks out towards the seats instead, catches a fan waving a flag with their team colors at him, and gives them a thumbs up instead.

Kai and Taehyun both get on the ice for the penalty killing, and Yeonjun tries to focus on the fact that he trusts them to make it through the two minutes without losing the lead. In Yeonjun's extremely biased view of someone who's fucking two D-men on their team, they've got the best defense in the league. They've got this. He has to rely on them for the next two minutes of playtime and then he can get back in there and make up for his mistake by getting them a lead the other team won't be able to catch up to in the remaining time in the game.

He stares a hole into the 14 on Taehyun's back during the face-off. Don't fuck it up.

They do the opposite.

A scrummage in the corner gets the puck on the blade of Kai's stick, and Beomgyu is left empty at the blue for the pass and a breakaway, rushing through the neutral zone while the other team, tired from a prolonged shift, struggles to catch up. Another body in bright blue darts past them, the only one able to catch up to Beomgyu, crossing to the right wing to support him. It's not the side Taehyun plays on, but maybe that plays into their hand – Taehyun doesn't twist to accept the pass and doesn't quite come up to Beomgyu's level, staying behind him, at an odd angle for an easy pass. It looks like he's just there to play the rebound if Beomgyu's attempt doesn't make it past the goalkeeper.

Yeonjun realizes with a start that he recognizes this play, as the goalie comes forward to intercept Beomgyu's attempt, and Beomgyu shifts his stick to play the puck with the back of it. It's their play – his and Beomgyu's. It's the two-man breakaway strategy they've been practicing relentlessly. Beomgyu plays decoy, and hides Yeonjun behind himself until the very last second; Taehyun has spent a lot of time watching them practice while his collarbone was healing. He must have seen it, must have remembered, because when Beomgyu makes a backhanded pass towards him, he's already swinging, ready for the slapshot. It sails stick-side, between the goalie's arm and his body, and sinks into the net.

The arena roars for him as the horn blares, and Taehyun comes up to the penalty box instead of the bench for his flowers. Yeonjun lets his shoulders sink, and bangs his stick into the plexiglass in acknowledgement. The sound is a bit muffled in the box, but he's pretty sure he hears a, that one was for you, before Taehyun skates away towards the bench.

4:2 cools the other team's jets significantly, and Yeonjun is able to get back on the ice without them managing any serious push-back. They're back on the horse – the rest of the third is theirs, and even if they can't quite find the right scoring angles, they spend more time skating around the attacking zone trying to find the right play to sink another one in, rather than defending from the other team's attacks. The arena is boiling with the knowledge that this might be it; this might be the champions just confirming their triumph.

Two minutes before the end of the game, their opponents manage to force a mistake and a face-off in the neutral zone, and the goalie gets ready to leave the ice. 120 seconds is not a lot of time to score twice, but it's enough. A team that's made it to the finals should be capable of it – but they've got more riding on this than Yeonjun's team does – to them, a loss here means losing the title. To Yeonjun's team, a loss here just means that they have to try harder, next time, with all the knowledge they've gathered from three very successful games against them.

They have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

And maybe that's the point.

Soobin loses the face-off and they're forced to back into their defending zone. They pile into the slot, and Beomgyu goes forward to bother the player currently controlling the puck. He forces an incredibly obvious pass across the ice, and Yeonjun goes down to block the shot before the puck even finishes its journey to the other player's stick. He feels it graze past the blind spot of his knee pads, and he thanks his lucky stars – half an inch lower, and he'd have to hobble off the ice or worse, have to attempt a decent defense while barely able to put weight on one of his legs. Like this, it still hurts like hell, but at least he can still skate fine.

They struggle to find the right angle; Yeonjun's teammates keep intercepting their passes, and they have to fight to not let them sink one into an empty net. It's not working – they won't make it. Yeonjun tries not to let it get into his head. He doesn't lift his eyes up to check the time remaining.

