“Don’t move your head,” Sungchan says, pinching Anton’s earlobe. Eunseok lets Sungchan get away with it, mostly out of neutral indifference or camaraderie, and Wonbin would probably rather go deaf than let him near him and his thousand-dollar earrings, but Anton is an unhappy medium — he tolerates it but wriggles, feels awkward, and dislikes having his head on Sungchan’s lap even if there’s a pillow to maintain appropriate dongsaeng-hyung relations.

“I’m not moving my head,” Anton complains.

“Chanyoungie, you’re moving your head.”

“I’m literally not,” he says.

Sungchan runs the wooden stick down Anton’s cheek. When he shivers, all Sungchan says is, “There you go, moving again.”

The pressure in his ear is strange, but Sungchan’s been insistent about mother-ducking since at least April. That was when, for a multitude of reasons but altogether basically no reason at all, he started to touch Anton’s all over and inspect him for perceived areas needing correction: combing out knots with his fingers, adjusting his hoodie strings, pointing out gaps where he shaved unevenly.

For some people, three years is a blip. For Sungchan, three years is a gulf.

The wooden pick massages the inside of his ear, a half-baked orgasm, and his face gets pressed against the surface of the pillow. He doesn’t want Sungchan to violate his eardrum, so Anton does as he’s told. He touches a spot that makes Anton wrench and curl his toes and bugs it, continuing to irritate that sensitive area until he’s satisfied. Anton tries to speak but finds it impossible — it’s easier to let Sungchan please himself these days, acting out bizarre fantasies of rearing Anton, so he relaxes into it. And Shotaro would never offer this, even if he plays the part of the good brother.

Sungchan pets his freshly-dyed hair. “Will you let me wash you next?”