The other team tries a new strategy, just poking the puck in towards the crease for someone to lift it up past their goaltender's pads, but Kai is right there, cleaning up the players trying to block their goalie's view, and he scrapes it up and sends it away, probably not even meaning to get it out of the defending zone altogether, just getting it as far away from the goalie as he can.

But somehow it sails, between skates and under sticks, all the way to the other side, where it crosses the goal line, bounces off the iron at the back, and comes sliding back out. Kai still seems a bit stunned even while he's getting noogies from the other players on ice in celebration.

At 5:2 with less than a minute to go, there isn't too much more to say. When Yeonjun looks up at the box, it's showing Kai's sister waving her new hoodie around, jumping up and down.

The head coach puts one hand on his and Soobin's shoulders each and pats them, going down the bench as he goes.

3:0 means no game four. It means rushing onto the ice when the siren signals the end of the match, piling up on top of their goalie and just barely not crushing him to death in excitement. Beomgyu's screaming three-time league champions somewhere to his right, audible but not visible. Soobin laughing and hugging everyone and shaking their heads hard enough to make them feel like they got a concussion in his excitement. Taehyun jumping into Kai's arms and Kai trying to lift him up and twirl him around because he's crazy, and Yeonjun having to come in to balance them out when they almost tumble onto the ice. A huddle of a group hug, with the three of them, Kai's wide smile and Taehyun's shining eyes.

Yeonjun cries a little, while he watches Soobin and one of his As pick up the trophy to bring it over to their team, but he doesn't think any of the cameras caught it. Soobin cries too, in the lockers, and the whole team ribs him about it lightheartedly, with Beomgyu taking point until he takes mercy on Soobin and just sits next to him, toppling his head onto his shoulder. Yeonjun comes over to rub his back a little, and Soobin glares at him for a second, then pulls him into a hug.

“Softies,” Beomgyu jokes, and when Yeonjun looks over, his eyes are wet, too.

 

---

 

Three-time league champions. Only their second time with Kai and Taehyun in the lineup. They're taking their sweet time in the changing room, pulling their jackets and shoes on when one of the players who already left just seconds earlier pokes his head back in with a, “Huening, someone's waiting for you.”

Kai jumps up with his shoes untied and rushes out, and Yeonjun and Taehyun exchange fond smiles. They dress a bit quicker, too, and they split the things Kai left in the changing room between them to bring them outside to him, where his sister is chattering away, clutching at Kai's jacket tightly while she talks about the game at what feels like two times speed.

“I already texted mom,” she says when she finally slows down and tugs at Kai's jacket before letting it go. “You better call her tonight.”

They watch Kai's cheeks go pink, and he glances towards them before nodding. “Yeah, I'll… I'll do it.”

“I'll make sure he remembers,” Taehyun steps in, and he and Kai's sister exchange looks of commiseration.

“Thanks, Taehyun.”

“Don't mention it.”

She looks between the three of them, and at the players trickling out of the changing room, still loud, some of them a little drunk from the beers they cracked open while celebrating in the lockers earlier. “Are you guys…?”

Kai grimaces guiltily. “We're all going out for drinks. Tomorrow? We can do lunch tomorrow.”

“We'll try to call it a night before 4 am,” Taehyun says, and it's unclear from his tone how serious he is.

Kai's sister scrunches her nose. “Is this how pro players celebrate league titles?”

“Champagne showers, beers – sometimes someone shaves their head just for the hell of it,” Yeonjun offers merrily, and Kai cackles.

“He's joking about the head-shaving, right?” She looks genuinely concerned, and it makes even Taehyun smirk.

“Not at all,” Kai assures her.

 

---

 

The first… three days after the win are a blur. It's a golden bubble of events and press and people calling him to congratulate them, Kai and Taehyun weaving in and out of his days, more there than not, but when they're not there, the knowledge of what they've achieved together is there to warm him instead.

It's seventy-two hours of euphoria.

On the fourth day, Kai and Taehyun show up on his doorstep in the morning with the kind of breakfast foods they can only afford to eat off-season and clothing bags thrown over their shoulders. There's a gala for them to attend in the evening – one of those suit-and-tie affairs they joked about, and they agreed to get ready for it together, and just take Kai and Taehyun's car to and from the event. It's economical. Carpooling; it makes sense.

It's funny to put it that way even in the privacy of his head.

They're lounging around the living room, tired from the breakfast calorie bomb when Yeonjun's doorbell rings and Beomgyu raises a hand at him in greeting when he opens the door. Dressed down like he is, in comfortable oversized clothes, with his neat hair and pretty face, Yeonjun would never have guessed who he actually is, how he makes a living, if he wasn't there to witness it time and time again himself.

“Hey. Are you busy?”

Yeonjun looks back at Kai and Taehyun sprawled over his couch, and Beomgyu peeks in to look at them, too. Kai's eyes are closed, so he doesn't notice, but Taehyun waves. “Not particularly – but I've got people over.”

Beomgyu raises his eyebrows at him. “You mean they don't live here already?”

He rolls his eyes. “Shut up.”

Beomgyu grins. “I don't mind if you guys don't mind. It's news they might wanna hear too, maybe.”

Yeonjun blinks. “News?”

There's a happy glint to Beomgyu's eyes. Good news. “Good news?” Beomgyu nods, and Yeonjun steps back, Kai sitting up to be polite, Taehyun eyeing Beomgyu curiously as he obviously looks for a place to sit. Yeonjun only has the one couch – he rarely has guests over.

They need to shuffle around to accommodate everyone – Taehyun and Kai crowd in on one side of the couch, Kai's arm over the back, framing Taehyun, and Yeonjun ends up just opting for the floor, leaning on their legs. Beomgyu looks like he's doing his best to look unimpressed about the amount of touching going on in front of him on the other side of the couch. He has his hands primly in his lap, and they close into fists as he takes a deep breath.

“So. Have any of you ever been to a commitment ceremony?”

Yeonjun's brain scratches to a halt.

“A commitment ceremony?” Kai asks, echoing the words resonating in Yeonjun's own head.

Taehyun sounds a bit more with the program but just as taken aback. “Like a… wedding, but not really?”

Beomgyu smacks his lips. “Something like that.” He finishes speaking, then, as if he couldn't just let it lie that way, he adds, “More of a wedding later, I promise, sort of deal. For us, anyway.”

For us. Yeonjun's stomach swoops.

“So it's more of an engagement party.”

Beomgyu huffs at Taehyun's flat tone. “Technically. He did propose, just with a, maybe in fifteen years when we're out of the public eye caveat.”

Okay, Yeonjun can no longer hold himself back. He squeezes Kai's calf so tightly it has to hurt. “Soobin proposed to you?”

“Yep,” Beomgyu grins, and he looks proud, like it's a trophy he's as proud of as he is of his champion titles. “When we got home after the last game. He was making jokes about it the whole season, telling me he'll propose to me if we win…” he lifts his hand, showing the band around his ring finger. “Turns out he wasn't kidding.”

Yeonjun's mouth falls open. Kai makes a cooing noise above him.

“That's amazing! Congratulations!”

“Yeah, fuck, Beomgyu, congrats,” Yeonjun almost gasps out. He cannot believe it. He cannot believe his own ears. A pretty, simple white gold ring on Beomgyu's finger. An engagement party, or whatever they want to call it. They came out to Beomgyu's parents last year. Soobin promised to be there, with him, over a decade from now. They can't even know if they'll all still be playing by then, much less playing together. They might get traded, or injured so bad they're out of the game for good. Their careers could go downhill; a hundred things could happen between now and when Soobin and Beomgyu get to say I do.

But maybe some bonds are stronger than that. They're stronger than team ties and career-ending injuries. When the ice is no longer there for them, when they pass the torch along, when it's those faces Yeonjun saw in the junior lockers on the magazine covers and their names filling the statistics, maybe there will be some things that will never change.

Beomgyu will always run his mouth, and Soobin's fondness will always be stronger than his exasperation. They'll share snacks and cuddle when they're tired. Beomgyu will wear Soobin's captain's jersey as a memento, to remind him of the good times, and maybe he'll be around too, to make fun of Soobin's fashion sense and supply him with nice jackets.

Maybe he doesn't need to be as ready to let go as he always thought, too used to losing teammates left and right all the time. Maybe if he wants to, and they want him to, he can stick around.

“Thanks – we're thinking about scheduling it for the summer, before the pre-season bootcamp. Just our families, and… you guys, if you want to come.”

“Shit, Beomgyu, of course I want to,” Yeonjun says so emphatically it makes Beomgyu laugh.

“Plus two?”

“If we can,” Taehyun says tentatively.

Beomgyu raises his eyebrows. “It's Yeonjun's call – it's mostly his invite. No offense, but we've had him for longer.”

Yeonjun snorts. “I've known Taehyun since we were kids.”

“And? Soobin played with you in juniors, too.”

Beomgyu's not wrong. Yeonjun huffs. “I'm taking them with.”

“Good.” Beomgyu slaps his own thighs. “When's the invite to yours?”

Yeonjun pauses, but Taehyun picks it up smoothly, like he was ready for it. “For three people, with the size of Kai's family? We'd have to rent out a mall.”

Kai snorts, and Yeonjun laughs a bit too, breathless. Right. Logistics. The only thing keeping the three of them from tying the knot. An odd, three-pronged mess of a knot. There's a heavy weight in his stomach.

Beomgyu pouts. “You'd just have to get creative. People pick all sorts of venues for these things.”

Like he's taking it seriously. Yeonjun cannot believe his own ears.

“Where are you having yours? Do you know?” Kai sounds excited – maybe he'd like something like that. He always seems so much more enthused about things like that than Taehyun does. Marriage, kids. Meeting the family. He's old-school, and Yeonjun finds that charming. He thinks he'd like that – the illusion of normalcy in the kind of lives they have to lead. Something normal. Traditional.

“I've found this fancy wedding venue in the country – it would cost us an arm and a leg, but with the bonuses from winning the title… I'll show you the pictures.”

Beomgyu reaches into his pocket, obviously eager to show it off, and Yeonjun finds himself smiling. He'll never be able to forget this season, will he? Even if there are a dozen more titles waiting for him in the future. This one. This season. It was special. The team is special, and might always be.

 

---

 

He's tying his tie in the mirror while Taehyun ties Kai's for him with the sternness of a parent with an unruly kid. They're adorable; Yeonjun loves them. Maybe he'll tell them, tonight, on their way home from the gala, or while they're settling down in bed. He'll hold them close to him in his bed and he'll tell them I don't know what the future's gonna look like, but I want you to be there with me to see it.

Maybe Kai and Taehyun will get married and adopt a kid, and Yeonjun can be the godfather, or an uncle, or maybe some mysterious third thing. Yeonjun can train juniors, and Taehyun will be a star head coach of a major league team, with Kai on his team as a masseur, or maybe the specialty coach for the defense. Maybe he'll stick with Yeonjun and be his right hand. Maybe they'll leave the game altogether, and they'll move somewhere far away, get a dog and go on ice skating dates in the winter, and Taehyun will always beat both of them easily, like he always did. And Yeonjun will get a hundred chances to apologize for their past, and Taehyun might never accept them. And Kai's sisters will never like him as much as they do Soobin, they might never think he loves him as much as Taehyun does. And maybe he can't love him more than Taehyun. Maybe there isn't a single person in the whole world who could.

But he can try. He's pretty damn good at rising to a challenge.

Kai catches his eyes in the mirror and raises his eyebrows, putting his hands on Taehyun's sides, accentuating the line of his waist that the cut of his jacket was already making painfully obvious. Yeonjun grins at him and finishes tying his tie.

In the car, he calls his mom and brings up their vacation plans. He's already talked to the two of them about his plans, but he still makes eye contact with them through the rear view mirror when she asks him what about it.

“Uh… do you mind if I bring someone along? There's… there's a lot we need to talk about.”

Notes:

come talk to me on neospring!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 2 of the txt hockey player expanded universe